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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/38108-0.txt b/38108-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..903eade --- /dev/null +++ b/38108-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7826 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Further Experiences of an Irish R.M., by E. Å’none 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: Further Experiences of an Irish R.M. + +Author: E. Å’none Somerville and Martin Ross + +Illustrator: E. Å’none Somerville + +Release Date: November 22, 2011 [eBook #38108] +[Most recently updated: December 12, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Al Haines + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FURTHER EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH R.M. *** + + + + +[Frontispiece: OLD FLYNN, MOVING ALONG THE VERGE, BECAME IDYLLIC] + + + + +Further Experiences of an + +Irish R.M. + + +By + +E. Å’. Somerville and Martin Ross + + +Authors of "Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.," + "Some Irish Yesterdays," "All on the Irish Shore," + "The Real Charlotte," etc. etc. etc. + + + + +With 35 Illustrations by E. Å’. Somerville + + + + +Longmans, Green, and Co. + +39 Paternoster Row, London + +New York, Bombay, and Calcutta + +1908 + +All rights reserved + + + + +_BY THE SAME AUTHORS_ + + +SOME EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH R.M. + +With 31 Illustrations by E. Å’. SOMERVILLE. Crown 8vo, 6s. + + +SOME IRISH YESTERDAYS + +With 51 Illustrations by E. Å’. SOMERVILLE. Crown 8vo, 6s. + + +AN IRISH COUSIN + +Crown 8vo, 6s. + + +THE REAL CHARLOTTE + +Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. + + +THE SILVER FOX + +Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. + + +ALL ON THE IRISH SHORE + +With 10 Illustrations by E. Å’. SOMERVILLE. Crown 8vo, 6s. + + + +LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. + +LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. THE PUG-NOSED FOX + II. A ROYAL COMMAND + III. POISSON D'AVRIL + IV. "THE MAN THAT CAME TO BUY APPLES" + V. A CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE + VI. THE BOAT'S SHARE + VII. THE LAST DAY OF SHRAFT + VIII. "A HORSE! A HORSE!" (Part I.) + IX. "AHORSE! A HORSE!" (Part II.) + X. SHARPER THAN A FERRET'S TOOTH + XI. OWENEEN THE SPRAT + XII. THE WHITEBOYS + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +HALF-TONE + + +Old Flynn, moving along the verge, became idyllic . . . . Frontispiece + +Suspicious of an ill-timed pleasantry + +"Take me out of this" + +Whizzed like a driven grouse past the combatants + +The guard put his hand over his mouth + +"And not a brown farthing more would he give" + +"I'm dashed if she hasn't got Sullivan's pony" + +He crowned the arrangement with the bottle of potheen + +A trayful of burning sods of turf + +He did not deny himself a most dissolute wink + +Maria's performance was faultless + +The Modulator opened with a long-drawn and nasal cadenza + +"Did ye see the police!" + +"Is that my darlin' Major Yeates?" shouted the cook + +"I will walk--I should really prefer it" + +Flurry and I put in a blazing September day on the mountain + +Braney's Lake + +An intricate and variously moving tide of people + +"Them hounds are in my family, seed and breed, this hundred years" + +"I'll go bail 'twas him that picked me wife's fashionable cocks" + + +IN THE TEXT + + +The egregious Slipper + +The victim came + +"Ye have them in great form, Michael" + +Pure ecstasy stretched his grin from ear to ear + +"They're lovely fish altogether! they're leppin' fresh!" + +The invalid removed herself + +Con Brickley + +"Let the divil clear me out of the sthrand!" + +A witness to be proud of + +His mornings were spent in proffering Irish phrases + +The Sergeant's manner was distressingly apologetic + +"That's a great sign of fine weather when a horse will lie + down in wather that way" + +My wife came and asked me if I would take her to the workhouse + +"Thim's no joke, sir, thim's Sprats!" + +"He knows what's what!" said the Locum + + + + +FURTHER EXPERIENCES OF + AN IRISH R.M. + + + + +I + +THE PUG-NOSED FOX + + "5 Turkies and their Mother + 5 Ducks and the Drake + 5 Hins and the Cock + CATHARINE O'DONOVAN, Skeagh." + + +A leaf from a copy-book, with these words written on it, was placed in +my hand as I was in the act of dragging on a new pair of gloves in the +stableyard. There was something rhythmic in the category, suggestive +of burnt-offerings and incantations; some touch of pathos, pointing to +tragedy; something, finally, that in the light of previous events +recalled to me suddenly and unpleasantly my new-born position of Deputy +M.F.H. + +Not, indeed, that I was in need at that moment of circumstances to +remind me of it. A new hunting-cap, pressing implacably upon my +forehead, an equally new red coat, heavy as a coat of mail, a +glittering horn, red hot from the makers, and so far totally +unresponsive to my apoplectic wooings; these things in themselves, +without the addition of a poultry bill, were sufficient to bring home +to me my amazing folly in having succumbed to the wiles of Mr. Florence +McCarthy Knox, and accepted the charge of his hounds, during his +absence with the Irish Yeomanry at the South African war. + +I had yielded in a burst of patriotic emotion to the spirit of +volunteering that was in the air. It would be, Flurry had assured me, +a purely nominal position. + +"They'll only go out one day a week, and Jerome Hickey and Michael'll +do all the work. I do secretary for myself, but that'll be no trouble +to you. There's nothing at all to do but to send out the cards of the +meets. It'll be a comfort to me to think you were running the show." + +I suggested other names that seemed to me infinitely more comfortable, +but found them blocked by intricate and insuperable objections, and +when I became aware that Mr. Knox had so engineered his case as to get +my wife on his side it seemed simpler to give in. + +A week afterwards I saw Flurry off at the station. His last words to +me were: + +"Well, good-bye, Major. Be fighting my grandmother for her +subscription, and whatever you do, don't give more than half-a-crown +for a donkey. There's no meat on them." + +Upon this touching farewell the train steamed out, and left me +standing, shelterless, a reluctant and incapable Master of Hounds. + +Exhaustive as Flurry's instructions had been on the subject of the +cuisine and other details of kennel management, he had not even hinted +at the difficulties that are usually composed by means of a fowl fund. +My first experience of these had taken place but a week ago, when from +the breakfast-table I had perceived a donkey and cart rambling, +unattended, in the shrubberies, among the young hydrangeas and azaleas. +The owner, a most respectable looking old man, explained that he had +left it there because he was "dilicate" to bring it up to the house, +and added that he had come for compensation for "a beautiful milking +goat" that the hounds had eaten last March, "and she having two kids +that died afther her." + +I asked why he had not long since been to Mr. Knox about it, and was +favoured with an interminable history of the claimant's ill-health +during the summer, consequent on his fretting after the goat; of how he +had been anointed four times, and of how the donkey was lame this long +while where a branch bet her in the thigh one day she ran into the wood +from the hounds. Fearing that the donkey was about to be included in +the bill, I made haste to settle for the goat and her offspring, a +matter of fifteen shillings. + +Next day two women took up a position on the steps at luncheon time, a +course which experience has taught me indicates affairs too exalted and +too personal to be transmitted _viâ_ the kitchen. They were, according +to their own showing, ruined proprietors of poultry yards, in proof of +which they pointed to a row of decapitated hens, laid forth on the +grass like the bag at a fashionable shoot. I was irritably aware of +their triumph in the trophy. + +"Sure he didn't make off with anny of them only three, but he snapped +the heads off all that was in it, and faith, if Masther Flurry was at +home, he'd give us the blood of his arm before he'd see our little hins +desthroyed on us this way." + +I gave them thirty-two and sixpence as an alternative compensation, +not, I admit, without an uneasy sense of something unusual in Peter +Cadogan's expression, as he assiduously raked the gravel hard by. + +It was Michael Leary, Flurry's Michael, who placed the matter of a fowl +fund upon a basis. Catharine O'Donovan and her list of casualties had +been dismissed at a cost of ten shillings, a price so inadequate, and +so cheerfully accepted, as to confirm my dawning suspicions. + +"Is it what would they get from Mr. Flurry?" replied Michael when I put +the matter to him; "it isn't ten shillings, no, nor thirty-two +shillings that they'd get from him, but a pelt of a curse after their +heels! Why wouldn't they keep their hens inside in the house with +themselves at night, the same as annyone that'd have sense, and not to +leave them out enticing the fox this way." + +Michael was in a bad temper, and so, for the matter of that, was I, +quite irrespective of dealings in poultry. Our red coats, our horses, +and the presence of the hounds, did not betoken the chase, they merely +indicated that the Hunt was about to be photographed. The local +photographer, backed by Mrs. Sinclair Yeates, had extorted from me the +privilege of "a sitting," a figurative expression, involving a ride of +five miles to a covert, selected by my wife as being typical of the +country, accompanied by the fourteen and a-half couple of half-bred +harriers who figured in Hound Lists as "Mr. Knox's Fox-hounds." + +It was a blazing day in late August, following on forty-eight hours of +blanketing sea-fog; a day for flannels and a languid game of croquet. +Lady Jane, the grey mare lent to me by Flurry, had been demoralised by +her summer at grass, and was in that peculiarly loathsome frame of mind +that is a blend of laziness and bumptiousness. If I left her to her +own devices she drowsed, stumbling, through the dust; if I corrected +her, she pranced and pulled, and kicked up behind like a donkey. My +huntsman, Doctor Jerome Hickey, who was to have been in the forefront +of the photograph, was twenty miles off in an open boat, on his way to +an island at the far end of his dispensary district, with fifteen cases +of measles ahead of him. I envied him; measles or no, he had on a +turned down collar. As a result of his absence I rode in solitary +dignity at the head of the pack, or, to speak more correctly, I +preceded Michael by some thirty yards of unoccupied road, while the +pack, callous to flogging, and disdainful of my cajoleries, clave to +the heels of Michael's horse. + +In this order, we arrived at the tryst, a heathery hill-side, flanked +by a dense and rambling wood. A sea-gull scream from the hill-side +announced the presence of my wife, and summoned me to join her and the +photographer at the spot where they were encamped. I put the mare at a +suitable place in the wall by the roadside. She refused it, which was +no more than I had expected. I sampled my new spurs on her fat sides, +with the result that she charged the wall, slantways, at the exact spot +where Philippa had placed her bicycle against it, missed the bicycle by +a hair's-breadth, landed in the field with a thump, on all four feet, +and ended with two most distressing bucks. It was a consolation to me, +when I came in touch again with the saddle, to find that one of the new +spurs had ploughed a long furrow in her shoulder. + +The photographer was a young man from Belfast, a new comer to the +neighbourhood; Philippa is also a photographer, a fact that did not +tend as much as might have been expected to the harmony of the occasion. + +"Mrs. Yeates has selected this hillock," said Mr. McOstrich, in tones +of acrid resignation, indicating as he spoke a sugar-loaf shaped knoll, +thickly matted with furze and heather. "She considers the background +characteristic. My own suggestion would have been the grass-field +yonder." + +It is an ancient contention of my wife that I, in common with all other +men, in any dispute between a female relative and a tradesman, side +with the tradesman, partly from fear, partly from masculine +clannishness, and most of all from a desire to stand well with the +tradesman. Nothing but the remembrance of this preposterous reproach +kept me from accepting Mr. McOstrich's point of view, and, while I +hesitated, Michael was already taking up his position on the hillock, +perhaps in obedience to some signal from Philippa, perhaps because he +had realised the excellent concealment afforded by the deep heather to +his horse's fetlocks, whose outline was of a somewhat gouty type. It +was part of Flurry Knox's demoniac gift for horseflesh that he should +be able to buy screws and make them serve his exacting purposes. +Michael's horse, Moses, had, at a distance, the appearance of standing +upon four champagne bottles, but he none the less did the work of two +sound horses and did it well. + +I goaded Lady Jane through the furze, and established myself beside +Michael on the sugarloaf, the hounds disposed themselves in an interval +of bracken below, and Mr. McOstrich directed his camera upon us from an +opposite slope. + +"Show your teeth, please," said Mr. McOstrich to Michael. Michael, +already simmering with indignation at the senseless frivolity of the +proceedings, glowered at his knuckles, evidently suspicious of an +ill-timed pleasantry. + +[Illustration: SUSPICIOUS OF AN ILL-TIMED PLEASANTRY] + +"Do you hear, Whip?" repeated Mr. McOstrich, raising his bleak northern +voice, "show your teeth, please!" + +"He only wants to focus us," said I, foreseeing trouble, and hurriedly +displaying my own new front row in a galvanic smile. + +Michael murmured to Moses' withers something that sounded like a +promise to hocus Mr. McOstrich when occasion should serve, and I +reflected on the hardship of having to feel apologetic towards both +Michael and the photographer. + +Only those who have participated in "Hunt Groups" can realise the +combined tediousness and tension of the moments that followed. To keep +thirty hounds headed for the camera, to ensure that your horse has not +closed its eyes and hung its head in a doze of boredom, to preserve for +yourself that alert and workmanlike aspect that becomes a sportsman, +and then, when these things have been achieved and maintained for what +feels like a month, to see the tripod move in spider strides to a fresh +position and know that all has to be begun over again. After several +of these tentative selections of a site, the moment came when Mr. +McOstrich swung his black velvet pall in the air and buried his head +under its portentous folds. The hounds, though uneasy, had hitherto +been comparatively calm, but at this manifestation their nerve broke, +and they unanimously charged the glaring monster in the black hood with +loud and hysterical cries. + +Had not Michael perceived their intention while there was time awful +things might have happened. As it was, the leaders were flogged off +with ignominy, and the ruffled artist returned from the rock to which +he had fled. Michael and I arranged ourselves afresh upon the hillock; +I squared my shoulders, and felt my wonted photographic expression of +hang-dog desperation settle down upon me. + +"The dogs are not in the picture, Whip!" said Mr. McOstrich in the +chill tone of outraged dignity. + +I perceived that the hounds, much demoralised, had melted away from the +slope in front of us, and were huddling in a wisp in the intervening +hollow. Blandishments were of no avail; they wagged and beamed +apologetically, but remained in the hollow. Michael, in whose +sensitive bosom the term "Whip" evidently rankled, became scarlet in +the face and avalanched from the hill top upon his flock with a fury +that was instantly recognised by them. They broke in panic, and the +astute and elderly Venus, followed by two of the young entry, bolted +for the road. They were there met by Mr. McOstrich's carman, who most +creditably headed the puppies with yells and his driving-whip, but was +out-played by Venus, who, dodging like a football professional, doubled +under the car horse, and fled irrevocably. Philippa, who had been +flitting from rock to rock with her kodak, and unnerving me with +injunctions as to the angle of my cap, here entered the lists with a +packet of sandwiches, with which, in spite of the mustard, she restored +a certain confidence to the agitated pack, a proceeding observed from +afar with trembling indignation by Minx, her fox-terrier. By reckless +expenditure of sandwich the hounds were tempted to their proper +position below the horses, but, unfortunately, with their sterns to the +camera, and their eyes fastened on Philippa. + +"Retire, Madam!" said Mr. McOstrich, very severely, "_I_ will attract +the dogs!" + +Thus rebuked, Madam scrambled hastily over the crest of the hillock and +sank in unseemly laughter into the deep heather behind it. + +"Now, very quiet, please," continued Mr. McOstrich, and then +unexpectedly uttered the words, "Pop! Pop! Pop!" in a high soprano. + +Michael clapped his hand over his mouth, the superseded siren in the +heather behind me wallowed in fresh convulsions; the hounds remained +unattracted. + +Then arose, almost at the same moment, a voice from the wood behind us, +the voice of yet a third siren, more potent than that of either of her +predecessors, the voice of Venus hunting a line. For the space of a +breath the hounds hung on the eager hacking yelps, in the next breath +they were gone. + +Matters now began to move on a serious scale, and with a speed that +could not have been foreseen. The wood was but fifty yards from our +sugar-loaf. Before Michael had got out his horn, the hounds were over +the wall, before the last stern had disappeared the leaders had broken +into full cry. + +"Please God it might be a rabbit!" exclaimed Michael, putting spurs to +his horse and bucketing down through the furze towards the wood, with +blasts of the horn that were fraught with indignation and rebuke. + +An instant later, from my point of vantage on the sugar-loaf, I saw a +big and very yellow fox cross an open space of heather high up on the +hill above the covert. He passed and vanished; in half-a-dozen seconds +Venus, plunging through the heather, came shrieking across the open +space and also vanished. Another all too brief an interval, and the +remainder of the pack had stormed through the wood and were away in the +open after Venus, and Michael, who had pulled up short on the hither +side of the covert wall, had started up the open hill-side to catch +them. + +The characteristic background chosen by Philippa, however admirable in +a photograph, afforded one of the most diabolic rides of my experience. +Uphill, over courses of rock masked in furze bushes, round the head of +a boggy lake, uphill again through deep and purple heather, over a +horrid wall of long slabs half buried in it; past a ruined cabin, with +thorn bushes crowding low over the only feasible place in the bank, and +at last, the top of the hill, and Michael pulling up to take +observations. + +The best pack in the kingdom, schoolmastered by a regiment of whips, +could not have precipitated themselves out of covert with more academic +precision than had been shown by Flurry Knox's irregulars. They had +already crossed the valley below us, and were running up a long hill as +if under the conventional tablecloth; their cry, floating up to us, +held all the immemorial romance of the chase. + +Michael regarded me with a wild eye; he looked as hot as I felt, which +was saying a good deal, and both horses were puffing. + +"He's all the ways for Temple Braney!" he said. "Sure I know him +well--that's the pug-nosed fox that's in it these last three seasons, +and it's what I wish----" + +(I regret that I cannot transcribe Michael's wish in its own terms, but +I may baldly summarise it as a desire minutely and anatomically +specified that the hounds were eating Mr. McOstrich.) + +Here the spurs were once more applied to Moses' reeking sides, and we +started again, battering down the twists of a rocky lane into the +steaming, stuffy valley. I felt as guilty and as responsible for the +whole affair as Michael intended that I should feel; I knew that he +even laid to my charge the disastrous appearance of the pug-nosed +Temple Braney fox. (Whether this remarkable feature was a freak of +nature, or of Michael's lurid fancy, I have never been able to +ascertain.) + +The valley was boggy, as well as hot, and the deep and sinuous ditch +that by courtesy was supposed to drain it, was blind with rushes and +tall fronds of Osmunda Regalis fern. Where the landing was tolerable, +the take-off was a swamp, where the take-off was sound the landing was +feasible only for a frog: we lost five panting minutes, closely +attended by horse-flies, before we somehow floundered across and began +the ascent of the second hill. To face tall banks, uphill, is at no +time agreeable, especially when they are enveloped in a jungle of +briars, bracken, and waving grass, but a merciful dispensation of +cow-gaps revealed itself; it was one of the few streaks of luck in a +day not conspicuous for such. + +At the top of the hill we took another pull. This afforded to us a +fine view of the Atlantic, also of the surrounding country and all that +was therein, with, however, the single unfortunate exception of the +hounds. There was nothing to be heard save the summery rattle of a +reaping-machine, the strong and steady rasp of a corn-crake, and the +growl of a big steamer from a band of fog that was advancing, +ghostlike, along the blue floor of the sea. Two fields away a man in a +straw hat was slowly combing down the flanks of a haycock with a wooden +rake, while a black and white cur slept in the young after-grass beside +him. We broke into their sylvan tranquillity with a heated demand +whether the hounds had passed that way. Shrill clamour from the dog +was at first the only reply; its owner took off his hat, wiped his +forehead with his sleeve, and stared at us. + +"I'm as deaf as a beetle this three weeks," he said, continuing to look +us up and down in a way that made me realise, if possible, more than +before, the absurdity of looking like a Christmas card in the heat of a +summer's day. + +"Did ye see the HOUNDS?" shouted Michael, shoving the chestnut up +beside him. + +"It's the neurology I got," continued the haymaker, "an' the pain does +be whistlin' out through me ear till I could mostly run into the say +from it." + +"It's a pity ye wouldn't," said Michael, whirling Moses round, "an' +stop in it! Whisht! Look over, sir! Look over!" + +He pointed with his whip along the green slopes. I saw, about half a +mile away, two boys standing on a fence, and beyond them some cattle +galloping in a field: three or four miles farther on the woods of +Temple Braney were a purple smear in the hazy heat of the landscape. +My heart sank; it was obvious even to my limited capacities that the +pug-nosed fox was making good his line with a straightness not to be +expected from one of his personal peculiarity, and that the hounds were +still running as hard as ever on a scent as steamingly hot as the +weather. I wildly thought of removing my coat and leaving it in charge +of the man with neuralgia, but was restrained by the reflection that he +might look upon it as a gift, flung to him in a burst of compassion, a +misunderstanding that, in view of his affliction, it would be +impossible to rectify. + +I picked up my lathered reins and followed Michael at a gloomy trot in +the direction of the galloping cattle. After a few fields a road +presented itself, and was eagerly accepted by the grey mare, on whom +the unbridled gluttonies of a summer's grass were beginning to tell. + +"She's bet up, sir," said Michael, dragging down a rickety gate with +the handle of his whip. "Folly on the road, there's a near way to the +wood from the cross." + +Moses here walked cautiously over the prostrate gate. + +"I'm afraid you'll kill Moses," said I, by no means pleased at the +prospect of being separated from my Intelligence Department. + +"Is it him?" replied Michael, scanning the country ahead of him with +hawk eyes. "Sure he's as hardy as a throut!" + +The last I saw of the trout was his bottle fetlocks disappearing nimbly +in bracken as he dropped down the far side of a bank. + +I "follied on the road" for two stifling miles. The heavy air was pent +between high hedges hung with wisps of hay from passing carts; +(hay-carrying in the south-west of Ireland conforms to the leisure of +the farmer rather than to the accident of season;) phalanxes of flies +arose as if at the approach of royalty, and accompanied my progress at +a hunting jog, which, as interpreted by Lady Jane, was an effective +blend of a Turkish bath and a churn. + +The "near way" from the cross-roads opened seductively with a lane +leading to a farmhouse, and presently degenerated into an unfenced but +plausible cart track through the fields. Breaches had been made in the +banks for its accommodation, and I advanced successfully towards the +long woods of Temple Braney, endeavouring, less successfully, to repel +the attentions of two young horses, who galloped, squealed, and bucked +round me and Lady Jane with the imbecile pleasantry of their kind. The +moment when I at length slammed in their faces the gate of the wood, +was one of sorely needed solace. + +Then came the sudden bath of coolness and shade, and the gradual +realisation that I did not in the least know what to do next. The air +was full of the deeply preoccupied hum of insects, and the interminable +monologue of a wood pigeon; I felt as if I ought to apologise for my +intrusion. None the less I pursued a ride that crossed the wood, +making persevering efforts to blow my horn, and producing nothing but +gramaphonic whispers, fragmentary groans, and a headache. I was near +the farther side of the wood when I saw fresh hoof-tracks on a path +that joined the ride; they preceded me to a singularly untempting bank, +with a branch hanging over it and a potato-field beyond it. A clod had +been newly kicked out of the top of it; I could not evade the +conviction that Michael had gone that way. The grey mare knew it too, +and bundled on to and over the bank with surprising celerity, and +dropped skilfully just short of where the potato beds began. An old +woman was digging at the other side of the field, and I steered for +her, making a long tack down a deep furrow between the "lazy-beds." + +"Did you see the hounds, ma'am?" I called out across the intervening +jungle of potato stalks. + +"Sir!" + +She at all events was not deaf. I amended my inquiry. + +"Did you see any dogs, or a man in a red coat?" + +"Musha, bad cess to them, then I did!" bawled the old woman, "look at +the thrack o' their legs down thro' me little pratie garden! 'Twasn't +but a whileen ago that they come leppin' out o' the wood to me, and +didn't I think 'twas the Divil and all his young ones, an' I thrun +meself down in the thrinch the way they wouldn't see me, the Lord save +us!" + +My heart warmed to her; I also would gladly have laid down among the +umbrageous stalks of the potatoes, and concealed myself for ever from +Michael and the hounds. + +"What way did they go?" I asked, regretfully dismissing the vision, and +feeling in my pocket for a shilling. + +"They went wesht the road, your Honour, an' they screeching always; +they crossed out the field below over-right the white pony, and faith +ye couldn't hardly see Michael Leary for the shweat! God help ye +asthore, yourself is getting hardship from them as well as another!" + +The shilling here sank into her earthy palm, on which she prayed +passionately that the saints might be surprised at my success. I felt +that as far as I was concerned the surprise would be mutual; I had had +nothing but misfortune since ten o'clock that morning, and there seemed +no reason to believe that the tide had turned. + +The pony proved to be a white mule, a spectral creature, standing in +malign meditation trace-high in bracken; I proceeded in its direction +at a trot, through clumps of bracken and coarse grass, and as I drew +near it uttered a strangled and heart-broken cry of greeting. At the +same moment Lady Jane fell headlong on to her nose and the point of her +right shoulder. It is almost superfluous to observe that I did the +same thing. As I rolled on my face in the bracken, something like a +snake uncoiled itself beneath me and became taut; I clutched at it, +believing it to be the reins, and found I was being hung up, like +clothes on a line, upon the mule's tethering rope. Lady Jane had got +it well round her legs, and had already fallen twice in her efforts to +get up, while the mule, round whose neck the tether rope had been +knotted, was backing hard, like a dog trying to pull its head through +its collar. + +In sunstroke heat I got out my knife, and having cut the rope in two +places, an operation accomplished in the depths of a swarm of flies and +midges, I pulled the mare on to her legs. She was lame on the off +fore, and the rope had skinned her shins in several places; my own +shoulder and arm were bruised, and I had broken a stirrup leather. +Philippa and the photographer had certainly provided me with a day of +varied entertainment, and I could not be sure that I had even yet +drained the cup of pleasure to the dregs. + +I led Lady Jane out into the road, and considered the position. We +were about nine miles from home, and at least five from any place where +I could hire a car. To walk, and lead the mare, was an alternative +that, powerless as events had proved me to be in the hands of +misfortune, I still refused to consider. It was then given me to +remember old McRory. + +My acquaintance with old McRory was of the slightest. He was, it was +understood, a retired Dublin coal merchant, with an enormous family, +and a reputation for great riches. He had, within the last year or so, +taken the derelict house of Temple Braney, and having by strenuous +efforts attained that dubious honour, the Commission of the Peace, it +had happened to me to sit on the Bench with him on one or two +occasions. Of his family I knew little, save that whenever I saw an +unknown young man buying cigarettes at Mr. Dannaher's in Skebawn, I was +informed that it was one of the young McRorys, a medical student, and +"a bit of a lad, but nothing at all to the next youngest." The Misses +McRory were only occasionally viewed, whirling in large companies on +glittering bicycles, and the legend respectfully ran that they had +forty blouses apiece. Perhaps the most definite information about them +was supplied by our cook, Mrs. Cadogan, who assured Philippa that Wild +Pigs in America wouldn't be treated worse than what Mrs. McRory treated +her servants. All these things together made an unpromising aggregate, +but the fact remained that Temple Braney House was within a quarter of +a mile of me, and its charity my only hope. + +The lodge gates of Temple Braney were wide open, so was the door of the +lodge; the weedy drive was scored with fresh wheel-tracks, as also, for +the matter of that, was the grass on either side. I followed it for a +short distance, in the roomy shade of splendid beech-trees, servants of +the old régime, preserving their dignity through the vicissitudes of +the new. Near the house was a second open gate, and on a species of +arch over it I was amazingly greeted by the word "Welcome" in white +letters on a blazing strip of Turkey-red. This was an attention that I +had not anticipated; did it mean a school-feast? + +I made a cautious survey, but saw nobody, and nerved by the increasing +lameness of Lady Jane, I went on to the house and rang the bell. There +was no response; the hall-door was wide open, and from an inner hall +two lanky red setter puppies advanced with their tails between their +legs, barking uncertainly, and acutely conscious of the fact that upon +the collar of each was fastened a flaunting though much chewed bow of +white satin ribbon. Full of foreboding I rang again. The bell tinkled +vigorously in some fastness of the house, but nothing else happened. I +decided to try the stable-yard, and, attended by the decorated puppies, +set forth to find it. + +It was a large quadrangle, of which one side was formed by a wing of +the house; had there been a few more panes of glass in the windows and +slates in the roof it might have been imposing. A cavernous coachhouse +stood open, empty save for the wheelless body of an outside car that +was seated on the floor, with wings outspread like a hatching hen. +Every stable-door gaped wide. Odds and ends of harness lay about, but +neither horse nor human being was visible. A turkey-cock, in +transports of wrath, stormed to and fro in front of his household, and +to some extent dispelled the sentiment of desertion and stampede that +pervaded the place. I led the limping mare into a stable wherein were +two loose-boxes. A sickly smell greeted me, and I perceived that in +one of the boxes was a long low cage, alive with the red-currant-jelly +eyes and pink noses of a colony of ferrets, and in the other was a pile +of empty wine-boxes and several bicycles. Lady Jane snorted heavily, +and I sought elsewhere for a refuge for her. I found it at length in a +long stable with six empty stalls, and proceeded to tie her up in one +of them. + +It was while I was thus engaged that a strange succession of sounds +began overhead, heavy, shapeless sounds in which were blended the +suggestions of shove and thump. There was a brief interval of silence, +during which Lady Jane and I listened with equal intentness; then +followed a hoarse bellow, which resolved itself into the enquiry, + +"Is there any one there?" + +Here was the princess of the enchanted palace waking up with a +vengeance. More and angrier bellows followed; I went stealthily out +into the yard, and took stock of the windows above the stable. One of +them was open, and it was from it that the voice issued, loudly +demanding release. It roared a string of Christian names, which I +supposed to be those of the McRory family, it used most unchristian +language, and it finally settled down into shouts for help, and +asseverations that it was smothering. I admit that my first and almost +overwhelming impulse was to steal a bicycle and wing my way to my +far-away and peaceful home, leaving Michael, the hounds, and the +smothering gentleman to work out their own salvation. Unfortunately +for me, the voice of conscience prevailed. There was a ladder near at +hand leaning against the wall, and I put it to the window, and went up +it as fast as my top boots would allow me, with a vision before me of +old McRory in apoplexy as the probable reward of my labours. I thrust +my head in, blocking the light in so doing; the shouting ceased +abruptly, and after the glare of sunshine outside I could at first see +nothing. Then was revealed to me a long and darksome room, once, +probably, a loft, filled with broken chairs and varieties of primeval +lumber. In the middle of the floor lay an immense feather bed, and my +bewildered eyes discovered, at one end of it, a crimson face, the face, +not of old McRory, but that of a young gentleman of my acquaintance, +one Mr. Tomsy Flood of Curranhilty. The mysteries were deepening. I +straddled the window-sash, and arrived in the room with a +three-cornered tear in the shoulder of my coat, inflicted by a nail in +the frame, and one spur draped with ancestral cobweb. + +"Take me out of this!" howled Mr. Flood hysterically, accepting my +pantomime entrance without question. "Can't you see I'm smothering in +this damned thing?" + +[Illustration: "TAKE ME OUT OF THIS!"] + +Fluff hung from his black moustache and clung to his eyebrows, his hair +was full of feathers; earthquake throes convulsed the feather-bed, and +the fact was suddenly revealed to me that Mr. Flood was not under it, +as I had at first imagined, but in it, stitched in, up to the chin. +The weaned child, or any other conventional innocent, could not have +failed for an instant to recognise the handiwork of practical humorists +of a high order. I asked no questions, but got out my knife once more, +and beginning with due precaution somewhere near Mr. Flood's jugular +vein, proceeded to slit open the end of the "tick." The stitches were +long and strong, and as each one yielded, the feathers burst forth in +stifling puffs, and Tomsy Flood's allusions to the young McRorys were +mercifully merged in sputtering. I did not laugh, not at least till I +found that I had to drag him out like a mummy, accompanied by half the +contents of the bed, and perceived that he was in full evening clothes, +and that he was incapable of helping himself because the legs of his +trousers were sewn together and his coat-sleeves sewn to his sides; +even then, I only gave way in painful secrecy behind the mighty calves +of his legs as I cut the stitches out. Tomsy Flood walked about +fifteen stone and was not in a mood to be trifled with, still less to +see the humour of the position. The medical students had done their +work with a surgical finish, and by the time that I had restored to +Tomsy the use of his legs and arms, the feathers had permeated to every +recess of my being, and I was sneezing as if I had hay fever. + +Having at length, and with considerable difficulty, got Mr. Flood on to +his legs, I ventured, with the tact demanded by the situation, a +question as to whether he had been dining at Temple Braney. + +"Dining?" queried Mr. Flood, with an obvious effort of memory. "Yes, I +was, to be sure! Amn't I staying in the house?" Then, with an equally +obvious shock of recollection, "Sure I'm Best Man at the wedding +to-day!" + +The scattered elements of the situation began to fall symmetrically +into line, from the open gates to the white bows on the puppies' +collars. My chief concern, however, bearing in mind Tomsy Flood's +recent potations and provocations, was to let him down as easily as +possible, and, reserving my conclusions to myself, to escape, swiftly +and silently, while yet there was time. There was always that +stall-full of bicycles; I could borrow clothes from Tomsy, and leave +this accursed tom-foolery of hunting kit to be fetched with the mare, I +could write a beautifully explanatory note when I got home---- + +"Hadn't you better get out of your evening things as quickly as you +can?" I suggested. + +Mr. Flood regarded me with heavy and bloodshot eyes of imperfect +intelligence. + +"Oh! I've time enough. Ye wouldn't get a pick of breakfast here +before ten o'clock in the day. Now that I come to look into you," he +continued, "you're as big a show as myself! Is it for the wedding that +you have the red coat on you?" + +I do not now remember with what lies I composed Tomsy Flood, but I got +him out of the room at last by a door into a passage of seemingly +interminable length; he took my arm, he treated me as his only friend, +he expressed his full confidence that I would see fair play when he got +a hold of Stanley McRory. He also gave it as his private opinion that +his cousin, Harry Flood, was making a hare of himself marrying that +impudent little Pinkie McRory, that was as vulgar as a bag of +straddles, in spite of the money. Indeed, the whole family had too +many airs about them for his fancy. "They take the English _Times_, if +you please, and they all dress for dinner--every night I tell ye! I +call that rot, y'know!" + +We were all this time traversing the house by labyrinthine passages, +flights of stairs, and strange empty lobbies; we progressed +conversationally and with maddening slowness, followed by a fleecy +train of feathers that floated from us as we went. And all the time I +was trying to remember how long it took to get married. In my own case +it seemed as if I had been in the church for two hours at least. + +A swing-door suddenly admitted us to the hall, and Tomsy stood still to +collect his faculties. + +"My room's up there," he began, pointing vaguely up the staircase. + +At this identical moment there was a loud and composite crash from +behind a closed door on our right, followed by minor crashes, and +noises as of chairs falling about. + +"That's the boys!" said Tomsy, a sudden spark kindling in his eye; +"they're breakfasting early, I suppose." + +He dropped my arm unexpectedly, and flung the door open with a yell. + +The first object that met my eyes was the original sinner, Venus, +mounted on a long and highly-adorned luncheon table, cranching and +gulping cold chicken as fast as she could get it down; on the floor +half-a-dozen of her brethren tore at a round of beef amid the débris of +crockery and glass that had been involved in its overthrow. A cataract +of cream was pouring down the table-cloth, and making a lake on the +carpet for the benefit of some others; and President, the patriarch of +the pack, was apparently seated on the wedding-cake, while he +demolished a cold salmon. I had left my whip in the stable, but even +had this paralysing sight left me the force to use it, its services +would not have been needed. The leaders of the revel leaped from the +table, mowing down colonies of wine-glasses in the act, and fled +through the open window, followed by the rest of the party, with a +precipitancy that showed their full consciousness of sin--the last +scramblers over the sill yelping in agonised foretaste of the thong +that they believed was overtaking them. + +At such a moment of catastrophe the craving for human sympathy is +paramount. + +I turned even to the fuddled and feathered Tomsy Flood as to a man and +a brother, and was confronted in the doorway by the Bride and +Bridegroom. + +Behind them, the hall was filling, with the swiftness of an evil dream, +with glowing faces and wedding bonnets; there was a turmoil of wheels +and hoofs at the door, and through it all, like "horns of Elfland +faintly blowing," Michael's blasts of summons to his pirates. Finally, +the towering mauve bonnet and equally towering wrath of Mrs. McRory, as +she advanced upon me and Tomsy Flood. I thought of the Wild Pigs in +America, and wished I were with them. + + +Lest I should find myself the object of a sympathy more acute than I +deserve, it may be well to transcribe portion of a paragraph from the +_Curranhilty Herald_ of the following week:-- + +"... After the ceremony a reception was held at Temple Braney House, +where a sumptuous collation had been provided by the hospitable Mr. and +Mrs. McRory. The health of the Happy Pair having been drunk, that of +the Bridesmaids was proposed, and Mr. T. Flood, who had been prevented +by a slight indisposition from filling the office of Best Man, was +happily sufficiently recovered to return thanks for them in his usual +sprightly vein. Major Sinclair Yeates, R.M., M.F.H., who, in honour of +the festive occasion had donned sporting attire, proposed the health of +the Bride's Mother in felicitous terms...." + + + + +II + +A ROYAL COMMAND + +When I heard that Bernard Shute, of Clountiss, Esquire, late Lieutenant +R.N., was running an Agricultural Show, to be held in his own demesne, +I did not for a moment credit him with either philanthropy or public +spirit. I recognised in it merely another outbreak of his exasperating +health and energy. He bombarded the country with circulars, calling +upon farmers for exhibits, and upon all for subscriptions; he made +raids into neighbouring districts on his motor car, turning vague +promises into bullion, with a success in mendicancy fortunately given +to few. It was in a thoroughly ungenerous spirit that I yielded up my +guinea and promised to attend the Show in my thousands: peace at +twenty-one shillings was comparatively cheap, and there was always a +hope that it might end there. + +The hope was fallacious: the Show boomed; it blossomed into a Grand +Stand, a Brass Band, an Afternoon Tea Tent; finally, fortune, as usual, +played into Bernard's hands and sent a Celebrity. There arrived in a +neighbouring harbour a steam-yacht, owned by one of Mr. Shute's dearest +friends, one Captain Calthorpe, and having on board a coloured +potentate, the Sultan of X----, who had come over from Cowes to see +Ireland and the Dublin Horse Show. The dearest friend--who, as it +happened, having been for three days swathed in a wet fog from the +Atlantic, was becoming something pressed for entertainment for his +charge--tumbled readily into Bernard's snare, and paragraphs appeared +with all speed in the local papers proclaiming the intention of H.H. +the Sultan of X---- to be present at the Clountiss Agricultural Show. +Following up this coup, Bernard achieved for his function a fine, an +even sumptuous day, and the weather and the Sultan between them filled +the Grand Stand beyond the utmost hopes (and possibly the secret +misgivings) of its constructors. + +Having with difficulty found seats on the top-most corner for myself, +my wife, and my two children, I had leisure to speculate upon its +probable collapse. For half an hour, for an hour, for an hour and a +half, we sat on its hot bare boards and surveyed the wide and empty +oval of grass that formed the arena of the Show. Five "made-up" jumps +of varying dimensions and two vagrant fox-terriers were its sole +adornment. A dark rim of spectators encircled it, awaiting +developments, _i.e._ the arrival of the Sultan, with tireless patience, +and the egregious Slipper, attired in a gala costume of tall hat, +frock-coat, white breeches, and butcher boots, gleanings, no doubt, +from bygone jumble sales, swaggered and rolled to and fro, selling +catalogues and cards of the jumping. Away under the tall elms near the +gate, amid the rival clamour of the cattle sheds and the poultry pens, +was stationed the green and yellow band of the "Sons of Liberty"; at +intervals it broke into an excruciating shindy of brass instruments, +through which the big drum drove a ferocious and unfaltering course. +Above the heads of the people, at the far end of the arena, tossing +heads and manes moving ceaselessly backwards and forwards told where +the "jumping horses" were waiting, eaten by flies, inconsolably +agitated by the band, becoming momently more jaded and stale from the +delay. I thanked Heaven that neither my wife nor Bernard Shute had +succeeded in inducing me to snatch my string of two from the paddock in +which they were passing the summer, to take part in this purgatorial +procession. + +[Illustration: THE EGREGIOUS SLIPPER] + +The Grand Stand, a structure bare as a mountain top to the assaults of +sun and wind, was canopied with parasols and prismatic with millinery. +The farmers, from regions unknown to me, had abundantly risen to the +occasion; so also had their wives and daughters; and fashionable +ladies, with comfortable brogues and a vigorous taste in scent, closed +us in on every side. Throughout that burning period of delay went the +searching catechisms of my two sons (aged respectively four and seven) +as to the complexion, disposition, and domestic arrangements of the +Sultan. Philippa says that I ought to have known that they were +thoroughly over-strung; possibly my descriptions of the weapons that he +wore and the cannibal feasts that he attended were a trifle lurid, but +it seemed simpler to let the fancy play on such details than to decide, +for the benefit of an interested _entourage_ of farmers' daughters, +whether the Sultan's face was the colour of my boots or of their +mother's, and whether he had a thousand or a million wives. The +inquiry was interrupted by the quack of a motor horn at the entrance +gate. + +"Here he is!" breathed the Grand Stand as one man. There was a +flocking of stewards towards the gate, and the Sons of Liberty, full of +anxiety to say the suitable thing, burst into the melancholy strains of +"My Old Kentucky Home Far Away." To this somewhat "hearse-like air" +the group of green-rosetted stewards advanced across the arena, +escorting the yacht party, in whose midst moved a squat figure, clad in +grey flannel, and surmounted by a massive and snowy turban. My elder +son became very pale; the younger turned an ominous crimson, and the +corners of his mouth went down, slowly, but, as I well knew, fatally. +The inevitable bellow, that followed in the inevitable routine, had +scarcely died away in the heart of Philippa's feather boa, when Mr. +Shute's red face and monstrous Presidential rosette presented +themselves on the stairs at my elbow. + +"Mrs. Yeates!" he began, in a gusty whisper, "Cecilia implores you to +come and fling yourself to the Lion! She says she simply can't and +won't tackle him single-handed, and she trusts to you to see her +through! He talks French all right, and I know your French is +top-hole! Do come----" + +Incredible as it may appear, my wife received this suggestion with a +reluctance that was obviously but half-hearted. Such it is to have the +Social Gift. + +I presently found myself alone with my offspring, both in tears, and +deaf to my assurances that neither the Sultan, nor his lion, would eat +their mother. Consolation, however, came with the entry of the +"jumping horses" into the arena, which followed with all speed upon +that of the Sultan. The first competitor bucketted up to the +starting-point, and at the same moment the discovery was made that +there was no water in the water-jump, a space of perhaps a foot in +depth by some five feet wide. Nothing but a thin paste of mud +remained, the water having disappeared, unnoticed, during the hot hours +of the morning. + +Swift in expedient, the stewards supplied the difficulty with +quicklime, which was scattered with a lavish hand in the fosse, and +shone like snow through the barrier of furze bushes on the take-off +side. If, as I suppose, the object was to delude the horses into the +belief that it was a water-jump, it was a total failure; they +immediately decided that it was a practical joke, dangerous, and in +indifferent taste. If, on the other side, a variety entertainment for +the public was aimed at, nothing could have been more successful. +Every known class of refusal was successfully exhibited. One horse +endeavoured to climb the rails into the Grand Stand; another, having +stopped dead at the critical point, swung round, and returned in +consternation to the starting-point, with his rider hanging like a +locket round his neck. Another, dowered with a sense of humour unusual +among horses, stepped delicately over the furze-bushes, and, amidst +rounds of applause, walked through the lime with a stoic calm. Yet +another, a ponderous war-horse of seventeen hands, hung, trembling like +an aspen, on the brink, till a sympathiser, possibly his owner, sprang +irrepressibly from his seat on the stand, climbed through the rails, +and attacked him from behind with a large umbrella. It was during this +three-cornered conflict that the green-eyed filly forced herself into +the front rank of events. A chorus of "Hi! Hi! Hi!" fired at the +rate of about fifty per second, volleyed in warning from the crowd +round the starting-point, and a white-legged chestnut, with an +unearthly white face and flying flounces of tawny mane and tail, came +thundering down at the jump. Neither umbrella nor war-horse turned her +by a hair's-breadth from her course, still less did her rider, a lean +and long-legged country boy, whose single object was to keep on her +back. Picking up her white stockings, she took off six feet from the +jump, and whizzed like a driven grouse past the combatants and over the +furze bushes and the lime. Beneath her creamy forelock, I caught a +glimpse of her amazing blue-green eyes. + +[Illustration: WHIZZED LIKE A DRIVEN GROUSE PAST THE COMBATANTS] + +She skimmed the hurdle, she flourished over the wall, flinging high her +white heels with a twist that showed more consideration for their +safety than that of her rider. She ramped over the big double bank, +while the roars of approval swelled with each achievement, and she +ended a faultless round by bolting into the heart of the crowd, which +fled hilariously, and as hilariously, hived in round her again. + +From my exalted seat I could see the Sultan clapping his hands in sweet +accord with Philippa. Somewhere near me a voice yelled: + +"Gripes! She's a monkey! When she jumped the wall she went the height +of a tree over it!" + +To which another voice replied that "It'd be a good bird that'd fly the +height she wouldn't lep, and John Cullinane'd be apt to get first with +her at the Skebawn Show." I remembered casually that John Cullinane +was a neighbour of mine. + +"Well, I wouldn't fancy her at all," said a female voice. "I'd say she +had a very maleecious glance." + +"Ah! ye wouldn't feel that when the winkers'd be on her," said the +first speaker; "she'd make a fine sweeping mare under a side-car." + +Meantime, the war-horse, much embittered by the umbrella, floundered +through the lime, and, continuing his course, threw down the hurdle, +made a breach in the wall that would, as my neighbour put it, give +three hours' work to seven idlers, and came to a sudden conclusion in +front of the bank, while his rider slowly turned a somersault that, by +some process of evolution, placed him sitting on the fence, facing the +large and gloomy countenance of his horse. + +It was after this performance that my wife looked round to see if her +sons were enjoying themselves, and waved her handkerchief. The snowy +turban of the Sultan moved round too, and beneath its voluminous folds +the round, black discs of a pair of field-glasses were directed at us. +The effect was instant. With a simultaneous shriek of terror, my +children flung themselves upon me and buried their faces in my breast. +I shall never forget it to the farmers' daughters that, in this black +hour, their sympathy was prompt and practical. + +"Oh! Fie, fie! Oh! the creatures! 'T was the spy-glasses finished +them altogether! Eat a sweetie now, lovey! that's the grand man! +Pappy'll not let the dirty fella near ye!" + +A piece of the brown sugar-stick, known as "Peggy's leg," accompanied +these consolations, and a tearful composure was gradually restored; but +"Pappy" had arrived at the conclusion that he had had about as much as +he could stand. In shameful publicity I clambered down the steep tiers +of seats, with one child under my arm, the other adhering to my +coat-tail. Philippa made agitated signals to me; I cut her dead, and +went to ground in the tea tent. + +A couple of days later my duty took me to the farthest end of my +district--a matter that involved a night's absence from home. I left +behind me an infant family restored to calm, and a thoroughly +domesticated wife and mother, pledged to one o'clock dinner with the +children and tea in the woods. I returned in time for luncheon next +day, bicycling from the station, as was my wont. It was a hot day, and +as I walked my bicycle up the slope of the avenue, the shade of the +beech trees was passing pleasant; the dogs galloped to meet me over the +soft after-grass, and I thought about flannels and an idle afternoon. + +In the hall I met Margaret, the parlour-maid, engaged, with the +housemaid, in carrying the writing-table out of my smoking-room. They +were talking loudly to each other, and I noticed that their eyes were +very bright and their complexions considerably above par. I am a man +of peace, but the veriest dove will protect its nest, and I demanded +with some heat the cause of this outrage. + +"The Mistress told us to clear this room for the servant of the--the +gentleman's that's coming to lunch to-morrow, sir," replied Margaret +with every appearance of offence. + +She and Hannah staggered onwards with my table, and the contents of the +drawers rolled and rattled. + +"Put down that table," I said firmly. "Where is the Mistress?" + +"I believe she's dressing, sir," replied Margaret; "she only came home +about an hour ago. She was out all night on the sea, I believe." + +Instant on the heels of these astonishing statements the swing door to +the kitchen was flung open, and Mrs. Cadogan's angry voice was +projected through it. + +"Hannah! go tell the Mistress the butcher's below, and he says he never +heard tell of the like, and would she lend him one o' the Major's +spears? How would the likes o' him have a spear! Such goings on!" + +"What the devil is all this about?" I said with an equal anger. "No +one is to touch my spears!" + +"Thanks be to God, the Major's come home!" exclaimed the ruler of the +kitchen, advancing weightily into the hall. "There's no fear I'd put a +hand on your spears, sir, nor the butcher neither, the poor, decent +man! He says he's supplying the gentry for twenty-five years, and he +was never asked to do the like of a nasty thing like that!" + +"Like what!" I said, with growing wrath and bewilderment. + +"It's what the Mistress said," rejoined Mrs. Cadogan, the flush of +injury mounting to her cap-frill. "That what-shall-I-call-him--that +King, wouldn't ate mate without it'd be speared! And it's what I say," +she went on, perorating loudly and suddenly, "what's good enough for +Christians and gentry is good enough for an owld Blackamoor!" + +It was now sufficiently obvious that Philippa had, with incredible +perfidy, taken advantage of my absence to embroil herself in the +entertainment of barbaric royalty. "Tell the butcher to wait," was all +I could trust myself to say, as I started in search of my wife. + +"Wait, Sinclair! I'm coming down!" cried an urgent voice from the +upper landing, and Philippa, attired in what I may perhaps describe as +a tempestuous dressing-gown, came swiftly downstairs and swept me +before her into the drawing-room. + +"My dear," she said breathlessly, "let me break it to you as gently as +possible. The Shutes called for me in the motor after you left +yesterday, and we went on board Bernard's yacht and sailed round to tea +with Captain Calthorpe and the Sultan. We were becalmed coming back, +and we were out all night--we had nothing to eat but the men's +food--not that I wanted anything!" She gave a nauseated shudder of +reminiscence. "There was an awful swell. It rained, too. Cecilia and +I tried to sleep in the cabin with all our clothes on; I never spent a +more horrible night. The yacht crawled in with the tide at about ten +o'clock this morning, and I got back here half-dead, and was just going +up to bed when Captain Calthorpe arrived on a car and said that the +Sultan wanted to lunch here to-morrow. He says we must have him--it's +a kind of Royal command--in fact, I suppose you ought to wear your +frock-coat!" + +"I'm dashed if I do!" I said, with decision. + +"Well, be that as it may," resumed Philippa, discreetly evading this +point, "that green-eyed thing that got the first prize for jumping is +to be here to meet him. He wants to buy it for his State carriage. I +did my best to get out of it, and I told Captain Calthorpe it would be +impossible to manage about the food. I forgot to tell you," faltered +Philippa, with a wan giggle, "that he said he must have speared mutton!" + +"I call it an infernal liberty of Calthorpe's!" I said, with +indignation fanned by the spectacle of Philippa's sleepless +black-rimmed eyes and pallid face, "dumping his confounded menagerie +upon us in this way! And I may tell you that those spears of mine are +poisoned!" + +"Oh! don't be so horrid, Sinclair," said Philippa, "inventing +difficulties like that!" + +I arose the following morning with a heart of lead--of boiling lead--as +I went down early to the smoking-room to look for cigarettes and found +that they, in common with every other thing that I wanted, had been +tidied into oblivion. From earliest dawn I had heard the thumping of +feet, and the swish of petticoats, and the plying of brooms; but for me +the first shot of the engagement was not fired till 8.30, when, as I +was moodily stropping my razor, I was told that John Cullinane was +below, and would be thankful to see me. As I shaved, I could see John +Cullinane standing about in front of the house, in his Sunday clothes, +waiting for me; and I knew that he would so wait, patiently, +inexorably, if I did not come down till noonday. + +I interviewed him, unsympathetically, on the hall door steps, and told +him, firstly, that, as I knew nothing of his filly, I could not "say a +good word" to the Sultan for her; and, secondly, that I certainly would +not mention to the Sultan that, in my opinion, she was a cheap mare at +£80. John Cullinane then changed the conversation by remarking that he +had brought over a small little donkey for a present for the young +gentlemen; to which, with suitable politeness, I responded that my +children already had a donkey, and that I could not think of depriving +him of his, and the interview closed. + +Breakfast was late, and for the most part uneatable, the excitement of +the household having communicated itself to the kitchen-range. + +"If I was to put my head under it, it wouldn't light for me!" Mrs. +Cadogan said to Philippa. + +As a matter of fact, judging by a glimpse vouchsafed to me of her face +as I struggled forth from the cellar with a candle and the champagne, +one might have expected it to cause a conflagration anywhere. + +My smoking-room had been dedicated to the Sultan's personal attendant, +a gentleman who could neither lunch with his master nor with my +servants; I was therefore homeless, and crept, an outcast, to the +drawing-room to try to read the newspaper undisturbed. Sounds from +above told me that trouble was brewing in the nursery; I closed the +door. + +At about eleven-thirty an outside car drove up to the house, and I saw +a personable stranger descend from it, with a black bag in his hand, a +forerunner, no doubt, of the Sultan, come over to see that the +preparations were _en régle_. I saw no reason for my intervention, +and, with a passing hope that Providence might deliver him over to Mrs. +Cadogan, I returned to my paper. The door was flung open. + +"Sinclair, dear," said my wife, very apologetically, "here is Mr. +Werner, the piano-tuner, from Dublin. He says he can't come again--he +thinks he can finish it by luncheon-time. I quite forgot that he was +coming----" + +Mr. Werner's spectacled and supercilious face regarded me over her +shoulder; he evidently had a low opinion of me, I do not know why. +With one Cenci-like glance of reproach at Philippa, I rose and left the +room. As I put on my cap I heard the first fierce chords break forth, +followed by the usual chromatic passages, fluent and searching, which +merged in their turn into a concentrated attack upon a single note. I +hurried from the house. + +It was a perfect August morning; the dogs lay on the hot gravel and +panted politely as I spoke to them, but did not move. Rejected by all, +I betook myself to a plantation near the front gate to see how the work +of clearing a ride was progressing. The cross-cut saw and a bill-hook +lay on the ground, but of workmen there was no sign. From the high +road came the sound of wheels and of rapid trotting, also something +that seemed like cheering. + +"Good heavens!" I thought, my blood running cold, "here they are!" + +I broke through the tall bracken and the larches to an opening from +which the high road was visible. My two workmen were lying on their +stomachs across the coping of the demesne wall, and a line of +countrymen, with their best clothes on and crape "weepers" on their +hats, sat on the opposite fence and applauded what was apparently a +trotting match between a long-legged bay colt and John Cullinane's +chestnut filly, owners up. + +I joined the entertainment, my two men melting like snow from the top +of the wall, and it was explained to me that there had been a funeral +in the locality, and that these were a few of the neighbours that had +been at it, and were now waiting to see the Black Gentleman. An +outside car rested on its shafts by the side of the road, and a horse +with harness on it browsed voraciously on the shrubs inside my gate. +Far away down the road I saw the receding figures of my two children, +going forth to the picnic that had been arranged to allay their panic +and to remove them from the sphere of action. Any Irish person will +readily believe that one of them was mounted on "the small little +donkey," the bribe which I had that morning irrevocably repudiated. I +knew that John Cullinane saw them too, but I was too broken to +interfere; I turned my back and walked rapidly away. + +The rhythmic rasp of the cross-cut told me that work at the clearing +had been resumed; I said to myself vindictively that I would see that +it continued, and returned to the ride. The bill-hook was doing +nothing, and picking it up I fell to snicking and chopping, with +soothing destructiveness, among the briars and ash-saplings. +Notwithstanding heat and horseflies, the time passed not disagreeably, +and I was, at all events, out of range of the piano. I had paused for +the fifteenth time to wipe a heated brow, and extract a thorn from my +finger, when the familiar voice of the Shutes' motor-horn roused me to +the appalling fact that it was nearly luncheon-time, and that I was far +from fit to receive Royalty. As I hurriedly emerged from the wood, +there was a sound of hard galloping, and I beheld the green-eyed filly +flying riderless up the avenue. She crossed the croquet ground, +thoroughly, from corner to corner, and disappeared into the shrubbery +in the direction of the flower garden. I ran as I have seldom run, +dimly aware of a pursuing party of mourners on the avenue behind me, +and, as I ran, I cursed profusely the Sultan, Calthorpe, and chiefly +Bernard Shute and all his works. + +The chase lasted for twenty minutes, and was joined in by not less than +five-and-thirty people. The creamy mane of the filly floated like a +banner before us through the shrubberies, with the dogs in full cry +behind her; through it all went the reiterations of the piano, the +monotonous hammerings, the majestic chords, the pyrotechnic scales; +they expressed as fully as he himself could have desired the complete +indifference of the tuner. The filly was ubiquitous; at one moment she +was in the flower garden, the next, a distant uproar among the poultry +told that she had traversed the yard, whence she emerged, +_ventre-à -terre_, delivered herself of three bucks at sight of her +original enemy the motor, at the hall door, and was away again for the +croquet ground. At every turn I encountered a fresh pursuer; it was +Bernard Shute and the kitchen-maid who slammed the flower-garden gate +in her face; it was Philippa, in her very best dress, abetted by John +Cullinane, very dusty, and waving a crushed and weepered hat, who, with +the best intentions, frustrated a brilliant enveloping movement +directed by me; finally the cross-cut saw men, the tuner's car-driver, +and a selection from the funeral, came so near cornering her that she +charged the sunk fence, floated across its gulf with offensive ease, +and scurried away, with long and defiant squeals, to assault my horses +at the farther end of the paddock. + +When we, _i.e._ Philippa, Bernard, and I, pulled ourselves together on +the top of the steps, it was two o'clock. By the special favour of +Providence the Sultan was late, but the position was desperate. +Philippa had trodden on the front of her dress and torn it, Bernard had +greened the knees of his trousers; I do not know what I looked like, +but when Cecilia Shute emerged, cool and spotless, from the hall, where +she had judiciously remained during the proceedings, she uttered a +faint shriek and covered her face with her hands. + +"I know," I said, with deadly calm, stuffing my tie inside my +waistcoat, "I can't help it----" + +"Here they are!" said Bernard. + +The sound of wheels was indeed in the avenue. We fled as one man into +the back hall, and Philippa, stumbling over her torn flounce, fell on +her knees at the feet of Mr. Werner, the tuner, who stood there, his +task finished, awaiting with cold decorum the reward of his labours. +The wheels stopped. What precisely happened during that crowded moment +I cannot pretend to explain, but as we dragged my wife to her feet I +found that she had knelt on my eyeglass, with the result that may be +imagined. + +All was now lost save honour. I turned at bay, and dimly saw, +silhouetted in the open doorway, a short figure in a frock-coat, with a +species of black turban on its head. I advanced, bowed, and heroically +began: + +"Sire! J'ai l'honneur----" + +"Yerrah my law! Major!" said the bewildered voice of Slipper. "Don't +be making game of me this way! Sure I have a tallagram for you." He +removed the turban, which I now perceived to be a brown tweed cap, +swathed in a crape "weeper," and handed me the telegram. "I got it +from the boy that was after breaking his bike on the road, an' I coming +from the funeral." + +The telegram was from Calthorpe, and said, with suitable regrets, that +the Sultan had been summoned to London on instant and important +business. + +I read it to the back hall, in a voice broken by many emotions. + +"I saw the gentleman you speak of waiting for the Dublin train at Sandy +Bay Station this morning," remarked the tuner, condescending for a +moment to our level. + +"Then why did you not tell us so?" demanded Philippa, with sudden +indignation. + +"I was not aware, madam, that it was of any importance," replied Mr. +Werner, returning to his normal altitude of perpetual frost. + +Incredible as it may seem, it was apparent that Philippa was +disappointed. As for me, my heart was like a singing bird. + + + + +III + +POISSON D'AVRIL + +The atmosphere of the waiting-room set at naught at a single glance the +theory that there can be no smoke without fire. The stationmaster, +when remonstrated with, stated, as an incontrovertible fact, that any +chimney in the world would smoke in a south-easterly wind, and further, +said there wasn't a poker, and that if you poked the fire the grate +would fall out. He was, however, sympathetic, and went on his knees +before the smouldering mound of slack, endeavouring to charm it to a +smile by subtle proddings with the handle of the ticket-punch. +Finally, he took me to his own kitchen fire and talked politics and +salmon-fishing, the former with judicious attention to my presumed +point of view, and careful suppression of his own, the latter with no +less tactful regard for my admission that for three days I had not +caught a fish, while the steam rose from my wet boots, in witness of +the ten miles of rain through which an outside car had carried me. + +Before the train was signalled I realised for the hundredth time the +magnificent superiority of the Irish mind to the trammels of +officialdom, and the inveterate supremacy in Ireland of the Personal +Element. + +"You might get a foot-warmer at Carrig Junction," said a species of lay +porter in a knitted jersey, ramming my suit-case upside down under the +seat. "Sometimes they're in it, and more times they're not." + +The train dragged itself rheumatically from the station, and a cold +spring rain--the time was the middle of a most inclement April--smote +it in flank as it came into the open. I pulled up both windows and +began to smoke; there is, at least, a semblance of warmth in a +thoroughly vitiated atmosphere. + +It is my wife's habit to assert that I do not read her letters, and +being now on my way to join her and my family in Gloucestershire, it +seemed a sound thing to study again her latest letter of instructions. + +"I am starting to-day, as Alice wrote to say we must be there two days +before the wedding, so as to have a rehearsal for the pages. Their +dresses have come, and they look too delicious in them----" + +(I here omit profuse particulars not pertinent to this tale)---- + +"It is sickening for you to have had such bad sport. If the worst +comes to the worst couldn't you buy one?----" + +I smote my hand upon my knee. I had forgotten the infernal salmon! +What a score for Philippa! If these contretemps would only teach her +that I was not to be relied upon, they would have their uses, but +experience is wasted upon her; I have no objection to being called an +idiot, but, that being so, I ought to be allowed the privileges and +exemptions proper to idiots. Philippa had, no doubt, written to Alice +Hervey, and assured her that Sinclair would be only too delighted to +bring her a salmon, and Alice Hervey, who was rich enough to find much +enjoyment in saving money, would reckon upon it, to its final fin in +mayonnaise. + +Plunged in morose meditations, I progressed through a country parcelled +out by shaky and crooked walls into a patchwood of hazel scrub and +rocky fields, veiled in rain. About every six miles there was a +station, wet and windswept; at one the sole occurrence was the +presentation of a newspaper to the guard by the station-master; at the +next the guard read aloud some choice excerpts from the same to the +porter. The Personal Element was potent on this branch of the Munster +and Connaught Railway. Routine, abhorrent to all artistic minds, was +sheathed in conversation; even the engine-driver, a functionary +ordinarily as aloof as the Mikado, alleviated his enforced isolation by +sociable shrieks to every level crossing, while the long row of +public-houses that formed, as far as I could judge, the town of Carrig, +received a special and, as it seemed, humorous salutation. + +The Time-Table decreed that we were to spend ten minutes at Carrig +Junction; it was fifteen before the crowd of market people on the +platform had been assimilated; finally, the window of a neighbouring +carriage was flung open, and a wrathful English voice asked how much +longer the train was going to wait. The stationmaster, who was at the +moment engrossed in conversation with the guard and a man who was +carrying a long parcel wrapped in newspaper, looked round, and said +gravely-- + +"Well now, that's a mystery!" + +The man with the parcel turned away, and convulsively studied a poster. +The guard put his hand over his mouth. + +[Illustration: THE GUARD PUT HIS HAND OVER HIS MOUTH] + +The voice, still more wrathfully, demanded the earliest hour at which +its owner could get to Belfast. + +"Ye'll be asking me next when I take me breakfast," replied the +stationmaster, without haste or palpable annoyance. + +The window went up again with a bang, the man with the parcel dug the +guard in the ribs with his elbow, and the parcel slipped from under his +arm and fell on the platform. + +"Oh my! oh my! Me fish!" exclaimed the man, solicitously picking up a +remarkably good-looking salmon that had slipped from its wrapping of +newspaper. + +Inspiration came to me, and I, in my turn, opened my window and +summoned the station-master. + +Would his friend sell me the salmon? The stationmaster entered upon +the mission with ardour, but without success. + +No; the gentleman was only just after running down to the town for it +in the delay, but why wouldn't I run down and get one for myself? +There was half-a-dozen more of them below at Coffey's, selling cheap; +there would be time enough, the mail wasn't signalled yet. + +I jumped from the carriage and doubled out of the station at top speed, +followed by an assurance from the guard that he would not forget me. + +Congratulating myself on the ascendancy of the Personal Element, I sped +through the soapy limestone mud towards the public-houses. En route I +met a heated man carrying yet another salmon, who, without preamble, +informed me that there were three or four more good fish in it, and +that he was after running down from the train himself. + +"Ye have whips o' time!" he called after me. "It's the first house +that's not a public-house. Ye'll see boots in the window--she'll give +them for tenpence a pound if ye're stiff with her!" + +I ran past the public-houses. + +"Tenpence a pound!" I exclaimed inwardly, "at this time of year! +That's good enough." + +Here I perceived the house with boots in the window, and dived into its +dark doorway. + +A cobbler was at work behind a low counter. He mumbled something about +Herself, through lengths of waxed thread that hung across his mouth, a +fat woman appeared at an inner door, and at that moment I heard, +appallingly near, the whistle of the incoming mail. The fat woman +grasped the situation in an instant, and with what appeared but one +movement, snatched a large fish from the floor of the room behind her +and flung a newspaper round it. + +"Eight pound weight!" she said swiftly. "Ten shillings!" + +A convulsive effort of mental arithmetic assured me that this was more +than tenpence a pound, but it was not the moment for stiffness. I +shoved a half-sovereign into her fishy hand, clasped my salmon in my +arms, and ran. + +Needless to say it was uphill, and at the steepest gradient another +whistle stabbed me like a spur; above the station roof successive and +advancing puffs of steam warned me that the worst had probably +happened, but still I ran. When I gained the platform my train was +already clear of it, but the Personal Element held good. Every soul in +the station, or so it seemed to me, lifted up his voice and yelled. +The stationmaster put his fingers in his mouth and sent after the +departing train an unearthly whistle, with a high trajectory and a +serrated edge. It took effect; the train slackened, I plunged from the +platform and followed it up the rails, and every window in both trains +blossomed with the heads of deeply-interested spectators. The guard +met me on the line, very apologetic and primed with an explanation that +the gentleman going for the boat-train wouldn't let him wait any +longer, while from our rear came an exultant cry from the +station-master. + +"Ye _told_ him ye wouldn't forget him!" + +"There's a few countrywomen in your carriage, sir," said the guard, +ignoring the taunt, as he shoved me and my salmon up the side of the +train, "but they'll be getting out in a couple of stations. There +wasn't another seat in the train for them!" + +My sensational return to my carriage was viewed with the utmost +sympathy by no less than seven shawled and cloaked countrywomen. In +order to make room for me, one of them seated herself on the floor with +her basket in her lap, another, on the seat opposite to me, squeezed +herself under the central elbow flap that had been turned up to make +room. The aromas of wet cloaks, turf smoke, and salt fish formed a +potent blend. I was excessively hot, and the eyes of the seven women +were fastened upon me with intense and unwearying interest. + +"Move west a small piece, Mary Jack, if you please," said a voluminous +matron in the corner, "I declare we're as throng as three in a bed this +minute!" + +"Why then Julia Casey, there's little throubling yourself," grumbled +the woman under the flap. "Look at the way meself is! I wonder is it +to be putting humps on themselves the gentry has them things down on +top o' them! I'd sooner be carrying a basket of turnips on me back +than to be scrooged this way!" + +The woman on the floor at my feet rolled up at me a glance of +compassionate amusement at this rustic ignorance, and tactfully changed +the conversation by supposing that it was at Coffey's I got the salmon. + +I said it was. + +There was a silence, during which it was obvious that one question +burnt in every heart. + +"I'll go bail she axed him tinpence!" said the woman under the flap, as +one who touches the limits of absurdity. + +"It's a beautiful fish!" I said defiantly. "Eight pounds weight. I +gave her ten shillings for it." + +What is described in newspapers as "sensation in court" greeted this +confession. + +"Look!" said the woman under the flap, darting her head out of the hood +of her cloak, like a tortoise, "'tis what it is, ye haven't as much +roguery in your heart as'd make ye a match for her!" + +"Divil blow the ha'penny Eliza Coffey paid for that fish!" burst out +the fat woman in the corner. "Thim lads o' her's had a creel full o' +thim snatched this morning before it was making day!" + +"How would the gentleman be a match for her!" shouted the woman on the +floor through a long-drawn whistle that told of a coming station. +"Sure a Turk itself wouldn't be a match for her! That one has a tongue +that'd clip a hedge!" + +At the station they clambered out laboriously, and with groaning. I +handed down to them their monster baskets, laden, apparently, with +ingots of lead; they told me in return that I was a fine _grauver_ man, +and it was a pity there weren't more like me; they wished, finally, +that my journey might well thrive with me, and passed from my ken, +bequeathing to me, after the agreeable manner of their kind, a certain +comfortable mental sleekness that reason cannot immediately dispel. +They also left me in possession of the fact that I was about to present +the irreproachable Alice Hervey with a contraband salmon. + +The afternoon passed cheerlessly into evening, and my journey did not +conspicuously thrive with me. Somewhere in the dripping twilight I +changed trains, and again later on, and at each change the salmon +moulted some more of its damp raiment of newspaper, and I debated +seriously the idea of interring it, regardless of consequences, in my +portmanteau. A lamp was banged into the roof of my carriage, half an +inch of orange flame, poised in a large glass globe, like a gold-fish, +and of about as much use as an illuminant. Here also was handed in the +dinner basket that I had wired for, and its contents, arid though they +were, enabled me to achieve at least some measure of mechanical +distension, followed by a dreary lethargy that was not far from +drowsiness. + +At the next station we paused long; nothing whatever occurred, and the +rain drummed patiently upon the roof. Two nuns and some school-girls +were in the carriage next door, and their voices came plaintively and +in snatches through the partition; after a long period of apparent +collapse, during which I closed my eyes to evade the cold gaze of the +salmon through the netting, a voice in the next carriage said +resourcefully: + +"Oh, girls, I'll tell you what we'll do! We'll say the Rosary!" + +"Oh, that will be lovely!" said another voice; "well, who'll give it +out? Theresa Condon, you'll give it out." + +Theresa Condon gave it out, in a not unmelodious monotone, interspersed +with the responses, always in a lower cadence; the words were +indistinguishable, but the rise and fall of the western voices was +lulling as the hum of bees. I fell asleep. + +I awoke in total darkness; the train was motionless, and complete and +profound silence reigned. We were at a station, that much I discerned +by the light of the dim lamp at the far end of a platform glistening +with wet. I struck a match and ascertained that it was eleven o'clock, +precisely the hour at which I was to board the mail train. I jumped +out and ran down the platform; there was no one in the train; there was +no one even on the engine, which was forlornly hissing to itself in the +silence. There was not a human being anywhere. Every door was closed, +and all was dark. The name-board of the station was faintly visible; +with a lighted match I went along it letter by letter. It seemed as if +the whole alphabet were in it, and by the time I had got to the end I +had forgotten the beginning. One fact I had, however, mastered, that +it was not the junction at which I was to catch the mail. + +I was undoubtedly awake, but for a moment I was inclined to entertain +the idea that there had been an accident, and that I had entered upon +existence in another world. Once more I assailed the station house and +the appurtenances thereof, the ticket-office, the waiting room, +finally, and at some distance, the goods store, outside which the +single lamp of the station commented feebly on the drizzle and the +darkness. As I approached it a crack of light under the door became +perceptible, and a voice was suddenly uplifted within. + +"Your best now agin that! Throw down your Jack!" + +I opened the door with pardonable violence, and found the guard, the +stationmaster, the driver, and the stoker, seated on barrels round a +packing case, on which they were playing a game of cards. + +To have too egregiously the best of a situation is not, to a generous +mind, a source of strength. In the perfection of their overthrow I +permitted the driver and stoker to wither from their places, and to +fade away into the outer darkness without any suitable send-off; with +the guard and the stationmaster I dealt more faithfully, but the +pleasure of throwing water on drowned rats is not a lasting one. I +accepted the statements that they thought there wasn't a Christian in +the train, that a few minutes here or there wouldn't signify, that they +would have me at the junction in twenty minutes, and it was often the +mail was late. + +Fired by this hope I hurried back to my carriage, preceded at an +emulous gallop by the officials. The guard thrust in with me the +lantern from the card table, and fled to his van. + +"Mind the goods, Tim!" shouted the station-master, as he slammed my +door, "she might be coming anytime now!" + +The answer travelled magnificently back from the engine. + +"Let her come! She'll meet her match!" A war-whoop upon the steam +whistle fittingly closed the speech, and the train sprang into action. + +We had about fifteen miles to go, and we banged and bucketed over it in +what was, I should imagine, record time. The carriage felt as if it +were galloping on four wooden legs, my teeth chattered in my head, and +the salmon slowly churned its way forth from its newspaper, and moved +along the netting with dreadful stealth. + +All was of no avail. + +"Well," said the guard, as I stepped forth on to the deserted platform +of Loughranny, "that owld Limited Mail's th' unpunctualest thrain in +Ireland! If you're a minute late she's gone from you, and may be if +you were early you might be half-an-hour waiting for her!" + +On the whole the guard was a gentleman. He said he would show me the +best hotel in the town, though he feared I would be hard set to get a +bed anywhere because of the "_Feis_" (a Feis, I should explain, is a +Festival, devoted to competitions in Irish songs and dances). He +shouldered my portmanteau, he even grappled successfully with the +salmon, and, as we traversed the empty streets, he explained to me how +easily I could catch the morning boat from Rosslare, and how it was, as +a matter of fact, quite the act of Providence that my original scheme +had been frustrated. + +All was dark at the uninviting portals of the hotel favoured by the +guard. For a full five minutes we waited at them, ringing hard: I +suggested that we should try elsewhere. + +"He'll come," said the guard, with the confidence of the Pied Piper of +Hamelin, retaining an implacable thumb upon the button of the electric +bell. "He'll come. Sure it rings in his room!" + +The victim came, half awake, half dressed, and with an inch of dripping +candle in his fingers. There was not a bed there, he said, nor in the +town neither. + +[Illustration: THE VICTIM CAME] + +I said I would sit in the dining-room till the time for the early train. + +"Sure there's five beds in the dining-room," replied the boots, "and +there's mostly two in every bed." + +His voice was firm, but there was a wavering look in his eye. + +"What about the billiard-room, Mike?" said the guard, in wooing tones. + +"Ah, God bless you! we have a mattress on the table this minute!" +answered the boots, wearily, "and the fellow that got the First Prize +for Reels asleep on top of it!" + +"Well, and can't ye put the palliasse on the floor under it, ye +omadhawn?" said the guard, dumping my luggage and the salmon in the +hall, "sure there's no snugger place in the house! I must run away +home now, before Herself thinks I'm dead altogether!" + +His retreating footsteps went lightly away down the empty street. + +"Annything don't throuble _him_!" said the boots bitterly. + +As for me, nothing save the Personal Element stood between me and +destitution. + + +It was in the dark of the early morning that I woke again to life and +its troubles. A voice, dropping, as it were, over the edge of some +smothering over-world, had awakened me. It was the voice of the First +Prize for Reels, descending through a pocket of the billiard-table. + +"I beg your pardon, sir, are ye going on the 5 to Cork?" + +I grunted a negative. + +"Well, if ye were, ye'd be late," said the voice. + +I received this useful information in indignant silence, and +endeavoured to wrap myself again in the vanishing skirts of a dream. + +"I'm going on the 6.30 meself," proceeded the voice, "and it's unknown +to me how I'll put on me boots. Me feet is swelled the size o' +three-pound loaves with the dint of the little dancing-shoes I had on +me in the competition last night. Me feet's delicate that way, and I'm +a great epicure about me boots." + +I snored aggressively, but the dream was gone. So, for all practical +purposes, was the night. + +The First Prize for Reels arose, presenting an astonishing spectacle of +grass-green breeches, a white shirt, and pearl-grey stockings, and +accomplished a toilet that consisted of removing these and putting on +ordinary garments, completed by the apparently excruciating act of +getting into his boots. At any other hour of the day I might have been +sorry for him. He then removed himself and his belongings to the hall, +and there entered upon a resounding conversation with the boots, while +I crawled forth from my lair to renew the strife with circumstances and +to endeavour to compose a telegram to Alice Hervey of explanation and +apology that should cost less than seven and sixpence. There was also +the salmon to be dealt with. + +Here the boots intervened, opportunely, with a cup of tea, and the +intelligence that he had already done up the salmon in straw +bottle-covers and brown paper, and that I could travel Europe with it +if I liked. He further informed me that he would run up to the station +with the luggage now, and that may be I wouldn't mind carrying the fish +myself; it was on the table in the hall. + +My train went at 6.15. The boots had secured for me one of many empty +carriages, and lingered conversationally till the train started; he +regretted politely my bad night at the hotel, and assured me that only +for Jimmy Durkan having a little drink taken--Jimmy Durkan was the +First Prize for Reels--he would have turned him off the billiard-table +for my benefit. He finally confided to me that Mr. Durkan was engaged +to his sister, and was a rising baker in the town of Limerick, +"indeed," he said, "any girl might be glad to get him. He dances like +whalebone, and he makes grand bread!" + +Here the train started. + +It was late that night when, stiff, dirty, with tired eyes blinking in +the dazzle of electric lights, I was conducted by the Herveys' +beautiful footman into the Herveys' baronial hall, and was told by the +Herveys' imperial butler that dinner was over, and the gentlemen had +just gone into the drawing-room. I was in the act of hastily declining +to join them there, when a voice cried-- + +"Here he is!" + +And Philippa, rustling and radiant, came forth into the hall, followed +in shimmers of satin, and flutterings of lace, by Alice Hervey, by the +bride elect, and by the usual festive rout of exhilarated relatives, +male and female, whose mission it is to keep things lively before a +wedding. + +"Is this a wedding present for me, Uncle Sinclair?" cried the bride +elect, through a deluge of questions and commiserations, and snatched +from under my arm the brown paper parcel that had remained there from +force of direful habit. + +"I advise you not to open it!" I exclaimed; "it's a salmon!" + +The bride elect, with a shriek of disgust, and without an instant of +hesitation, hurled it at her nearest neighbour, the head bridesmaid. +The head bridesmaid, with an answering shriek, sprang to one side, and +the parcel that I had cherished with a mother's care across two +countries and a stormy channel, fell, with a crash, on the flagged +floor. + +_Why did it crash?_ + +"A salmon!" screamed Philippa, gazing at the parcel, round which a pool +was already forming, "why that's whisky! Can't you smell it?" + +The footman here respectfully interposed, and kneeling down, cautiously +extracted from folds of brown paper a straw bottle-cover full of broken +glass and dripping with whisky. + +"I'm afraid the other things are rather spoiled, sir," he said +seriously, and drew forth, successively, a very large pair of high-low +shoes, two long grey worsted stockings, and a pair of grass-green +breeches. + +They brought the house down, in a manner doubtless familiar to them +when they shared the triumphs of Mr. Jimmy Durkan, but they left Alice +Hervey distinctly cold. + +"You know, darling," she said to Philippa afterwards, "I don't think it +was very clever of dear Sinclair to take the wrong parcel. I _had_ +counted on that salmon." + + + + +IV + +"THE MAN THAT CAME TO BUY APPLES" + +It had been freezing hard all the way home, and the Quaker skated +perilously once or twice on the northerly stretches. As I passed the +forge near my gate I issued an order for frost-nails, and while I did +so the stars were kindling like diamonds over the black ridge of +Shreelane Hill. + +The overture to the Frost Symphony had begun, with its usual beauties +and difficulties, and its leading theme was given forth in a missive +from Flurry Knox, that awaited me on the hall table. Flurry's +handwriting was an unattractive blend of the laundress's bill, and the +rambling zigzags of the temperature chart, but he exhibited no more of +it than was strictly necessary in getting to the point. Would I shoot +at Aussolas the following day? There were a lot of cock in, and he had +whipped up four guns in a hurry. There was a postscript, "Bernard +Shute is coming. Tell Mrs. Yeates he didn't kill any one yet this +season." + +Since his marriage Flurry had been promoted to the position of agent to +his grandmother, old Mrs. Knox of Aussolas, and through the +unfathomable mazes of their dealings and fights with each other, the +fact remained that he had secured to himself the Aussolas shooting at +about half its market value. So Mrs. Knox said. Her grandson, on the +other hand, had often informed me that the privilege "had him beggared, +what with beaters and all sorts, and his grandmother's cattle turned +into the woods destroying all the covert--let alone her poaching." +Into the differences of such skilled combatants the prudent did not +intrude themselves, but they accepted without loss of time such +invitations to shoot at Aussolas as came their way. Notwithstanding +the buccaneerings of Flurry's grandmother, the woods of Aussolas, in +decent weather, were usually good for fifteen to twenty couple of cock. + +I sent my acceptance before mentioning to Philippa that Bernard Shute +was to be of the party. It was impossible to make Philippa understand +that those who shot Bernard's pheasants at Clountiss, could hardly do +less than retaliate when occasion served. I had once, in a moment of +regrettable expansion, entertained my wife with an account of how an +entire shooting party had successively cast themselves upon their +faces, while the muzzle of Bernard's gun had followed, half way round +the compass, a rabbit that had broken back. No damage had ensued, not +even to the rabbit, but I had supplied Philippa with a fact that was an +unfortunate combination of a thorn in her pillow and a stone in her +sling. + +The frost held; it did more than hold, it gripped. As I drove to +Aussolas the fields lay rigid in the constraining cold; the trees were +as dead as the telegraph poles, and the whistle of the train came thin +and ghostly across four miles of silent country. Everything was half +alive, with the single exception of the pony, which, filled with the +idiotic exaltation that frost imparts to its race, danced upon its +frost-nails, shied with untiring inventiveness, and made three several +and well-conceived attempts to bolt. Maria, with her nose upon my +gaiter, shuddered uninterruptedly throughout the drive, partly because +of the pinching air, partly in honour of the sovereign presence of the +gun-case. + +Old Mrs. Knox was standing on the steps as I walked round to the hall +door of Aussolas Castle. She held a silver bowl in her hand; on her +head, presumably as a protection against the cold, was a table-napkin; +round her feet a throng of hens and pigeons squabbled for the bits that +she flung to them from the bowl, and a furtive and distrustful peacock +darted a blue neck in among them from the outskirts. + +"'Good-morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham,'" was Mrs. Knox's singular +greeting, "'a good soft pillow for that good grey head were better than +a churlish turf of France'!" + +My friendship with Mrs. Knox was now of several years' standing, and I +knew enough of her to gather that I stood rebuked for being late. + +"Flurry arrived only half-an-hour ago! my first intimation of a +shooting party," she continued, in the dictatorial voice that was +always a shock when taken in connection with her beggar woman's +costume, "a nice time of day to begin to look for beaters! And the +other feather-bed sportsmen haven't arrived yet. In old times they +would have had ten couple by this time, and then Mr. Flurry complains +of the shooting!" + +She was here interrupted by the twitching of the table-napkin from her +head by her body-woman, who had advanced upon her from the rear, with +the reigning member of the dynasty of purple velvet bonnets in her +hand. The bonnet was substituted for the table-napkin, much as a stage +property is shoved on from the wings, and two bony hands, advancing +from behind, tied the strings under Mrs. Knox's chin, while she +uninterruptedly fed the hens, and denounced the effeteness of modern +cock-shooters. The hands descended and fixed a large pin in the +uppermost of her mistress' shawls. + +"Mullins, have done!" exclaimed Mrs. Knox, suddenly tearing herself +from her captor, "you're an intolerable nuisance!" + +"Oh, very well, ma'am, maybe you'd sooner go out with your head naked +and soak the cold!" returned Mullins, retiring with the honours of war +and the table-napkin. + +"Mullins and I get on famously," observed Mrs. Knox, crushing an empty +egg-shell with her yellow diamonded fingers and returning it to its +original donors, "we're both mad, you know!" + +Comment on this might have been difficult, but I was preserved from it +by the approach across the frozen gravel of a short, red-bearded man, +Mrs. Knox's gardener, wood-ranger, and ruling counsellor, John Kane. +He held in his hands two large apples of arsenical hue, and, taking off +his hat to me with much dignity, addressed himself to the lady of the +house. + +"He says he'd sooner walk barefoot to Cork than to give three and +fippence for the likes of them!" + +"I'm sure I've no objection if he does," responded Mrs. Knox, turning +the silver bowl upside down over the scrimmaging hens and pigeons, "I +daresay it would be no novelty to him." + +"And isn't that what I told him!" said John Kane, his voice at once +ascending to the concert pitch of altercation, "I said to him if the +Lord Left'nant and the Pope was follying me around the yard of Aussolas +offering three and a penny for them apples they'd not get them! Sure +the nuns gave us that much for windfalls that was only fit to be making +cherubs with!" + +I might have been struck by the fitness, as well as the ingenuity, of +this industry, but in some remote byway of my brain the remembrance +woke of a "black-currant cherub" prescribed by Mrs. Cadogan for sore +throats, and divined by Philippa to be a syrup. I turned away and lit +a cigarette in order to conceal my feelings from John Kane, round whose +red beard the smoke of battle hung almost palpably. + +"What's between you?" asked his mistress sharply. + +"Three and a penny he's offering, ma'am!" declaimed her deputy, "for +sheeps' noses that there isn't one in the country has but yourself! +And not a brown farthing more would he give!--the consecrated blagyard!" + +[Illustration: "AND NOT A BROWN FARTHING MORE WOULD HE GIVE"] + +Anything less like a sheep's nose than Mrs. Knox's hooked beak, as she +received this information, could hardly be imagined. + +"You're half a fool, John Kane!" she snapped, "and the other half's not +sensible! Go back and tell him Major Yeates is here and wants to buy +every apple I have!" She dealt me a wink that was the next thing to a +dig in the ribs. As she spoke a cart drawn by a cheerful-looking grey +pony, and conducted by a tall, thin man, came into view from the +direction of the yard. It rattled emptily, and proclaimed, as was +intended, the rupture of all business relations. + +"See here, sir," said John Kane to me in one hoarse breath, "when he's +over-right the door I'll ask him the three and fippence again, and when +he refuses, your Honour will say we should split the difference----" + +The cart advanced, it passed the hall door with a dignity but little +impaired by the pony's apprehensive interest in the peacock, and the +tall man took off his hat to Mrs. Knox with as gloomy a respect as if +she had been a funeral. + +John Kane permitted to the salutation the full time due to it, in the +manner of one who counts a semibreve rest, while the cart moved +implacably onwards. The exact, the psychic instant arrived. + +"HONOMAUNDHIAOUL! SULLIVAN!" he shouted, with a full-blown burst of +ferocity, hurtling down the steps in pursuit, "will ye take them or +lave them?" + +To manifest, no doubt, her complete indifference to the issue, Mrs. +Knox turned and went into the house, followed by the majority of the +hens, and left me to await my cue. The play was played out with +infinite credit to both artists, and at the full stretch of their +lungs; at the preordained moment I intervened with the conventional +impromptu, and suggested that the difference should be split. The +curtain immediately fell, and somewhere in the deep of the hall a +glimpse of the purple bonnet told me that Mrs. Knox was in the +auditorium. + +When I rejoined her I found Flurry with her, and something in the +atmosphere told that here also was storm. + +"Well, take them! Take them all!" Mrs. Knox was saying in high +indignation. "Take Mullins and the maids if you like! I daresay they +might be more use than the men!" + +"They'll make more row, anyhow," said Flurry sourly. "I wonder is it +them that put down all the rabbit-traps I'm after seeing in the +coach-house this minute!" + +"It may be _they_, but it certainly is not _them_," retorted Mrs. Knox, +hitting flagrantly below the belt; "and if you want beaters found for +you, you should give me more than five minutes' warning----" She +turned with the last word, and moved towards the staircase. + +"I beg your pardon, ma'am," said John Kane, very respectfully, from the +hall door, "that Sullivan brought this down for your Honour." + +He placed on the table a bottle imperfectly wrapped in newspaper. + +"Tell Sullivan," said Flurry, without an instant's hesitation, "that he +makes the worst potheen in the country, and I'll prosecute him for +bringing it here, unless he comes out to beat with the rest of you." + +Remembering my official position, I discreetly examined the barrels of +my gun. + +"You'll give him no such message!" screamed Mrs. Knox over the dark +rail of the staircase. "Let him take himself and his apples off out of +this!" Then, in the same breath, and almost the same key, "Major +Yeates, which do you prefer, curry, or Irish stew?" + +The _cuisine_ at Aussolas was always fraught with dark possibilities, +being alternately presided over by bibulous veterans from Dublin, or +aboriginal kitchenmaids off the estate. Feeling as Fair Rosamond might +have felt when proffered the dagger or the bowl, I selected curry. + +"Then curry it shall be," said Mrs. Knox, with a sudden and awful +affability. In this gleam of stormy sunshine I thought it well to +withdraw. + +"Did you ever eat my grandmother's curry?" said Flurry to me, later, as +we watched Bernard Shute trying to back his motor into the coach-house. + +I said I thought not. + +"Well, you'd take a splint off a horse with it," said Mrs. Knox's +grandson. + +The Aussolas woods were full of birds that day. Birds bursting out of +holly bushes like corks out of soda-water bottles, skimming low under +the branches of fir trees, bolting across rides at a thousand miles an +hour, swinging away through prohibitive tree tops, but to me had +befallen the inscrutable and invincible accident of being "off my day," +and, by an equal unkindness, Fate had allotted to me the station next +Flurry. Every kind of bird came my way except the easy ones, and, as a +general thing, when I had done no more than add a little pace to their +flight, they went down to Flurry, who never in my experience had been +off his day, and they seldom went farther afield. The beaters, +sportsmen every man of them, had a royal time. They flailed the bushes +and whacked the tree trunks; the discordant chorus of "Hi cock! Hi +cock! Cock! Cock! Prrrr!" rioted through the peaceful woods, and +every other minute a yell of "Mark!" broke like a squib through the +din. The clamour, the banging of the guns, and the expectancy, kept +the nerves tingling; the sky between the grey branches was as blue as +Italy's; despite fingers as icy as the gun-barrels, despite the +speechless reproach of Maria, slinking at my heels in unemployed +dejection, I enjoyed every breath of the frosty day. After all, hit or +miss, a good day with the cock comes very near a good day with the +hounds, without taking into consideration the comfortable fact that in +the former the risk is all on the side of the birds. + +Little Bosanquet, the captain of coastguards, on my left, was doing +remarkably well, so apparently, was Murray the D.I. of Police; how +Bernard Shute was faring I knew not, but he was certainly burning a lot +of powder. At the end of the third beat I found myself beside Murray. +His face was redder than usual, even his freckles conveyed an +impression of impartially sprinkled cayenne pepper. + +"Did you see Shute just now?" he demanded in a ferocious whisper. "A +bird got up between us, and he blazed straight at me! Straight bang in +my face, I tell you! Only that I was in a dead line with the bird he'd +have got me!" + +"I suppose that was about the safest place," I said. "What did you do?" + +"I simply told him that if ever he puts a grain into me I shall let him +have it back, both barrels." + +"Every one says that to Bernard sooner or later," said I, pacifically; +"he'll settle down after lunch." + +"We'll all settle down into our graves," grumbled Murray; "that'll be +the end of it." + +After this it was scarcely composing to a husband and father to find +Mr. Shute occupying the position on my right hand as we embarked upon +the last beat of the Middle Wood. He was still distinctly unsettled, +and most distressingly on the alert. Nothing escaped his vigilance, +the impossible wood pigeon, clattering out of the wrong side of a fir +tree, received its brace of cartridges as instantly as the palpable +rabbit, fleeing down the ride before him, and with an equal immunity. +Between my desire to keep the thickest tree trunks between me and him, +and the companion desire that he should be thoroughly aware of my +whereabouts, my shooting, during that beat, went still more to pieces; +a puff of feathers, wandering softly down through the radiant air, was +the sum total of my achievements. + +The end of the beat brought us to the end of the wood, and out upon an +open space of sedgy grass and bog that stretched away on the right to +the shore of Aussolas Lake; opposite to us, a couple of hundred yards +away, was another and smaller wood, clothing one side of a high +promontory near the head of the lake. Flurry and I were first out of +the covert. + +"We'll have time to run through the Rhododendron Wood before lunch," he +said, looking at his watch. "Here! John Kane!" He put two fingers in +his mouth and projected a whistle that cleft my head like a scimitar. + +John Kane emerged, nymph-like, from a laurel bush in our immediate +vicinity. + +"'Tis only lost time to be beating them rosydandhrums, Master Flurry," +he said volubly, "there wasn't a bird in that bit o' wood this winter. +Not a week passes but I'm in it, making up the bounds fence against the +cattle, and I never seen a one!" + +"You might be more apt to be looking out for a rabbit than a cock, +John," said Flurry expressionlessly, "but isn't it down in the lower +paddocks you have the cattle and the young horses this hard weather?" + +"Oh it is, sir, it is, of course, but indeed it's hard for me to know +where they are, with the Misthress telling this one and that one to put +them in their choice place. Sure she dhrives me to and fro in my mind +till I do have a headache from her!" + +A dull rumble came to us across the marsh, and, as if Mrs. Knox had +been summoned by her henchman's accusation, there laboured into view on +the road that skirted the marsh a long and dilapidated equipage, +silhouetted, with its solitary occupant, against the dull shine of the +frozen lake. + +"Tally-ho! Here comes the curry for you, Major! You'll have to eat it +I tell you!" He paused, "I'm dashed if she hasn't got Sullivan's pony! +Well, she'd steal the horns off a cow!" + +[Illustration: "I'M DASHED IF SHE HASN'T GOT SULLIVAN'S PONY"] + +It was indeed the grey pony that paced demurely in the shafts of Mrs. +Knox's phaeton, and at its head marched Sullivan; fragments of loud and +apparently agreeable conversation reached us, as the procession moved +onwards to the usual luncheon tryst at the head of the lake. + +"Come now, John Kane," said Flurry, eyeing the cortège, "you're half +your day sitting in front of the kitchen fire. How many of my rabbits +went into that curry?'' + +"Rabbits, Master Flurry?" echoed John Kane almost pityingly, "there's +no call for them trash in Aussolas kitchen! And if we wanted them +itself, we'd not get them. I declare to me conscience there's not a +rabbit in Aussolas demesne this minute, with the way your Honour has +them ferreted--let alone the foxes!----" + +"I suppose it's scarcely worth your while to put the traps down," said +Flurry benignly; "that's why they were in the coach-house this morning." + +There was an undissembled titter from a group of beaters in the +background; Flurry tucked his gun under his arm and walked on. + +"It'd be no more than a charity if ye'd eat the lunch now, sir," urged +John Kane at his elbow, in fluent remonstrance, "and leave Sullivan go +home. Sure it'll be black night on him before the Misthress will be +done with him. And as for that wood, it's hardly we can go through it +with the threes that's down since the night of the Big Wind, and +briars, and all sorts. Sure the last time I was through it me pants +was in shreds, and I was that tired when I got home I couldn't stoop to +pick a herrin' off a tongs, and as for the floods and the holes in the +western end--" John Kane drew a full breath, and with a trawling +glance gathered Bernard and me into his audience. "I declare to ye, +gintlemen, me boots when I took them off was more than boots! They +resimbled the mouth of a hake!" + +"Ah, shut your own mouth," said Flurry. + +The big rhododendron was one of the glories of Aussolas. Its original +progenitor had been planted by Flurry's great-grandmother, and now, +after a century of unchecked license, it and its descendants ran riot +among the pine stems on the hillside above the lake, and, in June, +clothed a precipitous half acre with infinite varieties of pale +mysterious mauve. The farm road by which Mrs. Knox had traversed the +marsh, here followed obediently the spurs of the wood and creeks of the +shore, in their alternate give and take. From the exalted station that +had been given me on the brow of the hill, I looked down on it between +the trunks of the pine trees, and saw, instead of mysterious mauve +blossoms, the defiant purple of Mrs. Knox's bonnet, glowing, +motionless, in a sheltered and sunny angle of the road just where it +met the wood. She was drawn up in her phaeton with her back to a +tumble-down erection of stones and branches, that was supposed to bar +the way into the wood, beside her was the great flat boulder that had +for generations been the table for shooting lunches. How, in any area +of less than a quarter of a mile, Sullivan had contrived to turn the +phaeton, was known only to himself, but he had accomplished it, and was +now adding to the varied and unforeseen occupations of his day the task +of unpacking the luncheon basket. As I waited for the whistle that was +the signal for the beat to begin, I viewed the proceedings up to the +point where Sullivan, now warming artistically to his work, crowned the +arrangement with the bottle of potheen. + +[Illustration: HE CROWNED THE ARRANGEMENT WITH THE BOTTLE OF POTHEEN] + +It was at that moment that I espied John Kane break from a rhododendron +bush beside the phaeton, with a sack over his shoulder. This, as far +as I could see through the branches, he placed upon Mrs. Knox's lap, +the invaluable Sullivan hurrying to his aid. The next instant I saw +Murray arrive and take up his allotted station upon the road; John Kane +retired into the evergreen thicket as abruptly as he had emerged from +it, Flurry's whistle sounded, and the yells of "Hi cock" began again. + +We moved forward very slowly, in order to keep station with Murray, who +had to follow on the road the outer curve of the wood, while we struck +straight across it. It was a wood of old and starveling trees, +strangled by ivy, broken by combat with each other in the storms that +rushed upon them up the lake; it was two years since I had last been +through it, and I remembered well the jungle of ferns and the +undergrowth of briars that had shredded the pants of John Kane, and had +held in their thorny depths what Flurry had described as "a dose of +cock." To-day the wood seemed strangely bare, and remarkably out of +keeping with John Kane's impassioned indictment; the ferns, even the +bracken, had almost disappeared, the briar brakes were broken down, and +laced with black paths, and in the frozen paste of dead leaves and peat +mould the hoof-marks of cattle and horses bore witness against them, +like the thumb-prints of a criminal. In the first ten minutes not a +gun had been let off; I anticipated pleasantly, if inadequately, the +remarks that Flurry would address to John Kane at the conclusion of the +beat. To foreshadow John Kane's reply to Flurry was a matter less +simple. Bernard Shute was again the next gun on my left, and kept, as +was his wont, something ahead of his due place in the line; of this I +did not complain, it made it all the easier to keep my eye on him. The +idle cartridges in his gun were obviously intolerable to him; as he +crossed a little glade he discharged both barrels into the firmament, +where far above, in tense flight and steady as a constellation, moved a +wedge of wild geese. The wedge continued its course unshaken, but, as +if lifted by the bang, the first woodcock of the beat got up in front +of me, and swung away into the rhododendrons. "Mark!" I shouted, +loosing an ineffectual cartridge after him. Mr. Shute was equal to the +occasion, and let fly his usual postman's knock with both barrels. In +instant response there arose from behind the rhododendrons the bray of +a donkey, fraught with outrage and terror, followed by crashing of +branches and the thunderous galloping of many hoofs, and I had a +glimpse of a flying party of cattle and horses, bursting from the +rhododendron bushes and charging down a grassy slope in the direction +of the road. Every tail was in the air, the cattle bellowed, and the +donkey, heading the flight, did not cease to proclaim his injuries. + +"How many of them have you hit?" I shouted. + +"I believe I got 'em all, bar the cock!" returned Mr. Shute, with +ecstasy scarcely tempered by horror. + +I hastened to the brow of the hill, and thence beheld Mrs. Knox's live +stock precipitate themselves on to the road, and turn as one man in the +direction of home. With a promptitude for which I have never been +given sufficient credit, I shoved my gun into the branches of a tree +and ran back through the wood at my best pace. In that glimpse of the +route I had recognised the streaming chestnut mane and white legs of +the venerable Trinket, the most indomitable old rogue that had ever +reared up generations of foals in the way they should not go, and I +knew by repute that once she was set going it would take more to stop +her than the half-demolished barricade at the entrance to the wood. + +As I ran I seemed to see Trinket and her disciples hurling themselves +upon Mrs. Knox's phaeton and Sullivan's pony, with what results no man +could tell. They had, however, first to circumnavigate the promontory; +my chance was by crossing it at the neck to get to the phaeton before +them. The going was bad, and the time was short; I went for all I was +worth, and Maria, mystified, but burning with zeal, preceded me with +kangaroo leaps and loud and hysterical barks. A mossy wall ringed the +verge of the hill; I followed Maria over it, and the wall, or a good +part of it, followed me down the hill. I plunged onward amid the +coiling stems and branches of the big rhododendrons, an illuminative +flash of the purple bonnet giving me my bearings. A sort of track +revealed itself, doubling and dodging and dropping down rocky slides, +as if in flight before me. It was near the foot of the hill that a +dead branch extended a claw, and with human malignity plucked the +eye-glass from my eye and snapped the cord: the eye-glass, entering +into the spirit of the thing, aimed for the nearest stone and hit it. +It is the commonest of disasters for the short-sighted, yet custom +cannot stale it; I made the usual comment, with the usual fervour and +futility, and continued to blunder forward in all the discomfort of +half-sight. The trumpeting of the donkey heralded the oncoming of the +stampede; I broke my way through the last of the rhododendrons and +tumbled out on to the road twenty yards ahead of the phaeton. + +Sullivan's pony was on its hind legs, and Sullivan was hanging on to +its head. Mrs. Knox was sitting erect in the phaeton with the reins in +her hand. + +"Get out, ma'am! Get out!" Sullivan was howling, as I scrambled to my +feet. + +"Don't be a fool!" replied Mrs. Knox, without moving. + +The stampede was by this time confronted by the barrier. There was +not, however, a moment of hesitation; Trinket came rocketing out over +it as if her years were four, instead of four-and-twenty; she landed +with her white nose nearly in the back seat of the phaeton, got past +with a swerve and a slip up, and went away for her stable with her tail +over her back, followed with stag-like agility by her last foal, her +last foal but one, and the donkey, with the young cattle hard on their +flying heels. Bernard, it was very evident, had peppered them +impartially all round. Sullivan's pony was alternately ramping +heraldically, and wriggling like an eel in the clutches of Sullivan, +and I found myself snatching blindly at whatever came to my hand of his +headstall. What I caught was a mingled handful of forelock and +brow-band; the pony twitched back his head with the cunning that is +innate in ponies, and the head-stall, which was a good two sizes too +large, slid over its ears as though they had been buttered, and +remained, bit and all, in my hand. There was a moment of struggle, in +which Sullivan made a creditable effort to get the pony's head into +chancery under his arm; foreseeing the issue, I made for the old lady, +with the intention of dragging her from the carriage. She was at the +side furthest from me, and I got one foot into the phaeton and grasped +at her. + +At that precise moment the pony broke away, with a jerk that pitched me +on to my knees on the mat at her feet. Simultaneously I was aware of +Sullivan, at the opposite side, catching Mrs. Knox to his bosom as the +phaeton whirled past him, while I, as sole occupant, wallowed prone +upon a heap of rugs. That ancient vehicle banged in and out of the +ruts with an agility that ill befitted its years, while, with extreme +caution, and the aid of the side rail, I gained the seat vacated by +Mrs. Knox, and holding on there as best I could, was aware that I was +being seriously run away with by the apple-man's pony, on whom my own +disastrous hand had bestowed his freedom. + +The flying gang in front, enlivened no doubt by the noise in their +rear, maintained a stimulating lead. We were now clear of the wood, +and the frozen ditches of the causeway awaited me on either side in +steely parallel lines; out in the open the frost had turned the ruts to +iron, and it was here that the phaeton, entering into the spirit of the +thing, began to throw out ballast. The cushions of the front seat were +the first to go, followed, with a bomb-like crash, by a stone hot-water +jar, that had lurked in the deeps of the rugs. It was in negotiating a +stiffish outcrop of rock in the track that the back seat broke loose +and fell to earth with a hollow thump; with a corresponding thump I +returned to my seat from a considerable altitude, and found that in the +interval the cushion had removed itself from beneath me, and followed +its fellows overboard. Near the end of the causeway we were into +Trinket's rearguard, one of whom, a bouncing young heifer, slammed a +kick into the pony's ribs as he drew level with her, partly as a +witticism, partly as a token of contempt. With that the end came. The +pony wrenched to the left, the off front wheel jammed in a rut, came +off, and the phaeton rose like a live thing beneath me and bucked me +out on to the road. + +A succession of crashes told that the pony was making short work of the +dash-board; for my part, I lay something stunned, and with a twisted +ankle, on the crisp whitened grass of the causeway, and wondered dully +why I was surrounded by dead rabbits. + +By the time I had pulled myself together Sullivan's pony was continuing +his career, accompanied by a fair proportion of the phaeton, and on the +road lay an inexplicable sack, with a rabbit, like Benjamin's cup, in +its mouth. + +Not less inexplicable was the appearance of Minx, my wife's +fox-terrier, whom I had last seen in an arm-chair by the drawing-room +fire at Shreelane, and now, in the role of the faithful St. Bernard, +was licking my face lavishly and disgustingly. Her attentions had the +traditional reviving effect. I sat up and dashed her from me, and in +so doing beheld my wife in the act of taking refuge in the frozen +ditch, as the cavalcade swept past, the phaeton and pony bringing up +the rear like artillery. + +"What has happened? Are you hurt?" she panted, speeding to me. + +"I am; very much hurt," I said, with what was, I think, justifiable +ill-temper, as I got gingerly on to my feet, almost annoyed to find +that my leg was not broken. + +"But, dearest Sinclair, _has_ he shot you? I got so frightened about +you that I bicycled over to-- Ugh! Good gracious!"--as she trod on +and into a mound of rabbits--"what are you doing with all these +horrible things?" + +I looked back in the direction from which I had come, and saw Mrs. Knox +advancing along the causeway arm-in-arm with the now inevitable +Sullivan (who, it may not be out of place to remind the reader, had +come to Aussolas early in the morning, with the pure and single +intention of buying apples). In Mrs. Knox's disengaged arm was +something that I discerned to be the bottle of potheen, and I instantly +resolved to minimise the extent of my injuries. Flurry, and various +items of the shooting party, were converging upon us from the wood by +as many and various short cuts. "I don't quite know what I am doing +with the rabbits," I replied, "but I rather think I'm giving them away." + +As I spoke something darted past Mrs. Knox, something that looked like +a bundle of rags in a cyclone, but was, as a matter of fact, my +faithful water-spaniel, Maria. She came on in zig-zag bounds, in short +maniac rushes. Twice she flung herself by the roadside and rolled, +driving her snout into the ground like the coulter of a plough. Her +eyes were starting from her head, her tail was tucked between her legs. +She bit, and tore frantically with her claws at the solid ice of a +puddle. + +"She's mad! She's gone mad!" exclaimed Philippa, snatching up as a +weapon something that looked like a frying-pan, but was, I believe, the +step of the phaeton. + +Maria was by this time near enough for me to discern a canary-coloured +substance masking her muzzle. + +"Yes, she's quite mad," I replied, possessed by a spirit of divination. +"She's been eating the rabbit curry." + +[Illustration: Chapter IV tailpiece] + + + + +V + +A CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE + +It has not often been my lot to be associated with a being of so +profound and rooted a pessimism as Michael Leary, Huntsman and +Kennelman to Mr. Flurry Knox's Fox-hounds. His attitude was that of +the one and only righteous man in a perfidious and dissolute world. +With, perhaps, the exception of Flurry Knox, he believed in no one save +himself. I was thoroughly aware of my inadequacy as Deputy-Master, and +cherished only a hope that Michael might look upon me as a kind of +Parsifal, a fool perhaps, yet at least a "blameless fool"; but during +my time of office there were many distressing moments in which I was +made to feel not only incapable, but culpable. + +Michael was small, sandy, green-eyed, freckled, and, I believe, +considerably junior to myself; he neither drank nor smoked, and he had +a blistering tongue. I have never tried more sincerely to earn any +one's good opinion. + +It was a pleasant afternoon towards the middle of December, and I was +paying my customary Sunday visit to the kennels to see the hounds fed. +What Michael called "the Throch" was nearly empty; the greedier of the +hounds were flitting from place to place in the line, in the undying +belief that others were better off than they. I was studying the row +of parti-coloured backs, and trying for the fiftieth time to fit each +with its name, when I was aware of a most respectable face, with grey +whiskers, regarding me from between the bars of the kennel door. + +With an effort not inferior to that with which I had just discriminated +between Guardsman and General, I recognised my visitor as Mr. Jeremiah +Flynn, a farmer, and a cattle dealer on a large scale, with whom I had +occasionally done business in a humble way. He was a District +Councillor, and a man of substance; he lived twenty miles away, at a +place on the coast called Knockeenbwee, in a flat-faced, two-storeyed +house of the usual type of hideousness. Once, when an unkind fate had +sent me to that region, I had heard the incongruous tinkle of a piano +proceeding from Mr. Flynn's mansion, as I drove past fighting an +umbrella against the wet wind that swept in from the Atlantic. + +"I beg your pardon, Major Yeates," began Mr. Flynn, with an agreeable +smile, which I saw in sections between the bars; "I had a little +business over this side of the country, and I took the liberty of +taking a stroll around to the kennels to see the hounds." + +I made haste to extend the hospitality of the feeding-yard to my +visitor, who accepted it with equal alacrity, and went on to remark +that it was wonderful weather for the time of year. Having obeyed this +primary instinct of mankind, Mr. Flynn embarked upon large yet able +compliments on the appearance of the hounds. His manners were +excellent; sufficiently robust to accord with his grey frieze coat and +flat-topped felt hat, and with just the extra touch of deference that +expressed his respect for my high qualities and position. + +"Ye have them in great form, Michael," he remarked, surveying the +hounds' bloated sides with a knowledgeable eye; "and upon me word, +there's our own poor Playboy! and a fine dog he is too!" + +[Illustration: "YE HAVE THEM IN GREAT FORM, MICHAEL"] + +"He is; and a fine dog to hunt rabbits!" said Michael, without a +relaxation of his drab countenance. + +"I daresay, Major, you didn't know that it was in my place that fellow +was rared?" continued Mr. Flynn. + +Owing to his providentially distinctive colouring of lemon and white, +Playboy was one of the hounds about whose identity I was never in +doubt. I was able to bestow a suitable glance upon him, and to recall +the fact of his having come from a trencher-fed pack, of which Mr. +Flynn was the ruling spirit, kept by the farmers in the wildernesses +beyond and around Knockeenbwee. + +"Ah! Mr. Knox was too smart for us over that hound!" pursued Mr. Flynn +pleasantly; "there was a small difference between himself and meself in +a matter of a few heifers I was buying off him--a thrifle of fifteen +shillings it was, I believe----" + +"Five and thirty," said Michael to the lash of his thong, in which he +was making a knot. + +"And I had to give him the pup before we could come to terms," ended my +visitor. + +Whether at fifteen or thirty-five shillings Playboy had been a cheap +hound. Brief, and chiefly ornamental, as my term of office had been, I +had learnt to know his voice in covert, and had learned also to act +upon it in moments of solitary and helpless ignorance as to what was +happening. This, however, was not the moment to sing his praises; I +preserved a careful silence. + +"I rared himself and his sister," said Mr. Flynn, patting Playboy +heavily, "but the sister died on me. I think 'twas from all she +fretted after the brother when he went, and 'twas a pity. Those two +had the old Irish breed in them; sure you'd know it by the colour, and +there's no more of them now in the country only the mother, and she had +a right to be shot this long time." + +"Come hounds," said Michael, interrupting this rhapsody, "open the +door, Bat." + +The pack swept out of the feeding-yard and were away on their wonted +constitutional in half a minute. + +"Grand training, grand training!" said Mr. Flynn admiringly, "they're a +credit to you, Major! It's impossible to have hounds anyway +disciplined running wild through the country the way our little pack +is. Indeed it came into my mind on the way here to try could I coax +you to come over and give us a day's hunting. We're destroyed with +foxes. Such marauding I never saw! As for turkeys and fowl, they're +tired of them, and it's my lambs they'll be after next!" + + +The moment of large and general acquiescence in Mr. Flynn's proposal +narrowed itself by imperceptible degrees to the moment, not properly +realised till it arrived, the horrid moment of getting up at a quarter +to seven on a December morning, in order to catch the early train for +Knockeenbwee. + +In the belief that I was acting in the interest of sport I had +announced at the last meet that there was to be a by-day at +Knockeenbwee. To say that the fact was received without enthusiasm is +to put it mildly. I was assured by one authority that I should have to +hunt the hounds from a steam launch; another, more sympathetic, +promised a drag, but tempered the encouragement by saying that the +walls there were all made of slates, and that by the end of the run the +skin would be hanging off the horses' legs like the skins of bananas. +Nothing short of a heart-to-heart appeal to my Whip, Dr. Jerome Hickey, +induced him to promise his support. Michael, from first to last, +remained an impenetrable thunder-cloud. The die, however, was cast, +and the hospitality of Mr. Flynn accepted. The eve of the by-day +arrived, and the Thundercloud and the hounds were sent on by road to +Knockeenbwee, accompanied by my ancient ally Slipper, who led my mare, +and rode Philippa's pony, which had been commandeered for the occasion. + +Next morning at 9.45 A.M. the train stopped by signal at the +flag-station of Moyny, a cheerless strip of platform, from which a dead +straight road retreated to infinity across a bog. An out side car was +being backed hard into the wall of the road by a long, scared rag of a +chestnut horse as Dr. Hickey and I emerged from the station, and its +driver was composing its anxieties as to the nature of trains by +beating it in the face with his whip. This, we were informed, was Mr. +Flynn's equipage, and, at a favourable moment in the conflict, Dr. +Hickey and I mounted it. + +"It's seldom the thrain stands here," said the driver apologetically, +as we started at a strong canter, "and this one's very frightful +always." + +The bog ditches fleeted by at some twelve miles an hour; they were the +softest, blackest, and deepest that I have ever seen, and I thanked +heaven that I was not in my red coat. + +"I suppose you never met the Miss Flynns?" murmured Dr. Hickey to me +across the well of the car. + +I replied in the negative. + +"Oh, they're very grand," went on my companion, with a wary eye on the +humped back of the driver, "I believe they never put their foot outside +the door unless they're going to Paris. Their father told me last week +that lords in the streets of Cork were asking who they were." + +"I suppose that was on their way to Paris," I suggested. + +"It was not," said the driver, with stunning unexpectedness, "'twas +when they went up on th'excursion last month for to have their teeth +pulled. G'wout o' that!" This to the horse, who had shied heavily at +a goat. + +Dr. Hickey and I sank into a stricken silence, five minutes of which, +at the pace we were travelling, sufficed to bring us to a little +plantation, shorn and bent by the Atlantic wind, low whitewashed walls, +an economical sweep of gravel, and an entrance gate constructed to fit +an outside car to an inch. From the moment that these came within the +range of vision the driver beat the horse with the handle of his whip, +a prelude, as we discovered, to the fact that a minor gate, obviously +and invitingly leading to the yard, lolled open on one hinge at the +outset of the plantation. There was a brief dissension, followed by a +hand gallop to the more fitting entrance; that we should find it too +fitting was a foregone conclusion, and Dr. Hickey whirled his legs on +to the seat at the moment when impact between his side of the car and +the gate post became inevitable. The bang that followed was a hearty +one, and the driver transmitted it to me in great perfection with his +elbow as he lurched on to me; there was a second and hollower bang as +the well of the car, detached by the shock, dropped on the axle and +turned over, flinging from it in its somersault a harlequinade +assortment of herrings, loaves of bread, and a band box. It was, I +think, a loaf of bread that hit the horse on the hocks, but under all +the circumstances even a herring would have been ample excuse for the +two sledge hammer kicks which he instantly administered to the +foot-board. While the car still hung in the gateway, a donkey, with a +boy sitting on the far end of its back, was suddenly mingled with the +episode. The boy was off the donkey's back and the driver was off mine +at apparently one and the same moment, and the car was somehow backed +off the pillar; as we scraped through the boy said something to the +driver in a brogue that was a shade more sophisticated than the peasant +tune. It seemed to me to convey the facts that Miss Lynie was waiting +for her hat, and that Maggie Kane was dancing mad for the soft sugar. +We proceeded to the house, leaving the ground strewn with what appeared +to be the elemental stage of a picnic. + +"I suppose you're getting him into form for the hunt, Eugene?" said Dr. +Hickey, as the lathered and panting chestnut came to a stand some ten +yards beyond the hall door. + +"Well, indeed, we thought it no harm to loosen him under the car before +Master Eddy went riding him," replied Eugene, "and begannies I'm not +done with him yet! I have to be before the masther at the next thrain." + +He shed us and our belongings on the steps, and drove away at a gallop. + +The meet had been arranged for half-past eleven. It was half-past ten +when Dr. Hickey and I were incarcerated in a dungeon-cold drawing-room +by a breathless being in tennis shoes, with her hair down her back, +doubtless Maggie Kane, hot from the war-dance brought on by the lack of +soft sugar. She told us in a gusty whisper that the masther would be +in shortly, and the ladies was coming down, and left us to meditate +upon our surroundings. + +A cascade of white paper flowed glacially from the chimney to the +fender; the gloom was Cimmerian, and unalterable, owing to the fact +that the blind was broken; the cold of a never occupied room ate into +our vitals. Footsteps pounded overhead and crept in the hall. The +house was obviously full of people, but no one came near us. Had it +not been for my companion's biographical comments on the photographs +with which the room was decked, all of them, it appeared, suitors of +the Misses Flynn, I think I should have walked back to the station. At +eleven o'clock the hurrying feet overhead were stilled, there was a +rustling in the hall as of a stage storm, and the daughters of the +house made their entry, wonderfully attired in gowns suggestive of a +theatre, or a tropical garden party, and in picture hats. As I viewed +the miracles of hairdressing, black as the raven's wing, the necklaces, +the bracelets, and the lavish top-dressing of powder, I wildly wondered +if Dr. Hickey and I should not have been in evening clothes. + +We fell to a laboured conversation, conducted upon the highest social +plane. The young ladies rolled their black eyes under arched eyebrows, +and in almost unimpeachable English accents supposed I found Ireland +very dull. They asked me if I often went to the London Opera. They +declared that when at home, music was their only resource, and made +such pointed reference to their Italian duetts that I found myself +trembling on the verge of asking them to sing. Dr. Hickey, under whose +wing I had proposed to shelter myself, remained sardonically aloof. A +blessed diversion was created by the entrance, at racing speed, of +Maggie Kane, bearing a trayful of burning sods of turf; the cascade was +torn from the chimney, and the tray was emptied into the grate. +Blinding smoke filled the room, and Maggie Kane murmured an imprecation +upon "jackdahs," their nests, and all their works. + +[Illustration: A TRAYFUL OF BURNING SODS OF TURF] + +The moment seemed propitious for escape; I looked at my watch, and said +that if they would kindly tell me the way to the yard I would go round +and see about things. + +The arched eyebrows went up a shade higher; the Misses Flynn said they +feared they hardly knew the way to the stables. + +Dr. Hickey rose. "Indeed it isn't easy to find them," he said, "but I +daresay the Major and myself will be able to make them out." + +When we got outside he looked down his long nose at me. + +"Stables indeed!" he said, "I hate that dirty little boasting!" + +Mr. Flynn's yard certainly did not at the first glance betray the +presence of stables. It consisted of an indeterminate assembly of +huts, with a long corrugated iron shed standing gauntly in the midst; +swamp of varying depths and shades occupied the intervals. From the +shed proceeded the lamentable and indignant clamours of the hounds, +against its door leaned Michael in his red coat, enacting, obviously, +the role of a righteous man constrained to have his habitation in the +tents of Kedar. A reverential knot of boys admired him from the wall +of a neighbouring pigsty; countrymen of all ages, each armed with a +stick and shadowed by a cur, more or less resembling a fox-hound, stood +about in patient groups; two or three dejected horses were nibbling, +unattended, at a hayrick. Of our host there was no sign. + +At the door of the largest hut Slipper was standing. + +"Come in and see the mare, Major," he called to me in his bantam-cock +voice as I approached. "Last night when we got in she was clean dead +altogether, but this morning when I was giving the feed to the pony she +retched out her neck and met her teeth in me poll! Oh, she's in great +heart now!" + +In confirmation of this statement a shrewish squeal from Lady Jane +proceeded from the interior. + +"Sure I slep' in the straw last night with herself and the pony. She'd +have him ate this morning only for me." + +The record of his devotion was here interrupted by a tremendous +rattling in the farm lane; it heralded the entrance of Mr. Flynn on his +outside car, drawn at full gallop by the young chestnut horse. + +"Oh, look at me, Major, how late I am!" shouted Mr. Flynn jovially, as +he scrambled off the car. "I declare you could light a candle at me +eye with the shame that's in it, as they say! I was back in +Curranhilty last night buying stock, and this was the first train I +could get. Well, well, the day's long and drink's plenty!" + +He bundled into a darksome hole, and emerged with a pair of dirty spurs +and a Malacca crop as heavy as a spade handle. + +"Michael! Did they tell you we have a fox for you in the hill north?" + +"I wasn't speaking to any of them," replied Michael coldly. + +"Well, your hounds will be speaking to him soon! Here, hurry boys, +pull out the horses!" + +His eye fell on the chestnut, upon whose reeking back Eugene was +cramming a saddle, while the boy who had met us at the entrance gate +was proffering to it a tin basin full of oats. + +"What are you doing with the young horse?" he roared. + +"I thought Master Eddy would ride him, sir," replied Eugene. + +"Well, he will not," said Mr. Flynn, conclusively; "the horse has +enough work done, and let you walk him about easy till he's cool. You +can folly the hunt then." + +Two more crestfallen countenances than those of the young gentlemen he +addressed it has seldom been my lot to see. The saddle was slowly +removed. Master Eddy, red up to the roots of his black hair, retired +silently with his basin of oats into the stable behind Slipper. Even +had I not seen his cuff go to his eyes I should have realised that life +would probably never hold for him a bitterer moment. + +The hounds were already surging out of the yard with a following wave, +composed of every living thing in sight. As I took Lady Jane from the +hand of Slipper, Philippa's pony gave a snort. Some touch of +Philippa's criminal weakness for boys assailed me. + +"That boy can ride the pony if he likes," I said to Slipper. + +I followed the hounds and their cortège down a deep and filthy lane. +Mr. Flynn was just in front of me, on a broad-beamed white horse, with +string-halt; three or four of the trencher-fed aliens slunk at his +heels, the mouth of a dingy horn protruded from his coat pocket. I +trembled in spirit as I thought of Michael. + +We were out at length into large and furzy spaces that slanted steeply +to the cliffs; like smuts streaming out of a chimney the followers of +the hunt belched from the lane and spread themselves over the pale +green slopes. From this point the proceedings became merged in total +incoherence. Accompanied, as it seemed, by the whole population of the +district, we moved _en masse_ along the top of the cliffs, while +hounds, curs, and boys strove and scrambled below us, over rocks and +along ledges, which, one might have thought, would have tried the head +of a seagull. Two successive bursts of yelling notified the capture +and slaughter of two rabbits; in the first hour and a half I can recall +no other achievement. + +It was, however, evident that hunting, in its stricter sense, was +looked on as a mere species of side show by the great majority of the +field; the cream of the entertainment was found in the negotiation of +such jumps as fell to the lot of the riders. These were neither +numerous nor formidable, but the storm of cheers that accompanied each +performance would have dignified the win of a Grand National favourite. + +To Master Eddy, on Philippa's pony, it was apparent that the birthday +of his life had come. Attended by Slipper and a howling company of +boon companions, he and the pony played a glorified game of pitch and +toss, in which, as it seemed to me, heads never turned up. It +certainly was an adverse circumstance that the pony's mane had, the day +before, been hogged to the bore, so that at critical moments the rider +slid, unchecked, from saddle to ears, but the boon companions, who +themselves jumped like antelopes, stride for stride with the pony, +replaced him unfailingly with timely snatches at whatever portion of +his frame first offered itself. + +Music, even, was not wanting to our progress. A lame fiddler, on a +donkey, followed in our wake, filling Michael's cup of humiliation to +the brim, by playing jigs during our frequent moments of inaction. The +sun pushed its way out of the grey sky, the sea was grey, with a broad +and flashing highway to the horizon, a frayed edge of foam tracked the +broken coast-line, seagulls screamed and swooped, and the grass on the +cliff summits was wondrous green. Old Flynn, on his white horse, +moving along the verge, and bleating shrilly upon his horn to the +hounds below, became idyllic. + +I believe that I ought to have been in a towering passion, and should +have swept the hounds home in a flood of blasphemy; as a matter of fact +I enjoyed myself. Even Dr. Hickey admitted that it was as pleasant a +day for smoking cigarettes as he had ever been out. + +It must have been nearly three o'clock when one of Mr. Flynn's hounds, +a venerable lady of lemon and white complexion, poked her lean head +through furze-bushes at the top of the cliff, and came up on to the +level ground. + +"That's old Terrible, Playboy's mother," remarked Dr. Hickey, "and a +great stamp of an old hound too, but she can't run up now. Flynn tells +me when she's beat out she'll sit down and yowl on the line, she's that +fond of it." + +Meantime Terrible was becoming busier and looking younger every moment, +as she zigzagged up and across the trampled field towards the hillside. +Dr. Hickey paused in the lighting of what must have been his tenth +cigarette. + +"If we were in a Christian country," he said, "you'd say she had a +line----" + +Old Flynn came pounding up on his white horse, and rode slowly up the +hill behind Terrible, who silently pursued her investigations. Fifty +or sixty yards higher up, my eye lighted on something that might have +been a rusty can, or a wisp of bracken, lying on the sunny side of a +bank. As I looked, it moved, and slid away over the top of the bank. +A yell, followed by a frenzied tootling on Mr. Flynn's ancient horn, +told that he had seen it too, and, in a bedlam of shrieks, chaos was +upon us. Through an inextricable huddle of foot people the hounds came +bursting up from the cliffs, fighting every foot of ground with the +country-boys, yelping with the contagion of excitement, they broke +through, and went screaming up the hill to old Terrible, who was +announcing her find in deep and continuous notes. + +How Lady Jane got over the first bank without trampling Slipper and two +men under foot is known only to herself; as I landed, Master Eddy and +the pony banged heavily into me from the rear, the pony having once and +for all resolved not to be sundered by more than a yard from his stable +companion of the night before. I can safely say that I have never seen +hounds run faster than did Mr. Knox's and the trencher-feds, in that +brief scurry from the cliffs at Knockeenbwee. By the time we had +crossed the second fence the foot people were gone, like things in a +dream. In front of me was Michael, and, in spite of Michael's spurs, +in front of Michael was old Flynn, holding the advantage of his start +with a most admirable jealousy. The white horse got over the ground in +bucks like a rabbit, the string-halt lending an additional fire to his +gait; on every bank his great white hind-quarters stood up against the +sky, like the gable end of a chapel. Had I had time to think of +anything, I should have repented acutely of having lent Master Eddy the +pony, who was practically running away. Twice I replaced his rider in +the saddle with one hand, as he landed off a fence under my stirrup. +Master Eddy had lost his cap and whip, his hair was full of mud, pure +ecstasy stretched his grin from ear to ear, and broke from him in +giggles of delight. + +[Illustration: PURE ECSTASY STRETCHED HIS GRIN FROM EAR TO EAR] + +Providentially, it was, as I have said, only a scurry. It seemed that +we had run across the neck of a promontory, and in ten minutes we were +at the cliffs again, the company reduced to old Flynn, his son, and the +Hunt establishment. Below us Moyny Bay was spread forth, enclosing in +its span a big green island; between us and the island was a good +hundred yards of mud, plump-looking mud, with channels in it. Deep in +this the hounds were wading; some of them were already ashore on the +island, struggling over black rocks thatched with yellow seaweed, their +voices coming faintly back to us against the wind. The white horse's +tail was working like a fan, and we were all, horses and men, blowing +hard enough to turn a windmill. + +"That's better fun than to be eating your dinner!" puffed Mr. Flynn, +purple with pride and heat, as he lowered himself from the saddle. +"There isn't a hound in Ireland would take that stale line up from the +cliff only old Terrible!" + +"What will we do now, sir?" said Michael to me, presenting the +conundrum with colourless calm, and ignoring the coat-tail trailed for +his benefit, "we'll hardly get them out of that island to-night." + +"I suppose you know you're bare-footed, Major?" put in Hickey, my other +Job's comforter, from behind. "Your two fore-shoes are gone." + +A December day is not good for much after half-past three. For half an +hour the horns of Michael and old Flynn blew their summons antiphonally +into the immensities of sea and sky, and summoned only the sunset, and +after it the twilight; the hounds remained unresponsive, invisible. + +"There's rabbits enough in that island to keep ten packs of hounds busy +for a month," said Mr. Flynn; "the last time I was there I thought +'twas the face of the field was running from me. And what was it after +all but the rabbits!" + +"_My_ hounds wouldn't hunt rabbits if they were throwing after them," +said Michael ferociously. + +"Oh, I suppose it's admiring the view they are!" riposted Mr. Flynn; "I +tell ye now, Major, there's a man on the strand below has a +flat-bottomed boat, and here's Eugene just come up, I'll send him over +with the horn as soon as there's water enough, and he'll flog them out +of it." + +The tide crept slowly in over the mud, and a young moon was sending a +slender streak of light along it through the dusk before Eugene had +accomplished his mission. + +The boat returned at last across the channel with a precarious cargo of +three hounds, while the rest splashed and swam after her. + +"I have them all, only one," shouted Eugene as he jumped ashore, and +came scrambling up the steep slants and shaley ledges of the cliff. + +"I hope it isn't Terrible ye left after ye?" roared Mr. Flynn. + +"Faith, I don't know which is it it is. I seen him down from me +floating in the tide. It must be he was clifted. I think 'tis one of +Major Yeates's. We have our own whatever." + +A cold feeling ran down my back. Michael and Hickey silently conned +over the pack in the growing darkness, striking matches and shielding +them in their hands as they told off one hound after another, hemmed in +by an eager circle of countrymen. + +"It's Playboy's gone," said Michael, with awful brevity. "I suppose we +may go home now, sir?" + +"Ah! hold on, hold on," put in Mr. Flynn, "are ye sure now, Eugene, it +wasn't a sheep ye saw? I wouldn't wish it for five pounds that the +Major lost a hound by us." + +"Did ye ever see a sheep with yalla spots on her?" retorted Eugene. + +A shout of laughter instantly broke from the circle of sympathisers. I +mounted Lady Jane in gloomy silence; there was nothing for it but to +face the long homeward road, minus Flurry Knox's best hound, and with +the knowledge that while I lived this day's work would not be forgotten +to me by him, by Dr. Hickey, and by Michael. + +It was Hickey who reminded me that I was also minus two fore-shoes, and +that it was an eighteen mile ride. On my responding irritably that I +was aware of both facts, and would get the mare shod at the forge by +the station, Mr. Flynn, whose voluble and unceasing condolences had not +been the least of my crosses, informed me that the smith had gone away +to his father-in-law's wake, and that there wasn't another forge +between that and Skebawn. + +The steps by which the final disposition of events was arrived at need +not here be recounted. It need only be said that every star went out +of its course to fight against me; even the special luminary that +presided over the Curranhilty and Skebawn branch railway was hostile; I +was told that the last train did not run except on Saturdays. +Therefore it was that, in a blend of matchlight and moonlight, a +telegram was written to Philippa, and, at the hour at which Dr. Hickey, +the hounds, and Michael were nearing their journey's end, I was seated +at the Knockeenbwee dinner-table, tired, thoroughly annoyed, devoured +with sleep, and laboriously discoursing of London and Paris with the +younger Miss Flynn. + +A meal that had opened at six with strong tea, cold mutton, and bottled +porter, was still, at eight o'clock, in slow but unceasing progress, +suggesting successive inspirations on the part of the cook. At about +seven we had had mutton chops and potatoes, and now, after an abysmal +interval of conversation, we were faced by a roast goose and a rice +pudding with currants in it. Through all these things had gone the +heavy sounds and crashes that betokened the conversion of the +drawing-room into a sleeping-place for me. There was, it appeared, no +spare room in the house; I felt positively abject at the thought of the +trouble I was inflicting. My soul abhorred the roast goose, and was +yet conscious that the only possible acknowledgment of the hospitality +that was showered upon me, was to eat my way unflinchingly through all +that was put upon my plate. + +It must have been nine o'clock before we turned our backs upon the +pleasures of the table, and settled down to hot whisky-punch over a +fierce turf fire. Then ensued upon my part one of the most prolonged +death-grapples with sleep that it has been my lot to endure. The +conversation of Mr. Flynn and his daughters passed into my brain like a +narcotic; after circling heavily round various fashionable topics, it +settled at length upon croquet, and it was about here that I began to +slip from my moorings and drift softly towards unconsciousness. I +pulled myself up on the delicious verge of a dream to agree with the +statement that "croquet was a fright! You'd boil a leg of mutton while +you'd be waiting for your turn!" + +Following on this came a period of oblivion, and then an agonised +recovery. Where were we? Thank heaven, we were still at the croquet +party, and Miss Lynie's narrative was continuing. + +"That was the last place I saw Mary. Oh, she was mad! She was mad +with me! 'I was born a lady,' says she, 'and I'll die a lady!' I +never saw her after that day." + +Miss Lynie, with an elegantly curved little finger, finished her +wine-glass of toddy and awaited my comment. + +I was, for the instant, capable only of blinking like an owl, but was +saved from disaster by Mr. Flynn. + +"Indeed ye had no loss," he remarked. "She's like a cow that gives a +good pail o' milk and spoils all by putting her leg in it!" + +I said, "Quite so--exactly," while the fire, old Flynn, and the picture +of a Pope over the chimney-piece, swam back into their places with a +jerk. + +The tale, or whatever it was, wound on. Nodding heavily, I heard how +"Mary," at some period of her remarkable career, had been found +"bawling in the kitchen" because Miss Flynn had refused to kiss her on +both cheeks when she was going to bed, and of how, on that repulse, +Mary had said that Miss Flynn was "squat." I am thankful to say that I +retained sufficient control of my faculties to laugh ironically. + +I think the story must then have merged into a description of some sort +of entertainment, as I distinctly remember Miss Lynie saying that they +"played 'Lodging-houses'--it was young Scully from Ennis made us do +it--a very vulgar game _I_ call it." + +"I don't like that pullin' an' draggin'," said Mr. Flynn. + +I did not feel called upon to intrude my opinion upon the remarkable +pastime in question, and the veils of sleep once more swathed me +irresistibly in their folds. It seemed very long afterwards that the +clang of a fire-iron pulled me up with what I fear must have been an +audible snort. Old Flynn was standing up in front of the fire; he had +obviously reached the climax of a narrative, he awaited my comment. + +"That--that must have been very nice," I said desperately. + +"Nice!" echoed Mr. Flynn, and his astounded face shocked me into +consciousness; "sure she might have burned the house down!" + +What the catastrophe may have been I shall never know, nor do I +remember how I shuffled out of the difficulty; I only know that at this +point I abandoned the unequal struggle, and asked if I might go to bed. + +The obligations of a troublesome and self-inflicted guest seal my lips +as to the expedients by which the drawing-room had been converted into +a sleeping-place for me. But though gratitude may enforce silence, it +could not enforce sleep. The paralysing drowsiness of the parlour +deserted me at the hour of need. The noises in the kitchen ceased, old +Flynn pounded up to bed, the voices of the young ladies overhead died +away, and the house sank into stillness, but I grew more wakeful every +moment. I heard the creeping and scurrying of rats in the walls, I +counted every tick, and cursed every quarter told off by a pragmatical +cuckoo clock in the hall. By the time it had struck twelve I was on +the verge of attacking it with the poker. + +I suppose I may have dozed a little, but I was certainly aware that a +long track of time had elapsed since it had struck two, when a faint +but regular creaking of the staircase impressed itself upon my ear. It +was followed by a stealing foot in the hall; a hand felt over the door, +and knocked very softly. I sat up in my diminutive stretcher-bed and +asked who was there. The handle was turned, and a voice at the crack +of the door said "It's me!" + +Even in the two monosyllables I recognised the accents of the son of +the house. + +"I want to tell you something," pursued the voice. + +I instantly surmised all possibilities of disaster; Slipper drunk and +overlaid by Lady Jane, Philippa's pony dead from over-exertion, or even +a further instalment of the evening meal, only now arrived at +completion. + +"What's the matter? Is anything wrong?" I demanded, raising myself in +the trough of the bed. + +"There is not; but I want to speak to you." + +I had by this time found the matches, and my candle revealed Eddy +Flynn, fully dressed save for his boots, standing in the doorway. He +crept up to my bedside with elaborate stealth. + +"Well, what is it?" I asked, attuning my voice to a conspirator's +whisper. + +"Playboy's above stairs!" + +"Playboy!" I repeated incredulously, "what do you mean?" + +"Eugene cot him. He's above in Eugene's room now," said the boy, his +face becoming suddenly scarlet. + +"Do you mean that he wasn't killed?" I demanded, instantly allocating +in my own mind half a sovereign to Eugene. + +"He wasn't in the island at all," faltered Master Eddy, "Eugene cot him +below on the cliffs when the hounds went down in it at the first go +off, and he hid him back in the house here." + +The allotment of the half-sovereign was abruptly cancelled. + +I swallowed my emotions with some difficulty. + +"Well," I said, after an awkward pause, "I'm very much obliged to you +for telling me. I'll see your father about it in the morning." + +Master Eddy did not accept this as a dismissal. He remained +motionless, except for his eyes that sought refuge anywhere but on my +face. + +There was a silence for some moments; he was almost inaudible as he +said: + +"It would be better for ye to take him now, and to give him to Slipper. +I'd be killed if they knew I let on he was here." Then, as an +afterthought, "Eugene's gone to the wake." + +The inner aspect of the affair began to reveal itself, accompanied by a +singularly unbecoming side light on old Flynn. I perceived also the +useful part that had been played by Philippa's pony, but it did not +alter the fact that Master Eddy was showing his gratitude like a hero. +The situation was, however, too delicate to admit of comment. + +"Very well," I said, without any change of expression, "will you bring +the dog down to me?" + +"I tried to bring him down with me, but he wouldn't let me put a hand +on him." + +I hastily got into the few garments of which I had not divested myself +before getting into the misnamed stretcher-bed, aware that the horrid +task was before me of burglariously probing the depths of Eugene's +bedroom, and acutely uncertain as to Playboy's reception of me. + +"There's a light above in the room," said Master Eddy, with a dubious +glance at the candle in my hand. + +I put it down, and followed him into the dark hall. + +I have seldom done a more preposterous thing than creep up old Flynn's +stairs in the small hours of the morning, in illicit search for my own +property; but, given the dual determination to recover Playboy, and to +shield my confederate, I still fail to see that I could have acted +otherwise. + +We reached the first landing; it vibrated reassuringly with the +enormous snores of Mr. Flynn. Master Eddy's cold paw closed on my +hand, and led me to another and steeper flight of stairs. At the top +of these was a second landing, or rather passage, at the end of which a +crack of light showed under a door. A dim skylight told that the roof +was very near my head; I extended a groping hand for the wall, and +without any warning found my fingers closing improbably, awfully, upon +a warm human face. I defy the most hardened conspirator to have +refrained from some expression of opinion. + +"Good Lord!" I gasped, starting back, and knocking my head hard against +a rafter. "What's that?" + +"It's Maggie Kane, sir!" hissed a female voice. "I'm after bringing up +a bone for the dog to quieten him!" + +That Maggie Kane should also be in the plot was a complication beyond +my stunned intelligence; I grasped only the single fact that she was an +ally, endued with supernatural and sympathetic forethought. She placed +in my hand a tepid and bulky fragment, which, even in the dark, I +recognised as the mighty drumstick of last night's goose; at the same +moment Master Eddy opened the door, and revealed Playboy, tied to the +leg of a low wooden bedstead. + +He was standing up, his eyes gleamed green as emeralds, he looked as +big as a calf. He obviously regarded himself as the guardian of +Eugene's bower, and I failed to see any recognition of me in his +aspect, in point of fact he appeared to be on the verge of an outburst +of suspicion that would waken the house once and for all. We held a +council of war in whispers that perceptibly increased his distrust; I +think it was Maggie Kane who suggested that Master Eddy should proffer +him the bone while I unfastened the rope. The strategy succeeded, +almost too well in fact. Following the alluring drumstick Playboy +burst into the passage, towing me after him on the rope. Still +preceded by the light-footed Master Eddy, he took me down the attic +stairs at a speed which was the next thing to a headlong fall, while +Maggie Kane held the candle at the top. As we stormed past old Flynn's +door I was aware that the snoring had ceased, but "the pace was too +good to enquire." We scrimmaged down the second flight into the +darkness of the hall, fetching up somewhere near the clock, which, as +if to give the alarm, uttered three loud and poignant cuckoos. I think +Playboy must have sprung at it, in the belief that it was the voice of +the drumstick; I only know that my arm was nearly wrenched from its +socket, and that the clock fell with a crash from the table to the +floor, where, by some malevolence of its machinery, it continued to +cuckoo with jocund and implacable persistence. Something that was not +Playboy bumped against me. The cuckoo's note became mysteriously +muffled, and a door, revealing a fire-lit kitchen, was shoved open. We +struggled through it, bound into a sheaf by Playboy's rope, and in our +midst the cuckoo clock, stifled but indomitable, continued its protest +from under Maggie Kane's shawl. + +In the kitchen we drew breath for the first time, and Maggie Kane put +the cuckoo clock into a flour bin; the house remained still as the +grave. Master Eddy opened the back door; behind his head the Plough +glittered wakefully in a clear and frosty sky. It was uncommonly cold. + +Slipper had not gone to the wake, and was quite sober. I shall never +forget it to him. I told him that Playboy had come back, and was to be +taken home at once. He asked no inconvenient questions, but did not +deny himself a most dissolute wink. We helped him to saddle the pony, +while Playboy crunched his hard-earned drumstick in the straw. In less +than ten minutes he rode quietly away in the starlight, with Playboy +trotting at his stirrup, and Playboy's rope tied to his arm. + +[Illustration: HE DID NOT DENY HIMSELF A MOST DISSOLUTE WINK] + +I did not meet Mr. Flynn at breakfast; he had started early for a +distant fair. I have, however, met him frequently since then, and we +are on the best of terms. We have not shirked allusions to the day's +hunting at Knockeenbwee, but Playboy has not on these occasions been +mentioned by either of us. + +I understand that Slipper has put forth a version of the story, in +which the whole matter is resolved into a trial of wits between himself +and Eugene. With this I have not interfered. + + + + +VI + +THE BOAT'S SHARE + +I was sitting on the steps of Shreelane House, smoking a cigarette +after breakfast. By the calendar, the month was November, by the map +it was the South-west of Ireland, but by every token that hot sun and +soft breeze could offer it was the Riviera in April. + +Maria, my wife's water spaniel, elderly now, but unimpaired in figure, +and in character merely fortified in guile by the castigations of seven +winters, reclined on the warm limestone flags beside me. Minx, the +nursery fox-terrier, sat, as was her practice, upon Maria's ribs, +nodding in slumber. All was peace. + +Peace, I say, but even as I expanded in it and the sunshine, there +arose to me from the kitchen window in the area the voice of Mrs. +Cadogan, uplifted in passionate questioning. + +"Bridgie!" it wailed. "Where's me beautiful head and me lovely feet?" + +The answer to this amazing inquiry travelled shrilly from the region of +the scullery. + +"Bilin' in the pot, ma'am." + +I realised that it was merely soup in its elemental stage that was +under discussion, but Peace spread her wings at the cry; it recalled +the fact that Philippa was having a dinner party that same night. In a +small establishment such as mine, a dinner party is an affair of many +aspects, all of them serious. The aspect of the master of the house, +however, is not serious, it is merely contemptible. Having got out the +champagne, and reverentially decanted the port, there remains for him +no further place in the proceedings, no moment in which his presence is +desired. If, at such a time, I wished to have speech with my wife, she +was not to be found; if I abandoned the search and stationed myself in +the hall, she would pass me, on an average, twice in every three +minutes, generally with flowers in her hands, always with an expression +so rapt as to abash all questionings. I therefore sat upon the steps +and read the paper, superfluous to all save the dogs, to whom I at +least offered a harbourage in the general stress. + +Suddenly, and without a word of warning, Minx and Maria were converted +from a slumbrous mound into twin comets--comets that trailed a +continuous shriek of rage as they flew down the avenue. The cause of +the affront presently revealed itself, in the form of a tall woman, +with a shawl over her head, and a basket on her arm. She advanced +unfalteringly, Minx walking on her hind legs beside her, as if in a +circus, attentively smelling the basket, while Maria bayed her at large +in the background. She dropped me a curtsey fit for the Lord +Lieutenant. + +"Does your Honour want any fish this morning?" Her rippling grey hair +gleamed like silver in the sunlight, her face was straight-browed and +pale, her grey eyes met mine with respectful self-possession. She +might have been Deborah the prophetess, or the Mother of the Gracchi; +as a matter of fact I recognised her as a certain Mrs. Honora Brickley, +mother of my present kitchen-maid, a lady whom, not six months before, +I had fined in a matter of trespass and assault. + +"They're lovely fish altogether!" she pursued, "they're leppin' fresh!" + +[Illustration: "THEY'RE LOVELY FISH ALTOGETHER! THEY'RE LEPPIN' +FRESH!"] + +Here was the chance to make myself useful. I called down the area and +asked Mrs. Cadogan if she wanted fish. (It may or may not be necessary +to mention that my cook's name is locally pronounced "Caydogawn.") + +"What fish is it, sir?" replied Mrs. Cadogan, presenting at the kitchen +window a face like a harvest moon. + +"'Tis pollock, ma'am!" shouted Mrs. Brickley from the foot of the steps. + +"'Sha! thim's no good to us!" responded the harvest moon in bitter +scorn. "Thim's not company fish!" + +I was here aware of the presence of my wife in the doorway, with a +menu-slate in one hand, and one of my best silk pocket handkerchiefs, +that had obviously been used as a duster, in the other. + +"Filleted with white sauce--" she murmured to herself, a world of +thought in her blue eyes, "or perhaps quenelles----" + +Mrs. Brickley instantly extracted a long and shapely pollock from her +basket, and, with eulogies of its beauty, of Philippa's beauty, and of +her own magnanimity in proffering her wares to us instead of to a +craving market in Skebawn, laid it on the steps. + +At this point a series of yells from the nursery, of the usual +blood-curdling description, lifted Philippa from the scene of action as +a wind whirls a feather. + +"Buy them!" came back to me from the stairs. + +I kept to myself my long-formed opinion that eating pollock was like +eating boiled cotton wool with pins in it, and the bargain proceeded. +The affair was almost concluded, when Mrs. Brickley, in snatching a +fish from the bottom of her basket to complete an irresistible +half-dozen, let it slip from her fingers. It fell at my feet, +revealing a mangled and gory patch on its side. + +"Why, then, that's the best fish I have!" declared Mrs. Brickley in +response to my protest. "That's the very one her honour Mrs. Yeates +would fancy! She'd always like to see the blood running fresh!" + +This flight of sympathetic insight did not deter me from refusing the +injured pollock, coupled with a regret that Mrs. Brickley's cat should +have been interrupted in its meal. + +Mrs. Brickley did not immediately reply. She peeped down the area, she +glanced into the hall. + +"Cat is it!" she said, sinking her voice to a mysterious whisper. +"Your Honour knows well, God bless you, that it was no cat done that!" + +Obedient to the wholly fallacious axiom that those who ask no questions +will be told no lies, I remained silent. + +"Only for the luck of God being on me they'd have left meself no +betther than they left the fish!" continued Mrs. Brickley. "Your +Honour didn't hear what work was in it on Hare Island Strand last +night? Thim Keohanes had the wooden leg pulled from undher me husband +with the len'th o' fightin'! Oh! Thim's outlawed altogether, and the +faymales is as manly as the men! Sure the polis theirselves does be in +dhread of thim women! The day-and-night-screeching porpoises!" + +Seven years of Resident Magistracy had bestowed upon me some +superficial knowledge of whither all this tended. I rose from the +steps, with the stereotyped statement that if there was to be a case in +court I could not listen to it beforehand. I then closed the hall +door, not, however, before Mrs. Brickley had assured me that I was the +only gentleman, next to the Lord Almighty, in whom she had any +confidence. + +The next incident in the affair occurred at about a quarter to eight +that evening. I was tying my tie when my wife's voice summoned me to +her room in tones that presaged disaster. Philippa was standing erect, +in a white and glittering garment. Her eyes shone, her cheeks glowed. +It is not given to every one to look their best when they are angry, +but it undoubtedly is becoming to Philippa. + +"I ask you to look at my dress," she said in a level voice. + +"It looks very nice----" I said cautiously, knowing there was a trap +somewhere. "I know it, don't I?" + +"Know it!" replied Philippa witheringly, "did you know that it had only +one sleeve?" + +She extended her arms; from one depended vague and transparent films of +whiteness, the other was bare to the shoulder. I rather preferred it +of the two. + +"Well, I can't say I did," I said helplessly, "is that a new fashion?" + +There was a spectral knock at the door, and Hannah, the housemaid, slid +into the room, purple of face, abject of mien. + +"It's what they're afther tellin' me, ma'am," she panted. "'Twas took +to sthrain the soup!" + +"They took my sleeve to strain the soup!" repeated Philippa, in a +crystal clarity of wrath. + +"She said she got it in the press in the passage, ma'am, and she +thought you were afther throwin' it," murmured Hannah, with a glance +that implored my support. + +"Who are you speaking of?" demanded Philippa, looking quite six feet +high. + +The situation, already sufficiently acute, was here intensified by the +massive entry of Mrs. Cadogan, bearing in her hand a plate, on which +was a mound of soaked brownish rag. She was blowing hard, the glare of +the kitchen range at highest power lived in her face. + +"There's your sleeve, ma'am!" she said, "and if I could fall down dead +this minute it'd be no more than a relief to me! And as for Bridgie +Brickley!" continued Mrs. Cadogan, catching her wind with a gasp, "I +thravelled many genthry's kitchens, but thanks be to God, I never seen +the like of her! Five weeks to-morrow she's in this house, and there +isn't a day but I gave her a laceratin'! Sure the hair's droppin' out +o' me head, and the skin rollin' off the soles o' me feet with the +heart scald I get with her! The big, low, dirty buccaneer! And I +declare to you, ma'am, and to the Major, that I have a pain switching +out through me hips this minute that'd bring down a horse!" + +"Oh God!" said Hannah, clapping her hand over her mouth. + +My eye met Philippa's; some tremor of my inward agony declared itself, +and found its fellow on her quivering lips. In the same instant, +wheels rumbled in the avenue. + +"Here are the Knoxes!" I exclaimed, escaping headlong from the room +with my dignity as master of the house still intact. + +Dinner, though somewhat delayed by these agitations, passed off +reasonably well. Its occasion was the return from the South African +war of my landlord and neighbour, Mr. Florence McCarthy Knox, M.F.H., +J.P., who had been serving his country in the Yeomanry for the past +twelve months. The soup gave no hint of its cannibalistic origin, and +was of a transparency that did infinite credit to the services of +Philippa's sleeve; the pollock, chastely robed in white sauce, held no +suggestion of a stormy past, nor, it need scarcely be said, did they +foreshadow their influence on my future. As they made their circuit of +the table I aimed a communing glance at my wife, who, serene in pale +pink and conversation with Mr. Knox, remained unresponsive. + +How the volcano that I knew to be raging below in the kitchen could +have brought forth anything more edible than molten paving stones I was +at a loss to imagine. Had Mrs. Cadogan sent up Bridget Brickley's head +as an _entremet_ it would not, indeed, have surprised me. I could not +know that as the gong sounded for dinner Miss Brickley had retired to +her bed in strong hysterics, announcing that she was paralysed, while +Mrs. Cadogan, rapt by passion to an ecstasy of achievement, coped +single-handed with the emergency. + +At breakfast time next morning Philippa and I were informed that the +invalid had at an early hour removed herself and her wardrobe from the +house, requisitioning for the purpose my donkey-cart and the attendance +of my groom, Peter Cadogan; a proceeding on which the comments of +Peter's aunt, Mrs. Cadogan, left nothing to be desired. + +[Illustration: THE INVALID REMOVED HERSELF] + +The affair on the strand at Hare Island ripened, with infinite +complexity of summonses and cross-summonses, into an imposing Petty +Sessions case. Two separate deputations presented themselves at +Shreelane, equipped with black eyes and other conventional injuries, +one of them armed with a creelful of live lobsters to underline the +argument. To decline the bribe was of no avail: the deputation +decanted them upon the floor of the hall and retired, and the lobsters +spread themselves at large over the house, and to this hour remain the +nightmare of the nursery. + +The next Petty Sessions day was wet; the tall windows of the Court +House were grey and streaming, and the reek of wet humanity ascended to +the ceiling. As I took my seat on the bench I perceived with an inward +groan that the services of the two most eloquent solicitors in Skebawn +had been engaged. This meant that Justice would not have run its +course till heaven knew what dim hour of the afternoon, and that that +course would be devious and difficult. + +All the pews and galleries (any Irish courthouse might, with the +addition of a harmonium, pass presentably as a dissenting chapel) were +full, and a line of flat-capped policemen stood like church-wardens +near the door. Under the galleries, behind what might have answered to +choir-stalls, the witnesses and their friends hid in darkness, which +could, however, but partially conceal two resplendent young ladies, +barmaids, who were to appear in a subsequent Sunday drinking case. I +was a little late, and when I arrived Flurry Knox, supported by a +couple of other magistrates, was in the chair, imperturbable of +countenance as was his wont, his fair and delusive youthfulness of +aspect unimpaired by his varied experiences during the war, his roving, +subtle eye untamed by four years of matrimony. + +A woman was being examined, a square and ugly country-woman, with wispy +fair hair, a slow, dignified manner, and a slight and impressive +stammer. I recognised her as one of the bodyguard of the lobsters. +Mr. Mooney, solicitor for the Brickleys, widely known and respected as +"Roaring Jack," was in possession of that much-enduring organ, the ear +of the Court. + +"Now, Kate Keohane!" he thundered, "tell me what time it was when all +this was going on?" + +"About duskish, sir. Con Brickley was slashing the f-fish at me mother +the same time. He never said a word but to take the shtick and fire me +dead with it on the sthrand. He gave me plenty of blood to dhrink +too," said the witness with acid decorum. She paused to permit this +agreeable fact to sink in, and added, "his wife wanted to f-fashten on +me the same time, an' she havin' the steer of the boat to sthrike me." + +These were not precisely the facts that Mr. Murphy, as solicitor for +the defence, wished to elicit. + +"Would you kindly explain what you mean by the steer of the boat?" he +demanded, sparring for wind in as intimidating a manner as possible. +The witness stared at him. + +"Sure 'tis the shtick, like, that they pulls here and there to go in +their choice place." + +"We may presume that the lady is referring to the tiller," said Mr. +Mooney, with a facetious eye at the Bench. "Maybe now, ma'am, you can +explain to us what sort of a boat is she?" + +"She's that owld that if it wasn't for the weeds that's holding her +together she'd bursht up in the deep." + +"And who owns this valuable property?" pursued Mr. Mooney. + +"She's between Con Brickley and me brother, an' the saine is between +four, an' whatever crew does be in it should get their share, and the +boat has a man's share." + +I made no attempt to comprehend this, relying with well-founded +confidence on Flurry Knox's grasp of such enigmas. + +"Was Con Brickley fishing the same day?" + +"He was not, sir. He was at Lisheen Fair; for as clever as he is, he +couldn't kill two birds under one slat!" + +Kate Keohane's voice moved unhurried from sentence to sentence and her +slow pale eyes turned for an instant to the lair of the witnesses under +the gallery. + +"And you're asking the Bench to believe that this decent man left his +business in Lisheen in order to slash fish at your mother?" said Mr. +Mooney truculently. + +"B'lieve me, sorra much business he laves afther him wherever he'll +go!" returned the witness, "himself and his wife had business enough on +the sthrand when the fish was dividing, and it's then themselves put +every name on me." + +"Ah, what harm are names!" said Mr. Mooney, dallying elegantly with a +massive watch-chain. "Come now, ma'am! will you swear you got any +ill-usage from Con Brickley or his wife?" He leaned over the front of +his pew, and waited for the answer with his massive red head on one +side. + +"I was givin' blood like a c-cow that ye'd shtab with a knife!" said +Kate Keohane, with unshaken dignity. "If it was yourself that was in +it ye'd feel the smart as well as me. My hand and word on it, ye +would! The marks is on me head still, like the prints of dog-bites!" + +She lifted a lock of hair from her forehead, and exhibited a +sufficiently repellant injury. Flurry Knox leaned forward. + +"Are you sure you haven't that since the time there was that business +between yourself and the postmistress at Munig? I'm told you had the +name of the office on your forehead where she struck you with the +office stamp! Try now, sergeant, can you read Munig on her forehead?" + +The Court, not excepting its line of church-wardens, dissolved into +laughter; Kate Keohane preserved an offended silence. + +"I suppose you want us to believe," resumed Mr. Mooney sarcastically, +"that a fine hearty woman like you wasn't defending yourself!" Then +with a turkey-cock burst of fury, "On your oath now! What did you +strike Honora Brickley with? Answer me that now! What had you in your +hand?" + +"I had nothing only the little rod I had afther the ass," answered Miss +Keohane, with childlike candour. "I done nothing to them; but as for +Con Brickley he put his back to the cliff and he took the flannel wrop +that he had on him, and he threwn it on the sthrand, and he said he +should have Blood, Murdher, or F-Fish!" + +She folded her shawl across her breast, a picture of virtue assailed, +yet unassailable. + +"You may go down now," said "Roaring Jack" rather hastily, "I want to +have a few words with your brother." + +Miss Keohane retired, without having moulted a feather of her dignity, +and her brother Jer came heavily up the steps and on to the platform, +his hot, wary, blue eyes gathering in the Bench and the attorneys in +one bold comprehensive glance. He was a tall, dark man of about five +and forty, clean-shaved, save for two clerical inches of black +whiskers, and in feature of the type of a London clergyman who would +probably preach on Browning. + +"Well, sir!" began Mr. Mooney stimulatingly, "and are you the biggest +blackguard from here to America?" + +"I am not," said Jer Keohane tranquilly. + +"We had you here before us not so very long ago about kicking a goat, +wasn't it? You got a little touch of a pound, I think?" + +This delicate allusion to a fine that the Bench had thought fit to +impose did not distress the witness. + +"I did, sir." + +"And how's our friend the goat?" went on Mr. Mooney, with the furious +facetiousness reserved for hustling tough witnesses. + +"Well, I suppose she's something west of the Skelligs by now," replied +Jer Keohane with great composure. + +An appreciative grin ran round the court. The fact that the goat had +died of the kick and been "given the cliff" being regarded as an +excellent jest. + +Mr. Mooney consulted his notes: + +"Well, now, about this fight," he said pleasantly, "did you see your +sister catch Mrs. Brickley and pull her hair down to the ground and +drag the shawl off of her?" + +"Well," said the witness airily, "they had a little bit of a scratch on +account o' the fish. Con Brickley had the shteer o' the boat in his +hand and says he, 'is there any man here that'll take the shteer from +me?' The man was dhrunk, of course," added Jer charitably. + +"Did you have any talk with his wife about the fish?" + +"I couldn't tell the words that she said to me!" replied the witness, +with a reverential glance at the Bench, "and she over-right three +crowds o' men that was on the sthrand." + +Mr. Mooney put his hands in his pockets and surveyed the witness. + +"You're a very refined gentleman upon my word! Were you ever in +England?" + +"I was part of three years." + +"Oh, that accounts for it, I suppose!" said Mr. Mooney, accepting this +lucid statement without a stagger, and passing lightly on. "You're a +widower, I understand, with no objection to consoling yourself?" + +No answer. + +"Now, sir! Can you deny that you made proposals of marriage to Con +Brickley's daughter last Shraft?" + +The plot thickened. Con Brickley's daughter was my late kitchenmaid. + +Jer Keohane smiled tolerantly. + +"Ah! That was a thing o' nothing!" + +"Nothing!" said Mr. Mooney, with the roar of a tornado, "do you call an +impudent proposal of marriage to a respectable man's daughter nothing! +That's English manners, I suppose!" + +"I was goin' home one Sunday," said Jer Keohane, conversationally to +the Bench, "and I met the gerr'l and her mother. I spoke to the gerr'l +in a friendly way, and asked her why wasn't she gettin' marrid, and she +commenced to peg stones at me and dhrew several blows of an umbrella on +me. I had only three bottles o' porther taken. There now was the +whole of it." + +Mrs. Brickley, from under the gallery, groaned heavily and ironically. + +I found it difficult to connect these coquetries with my impressions of +my late kitchenmaid, a furtive and touzled being, who, in conjunction +with a pail and scrubbing brush, had been wont to melt round corners +and into doorways at my approach. + +"Are we trying a breach of promise case?" interpolated Flurry, "if so, +we ought to have the plaintiff in." + +"My purpose, sir," said Mr. Mooney, in a manner discouraging to levity, +"is to show that my clients have received annoyance and contempt from +this man and his sister such as no parents would submit to." + +A hand came forth from under the gallery and plucked at Mr. Mooney's +coat. A red monkey face appeared out of the darkness, and there was a +hoarse whisper whose purport I could not gather. Con Brickley, the +defendant, was giving instructions to his lawyer. + +It was perhaps as a result of these that Jer Keohane's evidence closed +here. There was a brief interval, enlivened by coughs, grinding of +heavy boots on the floor, and some mumbling and groaning under the +gallery. + +"There's great duck-shooting out on a lake on this island," commented +Flurry to me, in a whisper. "My grand-uncle went there one time with +an old duck-gun he had, that he fired with a fuse. He was three hours +stalking the ducks before he got the gun laid. He lit the fuse then, +and it set to work sputtering and hissing like a goods-engine till +there wasn't a duck within ten miles. The gun went off then." + +This useful side light on the matter in hand was interrupted by the +cumbrous ascent of the one-legged Con Brickley to the witness-table. +He sat down heavily, with his slouch hat on his sound knee, and his +wooden stump stuck out before him. His large monkey-face was immovably +serious; his eye was small, light grey, and very quick. + +McCaffery, the opposition attorney, a thin, restless youth, with ears +like the handles of an urn, took him in hand. To the pelting +cross-examination that beset him Con Brickley replied with sombre +deliberation, and with a manner of uninterested honesty, emphasising +what he said with slight, very effective gestures of his big, supple +hands. His voice was deep and pleasant; it betrayed no hint of so +trivial a thing as satisfaction when, in the teeth of Mr. McCaffery's +leading questions, he established the fact that the "little rod" with +which Miss Kate Keohane had beaten his wife was the handle of a +pitchfork. + +[Illustration: CON BRICKLEY] + +"I was counting the fish the same time," went on Con Brickley, in his +rolling basso profundissimo, "and she said, 'Let the divil clear me out +of the sthrand, for there's no one else will put me out!' says she." + +[Illustration: "LET THE DIVIL CLEAR ME OUT OF THE STHRAND!"] + +"It was then she got the blow, I suppose!" said McCaffery venomously; +"you had a stick yourself, I daresay?" + +"Yes. I had a stick. I must have a stick," deep and mellow pathos was +hinted at in the voice; "I am sorry to say. What could I do to her? A +man with a wooden leg on a sthrand could do nothing!" + +Something like a laugh ran round the back of the court. Mr. +McCaffery's ears turned scarlet and became quite decorative. On or off +a strand Con Brickley was not a person to be scored off easily. + +His clumsy yet impressive descent from the witness-stand followed +almost immediately, and was not the least telling feature of his +evidence. Mr. Mooney surveyed his exit with the admiration of one +artist for another, and rising, asked the Bench's permission to call +Mrs. Brickley. + +Mrs. Brickley, as she mounted to the platform, in the dark and nun-like +severity of her long cloak, the stately blue cloth cloak that is the +privilege of the Munster peasant woman, was an example of the rarely +blended qualities of picturesqueness and respectability. As she took +her seat in the chair, she flung the deep hood back on to her +shoulders, and met the gaze of the Court with her grey head erect; she +was a witness to be proud of. + +[Illustration: A WITNESS TO BE PROUD OF] + +"Now Mrs. Brickley," said "Roaring Jack" urbanely, "will you describe +this interview between your daughter and Keohane." + +"It was the last Sunday in Shrove, your Worship, Mr. Flurry Knox, and +gentlemen," began Mrs. Brickley nimbly, "meself and me little gerr'l +was comin' from mass, and Jer Keohane come up to us and got on in a +most unmannerable way. He asked me daughter would she marry him. Me +daughter told him she would not, quite friendly like. I'll tell ye no +lie, gentlemen, she was teasing him with the umbrella the same time, +an' he raised his shtick and dhrew a sthroke on her in the back, an' +the little gerr'l took up a small pebble of a stone and fired it at +him. She put the umbrella up to his mouth, but she called him no +names. But as for him, the names he put on her was to call her 'a +nasty long slopeen of a proud thing, and a slopeen of a proud tinker.'" + +"Very lover-like expressions!" commented Mr. Mooney, doubtless +stimulated by lady-like titters from the barmaids; "and had this +romantic gentleman made any previous proposals for your daughter?" + +"Himself had two friends over from across the water one night to make +the match, a Sathurday it was, and they should land the lee side o' the +island, for the wind was a fright," replied Mrs. Brickley, launching +her tale with the power of easy narration that is bestowed with such +amazing liberality on her class; "the three o' them had dhrink taken, +an' I went to shlap out the door agin them. Me husband said then we +should let them in, if it was a Turk itself, with the rain that was in +it. They were talking in it then till near the dawning, and in the +latther end all that was between them was the boat's share." + +"What do you mean by 'the boat's share'?" said I. + +"'Tis the same as a man's share, me worshipful gintleman," returned +Mrs. Brickley splendidly; "it goes with the boat always, afther the +crew and the saine has their share got." + +I possibly looked as enlightened as I felt by this exposition. + +"You mean that Jer wouldn't have her unless he got the boat's share +with her?" suggested Flurry. + +"He said it over-right all that was in the house, and he reddening his +pipe at the fire," replied Mrs. Brickley, in full-sailed response to +the helm. "'D'ye think,' says I to him, 'that me daughter would leave +a lovely situation, with a kind and tendher masther, for a mean, hungry +blagyard like yerself,' says I, 'that's livin' always in this backwards +place!' says I." + +This touching expression of preference for myself, as opposed to Mr. +Keohane, was received with expressionless respect by the Court. +Flurry, with an impassive countenance, kicked me heavily under cover of +the desk. I said that we had better get on to the assault on the +strand. Nothing could have been more to Mrs. Brickley's taste. We +were minutely instructed as to how Katie Keohane drew the shawleen +forward on Mrs. Brickley's head to stifle her; and how Norrie Keohane +was fast in her hair. Of how Mrs. Brickley had then given a stroke +upwards between herself and her face (whatever that might mean) and +loosed Norrie from her hair. Of how she then sat down and commenced to +cry from the use they had for her. + +"'Twas all I done," she concluded, looking like a sacred picture, "I +gave a sthroke of a pollock on them." Then, an after-thought, "an' if +I did, 'twas myself was at the loss of the same pollock!" + +I fixed my eyes immovably on my desk. I knew that the slightest +symptom of intelligence on my part would instantly draw forth the +episode of the fish-buying on the morning of the dinner party, with the +rape of Philippa's sleeve, and the unjust aspersion on Miss Brickley +following in due sequence, ending with the paralytic seizure and +dignified departure of the latter to her parents' residence in Hare +Island. The critical moment was averted by a question from Mr. Mooney. + +"As for language," replied Mrs. Brickley, with clear eyes a little +uplifted in the direction of the ceiling, "there was no name from +heaven and hell but she had it on me, and wishin' the divil might burn +the two heels off me, and the like o' me wasn't in sivin parishes! And +that was the clane part of the discoorse, yer Worships!" + +Mrs. Brickley here drew her cloak more closely about her, as though to +enshroud herself in her own refinement, and presented to the Bench a +silence as elaborate as a drop scene. It implied, amongst other +things, a generous confidence in the imaginative powers of her audience. + +Whether or no this was misplaced, Mrs. Brickley was not invited further +to enlighten the Court. After her departure the case droned on in +inexhaustible rancour, and trackless complications as to the shares of +the fish. Its ethics and its arithmetic would have defied the allied +intellects of Solomon and Bishop Colenso. It was somewhere in that +dead hour of the afternoon, when it is too late for lunch and too early +for tea, that the Bench, wan with hunger, wound up the affair by +impartially binding both parties in sheaves "to the Peace." + +As a sub-issue I arranged with Mr. Knox to shoot duck on the one-legged +man's land on Hare Island as soon as should be convenient, and lightly +dismissed from my mind my dealings, official and otherwise, with the +House of Brickley. + +But even as there are people who never give away old clothes, so are +there people, of whom is Flurry Knox, who never dismiss anything from +their minds. + + + + +VII + +THE LAST DAY OF SHRAFT + +It was not many days after the Keohane and Brickley trial that my +wife's elderly step-brother, Maxwell Bruce, wrote to us to say that he +was engaged in a tour through the Irish-speaking counties, and would +look us up on his way from Kerry. The letter began "_O Bean uasal_," +and broke into eruptions of Erse at various points, but the excerpts +from Bradshaw were, fortunately, in the vernacular. + +Philippa assured me she could read it all. During the previous winter +she had had five lessons and a half in the Irish language from the +National Schoolmaster, and believed herself to be one of the props of +the Celtic movement. My own attitude with regard to the Celtic +movement was sympathetic, but a brief inspection of the grammar +convinced me that my sympathies would not survive the strain of +tripthongs, eclipsed consonants, and synthetic verbs, and that I should +do well to refrain from embittering my declining years by an impotent +and humiliating pursuit of the most elusive of pronunciations. +Philippa had attained to the height of being able to greet the +schoolmaster in Irish, and, if the day happened to be fine, she was +capable of stating the fact; other aspects of the weather, however +remarkable, she epitomised in a brilliant smile, and the schoolmaster +was generally considerate enough not to press the matter. + +My step-brother-in-law neither hunted, shot, nor fished, yet as a guest +he never gave me a moment's anxiety. He possessed the attribute, +priceless in guests, a good portable hobby, involving no machinery, +accessories, or paraphernalia of any kind. It did not even involve the +personal attendance of his host. His mornings were spent in proffering +Irish phrases to bewildered beggars at the hall door, or to the +respectfully bored Peter Cadogan in the harness-room. He held +_conversaziones_ in the servants' hall after dinner, while I slept +balmily in front of the drawing-room fire. When not thus engaged, he +sat in his room making notes, and writing letters to the Archimandrites +of his faith. Truly an ideal visitor, one to whom neglect was a +kindness, and entertainments an abomination; certainly not a person to +take to Hare Island to shoot ducks with Flurry Knox. + +[Illustration: HIS MORNINGS WERE SPENT IN PROFFERING IRISH PHRASES] + +But it was otherwise ordained by Philippa. Hare Island was, she said, +and the schoolmaster said, a place where the Irish language was still +spoken with a purity worthy of the Isles of Aran. Its folk-lore was an +unworked mine, and it was moreover the home of one Shemus Ruadth, a +singer and poet (and, I may add, a smuggler of tobacco) of high local +renown: Maxwell should on no account miss such a chance. I mentioned +that Hare Island was at present going through the measles phase of its +usual rotation of epidemics. My wife wavered, in a manner that showed +me that I had been on the verge of a family picnic, and I said I had +heard that there was whooping-cough there too. The children had had +neither. The picnic expired without a sound, but my +step-brother-in-law had made up his mind. + +It was a grey and bitter February morning when Maxwell and I, +accompanied by Peter Cadogan, stood waiting on the beach at Yokahn for +Flurry to arrive. Maria, as was her wont, was nosing my gun as if she +expected to see a woodcock fly out of it; that Minx was beside her was +due to the peculiar inveteracy of Minx. How she had achieved it is of +no consequence; the distressing fact remained that she was there, +seated, shuddering, upon a space of wet stone no larger than a +sixpence, and had to be accepted as one of the party. It struck me +that Mr. Cadogan had rather overdressed the part of dog-boy and +bag-bearer, being attired in a striped blue flannel suit that had once +been mine, a gaudy new cap, and yellow boots. The social possibilities +of Hare Island had faded from my mind; I merely experienced the usual +humiliation of perceiving how discarded garments can, in a lower +sphere, renew their youth and blossom as the rose. I was even +formulating a system of putting my old clothes out at grass, as it +were, with Peter Cadogan, when a messenger arrived with a note from +Flurry Knox in which he informed me, with many regrets, that he was +kept at home on unexpected business, but he had arranged that we should +find a boat ready to take us to the island, and Con Brickley would look +after us when we got there. The boat was even now nearing the beach, +rowed by two men, who, in beautiful accord with our "binding to the +Peace," proved to be the Widower, Jer Keohane, and his late antagonist, +the one-legged Con Brickley. In view of this millennial state of +affairs it seemed alarmingly probable that the boat which had come for +us was that on which, as on a pivot, the late battle had turned. A +witness had said, on oath, that "if it wasn't for the weeds that's +holding her together she'd bursht up in the deep." I inspected her +narrowly, and was relieved to see that the weeds still held their +ground. + +A mile of slatey water tumbled between us and the island, and an undue +proportion of it, highly flavoured by fish, flowed in uneasy tides in +the bottom of the boat, with a final disposition towards the well-laden +stern. There were no bottom boards, and, judging by the depth of the +flood over the keel, her draught appeared to be equal to that of a +racing yacht. We sat precariously upon strips of nine-inch plank, our +feet propped against the tarred sides just out of the wash; the boat +climbed and wallowed with a three-cornered roll, the dogs panted in +mingled nausea and agitation, and the narrow blades of the oars dipped +their frayed edges in the waves in short and untiring jerks. + +My brother-in-law, with a countenance leaden magenta from cold, +struggled with the whirling leaves of a phrase book. He was tall and +thin, of the famished vegetarian type of looks, with unpractical, +prominent eyes, and a complexion that on the hottest day in summer +imparted a chill to the beholder; in this raw November wind it was a +positive suffering even to think of his nose, and my eyes rested, in +unconscious craving for warmth, upon the changeless, impartial red of +Con Brickley's monkey face. + +We landed with a rush on the steep shingle of a sheltered cove. The +island boasted a pier, built with "Relief" money, but it was two miles +from the lake where I was to shoot, and this small triangle of beach, +tucked away in a notch of the cliff, was within ten minutes' walk of +it. At the innermost angle of the cove, where the notch ended in a +tortuous fissure, there was a path that zigzagged to the top of the +cliff, a remarkably excellent path, and a well-worn one, with steps +here and there. I commented on it to Mr. Brickley. + +"Why, thin, it was in this same place that I losht the owld leg, sir," +he replied in his sombre voice. "I took a shlip on a dark night and me +landlord was that much sorry for me that he made a good pat' in it." +He was pitching himself up the steps on his crutches as he spoke, an +object of compassion of the most obvious and silencing sort. Why, +then, should Peter Cadogan smile furtively at the Widower? + +At the top of the fissure, where it melted into a hollow between low, +grassy hills, stood the Brickleys' cottage, long, low, and whitewashed, +deep in shelter, with big stones, hung in halters of hay-rope, lying on +its thatch, to keep the roof on in the Atlantic gales. A thick fuchsia +hedge surrounded it; from its open door proceeded sounds of furious +altercation; apparently a man and woman hurling invective and +personalities at each other in Irish, at the tops of their voices. Con +Brickley sprang forward on his crutch, a girl at the door vanished into +the house, and a sudden silence fell. With scarcely a perceptible +interval, Mrs. Brickley appeared in the doorway, a red shawl tied over +her rippling grey hair, her manner an inimitable blend of deference and +hospitality. + +"Your Honour's welcome, Major Yeates," she said with a curtsey. A door +banged at the back of the cottage. "That was a poor man from across +the water that came apologisin' to me for dhrawin' me name down in a +little disagreement that he had about a settin' o' goose eggs." + +I suppose that it was contrition that caused the apologist to stumble +heavily as he came round the corner of the house, and departed at a +tangent through an opening in the fuchsia hedge. Feeling that comment +on the incident was too delicate a matter for my capacities, I +introduced Maxwell and his aspirations to the lady of the house. Any +qualms that I might have had as to how to dispose of him while I was +shooting were set at rest by Mrs. Brickley's instant grasp of the +situation. I regret to say that I can neither transcribe nor translate +the rolling periods in which my brother-in-law addressed himself to +her. I have reason to believe that he apostrophised her as "O worthy +woman of cows!" invoking upon her and her household a comprehensive and +classic blessing, dating from the time of Cuchulain. + +Mrs. Brickley received it without a perceptible stagger, and in the +course of the next few minutes, Miss Bridget Brickley (who, it may be +remembered, had but recently renounced the office of kitchenmaid in my +house) emerged, beautifully dressed, from the cottage, and was +despatched, at full speed, to summon Shemus Ruadth, the poet, as well +as one or two of "the neighbours" reputed to speak Irish of the purest +kind. If to make a guest feel himself to be the one person in the +world whose welfare is of any importance is the aim of hostesses, they +can study the art in its perfection under the smoky rafters of Irish +cabins. If it is insincere, it is equally to be respected; it is often +amiable to be insincere. + +My own share of the day's enjoyment opened plausibly enough, though +not, possibly, as cloudlessly as Maxwell's. Attended by Maria, Peter +Cadogan, and the Widower, and by a smell of whisky that floated to me +on the chill breeze when the Widower was to windward, I set forth, +having--as I fatuously imagined--disposed of Minx and of her intention +to join the shooting-party, by tying a stout piece of cord to her +collar, and placing its other end in my brother-in-law's hand. I had, +by Flurry's advice, postponed the shooting of the lake till the last +thing before leaving the island, and turning my back upon it, I tramped +inland along half-thawed marshes in search of snipe, and crept behind +walls after plover, whose elusive whistling was always two fields +ahead. After an unfruitful hour or so the entertainment began to drag, +and another plan of campaign seemed advisable: I made a cache of my +retinue behind a rock, one of the many rocks that stood like fossilised +mammoths upon the ragged hill slopes, and, with Maria at my heels, +accomplished a long and laborious detour. At length, through the +crannies of a wall, I perceived just within shot a stand of plover, +hopping, gobbling, squealing, quite unaware of my proximity. I +cautiously laid my gun on the top of the wall. As I cocked it, a white +form appeared on a fence behind the birds, poised itself for an instant +with elf-like ears spread wide, then, volleying barks, the intolerable +Minx burst like a firework into the heart of the plover. In lightning +response to her comrade's tally-ho Maria rocketted over the wall; the +plover rose as one man, and, as I missed with both barrels, swirled out +of range and sight. By way, I suppose, of rounding off the jest +effectively, Maria rushed in scientific zigzags through the field, in +search of the bird that she well knew I had not shot, deaf as the dead +to words of command, while Minx, stark mad with excitement, circled and +shrieked round Maria. To take off Maria's collar and thrash her +heavily with the buckle end of it was futile, except as a personal +gratification, but I did it. To thrash Minx was not only absurd but +impossible; one might as well have tried to thrash a grasshopper. + +I whistled for Peter and the Widower without avail, and finally, in +just indignation, went back to look for them. They were gone. Not a +soul was in sight. I concluded that they had gone on towards the lake, +and having sacrificed a sandwich to the capture of Minx I coupled her +to Maria by means of the cord that still trailed from her collar, and +again set forth. The island was a large one, three or four miles long +by nearly as many wide; I had opened my campaign along its western +shores, where heather struggled with bog, and stones, big and little, +bestrewed any patch sound enough to carry them. Here and there were +places where turf had been cut for fuel, leaving a drop like a sunk +fence with black water at its foot, a matter requiring a hearty jump on +to what might or might not be sound landing. When two maniacs are +unequally yoked together by their necks, heartiness and activity are of +less importance than unanimity, and it was in unanimity that Maria and +Minx chiefly failed. At such moments, profoundly as I detested Minx, +my sympathies reluctantly were hers. Conscious, as are all little +dogs, of her superior astuteness, she yet had to submit to Maria's +choice of pace, to Maria's professional quarterings and questings of +obviously barren tracts of bogland. In bursts of squealing fury she +hung from Maria's ear, she tore mouthfuls of brown wool from her neck, +she jibbed with all her claws stuck into the ground; none the less she +was swept across the ditches, and lugged over the walls, in seeming +oneness of purpose, in total and preposterous absurdity. At one +juncture a snipe, who must, I think, have been deaf, remained long +enough within their sphere of action for me to shoot him. The couple, +unanimous for once, charged down upon the remains; the corpse was +secured by Maria, but was torn piecemeal from her jaws by Minx. They +then galloped emulously back to me for applause, still bitterly +contesting every inch of the snipe, and, having grudgingly relinquished +the fragments, waited wild-eyed and panting, with tongues hanging like +aprons to their knees. + +It was towards the close of the incident that I was aware of a sibilant +whispering near me, and found that I was being observed from the rear +with almost passionate interest, by two little girls and a pair of +goats. I addressed the party with an enquiry as to whether they had +seen Jer Keohane. + +The biggest little girl said that she had not seen him, but, in a _non +sequitur_ full of intelligence, added that she had seen Peter Cadogan a +while ago, sitting down under a wall, himself and Pidge. + +"What's Pidge?" said I cautiously. "Is it a dog?" + +"Oh Christians!" said the smaller child, swiftly covering her mouth +with her pinafore. + +The elder, with an untrammelled grin, explained that "Pidge" was the +name by which my late kitchenmaid was known in the home circle. + +I postponed comment till Peter should be delivered into my hand, then, +rightly concluding that the tendance of Hare Island goats would ensure +the qualities necessary for dealing with even Maria and Minx, I engaged +the pair as dog-boys. + +My progress from this point to the lake might have been taken from the +Old Testament, or the Swiss Family Robinson. In front of me paced the +goats, who had sociably declined to be left out of the expedition; +behind me strove the dogs, with the wiry and scarlet fingers of their +attendants knotted in Mrs. Brickley's invaluable piece of string. It +proved to be a thoroughly successful working arrangement; I even shot a +plover, which was retrieved _en masse_ by all except the goats. + +In complete amity we reached the lake, a reedy strip of water that +twisted in and out between low hills, its indeterminate shores cloaked +with reeds. It was now past three o'clock, and the cold grey afternoon +was already heaping into the west the pile of dark clouds that was to +be its equivalent for sunset. I crept warily forward round the flank +of the nearest hill, leaving the dogs and their keepers in death +grapple, and the goats snatching mouthfuls of grass beside them, in the +petulant, fractious manner of goats, that so ill assorts with their +Presbyterian grey beards. + +The frost had been preceded by a flood, and the swamp bordering the +lake was very bad going; the tussocks were rotten, the holes were +delusively covered with lids of white ice, and to traverse these in the +attitude of a man with acute lumbago was no light matter. But the +ducks were there. I could hear them quacking and splashing beyond the +screen of reeds, and, straightening my back for an observation, caught +sight of four or five swimming in a line, well within range. There was +not an instant to lose; balancing precariously on a tussock, I flung up +my gun and fired. Terrific quacking followed, interspersed by distant +and heartrending yells from the dogs, but the inexplicable feature of +the case was that the ducks did not rise from the water. Had I slain +the whole crowd? There was a sound as if the marsh behind me was being +slashed with a flail; a brown body whizzed past me, closely followed by +a white one. "From his mountain home King James had rushing come," in +other words, my retrievers had hurled themselves upon their prey. + +Maria's performance was faultless; in half a minute she had laid a bird +at my feet, a very large pale drake, quite unlike any wild drake that I +had ever---- + +[Illustration: MARIA'S PERFORMANCE WAS FAULTLESS] + +Out of the silence that followed came a thin, shrill voice from the +hill: + +"Thim's Mrs. Brickley's ducks!" + +In horrid confirmation of this appalling statement I perceived the +survivors already landing on the far side of the lake, and hurrying +homeward up the hill with direful clamours, while a wedge-shaped ripple +in the grey water with a white speck at its apex, told of Minx in an +ecstasy of pursuit. + +"Stop the dog!" I shouted to my maids-of-honour, "run round and catch +her!" + +Maria here, in irrepressible appropriation of the mission, bolted +between my legs, and sent me staggering backwards into a very +considerable boghole. + +I will not labour the details. After some flounderings I achieved +safety and the awe-stricken comments of the maids-of-honour, as wet as +I have ever been in my life, and about five times as cold. One of my +young ladies captured Minx in the act of getting ashore; the other +collected the slaughtered drake and shrouded him in her pinafore, with +a grasp of the position that did credit to both heart and head, and +they finally informed me that Mrs. Brickley's house was only a small +pieceen away. + +I had left Mrs. Brickley's house a well-equipped sportsman, creditably +escorted by Peter Cadogan and the Widower. I returned to it a muddy +and dripping outcast, attended by two little girls, two goats, and her +own eight ducks, whom my hand had widowed. My sodden clothes clung +clammily about me; the wind, as it pierced them, carried with it all +the iciness of the boghole. I walked at top speed to get up some +semblance of a circulation; I should have run were it not for the +confusion that such a proceeding would have caused to my cortège. As +it was, the ducks fled before me in waddling panic, with occasional +help from their wings, and panting and pattering in the rear told that +the maids-of-honour, the goats, and the dogs were maintaining with +difficulty their due places in the procession. As I neared the cottage +I saw a boy go quickly into it and shut the door; I passed into the +yard within the fuchsia hedge and heard some one inside howling and +droning a song in Irish, and as I knocked, with frozen knuckles, the +house gave the indefinable feeling of being full of people. There was +no response; I lifted the latch. The door opened into the +frieze-covered backs of several men, and an evenly blended smell of +whisky, turf smoke, and crowded humanity steamed forth. + +The company made way for me, awkwardly; I noticed a tendency amongst +them to hold on to each other, and there was a hilarious light in Mrs. +Brickley's eye as she hustled forward to meet me. My brother-in-law +was sitting at a table by the window writing in a notebook by the last +light of the waning day; he gave me a glance laden with affairs to +which I was superfluous. A red-eyed, red-headed man, evidently the +singer, was standing in the middle of the room; it must have been in +conformity with some irresistible law of nature that his hair stood out +round his head in the orthodox poetic aureole. + +In spite of the painful publicity of the moment there was but one +course open to me. I tendered to my hostess the corpse of the drake, +with abject apologies and explanations. To say that Mrs. Brickley +accepted them favourably is quite inadequate. She heaped insults upon +the drake, for his age, for his ugliness, for his temerity in getting +in my way; she, in fact, accepted his slaughter in the light of a +personal favour and an excellent jest combined, and passed rapidly on +to explain that the company consisted of a few of the neighbours that +was gathered to talk to the gentleman, and to be singing "them owld +songs" for him; their number and their zeal being entirely due to the +deep personal regard entertained for me by Hare Island. She further +mentioned that it was Shrove Tuesday, and that people should "jolly +themselves" before Lent. I was hurriedly conveyed to what is known as +"Back in the room," a blend of best parlour and bedroom, with an +immense bed in the corner. A fire was lighted, by the simple method of +importing most of the kitchen fire, bodily, in a bucket, and placing it +on the hearth, and I was conjured to "sthrip" and to put on a new suit +of clothes belonging to my host while my own were being dried. He +himself valeted me, inaugurating the ceremony with a tumbler of hot +whisky and water. The suit of new clothes was of the thickest blue +cloth, stiff as boards, and they smelt horribly of stale turf smoke. +The discovery that the trousers consisted of but a leg and a half was +startling; I had forgotten this aspect of the case, but now, in the +proprietor's presence, it was impossible to withdraw from the loan. I +could, at all events, remain perdu. Through all these preparations I +was aware of highly incensed and fruitless callings for "Pidge"; of +Peter Cadogan no tidings were forthcoming, and although a conventional +sense of honour withheld me from disclosing the information I might +have given about the young lady, it did not deter me from mentally +preparing a warm reception for her squire. + +I sat by the fire in regal seclusion, with my clothes steaming on a +chair opposite to me, and the strong glow of the red turf scorching the +shin that was unprotected. Maria and Minx, also steaming, sat in +exquisite serenity in front of the blaze, retiring every now and then +to fling themselves, panting, on a cold space of floor. The hot whisky +and water sent its vulgar and entirely acceptable consolations into the +frozen recesses of my being, a feeling of sociability stole upon me; I +felt magnanimously pleased at the thought that Maxwell, at least, had +had a perfectly successful day; I glowed with gratitude towards Con +Brickley and his wife. + +Judged by the usual test of hostesses, that is to say, noise, the +_conversazione_ in Maxwell's honour was a high success. Gabble and +hum, harangue and argument, and, through all, Maxwell's unemotional +educated voice in discussion with the poet. Scraps of English here and +there presently told me that the talk had centred itself upon the +tragedy of the drake. I had the gratification of hearing Mrs. Brickley +inform her friends that "if that owld dhrake was shot, itself, he was +in the want of it, and divil mend him, going parading there till he had +the Major put asthray! Sure that's the gintleman that's like a child! +and Pidge could tell ye the same." + +"Faith and thrue for ye," said another apologist, also female, "and ye +wouldn't blame him if he didn't leave duck nor dhrake livin' afther +him, with the annoyance he got from thim that should be tinding him, +and he bloated with the walk and all!" + +(I may, in my own interest, explain that this unattractive description +merely implied that I was heated from excessive exercise.) + +"And as for the same Pidge," broke in Mrs. Brickley with sudden fire, +"when I ketch her it isn't to bate her I'll go, no! but to dhrag her by +the hair o' the head round the kitchen." + +These agreeable anticipations were interrupted by other voices. Some +one named Paddy was called upon to sing the song about Ned Flaherty's +drake. + +"Sing up, Paddy boy, for the gentleman! Arrah, what ails ye, Paddy! +Don't be ashamed at all!" + +"'Tis a lovely song, your honour, sir!" (this to my brother-in-law). + +"Is it an ancient song?" I heard Maxwell enquire with serious eagerness. + +"It is, your honour; 'twas himself made it up lasht year, and he sings +it beautiful! Oh! Paddy's a perfect modulator!" + +With curiosity stimulated by this mysterious encomium I rose softly and +half opened the door in order to obtain a view of the Modulator. A +lamp with a glaring tin reflector was on the table beside Maxwell; it +illumined Paddy, the Modulator, an incredibly freckled youth, standing +in front of my brother-in-law, with eyes fixed on the ground and arms +hanging limply at his sides, like a prisoner awaiting sentence. It +illumined also the artistic contempt on the elder Poet's countenance, +and further revealed to me the fact that from twenty-five to thirty men +and women were packed into the small kitchen. + +The Modulator opened with a long-drawn and nasal cadenza, suggestive of +the droning preliminary canter of a bagpipe, which merged into the +statement that + + The poor little fella', + His legs they were yella', + His bosom was blue, he could swim like a hake; + But some wicked savage, + To grease his white cabbage, + Murdered Ned Flaherty's beautiful dhrake! + +[Illustration: THE MODULATOR OPENED WITH A LONG-DRAWN AND NASAL CADENZA] + +Riotous applause followed on this startlingly appropriate requiem. +Maxwell coldly laid down his stylograph with the manner of a reporter +during an unimportant speech; the Poet took a clay pipe out of his +pocket and examined its contents with an air of detachment; Paddy, with +a countenance of undiminished gloom, prepared the way for the next +verse with some half-dozen jig-steps, ending with a sledge-hammer stamp +on the earthen floor. Fresh thunders of approval greeted the effort. +It seemed to me that Con Brickley's hospitality had been a trifle +excessive; I even meditated a hint to that effect, but neither my host +nor my hostess was visible. They were apparently holding an overflow +meeting in a room at the other end of the house, and I noticed that +although there was a steady flow of passers in and out between it and +the kitchen, the door was carefully closed after each opening. + +Suddenly the lamp on Maxwell's table flared up smokily as the door of +the house was burst open. The second verse of the drake's elegy ceased +at its first line. A woman whom I recognised as Kate Keohane, sister +of the Widower, drove her way into the kitchen, sweeping back the +people on either side of her with her arms, as though she was swimming. +Her face was scarlet. + +"Is Jer Keohane within here?" she shouted. + +"He is not!" replied several voices. + +Instantly the door of the inner room flew open, and like a stag (or a +tom-cat, either simile would serve), answering the challenge of a +rival, Mrs. Brickley came forth. + +"Is it yer brother you're wantin', ma'am?" she said with lofty +politeness. "Ye can search out the house for him if ye like. It's +little he troubles my house or myself now, thanks be to God, and to the +Magistrates that took my part before all that was in the Coort-house! +Me that he had goin' in dhread o' me life, with him afther me always in +me thrack like a lap-dog!" + +"And who has him enticed now but your own daughther?" shrieked Miss +Keohane with lightning rapidity. "Isn't Ellen, the Chapel-woman, +afther tellin' me she seen herself and himself shneakin' down +behindside the chapel, like they'd be goin' aisht to the far sthrand, +and she dhressed out, and the coat she stole from Mrs. Yeates on her +and a bundle in her hand! Sure doesn't the world know she has her +passage paid to Ameriky this two months!" + +"Ye lie!" panted Mrs. Brickley, catching her antagonist by the arm, not +in attack, but in the the awful truce of mutual panic. + +Miss Keohane flung her off, only the better to gather force for the +prolonged and direful howl of which she delivered herself. + +"If she didn't come here with him it's to Ameriky she's taken him! +Look in yer box an' ye'll see where she got the passage money! She has +the boat's share taken from ye in spite of yer teeth!" Miss Keohane +here dropped upon her knees. "An' I pray," she continued, lyrically, +"that the devil may melt her, the same as ye'd melt the froth off +porther----" + +Groans, hoots, and drunken laughter overwhelmed the close of this +aspiration. Oblivious of my costume, I stepped forward, with the +intention of attracting Maxwell's attention, and withdrawing him and +myself as swiftly and unobtrusively as possible from a position that +threatened to become too hot to hold us. + +Even as I did so, I saw in the dark blue space of the open door a face +that was strangely familiar, a face at once civilised and martial, +whose gaze was set incredulously upon me. + +"Here's the Polis!" squeaked a little girl. + +The poet blew out the lamp. The house was in an instant full of the +voiceless and strenuous shoving and trampling of people trying to +escape. I heard the table go over with a crash, and could only suppose +that Maxwell had gone with it, and Maria and Minx, convinced that a +cat-hunt was at the root of the matter, barked deafeningly and +unceasingly. + +In a blinding flash of insight I realised that my brother-in-law and I +had been taken red-handed in a "Shebeen," that is to say, a house in +which drink is illicitly sold without a license. + +The Police Sergeant was egregiously tactful. During the conversation +that I held with him in the inner room he did not permit his eye to +condescend lower than the top button of Mr. Brickley's coat, a +consideration that but served to make me more conscious of the +humiliating deficiency below, nor did it deviate towards the empty +tumbler, with the incriminating spoon in it, that stood on the table. + +He explained to me and to Maxwell, whose presence I felt to be my sole +link with respectability, that the raid had been planned in consequence +of information received after the trial. + +"I was going to you, sir, to sign the warrant, but Mr. Knox and Dr. +Hickey signed it for us. It was Mr. Knox advised us to come here +to-day. We've found three half-barrels of porter under the bed in the +room over there, and about two gallons of potheen hid under fishing +nets. I'll have about thirty summonses out of it." + +The Sergeant's manner was distressingly apologetic. I said nothing, +but my heart burned within me as I recognised the hand of Flurry Knox. + +[Illustration: THE SERGEANT'S MANNER WAS DISTRESSINGLY APOLOGETIC] + +"In case you might be looking for your man Cadogan, sir," went on the +Sergeant, "we seen him in a boat, with two other parties, a man and a +woman, going to the mainland when we were coming over. The man that +was pulling the other oar had the appearance of having drink taken." + +A second flash, less blinding than the first, but equally illuminative, +revealed to me that the brown boots, the flannel suit, had been a +wedding garment, the predetermined attire of the Best Man, and a third +recalled the fact that Shrove Tuesday was the last day between this and +Easter on which a marriage could take place. + +Maxwell and I went back with the police, and Maxwell explained to me at +some length the origin of the word shebeen. As I neared the mainland, +which to-morrow would ring with Flurry's artistic version of the day's +events, the future held but one bright spot, the thought of putting +Peter Cadogan to fire and sword. + +But even that was denied to me. It must have been at the identical +moment that my cook, Mrs. Cadogan (aunt of the missing Peter), was +placing her wedding ring in the Shrove Tuesday pancakes that evening, +that my establishment was felled as one man by tidings that still +remain preëminent among the sensations of Shreelane. They reached me, +irrepressibly, with the coffee. + +Hard on the heels of the flushed parlour-maid followed the flat and +heavy tread of Mrs. Cadogan, who, like the avenging deities, was +habitually shod with felt. + +"And now, sir, what do ye say to Pether Cadogan!" she began, launching +the enigma into space from the obscurity of the deep doorway. "What do +ye say to him now? The raving scamp!" + +I replied that I had a great deal to say to him, and that if I might so +far trespass on his leisure as to request his presence in the hall, I +would say it. + +"Hall is it!" echoed Peter's aunt in bitter wrath. "It's my heart's +grief that he ever stood in Shreelane hall to dhraw disgrace on me and +on yer Honour! God forgive me, when I heard it I had to spit! Himself +and Bridget Brickley got married in Skebawn this evening and the two o' +them is gone to Ameriky on the thrain to-night, and it's all I'll say +for her, whatever sort of a thrash she is, she's good enough for him!" +There was a pause while one might pant twice. + +"I'll tell ye no lie. If I had a gun in me hand, I'd shoot him like a +bird! I'd down the brat!" + +The avenging deity retired. + +What part the Widower proposed to play in the day's proceedings will +never be clearly known. He was picked up next day in Hare Island +Sound, drifting seaward in the boat whose "share" had formed the +marriage portion of Mrs. Peter Cadogan. Both oars were gone; there +remained to him an empty bottle of "potheen," and a bucket. He was +rowing the boat with the bucket. + + + + +VIII + +"A HORSE! A HORSE!" + +PART I + +"Old Jimmy Porteous!" I ejaculated, while a glow of the ancient +enthusiasm irradiated my bosom, "Philippa, I say! Do you see this? +Jimmy Porteous is to command this District!" + +"No, darling, _not_ with an egg!" replied Philippa, removing the honey +spoon from the grasp of her youngest child, just too late to avert +disaster, "we _don't_ eat honey with eggs." + +The heavy hand of experience has taught me that at moments such as +these the only possible course is to lie to, head to wind, till the +squall passes, and then begin from the beginning again. I readdressed +myself to my newspaper, while the incident went, like a successful +burlesque, with a roar, sustained from the foot of the stairs to the +point when the nursery door slammed upon it. + +Philippa resumed her seat at the breakfast table. + +"Yes, dear, what were you saying?" she said, yielding me the laborious +but vague attention that is the best any husband can expect from any +wife on such occasions. + +I repeated my statement, and was scandalised to find that Philippa had +but the most shadowy remembrance of Jimmy Porteous, who, in the days +when I first joined my regiment had been its senior subaltern, and, for +me and my fellows, one of the most revered of its law-givers. As a +captain he left us, and proceeded to do something brilliant on +somebody's staff, and, what time I got my company, had moved on in +radiance into a lofty existence in the War Office and newspaper +paragraphs. + +I recalled these things to my wife, coupling them with the information +that she would have to call on Lady Porteous, when the door opened, and +the face of Flurry Knox, unshaven and blue, with the miserable +mother-o'-pearl blueness of fair people in cold weather, appeared in +the opening. + +He had looked in, he said, on his way home from the fair, to try would +we give him a cup of tea, and he went on to remark that the wind was +cold enough to cut the horns off a cow. + +I asked him if he had seen my beasts there, and if they had been sold. + +"Oh, they were, they were," he said tolerantly; "it was a wonderful +good fair. The dealers were buying all before them. There was a man +said to me, 'If you had a little dog there, and he to be a calf, you'd +have sold him.'" + +It was one of Flurry Knox's ruling principles in life to disparage the +live stock of his friends; it was always within the bounds of +possibility that the moment might arrive when he would wish to buy them. + +"I met a man from Sir Thomas Purcell's country yesterday," said Flurry +presently; "he says there's been the father and mother of a row down +there between old Sir Thomas and Hackett, that's the man has the +harriers. Sir Thomas is wild because they say the soldiers are giving +Hackett as good a subscription as himself, and he says Hackett has all +the foxes killed." + +"But surely--harriers don't hunt foxes?" said Philippa ingenuously. + +Flurry looked at her for a moment in silence. "Is it Hackett's +harriers!" he said compassionately; "sure he flogs them off hares." + +"Talking of soldiers, they've just sent a man who used to be in my +regiment to command this district," I said, plucking my own topic from +the tangle of inter-hunt squabbles; "a great man to hounds he used to +be, too." + +"Would he buy the Dodger?" asked Flurry swiftly. "Would he give a +price?" + +"I daresay he would if he liked the horse. If I got a chance I might +tell him," I said, magnanimously. + +"I tell you what, Major," said Flurry, with an eye on his ally, +Philippa, "you and me and Mrs. Yeates will go up and have a day with +Sir Thomas's hounds, and you'll say the word for me to the General!" + +Looking back at it all now, I recognise that here was the moment for +firmness. I let the moment slip, and became immersed in tracking +General Sir James Porteous, K.C.B., through the pages of an elderly +Army List. By the time I had located him in three separate columns, I +found that Philippa and Flurry had arranged unalterably the details of +what my wife is pleased to call a ramp--_i.e._ an expedition that, as +its name implies, suggests a raid made by tramps. + +"--Why, my gracious! aren't they cousins of my own? They'll be only +delighted! Sure, Sally had measles there three years ago, and 'twas as +good as a play for them!--Put us up, is it? Of course they will! The +whole lot of us. D'ye think Sally'd stay at home?--No, you'll not take +your own horses at all. Hire from Flavin; I'll see he does you well." + +"And you know, Sinclair"--thus the other conspirator--"it would be an +excellent chance for you to meet your beloved Jimmy Porteous!" + +It was not Mr. Knox's habit to let the grass grow under his feet. +Before I had at all grasped the realities of the project, my wife heard +from Mrs. Sally Knox to say that she had arranged it all with the +Butler-Knoxes, and that we were to stay on for a second night in order +to go to a dance at which we should meet the General. At intervals +during the following week I said to Philippa that it was preposterous +and monstrous to dump ourselves upon the Butler-Knoxes, unknown people +whom we had but once met at a function at the Bishop's. My remembrance +of them, though something blurred by throngs of the clergy and their +wives, did not suggest the type of person who might be expected to keep +open house for stray fox-hunters. I said all this to Philippa, who +entirely agreed with me, and continued her preparations, after the +manner of experienced wives. + +It was raining hard one afternoon in the following week when a +four-wheeled inside car--an admirable vehicle, which I wish in no way +to disparage--disgorged its burden at the door of Garden Mount House. +One item of the burden was experiencing a sensation only too familiar, +such a sensation as a respectable seaman might feel on being pressed +into a crew of buccaneers. The house loomed over us, large, square, +and serious, in the wet moonlight of the January evening; the husky, +over-fed bark of an elderly dog was incessant in the hall. If by +laying hold of the coat-tails of the leading pirate, as he got out to +ring the bell, I could then and there have brought the expedition to a +close, I would thankfully have done so. + +The door was opened by a melancholy old gentleman with a grey moustache +and whiskers; he might have been Colonel Newcome in his decadence, but +from the fact that he wore an evening coat and grey trousers, I +gathered that he was the butler, and for any one skilled in Irish +households, he at once placed the establishment--rich, godly, low +church, and consistently and contentedly dull. As we entered the hall +there arose from some fastness in the house a shrill clamour that +resolved itself into the first line of a hymn. + +Flurry dug me in the ribs with his elbow. "They've found!" he +whispered, "you needn't look so frightened. It's only Lucy and Louisa +having the choir practice!" + +To these strains Colonel Newcome ushered us into the drawing-room. +There was no one in it. It was a large double drawing-room, and +nothing but heavy maroon curtains now separated us from the choir +practice. The hymn continued, a loud and long-drawn proclamation, and, +pending its conclusion, my wife and Mrs. Flurry Knox swiftly and +stealthily circumnavigated the room, and appraised all its contents, +from a priceless Battersea basket filled with dusty bulbs, to a +Chippendale card-table with a sewing machine clamped on to it, while +Flurry, in a stage whisper, dilated to me upon the superfluous wealth +that Providence had seen fit to waste upon the Butler-Knoxes. The +household, as I had gradually learnt, consisted of an elderly bachelor, +Mr. Lucius Butler-Knox (commonly known as "Looshy "), his unmarried +sister, Miss Louisa, his widowed sister, Mrs. Hodnett, and a corpulent, +grey-muzzled black-and-tan terrier. Their occupations were gardening, +and going to what they called "the city," _i.e._ the neighbouring +county town, to attend charitable committee meetings; they kept a +species of philanthropic registry office for servants; their foible was +hospitality, disastrously coupled with the fact that they dined at +half-past six. It was one of the mysteries of kinship that Flurry Knox +and our host and hostess should possess a nearer relative in common +than Adam. That he should have established their respectable home as +his hostelry and house of call was one of the mysteries of Flurry Knox. + +The hymn ceased, the raiders hastily formed into line, the maroon +drapery parted, and the ladies of the house, flushed with song, and +importing with them a potent sample of the atmosphere of the back +drawing-room, were upon us, loud in hospitable apologies, instant in +offers of tea; the situation opened and swallowed us up. + +The half-past six o'clock dinner came all too swiftly. Glared upon by +an unshaded lamp that sat like a ball of fire in the centre of the +table, we laboured in the trough of a sea of the thickest ox-tail soup; +a large salmon followed; with the edge of dubious appetite already +turned, we saw the succeeding items of the menu spread forth on the +table like a dummy hand at bridge. The boiled turkey, with its +satellite ham, the roast saddle of mutton, with its stable companion +the stack of cutlets; the succeeding course, where a team of four wild +duck struggled for the lead with an open tart and a sago pudding. Like +Agag, we went delicately, and, like Agag, it availed us nothing. + +I watched my _vis-à -vis_, little Mrs. Flurry, furtively burying a slab +of turkey beneath mashed potatoes as neatly as a little dog buries a +bone; her green kitten's eyes met mine without a change of expression, +and turned to her glass, which Colonel Newcome had filled with claret. +"The beaded bubbles, winking at the brim," had a greyish tinge. + +"Cousin Lucius!" observed Mrs. Flurry, in a silence that presently +happened to fall, "can you remember who painted that picture of our +great-grandfather--the one over the door I mean?" + +Mr. Butler-Knox, a small, grey-bearded, elderly gentleman, wholly, up +to the present, immersed in carving, removed the steam of the ducks +from his eye-glasses, and concentrated them upon the picture. + +"It's by Maclise, isn't it?" went on Sally, leaning forward to get a +nearer view. + +In that moment, when all heads turned to the picture, I plainly saw her +draw the glass of claret to the verge of the table, it disappeared +beneath it and returned to its place empty. Almost simultaneously, the +black-and-tan terrier sprang from a lair near my feet, and hurried from +the room, shaking his ears vigorously. Mrs. Flurry's eyes wavered from +the portrait to mine, and her face became slowly and evenly pink, like +an afterglow. + +It was but one of the many shameless acts of my party during the +age-long evening. At ten o'clock we retired to rest, for my own part, +thoroughly overfed, not in the least sleepy, worn with conversation, +and oppressed by the consciousness of flippant, even brutal, +ingratitude. + +The weather had cleared next morning to mild greyness, that softened +even the asperity of half-past eight breakfast. I lumbered stiffly +downstairs in a pair of new butcher boots, and found with thankfulness +that our hosts, exhausted possibly by their efforts, had kept their +rooms. + +Marshalled in order upon the sideboard stood the remains of all the +more enduring items of last night's dinner, cold indeed, but firm and +undefeated; hot dishes of ancient silver roasted before the noble +brass-mounted fireplace; there were vats of lethargic cream, a clutch +of new-laid eggs, a heap of hot scones. + +"It's easy seen it wasn't cracking blind nuts made Lucy Hodnett and +Louisa the size they are!" remarked Flurry, as the party, feeling more +piratical than ever, embarked upon this collation. "Mrs. Yeates, do +you think I am bound to dance with the pair of them to-night? You are, +Major, anyway! But I might get off with Louisa." + +"Oh, Sinclair's card is full," said my wife, who was engaged in trying +to decipher the marks on the cream jug without upsetting the cream; "he +and the General are plighted to one another for the evening." + +"I wonder if the claret has stained the carpet!" said Mrs. Flurry, +diving under the table. "It has! How awful!" Mrs. Flurry's voice +indicated the highest enjoyment. "Never mind, they'll never see it! +They're too fat to get under the table!" + +"If they did, it'd be the first time old Looshy's claret ever put +anyone there!" said Flurry. + +We have never known the precise moment in this speech at which "Old +Looshy's" butler entered the room; we only know that while Mrs. Flurry, +much hampered by habit and boots, was in the act of struggling from +beneath the table, he was there, melancholy and righteous, with a +telegram on a salver. + +It was from Flavin, the livery stableman, and its effect upon the +spirits of the company was that of a puncture in a tyre. + +"Regret horses not available; am trying to procure others; will send by +next train if possible." + +We said that there was no answer, and we finished our breakfasts in a +gravity scarcely lightened by Flurry's almost religious confidence in +Flavin's infallibility, and in his power of making horses out of +rushes, like the fairies, if need be. + +I was, I may admit, from the first thoroughly pessimistic. I almost +went up and got into ordinary clothes; I at least talked of doing so, +as a means of preparing Philippa for the worst. I said it was a mere +waste of time to send the Butler-Knox coachman to the station, as had +been arranged, and I did my best to dissuade Flurry from his intention +of riding to the meet by way of the station to help in unboxing animals +that could not possibly be there. + +In abysmal dejection my wife and I surveyed the departing forms of Mr. +and Mrs. Florence Knox; the former on the Dodger, a leggy brown +four-year-old, the planting of whom upon General Porteous had been the +germ of the expedition; while Sally skipped and sidled upon a narrow, +long-tailed chestnut mare, an undefeated jumper, and up to about as +much weight as would go by parcel post for ninepence. There then +ensued a period of total desolation, in which we looked morosely at old +photograph books in the drawing-room, and faced the prospect of a long +day with the Butler-Knoxes, while heavy footsteps overhead warned us +that our entertainers were astir, and that at any moment the day's +conversation might begin. + +I was engaged, not, I fancy, for the first time, in telling Philippa +that I had always said that the entire expedition was a mistake, when +Colonel Newcome again entered the room. + +"The Master sent me to ask you, sir, if you'd like to have the +pony-phaeton to drive down to the station to meet the half-past ten +train. Flavin might be sending the horses on it, and it'd save you +time to meet them there." + +We closed with the offer; at its worst, the pony-carriage could be +smoked in, which the drawing-room could not; at its best, it might save +half-an-hour in getting to the meet. We presently seated ourselves in +it, low down behind an obese piebald pony, with a pink nose, and a mane +hogged to the height of its ears. As I took up the whip it turned and +regarded us with an unblinkered eye, pink-lidded and small as a pig's. + +"You should go through Fir Grove, sir," said the boy who had brought +the equipage to the door, "it's half a mile of a short cut, and that's +the way Tom will come with the horses. It's the first gate-lodge +you'll meet on the road." + +The mud was deep, and the piebald pony plodded through it at a sullen +jog. The air was mild and chilly, like an uninteresting woman; the +fore-knowledge of fiasco lay heavily upon us; it hardly seemed worth +while to beat the pony when he sank into a walk; it was the most +heart-broken forlorn hope that ever took the field. + +The gate-lodge of Fir Grove fulfilled the assignation made for it by +the stable boy, and met us on the road. The gates stood wide open, and +the pony turned in as by an accustomed route, and crawled through them +with that simulation of complete exhaustion that is the gift of lazy +ponies. Loud narrative in a male voice proceeded from the dark +interior of the lodge, and, as we passed, a woman's voice said, in +horrified rejoinder: + +"The Lord save us! She must be Anti-Christ!" + +Here, apparently, the speaker became aware of our proximity, and an old +woman looked forth. Her face was apprehensive. + +"Did ye see the police, sir?" she asked. + +[Illustration: "DID YE SEE THE POLICE?"] + +We replied in the negative. + +"Please God, she'll not come our way!" she said, and banged the door. + +We moved on, heavily, in the deep gravel of the avenue. + +"Isn't this rather awful? Shall we go on?" said Philippa. + +I replied with truth that there was no room to turn. On either side of +the narrow drive laurels and rhododendrons were crammed as thickly as +they could be planted, their dark foliage met overhead; if the +inexpressible "She" referred to by the lodge-keeper did come our way, +retreat would be out of the question. The tunnel ran uphill, and I +drove the pony up it as one drives a hoop, by incessant beating; had I +relaxed my efforts he would probably, like a hoop, have lain down. +Presently, and still uphill, we turned a corner, the tunnel ceased, and +we were face to face with a large pink house. + +As we advanced, feeling to the full the degradation of making a +short-cut past a strange house, in tall hats and a grovelling +pony-carriage, we beheld figures rushing past the windows of one of the +rooms on the ground floor, as if in headlong flight. Was this the +fulfilment of the dark sayings of the lodge-keeper, and was "She" +"coming our way?" The bouncing strains of a measure, known, I believe, +as "Whistling Rufus," came forth to us hilariously as we drew nearer. +The problem changed, but I am not sure that the horror did not deepen. + +Divining the determination of the piebald pony to die, if necessary, +rather than pass a hall door without stopping at it, yet debarred by +the decencies from thrashing him past the long line of windows, I +administered two or three rousing tugs to his wooden mouth. At the +third tug the near rein broke. The pony stopped dead. Simultaneously +the hall door was flung open, and a young and lovely being, tall, and +beautifully dressed, fluttered out on to the steps and peered at us +through long-handled eye-glasses. + +"Oh! I thought you were the police!" exclaimed the being, with +unaffected disappointment. + +The position seemed, from all points, to demand an apology. I +disengaged myself from the pony-carriage and proffered it; I also +volunteered any help that a mere man, not a policeman, might be capable +of rendering. + +The young lady aimed her glasses at the pie-bald, motionless in malign +stupor, and replied irrelevantly: + +"Why! That's the Knoxes' pony!" + +I made haste to explain our disaster and the position generally, +winding up with a request for a piece of string. + +"You're staying at the Butler-Knoxes!" exclaimed the lady of the house. +"How funny that is! Do you know you're coming to our dance to-night, +to meet your old friend the General! I know all about it, you see!" +She advanced with a beaming yet perturbed countenance upon Philippa, +"I'm so glad to meet you. Do come in! We've got an infuriated cook at +bay in the kitchen, and things are rather disorganised, but I think we +can rise to a bit of string! The pony's all right--he'll sleep there +for months, he always does." + +We followed her into a hall choked with the exiled furniture of the +drawing-room, and saw through an open door the whirling forms of two or +three couples of young men and maidens. + +"They're polishing the floor," said our hostess, swiftly shutting the +door, "they make a hideous noise, but it keeps them quiet--if you know +what I mean. It's most disastrous that my husband has gone out +hunting," she pursued; "this odious cook only arrived two days ago, +and----" + +At this juncture a door at the end of the hall burst open, disclosing a +long passage and a young and crimson housemaid. + +"She's coming, my lady! She's coming! Mr. Ralph's sent me on to get +the door open!" she panted. + +At the same moment a loud and wrathful voice arose in the passage and a +massive form, filling it from wall to wall, appeared; the capitulating +cook, moving down upon us with the leisurely and majestic truculence of +a traction-engine. As she came she chanted these words in measured +cadence: + + "Lady Flora, + Gets her brother + To do her dirty work." + + +By the time this rune had been repeated three times she was in the +hall, shepherded by a tall young man, obviously the brother referred +to, and by the butler, the vista being filled in the rear by a wavering +assortment of female domestics. As the cook tacked to weather a sofa, +there was something about her that woke a vague and unpleasant chord of +memory. Her ranging eye met mine, and the chord positively twanged as +I recognised the formidable countenance of a female, technically known +as a "job-cook," who for two cyclonic weeks had terrorised our +household while Mrs. Cadogan was on leave. I backed convulsively into +Lady Flora, in futile and belated attempt to take cover, but even as I +did so the chanting ceased and I knew the worst had happened. + +"Is that my darlin' Major Yeates?" shouted the cook, tacking again and +bearing down on me full-sailed. "Thanks be to God I have the gentleman +that'll see I get justice! And Mrs. Yeates, a noble lady, that'd never +set foot in my kitchen without she'd ask my leave! Ah, ha! As +Shakespeare says, I'd know a rale lady as soon as I'd put an eye on +her, if she was boiling cabbage!" + +[Illustration: "IS THAT MY DARLIN' MAJOR YEATES?" SHOUTED THE COOK] + +She caught my reluctant hand and waved it up and down, and the muffled +triumphings of "Whistling Rufus" in the drawing-room filled up the +position. + +Through them came a sound of wheels on the gravel, and through this +again a strangled whisper from behind: + +"Take her out to the steps; I hear the car with the police!" + +Holding the fervid hand of the job-cook, I advanced with her through +the furniture, skew-wise, as in the visiting figure of the Lancers; +there was an undoubted effort on her part to keep time to the music, +and she did not cease to inform the company that Major and Mrs. Yeates +were the real old nobility, and that they would see she got her rights. + +Followed closely by the shepherd and the butler, we moved forth on to +the steps. The police were not there. There was nothing there save a +complicated pattern of arcs and angles on the gravel, as of a +four-wheeled vehicle that has taken an uncommonly short turn. At the +bend of the avenue the pony-carriage, our link with the world without, +was disappearing from view, the piebald pony heading for home at a +pig-like but determined gallop. The job-cook clasped her hands on my +arm and announced to the landscape that she would live and die with the +Major. + + + + +IX + +"A HORSE! A HORSE!" + +PART II + +A quarter of an hour later Philippa and I stood in the high road, with +the sense of deliverance throbbing in every grateful nerve, and viewed +the car, with the job-cook and the policeman, swing heavily away +towards the railway station. + +Mine was the strategy that had brought about our escape, mine were the +attractions that had lured the cook to mount the policeman's car with +me, and still more inalienably mine was the searing moment when, still +arm-in-arm with the cook, we drove away from the deeply appreciative +party on the doorsteps. Philippa and a policeman were on the opposite +side of the car; the second policeman, very considerately, walked. + +We were close to the station, the cook had sung herself to sleep, and +Philippa and I had relapsed into the depths of abysmal despondency, +when our incredulous eyes beheld the Butler-Knoxes' coachman coming +towards us at a trot, riding a bay horse and leading a grey, on which +was a side-saddle. Flavin, the horse dealer, had, after all, been as +good as Flurry's word--the hirelings were here, and all was right with +the world. + +The car slackened to a walk, we slid from it silently, and it and its +burden passed into that place of shadows to which all extraneous +affairs of life betake themselves on a hunting morning, when the hour +is come, and the horse. + +Looshy's coachman delivered to me the bay horse, a large and +notable-looking animal, with a Roman nose adorned with a crooked blaze, +a tranquil eye, and two white stockings. In his left hand he held a +compact iron-grey mare, hogged and docked, who came up to the bank by +the roadside, to be mounted, as neatly as a man-o'-war boat comes +alongside. Hirelings of so superior a class it had never before been +my privilege to meet, and I made up my mind that they were either +incurably vicious or broken winded. + +"It's easy known that this mare's carried a lady before, sir," said the +coachman, a young man with a soul for higher things than driving the +Butler-Knox covered car, "and the big horse is the best I ever seen +come out of Flavin's! He's in grand condition, he's as slick as a +mouse! Only for Mr. Flurry being there we'd hardly have got them," he +continued, while he lengthened my stirrup-leathers, "the chap Flavin +sent with them had drink taken, and the porters had the box shunted and +himself in it, stretched, and the bottle of whisky with him!" + +Flavin's man and his bottle of whisky were now negligible incidents for +me. Philippa was already under way, and the time was short. The bay +horse, arching his neck and reaching pleasantly at his bit, went away +at a rhythmic and easy trot, the grey mare flitted beside him with +equal precision; it was, perhaps, rather fast for riding to a meet, but +we were late, and were they not hirelings? + +We followed our guides, the telegraph posts, for some four miles of +level road; they dropped down a deepening valley to a grey and brimming +river, and presently came slate roofs and white-washed houses, staring +at each other across an empty village street. We had arrived at +Kilbarron, the scene of the meet, and the meet was not. + +"They've gone on! they've gone on!" screamed an old woman from a +doorway, "away up over the hill!" + +Evidently every other live thing had followed the hunt, and we did not +spare Mr. Flavin's horses in doing the same. We reached the top of the +long hill in a remarkably brief space of time, and, having done so, +realised that we were not too late. A couple of fields away a row of +figures, standing like palings along the top of a bank, with their +backs to us, told that the hounds were still in view; even as we +sighted them, the palings plunged _en masse_ from their standpoint with +that composite yell that in Ireland denotes the breaking (and +frequently the heading) of a fox, and vanished. Whatever was +happening, it was not coming our way. I turned my hireling at the bank +by the roadside, he came round with a responsive swing, and in two +large and orderly bounds he was over. Before I had time to look round, +the grey mare, with the faintest hint of a buck, galloped emulously +past me. + +"Perfection!" panted Philippa, putting her hat straight. + +As we came up on to the next bank, recently vacated by its human +palisade, we found that fortune had smiled upon us. Just below, on our +right, was a long strip of gorse covert; three big fields beyond it, +gliding from us like a flock of seagulls, were the clamouring hounds, +and in the space between us and them bucketed the hunt, in the first +fine frenzy of getting away. Flavin's bay immediately caught hold, not +implacably, but with the firmness of superior knowledge; the grey mare, +having ascertained that Philippa was not going to interfere, thought +better of going on alone, and took the time from her stable companion. +The field was already sorting itself into the usual divisions of the +forward, the cunning, and the useless; our luck stood to us; the +forward division, carried away by the enthusiasm of a good start and a +sympathetic fall of ground, succeeded in less than a quarter of a mile +in hustling the hounds over the line, and brought about a check. We +joined the rearguard, and worked our way towards the front, +unobtrusively, because Sir Thomas Purcell's comments on the situation +were circling like a stock-whip among the guilty, and were not sparing +the innocent. At this moment we found Flurry Knox beside us. + +"Sir Thomas is giving the soldiers their tea in a mug!" he said; "and +they were in the want of it! How are those horses doing with you?" he +went on, looking our steeds up and down. "They look up to your +weights, anyhow! I suppose you didn't see your friend, the General? +He was at the meet in a motor." + +"In a motor!" repeated Philippa. "I thought he was such a wonderful +rider." + +"He knows how to get a motor along, anyhow," replied Flurry, his +attentive eyes following the operations of the hounds; "maybe he has +the gout. You'd say he had by the colour of his face. Hullo! Boys! +They're away again! Come on, Mrs. Yeates! Knock your two guineas' +worth out of Flavin!" + +Short as it was, the burst had been long enough to tranquillise my +anxieties as to our hirelings' wind, and when we started again we found +them almost excessively ready for the stone-faced bank that confronted +us at the end of the field. Some twenty of us, including the chidden, +but wholly unabashed soldiers, went at it in line, and, after the +manner of stone-faced banks, it grew very tall as we approached it. +Flavin's bay strode unfalteringly over it; it was as though he grasped +it and flung it behind him. The grey mare, full of jealousy and +vain-glory, had a hard try to fly the whole thing, but retained +sufficient self-control to change feet at the last possible instant; +with or without a scramble or a peck, we all arrived somehow in the +next field, and saw, topping the succeeding fence, the bulky chestnut +quarters of Sir Thomas Purcell's horse and the square scarlet back of +Sir Thomas. Away to the left, on an assortment of astute crocks, three +of the Misses Purcell followed the First Whip, at as considerable a +distance from their parent as was consistent with a good place. Their +voices came confusedly to us; apparently each was telling the others to +get out of her way. + +For a quarter of an hour the hounds ran hard over the clean +pasture-land, whose curves rose before us and glided astern like the +long rollers under an Atlantic liner. Innocent of rocks or pitfalls, +unimpeachable as to surface, it was a page of fair print as compared +with the black letter manuscript to which the country of Mr. Flurry +Knox's hounds might be likened. Never before have I crossed fences as +sound, as seductive, it was like jumping large and well-upholstered +Chesterfield sofas; Chesterfieldian also were the manners of Flavin's +bay. I found myself in the magnificent position of giving a lead to +Flurry and the Dodger, of giving several leads to the soldiery; once, +when a wide and boggy stream occurred, the Misses Purcell and the +crocks looked to me as their pioneer. The hustle and the hurry never +relaxed; the hounds had fastened on the line and were running it as +though it were a footpath; but for the check at the start, no fox could +have held his lead for so long at such a pace, and whatever the pace, +the tails of the horses of Sir Thomas and the First Whip never failed +to disappear over the bank just ahead. + +For me, in the unwonted glory of heading the desperadoes of the first +flight, life and the future were contained in the question of how much +longer I could count on my hireling. I was just able to spare a hasty +thought or two to Philippa and the grey, and I remember that it was +after a heavy drop into a road that I noticed, with the just and +impotent wrath of a husband, that her hair was beginning to come down. + +It was just then that I first saw the motor. The fox had run the road +for some little distance; we clattered and splashed along it, until an +intimidating roar from Sir Thomas and the sight of his right arm in the +air, brought us, bumping and tugging, to a standstill. The hounds were +for a moment at fault, swarming, with their heads down, over every inch +of the road, and beyond them, about a hundred yards from us, was a +resplendent scarlet motor, whose nearer approach was summarily +interdicted by the First Whip. I am short-sighted, but I caught an +impression of two elderly gentlemen, one of whom, wearing a white +moustache and a tall hat, was responding warmly to the fulminations of +Sir Thomas. If this were my ancient brother-in-arms, Jimmy Porteous, +following hounds in a motor, times were indeed changed. I dismissed +the possibility from my mind. Just then I caught sight of Flurry's +face; it had in it the fearful joy of a schoolboy who has seen a squib +put into the tail pocket of the schoolmaster, and awaits the result. +Mrs. Flurry, in the heroic act of plucking a hairpin from her own +unshaken golden-red plaits, and yielding it to Philippa, met his eye +with a glance that was so expressionless as to amount to a danger +signal. + +At this moment the hounds jostled over the wall with a clatter of +falling stones; they spread themselves in the field like the opening of +a fan, they narrowed to the recovered line like the closing of one; Sir +Thomas's chestnut hoisted himself and his fifteen-stone burden out of +the road with the heave of an earthquake. The riders shoved after him, +and we were swept again into the current of the hunt. + +As we thundered away up the field threatening shouts from the checked +motorists followed us; apparently, after the manner of their kind, they +had not a moment to spare, and the delay had annoyed them. The next +fence arrived, and they, and all else, were forgotten. + +There was a wood ahead of us, cresting a long upland, and for it the +hounds were making, at a pace that brutally ignored the rise of ground, +and the fact that in these higher levels the fields were smaller, and +the fences had to be faced up a hill that momently grew steeper. + +"Hold on, Mrs. Yeates, till I take down that pole for you!" Flurry's +voice followed us up the hill, and there was that in it that told he +was making heavy weather of it. He was leading the dripping Dodger, +and I have seldom seen a redder face than his as he laboured past +Philippa and dragged away the shaft of a cart that barred a gap. "Bad +luck to this for a close country!" he puffed. "You're not off one +fence before you're on top of the next!" Flavin's horses were +certainly lathering pretty freely, but were otherwise making no remark +on the situation, and neither of them had so far made a mistake of any +kind. I saw the First Whip regard the bay with obvious respect, and +turn with a confidential comment to the nearest Miss Purcell. It +hall-marked my achievements. + +Philippa and I were among the first into the wood; even Flurry had been +left three fields behind, and the glory of our position radiated from +us, as we stood at the end of the main ride, sublimely surveying the +arrival of the rest of the streaming hunt. Sir Thomas and the hounds +had dived out of sight into the recesses of the wood; a period of +inaction ensued, and for a few balmy minutes peace with honour was ours. + +Balmy, however, as were the minutes, there crept into them an anxiety +as to what the hounds were doing. A great and complete silence had +fallen as far as they and Sir Thomas were concerned, and Philippa and +I, conscious of our high estate as leaders of the hunt, melted away +from the crowd to investigate matters. We followed a path that took us +across the wood, and the deeper we went the deeper was the silence, and +the more acute became our fears that we had been left behind. Sir +Thomas had an evil reputation for slipping his field and getting away +alone. + +"There's the horn!" cried Philippa. "It's outside the wood! They +_have_ gone away. Hurry!" + +We were squeezing along the farther edge of the covert, looking for a +way out, and I, too, heard the note, faint, yet commanding. I hurried. +That is to say, with my hat over my eyes, and my cheek laid against the +bay's neck, I followed my wife up an alley that was barely wide enough +for a woodcock. + +On our left was an impassable hedge of small trees, crowning a heavy +drop into the field outside the wood; our faces were rowelled by the +branches of young spruce firs. It was all very well for Philippa, +riding nearly two hands lower than I, to twist her way in and out +through them like a squirrel, but for me, on a 16.2 horse, resolved on +following his stable companion through a keyhole if necessary, it was +anything but well. My eyes were tightly shut, my arm was in front of +them, and my eye-glass was hanging down my back, when I felt the bay +stop. + +"Here's a way out," said my wife's voice, apparently from the middle of +a fir tree, "there's a sort of a cattle track here." + +There followed a scramble and a slide, then Philippa's voice again, +enjoining me to keep to the right. + +She has since explained that she really meant the left, and that, in +any case, I might have known that she always said right when she meant +left; be that as it may, when the bay and I had committed ourselves to +the steep descent--half water-course, half cattle track--I was smitten +in the face by a holly branch. Before I had recovered from its impact, +a stout beechen bough, that it had masked, met me violently across the +waistcoat and held me in mid-air, as the gorilla is reputed to grasp +and hold the traveller, while my horse moved firmly downward from +beneath me. After a moment of suspense, mental and physical, I fell to +earth, like the arrow in the song, I knew not where, and tobogganed +painfully down something steep and stony, with briers in it. + +As I rose to my feet, the mellow note of the horn that had beguiled us +from the wood, again sounded; nearer now, and with a harsher cadence, +and I perceived, at the farther end of the field in which I had +arrived, a bullock, with his head over a gate, sending a long and +lamentable bugle note to the companions from whom he had been +separated. Simultaneously the hounds opened far back in the wood +behind me, and I knew that the flood-tide of luck had turned against us. + +Flavin's bay had not waited for me. He was already well away, going +with head and tail high held, a gentleman at large, seeking for +entertainment at a lively and irresponsible trot. Pursuing him, with +more zeal than discretion, was Philippa on the grey mare; he broke into +a canter, and I had the pleasure of seeing them both swing through a +gateway and proceed at a round gallop across the next field. I +followed them at the best imitation of the same pace that my boots +permitted, and squelched through the mire of the gateway in time to see +the bay horse jump a tall bank, and drop with a clatter into a road. +At the same moment the drumming and hooting of a motor-car broke upon +my ear, and three heads, one of them wearing a tall hat, slid at high +speed along the line of the fence. At sight of this apparition the bay +horse gave a massive buck, and fled at full speed up a lane. To my +surprise and gratification, the motor-car instantly stopped, and one of +its occupants--the wearer of the tall hat--sprang out and gave chase to +my horse. + +My attention was here abruptly transferred to my wife, who, having +followed the chase, whether by her own wish or that of the grey mare I +have never been able to discover, was now combating the desire of the +latter to jump the bank at the exact spot calculated to land them both +in the lap of the motor-car. The dispute ended in a slanting and +crab-like rush at a place twenty yards lower down, and it was then that +the figure of our host, Mr. Lucius Butler-Knox, rose, amazingly, in the +motor-car, making semaphore gestures of warning. + +The mare jumped crookedly on to the bank, hung there for half a second, +and launched herself into space, the launch being followed, +appropriately, by a mighty splash. Neither she nor Philippa reappeared. + +Throughout these events I had not ceased to run, and the next thing I +can distinctly recall is scrambling, thoroughly blown, on to the fence, +whence a moving scene presented itself to me. The grey mare and +Philippa had, with singular ingenuity, selected between them the one +place in the fence where disaster was inevitable; and I now beheld my +wife prone in two feet of yellow water, the overflow of a flooded ditch +that had turned a hollow by the roadside into a sufficiently imposing +pond. Mr. Butler-Knox and the chauffeur were already rendering all the +assistance possible, short of wetting their feet, and were hauling her +ashore; while the grey mare, recumbent in deeper water, surveyed the +operation with composure, and made no attempt to move. When I joined +the party--a process involving a wide circuit of the flood--Philippa +had sunk, dripping, upon a heap of stones by the roadside, in laughter +as inexplicable as it was unsuitable. There was, at all events, no +need to ask if she were hurt. + +"The most appalling thing that you ever knew in your life has +happened!" she wailed, and instantly fell again into unseemly +convulsions. + +Whatever the jest might be, it did not appeal to the chauffeur, who +withdrew in silence to his motor, coldly wiping the vicarious duckweed +from his knees with a silk pocket-handkerchief. Still less did it +appeal to me. Any fair-minded person will admit that I had cause to be +excessively angry with Philippa. That a grown woman, the mother of two +children, should mistake the bellow of a bullock for the note of a horn +was bad enough; but that when, having caused a serious accident by not +knowing her right hand from her left, and having, by further +insanities, driven one valuable horse adrift into the country, probably +broken the back of another, laid the seeds of heart disease in her +husband from shock and over-exertion, and of rheumatic fever in +herself; when, I repeat, after all these outrages, she should sit in a +soaking heap by the roadside, laughing like a maniac, I feel that the +sympathy of the public will not be withheld from me. + +The mystery of Mr. Butler-Knox's appearance in the motor-car passed by +me like a feather in a whirlwind; I strode without a word into the +yellow flood in which the mare was lying, and got hold of her reins +with the handle of my crop; I might as well have tried to draw out +Behemoth with a hook. Her hind-quarters were well fixed in the hidden +ditch, she made not the slightest effort to stir, and continued to +recline, contentedly, not to say defiantly. + +"That's a great sign of fine weather," said a voice behind me in +affable comment, "when a horse will lie down in wather that way." + +[Illustration: "THAT'S A GREAT SIGN OF FINE WEATHER WHEN A HORSE WILL +LIE DOWN IN WATHER THAT WAY"] + +I turned upon my consoler, and saw a young countryman with a fur-lined +coat hanging upon his arm. + +"I got this thrown in the _bohireen_ above," he said, "the other +gentleman, that's follying the bay horse, stripped it off him, and God +knows it's itself that's weighty!" + +"My dear Major!" began Looshy, addressing me agitatedly from the bank, +as a hen might address a refractory duckling, "there has been a most +unfortunate mistake." + +"There has! There has! It's all Flurry's fault!" gasped Philippa, +staggering towards me like a drunken woman. + +"I fear the General is terribly annoyed," continued Looshy, wiping his +grey beard and mopping his collar to remove the muddy imprint of +Philippa's arm; "he rushed into Garden Mount in search of his horses +when he found they were not at the meet nor at the station--he left +Lady Porteous with my sisters and took me to identify you; I mentioned +your name, but he did not seem to grasp it--indeed his language +was--er--was such that I thought it unwise to press the point." + +I dropped the reins and began, slowly, to wade out of the pool. + +"I understand he has but just paid £300 for these horses--it was an +unpardonable mistake of Flurry's," went on Looshy, "he found the +General's horses at the station and thought that they were Flavin's." + +"Dear Flurry!" sobbed Philippa, shamelessly, reeling against me and +clutching my arm. + +"Begor' he have the horse!" said the young countryman, looking up the +hill. + +A stout figure in a red coat and tall hat was approaching by way of the +_bohireen_, followed by a man leading a limping horse. + +"I think," said Looshy nervously, "that Mrs. Yeates had better have my +seat in the motor-car and hurry home. I will walk--I should really +prefer it. The General will be quite happy now that he has found his +horses and his old friend." + +[Illustration: "I WILL WALK--I SHOULD REALLY PREFER IT"] + +The chauffeur, plying a long-necked oil-can, smiled sardonically. + + + + +X + +SHARPER THAN A FERRET'S TOOTH + +"My dear Philippa," said Miss Shute gloomily, "I have about as much +chance of spending next winter in Florence as I have of spending it in +the moon. I despair of ever getting Bernard married. I look upon him +as hopeless." + +"I don't agree with you at all," replied Philippa, "don't you remember +how demented he was about Sally Knox? And when we all thought he was +on the verge of suicide, we discovered that he was deep in a flirtation +with that American girl. It seems to me he's ready to be devoted to +any one who takes him in hand. He has none of that deadly helpless +fidelity about him." + +"I ought never to have allowed him to take up gardening," said Miss +Shute, despondently pursuing her own line of thought, "it only promotes +intimacies with dowagers." + +"Yes, and it makes men elderly, and contented, and stay-at-home," +agreed Philippa; "it's one of the worst signs! But I can easily make +Sybil Hervey think she's a gardener. She's a thoroughly nice, +coercible girl. Alice has always been so particular about her girls. +Of course with their money they've been run after a good deal, but +they're not in the least spoilt." + +"I don't think," I murmured privately to Maria, who was trying to +hypnotise me into letting her crawl on to the sofa beside me, "that +we'll borrow half-a-crown to get drunk with her." + +Maria wagged her tail in servile acquiescence. + +"Nonsense!" said my wife largely. + +A month from the date of this conversation, Sybil Hervey, my wife's +pretty, young, and well-dowered niece, was staying beneath our roof. I +had not changed my mind about the half-crown, though Maria, perfidious +as ever, feigned for her the impassioned affection that had so often +imposed upon the guileless guest within my gates. + +"Why, this dog has taken the most extraordinary fancy to me!" Sybil +Hervey (who was really a very amiable girl) would say, and Maria, with +a furtive eye upon her owners, would softly draw the guest's third +piece of cake into the brown velvet bag that she called her mouth. + +This was all very well from Maria's point of view, but a friendship +with Maria had not been the object of Miss Hervey's importation. I +evade, by main strength, the quotation from Burns proper to this state +of affairs, and proceed to say that the matrimonial scheme laid by my +wife and Miss Shute was not prospering. Sybil Hervey, the coercible, +the thoroughly nice, shied persistently at the instructive pages of +Robinson's "English Flower Garden," and stuck in her toes and refused +point blank to weed seedlings for her Aunt Philippa. Nor was a +comprehensive garden party at Clountiss attended with any success; far +otherwise. Miss Shute unfortunately thought it incumbent on her to +trawl in deep waters, and to invite even the McRory family to her +entertainment, with the result that her brother, Bernard--I quote my +wife verbatim--made a ridiculous spectacle of himself by walking about +all the afternoon with a fluffy-haired, certainly-rather-pretty, little +abomination, a creature who was staying with the McRorys. Worse even +than this, Sybil had disappointed, if not disgraced, her backers, by +vanishing from the ken of un-gentle men with Mr. De Lacy McRory, known +to his friends as "Curly." + +I have before now dealt, superficially, and quite inadequately, with +the McRorys. It may even be permitted to me to recall again the +generic description of each young male McRory. "A bit of a lad, but +nothing at all to the next youngest." Since that time the family had +worn its way, unequally and in patches, into the tolerance of the +neighbourhood. It was said, apologetically, that the daughters danced, +and played tennis and golf so well, and the sons did the same and were +such excellent shots, and that Mrs. McRory bought, uncomplainingly, all +that was offered to her at bazaars, and could always be counted on for +a whole row of seats at local concerts. As for old McRory, people said +that he was certainly rather awful, but that he was better than his +family in that he knew that he was awful, and kept out of the way. As +a matter of history, there were not many functions where a McRory of +some kind, in accordance with its special accomplishment, did not find, +at all events, standing room; fewer still where they did not form a +valued topic of conversation. + +Curly McRory was, perhaps, the pioneer of his family in their advance +to cross what has been usefully called "the bounder-y line." He played +all games well, and he was indisputably good-looking, he knew how to be +discreetly silent; he also, apparently, knew how to talk to Sybil what +time her accredited chaperon, oblivious of her position, played two +engrossing sets of tennis. + +After this fiasco came a period of stagnation, during which Mr. De Lacy +McRory honoured us with his first visit to Shreelane, bicycling over to +see me, on business connected with the golf club; in my regretted +absence he asked for Mrs. Yeates, and stayed for tea. Following upon +this Sybil took to saying, "I will," in what she believed to be a +brogue, instead of "yes," and was detected in fruitless search for the +McRorys of Temple Braney in the pages of Burke's Irish Landed Gentry. + +It was at this unsatisfactory juncture that Mrs. Flurry Knox entered +into the affair with an invitation to us to spend three days at +Aussolas Castle, one of which was to be devoted to the destruction of a +pack of grouse, fabled by John Kane, the keeper, to frequent a mountain +back of Aussolas: the Shutes were also to be of the party. I seemed to +detect in the arrangement a hand more diplomatic than that of +Providence, but I said nothing. + +The Flurry Knoxes were, for the moment, in residence at Aussolas, while +old Mrs. Knox made her annual pilgrimage to Buxton. They were sent +there to keep the servants from fighting, and because John Kane had +said that there was no such enemies to pigs as servants on board wages. +(A dark saying, bearing indirectly on the plenishing of pig-buckets.) + +Between servants and pigs, as indeed in most affairs of life, little +Mrs. Flurry held the scales of justice with a remarkably steady hand, +and under her régime one could at all events be reasonably sure of +having one's boots cleaned, and of getting a hot bath in the morning. +We went to Aussolas, and Flurry and Bernard Shute and I put in a +blazing September day on the mountain, wading knee deep in matted +heather and furze, in pursuit of the mythical grouse, and brought home +two hares and a headache (the latter being my contribution to the bag). +The ladies met us with tea; Sybil, in Harris tweed and admirable boots, +looked, I must admit, uncommonly smart. Even Flurry was impressed, and +it was palpable to the most superficial observer that Bernard was at +length beginning, like a baby, to "take notice." After tea he and she +moved away in sweet accord to wash teacups in a bog-hole, from whence +their prattle came prosperously to the ears of the three diplomatists, +seated, like the witches in Macbeth, upon the heath, and, like them, +arranging futures for other people. Bearing in mind that one of the +witches had (in a previous incarnation as Miss Sally Knox) held Bernard +in her thrall, and still retained him in a platonic sphere of +influence, any person of experience would have said that the odds were +greatly against Mr. Shute. + +[Illustration: FLURRY AND I PUT IN A BLAZING SEPTEMBER DAY ON THE +MOUNTAIN] + +The hot bath that was the _fine fleur_ of Mrs. Flurry's régime at +Aussolas failed conspicuously next morning. It was the precursor of a +general slump. When, at a liberal 9.30, I arrived in the dining-room, +of neither host, hostess, nor breakfast was there any sign. The host, +it appeared, had gone to a fair; having waited for a hungry half-hour +we were coming to the conclusion that the hostess had gone with him, +when the door opened and Mrs. Flurry came swiftly into the room. Her +face was as a book, where men might read strange matters; it was also +of a hue that suggested the ardent climate of the kitchen; in her hand +she carried a toast-rack, and following hard on her heels came three +maids, also heavily flushed, bearing various foods, and all, +apparently, on the verge of tears. This cortège having retired, Mrs. +Flurry proceeded to explain. The butler, Johnny, a dingy young man, +once Mrs. Knox's bathchair-attendant, had departed at 8 A.M., +accompanied by Michael the pantry boy, to dig a grave for a cousin. To +those acquainted with Aussolas there was nothing remarkable in this, +but Sybil Hervey's china-blue eyes opened wide, and I heard her ask +Bernard in a low voice if he thought it was anything agrarian. The +annoyance of the cook at the defection of the butler and pantry boy was +so acute that she had retired to her room and refused to send in +breakfast. + +"That was no more than I should have expected from the servants here," +said Mrs. Flurry vindictively, "but what was just a little too much was +finding the yard-boy cramming the toast into the toast-rack with his +fingers." + +At this my wife's niece uttered the loud yell which all young women +with any pretension to smartness have by them for use on emergencies, +and exclaimed-- + +"Oh, _don't_!" + +"You needn't be frightened," said Mrs. Flurry, giving Miss Hervey the +eighth part of a glance of her greeny-grey eyes; "I made this stuff +myself, and you may all think yourselves lucky to get anything," she +went on, "as one of the herd of incapables downstairs said, 'to get as +much milk as'd do the tea itself, that was the stratagem'!" + +Hard on the heels of the quotation there came a rushing sound in the +hall without, a furious grappling with the door-handle, and the cook +herself, or rather the Tragic Muse in person, burst into the room. Her +tawny hair hung loose about her head; her yellow-brown eyes blazed in +an ashen and extremely handsome face; she shook a pair of freckled +fists at the universe. I cannot pretend to do more than indicate the +drift of her denunciation. Brunhilde, ascending the funeral pyre, with +full orchestral accompaniment, could not more fully and deafeningly +have held her audience, and the theme might have been taken out of the +darkest corner of any of the Sagas. + +The burying-ground of her clan was--so she had been informed by a swift +runner--even now being broken into by the butler and the pantry boy, +and the graves of her ancestors were being thrown open to the Four +Winds of the World, to make room for the Scuff of the Country (whatever +that might mean). Here followed the most capable and comprehensive +cursings of the butler and the pantry boy that it has ever been my lot +to admire, delivered at lightning speed, and with gestures worthy of +the highest traditions of classic drama, the whole ending with the +statement that she was on her way to the graveyard now to drink their +blood. + +"I trust you will, Kate," cordially responded Mrs. Flurry, "don't wait +a moment!" + +The Tragic Muse, startled into an instant of silence, stared wildly at +Mrs. Flurry, seemed to scent afar off the possibility that she was not +being taken seriously, and whirled from the room, a Vampire on the +warpath. + +"I meant every word I said to her!" said Sally, looking round upon us +defiantly, "I was very near offering her your motor, Mr. Shute! The +sooner she kills Johnny and Michael the better pleased I shall be! And +I may tell you all," she added, "that we shall have no luncheon to-day, +and most probably no dinner!" + +"Oh, that's all right!" said Philippa, seeing her chance, and hammering +in her wedge with all speed, "now there's nothing for it but sandwiches +and a picnic!" + +The lake at Aussolas was one of a winding chain of three, connected by +narrow channels cut through the bog for the passage of boats that +carried turf to the lake-side dwellers. The end one of these, known as +Braney's Lake, was a recognised place for picnics; a ruined oratory on +a wooded point supplying the pretext, and a reliable spring well +completing the equipment. The weather was of the variety specially +associated in my mind with Philippa's picnics, brilliantly fine, with a +falling glass, and 12 o'clock saw us shoving out from the Aussolas turf +quay, through the reeds and the rocks. + +[Illustration: BRANEY'S LAKE] + +We were a party of six, in two boats; diplomacy, whose I know not, had +so disposed matters that Bernard Shute and Sybil Hervey were despatched +together in a dapper punt, and I, realising to the full the +insignificance of my position as a married man, found myself tugging at +a tough and ponderous oar, in a species of barge, known to history as +"The-Yallow-Boat-that-was-painted-black." My wife and Mrs. Flurry took +turns in assisting my labours by paddling with a scull in the bow, +while Miss Shute languidly pulled the wrong string at intervals, in the +stern. Why, I grumbled contentiously, should, as it were, fish be made +of Bernard and flesh be made of me (which was a highly figurative way +of describing a performance that would take a stone off my weight ere +all was done). Why, I repeated, should not Bernard put his broad back +into it in the heavy boat with me, and leave the punt for the ladies? +My wife tore herself from _sotto voce_ gabblings with Sally in the bow +to tell me that I was thoroughly unsympathetic, what time she dealt me +an unintentional but none the less disabling blow in the spine, in her +effort to fall again into stroke. Mrs. Flurry, in order to take turns +at the oar with Philippa, had seated herself on the luncheon basket in +the bow, thereby sinking the old tub by the head, and, as we afterwards +found, causing her to leak in the sun-dried upper seams. To us +travelled the voice of Bernard, lightly propelling his skiff over the +ruffled and sparkling blue water. + +"He's telling her about all the alterations he's going to make at +Clountiss!" hissed Sally down the back of Philippa's neck. + +"Almost actionable!" responded my wife, and in her enthusiasm her oar +again took me heavily between the shoulder blades. + +We laboured out of the Aussolas lake, and poled down the narrow channel +into the middle lake, where shallows, and a heavy summer's growth of +reeds, did not facilitate our advance. The day began to cloud over; as +we wobbled out of the second channel into Braney's lake the sun went +in, a sharp shower began to whip the water, and simultaneously Miss +Shute announced that her feet were wet, and that she thought the boat +must be leaking. I then perceived that the water was up to the bottom +boards, and was coming in faster than I could have wished. A baler was +required, and I proceeded with confidence to search for the rusty +mustard tin, or cracked jam-crock, that fills that office. There was +nothing to be found. + +"There are plenty of cups in the luncheon basket," said Sally, +tranquilly; "Flurry once had to bale this old boat out with one of his +grandmother's galoshes." + +Philippa and I began to row with some vigour, while Sally wrestled with +the fastening of the luncheon basket in the bow. The lid opened with a +jerk and a crack. There was one long and speechless moment, and then +Sally said in a very gentle voice: + +"They've sent the washing-basket, with all the clean clothes!" + +Of the general bearings of this catastrophe there was no time to think; +its most pressing feature was the fact that there were no cups with +which to bale the boat. I looked over my shoulder and saw Bernard +dragging the punt ashore under the ruined oratory, a quarter of a mile +away; there was nothing for it but to turn and make for the shore on +our right at the best pace attainable. Sally and Philippa +double-banked the bow oar, and the old boat, leaking harder at each +moment, wallowed on towards a landing stage that suddenly became +visible amid the reeds--the bottom boards were by this time awash, and +Miss Shute's complexion and that of her holland dress matched to a +shade. + +"Could you throw the washing overboard?" I suggested over my shoulder, +labouring the while at my massy oar. + +"My--new--nightgowns!" panted Mrs. Flurry, "never!" + +Just then big rocks began to show yellow in the depths, the next moment +the boat scraped over one, and, almost immediately afterwards, settled +down quietly and with dignity in some three feet of brown water and mud. + +Only those who have tried to get out of a submerged boat, can form any +idea of what then befell. Our feet and legs turned to lead, the water +to glue, all that was floatable in the boat rose to the surface, and +lay about there impeding our every movement. We had foundered in sight +of port and were not half-a-dozen yards from the landing stage, but to +drag myself and three women, all up to our waists in water, and the +ladies hopelessly handicapped by their petticoats, over the gunwale of +a sunken boat, and to flounder ashore with them in mud, over unsteady +rocks, and through the ever-hampering reeds, was infinitely more +difficult and exhausting than it may seem. + +Clasping a slimy post to my bosom with one arm, I was in the act of +shoving Miss Shute up on to the landing stage, when I heard the +unmistakeable Dublin light tenor voice of a McRory hail me, announcing +that he was coming to our rescue. More distant shouts, and the rapid +creaking of hard-pulled oars told that Bernard and Sybil were also +speeding to our aid. The three diplomates, dripping on the end of the +pier, looked at each other bodefully, and Philippa murmured: + +"The worst has happened!" + +After that the worst continued to happen, and at a pace that overbore +all resistance. Mr. De Lacy McRory, tall and beautiful, in lily-white +flannels, took the lead into his own hands and played his game +faultlessly. Philippa was the object of his chief solicitude, Sally +and Miss Shute had their share of a manly tenderness that resolutely +ignored the degrading absurdity of their appearance; his father's +house, and all that was therein was laid at our feet. Captive and +helpless, we slopped and squelched beside him through the shrubberies +of Temple Braney House, with the shower, now matured into a heavy +down-pour, completing our saturation, too spiritless to resent the +heavy pleasantries of Bernard, the giggling condolences of Sybil. + +We have never been able to decide at which moment the knife of +humiliation cut deepest, whether it was when we stood and dripped on +the steps, while Curly McRory summoned in trumpet tones his women-kind, +or when, still dripping, we stood in the hall and were presented to +Mrs. McRory and a troop of young men and maidens, vociferous in +sympathy and hospitality; or when, having progressed like water carts +through the house, we found ourselves installed, like the Plague of +Frogs, in the bedchambers of the McRorys, face to face with the supreme +embarrassment of either going to bed, or of arraying ourselves in the +all too gorgeous garments that were flung before us with a generous +abandon worthy of Sir Walter Raleigh. + +I chose the latter course, and, in process of time, found myself +immaculately clothed in what is, I believe, known to tailors as "a +Lounge Suit," though not for untold gold would I have lounged, or by +any carelessness endangered the perfection of the creases of its dark +grey trousers. + +The luncheon gong sounded, and, like the leading gentleman in any +drawing-room drama, I put forth from my dressing-room, and at the head +of the stairs met my wife and Miss Shute. They were, if possible, +grander than I, and looked as if they were going to a wedding. + +"We had the choice of about eighty silk blouses," breathed Philippa, +gathering up a long and silken train, "Sally has to wear Madame's +clothes, nothing else were short enough. We're in for it, you know," +she added, "a luncheon is inevitable, and goodness knows when we can +get away, especially if this rain lasts--" her voice broke +hysterically; I turned and saw Mrs. Flurry shuffling towards us in +velvet slippers, holding up with both hands a flowing purple brocade +skirt. I pointed repressively downwards, to where, in the window seat +of the hall below, were visible the crispéd golden curls of Mr. De Lacy +McRory, and the shining rolls and undulations of Miss Sybil Hervey's +_chevelure_. Their heads were in close proximity, and their voices +were low and confidential. + +"This must be put a stop to!" said Philippa, rustling swiftly +downstairs. + +We all moved processionally in to lunch, arm in arm with the McRorys. +To Philippa had fallen old McRory, who was the best of the party (in +being so awful that he knew he was awful). He maintained an unbroken +silence throughout the meal, but whistled jigs secretly through his +teeth, a method of keeping up his courage of which I believe he was +quite unconscious. Of the brilliance of the part that I played with +Mrs. McRory it would ill become me to speak; what is more worthy of +record is the rapid and Upas-like growth of intimacy between Curly +McRory and my wife's niece. She had probably never before encountered +a young man so anxious to be agreeable, so skilled in achieving that +end. The fact that he was Irish accounted, no doubt, in her eyes, for +all that was unusual in his voice and manners, and his long eyelashes +did the rest. Sybil grew momently pinker and prettier as the long, +extraordinary meal marched on. + +Of its component parts I can only remember that there was a soup tureen +full of custard, a mountainous dish of trifle, in whose veins ran +honey, instead of jam, and to whose enlivenment a bottle at least of +whisky had been dedicated; certainly, at one period, Philippa had on +one side of her plate a cup of soup, and on the other a cup of tea. +Cecilia Shute was perhaps the member of our party who took it all +hardest. Pale and implacable, attired in a brilliant blue garment that +was an outrage alike to her convictions and her complexion, she sat +between two young McRorys, who understood no more of her language than +she did of theirs, and was obliged to view with the frigid tranquillity +boasted of by Doctor Johnson, the spectacle of her brother devoting +himself enthusiastically to that McRory cousin whom Philippa had +described as a fluffy-haired abomination. Everything, in fact, was +occurring that was least desired by the ladies of my party, with the +single exception of my niece by marriage; and the glowing satisfaction +of the McRory family was not hid from us, and did not ameliorate the +position. + +When luncheon was at length brought to a close nothing could well have +been blacker than the outlook. The rain, and the splendour of our +borrowed plumes, put a return by boat out of the question. It was a +good seven miles round by road, and the McRory family, fleet and +tireless bicyclists, had but one horse, which was lame. A telegram to +Aussolas had been despatched an hour ago, but as Mrs. Flurry was +gloomily certain that every servant there had gone to the funeral, the +time of our release was unknown. + +I do not now distinctly remember what occurred immediately after lunch, +but I know there came a period when I found myself alone in the hall, +turning over the pages of a dreary comic paper, uncertain what to do, +but determined on one point, that neither principalities nor powers +should force me into the drawing-room, where sat the three unhappy +women of my party, being entertained within an inch of their lives by +Mrs. McRory. Sybil and Bernard and their boon companions had betaken +themselves to that distant and dilapidated wing of the house in which I +had once unearthed Tomsy Flood, there to play squash racquets in one of +the empty rooms. I was consequently enacting the part laid down for me +by my lounge suit; I was lounging, as a gentleman should, without for +an instant disturbing the creases of my trousers. + +At times I was aware of the silent and respectful surveillance of Mr. +McRory in the inner hall, but I thought it best for us both to feign +unconsciousness of his presence. Through a swing door that, true to +its definition, swung wheezily to the cabbage-laden draughts from the +lower regions, I could hear the tide of battle rolling through the +disused wing. The squash racquets seemed to be of a most pervading +character; the thunder of rushing feet, blent with the long, +progressive shriek of an express train, would at intervals approach +almost to the swing door, but I remained unmolested. I had entered +upon my second cigarette, and a period of comparative peace, when I +heard a stealing foot, and found at my elbow a female McRory of about +twelve as years go, but dowered with the accumulated experience of six +elder sisters. + +"Did Pinkie and Mr. Shute come in this way to hide?" she began, looking +at me as if "Pinkie," whoever she might be, was in my pocket. "We're +playing hide'n-go-seek, and we can't find them." + +I said I knew nothing of them. + +The McRory child looked at me with supernal intelligence from under the +wing of dark hair that was tied over one ear. + +"They're not playing fair anyhow, and there's Curly and Miss Hervey +that wouldn't play at all!" She eyed me again. "He took her out to +show her the ferrets and they never came back. I was watching them; +she said one of the ferrets bit her finger, and Curly kissed it!" + +"I suppose you mean he kissed the ferret," I said repressively, while I +thought of Alice Hervey, mother of Sybil, and trembled. + +"Ah, go on! what a fool you're letting on to be!" replied the McRory +child, with elegant sarcasm. She swung round on her heel and sped away +again upon the trail, cannoning against old McRory in the back hall. + +"I tell you, that's the lady!" soliloquised old McRory, from the deep +of the back hall. I gathered that he was referring to the social +capacity of his youngest daughter and thought he was probably right. + +It was at this moment that deliverance broke like a sunburst upon us; I +saw through the windows of the hall a dogcart and an outside car whirl +past the door and onwards to the yard. The former was driven by Flurry +Knox, the car by Michael the Aussolas pantry boy, apparently none the +worse for his encounter with the vampire cook. I snatched an umbrella, +and, regardless of the lounge suit, followed with all speed the golden +path of the sunburst. + +Flurry, clad in glistening yellow oilskins, met me in the yard, wearing +an expression of ill-concealed exultation worthy of Job's comforters at +their brightest. + +"D'ye know who opened your wire?" he began, regarding me with an all +observant eye from under his sou-wester, while the rain drops ran down +his nose. "I can tell you there's the Old Gentleman to pay at +Aussolas--or the old lady, and that's worse! That's a nice suit--you +ought to buy that from Curly." + +"Who opened my telegram?" I said. I was not at all amused. + +"'When she got there, the cupboard was bare,'" returned Flurry. "'Not +a servant in the house, not a bit in the larder!' If it wasn't that by +the mercy of providence I found the picnic basket that you bright boys +had left after you, she'd have torn the house down!" + +"I suppose you mean that your grandmother has come back," I said +stonily. + +"She fought with her unfortunate devil of a doctor at Buxton," said +Flurry, permitting himself a grin of remembrance, "he told her she was +too old to eat late dinner, and she told him she wasn't going to be a +slave to her stomach or to him either, and she'd eat her dinner when +she pleased, and she landed in at Aussolas by the mid-day train without +a word." + +"What did she say when she opened my telegram?" I faltered. + +"She said 'Thank God I'm not a fool!'" replied her grandson. + +The proposition was unanswerable, and I took it, so to speak, lying +down. + +"Here!" said Flurry, summoning the pantry boy. "These horses must go +in out of the rain. I'll look over there for some place I can put +them." + +"I see Michael got back from the funeral," I said, following Flurry +across the wide and wet expanse of the yard, "I suppose the cook killed +Johnny?" + +"Ah, not at all," said Flurry, "anyway, my grandmother had the two of +them up unpacking her trunks when I left. Here, this place looks like +a stable----" + +He opened a door, in front of which a cascade from a broken water-shoot +was splashing noisily. The potent smell of ferrets greeted us. + +Seated on the ferrets' box were Mr. De Lacy McRory, and Sybil, daughter +of Alice Hervey. Apparently she had again been bitten by the ferret, +but this time the bite was not on her finger. + + + + +XI + +OWENEEN THE SPRAT + +I was labouring under the slough of Christmas letters and bills, when +my wife came in and asked me if I would take her to the Workhouse. + +[Illustration: MY WIFE CAME AND ASKED ME IF I WOULD TAKE HER TO THE +WORKHOUSE] + +"My dear," I replied, ponderously, but, I think, excusably, "you have, +as usual, anticipated my intention, but I think we can hold out until +after Christmas." + +Philippa declined to pay the jest the respect to which its age entitled +it, and replied inconsequently that I knew perfectly well that she +could not drive the outside car with the children and the Christmas +tree. I assented that they would make an awkward team, and offered, as +a substitute for my services, those of Denis, the stopgap. + +Those who live in Ireland best know the staying powers of stopgaps. +Denis, uncle of Michael Leary the Whip, had been imported into the +kennels during my ministry, to bridge a hiatus in the long dynasty of +the kennel-boys, and had remained for eighteen months, a notable +instance of the survival of what might primarily have been considered +the unfittest. That Denis should so long have endured his nephew's +rule was due not so much to the tie of blood, as to the privileged +irresponsibility of a stopgap. Nothing was expected of him, and he +pursued an unmolested course, until the return of Flurry Knox from +South Africa changed the general conditions. He then remained +submerged until he drifted into the gap formed in my own establishment +by Mr. Peter Cadogan's elopement. + +Philippa's workhouse-tea took place on Christmas Eve. We were still +hurrying through an early luncheon when the nodding crest of the +Christmas tree passed the dining-room windows. My youngest son +immediately upset his pudding into his lap; and Philippa hustled forth +to put on her hat, an operation which, like the making of an omelette, +can apparently only be successfully performed at the last moment. With +feelings of mingled apprehension and relief I saw the party drive from +the door, the Christmas tree seated on one side of the car, Philippa on +the other, clutching her offspring, Denis on the box, embosomed, like a +wood-pigeon, in the boughs of the spruce fir. I congratulated myself +that the Quaker, now white with the snows of many winters, was in the +shafts. Had I not been too deeply engaged in so arranging the rug that +it should not trail in the mud all the way to Skebawn, I might have +noticed that the lamps had been forgotten. + +It was, as I have said, Christmas Eve, and as the afternoon wore on I +began to reflect upon what the road from Skebawn would be in another +hour, full of drunken people, and, what was worse, of carts steered by +drunken people. I had assured Philippa (with what I believe she +describes as masculine _esprit de corps_) of Denis's adequacy as a +driver, but that did not alter the fact that in the last rays of the +setting sun, I got out my bicycle and set forth for the Workhouse. +When I reached the town it was dark, but the Christmas shoppers showed +no tendency to curtail their operations on that account, and the +streets were filled with an intricate and variously moving tide of +people and carts. The paraffin lamps in the shops did their best, +behind bunches of holly, oranges, and monstrous Christmas candles, and +partially illumined the press of dark-cloaked women, and more or less +drunken men, who swayed and shoved and held vast conversations on the +narrow pavements. The red glare of the chemist's globe transformed the +leading female beggar of the town into a being from the Brocken; her +usual Christmas family, contributed for the festival by the neighbours, +as to a Christmas number, were grouped in fortunate ghastliness in the +green light. She extracted from me her recognised tribute, and pursued +by her assurance that she would forgive me now till Easter (_i.e._ that +further alms would not be exacted for at least a fortnight), I made my +way onward into the outer darkness, beyond the uttermost link in the +chain of public-houses. + +[Illustration: AN INTRICATE AND VARIOUSLY MOVING TIDE OF PEOPLE] + +The road that led to the Workhouse led also to the railway station; a +quarter of a mile away the green light of a signal-post stood high in +the darkness, like an emerald. As I neared the Workhouse I recognised +the deliberate footfall of the Quaker, and presently his long pale face +entered the circle illuminated by my bicycle-lamp. My family were not +at all moved by my solicitude for their safety, but, being in want of +an audience, were pleased to suggest that I should drive home with +them. The road was disgustingly muddy; I tied my bicycle to the back +of the car with the rope that is found in wells of all outside cars. +It was not till I had put out the bicycle lamp that I noticed that the +car-lamps had been forgotten, but Denis, true to the convention of his +tribe, asseverated that he could see better without lights. I took the +place vacated by the Christmas tree, the Quaker pounded on at his usual +stone-breaking trot, and my offspring, in strenuous and entangled duet, +declaimed to me the events of the afternoon. + +It was without voice or warning that a row of men was materialised out +of the darkness, under the Quaker's nose; they fell away to right and +left, but one, as if stupefied, held on his way in the middle of the +road. It is not easy to divert the Quaker from his course; we swung to +the right, but the wing of the car, on my side, struck the man full in +the chest. He fell as instantly and solidly as if he were a stone +pillar, and, like a stone, he lay in the mud. Loud and inebriate howls +rose from the others, and, as if in answer, came a long and distant +shriek from an incoming train. Upon this, without bestowing an +instant's further heed to their fallen comrade, the party took to their +heels and ran to the station. It was all done in a dozen seconds; by +the time the Quaker was pulled up we were alone with our victim, and +Denis was hoarsely suggesting to me that it would be better to drive +away at once. I have often since then regretted that I did not take +his advice. + +The victim was a very small man; Denis and I dragged him to the side of +the road, and propped him up against the wall. He was of an alarming +limpness, but there was a something reassuring in the reek of whisky +that arose as I leaned over him, trying to diagnose his injuries by the +aid of a succession of lighted matches. His head lay crookedly on his +chest; he breathed heavily, but peacefully, and his limbs seemed +uninjured. Denis at my elbow, did not cease to assure me, tremulously, +that there was nothing ailed the man, that he was a stranger, and that +it would be as good for us to go home. Philippa, on the car, strove as +best she might with the unappeasable curiosity of her sons and with the +pigheaded anxiety of the Quaker to get home to his dinner. At this +juncture a voice, fifty yards away in the darkness, uplifted itself in +song-- + + "Heaven's refle-hex! Killa-ar-ney!" + +it bawled hideously. + +It fell as balm upon my ear, in its assurance of the proximity of +Slipper. + +"Sure I know the man well," he said, shielding the flame of a match in +his hand with practised skill. "Wake up, me _bouchaleen_!" He shook +him unmercifully. "Open your eyes, darlin'!" + +The invalid here showed signs of animation by uttering an incoherent +but, as it seemed, a threatening roar. It lifted Denis as a feather is +lifted by a wind, and wafted him to the Quaker's head, where he +remained in strict attention to his duties. It also lifted Philippa. + +"Is he very bad, do you think?" she murmured at my elbow. "Shall I +drive for the doctor?" + +"Arrah, what docthor?" said Slipper magnificently. "Give me a +half-a-crown, Major, and I'll get him what meddyceen will answer him as +good as any docthor! Lave him to me!" He shook him again. "I'll +regulate him!" + +The victim here sat up, and shouted something about going home. He was +undoubtedly very drunk. It seemed to me that Slipper's ministrations +would be more suitable to the situation than mine, certainly than +Philippa's. I administered the solatium; then I placed Denis on the +box of the car with the bicycle-lamp in his hand, and drove my family +home. + +After church next day we met Flurry Knox. He approached us with the +green glint in his eye that told that game was on foot, whatever that +game might be. + +"Who bailed you out, Mrs. Yeates?" he said solicitously. "I heard you +and the Major and Denis Leary were all in the lock-up for furious +driving and killing a man! I'm told he was anointed last night." + +Philippa directed what she believed to be a searching glance at +Flurry's face of friendly concern. + +"I don't believe a word of it!" she said dauntlessly, while a very +becoming warmth in her complexion betrayed an inward qualm. "Who told +you?" + +"The servants heard it at first Mass this morning; and Slipper had me +late for church telling me about it. The fellow says if he lives he's +going to take an action against the Major." + +I listened with, I hope, outward serenity. In dealings with Flurry +Knox the possibility that he might be speaking the truth could never +safely be lost sight of. It was also well to remember that he +generally knew what the truth was. + +I said loftily, that there had been nothing the matter with the man but +Christmas Eve, and inquired if Flurry knew his name and address. + +"Of course I do," said Flurry, "he's one of those mountainy men that +live up in the hill behind Aussolas. Oweneen the Sprat is the name he +goes by, and he's the crossest little thief in the Barony. Never mind, +Mrs. Yeates, I'll see you get fair play in the dock!" + +"How silly you are!" said Philippa; but I could see that she was shaken. + +Whatever Flurry's servants may have heard at first Mass, was apparently +equalled, if not excelled, by what Denis heard at second. He asked me +next morning, with a gallant attempt at indifference, if I had had any +word of "the man-een." + +"'Twas what the people were saying on the roads last night that he +could have the law of us, and there was more was saying that he'd never +do a day's good. Sure they say the backbone is cracked where the wheel +of the car went over him! But didn't yourself and the misthress swear +black and blue that the wheel never went next or nigh him? And didn't +Michael say that there wasn't a Christmas this ten years that that one +hadn't a head on him the size of a bullawawn with the len'th of dhrink?" + +In spite of the contributory negligence that might be assumed in the +case of any one with this singular infirmity, I was not without a +secret uneasiness. Two days afterwards I received a letter, written on +copybook paper in a clerkly hand. It had the Aussolas post-mark, in +addition to the imprint of various thumbs, and set forth the injuries +inflicted by me and my driver on Owen Twohig on Christmas Eve, and +finally, it demanded a compensation of twenty pounds for the same. +Failing this satisfaction the law was threatened, but a hope was +finally expressed that the honourable gentleman would not see a poor +man wronged; it was, in fact, the familiar mixture of bluff and whine, +and, as I said to Philippa, the Man-een (under which title he had +passed into the domestic vocabulary) had of course got hold of a letter +writer to do the trick for him. + +In the next day or so I met Flurry twice, and found him so rationally +interested, and even concerned, about fresh versions of the accident +that had cropped up, that I was moved to tell him of the incident of +the letter. He looked serious, and said he would go up himself to see +what was wrong with Oweneen. He advised me to keep out of it for the +present, as they might open their mouths too big. + +The moon was high as I returned from this interview; when I wheeled my +bicycle into the yard I found that the coach-house in which I was wont +to stable it was locked; so also was the harness-room. Attempting to +enter the house by the kitchen door I found it also was locked; a +gabble of conversation prevailed within, and with the mounting +indignation of one who hears but cannot make himself heard, I banged +ferociously on the door. Silence fell, and Mrs. Cadogan's voice +implored heaven's protection. + +"Open the door!" I roared. + +A windlike rush of petticoats followed, through which came sibilantly +the words, "Glory be to goodness! 'Tis the masther!" + +The door opened, I found myself facing the entire strength of my +establishment, including Denis, and augmented by Slipper. + +"They told me you were asking afther me, Major," began Slipper, +descending respectfully from the kitchen table, on which he had been +seated. + +I noticed that Mrs. Cadogan was ostentatiously holding her heart, and +that Denis was shaking like the conventional aspen. + +"What's all this about?" said I, looking round upon them. "Why is the +whole place locked up?" + +"It was a little unaisy they were," said Slipper, snatching the +explanation from Mrs. Cadogan with the determination of the skilled +leader of conversation; "I was telling them I seen two men below in the +plantation, like they'd be watching out for some one, and poor Mr. +Leary here got a reeling in his head after I telling it----" + +"Indeed the crayture was as white, now, as white as a masheroon!" broke +in Mrs. Cadogan, "and we dhrew him in here to the fire till your Honour +came home." + +"Nonsense!" I said angrily, "a couple of boys poaching rabbits! Upon +my word, Slipper, you have very little to do coming here and +frightening people for nothing." + +"What did I say?" demanded Slipper, dramatically facing his audience, +"only that I seen two men in the plantation. How would I know what +business they had in it?" + +"Ye said ye heard them whishling to each other like curlews through the +wood," faltered Denis, "and sure that's the whishle them Twohigs has +always----" + +"Maybe it's whistling to the girls they were!" suggested Slipper, with +an unabashed eye at Hannah. + +I told him to come up with me to my office, and stalked from the +kitchen, full of the comfortless wrath that has failed to find a +suitable victim. + +The interview in the office did not last long, nor was it in any way +reassuring. Slipper, with the manner of the confederate who had waded +shoulder to shoulder with me through gore, could only tell me that +though he believed that there was nothing ailed the Man-een, he +wouldn't say but what he might be sevarely hurted. That I wasn't gone +five minutes before near a score of the Twohigs come leathering down +out of the town in two ass-butts (this term indicates donkey-carts of +the usual dimensions), and when Oweneen felt them coming, he let the +most unmarciful screech, upon which Slipper, in just fear of the +Twohigs, got over the wall, and executed a strategic retreat upon the +railway station, leaving the Twohigs to carry away their wounded to the +mountains. That for himself he had been going in dread of them ever +since, and for no one else in the wide world would he have put a hand +to one of them. + +I preserved an unshaken front towards Slipper, and I was subsequently +sarcastic and epigrammatic to Philippa on the subject of the curlews +who were rabbiting in the plantation, but something that I justified to +myself as a fear of Philippa's insatiable conscientiousness, made me +resolve that I would, without delay, go "back in the mountain," and +interview Oweneen the Sprat. + +New Year's Day favoured my purpose, bringing with it clear frost and +iron roads, a day when even the misanthropic soul of a bicycle awakens +into sympathy and geniality. I started in the sunny vigour of the +early afternoon, I sailed up the hills with the effortless speed of a +seagull, I free-wheeled down them with the dive of a swallow, and, as +it seemed to me, with a good deal of its grace. Had Oweneen the Sprat +had the luck to have met me, when, at the seventh milestone from +Shreelane, I realised that I had beaten my own best time by seven +minutes, he could practically have made his own terms. At that point, +however, I had to leave the high road, and the mountain lane that +ensued restored to me the judicial frame of mind. In the first twenty +yards my bicycle was transformed from a swallow to an opinionated and +semi-paralysed wheelbarrow; struggling in a species of dry watercourse +I shoved it up the steep gradients of a large and brown country of +heather and bog, silent save for the contending voices of the streams. +A family of goats, regarding me from a rocky mound, was the first hint +of civilisation; a more reliable symptom presently advanced in the +shape of a lean and hump-backed sow, who bestowed on me a side glance +of tepid interest as she squeezed past. + +The _bohireen_ dropped, with a sudden twist to the right, and revealed +a fold in the hillside, containing a half dozen or so of little fields, +crooked, and heavily walled, and nearly as many thatched cabins, flung +about in the hollows as indiscriminately as the boulders upon the +wastes outside. A group of children rose in front of me like a flight +of starlings, and scudded with barefooted nimbleness to the shelter of +the houses, in a pattering, fluttering stampede. I descended upon the +nearest cabin of the colony. The door was shut; a heavy padlock +linking two staples said Not at Home, and the nose of a dog showed in a +hole above the sill, sniffing deeply and suspiciously. I remembered +that the first of January was a holy-day, and that every man in the +colony had doubtless betaken himself to the nearest village. The next +cottage was some fifty yards away, and the faces of a couple of +children peered at me round the corner of it. As I approached they +vanished, but the door of the cabin was open, and blue turf smoke +breathed placidly outwards from it. The merciful frost had glazed the +inevitable dirty pool in front of the door, and had made practicable +the path beside it; I propped my bicycle against a rock, and projected +into the dark interior an inquiry as to whether there was any one in. + +I had to repeat it twice before a small old woman with white hair and a +lemon-coloured face appeared; I asked her if she could tell me where +Owen Twohig lived. + +"Your Honour's welcome," she replied, tying the strings of her cap +under her chin with wiry fingers, and eyeing me with concentrated +shrewdness. I repeated the question. + +She responded by begging me to come in and rest myself, for this was a +cross place and a backwards place, and I should be famished with the +cold--"sure them little wheels dhraws the wind." + +I ignored this peculiarity of bicycles, and, not without exasperation, +again asked for Owen Twohig. + +"Are you Major Yeates, I beg your pardon?" I assented to what she knew +as well as I did. + +"Why then 'tis here he lives indeed, in this little house, and a poor +place he have to live in. Sure he's my son, the crayture--" her voice +at once ascended to the key of lamentation--"faith, he didn't rise till +to-day. Since Christmas Eve I didn't quinch light in the house with +him stretched in the bed always, and not a bit passed his lips night or +day, only one suppeen of whisky in its purity. Ye'd think the tongue +would light out of his mouth with the heat, and ye'd see the blaze of +darkness in his face! I hadn't as much life in me this morning as that +I could wash my face!" + +I replied that I wanted to speak to her son, and was in a hurry. + +"He's not within, asthore, he's not within at all. He got the lend of +a little donkey, and he went back the mountain to the bonesetter, to +try could he straighten the leg with him." + +"Did Dr. Hickey see him?" I demanded. + +"Sure a wise woman came in from Finnaun, a' Stephen's Day," pursued +Mrs. Twohig swiftly, "and she bet three spits down on him, and she said +it's what ailed him he had the Fallen Palate, with the dint o' the blow +the car bet him in the poll, and that any one that have the Fallen +Palate might be speechless for three months with it. She took three +ribs of his hair then, and she was pulling them till she was in a +passpiration, and in the latther end she pulled up the palate." She +paused and wiped her eyes with her apron. "But the leg is what has him +destroyed altogether; she told us we should keep sheep's butter rubbed +to it in the place where the thrack o' the wheel is down in it." + +The blush of a frosty sunset was already in the sky, and the children +who had fled before me had returned, reinforced by many others, to +cluster in a whispering swarm round my bicycle, and to group themselves +attentively in the rear of the conversation. + +"Look here, Mrs. Twohig," I said, not as yet angry, but in useful +proximity to it, "I've had a letter from your son, and he and his +friends have been trying to frighten my man, Denis Leary; he can come +down and see me if he has anything to say, but you can tell him from me +that I'm not going to stand this sort of thing!" + +If the Widow Twohig had been voluble before, this pronouncement had the +effect of bringing her down in spate. She instantly, and at the top of +her voice, called heaven to witness her innocence, and the innocence of +her "little boy"; still at full cry, she sketched her blameless career, +and the unmerited suffering that had ever pursued her and hers; how, +during the past thirty years, she had been drooping over her little +orphans, and how Oweneen, that was the only one she had left to do a +hand's turn for her, would be "under clutches" the longest day that +he'd live. It was at about this point that I gave her five shillings. +It was a thoroughly illogical act, but at the moment it seemed +inevitable, and Mrs. Twohig was good enough to accept it in the same +spirit. I told her that I would send Dr. Hickey to see her son (which +had, it struck me, a somewhat stemming effect upon her eloquence), and +I withdrew, still in magisterial displeasure. I must have been half +way down the lane before it was revealed to me that a future on +crutches was what Mrs. Twohig anticipated for her son. + +By that night's post I wrote to Hickey, a strictly impartial letter, +stating the position, and asking him to see Owen Twohig, and to let me +have his professional opinion upon him. Philippa added a postscript, +asking for a nerve-tonic for the parlour-maid, a Dublin girl, who, +since the affair of the curlews in the plantation, had lost all colour +and appetite, and persisted in locking the hall door day and night, to +the infinite annoyance of the dogs. + +Next morning, while hurrying through an early breakfast, preparatory to +starting for a distant Petty Sessions, I was told that Denis wished to +speak to me at the hall door. This, as I before have had occasion to +point out, boded affairs of the first importance. I proceeded to the +hall door, and there found Denis, pale as the Lily Maid of Astolat, +with three small fishes in his hand. + +"There was one of thim before me in my bed lasht night!" he said in a +hoarse and shaken whisper, "and there was one in the windy in the +harness-room, down on top o' me razor, and there was another nelt to +the stable door with the nail of a horse's shoe." + +I made the natural suggestion that some one had done it for a joke. + +"Thim's no joke, sir," replied Denis, portentously, "thim's Sprats!" + +[Illustration: "THIM'S NO JOKE, SIR, THIM'S SPRATS!"] + +"Well, I'm quite aware of that," I said, unmoved by what appeared to be +the crushing significance of the statement. + +"Oweneen the _Sprat_!" murmured Philippa, illuminatingly, emerging from +the dining-room door with her cup of tea in her hand, "it's Hannah, +trying to frighten him!" + +Hannah, the housemaid, was known to be the humorist of the household. + +"He have a brother a smith, back in the mountain," continued Denis, +wrapping up the sprats and the nail in his handkerchief; "'twas for a +token he put the nail in it. If he dhraws thim mountainy men down on +me, I may as well go under the sod. It isn't yourself or the misthress +they'll folly; it's meself." He crept down the steps as deplorably as +the Jackdaw of Rheims, "and it's what Michael's after telling me, they +have it all through the country that I said you should throw Twohig in +the ditch, and it was good enough for the likes of him, and I said to +Michael 'twas a lie for them, and that we cared him as tender as if he +was our mother itself, and we'd have given the night to him only for +the misthress that was roaring on the car, and no blame to her; sure +the world knows the mother o' children has no courage!" + +This drastic generality was unfortunately lost to my wife, as she had +retired to hold a court of inquiry in the kitchen. + +The inquiry elicited nothing beyond the fact that since Christmas Day +Denis was "using no food," and that the kitchen, so far from indulging +in practical jokes at his expense, had been instant throughout in +sympathy, and in cups of strong tea, administered for the fortification +of the nerves. All were obviously deeply moved by the incident of the +sprats, the parlour-maid, indeed, having already locked herself into +the pantry, through the door of which, on Philippa's approach, she gave +warning hysterically. + +The matter remained unexplained, and was not altogether to my liking. +As I drove down the avenue, and saw Denis carefully close the yard +gates after me, I determined that I would give Murray, the District +Inspector of Police, a brief sketch of the state of affairs. I did not +meet Murray, but, as it happened, this made no difference. Things were +already advancing smoothly and inexorably towards their preordained +conclusion. + +I have since heard that none of the servants went to bed that night. +They, including Denis, sat in the kitchen, with locked doors, drinking +tea and reciting religious exercises; Maria, as a further precaution, +being chained to the leg of the table. Their fears were in no degree +allayed by the fact that nothing whatever occurred, and the most +immediate result of the vigil was that my bath next morning boiled as +it stood in the can, and dimmed the room with clouds of steam--a +circumstance sufficiently rare in itself, and absolutely without +precedent on Sunday morning. The next feature of the case was a letter +at breakfast time from a gentleman signing himself "Jas. Fitzmaurice." +He said that Dr. Hickey having gone away for a fortnight's holiday, he +(Fitzmaurice) was acting as his locum tenens. In that capacity he had +opened my letter, and would go and see Twohig as soon as possible. He +enclosed prescription for tonic as requested. + +It was a threatening morning, and we did not go to church. I noticed +that my wife's housekeeping _séance_ was unusually prolonged, and even +while I smoked and read the papers, I was travelling in my meditations +to the point of determining that I would have a talk with the priest +about all this infernal nonsense. When Philippa at length rejoined me, +I found that she also had arrived at a conclusion, impelled thereto by +the counsels of Mrs. Cadogan, abetted by her own conscience. + +Its result was that immediately after lunch, long before the Sunday +roast beef had been slept off, I found myself carting precarious +parcels--a jug, a bottle, a pudding-dish--to the inside car, in which +Philippa had already placed herself, with a pair of blankets and +various articles culled from my wardrobe (including a pair of boots to +which I was sincerely attached). Denis, pale yellow in complexion and +shrouded in gloom, was on the box, the Quaker was in the shafts. There +was no rain, but the clouds hung black and low. + +It was an expedition of purest charity; so Philippa explained to me +over again as we drove away. She said nothing of propitiation or +diplomacy. For my part I said nothing at all, but I reflected on the +peculiar gifts of the Dublin parlour-maid in valeting me, and decided +that it might be better to allow Philippa to run the show on her own +lines, while I maintained an attitude of large-minded disapproval. + +The blankets took up as much room in the car as a man; I had to hold in +my hand a jug of partly jellified beef tea. A sourer Lady Bountiful +never set forth upon an errand of mercy. To complete establishment--in +the words of the _Gazette_--Maria and Minx, on the floor of the car, +wrought and strove in ceaseless and objectless agitation, an infliction +due to the ferocity of a female rival, who terrorised the high road +within hail of my gates. I thanked heaven that I had at least been +firm about not taking the children; for the dogs, at all events, the +moment of summary ejectment would arrive sooner or later. + +Seven miles in an inside car are seven miles indeed. The hills that +had run to meet my bicycle and glided away behind it, now sat in their +places to be crawled up and lumbered down, at such a pace as seemed +good to the Quaker, whose appetite for the expedition was, if possible, +less than that of his driver. Appetite was, indeed, the last thing +suggested by the aspect of Denis. His drooping shoulders and +deplorable countenance proclaimed apology and deprecation to the +mountain tops, and more especially to the mountainy men. Looking back +on it now, I recognise the greatness of the tribute to my valour and +omnipotence that he should have consented thus to drive us into the +heart of the enemy's country. + +A steep slope, ending with a sharp turn through a cutting, reminded me +that we were near the mountain _bohireen_ that was our goal. I got out +and walked up the hill, stiffly, because the cramp of the covered car +was in my legs. Stiff though I was, I had outpaced the Quaker, and was +near the top of the hill, when something that was apparently a brown +croquet-ball rolled swiftly round the bend above me, charged into the +rock wall of the cutting with a clang, and came on down the hill with a +weight and venom unknown to croquet-balls. It sped past me, missed the +Quaker by an uncommonly near shave, and went on its way, hotly pursued +by the two dogs, who, in the next twenty yards, discovered with horror +that it was made of iron, a fact of which I was already aware. + +I have always been as lenient as the law, and other circumstances, +would allow towards the illegal game of "bowling." It consists in +bowling an iron ball along a road, the object being to cover the +greatest possible distance in a given number of bowls. It demands +considerable strength and skill, and it is played with a zest much +enhanced by its illegality and by its facilities as a medium for +betting. The law forbids it, on account of its danger to the +unsuspecting wayfarer, in consideration of which a scout is usually +posted ahead to signal the approach of the police, and to give warning +to passers by. The mountainy men, trusting to their isolation, had +neglected this precaution, with results that came near being serious to +the Quaker, and filled with wrath, both personal and official, I took +the hill at a vengeful run, so as to catch the bowler red-handed. At +the turn in the cutting I met him face to face. As a matter of fact he +nearly ran into my arms, and the yelp of agony with which he dodged my +impending embrace is a life-long possession. He was a very small man; +he doubled like a rabbit, and bolted back towards a swarm of men who +were following the fortunes of the game. He flitted over the wall by +the roadside, and was away over the rocky hillside at a speed that even +in my best days would have left me nowhere. + +The swarm on the road melted; a good part of it was quietly absorbed by +the lane up which I had dragged my bicycle two days before, the +remainder, elaborately uninterested and respectable, in their dark blue +Sunday clothes, strolled gravely in the opposite direction. A man on a +bicycle met them, and dismounted to speak to the leaders. I wondered +if he were a policeman in plain clothes on the prowl. He came on to +meet me, leading his bicycle, and I perceived that a small black +leather bag was strapped to the carrier. He was young, and apparently +very hot. + +"I beg your pardon," he said in the accents of Dublin, "I understand +you're Major Yeates. I'm Dr. Hickey's 'Locum,' and I've come out to +see the man you wrote to me about. From what you said I thought it +better to lose no time." + +I was rather out of breath, but I expressed my sense of indebtedness. + +"I think there must be some mistake," went on the "Locum." "I've just +asked these men on the road where Owen Twohig lives, and one of +them--the fellow they call Skipper, or some such name--said Owen Twohig +was the little chap that's just after sprinting up the mountain. He +seemed to think it was a great joke. I suppose you're sure Owen was +the name?" + +"Perfectly sure," I said heavily. + +The eyes of Dr. Fitzmaurice had travelled past me, and were regarding +with professional alertness something farther down the road. I +followed their direction, dreamily, because in spirit I was far away, +tracking Flurry Knox through deep places. + +On the hither side of the rock cutting the covered car had come to a +standstill. The reins had fallen from Denis's hands; he was obviously +having the "wakeness" appropriate to the crisis. Philippa, on the step +below him, was proffering to him the jug of beef tea and the bottle of +port. He accepted the latter. + +"He knows what's what!" said the "Locum." + +[Illustration: "HE KNOWS WHAT'S WHAT!" SAID THE LOCUM] + +[Illustration: ] + + + + +XII + +THE WHITEBOYS + +PART I + +It has been said by an excellent authority that children and dogs spoil +conversation. I can confidently say that had Madame de Sévigné and Dr. +Johnson joined me and my family on our wonted Sunday afternoon walk to +the kennels, they would have known what it was to be ignored. This +reflection bears but remotely on the matter in hand, but is, I think, +worthy of record. I pass on to a certain still and steamy afternoon in +late September, when my wife and I headed forth in the accustomed way, +accompanied by, or (to be accurate), in pursuit of, my two sons, my two +dogs, and a couple of hound puppies, to view that spectacle of not +unmixed attractiveness, the feeding of the hounds. + +Flurry Knox and Michael were superintending the operation when we +arrived, coldly observing the gobbling line at the trough, like +reporters at a public dinner. It was while the last horrid remnants of +the repast were being wolfed that my wife hesitatingly addressed Mr. +Knox's First Whip and Kennel Huntsman. + +"Michael," she said, lowering her voice, "you know the children's old +donkey that I spoke to you about last week--I'm afraid you _had_ +better----" + +"Sure he's boiled, ma'am," said Michael with swift and awful brevity, +"that's him in the throch now!" + +Philippa hastily withdrew from the vicinity of the trough, murmuring +something incoherent about cannibals or parricides, I am not sure +which, and her eldest son burst into tears that were only assuaged by +the tactful intervention of the kennel-boy with the jawbone of a horse, +used for propping open the window of the boiler-house. + +"Never mind, Mrs. Yeates," said Flurry consolingly, "the new hounds +that I'm getting won't be bothered with donkeys as long as there's a +sheep left in the country, if the half I hear of them is true!" He +turned to me. "Major, I didn't tell you I have three couple of +O'Reilly's old Irish hounds bought. They're the old white breed +y'know, and they say they're terrors to hunt." + +"They'd steal a thing out of your eye," said Michael, evidently +reverting to an interrupted discussion between himself and his master. +"There's a woman of the O'Reillys married back in the country here, and +she says they killed two cows last season." + +"If they kill any cows with me, I'll stop the price of them out of your +wages, Michael, my lad!" said Flurry to his henchman's back. "Look +here, Major, come on with me to-morrow to bring them home!" + +It was, I believe, no more than fifty miles across country to the +mountain fastness of the O'Reillys, and a certain chord of romance +thrilled at the thought of the old Irish breed of white hounds, with +their truly national qualities of talent, rebelliousness, and love of +sport. Playboy was one of the same race--Playboy, over whose +recapture, it may be remembered, I had considerably distinguished +myself during my term of office as M.F.H. + +I went. At one o'clock next day two lines of rail had done their +uttermost for us, and had ceded the task of conveying us to Fahoura to +the inevitable outside car. And still there remained a long flank of +mountain to be climbed; the good little slave in the shafts made no +complaint, but save for the honour and glory of the thing we might as +well have walked; certainly of the seven Irish miles of road, thrown +over the pass like a strap over a trunk, our consciences compelled us +to tramp at least three. A stream, tawny and translucent as audit ale, +foamed and slid among its brown boulders beside us at the side of the +road; as we crawled upwards the fields became smaller, and the lonely +whitewashed cottages ceased. The heather came down to the wheel marks, +and a pack of grouse suddenly whizzed across the road like a shot fired +across our bows to warn us off. + +At the top of the pass we stood, and looked out over half a county to +the pale peaks of Killarney. + +"There's Fahoura now, gentlemen," said the carman, pointing downwards +with his whip to a group of whitewashed farm buildings, that had +gathered themselves incongruously about a square grey tower. "I'm told +old Mr. O'Reilly's sick this good while." + +"What ails him?" said Flurry. + +"You wouldn't know," said the carman, "sure he's very old, and that +'fluenzy has the country destroyed; there's people dying now that never +died before." + +"That's bad," said Flurry sympathetically, "I had a letter from him a +week ago, and he only said he was parting the hounds because he +couldn't run with them any more." + +"Ah, don't mind him!" said the carman, "it's what it is he'd sooner +sell them now, than to give the nephew the satisfaction of them, after +himself'd be dead." + +"Is that the chap that's been hunting them for him?" said Flurry, while +I, for the hundredth time, longed for Flurry's incommunicable gift of +being talked to. + +"It is, sir; Lukey O'Reilly--" the carman gave a short laugh. "That's +the lad! They say he often thried to go to America, but he never got +south of Mallow; he gets that drunk sayin' good-bye to his friends!" + +"Maybe the old fellow will live a while yet, just to spite him," +suggested Flurry. + +"Well, maybe he would, faith!" agreed the carman, "didn't the docthor +say to meself that maybe it's walking the road I'd be, and I to fall +down dead!" he continued complacently, "but sure them docthors, when +they wouldn't know what was in it, they should be saying something!" + +We here turned into the lane that led to Mr. O'Reilly's house. + +We pulled up at the gate of a wide farmyard, with outcrops of the brown +mountain rock in it, and were assailed in the inevitable way by the +inevitable mongrel collies. Blent with their vulgar abuse was the +mellow baying of hounds, coming, seemingly, from the sky. The carman +pointed to the tower which filled an angle of the yard, and I saw, +about twenty feet from the ground, an arrow-slit, through which +protruded white muzzles, uttering loud and tuneful threats. + +"The kitchen door's the handiest way," said Flurry, "but I suppose for +grandeur we'd better go to the front of the house." + +He opened a side gate, and I followed him through a wind-swept +enclosure that by virtue of two ragged rose-bushes, and a walk edged +with white stones, probably took rank as a garden. At the front door +we knocked; a long pause ensued, and finally bare feet thudded down a +passage, a crack of the door was opened, and an eye glistened for a +moment in the crack. It was slammed again, and after a further delay +it was reopened, this time by a large elderly woman with crinkled black +and grey hair and one long and commanding tooth in the front of her +mouth. + +"Why then I wasn't looking to see ye till to-morrow, Mr. Knox!" she +began, beaming upon Flurry, "but sure ye're welcome any day and all +day, and the gentleman too!" + +The gentleman was introduced, and felt himself being summed up in a +single glance of Miss O'Reilly's nimble brown eyes. With many +apologies, she asked us if we would come and see her brother in the +kitchen, as he did not feel well enough to walk out to the parlour, and +she couldn't keep him in the bed at all. + +The kitchen differed more in size than in degree from that of the +average cabin. There was the same hummocky earthen floor, the same +sallow whitewashed walls, the same all-pervading turf smoke--the +difference was in the master of the house. He was seated by the fire +in an angular armchair, with an old horse-blanket over his knees, and a +stick in his hand, and beside him lay an ancient white hound, who +scarcely lifted her head at our entrance. The old man laboured to his +feet, and, bent as he was, he towered over Flurry as he took his hand. + +"Your father's son is welcome, Mr. Florence Knox, and your friend--" +He was short of breath, and he lowered his great frame into his chair +again. "Sit down, gentlemen, sit down!" he commanded. "Joanna! These +gentlemen are after having a long drive----" + +The clink of glasses told that the same fact had occurred to Miss +O'Reilly, and a bottle of port, and another of what looked like water, +but was in effect old potheen, were immediately upon the table. + +"How well ye wouldn't put down a glass for me!" thundered old O'Reilly, +"I suppose it's saving it for my wake you are!" + +"Or her own wedding, maybe!" said Flurry, shamelessly ogling Miss +O'Reilly, "we'll see that before the wake, I'm thinking!" + +"Well, well, isn't he the dead spit of his father!" said Miss O'Reilly +to the rafters. + +"Here, woman, give me the kettle," said her brother, "I'll drink my +glass of punch with Mr. Florence Knox, the way I did with his father +before him! The doctor says I might carry out six months, and I think +myself I won't carry out the week, but what the divil do I care! I'm +going to give Mr. Knox his pick of my hounds this day, and that's what +no other man in Ireland would get, and be dam we'll wet our bargain!" + +"Well, well," said Miss O'Reilly, remonstratingly, bringing the kettle, +"and you that was that weak last night that if you got Ireland's crown +you couldn't lift the bedclothes off your arms!" + +"Them hounds are in my family, seed and breed, this hundred years and +more," continued old O'Reilly, silencing his sister with one black +glance from under his thick grey brows, "and if I had e'er a one that +was fit to come after me they'd never leave it!" He took a gulp of the +hot punch. "Did ye ever hear of my brother Phil that was huntsman to +the Charlevilles long ago, Mr. Knox? Your father knew him well. +Many's the good hunt they rode together. He wasn't up to forty years +when he was killed, broke his neck jumping a hurl, and when they went +to bury him it's straight in over the churchyard wall they took him! +They said he never was one to go round looking for a gate!" + +[Illustration: "THEM HOUNDS ARE IN MY FAMILY, SEED AND BREED, THIS +HUNDRED YEARS."] + +"May the Lord have mercy on him!" murmured Miss O'Reilly in the +background. + +"Amen!" growled the old man, taking another pull at his steaming +tumbler, as if he were drinking his brother's health. "And look at me +here," he went on, reddening slowly through the white stubble on his +cheeks, "dying as soft as any owld cow in a boghole, and all they'll be +saying afther me is asking would they get their bellyful of whisky at +my wake! I tell you this--and let you be listening to me, +Joanna!--what hounds Mr. Knox doesn't take, I'll not leave them afther +me to be disgraced in the counthry, running rabbits on Sunday +afternoons with them poaching blackguards up out of the town! No! But +they'll have a stone round their neck and to be thrown below in the +lough!" + +I thought of the nephew Luke, whose friends had so frequently failed to +see him off, and I felt very sorry for old O'Reilly. + +"They will, they will, to be sure!" said Miss O'Reilly soothingly, "and +look at you now, the way you are! Didn't I know well you had no call +to be drinking punch, you that was coughing all night. On the face of +God's earth, Mr. Knox, I never heard such a cough! 'Tis like a sheep's +cough! I declare it's like the sound of the beating of the drum!" + +"Well, Mr. O'Reilly," said Flurry, ignoring these remarkable symptoms, +but none the less playing to her lead, "I suppose we might have a look +at the hounds now." + +"Go, tell Tom to open the tower door," said old O'Reilly to his sister, +after a moment's silence. He handed her a key. "And shut the gate +you." + +As soon as she had gone he got on to his feet. "Mr. Knox, sir," he +said, "might I put as much trouble on you as to move out this chair to +the door? I'll sit there the way I can see them. Maybe the other +gentleman would reach me down the horn that's up on the wall. He's +near as tall as meself." + +Flurry did as he asked, and helped him across the room. + +"Close out the half door if you please, Mr. Knox, and give me the old +rug that's there, my feet is destroyed with the rheumatics." + +He dropped groaningly into his chair, and I handed him the horn, an old +brass one, bent and dinted. + +Already the clamour of the hounds in the tower had broken out like +bells in a steeple, as they heard the footsteps of their jailor on the +stone steps of their prison. + +Then Tom's voice, shouting at them in Irish to stand back, and then +through the narrow door of the tower the hounds themselves, a striving +torrent of white flecked with pale yellow, like one of their own +mountain streams. There were about seven couples of them, and in a +moment they overran the yard like spilt quicksilver. + +"Look at them now, Mr. Knox!" said their owner, "they'd take a line +over the hob of hell this minute!" + +Pending this feat they took a very good line into what was apparently +the hen-house, judging by the hysterics that proceeded from within. +Almost immediately one of them reappeared with an egg in his mouth. +Old O'Reilly gave a laugh and an attempt at a holloa. "Ah ha! That's +Whiteboy! The rogue!" he said, and putting the horn to his lips he +blew a thin and broken note, that was cut short by a cough. +Speechlessly he handed the horn to Flurry, but no further summons was +needed; the hounds had heard him. They converged upon the doorway with +a rush, and Flurry and I were put to it to keep them from jumping in +over the half-door. + +I had never seen hounds like them before. One or two were pure white, +but most had some touch of faded yellow or pale grey about them; they +were something smaller than the average foxhound, and were strongly +built, and active as terriers. Their heads were broad, their ears +unrounded, and their legs and feet were far from complying with the +prescribed bedpost standard; but wherein, to the un-professional eye, +they chiefly differed from the established pattern, was in the human +lawlessness of their expression. The old hound by the fire had +struggled up at the note of the horn, and stood staring in perplexity +at her master, and growling, with all the arrogance of the favourite, +at her descendants, who yelped, and clawed, and strove, and thrust +their muzzles over the half-door. + +Flurry regarded them in silence. + +"There's not a straight one among them," he whispered in my ear through +the din. + +"There they are for you now, Mr. Knox," said old O'Reilly, still +panting after his fit of coughing. "There isn't another man in Ireland +would get them but yourself, and you've got them, as I might say, a +present!" + +Flurry and I went out into the yard, and the door was closed behind us. + +The examination--I may say the cross-examination--of the hounds that +followed, was conducted by Flurry and Michael to the accompaniment of a +saga from Tom, setting forth their miraculous merits and achievements, +to which, at suitable points, the carman shouted "Selah," or words to +that effect, through the bars of the gate. At the end of half-an-hour +Flurry had sorted out six of them; these were then coupled, and by dint +of the exertions of all present, were bestowed in a cart with sides +like a crate, in which pigs went to the fair. + +We did not see our host again. His sister told us that he had gone to +bed and wasn't fit to see any one, but he wished Mr. Knox luck with his +bargain, and he sent him this for a luck-penny. She handed Flurry the +dinted horn. + +"I'm thinking it's fretting after the hounds he is," she said, turning +her head away to hide the tears in her brown eyes. I have never until +then known Flurry completely at a loss for an answer. + + + +PART II + +A fortnight afterwards--to be precise, it was the 10th of October--I +saw the white hounds in the field. I had gone through the dreary +routine of the cub-hunter. The alarm clock had shrilled its exulting +and age-long summons in the pitchy dark. I had burnt my fingers with +the spirit-lamp, and my mouth with hot cocoa; I had accomplished my +bathless toilet, I had groped my way through the puddles in the stable +yard, and got on to my horse by the light of a lantern, and at 5.30 +A.M. I was over the worst, and had met Flurry and the hounds, with +Michael and Dr. Jerome Hickey, at the appointed cross-roads. The meet +was nine miles away, in a comparatively unknown land, to which Flurry +had been summoned by tales of what appeared to be an absolute epidemic +of foxes, accompanied by bills for poultry and threats of poison. It +was still an hour before sunrise, but a pallor was in the sky, and the +hounds, that had at first been like a gliding shoal of fish round the +horses' feet, began to take on their own shapes and colours. + +The white Irish hounds were the first to disclose themselves, each +coupled up with a tried old stager. I had been away from home for the +past ten days, and knew nothing of their conduct in their new quarters, +and finding Flurry uncommunicative, I fell back presently to talk about +them to Michael. + +"Is it settling down they are?" said Michael derisively. "That's the +fine settling down! Roaring and screeching every minute since they +came into the place! And as for fighting! They weren't in the kennel +three days before they had Rampant ate, and nothing only his paws left +before me in the morning! I didn't give one night in my bed since, +with running down to them. The like o' them trash isn't fit for a +gentleman's kennels. Them O'Reillys had them rared very pettish; it'd +be as good for me to be trying to turn curlews as them!" + +The indictment of "The Whiteboys" (a title sarcastically bestowed by +Dr. Hickey), their sheep-killing, their dog-hunting, with the setting +forth of Michael's trials, talents, and unrequited virtues, lasted, +like an Arabian night's tale, till the rising of the sun, and also +until our arrival at the place we were first to draw. This was a long +and deep ravine, red with bracken, bushy with hazel and alders; a black +stream raced downwards through it, spreading at the lower end into bog, +green, undefined, entirely treacherous; a place that instantly assures +the rider that if hounds get away on its farther side he will not be +with them. + +A couple of men were waiting for us at the lower end of the ravine. + +"They're in it surely!" they said, shoving down a stone gap for our +benefit; "there isn't a morning but we'll see the owld fellow and his +pups funning away for themselves down by the river. My little fellows, +when they does be going to school in the morning, couldn't hardly pass +his nest for the fume that'd be from it." + +The first ten minutes proved that the foxes were certainly there, and +during the following half-hour pandemonium itself raged in the ravine. +There were, I believe, a brace and a-half of cubs on foot; they were to +me invisible, but they were viewed about twice in every minute by +Flurry and his subordinates, and continuously by a few early rising +countrymen, who had posted themselves along the edges of the ravine. +The yells of the latter went up like steam whistles, and the hounds, +among whom were five couple of newly entered puppies, were wilder than +I had ever known them. They burst through the bracken and strove in +the furze, in incessant full cry, and still the cubs doubled and +dodged, and made detours round the valley, and Flurry and Michael +roared themselves inside out, without producing the smallest effect +upon anything save their own larynxes. No less than three times a fox +was frantically holloaed away, and when, by incredible exertions on all +our parts, the hounds, or a fair proportion of them, had been got +together on to the line, a fresh outburst of yells announced that, +having run a ring, he had returned to the covert. + +Each of these excursions involved-- + +1. Scrambling at best speed down a rocky hill-side. + +2. Coercing a diffident horse across a noisy stream, masked by briars, +out of bog, on to rock. + +3. Reverse of the first proceedings. + +4. Arrival, blown and heated, at the boggy end of the valley, to find +the original conditions prevailing as before. + +I should, perhaps, have already mentioned that I was riding a young +horse, to whom I was showing hounds for the first time. My idea had +been to permit him, strictly as an onlooker, to gather some idea of the +rudiments of the game. He was a good young horse, with the large +gravity of demeanour that is often the result of a domestic bringing up +in the family of a small farmer; and when the moment came, and I was +inexorably hustled into acting as Third Whip, he followed in the wake +of Dr. Hickey with an anxious goodwill that made even his awkwardness +attractive. + +Throughout these excursions I noticed, as far as I was able to notice +anything, the independent methods of the O'Reilly draft. They ignored +the horn, eluded Michael, and laughed at Hickey and me; they hunted +with bloodthirsty intentness and entirely after their own devices. +Their first achievement was to run the earth-stopper's dog, and having +killed him, to eat him. This horrid feat they accomplished, secure +from interruption, in the briary depths of the ravine, and while the +main body of the pack were industriously tow-rowing up and down the +stream after their lawful fox, a couple of goats were only saved from +"The Whiteboys" by miracles of agility and courage on the part of the +countrymen. The best that could be said for them was that, "linking +one virtue to a thousand crimes," whenever the hounds got fairly out of +covert, the Whiteboys were together, and were in front. + +It was about eight o'clock, and the fierce red and grey sunrise had +been over-ridden by a regiment of stormy clouds, when one of the foxes +met his fate, amid ear-piercing whoops, and ecstatic comments from the +onlookers, who had descended from the hill-tops with the speed of +_ski_-runners. + +"Aha! that's the lad had many a fat duck under his rib!" + +"He had, faith! I'll go bail 'twas him that picked me wife's +fashionable cocks!" + +[Illustration: "I'LL GO BAIL 'TWAS HIM THAT PICKED ME WIFE'S +FASHIONABLE COCKS"] + +"Well, I'm told that if ye'll see a fox taking a hen or a goose, and +ye'll call to him in Irish, that he'll drop it," remarked an older man +to me, as we waited while Flurry and Hickey, in their capacity of +butler and footman to the hounds' repast, snatched the few remaining +morsels from the elder revellers and endeavoured to force them upon the +deeply-reluctant young entry, who, having hunted with the innocent +enthusiasm of the _débutante_, thought as little of the ensuing meal as +the _débutante_ thinks of supper at her first ball. + +"I wonder why the deuce Michael can't get those Irish hounds," said +Flurry, catching at the word and looking round. "I only have Lily +here." + +(Lily, I should say, was the romantic name of one of the Whiteboys.) + +"I believe I seen a two-three of the white dogs running east awhile +ago," said the elderly farmer, "and they yowling!" + +"They're likely killing a sheep now," murmured Hickey to me. + +At the same moment I chanced to look up towards the western end of the +ravine, and saw what seemed to be five seagulls gliding up a rift of +grass that showed green between rocks and heather. + +"There are your white hounds, Flurry," I called out, "and they're +hunting." + +"Well, well," said the farmer, "they're afther wheeling round the +length of the valley in the minute! They're nearly able to fly!" + +A distant holloa from Michael, whose head alone was visible above a +forest of furze, rose like a rocket at the end of the sentence, and +every hound sprang to attention. + +Once more we traversed the valley at full speed, and tackled the ladder +of mud that formed the cattle track up the ravine; slough up to the +horses' knees, furze bushes and briars meeting over their heads and +ours, hounds and country boys jostling to get forward, with pistol +shots behind from Hickey's thong, and the insistent doubling of +Flurry's horn in front. Up that green rift I went on foot, and, as it +were, hand in hand with my admirable young horse. The rift, on closer +acquaintance, proved to be green with the deceitful verdure of swampy +grass; (in Ireland, it may be noted, water runs up hill, and the +subtlest bog holes lie in wait for their prey on the mountain tops). +As we ascended, the wind that had risen with the sun, fought us every +inch of the way, and by the time I had won to level ground, I was +speechless, and blowing like the bellows of a forge. A country boy, +whose grinning purple face remains a fond and imperishable memory, +caught me by the leg and rammed me into my saddle; just in front of me +Flurry, also speechless, with his foot not as yet in his off stirrup, +was getting up to his hounds. These were casting themselves +uncertainly over a sedgy and heathery slope, on which, in this wind, +the hottest scent would soon be chilled to its marrow. Of Michael and +the Whiteboys nothing was to be seen. + +At a little distance a young man was grasping by the ears and nose a +donkey with a back-load of bracken, and a misplaced ardour for the +chase. + +"Did ye see the fox?" bellowed Flurry. + +"I did! I did!" + +"Which way did he go?" + +"Yerrah! aren't yer dogs after ateing him below!" shouted the young +man, waltzing strenuously with the donkey. + +"Well, there's a pair of you!" replied Flurry, cracking his whip +viciously at the donkey's tail, and thereby much stimulating the dance, +"and if I was given my choice of ye it's the ass I'd take! Here, come +on out of this, Hickey!" He shoved ahead. "Put those hounds on to me, +can't you!" + +During this interchange of amenities Lily had wandered aside, and now, +far to the left of the rest of the pack, was thoughtfully nosing along +through tufts of rushes; she worked her way down to a fence, and then, +mute as a wraith, slid over it and slipped away across a grass field, +still in jealous silence. + +"Hark forrad to Lily, hounds!" roared Flurry, with electrical +suddenness. "Put them on to her, Jerome!" + +"Well, those white hounds are the divil!" said Dr. Hickey, with a break +of admiration in his voice, as the hounds, suddenly driving ahead, +proclaimed to heaven that they had got the line. They were running up +a fierce north-westerly wind, and their cry came brokenly back to us +through it like the fragments of the chimes through the turmoil of +Tschaikowsky's "1812" symphony. The young horse began to realise that +there was something in it, and, with a monster and frog-like leap, flew +over the ensuing heathery bank, landing, shatteringly, on all fours. +We were travelling down hill, a fact that involved heavy drops, but +involved also the privilege, rare for me, of seeing the hounds +comfortably. Lily, leading the rest by half a field, was going great +guns, so were Flurry and Hickey, so, I may say with all modesty, were +the young horse and I. After an eventful and entirely satisfactory ten +minutes of racing over the class of country that has, on a low average, +seventeen jumps to the mile, we skated down a greasy path, and found +ourselves in a deep lane, with the hounds at fault, casting themselves +eagerly right and left. It was here that we came upon Michael, a +dolorous spectacle, leading his mare towards us. She was dead lame. + +"What happened her?" shouted Flurry through the rioting wind. + +"The foot's dropping off her, sir," replied Michael, with his usual +optimism. + +"Well, get away home with her as quick as you can," interrupted Flurry, +accepting the diagnosis with the usual discount of 90 per cent. "What +way did those white hounds go?" + +"The last I seen o' them they were heading west over the hill beyond +for Drummig. It might be he was making for an old fort that's back in +the land there behind Donovan's farm. There was a fellow driving a +bread van above in the road there that told me if the hounds got inside +in the fort we'd never see them again. He said there were holes down +in it that'd go from here to the sea." + +"What the devil good were you that you didn't stop those hounds?" said +Flurry, cutting short this harangue with a countenance as black as the +weather. "Here, come on!" he called to Hickey and me, "the road'll be +the quickest for us." + +It was about a mile by the road to Donovan's farm, and as Hickey and I +pounded along in the rear of the disgusted hounds, big pellets of rain +were flung in our faces, and I began to realise, not for the first +time, that to turn up the collar of one's coat is more of a protest +than a protection. + +The farmhouse of Donovan of Drummig was connected with the high road by +the usual narrow and stony lane; as we neared the entrance of the lane +we saw through the swirls of rain a baker's van bumping down it. There +were two men on the van, and in the shafts was a raking young brown +horse, who, having espied the approach of the hounds, was honouring +them with what is politically known as a demonstration. One of the men +held up his hand, and called out a request to "hold on awhile till they +were out on to the road." + +"Did you see any hounds?" shouted Flurry, holding back the hounds, as +the van bounded round the corner and into the main road, with an +activity rare in its species. + +"We did, sir," returned the men in chorus, clinging to the rail of +their knifeboard seat, like the crew of a racing yacht, "they have him +back in the fort above this minute! Ye can take your time, faith!" + +The van horse reared and backed, and Flurry turned in his saddle to eye +him as he ramped ahead in response to a slash from the driver; so did +Dr. Hickey, and so also did Lily, who, with her white nose in the air, +snuffed inquisitively in the wake of the departing van. + +"You'd say she knew a good one when she saw him," said Hickey as we +turned the hounds into the lane. + +"Or a good loaf of bread," I suggested. + +"It's little bread that lad carries!" answered Hickey, thonging the +reluctant Lily on; "I'll go bail, there's as much bottled porter as +bread in that van! He supplies half the shebeens in the country." + +As we splashed into the farmyard a young man threw open a gate at its +farther side, shouting to Flurry to hurry on. He waved us on across a +wide field, towards a low hill or mound, red with wet withered bracken, +and crested by a group of lean fir trees, flinging their arms about in +the wild gusts of wind and rain. + +"The fox wasn't the length of himself in front of them!" shouted the +young man, running beside us, "and he as big as a donkey! The whole +kit of them is inside in the fort together!" + +Flurry turned his horse suddenly. + +"Two and a half couple underground is enough for one while," he said, +riding back into the farmyard. "Have you any place I could shove these +hounds into?" + +The door of a cow-house was open, and as if in anticipation of his +wishes, the hounds jostled emulously into the darkness within. Again, +guided by the young man, we faced the storm and rain. What Flurry's +intentions were we neither knew nor dared to ask, and, as we followed +him over the soaked fields, a back more expressive of profound and +wrathful gloom it has never been my lot to contemplate. + +The place in which the fox and the Irish hounds had entombed +themselves, was one of the prehistoric earthen fortresses that abound +in the south-west of Ireland. The fort at Drummig was like a giant +flat-topped molehill; the spade work of a forgotten race had turned it +into a place of defence, and, like moles, they had burrowed into its +depths. The tongue of the young man who guided us did not weary in the +recital of the ways, and the passages, and the little rooms that was +within in it. He said that a calf belonging to himself was back in it +for a week, and she came out three times fatter than the day she went +in. He also, but with a certain diffidence, mentioned fairies. + +Round and about this place of mystery went Flurry, blowing long and +dreary blasts at the mouths of its many holes, uttering "Gone-away" +screeches, of a gaiety deplorably at variance with his furious +countenance. A more pessimistic priest never trumpeted round the walls +of a more impracticable Jericho. + +Hickey led the dripping horses to and fro in the lee of the fort, and I +was deputed to listen at a rabbit hole from which the calf was said to +have emerged. After a period of time which I was too much deadened by +misery to compute, Flurry appeared, and told me that he was going home. +Judging from his appearance, he had himself been to ground; what he +said about the white hounds and the weather was very suitable, but +would not read as well as it sounded. + +We returned to the farmyard with the wind and rain chivying us from +behind. + +"I asked a man, one time," said Dr. Hickey, as side by side, and at a +well-maintained distance, we followed our leader across the field, "why +his father had committed suicide, and he said, 'well, your honour, he +was a little annoyed.' I'm thinking, Major, it'd be no harm for us to +keep an eye on Flurry." + +I stooped my head to let the water flow out of the brim of my hat. + +"You needn't neglect me either," I said. + +While Hickey was getting the hounds out of the cow-house, my young +horse shivered with cold, and gave an ominous cough. I reflected upon +the twelve long miles that lay between him and home, and asked our +saturated guide if I could get a warm drink for him. There was no +difficulty about that; to be sure I could and welcome. I abandoned my +comrades; regret, if it were felt, was not expressed by Flurry. When +the hounds had paddled forth from the cow-house I put my horse into it, +and before they had accomplished half a mile of their direful progress, +I was standing with my back to a glowing turf fire, with my coat +hanging on a chair, and a cup of scalding tea irradiating the inmost +recesses of my person. + +My hostess, Mrs. Jeremiah Donovan, was a handsome young woman, tall, +fair, and flushed, agonised with hospitality, shy to ferocity. The +family dog was lifted from the hearth with a side kick worthy of an +International football match; her offspring, clustered, staring, in the +chimney-corner, were dispersed with a scorching whisper, of which the +words, "ye brazen tinkers," gave some clue to its general trend. +Having immured them in an inner room she withdrew, muttering something +about another "goleen o' turf," and I was left alone with an excellent +cake of soda-bread and two boiled eggs. + +Presently a slight and mouse-like rattle made me aware that one of the +offspring, aged about five, had escaped from captivity, and was +secretly drawing my whip to him along the floor by the thong. + +"What have ye the whip for?" said the offspring, undaunted by discovery. + +"To bate the dogs with," I replied, attuning my speech to his as best I +could. + +"Is it the big white dogs?" pursued the offspring. + +I paused midway in a mouthful of soda-bread. + +"Did you see the white dogs?" I asked very gently. + +"God knows I did!" said the offspring, warming to his work, "an' they +snapped the bit o' bread out of Joola's hand within in the cow-house! +And Joola said they were a fright!" + +I sat still and waited while one might count five, fearful of scaring +the bird that had perched so near me. + +"Are the white dogs here now?" I ventured, wooingly. + +"They are not." + +The crook of my crop was beginning to prove dangerously engrossing, and +the time was short. + +"Where did they go?" I persevered. + +"Jimmy Mahony and me uncle Lukey took them away in the van," said the +offspring with clearness and simplicity, slashing with my whip at a +member of the guild of Brazen Tinkers whom I assumed to be the already +injured Julia. + + * * * * * + +As I bestowed at parting a benefaction upon Jeremiah Donovan, I said +that I hoped he would let Mr. Knox know if any of the white hounds came +out of the fort. He assured me that he would do so. He was, like his +wife, a thoroughly good fellow, and he had wisped the young horse until +one would have said he had never been out of the stable. + +The storm had blown itself away, and the rain was nearly over. I rode +home quietly, and in peace and goodwill towards all men; after all, +there was no hurry. This was a thing that was going to last me for the +rest of my life, and Flurry's. + +I overtook Michael on the way home. Michael said that sure he knew all +through it was a drag, and if Mr. Flurry had been said by him, he'd +have had neither cut, shuffle, nor deal with them O'Reillys. In the +course of his life Michael had never been known to be in the wrong. + +Dr. Hickey told me (but this was some time afterwards) that often he +had to get out of his bed to laugh, when he thought of Flurry getting +Jeremiah Donovan to screech in Irish down the holes in the fort, for +fear old O'Reilly's hounds had no English. It is hardly necessary to +say that Dr. Hickey also had been convinced by the way the hounds ran +that it was a drag, but had omitted to mention the fact at the time. + +Flurry was lost to home and country for three days. It was darkly said +that he had gone to Fahoura to break every bone in young O'Reilly's +body, and, incidentally, to bring back the white hounds. At the end of +the three days he telegraphed for a man and a saddle to meet the +afternoon train. There was nothing in the telegram about hounds. Next +day I met him riding a young brown horse, with a wildish eye, and a +nasty rub from a misfitting collar. + +"I got him in a sort of a swap," said Flurry tranquilly. + +"I suppose he got that rub in the bread-van?" I remarked drawing a bow +at a venture. + +"Well, that might be, too," assented Flurry, regarding me with an eye +that was like a stone wall with broken glass on the top. + + + + +THE END + + + + +Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co. + +Edinburgh & London + + + + +Crown 8vo, 6s. + +SOME EXPERIENCES OF + +AN IRISH R.M. + + +BY + +E. Å’. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS + +With 31 Illustrations by E. Å’. SOMERVILLE. + +Speaker.--"There are in its pages more good stories, quaint characters, +and humorous incidents than we remember to have seen since the days of +Lever." + +Academy.--"Sheer unadulterated laughter is one of the best things that +even literature can give, and we are hard put to it to remember a book +of these latter days to which we owe more of it than we do to the Irish +R.M." + +Pall Mall Gazette.--"We can warmly recommend this book as a sure +antidote for melancholy; it is brimful of brilliant wit and harmless +mirth; it is a tonic for the dyspeptic and a stimulant to the healthy +mind. A more amusing book has not been written for many a year." + +Mr. Stephen Gwynn in the "Cornhill Magazine."--"There are few greater +attractions than that of open healthy laughter of the contagious sort; +and it would be black ingratitude not to pay tribute to the authoresses +of 'Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.'--a book that no decorous person +can read with comfort in a railway carriage." + +The Baron de Book Worms in "Punch."--"Dulness is banished from the +opening of the book to the close thereof.... Since Charles Lever was +at his best, with 'Harry Lorrequer,' 'Charles O'Malley,' 'Tom Burke of +Ours,' and, may be, 'The Knight of Gwynne,' no such rollicking Irish +book as this has appeared, at least not within the period whereunto the +memory of the Baron runneth not to the contrary.... Nothing of a +sedate or gentle character is to be found here; nearly every story is +calculated to set the table in a roar." + + + +THE REAL CHARLOTTE + +BY + +E. Å’. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS + +Graphic.--"'The Real Charlotte' is indeed a book to enjoy at leisure. +It is full of fascinating actuality; and it should be added that the +authors have united their work without leaving a single visible seam." + +Daily News.--"The story provides a liberal entertainment of pathos and +humour. All the actors therein, whether sketched with a few pregnant +strokes, or minutely elaborated, are very much alive." + +Athenaeum.--"The book may be too long, but there are so many amusing +and delightful passages, humorous sayings and doings, with here and +there a word or a line which gives away the very heart of an Irish +landscape, or a man or woman, that we really cannot complain." + +Pall Mall Gazette.--"'The Real Charlotte' is perhaps one of the best +modern examples of an English (or rather an Irish) realistic novel +extant." + + + +THE SILVER FOX + +BY + +E. Å’. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS + +Queen.--"The book is written in a bright and breezy tone, with +ever-restrained humour. It displays nice sense of light and shadow and +power of characterisation." + +Spectator.--"Broadly speaking the novel may be said to exhibit in a +dramatic form the extraordinary hold which superstition still possesses +on the minds of the Irish peasantry and the drawbacks, and even +dangers, which may result from an unsympathetic or intolerant disregard +of such prejudices." + +Daily Chronicle.--"We cannot do justice to this book by quotation. Its +method and its writing are so good that they tempt us to say its +authors have nothing to learn from the French novelists." + + + +ALL ON THE IRISH SHORE + +BY + +E. Å’. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS + +With 10 Illustrations by E. Å’. SOMERVILLE. + +Academy.--"A volume to dispel melancholy and arouse the healthiest +laughter." + +Badminton Magazine.--"Excellent tales, racy of the soil, full of humour +and quaint fancy." + +Daily Graphic.--"The world is a good deal gayer for a book of sketches +like 'All on the Irish Shore.'" + +Daily Telegraph.--"It is fairly safe to predict that the reader who +takes up this book will have no inclination to put it down until he has +read it through from cover to cover." + +Times.--"These stories rise far above the mere sporting level, and +exhibit gifts of perception, literary perception, much higher than +anything that has yet appeared from the same clever pens." + +Scotsman.--"'All on the Irish Shore' has hardly a page between its +covers that does not contain some touch of rollicking Irish humour that +is calculated to provoke the most serious-minded person to mirth." + +Spectator.--"The paramount duty of a reviewer in dealing with this +happily-named volume is one of extreme simplicity--namely, to advise +any one who loves wit, humour, horses, and Ireland to procure it +without delay. The mere fact that it is by the joint authors of 'Some +Experiences of an Irish R.M.' will doubtless prove a ready passport in +the affections of all who have read and re-read that modern classic." + + + +AN IRISH COUSIN + +BY + +E. Å’. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS + +World.--"A clever story brimful of humour." + +Irish Monthly.--"This story is very clever and very well written with +fine bits of description and proof of keen observation." + + + +LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO., 39 PATERNOSTER Row, LONDON + +NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FURTHER EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH R.M. *** + +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. 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Å’. Somerville and Martin Ross</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.t2 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 150%; + text-align: center } + +P.t3 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 100%; + text-align: center } + +P.t4 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 80%; + text-align: center } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; } + +P.loi {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +p.caption {font-weight: bold; + text-align: center; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Further Experiences of an Irish R.M., by E. Å’none 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: Further Experiences of an Irish R.M.</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: E. Å’none Somerville and Martin Ross</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Illustrator: E. Å’none Somerville</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: November 22, 2011 [eBook #38108]<br /> +[Most recently updated: December 12, 2021]</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: Al Haines</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FURTHER EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH R.M. ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="img-front"></a> +<img src="images/img-front.jpg" width="400" height="564" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">OLD FLYNN, MOVING ALONG THE VERGE, BECAME IDYLLIC</p> +</div> + +<h1> +Further Experiences of an +<br/> +Irish R.M. +</h1> + +<h4> +By +</h4> + +<h2 class="no-break"> +E. Å’. Somerville and Martin Ross +</h2> + +<h4> +Authors of "Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.,"<br/> +"Some Irish Yesterdays," "All on the Irish Shore,"<br/> +"The Real Charlotte," etc. etc. etc.<br/> +</h4> + +<h3> +With 35 Illustrations by E. Å’. Somerville +</h3> + +<h4> +Longmans, Green, and Co. +<br/> +39 Paternoster Row, London +<br/> +New York, Bombay, and Calcutta +<br/> +1908 +</h4> + +<h4> +All rights reserved +</h4> + +<p class="t3"> +<i>BY THE SAME AUTHORS</i> +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +SOME EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH R.M. +<br/> +With 31 Illustrations by E. Å’. SOMERVILLE. <br/>Crown 8vo, 6s. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +SOME IRISH YESTERDAYS +<br/> +With 51 Illustrations by E. Å’. SOMERVILLE. <br/>Crown 8vo, 6s. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +AN IRISH COUSIN +<br/> +Crown 8vo, 6s. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +THE REAL CHARLOTTE +<br/> +Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +THE SILVER FOX +<br/> +Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +ALL ON THE IRISH SHORE +<br/> +With 10 Illustrations by E. Å’. SOMERVILLE. Crown 8vo, 6s. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. +</p> + +<p class="t4"> +LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2> +CONTENTS +</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td align="right" valign="top">I. </td> +<td align="left" valign="top"> +<a href="#chap01">THE PUG-NOSED FOX</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right" valign="top">II. </td> +<td align="left" valign="top"> +<a href="#chap02">A ROYAL COMMAND</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right" valign="top">III. </td> +<td align="left" valign="top"> +<a href="#chap03">POISSON D'AVRIL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right" valign="top">IV. </td> +<td align="left" valign="top"> +<a href="#chap04">"THE MAN THAT CAME TO BUY APPLES"</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right" valign="top">V. </td> +<td align="left" valign="top"> +<a href="#chap05">A CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right" valign="top">VI. </td> +<td align="left" valign="top"> +<a href="#chap06">THE BOAT'S SHARE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right" valign="top">VII. </td> +<td align="left" valign="top"> +<a href="#chap07">THE LAST DAY OF SHRAFT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right" valign="top">VIII. </td> +<td align="left" valign="top"> +<a href="#chap08">"A HORSE! A HORSE!" (Part I.)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right" valign="top">IX. </td> +<td align="left" valign="top"> +<a href="#chap09">"AHORSE! A HORSE!" (Part II.)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right" valign="top">X. </td> +<td align="left" valign="top"> +<a href="#chap10">SHARPER THAN A FERRET'S TOOTH</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right" valign="top">XI. </td> +<td align="left" valign="top"> +<a href="#chap11">OWENEEN THE SPRAT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right" valign="top">XII. </td> +<td align="left" valign="top"> +<a href="#chap12">THE WHITEBOYS</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<p class="t2"> +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS +</p> + +<h2> +HALF-TONE +</h2> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-front"> +Old Flynn, moving along the verge, became idyllic … Frontispiece +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-008"> +Suspicious of an ill-timed pleasantry +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-026"> +"Take me out of this" +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-040"> +Whizzed like a driven grouse past the combatants +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-058"> +The guard put his hand over his mouth +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-082"> +"And not a brown farthing more would he give" +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-090"> +"I'm dashed if she hasn't got Sullivan's pony" +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-092"> +He crowned the arrangement with the bottle of potheen +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-114"> +A trayful of burning sods of turf +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-136"> +He did not deny himself a most dissolute wink +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-180"> +Maria's performance was faultless +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-186"> +The Modulator opened with a long-drawn and nasal cadenza +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-208"> +"Did ye see the police!" +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-212"> +"Is that my darlin' Major Yeates?" shouted the cook +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-228"> +"I will walk—I should really prefer it" +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-236"> +Flurry and I put in a blazing September day on the mountain +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-240"> +Braney's Lake +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-258"> +An intricate and variously moving tide of people +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-292"> +"Them hounds are in my family, seed and breed, this hundred years" +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-302"> +"I'll go bail 'twas him that picked me wife's fashionable cocks" +</a></p> + +<h2> +IN THE TEXT +</h2> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-035"> +The egregious Slipper +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-071"> +The victim came +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-106"> +"Ye have them in great form, Michael" +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-123"> +Pure ecstasy stretched his grin from ear to ear +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-141"> +"They're lovely fish altogether! they're leppin' fresh!" +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-148"> +The invalid removed herself +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-158"> +Con Brickley +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-160"> +"Let the divil clear me out of the sthrand!" +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-161"> +A witness to be proud of +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-169"> +His mornings were spent in proffering Irish phrases +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-192"> +The Sergeant's manner was distressingly apologetic +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-230"> +"That's a great sign of fine weather when a horse will lie + down in wather that way"<br/> +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-256"> +My wife came and asked me if I would take her to the workhouse +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-275"> +"Thim's no joke, sir, thim's Sprats!" +</a></p> + +<p class="loi"><a href="#img-283"> +"He knows what's what!" said the Locum +</a></p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>FURTHER EXPERIENCES OF<br/> +AN IRISH R.M.</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a> +I<br/> +THE PUG-NOSED FOX</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +"5 Turkies and their Mother<br/> +5 Ducks and the Drake<br/> +5 Hins and the Cock<br/> + CATHARINE O'DONOVAN, Skeagh."<br/> +</p> + +<p> +A leaf from a copy-book, with these words written on it, was placed in +my hand as I was in the act of dragging on a new pair of gloves in the +stableyard. There was something rhythmic in the category, suggestive +of burnt-offerings and incantations; some touch of pathos, pointing to +tragedy; something, finally, that in the light of previous events +recalled to me suddenly and unpleasantly my new-born position of Deputy +M.F.H. +</p> + +<p> +Not, indeed, that I was in need at that moment of circumstances to +remind me of it. A new hunting-cap, pressing implacably upon my +forehead, an equally new red coat, heavy as a coat of mail, a +glittering horn, red hot from the makers, and so far totally +unresponsive to my apoplectic wooings; these things in themselves, +without the addition of a poultry bill, were sufficient to bring home +to me my amazing folly in having succumbed to the wiles of Mr. Florence +McCarthy Knox, and accepted the charge of his hounds, during his +absence with the Irish Yeomanry at the South African war. +</p> + +<p> +I had yielded in a burst of patriotic emotion to the spirit of +volunteering that was in the air. It would be, Flurry had assured me, +a purely nominal position. +</p> + +<p> +"They'll only go out one day a week, and Jerome Hickey and Michael'll +do all the work. I do secretary for myself, but that'll be no trouble +to you. There's nothing at all to do but to send out the cards of the +meets. It'll be a comfort to me to think you were running the show." +</p> + +<p> +I suggested other names that seemed to me infinitely more comfortable, +but found them blocked by intricate and insuperable objections, and +when I became aware that Mr. Knox had so engineered his case as to get +my wife on his side it seemed simpler to give in. +</p> + +<p> +A week afterwards I saw Flurry off at the station. His last words to +me were: +</p> + +<p> +"Well, good-bye, Major. Be fighting my grandmother for her +subscription, and whatever you do, don't give more than half-a-crown +for a donkey. There's no meat on them." +</p> + +<p> +Upon this touching farewell the train steamed out, and left me +standing, shelterless, a reluctant and incapable Master of Hounds. +</p> + +<p> +Exhaustive as Flurry's instructions had been on the subject of the +cuisine and other details of kennel management, he had not even hinted +at the difficulties that are usually composed by means of a fowl fund. +My first experience of these had taken place but a week ago, when from +the breakfast-table I had perceived a donkey and cart rambling, +unattended, in the shrubberies, among the young hydrangeas and azaleas. +The owner, a most respectable looking old man, explained that he had +left it there because he was "dilicate" to bring it up to the house, +and added that he had come for compensation for "a beautiful milking +goat" that the hounds had eaten last March, "and she having two kids +that died afther her." +</p> + +<p> +I asked why he had not long since been to Mr. Knox about it, and was +favoured with an interminable history of the claimant's ill-health +during the summer, consequent on his fretting after the goat; of how he +had been anointed four times, and of how the donkey was lame this long +while where a branch bet her in the thigh one day she ran into the wood +from the hounds. Fearing that the donkey was about to be included in +the bill, I made haste to settle for the goat and her offspring, a +matter of fifteen shillings. +</p> + +<p> +Next day two women took up a position on the steps at luncheon time, a +course which experience has taught me indicates affairs too exalted and +too personal to be transmitted <i>viâ</i> the kitchen. They were, according +to their own showing, ruined proprietors of poultry yards, in proof of +which they pointed to a row of decapitated hens, laid forth on the +grass like the bag at a fashionable shoot. I was irritably aware of +their triumph in the trophy. +</p> + +<p> +"Sure he didn't make off with anny of them only three, but he snapped +the heads off all that was in it, and faith, if Masther Flurry was at +home, he'd give us the blood of his arm before he'd see our little hins +desthroyed on us this way." +</p> + +<p> +I gave them thirty-two and sixpence as an alternative compensation, +not, I admit, without an uneasy sense of something unusual in Peter +Cadogan's expression, as he assiduously raked the gravel hard by. +</p> + +<p> +It was Michael Leary, Flurry's Michael, who placed the matter of a fowl +fund upon a basis. Catharine O'Donovan and her list of casualties had +been dismissed at a cost of ten shillings, a price so inadequate, and +so cheerfully accepted, as to confirm my dawning suspicions. +</p> + +<p> +"Is it what would they get from Mr. Flurry?" replied Michael when I put +the matter to him; "it isn't ten shillings, no, nor thirty-two +shillings that they'd get from him, but a pelt of a curse after their +heels! Why wouldn't they keep their hens inside in the house with +themselves at night, the same as annyone that'd have sense, and not to +leave them out enticing the fox this way." +</p> + +<p> +Michael was in a bad temper, and so, for the matter of that, was I, +quite irrespective of dealings in poultry. Our red coats, our horses, +and the presence of the hounds, did not betoken the chase, they merely +indicated that the Hunt was about to be photographed. The local +photographer, backed by Mrs. Sinclair Yeates, had extorted from me the +privilege of "a sitting," a figurative expression, involving a ride of +five miles to a covert, selected by my wife as being typical of the +country, accompanied by the fourteen and a-half couple of half-bred +harriers who figured in Hound Lists as "Mr. Knox's Fox-hounds." +</p> + +<p> +It was a blazing day in late August, following on forty-eight hours of +blanketing sea-fog; a day for flannels and a languid game of croquet. +Lady Jane, the grey mare lent to me by Flurry, had been demoralised by +her summer at grass, and was in that peculiarly loathsome frame of mind +that is a blend of laziness and bumptiousness. If I left her to her +own devices she drowsed, stumbling, through the dust; if I corrected +her, she pranced and pulled, and kicked up behind like a donkey. My +huntsman, Doctor Jerome Hickey, who was to have been in the forefront +of the photograph, was twenty miles off in an open boat, on his way to +an island at the far end of his dispensary district, with fifteen cases +of measles ahead of him. I envied him; measles or no, he had on a +turned down collar. As a result of his absence I rode in solitary +dignity at the head of the pack, or, to speak more correctly, I +preceded Michael by some thirty yards of unoccupied road, while the +pack, callous to flogging, and disdainful of my cajoleries, clave to +the heels of Michael's horse. +</p> + +<p> +In this order, we arrived at the tryst, a heathery hill-side, flanked +by a dense and rambling wood. A sea-gull scream from the hill-side +announced the presence of my wife, and summoned me to join her and the +photographer at the spot where they were encamped. I put the mare at a +suitable place in the wall by the roadside. She refused it, which was +no more than I had expected. I sampled my new spurs on her fat sides, +with the result that she charged the wall, slantways, at the exact spot +where Philippa had placed her bicycle against it, missed the bicycle by +a hair's-breadth, landed in the field with a thump, on all four feet, +and ended with two most distressing bucks. It was a consolation to me, +when I came in touch again with the saddle, to find that one of the new +spurs had ploughed a long furrow in her shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +The photographer was a young man from Belfast, a new comer to the +neighbourhood; Philippa is also a photographer, a fact that did not +tend as much as might have been expected to the harmony of the occasion. +</p> + +<p> +"Mrs. Yeates has selected this hillock," said Mr. McOstrich, in tones +of acrid resignation, indicating as he spoke a sugar-loaf shaped knoll, +thickly matted with furze and heather. "She considers the background +characteristic. My own suggestion would have been the grass-field +yonder." +</p> + +<p> +It is an ancient contention of my wife that I, in common with all other +men, in any dispute between a female relative and a tradesman, side +with the tradesman, partly from fear, partly from masculine +clannishness, and most of all from a desire to stand well with the +tradesman. Nothing but the remembrance of this preposterous reproach +kept me from accepting Mr. McOstrich's point of view, and, while I +hesitated, Michael was already taking up his position on the hillock, +perhaps in obedience to some signal from Philippa, perhaps because he +had realised the excellent concealment afforded by the deep heather to +his horse's fetlocks, whose outline was of a somewhat gouty type. It +was part of Flurry Knox's demoniac gift for horseflesh that he should +be able to buy screws and make them serve his exacting purposes. +Michael's horse, Moses, had, at a distance, the appearance of standing +upon four champagne bottles, but he none the less did the work of two +sound horses and did it well. +</p> + +<p> +I goaded Lady Jane through the furze, and established myself beside +Michael on the sugarloaf, the hounds disposed themselves in an interval +of bracken below, and Mr. McOstrich directed his camera upon us from an +opposite slope. +</p> + +<p> +"Show your teeth, please," said Mr. McOstrich to Michael. Michael, +already simmering with indignation at the senseless frivolity of the +proceedings, glowered at his knuckles, evidently suspicious of an +ill-timed pleasantry. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> +<a name="img-008"></a> +<img src="images/img-008.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +<p class="caption">SUSPICIOUS OF AN ILL-TIMED PLEASANTRY</p> +</div> + +<p> +"Do you hear, Whip?" repeated Mr. McOstrich, raising his bleak northern +voice, "show your teeth, please!" +</p> + +<p> +"He only wants to focus us," said I, foreseeing trouble, and hurriedly +displaying my own new front row in a galvanic smile. +</p> + +<p> +Michael murmured to Moses' withers something that sounded like a +promise to hocus Mr. McOstrich when occasion should serve, and I +reflected on the hardship of having to feel apologetic towards both +Michael and the photographer. +</p> + +<p> +Only those who have participated in "Hunt Groups" can realise the +combined tediousness and tension of the moments that followed. To keep +thirty hounds headed for the camera, to ensure that your horse has not +closed its eyes and hung its head in a doze of boredom, to preserve for +yourself that alert and workmanlike aspect that becomes a sportsman, +and then, when these things have been achieved and maintained for what +feels like a month, to see the tripod move in spider strides to a fresh +position and know that all has to be begun over again. After several +of these tentative selections of a site, the moment came when Mr. +McOstrich swung his black velvet pall in the air and buried his head +under its portentous folds. The hounds, though uneasy, had hitherto +been comparatively calm, but at this manifestation their nerve broke, +and they unanimously charged the glaring monster in the black hood with +loud and hysterical cries. +</p> + +<p> +Had not Michael perceived their intention while there was time awful +things might have happened. As it was, the leaders were flogged off +with ignominy, and the ruffled artist returned from the rock to which +he had fled. Michael and I arranged ourselves afresh upon the hillock; +I squared my shoulders, and felt my wonted photographic expression of +hang-dog desperation settle down upon me. +</p> + +<p> +"The dogs are not in the picture, Whip!" said Mr. McOstrich in the +chill tone of outraged dignity. +</p> + +<p> +I perceived that the hounds, much demoralised, had melted away from the +slope in front of us, and were huddling in a wisp in the intervening +hollow. Blandishments were of no avail; they wagged and beamed +apologetically, but remained in the hollow. Michael, in whose +sensitive bosom the term "Whip" evidently rankled, became scarlet in +the face and avalanched from the hill top upon his flock with a fury +that was instantly recognised by them. They broke in panic, and the +astute and elderly Venus, followed by two of the young entry, bolted +for the road. They were there met by Mr. McOstrich's carman, who most +creditably headed the puppies with yells and his driving-whip, but was +out-played by Venus, who, dodging like a football professional, doubled +under the car horse, and fled irrevocably. Philippa, who had been +flitting from rock to rock with her kodak, and unnerving me with +injunctions as to the angle of my cap, here entered the lists with a +packet of sandwiches, with which, in spite of the mustard, she restored +a certain confidence to the agitated pack, a proceeding observed from +afar with trembling indignation by Minx, her fox-terrier. By reckless +expenditure of sandwich the hounds were tempted to their proper +position below the horses, but, unfortunately, with their sterns to the +camera, and their eyes fastened on Philippa. +</p> + +<p> +"Retire, Madam!" said Mr. McOstrich, very severely, "<i>I</i> will attract +the dogs!" +</p> + +<p> +Thus rebuked, Madam scrambled hastily over the crest of the hillock and +sank in unseemly laughter into the deep heather behind it. +</p> + +<p> +"Now, very quiet, please," continued Mr. McOstrich, and then +unexpectedly uttered the words, "Pop! Pop! Pop!" in a high soprano. +</p> + +<p> +Michael clapped his hand over his mouth, the superseded siren in the +heather behind me wallowed in fresh convulsions; the hounds remained +unattracted. +</p> + +<p> +Then arose, almost at the same moment, a voice from the wood behind us, +the voice of yet a third siren, more potent than that of either of her +predecessors, the voice of Venus hunting a line. For the space of a +breath the hounds hung on the eager hacking yelps, in the next breath +they were gone. +</p> + +<p> +Matters now began to move on a serious scale, and with a speed that +could not have been foreseen. The wood was but fifty yards from our +sugar-loaf. Before Michael had got out his horn, the hounds were over +the wall, before the last stern had disappeared the leaders had broken +into full cry. +</p> + +<p> +"Please God it might be a rabbit!" exclaimed Michael, putting spurs to +his horse and bucketing down through the furze towards the wood, with +blasts of the horn that were fraught with indignation and rebuke. +</p> + +<p> +An instant later, from my point of vantage on the sugar-loaf, I saw a +big and very yellow fox cross an open space of heather high up on the +hill above the covert. He passed and vanished; in half-a-dozen seconds +Venus, plunging through the heather, came shrieking across the open +space and also vanished. Another all too brief an interval, and the +remainder of the pack had stormed through the wood and were away in the +open after Venus, and Michael, who had pulled up short on the hither +side of the covert wall, had started up the open hill-side to catch +them. +</p> + +<p> +The characteristic background chosen by Philippa, however admirable in +a photograph, afforded one of the most diabolic rides of my experience. +Uphill, over courses of rock masked in furze bushes, round the head of +a boggy lake, uphill again through deep and purple heather, over a +horrid wall of long slabs half buried in it; past a ruined cabin, with +thorn bushes crowding low over the only feasible place in the bank, and +at last, the top of the hill, and Michael pulling up to take +observations. +</p> + +<p> +The best pack in the kingdom, schoolmastered by a regiment of whips, +could not have precipitated themselves out of covert with more academic +precision than had been shown by Flurry Knox's irregulars. They had +already crossed the valley below us, and were running up a long hill as +if under the conventional tablecloth; their cry, floating up to us, +held all the immemorial romance of the chase. +</p> + +<p> +Michael regarded me with a wild eye; he looked as hot as I felt, which +was saying a good deal, and both horses were puffing. +</p> + +<p> +"He's all the ways for Temple Braney!" he said. "Sure I know him +well—that's the pug-nosed fox that's in it these last three seasons, +and it's what I wish——" +</p> + +<p> +(I regret that I cannot transcribe Michael's wish in its own terms, but +I may baldly summarise it as a desire minutely and anatomically +specified that the hounds were eating Mr. McOstrich.) +</p> + +<p> +Here the spurs were once more applied to Moses' reeking sides, and we +started again, battering down the twists of a rocky lane into the +steaming, stuffy valley. I felt as guilty and as responsible for the +whole affair as Michael intended that I should feel; I knew that he +even laid to my charge the disastrous appearance of the pug-nosed +Temple Braney fox. (Whether this remarkable feature was a freak of +nature, or of Michael's lurid fancy, I have never been able to +ascertain.) +</p> + +<p> +The valley was boggy, as well as hot, and the deep and sinuous ditch +that by courtesy was supposed to drain it, was blind with rushes and +tall fronds of Osmunda Regalis fern. Where the landing was tolerable, +the take-off was a swamp, where the take-off was sound the landing was +feasible only for a frog: we lost five panting minutes, closely +attended by horse-flies, before we somehow floundered across and began +the ascent of the second hill. To face tall banks, uphill, is at no +time agreeable, especially when they are enveloped in a jungle of +briars, bracken, and waving grass, but a merciful dispensation of +cow-gaps revealed itself; it was one of the few streaks of luck in a +day not conspicuous for such. +</p> + +<p> +At the top of the hill we took another pull. This afforded to us a +fine view of the Atlantic, also of the surrounding country and all that +was therein, with, however, the single unfortunate exception of the +hounds. There was nothing to be heard save the summery rattle of a +reaping-machine, the strong and steady rasp of a corn-crake, and the +growl of a big steamer from a band of fog that was advancing, +ghostlike, along the blue floor of the sea. Two fields away a man in a +straw hat was slowly combing down the flanks of a haycock with a wooden +rake, while a black and white cur slept in the young after-grass beside +him. We broke into their sylvan tranquillity with a heated demand +whether the hounds had passed that way. Shrill clamour from the dog +was at first the only reply; its owner took off his hat, wiped his +forehead with his sleeve, and stared at us. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm as deaf as a beetle this three weeks," he said, continuing to look +us up and down in a way that made me realise, if possible, more than +before, the absurdity of looking like a Christmas card in the heat of a +summer's day. +</p> + +<p> +"Did ye see the HOUNDS?" shouted Michael, shoving the chestnut up +beside him. +</p> + +<p> +"It's the neurology I got," continued the haymaker, "an' the pain does +be whistlin' out through me ear till I could mostly run into the say +from it." +</p> + +<p> +"It's a pity ye wouldn't," said Michael, whirling Moses round, "an' +stop in it! Whisht! Look over, sir! Look over!" +</p> + +<p> +He pointed with his whip along the green slopes. I saw, about half a +mile away, two boys standing on a fence, and beyond them some cattle +galloping in a field: three or four miles farther on the woods of +Temple Braney were a purple smear in the hazy heat of the landscape. +My heart sank; it was obvious even to my limited capacities that the +pug-nosed fox was making good his line with a straightness not to be +expected from one of his personal peculiarity, and that the hounds were +still running as hard as ever on a scent as steamingly hot as the +weather. I wildly thought of removing my coat and leaving it in charge +of the man with neuralgia, but was restrained by the reflection that he +might look upon it as a gift, flung to him in a burst of compassion, a +misunderstanding that, in view of his affliction, it would be +impossible to rectify. +</p> + +<p> +I picked up my lathered reins and followed Michael at a gloomy trot in +the direction of the galloping cattle. After a few fields a road +presented itself, and was eagerly accepted by the grey mare, on whom +the unbridled gluttonies of a summer's grass were beginning to tell. +</p> + +<p> +"She's bet up, sir," said Michael, dragging down a rickety gate with +the handle of his whip. "Folly on the road, there's a near way to the +wood from the cross." +</p> + +<p> +Moses here walked cautiously over the prostrate gate. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm afraid you'll kill Moses," said I, by no means pleased at the +prospect of being separated from my Intelligence Department. +</p> + +<p> +"Is it him?" replied Michael, scanning the country ahead of him with +hawk eyes. "Sure he's as hardy as a throut!" +</p> + +<p> +The last I saw of the trout was his bottle fetlocks disappearing nimbly +in bracken as he dropped down the far side of a bank. +</p> + +<p> +I "follied on the road" for two stifling miles. The heavy air was pent +between high hedges hung with wisps of hay from passing carts; +(hay-carrying in the south-west of Ireland conforms to the leisure of +the farmer rather than to the accident of season;) phalanxes of flies +arose as if at the approach of royalty, and accompanied my progress at +a hunting jog, which, as interpreted by Lady Jane, was an effective +blend of a Turkish bath and a churn. +</p> + +<p> +The "near way" from the cross-roads opened seductively with a lane +leading to a farmhouse, and presently degenerated into an unfenced but +plausible cart track through the fields. Breaches had been made in the +banks for its accommodation, and I advanced successfully towards the +long woods of Temple Braney, endeavouring, less successfully, to repel +the attentions of two young horses, who galloped, squealed, and bucked +round me and Lady Jane with the imbecile pleasantry of their kind. The +moment when I at length slammed in their faces the gate of the wood, +was one of sorely needed solace. +</p> + +<p> +Then came the sudden bath of coolness and shade, and the gradual +realisation that I did not in the least know what to do next. The air +was full of the deeply preoccupied hum of insects, and the interminable +monologue of a wood pigeon; I felt as if I ought to apologise for my +intrusion. None the less I pursued a ride that crossed the wood, +making persevering efforts to blow my horn, and producing nothing but +gramaphonic whispers, fragmentary groans, and a headache. I was near +the farther side of the wood when I saw fresh hoof-tracks on a path +that joined the ride; they preceded me to a singularly untempting bank, +with a branch hanging over it and a potato-field beyond it. A clod had +been newly kicked out of the top of it; I could not evade the +conviction that Michael had gone that way. The grey mare knew it too, +and bundled on to and over the bank with surprising celerity, and +dropped skilfully just short of where the potato beds began. An old +woman was digging at the other side of the field, and I steered for +her, making a long tack down a deep furrow between the "lazy-beds." +</p> + +<p> +"Did you see the hounds, ma'am?" I called out across the intervening +jungle of potato stalks. +</p> + +<p> +"Sir!" +</p> + +<p> +She at all events was not deaf. I amended my inquiry. +</p> + +<p> +"Did you see any dogs, or a man in a red coat?" +</p> + +<p> +"Musha, bad cess to them, then I did!" bawled the old woman, "look at +the thrack o' their legs down thro' me little pratie garden! 'Twasn't +but a whileen ago that they come leppin' out o' the wood to me, and +didn't I think 'twas the Divil and all his young ones, an' I thrun +meself down in the thrinch the way they wouldn't see me, the Lord save +us!" +</p> + +<p> +My heart warmed to her; I also would gladly have laid down among the +umbrageous stalks of the potatoes, and concealed myself for ever from +Michael and the hounds. +</p> + +<p> +"What way did they go?" I asked, regretfully dismissing the vision, and +feeling in my pocket for a shilling. +</p> + +<p> +"They went wesht the road, your Honour, an' they screeching always; +they crossed out the field below over-right the white pony, and faith +ye couldn't hardly see Michael Leary for the shweat! God help ye +asthore, yourself is getting hardship from them as well as another!" +</p> + +<p> +The shilling here sank into her earthy palm, on which she prayed +passionately that the saints might be surprised at my success. I felt +that as far as I was concerned the surprise would be mutual; I had had +nothing but misfortune since ten o'clock that morning, and there seemed +no reason to believe that the tide had turned. +</p> + +<p> +The pony proved to be a white mule, a spectral creature, standing in +malign meditation trace-high in bracken; I proceeded in its direction +at a trot, through clumps of bracken and coarse grass, and as I drew +near it uttered a strangled and heart-broken cry of greeting. At the +same moment Lady Jane fell headlong on to her nose and the point of her +right shoulder. It is almost superfluous to observe that I did the +same thing. As I rolled on my face in the bracken, something like a +snake uncoiled itself beneath me and became taut; I clutched at it, +believing it to be the reins, and found I was being hung up, like +clothes on a line, upon the mule's tethering rope. Lady Jane had got +it well round her legs, and had already fallen twice in her efforts to +get up, while the mule, round whose neck the tether rope had been +knotted, was backing hard, like a dog trying to pull its head through +its collar. +</p> + +<p> +In sunstroke heat I got out my knife, and having cut the rope in two +places, an operation accomplished in the depths of a swarm of flies and +midges, I pulled the mare on to her legs. She was lame on the off +fore, and the rope had skinned her shins in several places; my own +shoulder and arm were bruised, and I had broken a stirrup leather. +Philippa and the photographer had certainly provided me with a day of +varied entertainment, and I could not be sure that I had even yet +drained the cup of pleasure to the dregs. +</p> + +<p> +I led Lady Jane out into the road, and considered the position. We +were about nine miles from home, and at least five from any place where +I could hire a car. To walk, and lead the mare, was an alternative +that, powerless as events had proved me to be in the hands of +misfortune, I still refused to consider. It was then given me to +remember old McRory. +</p> + +<p> +My acquaintance with old McRory was of the slightest. He was, it was +understood, a retired Dublin coal merchant, with an enormous family, +and a reputation for great riches. He had, within the last year or so, +taken the derelict house of Temple Braney, and having by strenuous +efforts attained that dubious honour, the Commission of the Peace, it +had happened to me to sit on the Bench with him on one or two +occasions. Of his family I knew little, save that whenever I saw an +unknown young man buying cigarettes at Mr. Dannaher's in Skebawn, I was +informed that it was one of the young McRorys, a medical student, and +"a bit of a lad, but nothing at all to the next youngest." The Misses +McRory were only occasionally viewed, whirling in large companies on +glittering bicycles, and the legend respectfully ran that they had +forty blouses apiece. Perhaps the most definite information about them +was supplied by our cook, Mrs. Cadogan, who assured Philippa that Wild +Pigs in America wouldn't be treated worse than what Mrs. McRory treated +her servants. All these things together made an unpromising aggregate, +but the fact remained that Temple Braney House was within a quarter of +a mile of me, and its charity my only hope. +</p> + +<p> +The lodge gates of Temple Braney were wide open, so was the door of the +lodge; the weedy drive was scored with fresh wheel-tracks, as also, for +the matter of that, was the grass on either side. I followed it for a +short distance, in the roomy shade of splendid beech-trees, servants of +the old régime, preserving their dignity through the vicissitudes of +the new. Near the house was a second open gate, and on a species of +arch over it I was amazingly greeted by the word "Welcome" in white +letters on a blazing strip of Turkey-red. This was an attention that I +had not anticipated; did it mean a school-feast? +</p> + +<p> +I made a cautious survey, but saw nobody, and nerved by the increasing +lameness of Lady Jane, I went on to the house and rang the bell. There +was no response; the hall-door was wide open, and from an inner hall +two lanky red setter puppies advanced with their tails between their +legs, barking uncertainly, and acutely conscious of the fact that upon +the collar of each was fastened a flaunting though much chewed bow of +white satin ribbon. Full of foreboding I rang again. The bell tinkled +vigorously in some fastness of the house, but nothing else happened. I +decided to try the stable-yard, and, attended by the decorated puppies, +set forth to find it. +</p> + +<p> +It was a large quadrangle, of which one side was formed by a wing of +the house; had there been a few more panes of glass in the windows and +slates in the roof it might have been imposing. A cavernous coachhouse +stood open, empty save for the wheelless body of an outside car that +was seated on the floor, with wings outspread like a hatching hen. +Every stable-door gaped wide. Odds and ends of harness lay about, but +neither horse nor human being was visible. A turkey-cock, in +transports of wrath, stormed to and fro in front of his household, and +to some extent dispelled the sentiment of desertion and stampede that +pervaded the place. I led the limping mare into a stable wherein were +two loose-boxes. A sickly smell greeted me, and I perceived that in +one of the boxes was a long low cage, alive with the red-currant-jelly +eyes and pink noses of a colony of ferrets, and in the other was a pile +of empty wine-boxes and several bicycles. Lady Jane snorted heavily, +and I sought elsewhere for a refuge for her. I found it at length in a +long stable with six empty stalls, and proceeded to tie her up in one +of them. +</p> + +<p> +It was while I was thus engaged that a strange succession of sounds +began overhead, heavy, shapeless sounds in which were blended the +suggestions of shove and thump. There was a brief interval of silence, +during which Lady Jane and I listened with equal intentness; then +followed a hoarse bellow, which resolved itself into the enquiry, +</p> + +<p> +"Is there any one there?" +</p> + +<p> +Here was the princess of the enchanted palace waking up with a +vengeance. More and angrier bellows followed; I went stealthily out +into the yard, and took stock of the windows above the stable. One of +them was open, and it was from it that the voice issued, loudly +demanding release. It roared a string of Christian names, which I +supposed to be those of the McRory family, it used most unchristian +language, and it finally settled down into shouts for help, and +asseverations that it was smothering. I admit that my first and almost +overwhelming impulse was to steal a bicycle and wing my way to my +far-away and peaceful home, leaving Michael, the hounds, and the +smothering gentleman to work out their own salvation. Unfortunately +for me, the voice of conscience prevailed. There was a ladder near at +hand leaning against the wall, and I put it to the window, and went up +it as fast as my top boots would allow me, with a vision before me of +old McRory in apoplexy as the probable reward of my labours. I thrust +my head in, blocking the light in so doing; the shouting ceased +abruptly, and after the glare of sunshine outside I could at first see +nothing. Then was revealed to me a long and darksome room, once, +probably, a loft, filled with broken chairs and varieties of primeval +lumber. In the middle of the floor lay an immense feather bed, and my +bewildered eyes discovered, at one end of it, a crimson face, the face, +not of old McRory, but that of a young gentleman of my acquaintance, +one Mr. Tomsy Flood of Curranhilty. The mysteries were deepening. I +straddled the window-sash, and arrived in the room with a +three-cornered tear in the shoulder of my coat, inflicted by a nail in +the frame, and one spur draped with ancestral cobweb. +</p> + +<p> +"Take me out of this!" howled Mr. Flood hysterically, accepting my +pantomime entrance without question. "Can't you see I'm smothering in +this damned thing?" +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:70%;"> +<a name="img-026"></a> +<img src="images/img-026.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +<p class="caption">"TAKE ME OUT OF THIS!"</p> +</div> + +<p> +Fluff hung from his black moustache and clung to his eyebrows, his hair +was full of feathers; earthquake throes convulsed the feather-bed, and +the fact was suddenly revealed to me that Mr. Flood was not under it, +as I had at first imagined, but in it, stitched in, up to the chin. +The weaned child, or any other conventional innocent, could not have +failed for an instant to recognise the handiwork of practical humorists +of a high order. I asked no questions, but got out my knife once more, +and beginning with due precaution somewhere near Mr. Flood's jugular +vein, proceeded to slit open the end of the "tick." The stitches were +long and strong, and as each one yielded, the feathers burst forth in +stifling puffs, and Tomsy Flood's allusions to the young McRorys were +mercifully merged in sputtering. I did not laugh, not at least till I +found that I had to drag him out like a mummy, accompanied by half the +contents of the bed, and perceived that he was in full evening clothes, +and that he was incapable of helping himself because the legs of his +trousers were sewn together and his coat-sleeves sewn to his sides; +even then, I only gave way in painful secrecy behind the mighty calves +of his legs as I cut the stitches out. Tomsy Flood walked about +fifteen stone and was not in a mood to be trifled with, still less to +see the humour of the position. The medical students had done their +work with a surgical finish, and by the time that I had restored to +Tomsy the use of his legs and arms, the feathers had permeated to every +recess of my being, and I was sneezing as if I had hay fever. +</p> + +<p> +Having at length, and with considerable difficulty, got Mr. Flood on to +his legs, I ventured, with the tact demanded by the situation, a +question as to whether he had been dining at Temple Braney. +</p> + +<p> +"Dining?" queried Mr. Flood, with an obvious effort of memory. "Yes, I +was, to be sure! Amn't I staying in the house?" Then, with an equally +obvious shock of recollection, "Sure I'm Best Man at the wedding +to-day!" +</p> + +<p> +The scattered elements of the situation began to fall symmetrically +into line, from the open gates to the white bows on the puppies' +collars. My chief concern, however, bearing in mind Tomsy Flood's +recent potations and provocations, was to let him down as easily as +possible, and, reserving my conclusions to myself, to escape, swiftly +and silently, while yet there was time. There was always that +stall-full of bicycles; I could borrow clothes from Tomsy, and leave +this accursed tom-foolery of hunting kit to be fetched with the mare, I +could write a beautifully explanatory note when I got home—— +</p> + +<p> +"Hadn't you better get out of your evening things as quickly as you +can?" I suggested. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Flood regarded me with heavy and bloodshot eyes of imperfect +intelligence. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh! I've time enough. Ye wouldn't get a pick of breakfast here +before ten o'clock in the day. Now that I come to look into you," he +continued, "you're as big a show as myself! Is it for the wedding that +you have the red coat on you?" +</p> + +<p> +I do not now remember with what lies I composed Tomsy Flood, but I got +him out of the room at last by a door into a passage of seemingly +interminable length; he took my arm, he treated me as his only friend, +he expressed his full confidence that I would see fair play when he got +a hold of Stanley McRory. He also gave it as his private opinion that +his cousin, Harry Flood, was making a hare of himself marrying that +impudent little Pinkie McRory, that was as vulgar as a bag of +straddles, in spite of the money. Indeed, the whole family had too +many airs about them for his fancy. "They take the English <i>Times</i>, if +you please, and they all dress for dinner—every night I tell ye! I +call that rot, y'know!" +</p> + +<p> +We were all this time traversing the house by labyrinthine passages, +flights of stairs, and strange empty lobbies; we progressed +conversationally and with maddening slowness, followed by a fleecy +train of feathers that floated from us as we went. And all the time I +was trying to remember how long it took to get married. In my own case +it seemed as if I had been in the church for two hours at least. +</p> + +<p> +A swing-door suddenly admitted us to the hall, and Tomsy stood still to +collect his faculties. +</p> + +<p> +"My room's up there," he began, pointing vaguely up the staircase. +</p> + +<p> +At this identical moment there was a loud and composite crash from +behind a closed door on our right, followed by minor crashes, and +noises as of chairs falling about. +</p> + +<p> +"That's the boys!" said Tomsy, a sudden spark kindling in his eye; +"they're breakfasting early, I suppose." +</p> + +<p> +He dropped my arm unexpectedly, and flung the door open with a yell. +</p> + +<p> +The first object that met my eyes was the original sinner, Venus, +mounted on a long and highly-adorned luncheon table, cranching and +gulping cold chicken as fast as she could get it down; on the floor +half-a-dozen of her brethren tore at a round of beef amid the débris of +crockery and glass that had been involved in its overthrow. A cataract +of cream was pouring down the table-cloth, and making a lake on the +carpet for the benefit of some others; and President, the patriarch of +the pack, was apparently seated on the wedding-cake, while he +demolished a cold salmon. I had left my whip in the stable, but even +had this paralysing sight left me the force to use it, its services +would not have been needed. The leaders of the revel leaped from the +table, mowing down colonies of wine-glasses in the act, and fled +through the open window, followed by the rest of the party, with a +precipitancy that showed their full consciousness of sin—the last +scramblers over the sill yelping in agonised foretaste of the thong +that they believed was overtaking them. +</p> + +<p> +At such a moment of catastrophe the craving for human sympathy is +paramount. +</p> + +<p> +I turned even to the fuddled and feathered Tomsy Flood as to a man and +a brother, and was confronted in the doorway by the Bride and +Bridegroom. +</p> + +<p> +Behind them, the hall was filling, with the swiftness of an evil dream, +with glowing faces and wedding bonnets; there was a turmoil of wheels +and hoofs at the door, and through it all, like "horns of Elfland +faintly blowing," Michael's blasts of summons to his pirates. Finally, +the towering mauve bonnet and equally towering wrath of Mrs. McRory, as +she advanced upon me and Tomsy Flood. I thought of the Wild Pigs in +America, and wished I were with them. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Lest I should find myself the object of a sympathy more acute than I +deserve, it may be well to transcribe portion of a paragraph from the +<i>Curranhilty Herald</i> of the following week:— +</p> + +<p> +"... After the ceremony a reception was held at Temple Braney House, +where a sumptuous collation had been provided by the hospitable Mr. and +Mrs. McRory. The health of the Happy Pair having been drunk, that of +the Bridesmaids was proposed, and Mr. T. Flood, who had been prevented +by a slight indisposition from filling the office of Best Man, was +happily sufficiently recovered to return thanks for them in his usual +sprightly vein. Major Sinclair Yeates, R.M., M.F.H., who, in honour of +the festive occasion had donned sporting attire, proposed the health of +the Bride's Mother in felicitous terms...." +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a> +II<br/> +A ROYAL COMMAND</h2> + +<p> +When I heard that Bernard Shute, of Clountiss, Esquire, late Lieutenant +R.N., was running an Agricultural Show, to be held in his own demesne, +I did not for a moment credit him with either philanthropy or public +spirit. I recognised in it merely another outbreak of his exasperating +health and energy. He bombarded the country with circulars, calling +upon farmers for exhibits, and upon all for subscriptions; he made +raids into neighbouring districts on his motor car, turning vague +promises into bullion, with a success in mendicancy fortunately given +to few. It was in a thoroughly ungenerous spirit that I yielded up my +guinea and promised to attend the Show in my thousands: peace at +twenty-one shillings was comparatively cheap, and there was always a +hope that it might end there. +</p> + +<p> +The hope was fallacious: the Show boomed; it blossomed into a Grand +Stand, a Brass Band, an Afternoon Tea Tent; finally, fortune, as usual, +played into Bernard's hands and sent a Celebrity. There arrived in a +neighbouring harbour a steam-yacht, owned by one of Mr. Shute's dearest +friends, one Captain Calthorpe, and having on board a coloured +potentate, the Sultan of X——, who had come over from Cowes to see +Ireland and the Dublin Horse Show. The dearest friend—who, as it +happened, having been for three days swathed in a wet fog from the +Atlantic, was becoming something pressed for entertainment for his +charge—tumbled readily into Bernard's snare, and paragraphs appeared +with all speed in the local papers proclaiming the intention of H.H. +the Sultan of X—— to be present at the Clountiss Agricultural Show. +Following up this coup, Bernard achieved for his function a fine, an +even sumptuous day, and the weather and the Sultan between them filled +the Grand Stand beyond the utmost hopes (and possibly the secret +misgivings) of its constructors. +</p> + +<p> +Having with difficulty found seats on the top-most corner for myself, +my wife, and my two children, I had leisure to speculate upon its +probable collapse. For half an hour, for an hour, for an hour and a +half, we sat on its hot bare boards and surveyed the wide and empty +oval of grass that formed the arena of the Show. Five "made-up" jumps +of varying dimensions and two vagrant fox-terriers were its sole +adornment. A dark rim of spectators encircled it, awaiting +developments, <i>i.e.</i> the arrival of the Sultan, with tireless patience, +and the egregious Slipper, attired in a gala costume of tall hat, +frock-coat, white breeches, and butcher boots, gleanings, no doubt, +from bygone jumble sales, swaggered and rolled to and fro, selling +catalogues and cards of the jumping. Away under the tall elms near the +gate, amid the rival clamour of the cattle sheds and the poultry pens, +was stationed the green and yellow band of the "Sons of Liberty"; at +intervals it broke into an excruciating shindy of brass instruments, +through which the big drum drove a ferocious and unfaltering course. +Above the heads of the people, at the far end of the arena, tossing +heads and manes moving ceaselessly backwards and forwards told where +the "jumping horses" were waiting, eaten by flies, inconsolably +agitated by the band, becoming momently more jaded and stale from the +delay. I thanked Heaven that neither my wife nor Bernard Shute had +succeeded in inducing me to snatch my string of two from the paddock in +which they were passing the summer, to take part in this purgatorial +procession. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> +<a name="img-035"></a> +<img src="images/img-035.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +<p class="caption">THE EGREGIOUS SLIPPER</p> +</div> + +<p> +The Grand Stand, a structure bare as a mountain top to the assaults of +sun and wind, was canopied with parasols and prismatic with millinery. +The farmers, from regions unknown to me, had abundantly risen to the +occasion; so also had their wives and daughters; and fashionable +ladies, with comfortable brogues and a vigorous taste in scent, closed +us in on every side. Throughout that burning period of delay went the +searching catechisms of my two sons (aged respectively four and seven) +as to the complexion, disposition, and domestic arrangements of the +Sultan. Philippa says that I ought to have known that they were +thoroughly over-strung; possibly my descriptions of the weapons that he +wore and the cannibal feasts that he attended were a trifle lurid, but +it seemed simpler to let the fancy play on such details than to decide, +for the benefit of an interested <i>entourage</i> of farmers' daughters, +whether the Sultan's face was the colour of my boots or of their +mother's, and whether he had a thousand or a million wives. The +inquiry was interrupted by the quack of a motor horn at the entrance +gate. +</p> + +<p> +"Here he is!" breathed the Grand Stand as one man. There was a +flocking of stewards towards the gate, and the Sons of Liberty, full of +anxiety to say the suitable thing, burst into the melancholy strains of +"My Old Kentucky Home Far Away." To this somewhat "hearse-like air" +the group of green-rosetted stewards advanced across the arena, +escorting the yacht party, in whose midst moved a squat figure, clad in +grey flannel, and surmounted by a massive and snowy turban. My elder +son became very pale; the younger turned an ominous crimson, and the +corners of his mouth went down, slowly, but, as I well knew, fatally. +The inevitable bellow, that followed in the inevitable routine, had +scarcely died away in the heart of Philippa's feather boa, when Mr. +Shute's red face and monstrous Presidential rosette presented +themselves on the stairs at my elbow. +</p> + +<p> +"Mrs. Yeates!" he began, in a gusty whisper, "Cecilia implores you to +come and fling yourself to the Lion! She says she simply can't and +won't tackle him single-handed, and she trusts to you to see her +through! He talks French all right, and I know your French is +top-hole! Do come——" +</p> + +<p> +Incredible as it may appear, my wife received this suggestion with a +reluctance that was obviously but half-hearted. Such it is to have the +Social Gift. +</p> + +<p> +I presently found myself alone with my offspring, both in tears, and +deaf to my assurances that neither the Sultan, nor his lion, would eat +their mother. Consolation, however, came with the entry of the +"jumping horses" into the arena, which followed with all speed upon +that of the Sultan. The first competitor bucketted up to the +starting-point, and at the same moment the discovery was made that +there was no water in the water-jump, a space of perhaps a foot in +depth by some five feet wide. Nothing but a thin paste of mud +remained, the water having disappeared, unnoticed, during the hot hours +of the morning. +</p> + +<p> +Swift in expedient, the stewards supplied the difficulty with +quicklime, which was scattered with a lavish hand in the fosse, and +shone like snow through the barrier of furze bushes on the take-off +side. If, as I suppose, the object was to delude the horses into the +belief that it was a water-jump, it was a total failure; they +immediately decided that it was a practical joke, dangerous, and in +indifferent taste. If, on the other side, a variety entertainment for +the public was aimed at, nothing could have been more successful. +Every known class of refusal was successfully exhibited. One horse +endeavoured to climb the rails into the Grand Stand; another, having +stopped dead at the critical point, swung round, and returned in +consternation to the starting-point, with his rider hanging like a +locket round his neck. Another, dowered with a sense of humour unusual +among horses, stepped delicately over the furze-bushes, and, amidst +rounds of applause, walked through the lime with a stoic calm. Yet +another, a ponderous war-horse of seventeen hands, hung, trembling like +an aspen, on the brink, till a sympathiser, possibly his owner, sprang +irrepressibly from his seat on the stand, climbed through the rails, +and attacked him from behind with a large umbrella. It was during this +three-cornered conflict that the green-eyed filly forced herself into +the front rank of events. A chorus of "Hi! Hi! Hi!" fired at the +rate of about fifty per second, volleyed in warning from the crowd +round the starting-point, and a white-legged chestnut, with an +unearthly white face and flying flounces of tawny mane and tail, came +thundering down at the jump. Neither umbrella nor war-horse turned her +by a hair's-breadth from her course, still less did her rider, a lean +and long-legged country boy, whose single object was to keep on her +back. Picking up her white stockings, she took off six feet from the +jump, and whizzed like a driven grouse past the combatants and over the +furze bushes and the lime. Beneath her creamy forelock, I caught a +glimpse of her amazing blue-green eyes. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> +<a name="img-040"></a> +<img src="images/img-040.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +<p class="caption">WHIZZED LIKE A DRIVEN GROUSE PAST THE COMBATANTS</p> +</div> + +<p> +She skimmed the hurdle, she flourished over the wall, flinging high her +white heels with a twist that showed more consideration for their +safety than that of her rider. She ramped over the big double bank, +while the roars of approval swelled with each achievement, and she +ended a faultless round by bolting into the heart of the crowd, which +fled hilariously, and as hilariously, hived in round her again. +</p> + +<p> +From my exalted seat I could see the Sultan clapping his hands in sweet +accord with Philippa. Somewhere near me a voice yelled: +</p> + +<p> +"Gripes! She's a monkey! When she jumped the wall she went the height +of a tree over it!" +</p> + +<p> +To which another voice replied that "It'd be a good bird that'd fly the +height she wouldn't lep, and John Cullinane'd be apt to get first with +her at the Skebawn Show." I remembered casually that John Cullinane +was a neighbour of mine. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I wouldn't fancy her at all," said a female voice. "I'd say she +had a very maleecious glance." +</p> + +<p> +"Ah! ye wouldn't feel that when the winkers'd be on her," said the +first speaker; "she'd make a fine sweeping mare under a side-car." +</p> + +<p> +Meantime, the war-horse, much embittered by the umbrella, floundered +through the lime, and, continuing his course, threw down the hurdle, +made a breach in the wall that would, as my neighbour put it, give +three hours' work to seven idlers, and came to a sudden conclusion in +front of the bank, while his rider slowly turned a somersault that, by +some process of evolution, placed him sitting on the fence, facing the +large and gloomy countenance of his horse. +</p> + +<p> +It was after this performance that my wife looked round to see if her +sons were enjoying themselves, and waved her handkerchief. The snowy +turban of the Sultan moved round too, and beneath its voluminous folds +the round, black discs of a pair of field-glasses were directed at us. +The effect was instant. With a simultaneous shriek of terror, my +children flung themselves upon me and buried their faces in my breast. +I shall never forget it to the farmers' daughters that, in this black +hour, their sympathy was prompt and practical. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh! Fie, fie! Oh! the creatures! 'T was the spy-glasses finished +them altogether! Eat a sweetie now, lovey! that's the grand man! +Pappy'll not let the dirty fella near ye!" +</p> + +<p> +A piece of the brown sugar-stick, known as "Peggy's leg," accompanied +these consolations, and a tearful composure was gradually restored; but +"Pappy" had arrived at the conclusion that he had had about as much as +he could stand. In shameful publicity I clambered down the steep tiers +of seats, with one child under my arm, the other adhering to my +coat-tail. Philippa made agitated signals to me; I cut her dead, and +went to ground in the tea tent. +</p> + +<p> +A couple of days later my duty took me to the farthest end of my +district—a matter that involved a night's absence from home. I left +behind me an infant family restored to calm, and a thoroughly +domesticated wife and mother, pledged to one o'clock dinner with the +children and tea in the woods. I returned in time for luncheon next +day, bicycling from the station, as was my wont. It was a hot day, and +as I walked my bicycle up the slope of the avenue, the shade of the +beech trees was passing pleasant; the dogs galloped to meet me over the +soft after-grass, and I thought about flannels and an idle afternoon. +</p> + +<p> +In the hall I met Margaret, the parlour-maid, engaged, with the +housemaid, in carrying the writing-table out of my smoking-room. They +were talking loudly to each other, and I noticed that their eyes were +very bright and their complexions considerably above par. I am a man +of peace, but the veriest dove will protect its nest, and I demanded +with some heat the cause of this outrage. +</p> + +<p> +"The Mistress told us to clear this room for the servant of the—the +gentleman's that's coming to lunch to-morrow, sir," replied Margaret +with every appearance of offence. +</p> + +<p> +She and Hannah staggered onwards with my table, and the contents of the +drawers rolled and rattled. +</p> + +<p> +"Put down that table," I said firmly. "Where is the Mistress?" +</p> + +<p> +"I believe she's dressing, sir," replied Margaret; "she only came home +about an hour ago. She was out all night on the sea, I believe." +</p> + +<p> +Instant on the heels of these astonishing statements the swing door to +the kitchen was flung open, and Mrs. Cadogan's angry voice was +projected through it. +</p> + +<p> +"Hannah! go tell the Mistress the butcher's below, and he says he never +heard tell of the like, and would she lend him one o' the Major's +spears? How would the likes o' him have a spear! Such goings on!" +</p> + +<p> +"What the devil is all this about?" I said with an equal anger. "No +one is to touch my spears!" +</p> + +<p> +"Thanks be to God, the Major's come home!" exclaimed the ruler of the +kitchen, advancing weightily into the hall. "There's no fear I'd put a +hand on your spears, sir, nor the butcher neither, the poor, decent +man! He says he's supplying the gentry for twenty-five years, and he +was never asked to do the like of a nasty thing like that!" +</p> + +<p> +"Like what!" I said, with growing wrath and bewilderment. +</p> + +<p> +"It's what the Mistress said," rejoined Mrs. Cadogan, the flush of +injury mounting to her cap-frill. "That what-shall-I-call-him—that +King, wouldn't ate mate without it'd be speared! And it's what I say," +she went on, perorating loudly and suddenly, "what's good enough for +Christians and gentry is good enough for an owld Blackamoor!" +</p> + +<p> +It was now sufficiently obvious that Philippa had, with incredible +perfidy, taken advantage of my absence to embroil herself in the +entertainment of barbaric royalty. "Tell the butcher to wait," was all +I could trust myself to say, as I started in search of my wife. +</p> + +<p> +"Wait, Sinclair! I'm coming down!" cried an urgent voice from the +upper landing, and Philippa, attired in what I may perhaps describe as +a tempestuous dressing-gown, came swiftly downstairs and swept me +before her into the drawing-room. +</p> + +<p> +"My dear," she said breathlessly, "let me break it to you as gently as +possible. The Shutes called for me in the motor after you left +yesterday, and we went on board Bernard's yacht and sailed round to tea +with Captain Calthorpe and the Sultan. We were becalmed coming back, +and we were out all night—we had nothing to eat but the men's +food—not that I wanted anything!" She gave a nauseated shudder of +reminiscence. "There was an awful swell. It rained, too. Cecilia and +I tried to sleep in the cabin with all our clothes on; I never spent a +more horrible night. The yacht crawled in with the tide at about ten +o'clock this morning, and I got back here half-dead, and was just going +up to bed when Captain Calthorpe arrived on a car and said that the +Sultan wanted to lunch here to-morrow. He says we must have him—it's +a kind of Royal command—in fact, I suppose you ought to wear your +frock-coat!" +</p> + +<p> +"I'm dashed if I do!" I said, with decision. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, be that as it may," resumed Philippa, discreetly evading this +point, "that green-eyed thing that got the first prize for jumping is +to be here to meet him. He wants to buy it for his State carriage. I +did my best to get out of it, and I told Captain Calthorpe it would be +impossible to manage about the food. I forgot to tell you," faltered +Philippa, with a wan giggle, "that he said he must have speared mutton!" +</p> + +<p> +"I call it an infernal liberty of Calthorpe's!" I said, with +indignation fanned by the spectacle of Philippa's sleepless +black-rimmed eyes and pallid face, "dumping his confounded menagerie +upon us in this way! And I may tell you that those spears of mine are +poisoned!" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh! don't be so horrid, Sinclair," said Philippa, "inventing +difficulties like that!" +</p> + +<p> +I arose the following morning with a heart of lead—of boiling lead—as +I went down early to the smoking-room to look for cigarettes and found +that they, in common with every other thing that I wanted, had been +tidied into oblivion. From earliest dawn I had heard the thumping of +feet, and the swish of petticoats, and the plying of brooms; but for me +the first shot of the engagement was not fired till 8.30, when, as I +was moodily stropping my razor, I was told that John Cullinane was +below, and would be thankful to see me. As I shaved, I could see John +Cullinane standing about in front of the house, in his Sunday clothes, +waiting for me; and I knew that he would so wait, patiently, +inexorably, if I did not come down till noonday. +</p> + +<p> +I interviewed him, unsympathetically, on the hall door steps, and told +him, firstly, that, as I knew nothing of his filly, I could not "say a +good word" to the Sultan for her; and, secondly, that I certainly would +not mention to the Sultan that, in my opinion, she was a cheap mare at +£80. John Cullinane then changed the conversation by remarking that he +had brought over a small little donkey for a present for the young +gentlemen; to which, with suitable politeness, I responded that my +children already had a donkey, and that I could not think of depriving +him of his, and the interview closed. +</p> + +<p> +Breakfast was late, and for the most part uneatable, the excitement of +the household having communicated itself to the kitchen-range. +</p> + +<p> +"If I was to put my head under it, it wouldn't light for me!" Mrs. +Cadogan said to Philippa. +</p> + +<p> +As a matter of fact, judging by a glimpse vouchsafed to me of her face +as I struggled forth from the cellar with a candle and the champagne, +one might have expected it to cause a conflagration anywhere. +</p> + +<p> +My smoking-room had been dedicated to the Sultan's personal attendant, +a gentleman who could neither lunch with his master nor with my +servants; I was therefore homeless, and crept, an outcast, to the +drawing-room to try to read the newspaper undisturbed. Sounds from +above told me that trouble was brewing in the nursery; I closed the +door. +</p> + +<p> +At about eleven-thirty an outside car drove up to the house, and I saw +a personable stranger descend from it, with a black bag in his hand, a +forerunner, no doubt, of the Sultan, come over to see that the +preparations were <i>en régle</i>. I saw no reason for my intervention, +and, with a passing hope that Providence might deliver him over to Mrs. +Cadogan, I returned to my paper. The door was flung open. +</p> + +<p> +"Sinclair, dear," said my wife, very apologetically, "here is Mr. +Werner, the piano-tuner, from Dublin. He says he can't come again—he +thinks he can finish it by luncheon-time. I quite forgot that he was +coming——" +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Werner's spectacled and supercilious face regarded me over her +shoulder; he evidently had a low opinion of me, I do not know why. +With one Cenci-like glance of reproach at Philippa, I rose and left the +room. As I put on my cap I heard the first fierce chords break forth, +followed by the usual chromatic passages, fluent and searching, which +merged in their turn into a concentrated attack upon a single note. I +hurried from the house. +</p> + +<p> +It was a perfect August morning; the dogs lay on the hot gravel and +panted politely as I spoke to them, but did not move. Rejected by all, +I betook myself to a plantation near the front gate to see how the work +of clearing a ride was progressing. The cross-cut saw and a bill-hook +lay on the ground, but of workmen there was no sign. From the high +road came the sound of wheels and of rapid trotting, also something +that seemed like cheering. +</p> + +<p> +"Good heavens!" I thought, my blood running cold, "here they are!" +</p> + +<p> +I broke through the tall bracken and the larches to an opening from +which the high road was visible. My two workmen were lying on their +stomachs across the coping of the demesne wall, and a line of +countrymen, with their best clothes on and crape "weepers" on their +hats, sat on the opposite fence and applauded what was apparently a +trotting match between a long-legged bay colt and John Cullinane's +chestnut filly, owners up. +</p> + +<p> +I joined the entertainment, my two men melting like snow from the top +of the wall, and it was explained to me that there had been a funeral +in the locality, and that these were a few of the neighbours that had +been at it, and were now waiting to see the Black Gentleman. An +outside car rested on its shafts by the side of the road, and a horse +with harness on it browsed voraciously on the shrubs inside my gate. +Far away down the road I saw the receding figures of my two children, +going forth to the picnic that had been arranged to allay their panic +and to remove them from the sphere of action. Any Irish person will +readily believe that one of them was mounted on "the small little +donkey," the bribe which I had that morning irrevocably repudiated. I +knew that John Cullinane saw them too, but I was too broken to +interfere; I turned my back and walked rapidly away. +</p> + +<p> +The rhythmic rasp of the cross-cut told me that work at the clearing +had been resumed; I said to myself vindictively that I would see that +it continued, and returned to the ride. The bill-hook was doing +nothing, and picking it up I fell to snicking and chopping, with +soothing destructiveness, among the briars and ash-saplings. +Notwithstanding heat and horseflies, the time passed not disagreeably, +and I was, at all events, out of range of the piano. I had paused for +the fifteenth time to wipe a heated brow, and extract a thorn from my +finger, when the familiar voice of the Shutes' motor-horn roused me to +the appalling fact that it was nearly luncheon-time, and that I was far +from fit to receive Royalty. As I hurriedly emerged from the wood, +there was a sound of hard galloping, and I beheld the green-eyed filly +flying riderless up the avenue. She crossed the croquet ground, +thoroughly, from corner to corner, and disappeared into the shrubbery +in the direction of the flower garden. I ran as I have seldom run, +dimly aware of a pursuing party of mourners on the avenue behind me, +and, as I ran, I cursed profusely the Sultan, Calthorpe, and chiefly +Bernard Shute and all his works. +</p> + +<p> +The chase lasted for twenty minutes, and was joined in by not less than +five-and-thirty people. The creamy mane of the filly floated like a +banner before us through the shrubberies, with the dogs in full cry +behind her; through it all went the reiterations of the piano, the +monotonous hammerings, the majestic chords, the pyrotechnic scales; +they expressed as fully as he himself could have desired the complete +indifference of the tuner. The filly was ubiquitous; at one moment she +was in the flower garden, the next, a distant uproar among the poultry +told that she had traversed the yard, whence she emerged, +<i>ventre-à -terre</i>, delivered herself of three bucks at sight of her +original enemy the motor, at the hall door, and was away again for the +croquet ground. At every turn I encountered a fresh pursuer; it was +Bernard Shute and the kitchen-maid who slammed the flower-garden gate +in her face; it was Philippa, in her very best dress, abetted by John +Cullinane, very dusty, and waving a crushed and weepered hat, who, with +the best intentions, frustrated a brilliant enveloping movement +directed by me; finally the cross-cut saw men, the tuner's car-driver, +and a selection from the funeral, came so near cornering her that she +charged the sunk fence, floated across its gulf with offensive ease, +and scurried away, with long and defiant squeals, to assault my horses +at the farther end of the paddock. +</p> + +<p> +When we, <i>i.e.</i> Philippa, Bernard, and I, pulled ourselves together on +the top of the steps, it was two o'clock. By the special favour of +Providence the Sultan was late, but the position was desperate. +Philippa had trodden on the front of her dress and torn it, Bernard had +greened the knees of his trousers; I do not know what I looked like, +but when Cecilia Shute emerged, cool and spotless, from the hall, where +she had judiciously remained during the proceedings, she uttered a +faint shriek and covered her face with her hands. +</p> + +<p> +"I know," I said, with deadly calm, stuffing my tie inside my +waistcoat, "I can't help it——" +</p> + +<p> +"Here they are!" said Bernard. +</p> + +<p> +The sound of wheels was indeed in the avenue. We fled as one man into +the back hall, and Philippa, stumbling over her torn flounce, fell on +her knees at the feet of Mr. Werner, the tuner, who stood there, his +task finished, awaiting with cold decorum the reward of his labours. +The wheels stopped. What precisely happened during that crowded moment +I cannot pretend to explain, but as we dragged my wife to her feet I +found that she had knelt on my eyeglass, with the result that may be +imagined. +</p> + +<p> +All was now lost save honour. I turned at bay, and dimly saw, +silhouetted in the open doorway, a short figure in a frock-coat, with a +species of black turban on its head. I advanced, bowed, and heroically +began: +</p> + +<p> +"Sire! J'ai l'honneur——" +</p> + +<p> +"Yerrah my law! Major!" said the bewildered voice of Slipper. "Don't +be making game of me this way! Sure I have a tallagram for you." He +removed the turban, which I now perceived to be a brown tweed cap, +swathed in a crape "weeper," and handed me the telegram. "I got it +from the boy that was after breaking his bike on the road, an' I coming +from the funeral." +</p> + +<p> +The telegram was from Calthorpe, and said, with suitable regrets, that +the Sultan had been summoned to London on instant and important +business. +</p> + +<p> +I read it to the back hall, in a voice broken by many emotions. +</p> + +<p> +"I saw the gentleman you speak of waiting for the Dublin train at Sandy +Bay Station this morning," remarked the tuner, condescending for a +moment to our level. +</p> + +<p> +"Then why did you not tell us so?" demanded Philippa, with sudden +indignation. +</p> + +<p> +"I was not aware, madam, that it was of any importance," replied Mr. +Werner, returning to his normal altitude of perpetual frost. +</p> + +<p> +Incredible as it may seem, it was apparent that Philippa was +disappointed. As for me, my heart was like a singing bird. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a> +III<br/> +POISSON D'AVRIL</h2> + +<p> +The atmosphere of the waiting-room set at naught at a single glance the +theory that there can be no smoke without fire. The stationmaster, +when remonstrated with, stated, as an incontrovertible fact, that any +chimney in the world would smoke in a south-easterly wind, and further, +said there wasn't a poker, and that if you poked the fire the grate +would fall out. He was, however, sympathetic, and went on his knees +before the smouldering mound of slack, endeavouring to charm it to a +smile by subtle proddings with the handle of the ticket-punch. +Finally, he took me to his own kitchen fire and talked politics and +salmon-fishing, the former with judicious attention to my presumed +point of view, and careful suppression of his own, the latter with no +less tactful regard for my admission that for three days I had not +caught a fish, while the steam rose from my wet boots, in witness of +the ten miles of rain through which an outside car had carried me. +</p> + +<p> +Before the train was signalled I realised for the hundredth time the +magnificent superiority of the Irish mind to the trammels of +officialdom, and the inveterate supremacy in Ireland of the Personal +Element. +</p> + +<p> +"You might get a foot-warmer at Carrig Junction," said a species of lay +porter in a knitted jersey, ramming my suit-case upside down under the +seat. "Sometimes they're in it, and more times they're not." +</p> + +<p> +The train dragged itself rheumatically from the station, and a cold +spring rain—the time was the middle of a most inclement April—smote +it in flank as it came into the open. I pulled up both windows and +began to smoke; there is, at least, a semblance of warmth in a +thoroughly vitiated atmosphere. +</p> + +<p> +It is my wife's habit to assert that I do not read her letters, and +being now on my way to join her and my family in Gloucestershire, it +seemed a sound thing to study again her latest letter of instructions. +</p> + +<p> +"I am starting to-day, as Alice wrote to say we must be there two days +before the wedding, so as to have a rehearsal for the pages. Their +dresses have come, and they look too delicious in them——" +</p> + +<p> +(I here omit profuse particulars not pertinent to this tale)—— +</p> + +<p> +"It is sickening for you to have had such bad sport. If the worst +comes to the worst couldn't you buy one?——" +</p> + +<p> +I smote my hand upon my knee. I had forgotten the infernal salmon! +What a score for Philippa! If these contretemps would only teach her +that I was not to be relied upon, they would have their uses, but +experience is wasted upon her; I have no objection to being called an +idiot, but, that being so, I ought to be allowed the privileges and +exemptions proper to idiots. Philippa had, no doubt, written to Alice +Hervey, and assured her that Sinclair would be only too delighted to +bring her a salmon, and Alice Hervey, who was rich enough to find much +enjoyment in saving money, would reckon upon it, to its final fin in +mayonnaise. +</p> + +<p> +Plunged in morose meditations, I progressed through a country parcelled +out by shaky and crooked walls into a patchwood of hazel scrub and +rocky fields, veiled in rain. About every six miles there was a +station, wet and windswept; at one the sole occurrence was the +presentation of a newspaper to the guard by the station-master; at the +next the guard read aloud some choice excerpts from the same to the +porter. The Personal Element was potent on this branch of the Munster +and Connaught Railway. Routine, abhorrent to all artistic minds, was +sheathed in conversation; even the engine-driver, a functionary +ordinarily as aloof as the Mikado, alleviated his enforced isolation by +sociable shrieks to every level crossing, while the long row of +public-houses that formed, as far as I could judge, the town of Carrig, +received a special and, as it seemed, humorous salutation. +</p> + +<p> +The Time-Table decreed that we were to spend ten minutes at Carrig +Junction; it was fifteen before the crowd of market people on the +platform had been assimilated; finally, the window of a neighbouring +carriage was flung open, and a wrathful English voice asked how much +longer the train was going to wait. The stationmaster, who was at the +moment engrossed in conversation with the guard and a man who was +carrying a long parcel wrapped in newspaper, looked round, and said +gravely— +</p> + +<p> +"Well now, that's a mystery!" +</p> + +<p> +The man with the parcel turned away, and convulsively studied a poster. +The guard put his hand over his mouth. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> +<a name="img-058"></a> +<img src="images/img-058.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +<p class="caption">THE GUARD PUT HIS HAND OVER HIS MOUTH</p> +</div> + +<p> +The voice, still more wrathfully, demanded the earliest hour at which +its owner could get to Belfast. +</p> + +<p> +"Ye'll be asking me next when I take me breakfast," replied the +stationmaster, without haste or palpable annoyance. +</p> + +<p> +The window went up again with a bang, the man with the parcel dug the +guard in the ribs with his elbow, and the parcel slipped from under his +arm and fell on the platform. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh my! oh my! Me fish!" exclaimed the man, solicitously picking up a +remarkably good-looking salmon that had slipped from its wrapping of +newspaper. +</p> + +<p> +Inspiration came to me, and I, in my turn, opened my window and +summoned the station-master. +</p> + +<p> +Would his friend sell me the salmon? The stationmaster entered upon +the mission with ardour, but without success. +</p> + +<p> +No; the gentleman was only just after running down to the town for it +in the delay, but why wouldn't I run down and get one for myself? +There was half-a-dozen more of them below at Coffey's, selling cheap; +there would be time enough, the mail wasn't signalled yet. +</p> + +<p> +I jumped from the carriage and doubled out of the station at top speed, +followed by an assurance from the guard that he would not forget me. +</p> + +<p> +Congratulating myself on the ascendancy of the Personal Element, I sped +through the soapy limestone mud towards the public-houses. En route I +met a heated man carrying yet another salmon, who, without preamble, +informed me that there were three or four more good fish in it, and +that he was after running down from the train himself. +</p> + +<p> +"Ye have whips o' time!" he called after me. "It's the first house +that's not a public-house. Ye'll see boots in the window—she'll give +them for tenpence a pound if ye're stiff with her!" +</p> + +<p> +I ran past the public-houses. +</p> + +<p> +"Tenpence a pound!" I exclaimed inwardly, "at this time of year! +That's good enough." +</p> + +<p> +Here I perceived the house with boots in the window, and dived into its +dark doorway. +</p> + +<p> +A cobbler was at work behind a low counter. He mumbled something about +Herself, through lengths of waxed thread that hung across his mouth, a +fat woman appeared at an inner door, and at that moment I heard, +appallingly near, the whistle of the incoming mail. The fat woman +grasped the situation in an instant, and with what appeared but one +movement, snatched a large fish from the floor of the room behind her +and flung a newspaper round it. +</p> + +<p> +"Eight pound weight!" she said swiftly. "Ten shillings!" +</p> + +<p> +A convulsive effort of mental arithmetic assured me that this was more +than tenpence a pound, but it was not the moment for stiffness. I +shoved a half-sovereign into her fishy hand, clasped my salmon in my +arms, and ran. +</p> + +<p> +Needless to say it was uphill, and at the steepest gradient another +whistle stabbed me like a spur; above the station roof successive and +advancing puffs of steam warned me that the worst had probably +happened, but still I ran. When I gained the platform my train was +already clear of it, but the Personal Element held good. Every soul in +the station, or so it seemed to me, lifted up his voice and yelled. +The stationmaster put his fingers in his mouth and sent after the +departing train an unearthly whistle, with a high trajectory and a +serrated edge. It took effect; the train slackened, I plunged from the +platform and followed it up the rails, and every window in both trains +blossomed with the heads of deeply-interested spectators. The guard +met me on the line, very apologetic and primed with an explanation that +the gentleman going for the boat-train wouldn't let him wait any +longer, while from our rear came an exultant cry from the +station-master. +</p> + +<p> +"Ye <i>told</i> him ye wouldn't forget him!" +</p> + +<p> +"There's a few countrywomen in your carriage, sir," said the guard, +ignoring the taunt, as he shoved me and my salmon up the side of the +train, "but they'll be getting out in a couple of stations. There +wasn't another seat in the train for them!" +</p> + +<p> +My sensational return to my carriage was viewed with the utmost +sympathy by no less than seven shawled and cloaked countrywomen. In +order to make room for me, one of them seated herself on the floor with +her basket in her lap, another, on the seat opposite to me, squeezed +herself under the central elbow flap that had been turned up to make +room. The aromas of wet cloaks, turf smoke, and salt fish formed a +potent blend. I was excessively hot, and the eyes of the seven women +were fastened upon me with intense and unwearying interest. +</p> + +<p> +"Move west a small piece, Mary Jack, if you please," said a voluminous +matron in the corner, "I declare we're as throng as three in a bed this +minute!" +</p> + +<p> +"Why then Julia Casey, there's little throubling yourself," grumbled +the woman under the flap. "Look at the way meself is! I wonder is it +to be putting humps on themselves the gentry has them things down on +top o' them! I'd sooner be carrying a basket of turnips on me back +than to be scrooged this way!" +</p> + +<p> +The woman on the floor at my feet rolled up at me a glance of +compassionate amusement at this rustic ignorance, and tactfully changed +the conversation by supposing that it was at Coffey's I got the salmon. +</p> + +<p> +I said it was. +</p> + +<p> +There was a silence, during which it was obvious that one question +burnt in every heart. +</p> + +<p> +"I'll go bail she axed him tinpence!" said the woman under the flap, as +one who touches the limits of absurdity. +</p> + +<p> +"It's a beautiful fish!" I said defiantly. "Eight pounds weight. I +gave her ten shillings for it." +</p> + +<p> +What is described in newspapers as "sensation in court" greeted this +confession. +</p> + +<p> +"Look!" said the woman under the flap, darting her head out of the hood +of her cloak, like a tortoise, "'tis what it is, ye haven't as much +roguery in your heart as'd make ye a match for her!" +</p> + +<p> +"Divil blow the ha'penny Eliza Coffey paid for that fish!" burst out +the fat woman in the corner. "Thim lads o' her's had a creel full o' +thim snatched this morning before it was making day!" +</p> + +<p> +"How would the gentleman be a match for her!" shouted the woman on the +floor through a long-drawn whistle that told of a coming station. +"Sure a Turk itself wouldn't be a match for her! That one has a tongue +that'd clip a hedge!" +</p> + +<p> +At the station they clambered out laboriously, and with groaning. I +handed down to them their monster baskets, laden, apparently, with +ingots of lead; they told me in return that I was a fine <i>grauver</i> man, +and it was a pity there weren't more like me; they wished, finally, +that my journey might well thrive with me, and passed from my ken, +bequeathing to me, after the agreeable manner of their kind, a certain +comfortable mental sleekness that reason cannot immediately dispel. +They also left me in possession of the fact that I was about to present +the irreproachable Alice Hervey with a contraband salmon. +</p> + +<p> +The afternoon passed cheerlessly into evening, and my journey did not +conspicuously thrive with me. Somewhere in the dripping twilight I +changed trains, and again later on, and at each change the salmon +moulted some more of its damp raiment of newspaper, and I debated +seriously the idea of interring it, regardless of consequences, in my +portmanteau. A lamp was banged into the roof of my carriage, half an +inch of orange flame, poised in a large glass globe, like a gold-fish, +and of about as much use as an illuminant. Here also was handed in the +dinner basket that I had wired for, and its contents, arid though they +were, enabled me to achieve at least some measure of mechanical +distension, followed by a dreary lethargy that was not far from +drowsiness. +</p> + +<p> +At the next station we paused long; nothing whatever occurred, and the +rain drummed patiently upon the roof. Two nuns and some school-girls +were in the carriage next door, and their voices came plaintively and +in snatches through the partition; after a long period of apparent +collapse, during which I closed my eyes to evade the cold gaze of the +salmon through the netting, a voice in the next carriage said +resourcefully: +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, girls, I'll tell you what we'll do! We'll say the Rosary!" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, that will be lovely!" said another voice; "well, who'll give it +out? Theresa Condon, you'll give it out." +</p> + +<p> +Theresa Condon gave it out, in a not unmelodious monotone, interspersed +with the responses, always in a lower cadence; the words were +indistinguishable, but the rise and fall of the western voices was +lulling as the hum of bees. I fell asleep. +</p> + +<p> +I awoke in total darkness; the train was motionless, and complete and +profound silence reigned. We were at a station, that much I discerned +by the light of the dim lamp at the far end of a platform glistening +with wet. I struck a match and ascertained that it was eleven o'clock, +precisely the hour at which I was to board the mail train. I jumped +out and ran down the platform; there was no one in the train; there was +no one even on the engine, which was forlornly hissing to itself in the +silence. There was not a human being anywhere. Every door was closed, +and all was dark. The name-board of the station was faintly visible; +with a lighted match I went along it letter by letter. It seemed as if +the whole alphabet were in it, and by the time I had got to the end I +had forgotten the beginning. One fact I had, however, mastered, that +it was not the junction at which I was to catch the mail. +</p> + +<p> +I was undoubtedly awake, but for a moment I was inclined to entertain +the idea that there had been an accident, and that I had entered upon +existence in another world. Once more I assailed the station house and +the appurtenances thereof, the ticket-office, the waiting room, +finally, and at some distance, the goods store, outside which the +single lamp of the station commented feebly on the drizzle and the +darkness. As I approached it a crack of light under the door became +perceptible, and a voice was suddenly uplifted within. +</p> + +<p> +"Your best now agin that! Throw down your Jack!" +</p> + +<p> +I opened the door with pardonable violence, and found the guard, the +stationmaster, the driver, and the stoker, seated on barrels round a +packing case, on which they were playing a game of cards. +</p> + +<p> +To have too egregiously the best of a situation is not, to a generous +mind, a source of strength. In the perfection of their overthrow I +permitted the driver and stoker to wither from their places, and to +fade away into the outer darkness without any suitable send-off; with +the guard and the stationmaster I dealt more faithfully, but the +pleasure of throwing water on drowned rats is not a lasting one. I +accepted the statements that they thought there wasn't a Christian in +the train, that a few minutes here or there wouldn't signify, that they +would have me at the junction in twenty minutes, and it was often the +mail was late. +</p> + +<p> +Fired by this hope I hurried back to my carriage, preceded at an +emulous gallop by the officials. The guard thrust in with me the +lantern from the card table, and fled to his van. +</p> + +<p> +"Mind the goods, Tim!" shouted the station-master, as he slammed my +door, "she might be coming anytime now!" +</p> + +<p> +The answer travelled magnificently back from the engine. +</p> + +<p> +"Let her come! She'll meet her match!" A war-whoop upon the steam +whistle fittingly closed the speech, and the train sprang into action. +</p> + +<p> +We had about fifteen miles to go, and we banged and bucketed over it in +what was, I should imagine, record time. The carriage felt as if it +were galloping on four wooden legs, my teeth chattered in my head, and +the salmon slowly churned its way forth from its newspaper, and moved +along the netting with dreadful stealth. +</p> + +<p> +All was of no avail. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," said the guard, as I stepped forth on to the deserted platform +of Loughranny, "that owld Limited Mail's th' unpunctualest thrain in +Ireland! If you're a minute late she's gone from you, and may be if +you were early you might be half-an-hour waiting for her!" +</p> + +<p> +On the whole the guard was a gentleman. He said he would show me the +best hotel in the town, though he feared I would be hard set to get a +bed anywhere because of the "<i>Feis</i>" (a Feis, I should explain, is a +Festival, devoted to competitions in Irish songs and dances). He +shouldered my portmanteau, he even grappled successfully with the +salmon, and, as we traversed the empty streets, he explained to me how +easily I could catch the morning boat from Rosslare, and how it was, as +a matter of fact, quite the act of Providence that my original scheme +had been frustrated. +</p> + +<p> +All was dark at the uninviting portals of the hotel favoured by the +guard. For a full five minutes we waited at them, ringing hard: I +suggested that we should try elsewhere. +</p> + +<p> +"He'll come," said the guard, with the confidence of the Pied Piper of +Hamelin, retaining an implacable thumb upon the button of the electric +bell. "He'll come. Sure it rings in his room!" +</p> + +<p> +The victim came, half awake, half dressed, and with an inch of dripping +candle in his fingers. There was not a bed there, he said, nor in the +town neither. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> +<a name="img-071"></a> +<img src="images/img-071.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +<p class="caption">THE VICTIM CAME</p> +</div> + +<p> +I said I would sit in the dining-room till the time for the early train. +</p> + +<p> +"Sure there's five beds in the dining-room," replied the boots, "and +there's mostly two in every bed." +</p> + +<p> +His voice was firm, but there was a wavering look in his eye. +</p> + +<p> +"What about the billiard-room, Mike?" said the guard, in wooing tones. +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, God bless you! we have a mattress on the table this minute!" +answered the boots, wearily, "and the fellow that got the First Prize +for Reels asleep on top of it!" +</p> + +<p> +"Well, and can't ye put the palliasse on the floor under it, ye +omadhawn?" said the guard, dumping my luggage and the salmon in the +hall, "sure there's no snugger place in the house! I must run away +home now, before Herself thinks I'm dead altogether!" +</p> + +<p> +His retreating footsteps went lightly away down the empty street. +</p> + +<p> +"Annything don't throuble <i>him</i>!" said the boots bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +As for me, nothing save the Personal Element stood between me and +destitution. +</p> + +<p> +It was in the dark of the early morning that I woke again to life and +its troubles. A voice, dropping, as it were, over the edge of some +smothering over-world, had awakened me. It was the voice of the First +Prize for Reels, descending through a pocket of the billiard-table. +</p> + +<p> +"I beg your pardon, sir, are ye going on the 5 to Cork?" +</p> + +<p> +I grunted a negative. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, if ye were, ye'd be late," said the voice. +</p> + +<p> +I received this useful information in indignant silence, and +endeavoured to wrap myself again in the vanishing skirts of a dream. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm going on the 6.30 meself," proceeded the voice, "and it's unknown +to me how I'll put on me boots. Me feet is swelled the size o' +three-pound loaves with the dint of the little dancing-shoes I had on +me in the competition last night. Me feet's delicate that way, and I'm +a great epicure about me boots." +</p> + +<p> +I snored aggressively, but the dream was gone. So, for all practical +purposes, was the night. +</p> + +<p> +The First Prize for Reels arose, presenting an astonishing spectacle of +grass-green breeches, a white shirt, and pearl-grey stockings, and +accomplished a toilet that consisted of removing these and putting on +ordinary garments, completed by the apparently excruciating act of +getting into his boots. At any other hour of the day I might have been +sorry for him. He then removed himself and his belongings to the hall, +and there entered upon a resounding conversation with the boots, while +I crawled forth from my lair to renew the strife with circumstances and +to endeavour to compose a telegram to Alice Hervey of explanation and +apology that should cost less than seven and sixpence. There was also +the salmon to be dealt with. +</p> + +<p> +Here the boots intervened, opportunely, with a cup of tea, and the +intelligence that he had already done up the salmon in straw +bottle-covers and brown paper, and that I could travel Europe with it +if I liked. He further informed me that he would run up to the station +with the luggage now, and that may be I wouldn't mind carrying the fish +myself; it was on the table in the hall. +</p> + +<p> +My train went at 6.15. The boots had secured for me one of many empty +carriages, and lingered conversationally till the train started; he +regretted politely my bad night at the hotel, and assured me that only +for Jimmy Durkan having a little drink taken—Jimmy Durkan was the +First Prize for Reels—he would have turned him off the billiard-table +for my benefit. He finally confided to me that Mr. Durkan was engaged +to his sister, and was a rising baker in the town of Limerick, +"indeed," he said, "any girl might be glad to get him. He dances like +whalebone, and he makes grand bread!" +</p> + +<p> +Here the train started. +</p> + +<p> +It was late that night when, stiff, dirty, with tired eyes blinking in +the dazzle of electric lights, I was conducted by the Herveys' +beautiful footman into the Herveys' baronial hall, and was told by the +Herveys' imperial butler that dinner was over, and the gentlemen had +just gone into the drawing-room. I was in the act of hastily declining +to join them there, when a voice cried— +</p> + +<p> +"Here he is!" +</p> + +<p> +And Philippa, rustling and radiant, came forth into the hall, followed +in shimmers of satin, and flutterings of lace, by Alice Hervey, by the +bride elect, and by the usual festive rout of exhilarated relatives, +male and female, whose mission it is to keep things lively before a +wedding. +</p> + +<p> +"Is this a wedding present for me, Uncle Sinclair?" cried the bride +elect, through a deluge of questions and commiserations, and snatched +from under my arm the brown paper parcel that had remained there from +force of direful habit. +</p> + +<p> +"I advise you not to open it!" I exclaimed; "it's a salmon!" +</p> + +<p> +The bride elect, with a shriek of disgust, and without an instant of +hesitation, hurled it at her nearest neighbour, the head bridesmaid. +The head bridesmaid, with an answering shriek, sprang to one side, and +the parcel that I had cherished with a mother's care across two +countries and a stormy channel, fell, with a crash, on the flagged +floor. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Why did it crash?</i> +</p> + +<p> +"A salmon!" screamed Philippa, gazing at the parcel, round which a pool +was already forming, "why that's whisky! Can't you smell it?" +</p> + +<p> +The footman here respectfully interposed, and kneeling down, cautiously +extracted from folds of brown paper a straw bottle-cover full of broken +glass and dripping with whisky. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm afraid the other things are rather spoiled, sir," he said +seriously, and drew forth, successively, a very large pair of high-low +shoes, two long grey worsted stockings, and a pair of grass-green +breeches. +</p> + +<p> +They brought the house down, in a manner doubtless familiar to them +when they shared the triumphs of Mr. Jimmy Durkan, but they left Alice +Hervey distinctly cold. +</p> + +<p> +"You know, darling," she said to Philippa afterwards, "I don't think it +was very clever of dear Sinclair to take the wrong parcel. I <i>had</i> +counted on that salmon." +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a> +IV<br/> +"THE MAN THAT CAME TO BUY APPLES"</h2> + +<p> +It had been freezing hard all the way home, and the Quaker skated +perilously once or twice on the northerly stretches. As I passed the +forge near my gate I issued an order for frost-nails, and while I did +so the stars were kindling like diamonds over the black ridge of +Shreelane Hill. +</p> + +<p> +The overture to the Frost Symphony had begun, with its usual beauties +and difficulties, and its leading theme was given forth in a missive +from Flurry Knox, that awaited me on the hall table. Flurry's +handwriting was an unattractive blend of the laundress's bill, and the +rambling zigzags of the temperature chart, but he exhibited no more of +it than was strictly necessary in getting to the point. Would I shoot +at Aussolas the following day? There were a lot of cock in, and he had +whipped up four guns in a hurry. There was a postscript, "Bernard +Shute is coming. Tell Mrs. Yeates he didn't kill any one yet this +season." +</p> + +<p> +Since his marriage Flurry had been promoted to the position of agent to +his grandmother, old Mrs. Knox of Aussolas, and through the +unfathomable mazes of their dealings and fights with each other, the +fact remained that he had secured to himself the Aussolas shooting at +about half its market value. So Mrs. Knox said. Her grandson, on the +other hand, had often informed me that the privilege "had him beggared, +what with beaters and all sorts, and his grandmother's cattle turned +into the woods destroying all the covert—let alone her poaching." +Into the differences of such skilled combatants the prudent did not +intrude themselves, but they accepted without loss of time such +invitations to shoot at Aussolas as came their way. Notwithstanding +the buccaneerings of Flurry's grandmother, the woods of Aussolas, in +decent weather, were usually good for fifteen to twenty couple of cock. +</p> + +<p> +I sent my acceptance before mentioning to Philippa that Bernard Shute +was to be of the party. It was impossible to make Philippa understand +that those who shot Bernard's pheasants at Clountiss, could hardly do +less than retaliate when occasion served. I had once, in a moment of +regrettable expansion, entertained my wife with an account of how an +entire shooting party had successively cast themselves upon their +faces, while the muzzle of Bernard's gun had followed, half way round +the compass, a rabbit that had broken back. No damage had ensued, not +even to the rabbit, but I had supplied Philippa with a fact that was an +unfortunate combination of a thorn in her pillow and a stone in her +sling. +</p> + +<p> +The frost held; it did more than hold, it gripped. As I drove to +Aussolas the fields lay rigid in the constraining cold; the trees were +as dead as the telegraph poles, and the whistle of the train came thin +and ghostly across four miles of silent country. Everything was half +alive, with the single exception of the pony, which, filled with the +idiotic exaltation that frost imparts to its race, danced upon its +frost-nails, shied with untiring inventiveness, and made three several +and well-conceived attempts to bolt. Maria, with her nose upon my +gaiter, shuddered uninterruptedly throughout the drive, partly because +of the pinching air, partly in honour of the sovereign presence of the +gun-case. +</p> + +<p> +Old Mrs. Knox was standing on the steps as I walked round to the hall +door of Aussolas Castle. She held a silver bowl in her hand; on her +head, presumably as a protection against the cold, was a table-napkin; +round her feet a throng of hens and pigeons squabbled for the bits that +she flung to them from the bowl, and a furtive and distrustful peacock +darted a blue neck in among them from the outskirts. +</p> + +<p> +"'Good-morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham,'" was Mrs. Knox's singular +greeting, "'a good soft pillow for that good grey head were better than +a churlish turf of France'!" +</p> + +<p> +My friendship with Mrs. Knox was now of several years' standing, and I +knew enough of her to gather that I stood rebuked for being late. +</p> + +<p> +"Flurry arrived only half-an-hour ago! my first intimation of a +shooting party," she continued, in the dictatorial voice that was +always a shock when taken in connection with her beggar woman's +costume, "a nice time of day to begin to look for beaters! And the +other feather-bed sportsmen haven't arrived yet. In old times they +would have had ten couple by this time, and then Mr. Flurry complains +of the shooting!" +</p> + +<p> +She was here interrupted by the twitching of the table-napkin from her +head by her body-woman, who had advanced upon her from the rear, with +the reigning member of the dynasty of purple velvet bonnets in her +hand. The bonnet was substituted for the table-napkin, much as a stage +property is shoved on from the wings, and two bony hands, advancing +from behind, tied the strings under Mrs. Knox's chin, while she +uninterruptedly fed the hens, and denounced the effeteness of modern +cock-shooters. The hands descended and fixed a large pin in the +uppermost of her mistress' shawls. +</p> + +<p> +"Mullins, have done!" exclaimed Mrs. Knox, suddenly tearing herself +from her captor, "you're an intolerable nuisance!" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, very well, ma'am, maybe you'd sooner go out with your head naked +and soak the cold!" returned Mullins, retiring with the honours of war +and the table-napkin. +</p> + +<p> +"Mullins and I get on famously," observed Mrs. Knox, crushing an empty +egg-shell with her yellow diamonded fingers and returning it to its +original donors, "we're both mad, you know!" +</p> + +<p> +Comment on this might have been difficult, but I was preserved from it +by the approach across the frozen gravel of a short, red-bearded man, +Mrs. Knox's gardener, wood-ranger, and ruling counsellor, John Kane. +He held in his hands two large apples of arsenical hue, and, taking off +his hat to me with much dignity, addressed himself to the lady of the +house. +</p> + +<p> +"He says he'd sooner walk barefoot to Cork than to give three and +fippence for the likes of them!" +</p> + +<p> +"I'm sure I've no objection if he does," responded Mrs. Knox, turning +the silver bowl upside down over the scrimmaging hens and pigeons, "I +daresay it would be no novelty to him." +</p> + +<p> +"And isn't that what I told him!" said John Kane, his voice at once +ascending to the concert pitch of altercation, "I said to him if the +Lord Left'nant and the Pope was follying me around the yard of Aussolas +offering three and a penny for them apples they'd not get them! Sure +the nuns gave us that much for windfalls that was only fit to be making +cherubs with!" +</p> + +<p> +I might have been struck by the fitness, as well as the ingenuity, of +this industry, but in some remote byway of my brain the remembrance +woke of a "black-currant cherub" prescribed by Mrs. Cadogan for sore +throats, and divined by Philippa to be a syrup. I turned away and lit +a cigarette in order to conceal my feelings from John Kane, round whose +red beard the smoke of battle hung almost palpably. +</p> + +<p> +"What's between you?" asked his mistress sharply. +</p> + +<p> +"Three and a penny he's offering, ma'am!" declaimed her deputy, "for +sheeps' noses that there isn't one in the country has but yourself! +And not a brown farthing more would he give!—the consecrated blagyard!" +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> +<a name="img-082"></a> +<img src="images/img-082.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +<p class="caption">"AND NOT A BROWN FARTHING MORE WOULD HE GIVE"</p> +</div> + +<p> +Anything less like a sheep's nose than Mrs. Knox's hooked beak, as she +received this information, could hardly be imagined. +</p> + +<p> +"You're half a fool, John Kane!" she snapped, "and the other half's not +sensible! Go back and tell him Major Yeates is here and wants to buy +every apple I have!" She dealt me a wink that was the next thing to a +dig in the ribs. As she spoke a cart drawn by a cheerful-looking grey +pony, and conducted by a tall, thin man, came into view from the +direction of the yard. It rattled emptily, and proclaimed, as was +intended, the rupture of all business relations. +</p> + +<p> +"See here, sir," said John Kane to me in one hoarse breath, "when he's +over-right the door I'll ask him the three and fippence again, and when +he refuses, your Honour will say we should split the difference——" +</p> + +<p> +The cart advanced, it passed the hall door with a dignity but little +impaired by the pony's apprehensive interest in the peacock, and the +tall man took off his hat to Mrs. Knox with as gloomy a respect as if +she had been a funeral. +</p> + +<p> +John Kane permitted to the salutation the full time due to it, in the +manner of one who counts a semibreve rest, while the cart moved +implacably onwards. The exact, the psychic instant arrived. +</p> + +<p> +"HONOMAUNDHIAOUL! SULLIVAN!" he shouted, with a full-blown burst of +ferocity, hurtling down the steps in pursuit, "will ye take them or +lave them?" +</p> + +<p> +To manifest, no doubt, her complete indifference to the issue, Mrs. +Knox turned and went into the house, followed by the majority of the +hens, and left me to await my cue. The play was played out with +infinite credit to both artists, and at the full stretch of their +lungs; at the preordained moment I intervened with the conventional +impromptu, and suggested that the difference should be split. The +curtain immediately fell, and somewhere in the deep of the hall a +glimpse of the purple bonnet told me that Mrs. Knox was in the +auditorium. +</p> + +<p> +When I rejoined her I found Flurry with her, and something in the +atmosphere told that here also was storm. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, take them! Take them all!" Mrs. Knox was saying in high +indignation. "Take Mullins and the maids if you like! I daresay they +might be more use than the men!" +</p> + +<p> +"They'll make more row, anyhow," said Flurry sourly. "I wonder is it +them that put down all the rabbit-traps I'm after seeing in the +coach-house this minute!" +</p> + +<p> +"It may be <i>they</i>, but it certainly is not <i>them</i>," retorted Mrs. Knox, +hitting flagrantly below the belt; "and if you want beaters found for +you, you should give me more than five minutes' warning——" She +turned with the last word, and moved towards the staircase. +</p> + +<p> +"I beg your pardon, ma'am," said John Kane, very respectfully, from the +hall door, "that Sullivan brought this down for your Honour." +</p> + +<p> +He placed on the table a bottle imperfectly wrapped in newspaper. +</p> + +<p> +"Tell Sullivan," said Flurry, without an instant's hesitation, "that he +makes the worst potheen in the country, and I'll prosecute him for +bringing it here, unless he comes out to beat with the rest of you." +</p> + +<p> +Remembering my official position, I discreetly examined the barrels of +my gun. +</p> + +<p> +"You'll give him no such message!" screamed Mrs. Knox over the dark +rail of the staircase. "Let him take himself and his apples off out of +this!" Then, in the same breath, and almost the same key, "Major +Yeates, which do you prefer, curry, or Irish stew?" +</p> + +<p> +The <i>cuisine</i> at Aussolas was always fraught with dark possibilities, +being alternately presided over by bibulous veterans from Dublin, or +aboriginal kitchenmaids off the estate. Feeling as Fair Rosamond might +have felt when proffered the dagger or the bowl, I selected curry. +</p> + +<p> +"Then curry it shall be," said Mrs. Knox, with a sudden and awful +affability. In this gleam of stormy sunshine I thought it well to +withdraw. +</p> + +<p> +"Did you ever eat my grandmother's curry?" said Flurry to me, later, as +we watched Bernard Shute trying to back his motor into the coach-house. +</p> + +<p> +I said I thought not. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, you'd take a splint off a horse with it," said Mrs. Knox's +grandson. +</p> + +<p> +The Aussolas woods were full of birds that day. Birds bursting out of +holly bushes like corks out of soda-water bottles, skimming low under +the branches of fir trees, bolting across rides at a thousand miles an +hour, swinging away through prohibitive tree tops, but to me had +befallen the inscrutable and invincible accident of being "off my day," +and, by an equal unkindness, Fate had allotted to me the station next +Flurry. Every kind of bird came my way except the easy ones, and, as a +general thing, when I had done no more than add a little pace to their +flight, they went down to Flurry, who never in my experience had been +off his day, and they seldom went farther afield. The beaters, +sportsmen every man of them, had a royal time. They flailed the bushes +and whacked the tree trunks; the discordant chorus of "Hi cock! Hi +cock! Cock! Cock! Prrrr!" rioted through the peaceful woods, and +every other minute a yell of "Mark!" broke like a squib through the +din. The clamour, the banging of the guns, and the expectancy, kept +the nerves tingling; the sky between the grey branches was as blue as +Italy's; despite fingers as icy as the gun-barrels, despite the +speechless reproach of Maria, slinking at my heels in unemployed +dejection, I enjoyed every breath of the frosty day. After all, hit or +miss, a good day with the cock comes very near a good day with the +hounds, without taking into consideration the comfortable fact that in +the former the risk is all on the side of the birds. +</p> + +<p> +Little Bosanquet, the captain of coastguards, on my left, was doing +remarkably well, so apparently, was Murray the D.I. of Police; how +Bernard Shute was faring I knew not, but he was certainly burning a lot +of powder. At the end of the third beat I found myself beside Murray. +His face was redder than usual, even his freckles conveyed an +impression of impartially sprinkled cayenne pepper. +</p> + +<p> +"Did you see Shute just now?" he demanded in a ferocious whisper. "A +bird got up between us, and he blazed straight at me! Straight bang in +my face, I tell you! Only that I was in a dead line with the bird he'd +have got me!" +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose that was about the safest place," I said. "What did you do?" +</p> + +<p> +"I simply told him that if ever he puts a grain into me I shall let him +have it back, both barrels." +</p> + +<p> +"Every one says that to Bernard sooner or later," said I, pacifically; +"he'll settle down after lunch." +</p> + +<p> +"We'll all settle down into our graves," grumbled Murray; "that'll be +the end of it." +</p> + +<p> +After this it was scarcely composing to a husband and father to find +Mr. Shute occupying the position on my right hand as we embarked upon +the last beat of the Middle Wood. He was still distinctly unsettled, +and most distressingly on the alert. Nothing escaped his vigilance, +the impossible wood pigeon, clattering out of the wrong side of a fir +tree, received its brace of cartridges as instantly as the palpable +rabbit, fleeing down the ride before him, and with an equal immunity. +Between my desire to keep the thickest tree trunks between me and him, +and the companion desire that he should be thoroughly aware of my +whereabouts, my shooting, during that beat, went still more to pieces; +a puff of feathers, wandering softly down through the radiant air, was +the sum total of my achievements. +</p> + +<p> +The end of the beat brought us to the end of the wood, and out upon an +open space of sedgy grass and bog that stretched away on the right to +the shore of Aussolas Lake; opposite to us, a couple of hundred yards +away, was another and smaller wood, clothing one side of a high +promontory near the head of the lake. Flurry and I were first out of +the covert. +</p> + +<p> +"We'll have time to run through the Rhododendron Wood before lunch," he +said, looking at his watch. "Here! John Kane!" He put two fingers in +his mouth and projected a whistle that cleft my head like a scimitar. +</p> + +<p> +John Kane emerged, nymph-like, from a laurel bush in our immediate +vicinity. +</p> + +<p> +"'Tis only lost time to be beating them rosydandhrums, Master Flurry," +he said volubly, "there wasn't a bird in that bit o' wood this winter. +Not a week passes but I'm in it, making up the bounds fence against the +cattle, and I never seen a one!" +</p> + +<p> +"You might be more apt to be looking out for a rabbit than a cock, +John," said Flurry expressionlessly, "but isn't it down in the lower +paddocks you have the cattle and the young horses this hard weather?" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh it is, sir, it is, of course, but indeed it's hard for me to know +where they are, with the Misthress telling this one and that one to put +them in their choice place. Sure she dhrives me to and fro in my mind +till I do have a headache from her!" +</p> + +<p> +A dull rumble came to us across the marsh, and, as if Mrs. Knox had +been summoned by her henchman's accusation, there laboured into view on +the road that skirted the marsh a long and dilapidated equipage, +silhouetted, with its solitary occupant, against the dull shine of the +frozen lake. +</p> + +<p> +"Tally-ho! Here comes the curry for you, Major! You'll have to eat it +I tell you!" He paused, "I'm dashed if she hasn't got Sullivan's pony! +Well, she'd steal the horns off a cow!" +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> +<a name="img-090"></a> +<img src="images/img-090.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +<p class="caption">"I'M DASHED IF SHE HASN'T GOT SULLIVAN'S PONY"</p> +</div> + +<p> +It was indeed the grey pony that paced demurely in the shafts of Mrs. +Knox's phaeton, and at its head marched Sullivan; fragments of loud and +apparently agreeable conversation reached us, as the procession moved +onwards to the usual luncheon tryst at the head of the lake. +</p> + +<p> +"Come now, John Kane," said Flurry, eyeing the cortège, "you're half +your day sitting in front of the kitchen fire. How many of my rabbits +went into that curry?'' +</p> + +<p> +"Rabbits, Master Flurry?" echoed John Kane almost pityingly, "there's +no call for them trash in Aussolas kitchen! And if we wanted them +itself, we'd not get them. I declare to me conscience there's not a +rabbit in Aussolas demesne this minute, with the way your Honour has +them ferreted—let alone the foxes!——" +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose it's scarcely worth your while to put the traps down," said +Flurry benignly; "that's why they were in the coach-house this morning." +</p> + +<p> +There was an undissembled titter from a group of beaters in the +background; Flurry tucked his gun under his arm and walked on. +</p> + +<p> +"It'd be no more than a charity if ye'd eat the lunch now, sir," urged +John Kane at his elbow, in fluent remonstrance, "and leave Sullivan go +home. Sure it'll be black night on him before the Misthress will be +done with him. And as for that wood, it's hardly we can go through it +with the threes that's down since the night of the Big Wind, and +briars, and all sorts. Sure the last time I was through it me pants +was in shreds, and I was that tired when I got home I couldn't stoop to +pick a herrin' off a tongs, and as for the floods and the holes in the +western end—" John Kane drew a full breath, and with a trawling +glance gathered Bernard and me into his audience. "I declare to ye, +gintlemen, me boots when I took them off was more than boots! They +resimbled the mouth of a hake!" +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, shut your own mouth," said Flurry. +</p> + +<p> +The big rhododendron was one of the glories of Aussolas. Its original +progenitor had been planted by Flurry's great-grandmother, and now, +after a century of unchecked license, it and its descendants ran riot +among the pine stems on the hillside above the lake, and, in June, +clothed a precipitous half acre with infinite varieties of pale +mysterious mauve. The farm road by which Mrs. Knox had traversed the +marsh, here followed obediently the spurs of the wood and creeks of the +shore, in their alternate give and take. From the exalted station that +had been given me on the brow of the hill, I looked down on it between +the trunks of the pine trees, and saw, instead of mysterious mauve +blossoms, the defiant purple of Mrs. Knox's bonnet, glowing, +motionless, in a sheltered and sunny angle of the road just where it +met the wood. She was drawn up in her phaeton with her back to a +tumble-down erection of stones and branches, that was supposed to bar +the way into the wood, beside her was the great flat boulder that had +for generations been the table for shooting lunches. How, in any area +of less than a quarter of a mile, Sullivan had contrived to turn the +phaeton, was known only to himself, but he had accomplished it, and was +now adding to the varied and unforeseen occupations of his day the task +of unpacking the luncheon basket. As I waited for the whistle that was +the signal for the beat to begin, I viewed the proceedings up to the +point where Sullivan, now warming artistically to his work, crowned the +arrangement with the bottle of potheen. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> +<a name="img-092"></a> +<img src="images/img-092.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +<p class="caption">HE CROWNED THE ARRANGEMENT WITH THE BOTTLE OF POTHEEN</p> +</div> + +<p> +It was at that moment that I espied John Kane break from a rhododendron +bush beside the phaeton, with a sack over his shoulder. This, as far +as I could see through the branches, he placed upon Mrs. Knox's lap, +the invaluable Sullivan hurrying to his aid. The next instant I saw +Murray arrive and take up his allotted station upon the road; John Kane +retired into the evergreen thicket as abruptly as he had emerged from +it, Flurry's whistle sounded, and the yells of "Hi cock" began again. +</p> + +<p> +We moved forward very slowly, in order to keep station with Murray, who +had to follow on the road the outer curve of the wood, while we struck +straight across it. It was a wood of old and starveling trees, +strangled by ivy, broken by combat with each other in the storms that +rushed upon them up the lake; it was two years since I had last been +through it, and I remembered well the jungle of ferns and the +undergrowth of briars that had shredded the pants of John Kane, and had +held in their thorny depths what Flurry had described as "a dose of +cock." To-day the wood seemed strangely bare, and remarkably out of +keeping with John Kane's impassioned indictment; the ferns, even the +bracken, had almost disappeared, the briar brakes were broken down, and +laced with black paths, and in the frozen paste of dead leaves and peat +mould the hoof-marks of cattle and horses bore witness against them, +like the thumb-prints of a criminal. In the first ten minutes not a +gun had been let off; I anticipated pleasantly, if inadequately, the +remarks that Flurry would address to John Kane at the conclusion of the +beat. To foreshadow John Kane's reply to Flurry was a matter less +simple. Bernard Shute was again the next gun on my left, and kept, as +was his wont, something ahead of his due place in the line; of this I +did not complain, it made it all the easier to keep my eye on him. The +idle cartridges in his gun were obviously intolerable to him; as he +crossed a little glade he discharged both barrels into the firmament, +where far above, in tense flight and steady as a constellation, moved a +wedge of wild geese. The wedge continued its course unshaken, but, as +if lifted by the bang, the first woodcock of the beat got up in front +of me, and swung away into the rhododendrons. "Mark!" I shouted, +loosing an ineffectual cartridge after him. Mr. Shute was equal to the +occasion, and let fly his usual postman's knock with both barrels. In +instant response there arose from behind the rhododendrons the bray of +a donkey, fraught with outrage and terror, followed by crashing of +branches and the thunderous galloping of many hoofs, and I had a +glimpse of a flying party of cattle and horses, bursting from the +rhododendron bushes and charging down a grassy slope in the direction +of the road. Every tail was in the air, the cattle bellowed, and the +donkey, heading the flight, did not cease to proclaim his injuries. +</p> + +<p> +"How many of them have you hit?" I shouted. +</p> + +<p> +"I believe I got 'em all, bar the cock!" returned Mr. Shute, with +ecstasy scarcely tempered by horror. +</p> + +<p> +I hastened to the brow of the hill, and thence beheld Mrs. Knox's live +stock precipitate themselves on to the road, and turn as one man in the +direction of home. With a promptitude for which I have never been +given sufficient credit, I shoved my gun into the branches of a tree +and ran back through the wood at my best pace. In that glimpse of the +route I had recognised the streaming chestnut mane and white legs of +the venerable Trinket, the most indomitable old rogue that had ever +reared up generations of foals in the way they should not go, and I +knew by repute that once she was set going it would take more to stop +her than the half-demolished barricade at the entrance to the wood. +</p> + +<p> +As I ran I seemed to see Trinket and her disciples hurling themselves +upon Mrs. Knox's phaeton and Sullivan's pony, with what results no man +could tell. They had, however, first to circumnavigate the promontory; +my chance was by crossing it at the neck to get to the phaeton before +them. The going was bad, and the time was short; I went for all I was +worth, and Maria, mystified, but burning with zeal, preceded me with +kangaroo leaps and loud and hysterical barks. A mossy wall ringed the +verge of the hill; I followed Maria over it, and the wall, or a good +part of it, followed me down the hill. I plunged onward amid the +coiling stems and branches of the big rhododendrons, an illuminative +flash of the purple bonnet giving me my bearings. A sort of track +revealed itself, doubling and dodging and dropping down rocky slides, +as if in flight before me. It was near the foot of the hill that a +dead branch extended a claw, and with human malignity plucked the +eye-glass from my eye and snapped the cord: the eye-glass, entering +into the spirit of the thing, aimed for the nearest stone and hit it. +It is the commonest of disasters for the short-sighted, yet custom +cannot stale it; I made the usual comment, with the usual fervour and +futility, and continued to blunder forward in all the discomfort of +half-sight. The trumpeting of the donkey heralded the oncoming of the +stampede; I broke my way through the last of the rhododendrons and +tumbled out on to the road twenty yards ahead of the phaeton. +</p> + +<p> +Sullivan's pony was on its hind legs, and Sullivan was hanging on to +its head. Mrs. Knox was sitting erect in the phaeton with the reins in +her hand. +</p> + +<p> +"Get out, ma'am! Get out!" Sullivan was howling, as I scrambled to my +feet. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't be a fool!" replied Mrs. Knox, without moving. +</p> + +<p> +The stampede was by this time confronted by the barrier. There was +not, however, a moment of hesitation; Trinket came rocketing out over +it as if her years were four, instead of four-and-twenty; she landed +with her white nose nearly in the back seat of the phaeton, got past +with a swerve and a slip up, and went away for her stable with her tail +over her back, followed with stag-like agility by her last foal, her +last foal but one, and the donkey, with the young cattle hard on their +flying heels. Bernard, it was very evident, had peppered them +impartially all round. Sullivan's pony was alternately ramping +heraldically, and wriggling like an eel in the clutches of Sullivan, +and I found myself snatching blindly at whatever came to my hand of his +headstall. What I caught was a mingled handful of forelock and +brow-band; the pony twitched back his head with the cunning that is +innate in ponies, and the head-stall, which was a good two sizes too +large, slid over its ears as though they had been buttered, and +remained, bit and all, in my hand. There was a moment of struggle, in +which Sullivan made a creditable effort to get the pony's head into +chancery under his arm; foreseeing the issue, I made for the old lady, +with the intention of dragging her from the carriage. She was at the +side furthest from me, and I got one foot into the phaeton and grasped +at her. +</p> + +<p> +At that precise moment the pony broke away, with a jerk that pitched me +on to my knees on the mat at her feet. Simultaneously I was aware of +Sullivan, at the opposite side, catching Mrs. Knox to his bosom as the +phaeton whirled past him, while I, as sole occupant, wallowed prone +upon a heap of rugs. That ancient vehicle banged in and out of the +ruts with an agility that ill befitted its years, while, with extreme +caution, and the aid of the side rail, I gained the seat vacated by +Mrs. Knox, and holding on there as best I could, was aware that I was +being seriously run away with by the apple-man's pony, on whom my own +disastrous hand had bestowed his freedom. +</p> + +<p> +The flying gang in front, enlivened no doubt by the noise in their +rear, maintained a stimulating lead. We were now clear of the wood, +and the frozen ditches of the causeway awaited me on either side in +steely parallel lines; out in the open the frost had turned the ruts to +iron, and it was here that the phaeton, entering into the spirit of the +thing, began to throw out ballast. The cushions of the front seat were +the first to go, followed, with a bomb-like crash, by a stone hot-water +jar, that had lurked in the deeps of the rugs. It was in negotiating a +stiffish outcrop of rock in the track that the back seat broke loose +and fell to earth with a hollow thump; with a corresponding thump I +returned to my seat from a considerable altitude, and found that in the +interval the cushion had removed itself from beneath me, and followed +its fellows overboard. Near the end of the causeway we were into +Trinket's rearguard, one of whom, a bouncing young heifer, slammed a +kick into the pony's ribs as he drew level with her, partly as a +witticism, partly as a token of contempt. With that the end came. The +pony wrenched to the left, the off front wheel jammed in a rut, came +off, and the phaeton rose like a live thing beneath me and bucked me +out on to the road. +</p> + +<p> +A succession of crashes told that the pony was making short work of the +dash-board; for my part, I lay something stunned, and with a twisted +ankle, on the crisp whitened grass of the causeway, and wondered dully +why I was surrounded by dead rabbits. +</p> + +<p> +By the time I had pulled myself together Sullivan's pony was continuing +his career, accompanied by a fair proportion of the phaeton, and on the +road lay an inexplicable sack, with a rabbit, like Benjamin's cup, in +its mouth. +</p> + +<p> +Not less inexplicable was the appearance of Minx, my wife's +fox-terrier, whom I had last seen in an arm-chair by the drawing-room +fire at Shreelane, and now, in the role of the faithful St. Bernard, +was licking my face lavishly and disgustingly. Her attentions had the +traditional reviving effect. I sat up and dashed her from me, and in +so doing beheld my wife in the act of taking refuge in the frozen +ditch, as the cavalcade swept past, the phaeton and pony bringing up +the rear like artillery. +</p> + +<p> +"What has happened? Are you hurt?" she panted, speeding to me. +</p> + +<p> +"I am; very much hurt," I said, with what was, I think, justifiable +ill-temper, as I got gingerly on to my feet, almost annoyed to find +that my leg was not broken. +</p> + +<p> +"But, dearest Sinclair, <i>has</i> he shot you? I got so frightened about +you that I bicycled over to— Ugh! Good gracious!"—as she trod on +and into a mound of rabbits—"what are you doing with all these +horrible things?" +</p> + +<p> +I looked back in the direction from which I had come, and saw Mrs. Knox +advancing along the causeway arm-in-arm with the now inevitable +Sullivan (who, it may not be out of place to remind the reader, had +come to Aussolas early in the morning, with the pure and single +intention of buying apples). In Mrs. Knox's disengaged arm was +something that I discerned to be the bottle of potheen, and I instantly +resolved to minimise the extent of my injuries. Flurry, and various +items of the shooting party, were converging upon us from the wood by +as many and various short cuts. "I don't quite know what I am doing +with the rabbits," I replied, "but I rather think I'm giving them away." +</p> + +<p> +As I spoke something darted past Mrs. Knox, something that looked like +a bundle of rags in a cyclone, but was, as a matter of fact, my +faithful water-spaniel, Maria. She came on in zig-zag bounds, in short +maniac rushes. Twice she flung herself by the roadside and rolled, +driving her snout into the ground like the coulter of a plough. Her +eyes were starting from her head, her tail was tucked between her legs. +She bit, and tore frantically with her claws at the solid ice of a +puddle. +</p> + +<p> +"She's mad! She's gone mad!" exclaimed Philippa, snatching up as a +weapon something that looked like a frying-pan, but was, I believe, the +step of the phaeton. +</p> + +<p> +Maria was by this time near enough for me to discern a canary-coloured +substance masking her muzzle. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, she's quite mad," I replied, possessed by a spirit of divination. +"She's been eating the rabbit curry." +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> +<img src="images/img-102.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a> +V<br/> +A CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE</h2> + +<p> +It has not often been my lot to be associated with a being of so +profound and rooted a pessimism as Michael Leary, Huntsman and +Kennelman to Mr. Flurry Knox's Fox-hounds. His attitude was that of +the one and only righteous man in a perfidious and dissolute world. +With, perhaps, the exception of Flurry Knox, he believed in no one save +himself. I was thoroughly aware of my inadequacy as Deputy-Master, and +cherished only a hope that Michael might look upon me as a kind of +Parsifal, a fool perhaps, yet at least a "blameless fool"; but during +my time of office there were many distressing moments in which I was +made to feel not only incapable, but culpable. +</p> + +<p> +Michael was small, sandy, green-eyed, freckled, and, I believe, +considerably junior to myself; he neither drank nor smoked, and he had +a blistering tongue. I have never tried more sincerely to earn any +one's good opinion. +</p> + +<p> +It was a pleasant afternoon towards the middle of December, and I was +paying my customary Sunday visit to the kennels to see the hounds fed. +What Michael called "the Throch" was nearly empty; the greedier of the +hounds were flitting from place to place in the line, in the undying +belief that others were better off than they. I was studying the row +of parti-coloured backs, and trying for the fiftieth time to fit each +with its name, when I was aware of a most respectable face, with grey +whiskers, regarding me from between the bars of the kennel door. +</p> + +<p> +With an effort not inferior to that with which I had just discriminated +between Guardsman and General, I recognised my visitor as Mr. Jeremiah +Flynn, a farmer, and a cattle dealer on a large scale, with whom I had +occasionally done business in a humble way. He was a District +Councillor, and a man of substance; he lived twenty miles away, at a +place on the coast called Knockeenbwee, in a flat-faced, two-storeyed +house of the usual type of hideousness. Once, when an unkind fate had +sent me to that region, I had heard the incongruous tinkle of a piano +proceeding from Mr. Flynn's mansion, as I drove past fighting an +umbrella against the wet wind that swept in from the Atlantic. +</p> + +<p> +"I beg your pardon, Major Yeates," began Mr. Flynn, with an agreeable +smile, which I saw in sections between the bars; "I had a little +business over this side of the country, and I took the liberty of +taking a stroll around to the kennels to see the hounds." +</p> + +<p> +I made haste to extend the hospitality of the feeding-yard to my +visitor, who accepted it with equal alacrity, and went on to remark +that it was wonderful weather for the time of year. Having obeyed this +primary instinct of mankind, Mr. Flynn embarked upon large yet able +compliments on the appearance of the hounds. His manners were +excellent; sufficiently robust to accord with his grey frieze coat and +flat-topped felt hat, and with just the extra touch of deference that +expressed his respect for my high qualities and position. +</p> + +<p> +"Ye have them in great form, Michael," he remarked, surveying the +hounds' bloated sides with a knowledgeable eye; "and upon me word, +there's our own poor Playboy! and a fine dog he is too!" +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> +<a name="img-106"></a> +<img src="images/img-106.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +<p class="caption">"YE HAVE THEM IN GREAT FORM, MICHAEL"</p> +</div> + +<p> +"He is; and a fine dog to hunt rabbits!" said Michael, without a +relaxation of his drab countenance. +</p> + +<p> +"I daresay, Major, you didn't know that it was in my place that fellow +was rared?" continued Mr. Flynn. +</p> + +<p> +Owing to his providentially distinctive colouring of lemon and white, +Playboy was one of the hounds about whose identity I was never in +doubt. I was able to bestow a suitable glance upon him, and to recall +the fact of his having come from a trencher-fed pack, of which Mr. +Flynn was the ruling spirit, kept by the farmers in the wildernesses +beyond and around Knockeenbwee. +</p> + +<p> +"Ah! Mr. Knox was too smart for us over that hound!" pursued Mr. Flynn +pleasantly; "there was a small difference between himself and meself in +a matter of a few heifers I was buying off him—a thrifle of fifteen +shillings it was, I believe——" +</p> + +<p> +"Five and thirty," said Michael to the lash of his thong, in which he +was making a knot. +</p> + +<p> +"And I had to give him the pup before we could come to terms," ended my +visitor. +</p> + +<p> +Whether at fifteen or thirty-five shillings Playboy had been a cheap +hound. Brief, and chiefly ornamental, as my term of office had been, I +had learnt to know his voice in covert, and had learned also to act +upon it in moments of solitary and helpless ignorance as to what was +happening. This, however, was not the moment to sing his praises; I +preserved a careful silence. +</p> + +<p> +"I rared himself and his sister," said Mr. Flynn, patting Playboy +heavily, "but the sister died on me. I think 'twas from all she +fretted after the brother when he went, and 'twas a pity. Those two +had the old Irish breed in them; sure you'd know it by the colour, and +there's no more of them now in the country only the mother, and she had +a right to be shot this long time." +</p> + +<p> +"Come hounds," said Michael, interrupting this rhapsody, "open the +door, Bat." +</p> + +<p> +The pack swept out of the feeding-yard and were away on their wonted +constitutional in half a minute. +</p> + +<p> +"Grand training, grand training!" said Mr. Flynn admiringly, "they're a +credit to you, Major! It's impossible to have hounds anyway +disciplined running wild through the country the way our little pack +is. Indeed it came into my mind on the way here to try could I coax +you to come over and give us a day's hunting. We're destroyed with +foxes. Such marauding I never saw! As for turkeys and fowl, they're +tired of them, and it's my lambs they'll be after next!" +</p> + +<p> +The moment of large and general acquiescence in Mr. Flynn's proposal +narrowed itself by imperceptible degrees to the moment, not properly +realised till it arrived, the horrid moment of getting up at a quarter +to seven on a December morning, in order to catch the early train for +Knockeenbwee. +</p> + +<p> +In the belief that I was acting in the interest of sport I had +announced at the last meet that there was to be a by-day at +Knockeenbwee. To say that the fact was received without enthusiasm is +to put it mildly. I was assured by one authority that I should have to +hunt the hounds from a steam launch; another, more sympathetic, +promised a drag, but tempered the encouragement by saying that the +walls there were all made of slates, and that by the end of the run the +skin would be hanging off the horses' legs like the skins of bananas. +Nothing short of a heart-to-heart appeal to my Whip, Dr. Jerome Hickey, +induced him to promise his support. Michael, from first to last, +remained an impenetrable thunder-cloud. The die, however, was cast, +and the hospitality of Mr. Flynn accepted. The eve of the by-day +arrived, and the Thundercloud and the hounds were sent on by road to +Knockeenbwee, accompanied by my ancient ally Slipper, who led my mare, +and rode Philippa's pony, which had been commandeered for the occasion. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning at 9.45 A.M. the train stopped by signal at the +flag-station of Moyny, a cheerless strip of platform, from which a dead +straight road retreated to infinity across a bog. An out side car was +being backed hard into the wall of the road by a long, scared rag of a +chestnut horse as Dr. Hickey and I emerged from the station, and its +driver was composing its anxieties as to the nature of trains by +beating it in the face with his whip. This, we were informed, was Mr. +Flynn's equipage, and, at a favourable moment in the conflict, Dr. +Hickey and I mounted it. +</p> + +<p> +"It's seldom the thrain stands here," said the driver apologetically, +as we started at a strong canter, "and this one's very frightful +always." +</p> + +<p> +The bog ditches fleeted by at some twelve miles an hour; they were the +softest, blackest, and deepest that I have ever seen, and I thanked +heaven that I was not in my red coat. +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose you never met the Miss Flynns?" murmured Dr. Hickey to me +across the well of the car. +</p> + +<p> +I replied in the negative. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, they're very grand," went on my companion, with a wary eye on the +humped back of the driver, "I believe they never put their foot outside +the door unless they're going to Paris. Their father told me last week +that lords in the streets of Cork were asking who they were." +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose that was on their way to Paris," I suggested. +</p> + +<p> +"It was not," said the driver, with stunning unexpectedness, "'twas +when they went up on th'excursion last month for to have their teeth +pulled. G'wout o' that!" This to the horse, who had shied heavily at +a goat. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Hickey and I sank into a stricken silence, five minutes of which, +at the pace we were travelling, sufficed to bring us to a little +plantation, shorn and bent by the Atlantic wind, low whitewashed walls, +an economical sweep of gravel, and an entrance gate constructed to fit +an outside car to an inch. From the moment that these came within the +range of vision the driver beat the horse with the handle of his whip, +a prelude, as we discovered, to the fact that a minor gate, obviously +and invitingly leading to the yard, lolled open on one hinge at the +outset of the plantation. There was a brief dissension, followed by a +hand gallop to the more fitting entrance; that we should find it too +fitting was a foregone conclusion, and Dr. Hickey whirled his legs on +to the seat at the moment when impact between his side of the car and +the gate post became inevitable. The bang that followed was a hearty +one, and the driver transmitted it to me in great perfection with his +elbow as he lurched on to me; there was a second and hollower bang as +the well of the car, detached by the shock, dropped on the axle and +turned over, flinging from it in its somersault a harlequinade +assortment of herrings, loaves of bread, and a band box. It was, I +think, a loaf of bread that hit the horse on the hocks, but under all +the circumstances even a herring would have been ample excuse for the +two sledge hammer kicks which he instantly administered to the +foot-board. While the car still hung in the gateway, a donkey, with a +boy sitting on the far end of its back, was suddenly mingled with the +episode. The boy was off the donkey's back and the driver was off mine +at apparently one and the same moment, and the car was somehow backed +off the pillar; as we scraped through the boy said something to the +driver in a brogue that was a shade more sophisticated than the peasant +tune. It seemed to me to convey the facts that Miss Lynie was waiting +for her hat, and that Maggie Kane was dancing mad for the soft sugar. +We proceeded to the house, leaving the ground strewn with what appeared +to be the elemental stage of a picnic. +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose you're getting him into form for the hunt, Eugene?" said Dr. +Hickey, as the lathered and panting chestnut came to a stand some ten +yards beyond the hall door. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, indeed, we thought it no harm to loosen him under the car before +Master Eddy went riding him," replied Eugene, "and begannies I'm not +done with him yet! I have to be before the masther at the next thrain." +</p> + +<p> +He shed us and our belongings on the steps, and drove away at a gallop. +</p> + +<p> +The meet had been arranged for half-past eleven. It was half-past ten +when Dr. Hickey and I were incarcerated in a dungeon-cold drawing-room +by a breathless being in tennis shoes, with her hair down her back, +doubtless Maggie Kane, hot from the war-dance brought on by the lack of +soft sugar. She told us in a gusty whisper that the masther would be +in shortly, and the ladies was coming down, and left us to meditate +upon our surroundings. +</p> + +<p> +A cascade of white paper flowed glacially from the chimney to the +fender; the gloom was Cimmerian, and unalterable, owing to the fact +that the blind was broken; the cold of a never occupied room ate into +our vitals. Footsteps pounded overhead and crept in the hall. The +house was obviously full of people, but no one came near us. Had it +not been for my companion's biographical comments on the photographs +with which the room was decked, all of them, it appeared, suitors of +the Misses Flynn, I think I should have walked back to the station. At +eleven o'clock the hurrying feet overhead were stilled, there was a +rustling in the hall as of a stage storm, and the daughters of the +house made their entry, wonderfully attired in gowns suggestive of a +theatre, or a tropical garden party, and in picture hats. As I viewed +the miracles of hairdressing, black as the raven's wing, the necklaces, +the bracelets, and the lavish top-dressing of powder, I wildly wondered +if Dr. Hickey and I should not have been in evening clothes. +</p> + +<p> +We fell to a laboured conversation, conducted upon the highest social +plane. The young ladies rolled their black eyes under arched eyebrows, +and in almost unimpeachable English accents supposed I found Ireland +very dull. They asked me if I often went to the London Opera. They +declared that when at home, music was their only resource, and made +such pointed reference to their Italian duetts that I found myself +trembling on the verge of asking them to sing. Dr. Hickey, under whose +wing I had proposed to shelter myself, remained sardonically aloof. A +blessed diversion was created by the entrance, at racing speed, of +Maggie Kane, bearing a trayful of burning sods of turf; the cascade was +torn from the chimney, and the tray was emptied into the grate. +Blinding smoke filled the room, and Maggie Kane murmured an imprecation +upon "jackdahs," their nests, and all their works. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> +<a name="img-114"></a> +<img src="images/img-114.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +<p class="caption">A TRAYFUL OF BURNING SODS OF TURF</p> +</div> + +<p> +The moment seemed propitious for escape; I looked at my watch, and said +that if they would kindly tell me the way to the yard I would go round +and see about things. +</p> + +<p> +The arched eyebrows went up a shade higher; the Misses Flynn said they +feared they hardly knew the way to the stables. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Hickey rose. "Indeed it isn't easy to find them," he said, "but I +daresay the Major and myself will be able to make them out." +</p> + +<p> +When we got outside he looked down his long nose at me. +</p> + +<p> +"Stables indeed!" he said, "I hate that dirty little boasting!" +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Flynn's yard certainly did not at the first glance betray the +presence of stables. It consisted of an indeterminate assembly of +huts, with a long corrugated iron shed standing gauntly in the midst; +swamp of varying depths and shades occupied the intervals. From the +shed proceeded the lamentable and indignant clamours of the hounds, +against its door leaned Michael in his red coat, enacting, obviously, +the role of a righteous man constrained to have his habitation in the +tents of Kedar. A reverential knot of boys admired him from the wall +of a neighbouring pigsty; countrymen of all ages, each armed with a +stick and shadowed by a cur, more or less resembling a fox-hound, stood +about in patient groups; two or three dejected horses were nibbling, +unattended, at a hayrick. Of our host there was no sign. +</p> + +<p> +At the door of the largest hut Slipper was standing. +</p> + +<p> +"Come in and see the mare, Major," he called to me in his bantam-cock +voice as I approached. "Last night when we got in she was clean dead +altogether, but this morning when I was giving the feed to the pony she +retched out her neck and met her teeth in me poll! Oh, she's in great +heart now!" +</p> + +<p> +In confirmation of this statement a shrewish squeal from Lady Jane +proceeded from the interior. +</p> + +<p> +"Sure I slep' in the straw last night with herself and the pony. She'd +have him ate this morning only for me." +</p> + +<p> +The record of his devotion was here interrupted by a tremendous +rattling in the farm lane; it heralded the entrance of Mr. Flynn on his +outside car, drawn at full gallop by the young chestnut horse. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, look at me, Major, how late I am!" shouted Mr. Flynn jovially, as +he scrambled off the car. "I declare you could light a candle at me +eye with the shame that's in it, as they say! I was back in +Curranhilty last night buying stock, and this was the first train I +could get. Well, well, the day's long and drink's plenty!" +</p> + +<p> +He bundled into a darksome hole, and emerged with a pair of dirty spurs +and a Malacca crop as heavy as a spade handle. +</p> + +<p> +"Michael! Did they tell you we have a fox for you in the hill north?" +</p> + +<p> +"I wasn't speaking to any of them," replied Michael coldly. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, your hounds will be speaking to him soon! Here, hurry boys, +pull out the horses!" +</p> + +<p> +His eye fell on the chestnut, upon whose reeking back Eugene was +cramming a saddle, while the boy who had met us at the entrance gate +was proffering to it a tin basin full of oats. +</p> + +<p> +"What are you doing with the young horse?" he roared. +</p> + +<p> +"I thought Master Eddy would ride him, sir," replied Eugene. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, he will not," said Mr. Flynn, conclusively; "the horse has +enough work done, and let you walk him about easy till he's cool. You +can folly the hunt then." +</p> + +<p> +Two more crestfallen countenances than those of the young gentlemen he +addressed it has seldom been my lot to see. The saddle was slowly +removed. Master Eddy, red up to the roots of his black hair, retired +silently with his basin of oats into the stable behind Slipper. Even +had I not seen his cuff go to his eyes I should have realised that life +would probably never hold for him a bitterer moment. +</p> + +<p> +The hounds were already surging out of the yard with a following wave, +composed of every living thing in sight. As I took Lady Jane from the +hand of Slipper, Philippa's pony gave a snort. Some touch of +Philippa's criminal weakness for boys assailed me. +</p> + +<p> +"That boy can ride the pony if he likes," I said to Slipper. +</p> + +<p> +I followed the hounds and their cortège down a deep and filthy lane. +Mr. Flynn was just in front of me, on a broad-beamed white horse, with +string-halt; three or four of the trencher-fed aliens slunk at his +heels, the mouth of a dingy horn protruded from his coat pocket. I +trembled in spirit as I thought of Michael. +</p> + +<p> +We were out at length into large and furzy spaces that slanted steeply +to the cliffs; like smuts streaming out of a chimney the followers of +the hunt belched from the lane and spread themselves over the pale +green slopes. From this point the proceedings became merged in total +incoherence. Accompanied, as it seemed, by the whole population of the +district, we moved <i>en masse</i> along the top of the cliffs, while +hounds, curs, and boys strove and scrambled below us, over rocks and +along ledges, which, one might have thought, would have tried the head +of a seagull. Two successive bursts of yelling notified the capture +and slaughter of two rabbits; in the first hour and a half I can recall +no other achievement. +</p> + +<p> +It was, however, evident that hunting, in its stricter sense, was +looked on as a mere species of side show by the great majority of the +field; the cream of the entertainment was found in the negotiation of +such jumps as fell to the lot of the riders. These were neither +numerous nor formidable, but the storm of cheers that accompanied each +performance would have dignified the win of a Grand National favourite. +</p> + +<p> +To Master Eddy, on Philippa's pony, it was apparent that the birthday +of his life had come. Attended by Slipper and a howling company of +boon companions, he and the pony played a glorified game of pitch and +toss, in which, as it seemed to me, heads never turned up. It +certainly was an adverse circumstance that the pony's mane had, the day +before, been hogged to the bore, so that at critical moments the rider +slid, unchecked, from saddle to ears, but the boon companions, who +themselves jumped like antelopes, stride for stride with the pony, +replaced him unfailingly with timely snatches at whatever portion of +his frame first offered itself. +</p> + +<p> +Music, even, was not wanting to our progress. A lame fiddler, on a +donkey, followed in our wake, filling Michael's cup of humiliation to +the brim, by playing jigs during our frequent moments of inaction. The +sun pushed its way out of the grey sky, the sea was grey, with a broad +and flashing highway to the horizon, a frayed edge of foam tracked the +broken coast-line, seagulls screamed and swooped, and the grass on the +cliff summits was wondrous green. Old Flynn, on his white horse, +moving along the verge, and bleating shrilly upon his horn to the +hounds below, became idyllic. +</p> + +<p> +I believe that I ought to have been in a towering passion, and should +have swept the hounds home in a flood of blasphemy; as a matter of fact +I enjoyed myself. Even Dr. Hickey admitted that it was as pleasant a +day for smoking cigarettes as he had ever been out. +</p> + +<p> +It must have been nearly three o'clock when one of Mr. Flynn's hounds, +a venerable lady of lemon and white complexion, poked her lean head +through furze-bushes at the top of the cliff, and came up on to the +level ground. +</p> + +<p> +"That's old Terrible, Playboy's mother," remarked Dr. Hickey, "and a +great stamp of an old hound too, but she can't run up now. Flynn tells +me when she's beat out she'll sit down and yowl on the line, she's that +fond of it." +</p> + +<p> +Meantime Terrible was becoming busier and looking younger every moment, +as she zigzagged up and across the trampled field towards the hillside. +Dr. Hickey paused in the lighting of what must have been his tenth +cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +"If we were in a Christian country," he said, "you'd say she had a +line——" +</p> + +<p> +Old Flynn came pounding up on his white horse, and rode slowly up the +hill behind Terrible, who silently pursued her investigations. Fifty +or sixty yards higher up, my eye lighted on something that might have +been a rusty can, or a wisp of bracken, lying on the sunny side of a +bank. As I looked, it moved, and slid away over the top of the bank. +A yell, followed by a frenzied tootling on Mr. Flynn's ancient horn, +told that he had seen it too, and, in a bedlam of shrieks, chaos was +upon us. Through an inextricable huddle of foot people the hounds came +bursting up from the cliffs, fighting every foot of ground with the +country-boys, yelping with the contagion of excitement, they broke +through, and went screaming up the hill to old Terrible, who was +announcing her find in deep and continuous notes. +</p> + +<p> +How Lady Jane got over the first bank without trampling Slipper and two +men under foot is known only to herself; as I landed, Master Eddy and +the pony banged heavily into me from the rear, the pony having once and +for all resolved not to be sundered by more than a yard from his stable +companion of the night before. I can safely say that I have never seen +hounds run faster than did Mr. Knox's and the trencher-feds, in that +brief scurry from the cliffs at Knockeenbwee. By the time we had +crossed the second fence the foot people were gone, like things in a +dream. In front of me was Michael, and, in spite of Michael's spurs, +in front of Michael was old Flynn, holding the advantage of his start +with a most admirable jealousy. The white horse got over the ground in +bucks like a rabbit, the string-halt lending an additional fire to his +gait; on every bank his great white hind-quarters stood up against the +sky, like the gable end of a chapel. Had I had time to think of +anything, I should have repented acutely of having lent Master Eddy the +pony, who was practically running away. Twice I replaced his rider in +the saddle with one hand, as he landed off a fence under my stirrup. +Master Eddy had lost his cap and whip, his hair was full of mud, pure +ecstasy stretched his grin from ear to ear, and broke from him in +giggles of delight. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> +<a name="img-123"></a> +<img src="images/img-123.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +<p class="caption">PURE ECSTASY STRETCHED HIS GRIN FROM EAR TO EAR</p> +</div> + +<p> +Providentially, it was, as I have said, only a scurry. It seemed that +we had run across the neck of a promontory, and in ten minutes we were +at the cliffs again, the company reduced to old Flynn, his son, and the +Hunt establishment. Below us Moyny Bay was spread forth, enclosing in +its span a big green island; between us and the island was a good +hundred yards of mud, plump-looking mud, with channels in it. Deep in +this the hounds were wading; some of them were already ashore on the +island, struggling over black rocks thatched with yellow seaweed, their +voices coming faintly back to us against the wind. The white horse's +tail was working like a fan, and we were all, horses and men, blowing +hard enough to turn a windmill. +</p> + +<p> +"That's better fun than to be eating your dinner!" puffed Mr. Flynn, +purple with pride and heat, as he lowered himself from the saddle. +"There isn't a hound in Ireland would take that stale line up from the +cliff only old Terrible!" +</p> + +<p> +"What will we do now, sir?" said Michael to me, presenting the +conundrum with colourless calm, and ignoring the coat-tail trailed for +his benefit, "we'll hardly get them out of that island to-night." +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose you know you're bare-footed, Major?" put in Hickey, my other +Job's comforter, from behind. "Your two fore-shoes are gone." +</p> + +<p> +A December day is not good for much after half-past three. For half an +hour the horns of Michael and old Flynn blew their summons antiphonally +into the immensities of sea and sky, and summoned only the sunset, and +after it the twilight; the hounds remained unresponsive, invisible. +</p> + +<p> +"There's rabbits enough in that island to keep ten packs of hounds busy +for a month," said Mr. Flynn; "the last time I was there I thought +'twas the face of the field was running from me. And what was it after +all but the rabbits!" +</p> + +<p> +"<i>My</i> hounds wouldn't hunt rabbits if they were throwing after them," +said Michael ferociously. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, I suppose it's admiring the view they are!" riposted Mr. Flynn; "I +tell ye now, Major, there's a man on the strand below has a +flat-bottomed boat, and here's Eugene just come up, I'll send him over +with the horn as soon as there's water enough, and he'll flog them out +of it." +</p> + +<p> +The tide crept slowly in over the mud, and a young moon was sending a +slender streak of light along it through the dusk before Eugene had +accomplished his mission. +</p> + +<p> +The boat returned at last across the channel with a precarious cargo of +three hounds, while the rest splashed and swam after her. +</p> + +<p> +"I have them all, only one," shouted Eugene as he jumped ashore, and +came scrambling up the steep slants and shaley ledges of the cliff. +</p> + +<p> +"I hope it isn't Terrible ye left after ye?" roared Mr. Flynn. +</p> + +<p> +"Faith, I don't know which is it it is. I seen him down from me +floating in the tide. It must be he was clifted. I think 'tis one of +Major Yeates's. We have our own whatever." +</p> + +<p> +A cold feeling ran down my back. Michael and Hickey silently conned +over the pack in the growing darkness, striking matches and shielding +them in their hands as they told off one hound after another, hemmed in +by an eager circle of countrymen. +</p> + +<p> +"It's Playboy's gone," said Michael, with awful brevity. "I suppose we +may go home now, sir?" +</p> + +<p> +"Ah! hold on, hold on," put in Mr. Flynn, "are ye sure now, Eugene, it +wasn't a sheep ye saw? I wouldn't wish it for five pounds that the +Major lost a hound by us." +</p> + +<p> +"Did ye ever see a sheep with yalla spots on her?" retorted Eugene. +</p> + +<p> +A shout of laughter instantly broke from the circle of sympathisers. I +mounted Lady Jane in gloomy silence; there was nothing for it but to +face the long homeward road, minus Flurry Knox's best hound, and with +the knowledge that while I lived this day's work would not be forgotten +to me by him, by Dr. Hickey, and by Michael. +</p> + +<p> +It was Hickey who reminded me that I was also minus two fore-shoes, and +that it was an eighteen mile ride. On my responding irritably that I +was aware of both facts, and would get the mare shod at the forge by +the station, Mr. Flynn, whose voluble and unceasing condolences had not +been the least of my crosses, informed me that the smith had gone away +to his father-in-law's wake, and that there wasn't another forge +between that and Skebawn. +</p> + +<p> +The steps by which the final disposition of events was arrived at need +not here be recounted. It need only be said that every star went out +of its course to fight against me; even the special luminary that +presided over the Curranhilty and Skebawn branch railway was hostile; I +was told that the last train did not run except on Saturdays. +Therefore it was that, in a blend of matchlight and moonlight, a +telegram was written to Philippa, and, at the hour at which Dr. Hickey, +the hounds, and Michael were nearing their journey's end, I was seated +at the Knockeenbwee dinner-table, tired, thoroughly annoyed, devoured +with sleep, and laboriously discoursing of London and Paris with the +younger Miss Flynn. +</p> + +<p> +A meal that had opened at six with strong tea, cold mutton, and bottled +porter, was still, at eight o'clock, in slow but unceasing progress, +suggesting successive inspirations on the part of the cook. At about +seven we had had mutton chops and potatoes, and now, after an abysmal +interval of conversation, we were faced by a roast goose and a rice +pudding with currants in it. Through all these things had gone the +heavy sounds and crashes that betokened the conversion of the +drawing-room into a sleeping-place for me. There was, it appeared, no +spare room in the house; I felt positively abject at the thought of the +trouble I was inflicting. My soul abhorred the roast goose, and was +yet conscious that the only possible acknowledgment of the hospitality +that was showered upon me, was to eat my way unflinchingly through all +that was put upon my plate. +</p> + +<p> +It must have been nine o'clock before we turned our backs upon the +pleasures of the table, and settled down to hot whisky-punch over a +fierce turf fire. Then ensued upon my part one of the most prolonged +death-grapples with sleep that it has been my lot to endure. The +conversation of Mr. Flynn and his daughters passed into my brain like a +narcotic; after circling heavily round various fashionable topics, it +settled at length upon croquet, and it was about here that I began to +slip from my moorings and drift softly towards unconsciousness. I +pulled myself up on the delicious verge of a dream to agree with the +statement that "croquet was a fright! You'd boil a leg of mutton while +you'd be waiting for your turn!" +</p> + +<p> +Following on this came a period of oblivion, and then an agonised +recovery. Where were we? Thank heaven, we were still at the croquet +party, and Miss Lynie's narrative was continuing. +</p> + +<p> +"That was the last place I saw Mary. Oh, she was mad! She was mad +with me! 'I was born a lady,' says she, 'and I'll die a lady!' I +never saw her after that day." +</p> + +<p> +Miss Lynie, with an elegantly curved little finger, finished her +wine-glass of toddy and awaited my comment. +</p> + +<p> +I was, for the instant, capable only of blinking like an owl, but was +saved from disaster by Mr. Flynn. +</p> + +<p> +"Indeed ye had no loss," he remarked. "She's like a cow that gives a +good pail o' milk and spoils all by putting her leg in it!" +</p> + +<p> +I said, "Quite so—exactly," while the fire, old Flynn, and the picture +of a Pope over the chimney-piece, swam back into their places with a +jerk. +</p> + +<p> +The tale, or whatever it was, wound on. Nodding heavily, I heard how +"Mary," at some period of her remarkable career, had been found +"bawling in the kitchen" because Miss Flynn had refused to kiss her on +both cheeks when she was going to bed, and of how, on that repulse, +Mary had said that Miss Flynn was "squat." I am thankful to say that I +retained sufficient control of my faculties to laugh ironically. +</p> + +<p> +I think the story must then have merged into a description of some sort +of entertainment, as I distinctly remember Miss Lynie saying that they +"played 'Lodging-houses'—it was young Scully from Ennis made us do +it—a very vulgar game <i>I</i> call it." +</p> + +<p> +"I don't like that pullin' an' draggin'," said Mr. Flynn. +</p> + +<p> +I did not feel called upon to intrude my opinion upon the remarkable +pastime in question, and the veils of sleep once more swathed me +irresistibly in their folds. It seemed very long afterwards that the +clang of a fire-iron pulled me up with what I fear must have been an +audible snort. Old Flynn was standing up in front of the fire; he had +obviously reached the climax of a narrative, he awaited my comment. +</p> + +<p> +"That—that must have been very nice," I said desperately. +</p> + +<p> +"Nice!" echoed Mr. Flynn, and his astounded face shocked me into +consciousness; "sure she might have burned the house down!" +</p> + +<p> +What the catastrophe may have been I shall never know, nor do I +remember how I shuffled out of the difficulty; I only know that at this +point I abandoned the unequal struggle, and asked if I might go to bed. +</p> + +<p> +The obligations of a troublesome and self-inflicted guest seal my lips +as to the expedients by which the drawing-room had been converted into +a sleeping-place for me. But though gratitude may enforce silence, it +could not enforce sleep. The paralysing drowsiness of the parlour +deserted me at the hour of need. The noises in the kitchen ceased, old +Flynn pounded up to bed, the voices of the young ladies overhead died +away, and the house sank into stillness, but I grew more wakeful every +moment. I heard the creeping and scurrying of rats in the walls, I +counted every tick, and cursed every quarter told off by a pragmatical +cuckoo clock in the hall. By the time it had struck twelve I was on +the verge of attacking it with the poker. +</p> + +<p> +I suppose I may have dozed a little, but I was certainly aware that a +long track of time had elapsed since it had struck two, when a faint +but regular creaking of the staircase impressed itself upon my ear. It +was followed by a stealing foot in the hall; a hand felt over the door, +and knocked very softly. I sat up in my diminutive stretcher-bed and +asked who was there. The handle was turned, and a voice at the crack +of the door said "It's me!" +</p> + +<p> +Even in the two monosyllables I recognised the accents of the son of +the house. +</p> + +<p> +"I want to tell you something," pursued the voice. +</p> + +<p> +I instantly surmised all possibilities of disaster; Slipper drunk and +overlaid by Lady Jane, Philippa's pony dead from over-exertion, or even +a further instalment of the evening meal, only now arrived at +completion. +</p> + +<p> +"What's the matter? Is anything wrong?" I demanded, raising myself in +the trough of the bed. +</p> + +<p> +"There is not; but I want to speak to you." +</p> + +<p> +I had by this time found the matches, and my candle revealed Eddy +Flynn, fully dressed save for his boots, standing in the doorway. He +crept up to my bedside with elaborate stealth. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, what is it?" I asked, attuning my voice to a conspirator's +whisper. +</p> + +<p> +"Playboy's above stairs!" +</p> + +<p> +"Playboy!" I repeated incredulously, "what do you mean?" +</p> + +<p> +"Eugene cot him. He's above in Eugene's room now," said the boy, his +face becoming suddenly scarlet. +</p> + +<p> +"Do you mean that he wasn't killed?" I demanded, instantly allocating +in my own mind half a sovereign to Eugene. +</p> + +<p> +"He wasn't in the island at all," faltered Master Eddy, "Eugene cot him +below on the cliffs when the hounds went down in it at the first go +off, and he hid him back in the house here." +</p> + +<p> +The allotment of the half-sovereign was abruptly cancelled. +</p> + +<p> +I swallowed my emotions with some difficulty. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," I said, after an awkward pause, "I'm very much obliged to you +for telling me. I'll see your father about it in the morning." +</p> + +<p> +Master Eddy did not accept this as a dismissal. He remained +motionless, except for his eyes that sought refuge anywhere but on my +face. +</p> + +<p> +There was a silence for some moments; he was almost inaudible as he +said: +</p> + +<p> +"It would be better for ye to take him now, and to give him to Slipper. +I'd be killed if they knew I let on he was here." Then, as an +afterthought, "Eugene's gone to the wake." +</p> + +<p> +The inner aspect of the affair began to reveal itself, accompanied by a +singularly unbecoming side light on old Flynn. I perceived also the +useful part that had been played by Philippa's pony, but it did not +alter the fact that Master Eddy was showing his gratitude like a hero. +The situation was, however, too delicate to admit of comment. +</p> + +<p> +"Very well," I said, without any change of expression, "will you bring +the dog down to me?" +</p> + +<p> +"I tried to bring him down with me, but he wouldn't let me put a hand +on him." +</p> + +<p> +I hastily got into the few garments of which I had not divested myself +before getting into the misnamed stretcher-bed, aware that the horrid +task was before me of burglariously probing the depths of Eugene's +bedroom, and acutely uncertain as to Playboy's reception of me. +</p> + +<p> +"There's a light above in the room," said Master Eddy, with a dubious +glance at the candle in my hand. +</p> + +<p> +I put it down, and followed him into the dark hall. +</p> + +<p> +I have seldom done a more preposterous thing than creep up old Flynn's +stairs in the small hours of the morning, in illicit search for my own +property; but, given the dual determination to recover Playboy, and to +shield my confederate, I still fail to see that I could have acted +otherwise. +</p> + +<p> +We reached the first landing; it vibrated reassuringly with the +enormous snores of Mr. Flynn. Master Eddy's cold paw closed on my +hand, and led me to another and steeper flight of stairs. At the top +of these was a second landing, or rather passage, at the end of which a +crack of light showed under a door. A dim skylight told that the roof +was very near my head; I extended a groping hand for the wall, and +without any warning found my fingers closing improbably, awfully, upon +a warm human face. I defy the most hardened conspirator to have +refrained from some expression of opinion. +</p> + +<p> +"Good Lord!" I gasped, starting back, and knocking my head hard against +a rafter. "What's that?" +</p> + +<p> +"It's Maggie Kane, sir!" hissed a female voice. "I'm after bringing up +a bone for the dog to quieten him!" +</p> + +<p> +That Maggie Kane should also be in the plot was a complication beyond +my stunned intelligence; I grasped only the single fact that she was an +ally, endued with supernatural and sympathetic forethought. She placed +in my hand a tepid and bulky fragment, which, even in the dark, I +recognised as the mighty drumstick of last night's goose; at the same +moment Master Eddy opened the door, and revealed Playboy, tied to the +leg of a low wooden bedstead. +</p> + +<p> +He was standing up, his eyes gleamed green as emeralds, he looked as +big as a calf. He obviously regarded himself as the guardian of +Eugene's bower, and I failed to see any recognition of me in his +aspect, in point of fact he appeared to be on the verge of an outburst +of suspicion that would waken the house once and for all. We held a +council of war in whispers that perceptibly increased his distrust; I +think it was Maggie Kane who suggested that Master Eddy should proffer +him the bone while I unfastened the rope. The strategy succeeded, +almost too well in fact. Following the alluring drumstick Playboy +burst into the passage, towing me after him on the rope. Still +preceded by the light-footed Master Eddy, he took me down the attic +stairs at a speed which was the next thing to a headlong fall, while +Maggie Kane held the candle at the top. As we stormed past old Flynn's +door I was aware that the snoring had ceased, but "the pace was too +good to enquire." We scrimmaged down the second flight into the +darkness of the hall, fetching up somewhere near the clock, which, as +if to give the alarm, uttered three loud and poignant cuckoos. I think +Playboy must have sprung at it, in the belief that it was the voice of +the drumstick; I only know that my arm was nearly wrenched from its +socket, and that the clock fell with a crash from the table to the +floor, where, by some malevolence of its machinery, it continued to +cuckoo with jocund and implacable persistence. Something that was not +Playboy bumped against me. The cuckoo's note became mysteriously +muffled, and a door, revealing a fire-lit kitchen, was shoved open. We +struggled through it, bound into a sheaf by Playboy's rope, and in our +midst the cuckoo clock, stifled but indomitable, continued its protest +from under Maggie Kane's shawl. +</p> + +<p> +In the kitchen we drew breath for the first time, and Maggie Kane put +the cuckoo clock into a flour bin; the house remained still as the +grave. Master Eddy opened the back door; behind his head the Plough +glittered wakefully in a clear and frosty sky. It was uncommonly cold. +</p> + +<p> +Slipper had not gone to the wake, and was quite sober. I shall never +forget it to him. I told him that Playboy had come back, and was to be +taken home at once. He asked no inconvenient questions, but did not +deny himself a most dissolute wink. We helped him to saddle the pony, +while Playboy crunched his hard-earned drumstick in the straw. In less +than ten minutes he rode quietly away in the starlight, with Playboy +trotting at his stirrup, and Playboy's rope tied to his arm. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> +<a name="img-136"></a> +<img src="images/img-136.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +<p class="caption">HE DID NOT DENY HIMSELF A MOST DISSOLUTE WINK</p> +</div> + +<p> +I did not meet Mr. Flynn at breakfast; he had started early for a +distant fair. I have, however, met him frequently since then, and we +are on the best of terms. We have not shirked allusions to the day's +hunting at Knockeenbwee, but Playboy has not on these occasions been +mentioned by either of us. +</p> + +<p> +I understand that Slipper has put forth a version of the story, in +which the whole matter is resolved into a trial of wits between himself +and Eugene. With this I have not interfered. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a> +VI<br/> +THE BOAT'S SHARE</h2> + +<p> +I was sitting on the steps of Shreelane House, smoking a cigarette +after breakfast. By the calendar, the month was November, by the map +it was the South-west of Ireland, but by every token that hot sun and +soft breeze could offer it was the Riviera in April. +</p> + +<p> +Maria, my wife's water spaniel, elderly now, but unimpaired in figure, +and in character merely fortified in guile by the castigations of seven +winters, reclined on the warm limestone flags beside me. Minx, the +nursery fox-terrier, sat, as was her practice, upon Maria's ribs, +nodding in slumber. All was peace. +</p> + +<p> +Peace, I say, but even as I expanded in it and the sunshine, there +arose to me from the kitchen window in the area the voice of Mrs. +Cadogan, uplifted in passionate questioning. +</p> + +<p> +"Bridgie!" it wailed. "Where's me beautiful head and me lovely feet?" +</p> + +<p> +The answer to this amazing inquiry travelled shrilly from the region of +the scullery. +</p> + +<p> +"Bilin' in the pot, ma'am." +</p> + +<p> +I realised that it was merely soup in its elemental stage that was +under discussion, but Peace spread her wings at the cry; it recalled +the fact that Philippa was having a dinner party that same night. In a +small establishment such as mine, a dinner party is an affair of many +aspects, all of them serious. The aspect of the master of the house, +however, is not serious, it is merely contemptible. Having got out the +champagne, and reverentially decanted the port, there remains for him +no further place in the proceedings, no moment in which his presence is +desired. If, at such a time, I wished to have speech with my wife, she +was not to be found; if I abandoned the search and stationed myself in +the hall, she would pass me, on an average, twice in every three +minutes, generally with flowers in her hands, always with an expression +so rapt as to abash all questionings. I therefore sat upon the steps +and read the paper, superfluous to all save the dogs, to whom I at +least offered a harbourage in the general stress. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly, and without a word of warning, Minx and Maria were converted +from a slumbrous mound into twin comets—comets that trailed a +continuous shriek of rage as they flew down the avenue. The cause of +the affront presently revealed itself, in the form of a tall woman, +with a shawl over her head, and a basket on her arm. She advanced +unfalteringly, Minx walking on her hind legs beside her, as if in a +circus, attentively smelling the basket, while Maria bayed her at large +in the background. She dropped me a curtsey fit for the Lord +Lieutenant. +</p> + +<p> +"Does your Honour want any fish this morning?" Her rippling grey hair +gleamed like silver in the sunlight, her face was straight-browed and +pale, her grey eyes met mine with respectful self-possession. She +might have been Deborah the prophetess, or the Mother of the Gracchi; +as a matter of fact I recognised her as a certain Mrs. Honora Brickley, +mother of my present kitchen-maid, a lady whom, not six months before, +I had fined in a matter of trespass and assault. +</p> + +<p> +"They're lovely fish altogether!" she pursued, "they're leppin' fresh!" +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> +<a name="img-141"></a> +<img src="images/img-141.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +<p class="caption">"THEY'RE LOVELY FISH ALTOGETHER! THEY'RE LEPPIN' FRESH!"</p> +</div> + +<p> +Here was the chance to make myself useful. I called down the area and +asked Mrs. Cadogan if she wanted fish. (It may or may not be necessary +to mention that my cook's name is locally pronounced "Caydogawn.") +</p> + +<p> +"What fish is it, sir?" replied Mrs. Cadogan, presenting at the kitchen +window a face like a harvest moon. +</p> + +<p> +"'Tis pollock, ma'am!" shouted Mrs. Brickley from the foot of the steps. +</p> + +<p> +"'Sha! thim's no good to us!" responded the harvest moon in bitter +scorn. "Thim's not company fish!" +</p> + +<p> +I was here aware of the presence of my wife in the doorway, with a +menu-slate in one hand, and one of my best silk pocket handkerchiefs, +that had obviously been used as a duster, in the other. +</p> + +<p> +"Filleted with white sauce—" she murmured to herself, a world of +thought in her blue eyes, "or perhaps quenelles——" +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Brickley instantly extracted a long and shapely pollock from her +basket, and, with eulogies of its beauty, of Philippa's beauty, and of +her own magnanimity in proffering her wares to us instead of to a +craving market in Skebawn, laid it on the steps. +</p> + +<p> +At this point a series of yells from the nursery, of the usual +blood-curdling description, lifted Philippa from the scene of action as +a wind whirls a feather. +</p> + +<p> +"Buy them!" came back to me from the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +I kept to myself my long-formed opinion that eating pollock was like +eating boiled cotton wool with pins in it, and the bargain proceeded. +The affair was almost concluded, when Mrs. Brickley, in snatching a +fish from the bottom of her basket to complete an irresistible +half-dozen, let it slip from her fingers. It fell at my feet, +revealing a mangled and gory patch on its side. +</p> + +<p> +"Why, then, that's the best fish I have!" declared Mrs. Brickley in +response to my protest. "That's the very one her honour Mrs. Yeates +would fancy! She'd always like to see the blood running fresh!" +</p> + +<p> +This flight of sympathetic insight did not deter me from refusing the +injured pollock, coupled with a regret that Mrs. Brickley's cat should +have been interrupted in its meal. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Brickley did not immediately reply. She peeped down the area, she +glanced into the hall. +</p> + +<p> +"Cat is it!" she said, sinking her voice to a mysterious whisper. +"Your Honour knows well, God bless you, that it was no cat done that!" +</p> + +<p> +Obedient to the wholly fallacious axiom that those who ask no questions +will be told no lies, I remained silent. +</p> + +<p> +"Only for the luck of God being on me they'd have left meself no +betther than they left the fish!" continued Mrs. Brickley. "Your +Honour didn't hear what work was in it on Hare Island Strand last +night? Thim Keohanes had the wooden leg pulled from undher me husband +with the len'th o' fightin'! Oh! Thim's outlawed altogether, and the +faymales is as manly as the men! Sure the polis theirselves does be in +dhread of thim women! The day-and-night-screeching porpoises!" +</p> + +<p> +Seven years of Resident Magistracy had bestowed upon me some +superficial knowledge of whither all this tended. I rose from the +steps, with the stereotyped statement that if there was to be a case in +court I could not listen to it beforehand. I then closed the hall +door, not, however, before Mrs. Brickley had assured me that I was the +only gentleman, next to the Lord Almighty, in whom she had any +confidence. +</p> + +<p> +The next incident in the affair occurred at about a quarter to eight +that evening. I was tying my tie when my wife's voice summoned me to +her room in tones that presaged disaster. Philippa was standing erect, +in a white and glittering garment. Her eyes shone, her cheeks glowed. +It is not given to every one to look their best when they are angry, +but it undoubtedly is becoming to Philippa. +</p> + +<p> +"I ask you to look at my dress," she said in a level voice. +</p> + +<p> +"It looks very nice——" I said cautiously, knowing there was a trap +somewhere. "I know it, don't I?" +</p> + +<p> +"Know it!" replied Philippa witheringly, "did you know that it had only +one sleeve?" +</p> + +<p> +She extended her arms; from one depended vague and transparent films of +whiteness, the other was bare to the shoulder. I rather preferred it +of the two. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I can't say I did," I said helplessly, "is that a new fashion?" +</p> + +<p> +There was a spectral knock at the door, and Hannah, the housemaid, slid +into the room, purple of face, abject of mien. +</p> + +<p> +"It's what they're afther tellin' me, ma'am," she panted. "'Twas took +to sthrain the soup!" +</p> + +<p> +"They took my sleeve to strain the soup!" repeated Philippa, in a +crystal clarity of wrath. +</p> + +<p> +"She said she got it in the press in the passage, ma'am, and she +thought you were afther throwin' it," murmured Hannah, with a glance +that implored my support. +</p> + +<p> +"Who are you speaking of?" demanded Philippa, looking quite six feet +high. +</p> + +<p> +The situation, already sufficiently acute, was here intensified by the +massive entry of Mrs. Cadogan, bearing in her hand a plate, on which +was a mound of soaked brownish rag. She was blowing hard, the glare of +the kitchen range at highest power lived in her face. +</p> + +<p> +"There's your sleeve, ma'am!" she said, "and if I could fall down dead +this minute it'd be no more than a relief to me! And as for Bridgie +Brickley!" continued Mrs. Cadogan, catching her wind with a gasp, "I +thravelled many genthry's kitchens, but thanks be to God, I never seen +the like of her! Five weeks to-morrow she's in this house, and there +isn't a day but I gave her a laceratin'! Sure the hair's droppin' out +o' me head, and the skin rollin' off the soles o' me feet with the +heart scald I get with her! The big, low, dirty buccaneer! And I +declare to you, ma'am, and to the Major, that I have a pain switching +out through me hips this minute that'd bring down a horse!" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh God!" said Hannah, clapping her hand over her mouth. +</p> + +<p> +My eye met Philippa's; some tremor of my inward agony declared itself, +and found its fellow on her quivering lips. In the same instant, +wheels rumbled in the avenue. +</p> + +<p> +"Here are the Knoxes!" I exclaimed, escaping headlong from the room +with my dignity as master of the house still intact. +</p> + +<p> +Dinner, though somewhat delayed by these agitations, passed off +reasonably well. Its occasion was the return from the South African +war of my landlord and neighbour, Mr. Florence McCarthy Knox, M.F.H., +J.P., who had been serving his country in the Yeomanry for the past +twelve months. The soup gave no hint of its cannibalistic origin, and +was of a transparency that did infinite credit to the services of +Philippa's sleeve; the pollock, chastely robed in white sauce, held no +suggestion of a stormy past, nor, it need scarcely be said, did they +foreshadow their influence on my future. As they made their circuit of +the table I aimed a communing glance at my wife, who, serene in pale +pink and conversation with Mr. Knox, remained unresponsive. +</p> + +<p> +How the volcano that I knew to be raging below in the kitchen could +have brought forth anything more edible than molten paving stones I was +at a loss to imagine. Had Mrs. Cadogan sent up Bridget Brickley's head +as an <i>entremet</i> it would not, indeed, have surprised me. I could not +know that as the gong sounded for dinner Miss Brickley had retired to +her bed in strong hysterics, announcing that she was paralysed, while +Mrs. Cadogan, rapt by passion to an ecstasy of achievement, coped +single-handed with the emergency. +</p> + +<p> +At breakfast time next morning Philippa and I were informed that the +invalid had at an early hour removed herself and her wardrobe from the +house, requisitioning for the purpose my donkey-cart and the attendance +of my groom, Peter Cadogan; a proceeding on which the comments of +Peter's aunt, Mrs. Cadogan, left nothing to be desired. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> +<a name="img-148"></a> +<img src="images/img-148.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +<p class="caption">THE INVALID REMOVED HERSELF</p> +</div> + +<p> +The affair on the strand at Hare Island ripened, with infinite +complexity of summonses and cross-summonses, into an imposing Petty +Sessions case. Two separate deputations presented themselves at +Shreelane, equipped with black eyes and other conventional injuries, +one of them armed with a creelful of live lobsters to underline the +argument. To decline the bribe was of no avail: the deputation +decanted them upon the floor of the hall and retired, and the lobsters +spread themselves at large over the house, and to this hour remain the +nightmare of the nursery. +</p> + +<p> +The next Petty Sessions day was wet; the tall windows of the Court +House were grey and streaming, and the reek of wet humanity ascended to +the ceiling. As I took my seat on the bench I perceived with an inward +groan that the services of the two most eloquent solicitors in Skebawn +had been engaged. This meant that Justice would not have run its +course till heaven knew what dim hour of the afternoon, and that that +course would be devious and difficult. +</p> + +<p> +All the pews and galleries (any Irish courthouse might, with the +addition of a harmonium, pass presentably as a dissenting chapel) were +full, and a line of flat-capped policemen stood like church-wardens +near the door. Under the galleries, behind what might have answered to +choir-stalls, the witnesses and their friends hid in darkness, which +could, however, but partially conceal two resplendent young ladies, +barmaids, who were to appear in a subsequent Sunday drinking case. I +was a little late, and when I arrived Flurry Knox, supported by a +couple of other magistrates, was in the chair, imperturbable of +countenance as was his wont, his fair and delusive youthfulness of +aspect unimpaired by his varied experiences during the war, his roving, +subtle eye untamed by four years of matrimony. +</p> + +<p> +A woman was being examined, a square and ugly country-woman, with wispy +fair hair, a slow, dignified manner, and a slight and impressive +stammer. I recognised her as one of the bodyguard of the lobsters. +Mr. Mooney, solicitor for the Brickleys, widely known and respected as +"Roaring Jack," was in possession of that much-enduring organ, the ear +of the Court. +</p> + +<p> +"Now, Kate Keohane!" he thundered, "tell me what time it was when all +this was going on?" +</p> + +<p> +"About duskish, sir. Con Brickley was slashing the f-fish at me mother +the same time. He never said a word but to take the shtick and fire me +dead with it on the sthrand. He gave me plenty of blood to dhrink +too," said the witness with acid decorum. She paused to permit this +agreeable fact to sink in, and added, "his wife wanted to f-fashten on +me the same time, an' she havin' the steer of the boat to sthrike me." +</p> + +<p> +These were not precisely the facts that Mr. Murphy, as solicitor for +the defence, wished to elicit. +</p> + +<p> +"Would you kindly explain what you mean by the steer of the boat?" he +demanded, sparring for wind in as intimidating a manner as possible. +The witness stared at him. +</p> + +<p> +"Sure 'tis the shtick, like, that they pulls here and there to go in +their choice place." +</p> + +<p> +"We may presume that the lady is referring to the tiller," said Mr. +Mooney, with a facetious eye at the Bench. "Maybe now, ma'am, you can +explain to us what sort of a boat is she?" +</p> + +<p> +"She's that owld that if it wasn't for the weeds that's holding her +together she'd bursht up in the deep." +</p> + +<p> +"And who owns this valuable property?" pursued Mr. Mooney. +</p> + +<p> +"She's between Con Brickley and me brother, an' the saine is between +four, an' whatever crew does be in it should get their share, and the +boat has a man's share." +</p> + +<p> +I made no attempt to comprehend this, relying with well-founded +confidence on Flurry Knox's grasp of such enigmas. +</p> + +<p> +"Was Con Brickley fishing the same day?" +</p> + +<p> +"He was not, sir. He was at Lisheen Fair; for as clever as he is, he +couldn't kill two birds under one slat!" +</p> + +<p> +Kate Keohane's voice moved unhurried from sentence to sentence and her +slow pale eyes turned for an instant to the lair of the witnesses under +the gallery. +</p> + +<p> +"And you're asking the Bench to believe that this decent man left his +business in Lisheen in order to slash fish at your mother?" said Mr. +Mooney truculently. +</p> + +<p> +"B'lieve me, sorra much business he laves afther him wherever he'll +go!" returned the witness, "himself and his wife had business enough on +the sthrand when the fish was dividing, and it's then themselves put +every name on me." +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, what harm are names!" said Mr. Mooney, dallying elegantly with a +massive watch-chain. "Come now, ma'am! will you swear you got any +ill-usage from Con Brickley or his wife?" He leaned over the front of +his pew, and waited for the answer with his massive red head on one +side. +</p> + +<p> +"I was givin' blood like a c-cow that ye'd shtab with a knife!" said +Kate Keohane, with unshaken dignity. "If it was yourself that was in +it ye'd feel the smart as well as me. My hand and word on it, ye +would! The marks is on me head still, like the prints of dog-bites!" +</p> + +<p> +She lifted a lock of hair from her forehead, and exhibited a +sufficiently repellant injury. Flurry Knox leaned forward. +</p> + +<p> +"Are you sure you haven't that since the time there was that business +between yourself and the postmistress at Munig? I'm told you had the +name of the office on your forehead where she struck you with the +office stamp! Try now, sergeant, can you read Munig on her forehead?" +</p> + +<p> +The Court, not excepting its line of church-wardens, dissolved into +laughter; Kate Keohane preserved an offended silence. +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose you want us to believe," resumed Mr. Mooney sarcastically, +"that a fine hearty woman like you wasn't defending yourself!" Then +with a turkey-cock burst of fury, "On your oath now! What did you +strike Honora Brickley with? Answer me that now! What had you in your +hand?" +</p> + +<p> +"I had nothing only the little rod I had afther the ass," answered Miss +Keohane, with childlike candour. "I done nothing to them; but as for +Con Brickley he put his back to the cliff and he took the flannel wrop +that he had on him, and he threwn it on the sthrand, and he said he +should have Blood, Murdher, or F-Fish!" +</p> + +<p> +She folded her shawl across her breast, a picture of virtue assailed, +yet unassailable. +</p> + +<p> +"You may go down now," said "Roaring Jack" rather hastily, "I want to +have a few words with your brother." +</p> + +<p> +Miss Keohane retired, without having moulted a feather of her dignity, +and her brother Jer came heavily up the steps and on to the platform, +his hot, wary, blue eyes gathering in the Bench and the attorneys in +one bold comprehensive glance. He was a tall, dark man of about five +and forty, clean-shaved, save for two clerical inches of black +whiskers, and in feature of the type of a London clergyman who would +probably preach on Browning. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, sir!" began Mr. Mooney stimulatingly, "and are you the biggest +blackguard from here to America?" +</p> + +<p> +"I am not," said Jer Keohane tranquilly. +</p> + +<p> +"We had you here before us not so very long ago about kicking a goat, +wasn't it? You got a little touch of a pound, I think?" +</p> + +<p> +This delicate allusion to a fine that the Bench had thought fit to +impose did not distress the witness. +</p> + +<p> +"I did, sir." +</p> + +<p> +"And how's our friend the goat?" went on Mr. Mooney, with the furious +facetiousness reserved for hustling tough witnesses. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I suppose she's something west of the Skelligs by now," replied +Jer Keohane with great composure. +</p> + +<p> +An appreciative grin ran round the court. The fact that the goat had +died of the kick and been "given the cliff" being regarded as an +excellent jest. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mooney consulted his notes: +</p> + +<p> +"Well, now, about this fight," he said pleasantly, "did you see your +sister catch Mrs. Brickley and pull her hair down to the ground and +drag the shawl off of her?" +</p> + +<p> +"Well," said the witness airily, "they had a little bit of a scratch on +account o' the fish. Con Brickley had the shteer o' the boat in his +hand and says he, 'is there any man here that'll take the shteer from +me?' The man was dhrunk, of course," added Jer charitably. +</p> + +<p> +"Did you have any talk with his wife about the fish?" +</p> + +<p> +"I couldn't tell the words that she said to me!" replied the witness, +with a reverential glance at the Bench, "and she over-right three +crowds o' men that was on the sthrand." +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mooney put his hands in his pockets and surveyed the witness. +</p> + +<p> +"You're a very refined gentleman upon my word! Were you ever in +England?" +</p> + +<p> +"I was part of three years." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, that accounts for it, I suppose!" said Mr. Mooney, accepting this +lucid statement without a stagger, and passing lightly on. "You're a +widower, I understand, with no objection to consoling yourself?" +</p> + +<p> +No answer. +</p> + +<p> +"Now, sir! Can you deny that you made proposals of marriage to Con +Brickley's daughter last Shraft?" +</p> + +<p> +The plot thickened. Con Brickley's daughter was my late kitchenmaid. +</p> + +<p> +Jer Keohane smiled tolerantly. +</p> + +<p> +"Ah! That was a thing o' nothing!" +</p> + +<p> +"Nothing!" said Mr. Mooney, with the roar of a tornado, "do you call an +impudent proposal of marriage to a respectable man's daughter nothing! +That's English manners, I suppose!" +</p> + +<p> +"I was goin' home one Sunday," said Jer Keohane, conversationally to +the Bench, "and I met the gerr'l and her mother. I spoke to the gerr'l +in a friendly way, and asked her why wasn't she gettin' marrid, and she +commenced to peg stones at me and dhrew several blows of an umbrella on +me. I had only three bottles o' porther taken. There now was the +whole of it." +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Brickley, from under the gallery, groaned heavily and ironically. +</p> + +<p> +I found it difficult to connect these coquetries with my impressions of +my late kitchenmaid, a furtive and touzled being, who, in conjunction +with a pail and scrubbing brush, had been wont to melt round corners +and into doorways at my approach. +</p> + +<p> +"Are we trying a breach of promise case?" interpolated Flurry, "if so, +we ought to have the plaintiff in." +</p> + +<p> +"My purpose, sir," said Mr. Mooney, in a manner discouraging to levity, +"is to show that my clients have received annoyance and contempt from +this man and his sister such as no parents would submit to." +</p> + +<p> +A hand came forth from under the gallery and plucked at Mr. Mooney's +coat. A red monkey face appeared out of the darkness, and there was a +hoarse whisper whose purport I could not gather. Con Brickley, the +defendant, was giving instructions to his lawyer. +</p> + +<p> +It was perhaps as a result of these that Jer Keohane's evidence closed +here. There was a brief interval, enlivened by coughs, grinding of +heavy boots on the floor, and some mumbling and groaning under the +gallery. +</p> + +<p> +"There's great duck-shooting out on a lake on this island," commented +Flurry to me, in a whisper. "My grand-uncle went there one time with +an old duck-gun he had, that he fired with a fuse. He was three hours +stalking the ducks before he got the gun laid. He lit the fuse then, +and it set to work sputtering and hissing like a goods-engine till +there wasn't a duck within ten miles. The gun went off then." +</p> + +<p> +This useful side light on the matter in hand was interrupted by the +cumbrous ascent of the one-legged Con Brickley to the witness-table. +He sat down heavily, with his slouch hat on his sound knee, and his +wooden stump stuck out before him. His large monkey-face was immovably +serious; his eye was small, light grey, and very quick. +</p> + +<p> +McCaffery, the opposition attorney, a thin, restless youth, with ears +like the handles of an urn, took him in hand. To the pelting +cross-examination that beset him Con Brickley replied with sombre +deliberation, and with a manner of uninterested honesty, emphasising +what he said with slight, very effective gestures of his big, supple +hands. His voice was deep and pleasant; it betrayed no hint of so +trivial a thing as satisfaction when, in the teeth of Mr. McCaffery's +leading questions, he established the fact that the "little rod" with +which Miss Kate Keohane had beaten his wife was the handle of a +pitchfork. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> +<a name="img-158"></a> +<img src="images/img-158.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +<p class="caption">CON BRICKLEY</p> +</div> + +<p> +"I was counting the fish the same time," went on Con Brickley, in his +rolling basso profundissimo, "and she said, 'Let the divil clear me out +of the sthrand, for there's no one else will put me out!' says she." +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> +<a name="img-160"></a> +<img src="images/img-160.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +<p class="caption">"LET THE DIVIL CLEAR ME OUT OF THE STHRAND!"</p> +</div> + +<p> +"It was then she got the blow, I suppose!" said McCaffery venomously; +"you had a stick yourself, I daresay?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes. I had a stick. I must have a stick," deep and mellow pathos was +hinted at in the voice; "I am sorry to say. What could I do to her? A +man with a wooden leg on a sthrand could do nothing!" +</p> + +<p> +Something like a laugh ran round the back of the court. Mr. +McCaffery's ears turned scarlet and became quite decorative. On or off +a strand Con Brickley was not a person to be scored off easily. +</p> + +<p> +His clumsy yet impressive descent from the witness-stand followed +almost immediately, and was not the least telling feature of his +evidence. Mr. Mooney surveyed his exit with the admiration of one +artist for another, and rising, asked the Bench's permission to call +Mrs. Brickley. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Brickley, as she mounted to the platform, in the dark and nun-like +severity of her long cloak, the stately blue cloth cloak that is the +privilege of the Munster peasant woman, was an example of the rarely +blended qualities of picturesqueness and respectability. As she took +her seat in the chair, she flung the deep hood back on to her +shoulders, and met the gaze of the Court with her grey head erect; she +was a witness to be proud of. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> +<a name="img-161"></a> +<img src="images/img-161.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +<p class="caption">A WITNESS TO BE PROUD OF</p> +</div> + +<p> +"Now Mrs. Brickley," said "Roaring Jack" urbanely, "will you describe +this interview between your daughter and Keohane." +</p> + +<p> +"It was the last Sunday in Shrove, your Worship, Mr. Flurry Knox, and +gentlemen," began Mrs. Brickley nimbly, "meself and me little gerr'l +was comin' from mass, and Jer Keohane come up to us and got on in a +most unmannerable way. He asked me daughter would she marry him. Me +daughter told him she would not, quite friendly like. I'll tell ye no +lie, gentlemen, she was teasing him with the umbrella the same time, +an' he raised his shtick and dhrew a sthroke on her in the back, an' +the little gerr'l took up a small pebble of a stone and fired it at +him. She put the umbrella up to his mouth, but she called him no +names. But as for him, the names he put on her was to call her 'a +nasty long slopeen of a proud thing, and a slopeen of a proud tinker.'" +</p> + +<p> +"Very lover-like expressions!" commented Mr. Mooney, doubtless +stimulated by lady-like titters from the barmaids; "and had this +romantic gentleman made any previous proposals for your daughter?" +</p> + +<p> +"Himself had two friends over from across the water one night to make +the match, a Sathurday it was, and they should land the lee side o' the +island, for the wind was a fright," replied Mrs. Brickley, launching +her tale with the power of easy narration that is bestowed with such +amazing liberality on her class; "the three o' them had dhrink taken, +an' I went to shlap out the door agin them. Me husband said then we +should let them in, if it was a Turk itself, with the rain that was in +it. They were talking in it then till near the dawning, and in the +latther end all that was between them was the boat's share." +</p> + +<p> +"What do you mean by 'the boat's share'?" said I. +</p> + +<p> +"'Tis the same as a man's share, me worshipful gintleman," returned +Mrs. Brickley splendidly; "it goes with the boat always, afther the +crew and the saine has their share got." +</p> + +<p> +I possibly looked as enlightened as I felt by this exposition. +</p> + +<p> +"You mean that Jer wouldn't have her unless he got the boat's share +with her?" suggested Flurry. +</p> + +<p> +"He said it over-right all that was in the house, and he reddening his +pipe at the fire," replied Mrs. Brickley, in full-sailed response to +the helm. "'D'ye think,' says I to him, 'that me daughter would leave +a lovely situation, with a kind and tendher masther, for a mean, hungry +blagyard like yerself,' says I, 'that's livin' always in this backwards +place!' says I." +</p> + +<p> +This touching expression of preference for myself, as opposed to Mr. +Keohane, was received with expressionless respect by the Court. +Flurry, with an impassive countenance, kicked me heavily under cover of +the desk. I said that we had better get on to the assault on the +strand. Nothing could have been more to Mrs. Brickley's taste. We +were minutely instructed as to how Katie Keohane drew the shawleen +forward on Mrs. Brickley's head to stifle her; and how Norrie Keohane +was fast in her hair. Of how Mrs. Brickley had then given a stroke +upwards between herself and her face (whatever that might mean) and +loosed Norrie from her hair. Of how she then sat down and commenced to +cry from the use they had for her. +</p> + +<p> +"'Twas all I done," she concluded, looking like a sacred picture, "I +gave a sthroke of a pollock on them." Then, an after-thought, "an' if +I did, 'twas myself was at the loss of the same pollock!" +</p> + +<p> +I fixed my eyes immovably on my desk. I knew that the slightest +symptom of intelligence on my part would instantly draw forth the +episode of the fish-buying on the morning of the dinner party, with the +rape of Philippa's sleeve, and the unjust aspersion on Miss Brickley +following in due sequence, ending with the paralytic seizure and +dignified departure of the latter to her parents' residence in Hare +Island. The critical moment was averted by a question from Mr. Mooney. +</p> + +<p> +"As for language," replied Mrs. Brickley, with clear eyes a little +uplifted in the direction of the ceiling, "there was no name from +heaven and hell but she had it on me, and wishin' the divil might burn +the two heels off me, and the like o' me wasn't in sivin parishes! And +that was the clane part of the discoorse, yer Worships!" +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Brickley here drew her cloak more closely about her, as though to +enshroud herself in her own refinement, and presented to the Bench a +silence as elaborate as a drop scene. It implied, amongst other +things, a generous confidence in the imaginative powers of her audience. +</p> + +<p> +Whether or no this was misplaced, Mrs. Brickley was not invited further +to enlighten the Court. After her departure the case droned on in +inexhaustible rancour, and trackless complications as to the shares of +the fish. Its ethics and its arithmetic would have defied the allied +intellects of Solomon and Bishop Colenso. It was somewhere in that +dead hour of the afternoon, when it is too late for lunch and too early +for tea, that the Bench, wan with hunger, wound up the affair by +impartially binding both parties in sheaves "to the Peace." +</p> + +<p> +As a sub-issue I arranged with Mr. Knox to shoot duck on the one-legged +man's land on Hare Island as soon as should be convenient, and lightly +dismissed from my mind my dealings, official and otherwise, with the +House of Brickley. +</p> + +<p> +But even as there are people who never give away old clothes, so are +there people, of whom is Flurry Knox, who never dismiss anything from +their minds. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a> +VII<br/> +THE LAST DAY OF SHRAFT</h2> + +<p> +It was not many days after the Keohane and Brickley trial that my +wife's elderly step-brother, Maxwell Bruce, wrote to us to say that he +was engaged in a tour through the Irish-speaking counties, and would +look us up on his way from Kerry. The letter began "<i>O Bean uasal</i>," +and broke into eruptions of Erse at various points, but the excerpts +from Bradshaw were, fortunately, in the vernacular. +</p> + +<p> +Philippa assured me she could read it all. During the previous winter +she had had five lessons and a half in the Irish language from the +National Schoolmaster, and believed herself to be one of the props of +the Celtic movement. My own attitude with regard to the Celtic +movement was sympathetic, but a brief inspection of the grammar +convinced me that my sympathies would not survive the strain of +tripthongs, eclipsed consonants, and synthetic verbs, and that I should +do well to refrain from embittering my declining years by an impotent +and humiliating pursuit of the most elusive of pronunciations. +Philippa had attained to the height of being able to greet the +schoolmaster in Irish, and, if the day happened to be fine, she was +capable of stating the fact; other aspects of the weather, however +remarkable, she epitomised in a brilliant smile, and the schoolmaster +was generally considerate enough not to press the matter. +</p> + +<p> +My step-brother-in-law neither hunted, shot, nor fished, yet as a guest +he never gave me a moment's anxiety. He possessed the attribute, +priceless in guests, a good portable hobby, involving no machinery, +accessories, or paraphernalia of any kind. It did not even involve the +personal attendance of his host. His mornings were spent in proffering +Irish phrases to bewildered beggars at the hall door, or to the +respectfully bored Peter Cadogan in the harness-room. He held +<i>conversaziones</i> in the servants' hall after dinner, while I slept +balmily in front of the drawing-room fire. When not thus engaged, he +sat in his room making notes, and writing letters to the Archimandrites +of his faith. Truly an ideal visitor, one to whom neglect was a +kindness, and entertainments an abomination; certainly not a person to +take to Hare Island to shoot ducks with Flurry Knox. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> +<a name="img-169"></a> +<img src="images/img-169.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +<p class="caption">HIS MORNINGS WERE SPENT IN PROFFERING IRISH PHRASES</p> +</div> + +<p> +But it was otherwise ordained by Philippa. Hare Island was, she said, +and the schoolmaster said, a place where the Irish language was still +spoken with a purity worthy of the Isles of Aran. Its folk-lore was an +unworked mine, and it was moreover the home of one Shemus Ruadth, a +singer and poet (and, I may add, a smuggler of tobacco) of high local +renown: Maxwell should on no account miss such a chance. I mentioned +that Hare Island was at present going through the measles phase of its +usual rotation of epidemics. My wife wavered, in a manner that showed +me that I had been on the verge of a family picnic, and I said I had +heard that there was whooping-cough there too. The children had had +neither. The picnic expired without a sound, but my +step-brother-in-law had made up his mind. +</p> + +<p> +It was a grey and bitter February morning when Maxwell and I, +accompanied by Peter Cadogan, stood waiting on the beach at Yokahn for +Flurry to arrive. Maria, as was her wont, was nosing my gun as if she +expected to see a woodcock fly out of it; that Minx was beside her was +due to the peculiar inveteracy of Minx. How she had achieved it is of +no consequence; the distressing fact remained that she was there, +seated, shuddering, upon a space of wet stone no larger than a +sixpence, and had to be accepted as one of the party. It struck me +that Mr. Cadogan had rather overdressed the part of dog-boy and +bag-bearer, being attired in a striped blue flannel suit that had once +been mine, a gaudy new cap, and yellow boots. The social possibilities +of Hare Island had faded from my mind; I merely experienced the usual +humiliation of perceiving how discarded garments can, in a lower +sphere, renew their youth and blossom as the rose. I was even +formulating a system of putting my old clothes out at grass, as it +were, with Peter Cadogan, when a messenger arrived with a note from +Flurry Knox in which he informed me, with many regrets, that he was +kept at home on unexpected business, but he had arranged that we should +find a boat ready to take us to the island, and Con Brickley would look +after us when we got there. The boat was even now nearing the beach, +rowed by two men, who, in beautiful accord with our "binding to the +Peace," proved to be the Widower, Jer Keohane, and his late antagonist, +the one-legged Con Brickley. In view of this millennial state of +affairs it seemed alarmingly probable that the boat which had come for +us was that on which, as on a pivot, the late battle had turned. A +witness had said, on oath, that "if it wasn't for the weeds that's +holding her together she'd bursht up in the deep." I inspected her +narrowly, and was relieved to see that the weeds still held their +ground. +</p> + +<p> +A mile of slatey water tumbled between us and the island, and an undue +proportion of it, highly flavoured by fish, flowed in uneasy tides in +the bottom of the boat, with a final disposition towards the well-laden +stern. There were no bottom boards, and, judging by the depth of the +flood over the keel, her draught appeared to be equal to that of a +racing yacht. We sat precariously upon strips of nine-inch plank, our +feet propped against the tarred sides just out of the wash; the boat +climbed and wallowed with a three-cornered roll, the dogs panted in +mingled nausea and agitation, and the narrow blades of the oars dipped +their frayed edges in the waves in short and untiring jerks. +</p> + +<p> +My brother-in-law, with a countenance leaden magenta from cold, +struggled with the whirling leaves of a phrase book. He was tall and +thin, of the famished vegetarian type of looks, with unpractical, +prominent eyes, and a complexion that on the hottest day in summer +imparted a chill to the beholder; in this raw November wind it was a +positive suffering even to think of his nose, and my eyes rested, in +unconscious craving for warmth, upon the changeless, impartial red of +Con Brickley's monkey face. +</p> + +<p> +We landed with a rush on the steep shingle of a sheltered cove. The +island boasted a pier, built with "Relief" money, but it was two miles +from the lake where I was to shoot, and this small triangle of beach, +tucked away in a notch of the cliff, was within ten minutes' walk of +it. At the innermost angle of the cove, where the notch ended in a +tortuous fissure, there was a path that zigzagged to the top of the +cliff, a remarkably excellent path, and a well-worn one, with steps +here and there. I commented on it to Mr. Brickley. +</p> + +<p> +"Why, thin, it was in this same place that I losht the owld leg, sir," +he replied in his sombre voice. "I took a shlip on a dark night and me +landlord was that much sorry for me that he made a good pat' in it." +He was pitching himself up the steps on his crutches as he spoke, an +object of compassion of the most obvious and silencing sort. Why, +then, should Peter Cadogan smile furtively at the Widower? +</p> + +<p> +At the top of the fissure, where it melted into a hollow between low, +grassy hills, stood the Brickleys' cottage, long, low, and whitewashed, +deep in shelter, with big stones, hung in halters of hay-rope, lying on +its thatch, to keep the roof on in the Atlantic gales. A thick fuchsia +hedge surrounded it; from its open door proceeded sounds of furious +altercation; apparently a man and woman hurling invective and +personalities at each other in Irish, at the tops of their voices. Con +Brickley sprang forward on his crutch, a girl at the door vanished into +the house, and a sudden silence fell. With scarcely a perceptible +interval, Mrs. Brickley appeared in the doorway, a red shawl tied over +her rippling grey hair, her manner an inimitable blend of deference and +hospitality. +</p> + +<p> +"Your Honour's welcome, Major Yeates," she said with a curtsey. A door +banged at the back of the cottage. "That was a poor man from across +the water that came apologisin' to me for dhrawin' me name down in a +little disagreement that he had about a settin' o' goose eggs." +</p> + +<p> +I suppose that it was contrition that caused the apologist to stumble +heavily as he came round the corner of the house, and departed at a +tangent through an opening in the fuchsia hedge. Feeling that comment +on the incident was too delicate a matter for my capacities, I +introduced Maxwell and his aspirations to the lady of the house. Any +qualms that I might have had as to how to dispose of him while I was +shooting were set at rest by Mrs. Brickley's instant grasp of the +situation. I regret to say that I can neither transcribe nor translate +the rolling periods in which my brother-in-law addressed himself to +her. I have reason to believe that he apostrophised her as "O worthy +woman of cows!" invoking upon her and her household a comprehensive and +classic blessing, dating from the time of Cuchulain. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Brickley received it without a perceptible stagger, and in the +course of the next few minutes, Miss Bridget Brickley (who, it may be +remembered, had but recently renounced the office of kitchenmaid in my +house) emerged, beautifully dressed, from the cottage, and was +despatched, at full speed, to summon Shemus Ruadth, the poet, as well +as one or two of "the neighbours" reputed to speak Irish of the purest +kind. If to make a guest feel himself to be the one person in the +world whose welfare is of any importance is the aim of hostesses, they +can study the art in its perfection under the smoky rafters of Irish +cabins. If it is insincere, it is equally to be respected; it is often +amiable to be insincere. +</p> + +<p> +My own share of the day's enjoyment opened plausibly enough, though +not, possibly, as cloudlessly as Maxwell's. Attended by Maria, Peter +Cadogan, and the Widower, and by a smell of whisky that floated to me +on the chill breeze when the Widower was to windward, I set forth, +having—as I fatuously imagined—disposed of Minx and of her intention +to join the shooting-party, by tying a stout piece of cord to her +collar, and placing its other end in my brother-in-law's hand. I had, +by Flurry's advice, postponed the shooting of the lake till the last +thing before leaving the island, and turning my back upon it, I tramped +inland along half-thawed marshes in search of snipe, and crept behind +walls after plover, whose elusive whistling was always two fields +ahead. After an unfruitful hour or so the entertainment began to drag, +and another plan of campaign seemed advisable: I made a cache of my +retinue behind a rock, one of the many rocks that stood like fossilised +mammoths upon the ragged hill slopes, and, with Maria at my heels, +accomplished a long and laborious detour. At length, through the +crannies of a wall, I perceived just within shot a stand of plover, +hopping, gobbling, squealing, quite unaware of my proximity. I +cautiously laid my gun on the top of the wall. As I cocked it, a white +form appeared on a fence behind the birds, poised itself for an instant +with elf-like ears spread wide, then, volleying barks, the intolerable +Minx burst like a firework into the heart of the plover. In lightning +response to her comrade's tally-ho Maria rocketted over the wall; the +plover rose as one man, and, as I missed with both barrels, swirled out +of range and sight. By way, I suppose, of rounding off the jest +effectively, Maria rushed in scientific zigzags through the field, in +search of the bird that she well knew I had not shot, deaf as the dead +to words of command, while Minx, stark mad with excitement, circled and +shrieked round Maria. To take off Maria's collar and thrash her +heavily with the buckle end of it was futile, except as a personal +gratification, but I did it. To thrash Minx was not only absurd but +impossible; one might as well have tried to thrash a grasshopper. +</p> + +<p> +I whistled for Peter and the Widower without avail, and finally, in +just indignation, went back to look for them. They were gone. Not a +soul was in sight. I concluded that they had gone on towards the lake, +and having sacrificed a sandwich to the capture of Minx I coupled her +to Maria by means of the cord that still trailed from her collar, and +again set forth. The island was a large one, three or four miles long +by nearly as many wide; I had opened my campaign along its western +shores, where heather struggled with bog, and stones, big and little, +bestrewed any patch sound enough to carry them. Here and there were +places where turf had been cut for fuel, leaving a drop like a sunk +fence with black water at its foot, a matter requiring a hearty jump on +to what might or might not be sound landing. When two maniacs are +unequally yoked together by their necks, heartiness and activity are of +less importance than unanimity, and it was in unanimity that Maria and +Minx chiefly failed. At such moments, profoundly as I detested Minx, +my sympathies reluctantly were hers. Conscious, as are all little +dogs, of her superior astuteness, she yet had to submit to Maria's +choice of pace, to Maria's professional quarterings and questings of +obviously barren tracts of bogland. In bursts of squealing fury she +hung from Maria's ear, she tore mouthfuls of brown wool from her neck, +she jibbed with all her claws stuck into the ground; none the less she +was swept across the ditches, and lugged over the walls, in seeming +oneness of purpose, in total and preposterous absurdity. At one +juncture a snipe, who must, I think, have been deaf, remained long +enough within their sphere of action for me to shoot him. The couple, +unanimous for once, charged down upon the remains; the corpse was +secured by Maria, but was torn piecemeal from her jaws by Minx. They +then galloped emulously back to me for applause, still bitterly +contesting every inch of the snipe, and, having grudgingly relinquished +the fragments, waited wild-eyed and panting, with tongues hanging like +aprons to their knees. +</p> + +<p> +It was towards the close of the incident that I was aware of a sibilant +whispering near me, and found that I was being observed from the rear +with almost passionate interest, by two little girls and a pair of +goats. I addressed the party with an enquiry as to whether they had +seen Jer Keohane. +</p> + +<p> +The biggest little girl said that she had not seen him, but, in a <i>non +sequitur</i> full of intelligence, added that she had seen Peter Cadogan a +while ago, sitting down under a wall, himself and Pidge. +</p> + +<p> +"What's Pidge?" said I cautiously. "Is it a dog?" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh Christians!" said the smaller child, swiftly covering her mouth +with her pinafore. +</p> + +<p> +The elder, with an untrammelled grin, explained that "Pidge" was the +name by which my late kitchenmaid was known in the home circle. +</p> + +<p> +I postponed comment till Peter should be delivered into my hand, then, +rightly concluding that the tendance of Hare Island goats would ensure +the qualities necessary for dealing with even Maria and Minx, I engaged +the pair as dog-boys. +</p> + +<p> +My progress from this point to the lake might have been taken from the +Old Testament, or the Swiss Family Robinson. In front of me paced the +goats, who had sociably declined to be left out of the expedition; +behind me strove the dogs, with the wiry and scarlet fingers of their +attendants knotted in Mrs. Brickley's invaluable piece of string. It +proved to be a thoroughly successful working arrangement; I even shot a +plover, which was retrieved <i>en masse</i> by all except the goats. +</p> + +<p> +In complete amity we reached the lake, a reedy strip of water that +twisted in and out between low hills, its indeterminate shores cloaked +with reeds. It was now past three o'clock, and the cold grey afternoon +was already heaping into the west the pile of dark clouds that was to +be its equivalent for sunset. I crept warily forward round the flank +of the nearest hill, leaving the dogs and their keepers in death +grapple, and the goats snatching mouthfuls of grass beside them, in the +petulant, fractious manner of goats, that so ill assorts with their +Presbyterian grey beards. +</p> + +<p> +The frost had been preceded by a flood, and the swamp bordering the +lake was very bad going; the tussocks were rotten, the holes were +delusively covered with lids of white ice, and to traverse these in the +attitude of a man with acute lumbago was no light matter. But the +ducks were there. I could hear them quacking and splashing beyond the +screen of reeds, and, straightening my back for an observation, caught +sight of four or five swimming in a line, well within range. There was +not an instant to lose; balancing precariously on a tussock, I flung up +my gun and fired. Terrific quacking followed, interspersed by distant +and heartrending yells from the dogs, but the inexplicable feature of +the case was that the ducks did not rise from the water. Had I slain +the whole crowd? There was a sound as if the marsh behind me was being +slashed with a flail; a brown body whizzed past me, closely followed by +a white one. "From his mountain home King James had rushing come," in +other words, my retrievers had hurled themselves upon their prey. +</p> + +<p> +Maria's performance was faultless; in half a minute she had laid a bird +at my feet, a very large pale drake, quite unlike any wild drake that I +had ever—— +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> +<a name="img-180"></a> +<img src="images/img-180.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +<p class="caption">MARIA'S PERFORMANCE WAS FAULTLESS</p> +</div> + +<p> +Out of the silence that followed came a thin, shrill voice from the +hill: +</p> + +<p> +"Thim's Mrs. Brickley's ducks!" +</p> + +<p> +In horrid confirmation of this appalling statement I perceived the +survivors already landing on the far side of the lake, and hurrying +homeward up the hill with direful clamours, while a wedge-shaped ripple +in the grey water with a white speck at its apex, told of Minx in an +ecstasy of pursuit. +</p> + +<p> +"Stop the dog!" I shouted to my maids-of-honour, "run round and catch +her!" +</p> + +<p> +Maria here, in irrepressible appropriation of the mission, bolted +between my legs, and sent me staggering backwards into a very +considerable boghole. +</p> + +<p> +I will not labour the details. After some flounderings I achieved +safety and the awe-stricken comments of the maids-of-honour, as wet as +I have ever been in my life, and about five times as cold. One of my +young ladies captured Minx in the act of getting ashore; the other +collected the slaughtered drake and shrouded him in her pinafore, with +a grasp of the position that did credit to both heart and head, and +they finally informed me that Mrs. Brickley's house was only a small +pieceen away. +</p> + +<p> +I had left Mrs. Brickley's house a well-equipped sportsman, creditably +escorted by Peter Cadogan and the Widower. I returned to it a muddy +and dripping outcast, attended by two little girls, two goats, and her +own eight ducks, whom my hand had widowed. My sodden clothes clung +clammily about me; the wind, as it pierced them, carried with it all +the iciness of the boghole. I walked at top speed to get up some +semblance of a circulation; I should have run were it not for the +confusion that such a proceeding would have caused to my cortège. As +it was, the ducks fled before me in waddling panic, with occasional +help from their wings, and panting and pattering in the rear told that +the maids-of-honour, the goats, and the dogs were maintaining with +difficulty their due places in the procession. As I neared the cottage +I saw a boy go quickly into it and shut the door; I passed into the +yard within the fuchsia hedge and heard some one inside howling and +droning a song in Irish, and as I knocked, with frozen knuckles, the +house gave the indefinable feeling of being full of people. There was +no response; I lifted the latch. The door opened into the +frieze-covered backs of several men, and an evenly blended smell of +whisky, turf smoke, and crowded humanity steamed forth. +</p> + +<p> +The company made way for me, awkwardly; I noticed a tendency amongst +them to hold on to each other, and there was a hilarious light in Mrs. +Brickley's eye as she hustled forward to meet me. My brother-in-law +was sitting at a table by the window writing in a notebook by the last +light of the waning day; he gave me a glance laden with affairs to +which I was superfluous. A red-eyed, red-headed man, evidently the +singer, was standing in the middle of the room; it must have been in +conformity with some irresistible law of nature that his hair stood out +round his head in the orthodox poetic aureole. +</p> + +<p> +In spite of the painful publicity of the moment there was but one +course open to me. I tendered to my hostess the corpse of the drake, +with abject apologies and explanations. To say that Mrs. Brickley +accepted them favourably is quite inadequate. She heaped insults upon +the drake, for his age, for his ugliness, for his temerity in getting +in my way; she, in fact, accepted his slaughter in the light of a +personal favour and an excellent jest combined, and passed rapidly on +to explain that the company consisted of a few of the neighbours that +was gathered to talk to the gentleman, and to be singing "them owld +songs" for him; their number and their zeal being entirely due to the +deep personal regard entertained for me by Hare Island. She further +mentioned that it was Shrove Tuesday, and that people should "jolly +themselves" before Lent. I was hurriedly conveyed to what is known as +"Back in the room," a blend of best parlour and bedroom, with an +immense bed in the corner. A fire was lighted, by the simple method of +importing most of the kitchen fire, bodily, in a bucket, and placing it +on the hearth, and I was conjured to "sthrip" and to put on a new suit +of clothes belonging to my host while my own were being dried. He +himself valeted me, inaugurating the ceremony with a tumbler of hot +whisky and water. The suit of new clothes was of the thickest blue +cloth, stiff as boards, and they smelt horribly of stale turf smoke. +The discovery that the trousers consisted of but a leg and a half was +startling; I had forgotten this aspect of the case, but now, in the +proprietor's presence, it was impossible to withdraw from the loan. I +could, at all events, remain perdu. Through all these preparations I +was aware of highly incensed and fruitless callings for "Pidge"; of +Peter Cadogan no tidings were forthcoming, and although a conventional +sense of honour withheld me from disclosing the information I might +have given about the young lady, it did not deter me from mentally +preparing a warm reception for her squire. +</p> + +<p> +I sat by the fire in regal seclusion, with my clothes steaming on a +chair opposite to me, and the strong glow of the red turf scorching the +shin that was unprotected. Maria and Minx, also steaming, sat in +exquisite serenity in front of the blaze, retiring every now and then +to fling themselves, panting, on a cold space of floor. The hot whisky +and water sent its vulgar and entirely acceptable consolations into the +frozen recesses of my being, a feeling of sociability stole upon me; I +felt magnanimously pleased at the thought that Maxwell, at least, had +had a perfectly successful day; I glowed with gratitude towards Con +Brickley and his wife. +</p> + +<p> +Judged by the usual test of hostesses, that is to say, noise, the +<i>conversazione</i> in Maxwell's honour was a high success. Gabble and +hum, harangue and argument, and, through all, Maxwell's unemotional +educated voice in discussion with the poet. Scraps of English here and +there presently told me that the talk had centred itself upon the +tragedy of the drake. I had the gratification of hearing Mrs. Brickley +inform her friends that "if that owld dhrake was shot, itself, he was +in the want of it, and divil mend him, going parading there till he had +the Major put asthray! Sure that's the gintleman that's like a child! +and Pidge could tell ye the same." +</p> + +<p> +"Faith and thrue for ye," said another apologist, also female, "and ye +wouldn't blame him if he didn't leave duck nor dhrake livin' afther +him, with the annoyance he got from thim that should be tinding him, +and he bloated with the walk and all!" +</p> + +<p> +(I may, in my own interest, explain that this unattractive description +merely implied that I was heated from excessive exercise.) +</p> + +<p> +"And as for the same Pidge," broke in Mrs. Brickley with sudden fire, +"when I ketch her it isn't to bate her I'll go, no! but to dhrag her by +the hair o' the head round the kitchen." +</p> + +<p> +These agreeable anticipations were interrupted by other voices. Some +one named Paddy was called upon to sing the song about Ned Flaherty's +drake. +</p> + +<p> +"Sing up, Paddy boy, for the gentleman! Arrah, what ails ye, Paddy! +Don't be ashamed at all!" +</p> + +<p> +"'Tis a lovely song, your honour, sir!" (this to my brother-in-law). +</p> + +<p> +"Is it an ancient song?" I heard Maxwell enquire with serious eagerness. +</p> + +<p> +"It is, your honour; 'twas himself made it up lasht year, and he sings +it beautiful! Oh! Paddy's a perfect modulator!" +</p> + +<p> +With curiosity stimulated by this mysterious encomium I rose softly and +half opened the door in order to obtain a view of the Modulator. A +lamp with a glaring tin reflector was on the table beside Maxwell; it +illumined Paddy, the Modulator, an incredibly freckled youth, standing +in front of my brother-in-law, with eyes fixed on the ground and arms +hanging limply at his sides, like a prisoner awaiting sentence. It +illumined also the artistic contempt on the elder Poet's countenance, +and further revealed to me the fact that from twenty-five to thirty men +and women were packed into the small kitchen. +</p> + +<p> +The Modulator opened with a long-drawn and nasal cadenza, suggestive of +the droning preliminary canter of a bagpipe, which merged into the +statement that +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The poor little fella',<br/> + His legs they were yella',<br/> +His bosom was blue, he could swim like a hake;<br/> + But some wicked savage,<br/> + To grease his white cabbage,<br/> +Murdered Ned Flaherty's beautiful dhrake!<br/> +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> +<a name="img-186"></a> +<img src="images/img-186.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="Looking" /> +<p class="caption">THE MODULATOR OPENED WITH A LONG-DRAWN AND NASAL CADENZA</p> +</div> + +<p> +Riotous applause followed on this startlingly appropriate requiem. +Maxwell coldly laid down his stylograph with the manner of a reporter +during an unimportant speech; the Poet took a clay pipe out of his +pocket and examined its contents with an air of detachment; Paddy, with +a countenance of undiminished gloom, prepared the way for the next +verse with some half-dozen jig-steps, ending with a sledge-hammer stamp +on the earthen floor. Fresh thunders of approval greeted the effort. +It seemed to me that Con Brickley's hospitality had been a trifle +excessive; I even meditated a hint to that effect, but neither my host +nor my hostess was visible. They were apparently holding an overflow +meeting in a room at the other end of the house, and I noticed that +although there was a steady flow of passers in and out between it and +the kitchen, the door was carefully closed after each opening. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly the lamp on Maxwell's table flared up smokily as the door of +the house was burst open. The second verse of the drake's elegy ceased +at its first line. A woman whom I recognised as Kate Keohane, sister +of the Widower, drove her way into the kitchen, sweeping back the +people on either side of her with her arms, as though she was swimming. +Her face was scarlet. +</p> + +<p> +"Is Jer Keohane within here?" she shouted. +</p> + +<p> +"He is not!" replied several voices. +</p> + +<p> +Instantly the door of the inner room flew open, and like a stag (or a +tom-cat, either simile would serve), answering the challenge of a +rival, Mrs. Brickley came forth. +</p> + +<p> +"Is it yer brother you're wantin', ma'am?" she said with lofty +politeness. "Ye can search out the house for him if ye like. It's +little he troubles my house or myself now, thanks be to God, and to the +Magistrates that took my part before all that was in the Coort-house! +Me that he had goin' in dhread o' me life, with him afther me always in +me thrack like a lap-dog!" +</p> + +<p> +"And who has him enticed now but your own daughther?" shrieked Miss +Keohane with lightning rapidity. "Isn't Ellen, the Chapel-woman, +afther tellin' me she seen herself and himself shneakin' down +behindside the chapel, like they'd be goin' aisht to the far sthrand, +and she dhressed out, and the coat she stole from Mrs. Yeates on her +and a bundle in her hand! Sure doesn't the world know she has her +passage paid to Ameriky this two months!" +</p> + +<p> +"Ye lie!" panted Mrs. Brickley, catching her antagonist by the arm, not +in attack, but in the the awful truce of mutual panic. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Keohane flung her off, only the better to gather force for the +prolonged and direful howl of which she delivered herself. +</p> + +<p> +"If she didn't come here with him it's to Ameriky she's taken him! +Look in yer box an' ye'll see where she got the passage money! She has +the boat's share taken from ye in spite of yer teeth!" Miss Keohane +here dropped upon her knees. "An' I pray," she continued, lyrically, +"that the devil may melt her, the same as ye'd melt the froth off +porther——" +</p> + +<p> +Groans, hoots, and drunken laughter overwhelmed the close of this +aspiration. Oblivious of my costume, I stepped forward, with the +intention of attracting Maxwell's attention, and withdrawing him and +myself as swiftly and unobtrusively as possible from a position that +threatened to become too hot to hold us. +</p> + +<p> +Even as I did so, I saw in the dark blue space of the open door a face +that was strangely familiar, a face at once civilised and martial, +whose gaze was set incredulously upon me. +</p> + +<p> +"Here's the Polis!" squeaked a little girl. +</p> + +<p> +The poet blew out the lamp. The house was in an instant full of the +voiceless and strenuous shoving and trampling of people trying to +escape. I heard the table go over with a crash, and could only suppose +that Maxwell had gone with it, and Maria and Minx, convinced that a +cat-hunt was at the root of the matter, barked deafeningly and +unceasingly. +</p> + +<p> +In a blinding flash of insight I realised that my brother-in-law and I +had been taken red-handed in a "Shebeen," that is to say, a house in +which drink is illicitly sold without a license. +</p> + +<p> +The Police Sergeant was egregiously tactful. During the conversation +that I held with him in the inner room he did not permit his eye to +condescend lower than the top button of Mr. Brickley's coat, a +consideration that but served to make me more conscious of the +humiliating deficiency below, nor did it deviate towards the empty +tumbler, with the incriminating spoon in it, that stood on the table. +</p> + +<p> +He explained to me and to Maxwell, whose presence I felt to be my sole +link with respectability, that the raid had been planned in consequence +of information received after the trial. +</p> + +<p> +"I was going to you, sir, to sign the warrant, but Mr. Knox and Dr. +Hickey signed it for us. It was Mr. Knox advised us to come here +to-day. We've found three half-barrels of porter under the bed in the +room over there, and about two gallons of potheen hid under fishing +nets. I'll have about thirty summonses out of it." +</p> + +<p> +The Sergeant's manner was distressingly apologetic. I said nothing, +but my heart burned within me as I recognised the hand of Flurry Knox. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="img-192"></a> +<img src="images/img-192.jpg" width="208" height="556" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">THE SERGEANT'S MANNER WAS DISTRESSINGLY APOLOGETIC</p> +</div> + +<p> +"In case you might be looking for your man Cadogan, sir," went on the +Sergeant, "we seen him in a boat, with two other parties, a man and a +woman, going to the mainland when we were coming over. The man that +was pulling the other oar had the appearance of having drink taken." +</p> + +<p> +A second flash, less blinding than the first, but equally illuminative, +revealed to me that the brown boots, the flannel suit, had been a +wedding garment, the predetermined attire of the Best Man, and a third +recalled the fact that Shrove Tuesday was the last day between this and +Easter on which a marriage could take place. +</p> + +<p> +Maxwell and I went back with the police, and Maxwell explained to me at +some length the origin of the word shebeen. As I neared the mainland, +which to-morrow would ring with Flurry's artistic version of the day's +events, the future held but one bright spot, the thought of putting +Peter Cadogan to fire and sword. +</p> + +<p> +But even that was denied to me. It must have been at the identical +moment that my cook, Mrs. Cadogan (aunt of the missing Peter), was +placing her wedding ring in the Shrove Tuesday pancakes that evening, +that my establishment was felled as one man by tidings that still +remain preëminent among the sensations of Shreelane. They reached me, +irrepressibly, with the coffee. +</p> + +<p> +Hard on the heels of the flushed parlour-maid followed the flat and +heavy tread of Mrs. Cadogan, who, like the avenging deities, was +habitually shod with felt. +</p> + +<p> +"And now, sir, what do ye say to Pether Cadogan!" she began, launching +the enigma into space from the obscurity of the deep doorway. "What do +ye say to him now? The raving scamp!" +</p> + +<p> +I replied that I had a great deal to say to him, and that if I might so +far trespass on his leisure as to request his presence in the hall, I +would say it. +</p> + +<p> +"Hall is it!" echoed Peter's aunt in bitter wrath. "It's my heart's +grief that he ever stood in Shreelane hall to dhraw disgrace on me and +on yer Honour! God forgive me, when I heard it I had to spit! Himself +and Bridget Brickley got married in Skebawn this evening and the two o' +them is gone to Ameriky on the thrain to-night, and it's all I'll say +for her, whatever sort of a thrash she is, she's good enough for him!" +There was a pause while one might pant twice. +</p> + +<p> +"I'll tell ye no lie. If I had a gun in me hand, I'd shoot him like a +bird! I'd down the brat!" +</p> + +<p> +The avenging deity retired. +</p> + +<p> +What part the Widower proposed to play in the day's proceedings will +never be clearly known. He was picked up next day in Hare Island +Sound, drifting seaward in the boat whose "share" had formed the +marriage portion of Mrs. Peter Cadogan. Both oars were gone; there +remained to him an empty bottle of "potheen," and a bucket. He was +rowing the boat with the bucket. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a> +VIII<br/> +"A HORSE! A HORSE!"</h2> + +<h3>PART I</h3> + +<p> +"Old Jimmy Porteous!" I ejaculated, while a glow of the ancient +enthusiasm irradiated my bosom, "Philippa, I say! Do you see this? +Jimmy Porteous is to command this District!" +</p> + +<p> +"No, darling, <i>not</i> with an egg!" replied Philippa, removing the honey +spoon from the grasp of her youngest child, just too late to avert +disaster, "we <i>don't</i> eat honey with eggs." +</p> + +<p> +The heavy hand of experience has taught me that at moments such as +these the only possible course is to lie to, head to wind, till the +squall passes, and then begin from the beginning again. I readdressed +myself to my newspaper, while the incident went, like a successful +burlesque, with a roar, sustained from the foot of the stairs to the +point when the nursery door slammed upon it. +</p> + +<p> +Philippa resumed her seat at the breakfast table. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, dear, what were you saying?" she said, yielding me the laborious +but vague attention that is the best any husband can expect from any +wife on such occasions. +</p> + +<p> +I repeated my statement, and was scandalised to find that Philippa had +but the most shadowy remembrance of Jimmy Porteous, who, in the days +when I first joined my regiment had been its senior subaltern, and, for +me and my fellows, one of the most revered of its law-givers. As a +captain he left us, and proceeded to do something brilliant on +somebody's staff, and, what time I got my company, had moved on in +radiance into a lofty existence in the War Office and newspaper +paragraphs. +</p> + +<p> +I recalled these things to my wife, coupling them with the information +that she would have to call on Lady Porteous, when the door opened, and +the face of Flurry Knox, unshaven and blue, with the miserable +mother-o'-pearl blueness of fair people in cold weather, appeared in +the opening. +</p> + +<p> +He had looked in, he said, on his way home from the fair, to try would +we give him a cup of tea, and he went on to remark that the wind was +cold enough to cut the horns off a cow. +</p> + +<p> +I asked him if he had seen my beasts there, and if they had been sold. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, they were, they were," he said tolerantly; "it was a wonderful +good fair. The dealers were buying all before them. There was a man +said to me, 'If you had a little dog there, and he to be a calf, you'd +have sold him.'" +</p> + +<p> +It was one of Flurry Knox's ruling principles in life to disparage the +live stock of his friends; it was always within the bounds of +possibility that the moment might arrive when he would wish to buy them. +</p> + +<p> +"I met a man from Sir Thomas Purcell's country yesterday," said Flurry +presently; "he says there's been the father and mother of a row down +there between old Sir Thomas and Hackett, that's the man has the +harriers. Sir Thomas is wild because they say the soldiers are giving +Hackett as good a subscription as himself, and he says Hackett has all +the foxes killed." +</p> + +<p> +"But surely—harriers don't hunt foxes?" said Philippa ingenuously. +</p> + +<p> +Flurry looked at her for a moment in silence. "Is it Hackett's +harriers!" he said compassionately; "sure he flogs them off hares." +</p> + +<p> +"Talking of soldiers, they've just sent a man who used to be in my +regiment to command this district," I said, plucking my own topic from +the tangle of inter-hunt squabbles; "a great man to hounds he used to +be, too." +</p> + +<p> +"Would he buy the Dodger?" asked Flurry swiftly. "Would he give a +price?" +</p> + +<p> +"I daresay he would if he liked the horse. If I got a chance I might +tell him," I said, magnanimously. +</p> + +<p> +"I tell you what, Major," said Flurry, with an eye on his ally, +Philippa, "you and me and Mrs. Yeates will go up and have a day with +Sir Thomas's hounds, and you'll say the word for me to the General!" +</p> + +<p> +Looking back at it all now, I recognise that here was the moment for +firmness. I let the moment slip, and became immersed in tracking +General Sir James Porteous, K.C.B., through the pages of an elderly +Army List. By the time I had located him in three separate columns, I +found that Philippa and Flurry had arranged unalterably the details of +what my wife is pleased to call a ramp—<i>i.e.</i> an expedition that, as +its name implies, suggests a raid made by tramps. +</p> + +<p> +"—Why, my gracious! aren't they cousins of my own? They'll be only +delighted! Sure, Sally had measles there three years ago, and 'twas as +good as a play for them!—Put us up, is it? Of course they will! The +whole lot of us. D'ye think Sally'd stay at home?—No, you'll not take +your own horses at all. Hire from Flavin; I'll see he does you well." +</p> + +<p> +"And you know, Sinclair"—thus the other conspirator—"it would be an +excellent chance for you to meet your beloved Jimmy Porteous!" +</p> + +<p> +It was not Mr. Knox's habit to let the grass grow under his feet. +Before I had at all grasped the realities of the project, my wife heard +from Mrs. Sally Knox to say that she had arranged it all with the +Butler-Knoxes, and that we were to stay on for a second night in order +to go to a dance at which we should meet the General. At intervals +during the following week I said to Philippa that it was preposterous +and monstrous to dump ourselves upon the Butler-Knoxes, unknown people +whom we had but once met at a function at the Bishop's. My remembrance +of them, though something blurred by throngs of the clergy and their +wives, did not suggest the type of person who might be expected to keep +open house for stray fox-hunters. I said all this to Philippa, who +entirely agreed with me, and continued her preparations, after the +manner of experienced wives. +</p> + +<p> +It was raining hard one afternoon in the following week when a +four-wheeled inside car—an admirable vehicle, which I wish in no way +to disparage—disgorged its burden at the door of Garden Mount House. +One item of the burden was experiencing a sensation only too familiar, +such a sensation as a respectable seaman might feel on being pressed +into a crew of buccaneers. The house loomed over us, large, square, +and serious, in the wet moonlight of the January evening; the husky, +over-fed bark of an elderly dog was incessant in the hall. If by +laying hold of the coat-tails of the leading pirate, as he got out to +ring the bell, I could then and there have brought the expedition to a +close, I would thankfully have done so. +</p> + +<p> +The door was opened by a melancholy old gentleman with a grey moustache +and whiskers; he might have been Colonel Newcome in his decadence, but +from the fact that he wore an evening coat and grey trousers, I +gathered that he was the butler, and for any one skilled in Irish +households, he at once placed the establishment—rich, godly, low +church, and consistently and contentedly dull. As we entered the hall +there arose from some fastness in the house a shrill clamour that +resolved itself into the first line of a hymn. +</p> + +<p> +Flurry dug me in the ribs with his elbow. "They've found!" he +whispered, "you needn't look so frightened. It's only Lucy and Louisa +having the choir practice!" +</p> + +<p> +To these strains Colonel Newcome ushered us into the drawing-room. +There was no one in it. It was a large double drawing-room, and +nothing but heavy maroon curtains now separated us from the choir +practice. The hymn continued, a loud and long-drawn proclamation, and, +pending its conclusion, my wife and Mrs. Flurry Knox swiftly and +stealthily circumnavigated the room, and appraised all its contents, +from a priceless Battersea basket filled with dusty bulbs, to a +Chippendale card-table with a sewing machine clamped on to it, while +Flurry, in a stage whisper, dilated to me upon the superfluous wealth +that Providence had seen fit to waste upon the Butler-Knoxes. The +household, as I had gradually learnt, consisted of an elderly bachelor, +Mr. Lucius Butler-Knox (commonly known as "Looshy "), his unmarried +sister, Miss Louisa, his widowed sister, Mrs. Hodnett, and a corpulent, +grey-muzzled black-and-tan terrier. Their occupations were gardening, +and going to what they called "the city," <i>i.e.</i> the neighbouring +county town, to attend charitable committee meetings; they kept a +species of philanthropic registry office for servants; their foible was +hospitality, disastrously coupled with the fact that they dined at +half-past six. It was one of the mysteries of kinship that Flurry Knox +and our host and hostess should possess a nearer relative in common +than Adam. That he should have established their respectable home as +his hostelry and house of call was one of the mysteries of Flurry Knox. +</p> + +<p> +The hymn ceased, the raiders hastily formed into line, the maroon +drapery parted, and the ladies of the house, flushed with song, and +importing with them a potent sample of the atmosphere of the back +drawing-room, were upon us, loud in hospitable apologies, instant in +offers of tea; the situation opened and swallowed us up. +</p> + +<p> +The half-past six o'clock dinner came all too swiftly. Glared upon by +an unshaded lamp that sat like a ball of fire in the centre of the +table, we laboured in the trough of a sea of the thickest ox-tail soup; +a large salmon followed; with the edge of dubious appetite already +turned, we saw the succeeding items of the menu spread forth on the +table like a dummy hand at bridge. The boiled turkey, with its +satellite ham, the roast saddle of mutton, with its stable companion +the stack of cutlets; the succeeding course, where a team of four wild +duck struggled for the lead with an open tart and a sago pudding. Like +Agag, we went delicately, and, like Agag, it availed us nothing. +</p> + +<p> +I watched my <i>vis-à -vis</i>, little Mrs. Flurry, furtively burying a slab +of turkey beneath mashed potatoes as neatly as a little dog buries a +bone; her green kitten's eyes met mine without a change of expression, +and turned to her glass, which Colonel Newcome had filled with claret. +"The beaded bubbles, winking at the brim," had a greyish tinge. +</p> + +<p> +"Cousin Lucius!" observed Mrs. Flurry, in a silence that presently +happened to fall, "can you remember who painted that picture of our +great-grandfather—the one over the door I mean?" +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Butler-Knox, a small, grey-bearded, elderly gentleman, wholly, up +to the present, immersed in carving, removed the steam of the ducks +from his eye-glasses, and concentrated them upon the picture. +</p> + +<p> +"It's by Maclise, isn't it?" went on Sally, leaning forward to get a +nearer view. +</p> + +<p> +In that moment, when all heads turned to the picture, I plainly saw her +draw the glass of claret to the verge of the table, it disappeared +beneath it and returned to its place empty. Almost simultaneously, the +black-and-tan terrier sprang from a lair near my feet, and hurried from +the room, shaking his ears vigorously. Mrs. Flurry's eyes wavered from +the portrait to mine, and her face became slowly and evenly pink, like +an afterglow. +</p> + +<p> +It was but one of the many shameless acts of my party during the +age-long evening. At ten o'clock we retired to rest, for my own part, +thoroughly overfed, not in the least sleepy, worn with conversation, +and oppressed by the consciousness of flippant, even brutal, +ingratitude. +</p> + +<p> +The weather had cleared next morning to mild greyness, that softened +even the asperity of half-past eight breakfast. I lumbered stiffly +downstairs in a pair of new butcher boots, and found with thankfulness +that our hosts, exhausted possibly by their efforts, had kept their +rooms. +</p> + +<p> +Marshalled in order upon the sideboard stood the remains of all the +more enduring items of last night's dinner, cold indeed, but firm and +undefeated; hot dishes of ancient silver roasted before the noble +brass-mounted fireplace; there were vats of lethargic cream, a clutch +of new-laid eggs, a heap of hot scones. +</p> + +<p> +"It's easy seen it wasn't cracking blind nuts made Lucy Hodnett and +Louisa the size they are!" remarked Flurry, as the party, feeling more +piratical than ever, embarked upon this collation. "Mrs. Yeates, do +you think I am bound to dance with the pair of them to-night? You are, +Major, anyway! But I might get off with Louisa." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, Sinclair's card is full," said my wife, who was engaged in trying +to decipher the marks on the cream jug without upsetting the cream; "he +and the General are plighted to one another for the evening." +</p> + +<p> +"I wonder if the claret has stained the carpet!" said Mrs. Flurry, +diving under the table. "It has! How awful!" Mrs. Flurry's voice +indicated the highest enjoyment. "Never mind, they'll never see it! +They're too fat to get under the table!" +</p> + +<p> +"If they did, it'd be the first time old Looshy's claret ever put +anyone there!" said Flurry. +</p> + +<p> +We have never known the precise moment in this speech at which "Old +Looshy's" butler entered the room; we only know that while Mrs. Flurry, +much hampered by habit and boots, was in the act of struggling from +beneath the table, he was there, melancholy and righteous, with a +telegram on a salver. +</p> + +<p> +It was from Flavin, the livery stableman, and its effect upon the +spirits of the company was that of a puncture in a tyre. +</p> + +<p> +"Regret horses not available; am trying to procure others; will send by +next train if possible." +</p> + +<p> +We said that there was no answer, and we finished our breakfasts in a +gravity scarcely lightened by Flurry's almost religious confidence in +Flavin's infallibility, and in his power of making horses out of +rushes, like the fairies, if need be. +</p> + +<p> +I was, I may admit, from the first thoroughly pessimistic. I almost +went up and got into ordinary clothes; I at least talked of doing so, +as a means of preparing Philippa for the worst. I said it was a mere +waste of time to send the Butler-Knox coachman to the station, as had +been arranged, and I did my best to dissuade Flurry from his intention +of riding to the meet by way of the station to help in unboxing animals +that could not possibly be there. +</p> + +<p> +In abysmal dejection my wife and I surveyed the departing forms of Mr. +and Mrs. Florence Knox; the former on the Dodger, a leggy brown +four-year-old, the planting of whom upon General Porteous had been the +germ of the expedition; while Sally skipped and sidled upon a narrow, +long-tailed chestnut mare, an undefeated jumper, and up to about as +much weight as would go by parcel post for ninepence. There then +ensued a period of total desolation, in which we looked morosely at old +photograph books in the drawing-room, and faced the prospect of a long +day with the Butler-Knoxes, while heavy footsteps overhead warned us +that our entertainers were astir, and that at any moment the day's +conversation might begin. +</p> + +<p> +I was engaged, not, I fancy, for the first time, in telling Philippa +that I had always said that the entire expedition was a mistake, when +Colonel Newcome again entered the room. +</p> + +<p> +"The Master sent me to ask you, sir, if you'd like to have the +pony-phaeton to drive down to the station to meet the half-past ten +train. Flavin might be sending the horses on it, and it'd save you +time to meet them there." +</p> + +<p> +We closed with the offer; at its worst, the pony-carriage could be +smoked in, which the drawing-room could not; at its best, it might save +half-an-hour in getting to the meet. We presently seated ourselves in +it, low down behind an obese piebald pony, with a pink nose, and a mane +hogged to the height of its ears. As I took up the whip it turned and +regarded us with an unblinkered eye, pink-lidded and small as a pig's. +</p> + +<p> +"You should go through Fir Grove, sir," said the boy who had brought +the equipage to the door, "it's half a mile of a short cut, and that's +the way Tom will come with the horses. It's the first gate-lodge +you'll meet on the road." +</p> + +<p> +The mud was deep, and the piebald pony plodded through it at a sullen +jog. The air was mild and chilly, like an uninteresting woman; the +fore-knowledge of fiasco lay heavily upon us; it hardly seemed worth +while to beat the pony when he sank into a walk; it was the most +heart-broken forlorn hope that ever took the field. +</p> + +<p> +The gate-lodge of Fir Grove fulfilled the assignation made for it by +the stable boy, and met us on the road. The gates stood wide open, and +the pony turned in as by an accustomed route, and crawled through them +with that simulation of complete exhaustion that is the gift of lazy +ponies. Loud narrative in a male voice proceeded from the dark +interior of the lodge, and, as we passed, a woman's voice said, in +horrified rejoinder: +</p> + +<p> +"The Lord save us! She must be Anti-Christ!" +</p> + +<p> +Here, apparently, the speaker became aware of our proximity, and an old +woman looked forth. Her face was apprehensive. +</p> + +<p> +"Did ye see the police, sir?" she asked. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> + +<a name="img-208"></a> +<img src="images/img-208.jpg" width="618" height="513" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">"DID YE SEE THE POLICE?"</p> +</div> + +<p> +We replied in the negative. +</p> + +<p> +"Please God, she'll not come our way!" she said, and banged the door. +</p> + +<p> +We moved on, heavily, in the deep gravel of the avenue. +</p> + +<p> +"Isn't this rather awful? Shall we go on?" said Philippa. +</p> + +<p> +I replied with truth that there was no room to turn. On either side of +the narrow drive laurels and rhododendrons were crammed as thickly as +they could be planted, their dark foliage met overhead; if the +inexpressible "She" referred to by the lodge-keeper did come our way, +retreat would be out of the question. The tunnel ran uphill, and I +drove the pony up it as one drives a hoop, by incessant beating; had I +relaxed my efforts he would probably, like a hoop, have lain down. +Presently, and still uphill, we turned a corner, the tunnel ceased, and +we were face to face with a large pink house. +</p> + +<p> +As we advanced, feeling to the full the degradation of making a +short-cut past a strange house, in tall hats and a grovelling +pony-carriage, we beheld figures rushing past the windows of one of the +rooms on the ground floor, as if in headlong flight. Was this the +fulfilment of the dark sayings of the lodge-keeper, and was "She" +"coming our way?" The bouncing strains of a measure, known, I believe, +as "Whistling Rufus," came forth to us hilariously as we drew nearer. +The problem changed, but I am not sure that the horror did not deepen. +</p> + +<p> +Divining the determination of the piebald pony to die, if necessary, +rather than pass a hall door without stopping at it, yet debarred by +the decencies from thrashing him past the long line of windows, I +administered two or three rousing tugs to his wooden mouth. At the +third tug the near rein broke. The pony stopped dead. Simultaneously +the hall door was flung open, and a young and lovely being, tall, and +beautifully dressed, fluttered out on to the steps and peered at us +through long-handled eye-glasses. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh! I thought you were the police!" exclaimed the being, with +unaffected disappointment. +</p> + +<p> +The position seemed, from all points, to demand an apology. I +disengaged myself from the pony-carriage and proffered it; I also +volunteered any help that a mere man, not a policeman, might be capable +of rendering. +</p> + +<p> +The young lady aimed her glasses at the pie-bald, motionless in malign +stupor, and replied irrelevantly: +</p> + +<p> +"Why! That's the Knoxes' pony!" +</p> + +<p> +I made haste to explain our disaster and the position generally, +winding up with a request for a piece of string. +</p> + +<p> +"You're staying at the Butler-Knoxes!" exclaimed the lady of the house. +"How funny that is! Do you know you're coming to our dance to-night, +to meet your old friend the General! I know all about it, you see!" +She advanced with a beaming yet perturbed countenance upon Philippa, +"I'm so glad to meet you. Do come in! We've got an infuriated cook at +bay in the kitchen, and things are rather disorganised, but I think we +can rise to a bit of string! The pony's all right—he'll sleep there +for months, he always does." +</p> + +<p> +We followed her into a hall choked with the exiled furniture of the +drawing-room, and saw through an open door the whirling forms of two or +three couples of young men and maidens. +</p> + +<p> +"They're polishing the floor," said our hostess, swiftly shutting the +door, "they make a hideous noise, but it keeps them quiet—if you know +what I mean. It's most disastrous that my husband has gone out +hunting," she pursued; "this odious cook only arrived two days ago, +and——" +</p> + +<p> +At this juncture a door at the end of the hall burst open, disclosing a +long passage and a young and crimson housemaid. +</p> + +<p> +"She's coming, my lady! She's coming! Mr. Ralph's sent me on to get +the door open!" she panted. +</p> + +<p> +At the same moment a loud and wrathful voice arose in the passage and a +massive form, filling it from wall to wall, appeared; the capitulating +cook, moving down upon us with the leisurely and majestic truculence of +a traction-engine. As she came she chanted these words in measured +cadence: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +"Lady Flora,<br/> +Gets her brother<br/> +To do her dirty work."<br/> +</p> + +<p> +By the time this rune had been repeated three times she was in the +hall, shepherded by a tall young man, obviously the brother referred +to, and by the butler, the vista being filled in the rear by a wavering +assortment of female domestics. As the cook tacked to weather a sofa, +there was something about her that woke a vague and unpleasant chord of +memory. Her ranging eye met mine, and the chord positively twanged as +I recognised the formidable countenance of a female, technically known +as a "job-cook," who for two cyclonic weeks had terrorised our +household while Mrs. Cadogan was on leave. I backed convulsively into +Lady Flora, in futile and belated attempt to take cover, but even as I +did so the chanting ceased and I knew the worst had happened. +</p> + +<p> +"Is that my darlin' Major Yeates?" shouted the cook, tacking again and +bearing down on me full-sailed. "Thanks be to God I have the gentleman +that'll see I get justice! And Mrs. Yeates, a noble lady, that'd never +set foot in my kitchen without she'd ask my leave! Ah, ha! As +Shakespeare says, I'd know a rale lady as soon as I'd put an eye on +her, if she was boiling cabbage!" +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="img-212"></a> +<img src="images/img-212.jpg" width="494" height="711" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">"IS THAT MY DARLIN' MAJOR YEATES?" SHOUTED THE COOK</p> +</div> + +<p> +She caught my reluctant hand and waved it up and down, and the muffled +triumphings of "Whistling Rufus" in the drawing-room filled up the +position. +</p> + +<p> +Through them came a sound of wheels on the gravel, and through this +again a strangled whisper from behind: +</p> + +<p> +"Take her out to the steps; I hear the car with the police!" +</p> + +<p> +Holding the fervid hand of the job-cook, I advanced with her through +the furniture, skew-wise, as in the visiting figure of the Lancers; +there was an undoubted effort on her part to keep time to the music, +and she did not cease to inform the company that Major and Mrs. Yeates +were the real old nobility, and that they would see she got her rights. +</p> + +<p> +Followed closely by the shepherd and the butler, we moved forth on to +the steps. The police were not there. There was nothing there save a +complicated pattern of arcs and angles on the gravel, as of a +four-wheeled vehicle that has taken an uncommonly short turn. At the +bend of the avenue the pony-carriage, our link with the world without, +was disappearing from view, the piebald pony heading for home at a +pig-like but determined gallop. The job-cook clasped her hands on my +arm and announced to the landscape that she would live and die with the +Major. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a> +IX<br/> +"A HORSE! A HORSE!"</h2> + +<h3>PART II</h3> + +<p> +A quarter of an hour later Philippa and I stood in the high road, with +the sense of deliverance throbbing in every grateful nerve, and viewed +the car, with the job-cook and the policeman, swing heavily away +towards the railway station. +</p> + +<p> +Mine was the strategy that had brought about our escape, mine were the +attractions that had lured the cook to mount the policeman's car with +me, and still more inalienably mine was the searing moment when, still +arm-in-arm with the cook, we drove away from the deeply appreciative +party on the doorsteps. Philippa and a policeman were on the opposite +side of the car; the second policeman, very considerately, walked. +</p> + +<p> +We were close to the station, the cook had sung herself to sleep, and +Philippa and I had relapsed into the depths of abysmal despondency, +when our incredulous eyes beheld the Butler-Knoxes' coachman coming +towards us at a trot, riding a bay horse and leading a grey, on which +was a side-saddle. Flavin, the horse dealer, had, after all, been as +good as Flurry's word—the hirelings were here, and all was right with +the world. +</p> + +<p> +The car slackened to a walk, we slid from it silently, and it and its +burden passed into that place of shadows to which all extraneous +affairs of life betake themselves on a hunting morning, when the hour +is come, and the horse. +</p> + +<p> +Looshy's coachman delivered to me the bay horse, a large and +notable-looking animal, with a Roman nose adorned with a crooked blaze, +a tranquil eye, and two white stockings. In his left hand he held a +compact iron-grey mare, hogged and docked, who came up to the bank by +the roadside, to be mounted, as neatly as a man-o'-war boat comes +alongside. Hirelings of so superior a class it had never before been +my privilege to meet, and I made up my mind that they were either +incurably vicious or broken winded. +</p> + +<p> +"It's easy known that this mare's carried a lady before, sir," said the +coachman, a young man with a soul for higher things than driving the +Butler-Knox covered car, "and the big horse is the best I ever seen +come out of Flavin's! He's in grand condition, he's as slick as a +mouse! Only for Mr. Flurry being there we'd hardly have got them," he +continued, while he lengthened my stirrup-leathers, "the chap Flavin +sent with them had drink taken, and the porters had the box shunted and +himself in it, stretched, and the bottle of whisky with him!" +</p> + +<p> +Flavin's man and his bottle of whisky were now negligible incidents for +me. Philippa was already under way, and the time was short. The bay +horse, arching his neck and reaching pleasantly at his bit, went away +at a rhythmic and easy trot, the grey mare flitted beside him with +equal precision; it was, perhaps, rather fast for riding to a meet, but +we were late, and were they not hirelings? +</p> + +<p> +We followed our guides, the telegraph posts, for some four miles of +level road; they dropped down a deepening valley to a grey and brimming +river, and presently came slate roofs and white-washed houses, staring +at each other across an empty village street. We had arrived at +Kilbarron, the scene of the meet, and the meet was not. +</p> + +<p> +"They've gone on! they've gone on!" screamed an old woman from a +doorway, "away up over the hill!" +</p> + +<p> +Evidently every other live thing had followed the hunt, and we did not +spare Mr. Flavin's horses in doing the same. We reached the top of the +long hill in a remarkably brief space of time, and, having done so, +realised that we were not too late. A couple of fields away a row of +figures, standing like palings along the top of a bank, with their +backs to us, told that the hounds were still in view; even as we +sighted them, the palings plunged <i>en masse</i> from their standpoint with +that composite yell that in Ireland denotes the breaking (and +frequently the heading) of a fox, and vanished. Whatever was +happening, it was not coming our way. I turned my hireling at the bank +by the roadside, he came round with a responsive swing, and in two +large and orderly bounds he was over. Before I had time to look round, +the grey mare, with the faintest hint of a buck, galloped emulously +past me. +</p> + +<p> +"Perfection!" panted Philippa, putting her hat straight. +</p> + +<p> +As we came up on to the next bank, recently vacated by its human +palisade, we found that fortune had smiled upon us. Just below, on our +right, was a long strip of gorse covert; three big fields beyond it, +gliding from us like a flock of seagulls, were the clamouring hounds, +and in the space between us and them bucketed the hunt, in the first +fine frenzy of getting away. Flavin's bay immediately caught hold, not +implacably, but with the firmness of superior knowledge; the grey mare, +having ascertained that Philippa was not going to interfere, thought +better of going on alone, and took the time from her stable companion. +The field was already sorting itself into the usual divisions of the +forward, the cunning, and the useless; our luck stood to us; the +forward division, carried away by the enthusiasm of a good start and a +sympathetic fall of ground, succeeded in less than a quarter of a mile +in hustling the hounds over the line, and brought about a check. We +joined the rearguard, and worked our way towards the front, +unobtrusively, because Sir Thomas Purcell's comments on the situation +were circling like a stock-whip among the guilty, and were not sparing +the innocent. At this moment we found Flurry Knox beside us. +</p> + +<p> +"Sir Thomas is giving the soldiers their tea in a mug!" he said; "and +they were in the want of it! How are those horses doing with you?" he +went on, looking our steeds up and down. "They look up to your +weights, anyhow! I suppose you didn't see your friend, the General? +He was at the meet in a motor." +</p> + +<p> +"In a motor!" repeated Philippa. "I thought he was such a wonderful +rider." +</p> + +<p> +"He knows how to get a motor along, anyhow," replied Flurry, his +attentive eyes following the operations of the hounds; "maybe he has +the gout. You'd say he had by the colour of his face. Hullo! Boys! +They're away again! Come on, Mrs. Yeates! Knock your two guineas' +worth out of Flavin!" +</p> + +<p> +Short as it was, the burst had been long enough to tranquillise my +anxieties as to our hirelings' wind, and when we started again we found +them almost excessively ready for the stone-faced bank that confronted +us at the end of the field. Some twenty of us, including the chidden, +but wholly unabashed soldiers, went at it in line, and, after the +manner of stone-faced banks, it grew very tall as we approached it. +Flavin's bay strode unfalteringly over it; it was as though he grasped +it and flung it behind him. The grey mare, full of jealousy and +vain-glory, had a hard try to fly the whole thing, but retained +sufficient self-control to change feet at the last possible instant; +with or without a scramble or a peck, we all arrived somehow in the +next field, and saw, topping the succeeding fence, the bulky chestnut +quarters of Sir Thomas Purcell's horse and the square scarlet back of +Sir Thomas. Away to the left, on an assortment of astute crocks, three +of the Misses Purcell followed the First Whip, at as considerable a +distance from their parent as was consistent with a good place. Their +voices came confusedly to us; apparently each was telling the others to +get out of her way. +</p> + +<p> +For a quarter of an hour the hounds ran hard over the clean +pasture-land, whose curves rose before us and glided astern like the +long rollers under an Atlantic liner. Innocent of rocks or pitfalls, +unimpeachable as to surface, it was a page of fair print as compared +with the black letter manuscript to which the country of Mr. Flurry +Knox's hounds might be likened. Never before have I crossed fences as +sound, as seductive, it was like jumping large and well-upholstered +Chesterfield sofas; Chesterfieldian also were the manners of Flavin's +bay. I found myself in the magnificent position of giving a lead to +Flurry and the Dodger, of giving several leads to the soldiery; once, +when a wide and boggy stream occurred, the Misses Purcell and the +crocks looked to me as their pioneer. The hustle and the hurry never +relaxed; the hounds had fastened on the line and were running it as +though it were a footpath; but for the check at the start, no fox could +have held his lead for so long at such a pace, and whatever the pace, +the tails of the horses of Sir Thomas and the First Whip never failed +to disappear over the bank just ahead. +</p> + +<p> +For me, in the unwonted glory of heading the desperadoes of the first +flight, life and the future were contained in the question of how much +longer I could count on my hireling. I was just able to spare a hasty +thought or two to Philippa and the grey, and I remember that it was +after a heavy drop into a road that I noticed, with the just and +impotent wrath of a husband, that her hair was beginning to come down. +</p> + +<p> +It was just then that I first saw the motor. The fox had run the road +for some little distance; we clattered and splashed along it, until an +intimidating roar from Sir Thomas and the sight of his right arm in the +air, brought us, bumping and tugging, to a standstill. The hounds were +for a moment at fault, swarming, with their heads down, over every inch +of the road, and beyond them, about a hundred yards from us, was a +resplendent scarlet motor, whose nearer approach was summarily +interdicted by the First Whip. I am short-sighted, but I caught an +impression of two elderly gentlemen, one of whom, wearing a white +moustache and a tall hat, was responding warmly to the fulminations of +Sir Thomas. If this were my ancient brother-in-arms, Jimmy Porteous, +following hounds in a motor, times were indeed changed. I dismissed +the possibility from my mind. Just then I caught sight of Flurry's +face; it had in it the fearful joy of a schoolboy who has seen a squib +put into the tail pocket of the schoolmaster, and awaits the result. +Mrs. Flurry, in the heroic act of plucking a hairpin from her own +unshaken golden-red plaits, and yielding it to Philippa, met his eye +with a glance that was so expressionless as to amount to a danger +signal. +</p> + +<p> +At this moment the hounds jostled over the wall with a clatter of +falling stones; they spread themselves in the field like the opening of +a fan, they narrowed to the recovered line like the closing of one; Sir +Thomas's chestnut hoisted himself and his fifteen-stone burden out of +the road with the heave of an earthquake. The riders shoved after him, +and we were swept again into the current of the hunt. +</p> + +<p> +As we thundered away up the field threatening shouts from the checked +motorists followed us; apparently, after the manner of their kind, they +had not a moment to spare, and the delay had annoyed them. The next +fence arrived, and they, and all else, were forgotten. +</p> + +<p> +There was a wood ahead of us, cresting a long upland, and for it the +hounds were making, at a pace that brutally ignored the rise of ground, +and the fact that in these higher levels the fields were smaller, and +the fences had to be faced up a hill that momently grew steeper. +</p> + +<p> +"Hold on, Mrs. Yeates, till I take down that pole for you!" Flurry's +voice followed us up the hill, and there was that in it that told he +was making heavy weather of it. He was leading the dripping Dodger, +and I have seldom seen a redder face than his as he laboured past +Philippa and dragged away the shaft of a cart that barred a gap. "Bad +luck to this for a close country!" he puffed. "You're not off one +fence before you're on top of the next!" Flavin's horses were +certainly lathering pretty freely, but were otherwise making no remark +on the situation, and neither of them had so far made a mistake of any +kind. I saw the First Whip regard the bay with obvious respect, and +turn with a confidential comment to the nearest Miss Purcell. It +hall-marked my achievements. +</p> + +<p> +Philippa and I were among the first into the wood; even Flurry had been +left three fields behind, and the glory of our position radiated from +us, as we stood at the end of the main ride, sublimely surveying the +arrival of the rest of the streaming hunt. Sir Thomas and the hounds +had dived out of sight into the recesses of the wood; a period of +inaction ensued, and for a few balmy minutes peace with honour was ours. +</p> + +<p> +Balmy, however, as were the minutes, there crept into them an anxiety +as to what the hounds were doing. A great and complete silence had +fallen as far as they and Sir Thomas were concerned, and Philippa and +I, conscious of our high estate as leaders of the hunt, melted away +from the crowd to investigate matters. We followed a path that took us +across the wood, and the deeper we went the deeper was the silence, and +the more acute became our fears that we had been left behind. Sir +Thomas had an evil reputation for slipping his field and getting away +alone. +</p> + +<p> +"There's the horn!" cried Philippa. "It's outside the wood! They +<i>have</i> gone away. Hurry!" +</p> + +<p> +We were squeezing along the farther edge of the covert, looking for a +way out, and I, too, heard the note, faint, yet commanding. I hurried. +That is to say, with my hat over my eyes, and my cheek laid against the +bay's neck, I followed my wife up an alley that was barely wide enough +for a woodcock. +</p> + +<p> +On our left was an impassable hedge of small trees, crowning a heavy +drop into the field outside the wood; our faces were rowelled by the +branches of young spruce firs. It was all very well for Philippa, +riding nearly two hands lower than I, to twist her way in and out +through them like a squirrel, but for me, on a 16.2 horse, resolved on +following his stable companion through a keyhole if necessary, it was +anything but well. My eyes were tightly shut, my arm was in front of +them, and my eye-glass was hanging down my back, when I felt the bay +stop. +</p> + +<p> +"Here's a way out," said my wife's voice, apparently from the middle of +a fir tree, "there's a sort of a cattle track here." +</p> + +<p> +There followed a scramble and a slide, then Philippa's voice again, +enjoining me to keep to the right. +</p> + +<p> +She has since explained that she really meant the left, and that, in +any case, I might have known that she always said right when she meant +left; be that as it may, when the bay and I had committed ourselves to +the steep descent—half water-course, half cattle track—I was smitten +in the face by a holly branch. Before I had recovered from its impact, +a stout beechen bough, that it had masked, met me violently across the +waistcoat and held me in mid-air, as the gorilla is reputed to grasp +and hold the traveller, while my horse moved firmly downward from +beneath me. After a moment of suspense, mental and physical, I fell to +earth, like the arrow in the song, I knew not where, and tobogganed +painfully down something steep and stony, with briers in it. +</p> + +<p> +As I rose to my feet, the mellow note of the horn that had beguiled us +from the wood, again sounded; nearer now, and with a harsher cadence, +and I perceived, at the farther end of the field in which I had +arrived, a bullock, with his head over a gate, sending a long and +lamentable bugle note to the companions from whom he had been +separated. Simultaneously the hounds opened far back in the wood +behind me, and I knew that the flood-tide of luck had turned against us. +</p> + +<p> +Flavin's bay had not waited for me. He was already well away, going +with head and tail high held, a gentleman at large, seeking for +entertainment at a lively and irresponsible trot. Pursuing him, with +more zeal than discretion, was Philippa on the grey mare; he broke into +a canter, and I had the pleasure of seeing them both swing through a +gateway and proceed at a round gallop across the next field. I +followed them at the best imitation of the same pace that my boots +permitted, and squelched through the mire of the gateway in time to see +the bay horse jump a tall bank, and drop with a clatter into a road. +At the same moment the drumming and hooting of a motor-car broke upon +my ear, and three heads, one of them wearing a tall hat, slid at high +speed along the line of the fence. At sight of this apparition the bay +horse gave a massive buck, and fled at full speed up a lane. To my +surprise and gratification, the motor-car instantly stopped, and one of +its occupants—the wearer of the tall hat—sprang out and gave chase to +my horse. +</p> + +<p> +My attention was here abruptly transferred to my wife, who, having +followed the chase, whether by her own wish or that of the grey mare I +have never been able to discover, was now combating the desire of the +latter to jump the bank at the exact spot calculated to land them both +in the lap of the motor-car. The dispute ended in a slanting and +crab-like rush at a place twenty yards lower down, and it was then that +the figure of our host, Mr. Lucius Butler-Knox, rose, amazingly, in the +motor-car, making semaphore gestures of warning. +</p> + +<p> +The mare jumped crookedly on to the bank, hung there for half a second, +and launched herself into space, the launch being followed, +appropriately, by a mighty splash. Neither she nor Philippa reappeared. +</p> + +<p> +Throughout these events I had not ceased to run, and the next thing I +can distinctly recall is scrambling, thoroughly blown, on to the fence, +whence a moving scene presented itself to me. The grey mare and +Philippa had, with singular ingenuity, selected between them the one +place in the fence where disaster was inevitable; and I now beheld my +wife prone in two feet of yellow water, the overflow of a flooded ditch +that had turned a hollow by the roadside into a sufficiently imposing +pond. Mr. Butler-Knox and the chauffeur were already rendering all the +assistance possible, short of wetting their feet, and were hauling her +ashore; while the grey mare, recumbent in deeper water, surveyed the +operation with composure, and made no attempt to move. When I joined +the party—a process involving a wide circuit of the flood—Philippa +had sunk, dripping, upon a heap of stones by the roadside, in laughter +as inexplicable as it was unsuitable. There was, at all events, no +need to ask if she were hurt. +</p> + +<p> +"The most appalling thing that you ever knew in your life has +happened!" she wailed, and instantly fell again into unseemly +convulsions. +</p> + +<p> +Whatever the jest might be, it did not appeal to the chauffeur, who +withdrew in silence to his motor, coldly wiping the vicarious duckweed +from his knees with a silk pocket-handkerchief. Still less did it +appeal to me. Any fair-minded person will admit that I had cause to be +excessively angry with Philippa. That a grown woman, the mother of two +children, should mistake the bellow of a bullock for the note of a horn +was bad enough; but that when, having caused a serious accident by not +knowing her right hand from her left, and having, by further +insanities, driven one valuable horse adrift into the country, probably +broken the back of another, laid the seeds of heart disease in her +husband from shock and over-exertion, and of rheumatic fever in +herself; when, I repeat, after all these outrages, she should sit in a +soaking heap by the roadside, laughing like a maniac, I feel that the +sympathy of the public will not be withheld from me. +</p> + +<p> +The mystery of Mr. Butler-Knox's appearance in the motor-car passed by +me like a feather in a whirlwind; I strode without a word into the +yellow flood in which the mare was lying, and got hold of her reins +with the handle of my crop; I might as well have tried to draw out +Behemoth with a hook. Her hind-quarters were well fixed in the hidden +ditch, she made not the slightest effort to stir, and continued to +recline, contentedly, not to say defiantly. +</p> + +<p> +"That's a great sign of fine weather," said a voice behind me in +affable comment, "when a horse will lie down in wather that way." +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="img-230"></a> +<img src="images/img-230.jpg" width="514" height="481" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">"THAT'S A GREAT SIGN OF FINE WEATHER WHEN A HORSE WILL <br/>LIE DOWN IN WATHER THAT WAY"</p> +</div> + +<p> +I turned upon my consoler, and saw a young countryman with a fur-lined +coat hanging upon his arm. +</p> + +<p> +"I got this thrown in the <i>bohireen</i> above," he said, "the other +gentleman, that's follying the bay horse, stripped it off him, and God +knows it's itself that's weighty!" +</p> + +<p> +"My dear Major!" began Looshy, addressing me agitatedly from the bank, +as a hen might address a refractory duckling, "there has been a most +unfortunate mistake." +</p> + +<p> +"There has! There has! It's all Flurry's fault!" gasped Philippa, +staggering towards me like a drunken woman. +</p> + +<p> +"I fear the General is terribly annoyed," continued Looshy, wiping his +grey beard and mopping his collar to remove the muddy imprint of +Philippa's arm; "he rushed into Garden Mount in search of his horses +when he found they were not at the meet nor at the station—he left +Lady Porteous with my sisters and took me to identify you; I mentioned +your name, but he did not seem to grasp it—indeed his language +was—er—was such that I thought it unwise to press the point." +</p> + +<p> +I dropped the reins and began, slowly, to wade out of the pool. +</p> + +<p> +"I understand he has but just paid £300 for these horses—it was an +unpardonable mistake of Flurry's," went on Looshy, "he found the +General's horses at the station and thought that they were Flavin's." +</p> + +<p> +"Dear Flurry!" sobbed Philippa, shamelessly, reeling against me and +clutching my arm. +</p> + +<p> +"Begor' he have the horse!" said the young countryman, looking up the +hill. +</p> + +<p> +A stout figure in a red coat and tall hat was approaching by way of the +<i>bohireen</i>, followed by a man leading a limping horse. +</p> + +<p> +"I think," said Looshy nervously, "that Mrs. Yeates had better have my +seat in the motor-car and hurry home. I will walk—I should really +prefer it. The General will be quite happy now that he has found his +horses and his old friend." +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="img-228"></a> +<img src="images/img-228.jpg" width="464" height="764" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">"I WILL WALK—I SHOULD REALLY PREFER IT"</p> +</div> + +<p> +The chauffeur, plying a long-necked oil-can, smiled sardonically. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a> +X<br/> +SHARPER THAN A FERRET'S TOOTH</h2> + +<p> +"My dear Philippa," said Miss Shute gloomily, "I have about as much +chance of spending next winter in Florence as I have of spending it in +the moon. I despair of ever getting Bernard married. I look upon him +as hopeless." +</p> + +<p> +"I don't agree with you at all," replied Philippa, "don't you remember +how demented he was about Sally Knox? And when we all thought he was +on the verge of suicide, we discovered that he was deep in a flirtation +with that American girl. It seems to me he's ready to be devoted to +any one who takes him in hand. He has none of that deadly helpless +fidelity about him." +</p> + +<p> +"I ought never to have allowed him to take up gardening," said Miss +Shute, despondently pursuing her own line of thought, "it only promotes +intimacies with dowagers." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, and it makes men elderly, and contented, and stay-at-home," +agreed Philippa; "it's one of the worst signs! But I can easily make +Sybil Hervey think she's a gardener. She's a thoroughly nice, +coercible girl. Alice has always been so particular about her girls. +Of course with their money they've been run after a good deal, but +they're not in the least spoilt." +</p> + +<p> +"I don't think," I murmured privately to Maria, who was trying to +hypnotise me into letting her crawl on to the sofa beside me, "that +we'll borrow half-a-crown to get drunk with her." +</p> + +<p> +Maria wagged her tail in servile acquiescence. +</p> + +<p> +"Nonsense!" said my wife largely. +</p> + +<p> +A month from the date of this conversation, Sybil Hervey, my wife's +pretty, young, and well-dowered niece, was staying beneath our roof. I +had not changed my mind about the half-crown, though Maria, perfidious +as ever, feigned for her the impassioned affection that had so often +imposed upon the guileless guest within my gates. +</p> + +<p> +"Why, this dog has taken the most extraordinary fancy to me!" Sybil +Hervey (who was really a very amiable girl) would say, and Maria, with +a furtive eye upon her owners, would softly draw the guest's third +piece of cake into the brown velvet bag that she called her mouth. +</p> + +<p> +This was all very well from Maria's point of view, but a friendship +with Maria had not been the object of Miss Hervey's importation. I +evade, by main strength, the quotation from Burns proper to this state +of affairs, and proceed to say that the matrimonial scheme laid by my +wife and Miss Shute was not prospering. Sybil Hervey, the coercible, +the thoroughly nice, shied persistently at the instructive pages of +Robinson's "English Flower Garden," and stuck in her toes and refused +point blank to weed seedlings for her Aunt Philippa. Nor was a +comprehensive garden party at Clountiss attended with any success; far +otherwise. Miss Shute unfortunately thought it incumbent on her to +trawl in deep waters, and to invite even the McRory family to her +entertainment, with the result that her brother, Bernard—I quote my +wife verbatim—made a ridiculous spectacle of himself by walking about +all the afternoon with a fluffy-haired, certainly-rather-pretty, little +abomination, a creature who was staying with the McRorys. Worse even +than this, Sybil had disappointed, if not disgraced, her backers, by +vanishing from the ken of un-gentle men with Mr. De Lacy McRory, known +to his friends as "Curly." +</p> + +<p> +I have before now dealt, superficially, and quite inadequately, with +the McRorys. It may even be permitted to me to recall again the +generic description of each young male McRory. "A bit of a lad, but +nothing at all to the next youngest." Since that time the family had +worn its way, unequally and in patches, into the tolerance of the +neighbourhood. It was said, apologetically, that the daughters danced, +and played tennis and golf so well, and the sons did the same and were +such excellent shots, and that Mrs. McRory bought, uncomplainingly, all +that was offered to her at bazaars, and could always be counted on for +a whole row of seats at local concerts. As for old McRory, people said +that he was certainly rather awful, but that he was better than his +family in that he knew that he was awful, and kept out of the way. As +a matter of history, there were not many functions where a McRory of +some kind, in accordance with its special accomplishment, did not find, +at all events, standing room; fewer still where they did not form a +valued topic of conversation. +</p> + +<p> +Curly McRory was, perhaps, the pioneer of his family in their advance +to cross what has been usefully called "the bounder-y line." He played +all games well, and he was indisputably good-looking, he knew how to be +discreetly silent; he also, apparently, knew how to talk to Sybil what +time her accredited chaperon, oblivious of her position, played two +engrossing sets of tennis. +</p> + +<p> +After this fiasco came a period of stagnation, during which Mr. De Lacy +McRory honoured us with his first visit to Shreelane, bicycling over to +see me, on business connected with the golf club; in my regretted +absence he asked for Mrs. Yeates, and stayed for tea. Following upon +this Sybil took to saying, "I will," in what she believed to be a +brogue, instead of "yes," and was detected in fruitless search for the +McRorys of Temple Braney in the pages of Burke's Irish Landed Gentry. +</p> + +<p> +It was at this unsatisfactory juncture that Mrs. Flurry Knox entered +into the affair with an invitation to us to spend three days at +Aussolas Castle, one of which was to be devoted to the destruction of a +pack of grouse, fabled by John Kane, the keeper, to frequent a mountain +back of Aussolas: the Shutes were also to be of the party. I seemed to +detect in the arrangement a hand more diplomatic than that of +Providence, but I said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +The Flurry Knoxes were, for the moment, in residence at Aussolas, while +old Mrs. Knox made her annual pilgrimage to Buxton. They were sent +there to keep the servants from fighting, and because John Kane had +said that there was no such enemies to pigs as servants on board wages. +(A dark saying, bearing indirectly on the plenishing of pig-buckets.) +</p> + +<p> +Between servants and pigs, as indeed in most affairs of life, little +Mrs. Flurry held the scales of justice with a remarkably steady hand, +and under her régime one could at all events be reasonably sure of +having one's boots cleaned, and of getting a hot bath in the morning. +We went to Aussolas, and Flurry and Bernard Shute and I put in a +blazing September day on the mountain, wading knee deep in matted +heather and furze, in pursuit of the mythical grouse, and brought home +two hares and a headache (the latter being my contribution to the bag). +The ladies met us with tea; Sybil, in Harris tweed and admirable boots, +looked, I must admit, uncommonly smart. Even Flurry was impressed, and +it was palpable to the most superficial observer that Bernard was at +length beginning, like a baby, to "take notice." After tea he and she +moved away in sweet accord to wash teacups in a bog-hole, from whence +their prattle came prosperously to the ears of the three diplomatists, +seated, like the witches in Macbeth, upon the heath, and, like them, +arranging futures for other people. Bearing in mind that one of the +witches had (in a previous incarnation as Miss Sally Knox) held Bernard +in her thrall, and still retained him in a platonic sphere of +influence, any person of experience would have said that the odds were +greatly against Mr. Shute. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="img-236"></a> +<img src="images/img-236.jpg" width="476" height="657" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">FLURRY AND I PUT IN A BLAZING SEPTEMBER DAY ON THE MOUNTAIN</p> +</div> + +<p> +The hot bath that was the <i>fine fleur</i> of Mrs. Flurry's régime at +Aussolas failed conspicuously next morning. It was the precursor of a +general slump. When, at a liberal 9.30, I arrived in the dining-room, +of neither host, hostess, nor breakfast was there any sign. The host, +it appeared, had gone to a fair; having waited for a hungry half-hour +we were coming to the conclusion that the hostess had gone with him, +when the door opened and Mrs. Flurry came swiftly into the room. Her +face was as a book, where men might read strange matters; it was also +of a hue that suggested the ardent climate of the kitchen; in her hand +she carried a toast-rack, and following hard on her heels came three +maids, also heavily flushed, bearing various foods, and all, +apparently, on the verge of tears. This cortège having retired, Mrs. +Flurry proceeded to explain. The butler, Johnny, a dingy young man, +once Mrs. Knox's bathchair-attendant, had departed at 8 A.M., +accompanied by Michael the pantry boy, to dig a grave for a cousin. To +those acquainted with Aussolas there was nothing remarkable in this, +but Sybil Hervey's china-blue eyes opened wide, and I heard her ask +Bernard in a low voice if he thought it was anything agrarian. The +annoyance of the cook at the defection of the butler and pantry boy was +so acute that she had retired to her room and refused to send in +breakfast. +</p> + +<p> +"That was no more than I should have expected from the servants here," +said Mrs. Flurry vindictively, "but what was just a little too much was +finding the yard-boy cramming the toast into the toast-rack with his +fingers." +</p> + +<p> +At this my wife's niece uttered the loud yell which all young women +with any pretension to smartness have by them for use on emergencies, +and exclaimed— +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, <i>don't</i>!" +</p> + +<p> +"You needn't be frightened," said Mrs. Flurry, giving Miss Hervey the +eighth part of a glance of her greeny-grey eyes; "I made this stuff +myself, and you may all think yourselves lucky to get anything," she +went on, "as one of the herd of incapables downstairs said, 'to get as +much milk as'd do the tea itself, that was the stratagem'!" +</p> + +<p> +Hard on the heels of the quotation there came a rushing sound in the +hall without, a furious grappling with the door-handle, and the cook +herself, or rather the Tragic Muse in person, burst into the room. Her +tawny hair hung loose about her head; her yellow-brown eyes blazed in +an ashen and extremely handsome face; she shook a pair of freckled +fists at the universe. I cannot pretend to do more than indicate the +drift of her denunciation. Brunhilde, ascending the funeral pyre, with +full orchestral accompaniment, could not more fully and deafeningly +have held her audience, and the theme might have been taken out of the +darkest corner of any of the Sagas. +</p> + +<p> +The burying-ground of her clan was—so she had been informed by a swift +runner—even now being broken into by the butler and the pantry boy, +and the graves of her ancestors were being thrown open to the Four +Winds of the World, to make room for the Scuff of the Country (whatever +that might mean). Here followed the most capable and comprehensive +cursings of the butler and the pantry boy that it has ever been my lot +to admire, delivered at lightning speed, and with gestures worthy of +the highest traditions of classic drama, the whole ending with the +statement that she was on her way to the graveyard now to drink their +blood. +</p> + +<p> +"I trust you will, Kate," cordially responded Mrs. Flurry, "don't wait +a moment!" +</p> + +<p> +The Tragic Muse, startled into an instant of silence, stared wildly at +Mrs. Flurry, seemed to scent afar off the possibility that she was not +being taken seriously, and whirled from the room, a Vampire on the +warpath. +</p> + +<p> +"I meant every word I said to her!" said Sally, looking round upon us +defiantly, "I was very near offering her your motor, Mr. Shute! The +sooner she kills Johnny and Michael the better pleased I shall be! And +I may tell you all," she added, "that we shall have no luncheon to-day, +and most probably no dinner!" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, that's all right!" said Philippa, seeing her chance, and hammering +in her wedge with all speed, "now there's nothing for it but sandwiches +and a picnic!" +</p> + +<p> +The lake at Aussolas was one of a winding chain of three, connected by +narrow channels cut through the bog for the passage of boats that +carried turf to the lake-side dwellers. The end one of these, known as +Braney's Lake, was a recognised place for picnics; a ruined oratory on +a wooded point supplying the pretext, and a reliable spring well +completing the equipment. The weather was of the variety specially +associated in my mind with Philippa's picnics, brilliantly fine, with a +falling glass, and 12 o'clock saw us shoving out from the Aussolas turf +quay, through the reeds and the rocks. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="img-240"></a> +<img src="images/img-240.jpg" width="514" height="715" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">BRANEY'S LAKE</p> +</div> + +<p> +We were a party of six, in two boats; diplomacy, whose I know not, had +so disposed matters that Bernard Shute and Sybil Hervey were despatched +together in a dapper punt, and I, realising to the full the +insignificance of my position as a married man, found myself tugging at +a tough and ponderous oar, in a species of barge, known to history as +"The-Yallow-Boat-that-was-painted-black." My wife and Mrs. Flurry took +turns in assisting my labours by paddling with a scull in the bow, +while Miss Shute languidly pulled the wrong string at intervals, in the +stern. Why, I grumbled contentiously, should, as it were, fish be made +of Bernard and flesh be made of me (which was a highly figurative way +of describing a performance that would take a stone off my weight ere +all was done). Why, I repeated, should not Bernard put his broad back +into it in the heavy boat with me, and leave the punt for the ladies? +My wife tore herself from <i>sotto voce</i> gabblings with Sally in the bow +to tell me that I was thoroughly unsympathetic, what time she dealt me +an unintentional but none the less disabling blow in the spine, in her +effort to fall again into stroke. Mrs. Flurry, in order to take turns +at the oar with Philippa, had seated herself on the luncheon basket in +the bow, thereby sinking the old tub by the head, and, as we afterwards +found, causing her to leak in the sun-dried upper seams. To us +travelled the voice of Bernard, lightly propelling his skiff over the +ruffled and sparkling blue water. +</p> + +<p> +"He's telling her about all the alterations he's going to make at +Clountiss!" hissed Sally down the back of Philippa's neck. +</p> + +<p> +"Almost actionable!" responded my wife, and in her enthusiasm her oar +again took me heavily between the shoulder blades. +</p> + +<p> +We laboured out of the Aussolas lake, and poled down the narrow channel +into the middle lake, where shallows, and a heavy summer's growth of +reeds, did not facilitate our advance. The day began to cloud over; as +we wobbled out of the second channel into Braney's lake the sun went +in, a sharp shower began to whip the water, and simultaneously Miss +Shute announced that her feet were wet, and that she thought the boat +must be leaking. I then perceived that the water was up to the bottom +boards, and was coming in faster than I could have wished. A baler was +required, and I proceeded with confidence to search for the rusty +mustard tin, or cracked jam-crock, that fills that office. There was +nothing to be found. +</p> + +<p> +"There are plenty of cups in the luncheon basket," said Sally, +tranquilly; "Flurry once had to bale this old boat out with one of his +grandmother's galoshes." +</p> + +<p> +Philippa and I began to row with some vigour, while Sally wrestled with +the fastening of the luncheon basket in the bow. The lid opened with a +jerk and a crack. There was one long and speechless moment, and then +Sally said in a very gentle voice: +</p> + +<p> +"They've sent the washing-basket, with all the clean clothes!" +</p> + +<p> +Of the general bearings of this catastrophe there was no time to think; +its most pressing feature was the fact that there were no cups with +which to bale the boat. I looked over my shoulder and saw Bernard +dragging the punt ashore under the ruined oratory, a quarter of a mile +away; there was nothing for it but to turn and make for the shore on +our right at the best pace attainable. Sally and Philippa +double-banked the bow oar, and the old boat, leaking harder at each +moment, wallowed on towards a landing stage that suddenly became +visible amid the reeds—the bottom boards were by this time awash, and +Miss Shute's complexion and that of her holland dress matched to a +shade. +</p> + +<p> +"Could you throw the washing overboard?" I suggested over my shoulder, +labouring the while at my massy oar. +</p> + +<p> +"My—new—nightgowns!" panted Mrs. Flurry, "never!" +</p> + +<p> +Just then big rocks began to show yellow in the depths, the next moment +the boat scraped over one, and, almost immediately afterwards, settled +down quietly and with dignity in some three feet of brown water and mud. +</p> + +<p> +Only those who have tried to get out of a submerged boat, can form any +idea of what then befell. Our feet and legs turned to lead, the water +to glue, all that was floatable in the boat rose to the surface, and +lay about there impeding our every movement. We had foundered in sight +of port and were not half-a-dozen yards from the landing stage, but to +drag myself and three women, all up to our waists in water, and the +ladies hopelessly handicapped by their petticoats, over the gunwale of +a sunken boat, and to flounder ashore with them in mud, over unsteady +rocks, and through the ever-hampering reeds, was infinitely more +difficult and exhausting than it may seem. +</p> + +<p> +Clasping a slimy post to my bosom with one arm, I was in the act of +shoving Miss Shute up on to the landing stage, when I heard the +unmistakeable Dublin light tenor voice of a McRory hail me, announcing +that he was coming to our rescue. More distant shouts, and the rapid +creaking of hard-pulled oars told that Bernard and Sybil were also +speeding to our aid. The three diplomates, dripping on the end of the +pier, looked at each other bodefully, and Philippa murmured: +</p> + +<p> +"The worst has happened!" +</p> + +<p> +After that the worst continued to happen, and at a pace that overbore +all resistance. Mr. De Lacy McRory, tall and beautiful, in lily-white +flannels, took the lead into his own hands and played his game +faultlessly. Philippa was the object of his chief solicitude, Sally +and Miss Shute had their share of a manly tenderness that resolutely +ignored the degrading absurdity of their appearance; his father's +house, and all that was therein was laid at our feet. Captive and +helpless, we slopped and squelched beside him through the shrubberies +of Temple Braney House, with the shower, now matured into a heavy +down-pour, completing our saturation, too spiritless to resent the +heavy pleasantries of Bernard, the giggling condolences of Sybil. +</p> + +<p> +We have never been able to decide at which moment the knife of +humiliation cut deepest, whether it was when we stood and dripped on +the steps, while Curly McRory summoned in trumpet tones his women-kind, +or when, still dripping, we stood in the hall and were presented to +Mrs. McRory and a troop of young men and maidens, vociferous in +sympathy and hospitality; or when, having progressed like water carts +through the house, we found ourselves installed, like the Plague of +Frogs, in the bedchambers of the McRorys, face to face with the supreme +embarrassment of either going to bed, or of arraying ourselves in the +all too gorgeous garments that were flung before us with a generous +abandon worthy of Sir Walter Raleigh. +</p> + +<p> +I chose the latter course, and, in process of time, found myself +immaculately clothed in what is, I believe, known to tailors as "a +Lounge Suit," though not for untold gold would I have lounged, or by +any carelessness endangered the perfection of the creases of its dark +grey trousers. +</p> + +<p> +The luncheon gong sounded, and, like the leading gentleman in any +drawing-room drama, I put forth from my dressing-room, and at the head +of the stairs met my wife and Miss Shute. They were, if possible, +grander than I, and looked as if they were going to a wedding. +</p> + +<p> +"We had the choice of about eighty silk blouses," breathed Philippa, +gathering up a long and silken train, "Sally has to wear Madame's +clothes, nothing else were short enough. We're in for it, you know," +she added, "a luncheon is inevitable, and goodness knows when we can +get away, especially if this rain lasts—" her voice broke +hysterically; I turned and saw Mrs. Flurry shuffling towards us in +velvet slippers, holding up with both hands a flowing purple brocade +skirt. I pointed repressively downwards, to where, in the window seat +of the hall below, were visible the crispéd golden curls of Mr. De Lacy +McRory, and the shining rolls and undulations of Miss Sybil Hervey's +<i>chevelure</i>. Their heads were in close proximity, and their voices +were low and confidential. +</p> + +<p> +"This must be put a stop to!" said Philippa, rustling swiftly +downstairs. +</p> + +<p> +We all moved processionally in to lunch, arm in arm with the McRorys. +To Philippa had fallen old McRory, who was the best of the party (in +being so awful that he knew he was awful). He maintained an unbroken +silence throughout the meal, but whistled jigs secretly through his +teeth, a method of keeping up his courage of which I believe he was +quite unconscious. Of the brilliance of the part that I played with +Mrs. McRory it would ill become me to speak; what is more worthy of +record is the rapid and Upas-like growth of intimacy between Curly +McRory and my wife's niece. She had probably never before encountered +a young man so anxious to be agreeable, so skilled in achieving that +end. The fact that he was Irish accounted, no doubt, in her eyes, for +all that was unusual in his voice and manners, and his long eyelashes +did the rest. Sybil grew momently pinker and prettier as the long, +extraordinary meal marched on. +</p> + +<p> +Of its component parts I can only remember that there was a soup tureen +full of custard, a mountainous dish of trifle, in whose veins ran +honey, instead of jam, and to whose enlivenment a bottle at least of +whisky had been dedicated; certainly, at one period, Philippa had on +one side of her plate a cup of soup, and on the other a cup of tea. +Cecilia Shute was perhaps the member of our party who took it all +hardest. Pale and implacable, attired in a brilliant blue garment that +was an outrage alike to her convictions and her complexion, she sat +between two young McRorys, who understood no more of her language than +she did of theirs, and was obliged to view with the frigid tranquillity +boasted of by Doctor Johnson, the spectacle of her brother devoting +himself enthusiastically to that McRory cousin whom Philippa had +described as a fluffy-haired abomination. Everything, in fact, was +occurring that was least desired by the ladies of my party, with the +single exception of my niece by marriage; and the glowing satisfaction +of the McRory family was not hid from us, and did not ameliorate the +position. +</p> + +<p> +When luncheon was at length brought to a close nothing could well have +been blacker than the outlook. The rain, and the splendour of our +borrowed plumes, put a return by boat out of the question. It was a +good seven miles round by road, and the McRory family, fleet and +tireless bicyclists, had but one horse, which was lame. A telegram to +Aussolas had been despatched an hour ago, but as Mrs. Flurry was +gloomily certain that every servant there had gone to the funeral, the +time of our release was unknown. +</p> + +<p> +I do not now distinctly remember what occurred immediately after lunch, +but I know there came a period when I found myself alone in the hall, +turning over the pages of a dreary comic paper, uncertain what to do, +but determined on one point, that neither principalities nor powers +should force me into the drawing-room, where sat the three unhappy +women of my party, being entertained within an inch of their lives by +Mrs. McRory. Sybil and Bernard and their boon companions had betaken +themselves to that distant and dilapidated wing of the house in which I +had once unearthed Tomsy Flood, there to play squash racquets in one of +the empty rooms. I was consequently enacting the part laid down for me +by my lounge suit; I was lounging, as a gentleman should, without for +an instant disturbing the creases of my trousers. +</p> + +<p> +At times I was aware of the silent and respectful surveillance of Mr. +McRory in the inner hall, but I thought it best for us both to feign +unconsciousness of his presence. Through a swing door that, true to +its definition, swung wheezily to the cabbage-laden draughts from the +lower regions, I could hear the tide of battle rolling through the +disused wing. The squash racquets seemed to be of a most pervading +character; the thunder of rushing feet, blent with the long, +progressive shriek of an express train, would at intervals approach +almost to the swing door, but I remained unmolested. I had entered +upon my second cigarette, and a period of comparative peace, when I +heard a stealing foot, and found at my elbow a female McRory of about +twelve as years go, but dowered with the accumulated experience of six +elder sisters. +</p> + +<p> +"Did Pinkie and Mr. Shute come in this way to hide?" she began, looking +at me as if "Pinkie," whoever she might be, was in my pocket. "We're +playing hide'n-go-seek, and we can't find them." +</p> + +<p> +I said I knew nothing of them. +</p> + +<p> +The McRory child looked at me with supernal intelligence from under the +wing of dark hair that was tied over one ear. +</p> + +<p> +"They're not playing fair anyhow, and there's Curly and Miss Hervey +that wouldn't play at all!" She eyed me again. "He took her out to +show her the ferrets and they never came back. I was watching them; +she said one of the ferrets bit her finger, and Curly kissed it!" +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose you mean he kissed the ferret," I said repressively, while I +thought of Alice Hervey, mother of Sybil, and trembled. +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, go on! what a fool you're letting on to be!" replied the McRory +child, with elegant sarcasm. She swung round on her heel and sped away +again upon the trail, cannoning against old McRory in the back hall. +</p> + +<p> +"I tell you, that's the lady!" soliloquised old McRory, from the deep +of the back hall. I gathered that he was referring to the social +capacity of his youngest daughter and thought he was probably right. +</p> + +<p> +It was at this moment that deliverance broke like a sunburst upon us; I +saw through the windows of the hall a dogcart and an outside car whirl +past the door and onwards to the yard. The former was driven by Flurry +Knox, the car by Michael the Aussolas pantry boy, apparently none the +worse for his encounter with the vampire cook. I snatched an umbrella, +and, regardless of the lounge suit, followed with all speed the golden +path of the sunburst. +</p> + +<p> +Flurry, clad in glistening yellow oilskins, met me in the yard, wearing +an expression of ill-concealed exultation worthy of Job's comforters at +their brightest. +</p> + +<p> +"D'ye know who opened your wire?" he began, regarding me with an all +observant eye from under his sou-wester, while the rain drops ran down +his nose. "I can tell you there's the Old Gentleman to pay at +Aussolas—or the old lady, and that's worse! That's a nice suit—you +ought to buy that from Curly." +</p> + +<p> +"Who opened my telegram?" I said. I was not at all amused. +</p> + +<p> +"'When she got there, the cupboard was bare,'" returned Flurry. "'Not +a servant in the house, not a bit in the larder!' If it wasn't that by +the mercy of providence I found the picnic basket that you bright boys +had left after you, she'd have torn the house down!" +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose you mean that your grandmother has come back," I said +stonily. +</p> + +<p> +"She fought with her unfortunate devil of a doctor at Buxton," said +Flurry, permitting himself a grin of remembrance, "he told her she was +too old to eat late dinner, and she told him she wasn't going to be a +slave to her stomach or to him either, and she'd eat her dinner when +she pleased, and she landed in at Aussolas by the mid-day train without +a word." +</p> + +<p> +"What did she say when she opened my telegram?" I faltered. +</p> + +<p> +"She said 'Thank God I'm not a fool!'" replied her grandson. +</p> + +<p> +The proposition was unanswerable, and I took it, so to speak, lying +down. +</p> + +<p> +"Here!" said Flurry, summoning the pantry boy. "These horses must go +in out of the rain. I'll look over there for some place I can put +them." +</p> + +<p> +"I see Michael got back from the funeral," I said, following Flurry +across the wide and wet expanse of the yard, "I suppose the cook killed +Johnny?" +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, not at all," said Flurry, "anyway, my grandmother had the two of +them up unpacking her trunks when I left. Here, this place looks like +a stable——" +</p> + +<p> +He opened a door, in front of which a cascade from a broken water-shoot +was splashing noisily. The potent smell of ferrets greeted us. +</p> + +<p> +Seated on the ferrets' box were Mr. De Lacy McRory, and Sybil, daughter +of Alice Hervey. Apparently she had again been bitten by the ferret, +but this time the bite was not on her finger. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a> +XI<br/> +OWENEEN THE SPRAT</h2> + +<p> +I was labouring under the slough of Christmas letters and bills, when +my wife came in and asked me if I would take her to the Workhouse. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="img-256"></a> +<img src="images/img-256.jpg" width="486" height="468" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">MY WIFE CAME AND ASKED ME IF I WOULD TAKE HER TO THE WORKHOUSE</p> +</div> + +<p> +"My dear," I replied, ponderously, but, I think, excusably, "you have, +as usual, anticipated my intention, but I think we can hold out until +after Christmas." +</p> + +<p> +Philippa declined to pay the jest the respect to which its age entitled +it, and replied inconsequently that I knew perfectly well that she +could not drive the outside car with the children and the Christmas +tree. I assented that they would make an awkward team, and offered, as +a substitute for my services, those of Denis, the stopgap. +</p> + +<p> +Those who live in Ireland best know the staying powers of stopgaps. +Denis, uncle of Michael Leary the Whip, had been imported into the +kennels during my ministry, to bridge a hiatus in the long dynasty of +the kennel-boys, and had remained for eighteen months, a notable +instance of the survival of what might primarily have been considered +the unfittest. That Denis should so long have endured his nephew's +rule was due not so much to the tie of blood, as to the privileged +irresponsibility of a stopgap. Nothing was expected of him, and he +pursued an unmolested course, until the return of Flurry Knox from +South Africa changed the general conditions. He then remained +submerged until he drifted into the gap formed in my own establishment +by Mr. Peter Cadogan's elopement. +</p> + +<p> +Philippa's workhouse-tea took place on Christmas Eve. We were still +hurrying through an early luncheon when the nodding crest of the +Christmas tree passed the dining-room windows. My youngest son +immediately upset his pudding into his lap; and Philippa hustled forth +to put on her hat, an operation which, like the making of an omelette, +can apparently only be successfully performed at the last moment. With +feelings of mingled apprehension and relief I saw the party drive from +the door, the Christmas tree seated on one side of the car, Philippa on +the other, clutching her offspring, Denis on the box, embosomed, like a +wood-pigeon, in the boughs of the spruce fir. I congratulated myself +that the Quaker, now white with the snows of many winters, was in the +shafts. Had I not been too deeply engaged in so arranging the rug that +it should not trail in the mud all the way to Skebawn, I might have +noticed that the lamps had been forgotten. +</p> + +<p> +It was, as I have said, Christmas Eve, and as the afternoon wore on I +began to reflect upon what the road from Skebawn would be in another +hour, full of drunken people, and, what was worse, of carts steered by +drunken people. I had assured Philippa (with what I believe she +describes as masculine <i>esprit de corps</i>) of Denis's adequacy as a +driver, but that did not alter the fact that in the last rays of the +setting sun, I got out my bicycle and set forth for the Workhouse. +When I reached the town it was dark, but the Christmas shoppers showed +no tendency to curtail their operations on that account, and the +streets were filled with an intricate and variously moving tide of +people and carts. The paraffin lamps in the shops did their best, +behind bunches of holly, oranges, and monstrous Christmas candles, and +partially illumined the press of dark-cloaked women, and more or less +drunken men, who swayed and shoved and held vast conversations on the +narrow pavements. The red glare of the chemist's globe transformed the +leading female beggar of the town into a being from the Brocken; her +usual Christmas family, contributed for the festival by the neighbours, +as to a Christmas number, were grouped in fortunate ghastliness in the +green light. She extracted from me her recognised tribute, and pursued +by her assurance that she would forgive me now till Easter (<i>i.e.</i> that +further alms would not be exacted for at least a fortnight), I made my +way onward into the outer darkness, beyond the uttermost link in the +chain of public-houses. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="img-258"></a> +<img src="images/img-258.jpg" width="780" height="514" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">AN INTRICATE AND VARIOUSLY MOVING TIDE OF PEOPLE</p> +</div> + +<p> +The road that led to the Workhouse led also to the railway station; a +quarter of a mile away the green light of a signal-post stood high in +the darkness, like an emerald. As I neared the Workhouse I recognised +the deliberate footfall of the Quaker, and presently his long pale face +entered the circle illuminated by my bicycle-lamp. My family were not +at all moved by my solicitude for their safety, but, being in want of +an audience, were pleased to suggest that I should drive home with +them. The road was disgustingly muddy; I tied my bicycle to the back +of the car with the rope that is found in wells of all outside cars. +It was not till I had put out the bicycle lamp that I noticed that the +car-lamps had been forgotten, but Denis, true to the convention of his +tribe, asseverated that he could see better without lights. I took the +place vacated by the Christmas tree, the Quaker pounded on at his usual +stone-breaking trot, and my offspring, in strenuous and entangled duet, +declaimed to me the events of the afternoon. +</p> + +<p> +It was without voice or warning that a row of men was materialised out +of the darkness, under the Quaker's nose; they fell away to right and +left, but one, as if stupefied, held on his way in the middle of the +road. It is not easy to divert the Quaker from his course; we swung to +the right, but the wing of the car, on my side, struck the man full in +the chest. He fell as instantly and solidly as if he were a stone +pillar, and, like a stone, he lay in the mud. Loud and inebriate howls +rose from the others, and, as if in answer, came a long and distant +shriek from an incoming train. Upon this, without bestowing an +instant's further heed to their fallen comrade, the party took to their +heels and ran to the station. It was all done in a dozen seconds; by +the time the Quaker was pulled up we were alone with our victim, and +Denis was hoarsely suggesting to me that it would be better to drive +away at once. I have often since then regretted that I did not take +his advice. +</p> + +<p> +The victim was a very small man; Denis and I dragged him to the side of +the road, and propped him up against the wall. He was of an alarming +limpness, but there was a something reassuring in the reek of whisky +that arose as I leaned over him, trying to diagnose his injuries by the +aid of a succession of lighted matches. His head lay crookedly on his +chest; he breathed heavily, but peacefully, and his limbs seemed +uninjured. Denis at my elbow, did not cease to assure me, tremulously, +that there was nothing ailed the man, that he was a stranger, and that +it would be as good for us to go home. Philippa, on the car, strove as +best she might with the unappeasable curiosity of her sons and with the +pigheaded anxiety of the Quaker to get home to his dinner. At this +juncture a voice, fifty yards away in the darkness, uplifted itself in +song— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +"Heaven's refle-hex! Killa-ar-ney!"<br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +it bawled hideously. +</p> + +<p> +It fell as balm upon my ear, in its assurance of the proximity of +Slipper. +</p> + +<p> +"Sure I know the man well," he said, shielding the flame of a match in +his hand with practised skill. "Wake up, me <i>bouchaleen</i>!" He shook +him unmercifully. "Open your eyes, darlin'!" +</p> + +<p> +The invalid here showed signs of animation by uttering an incoherent +but, as it seemed, a threatening roar. It lifted Denis as a feather is +lifted by a wind, and wafted him to the Quaker's head, where he +remained in strict attention to his duties. It also lifted Philippa. +</p> + +<p> +"Is he very bad, do you think?" she murmured at my elbow. "Shall I +drive for the doctor?" +</p> + +<p> +"Arrah, what docthor?" said Slipper magnificently. "Give me a +half-a-crown, Major, and I'll get him what meddyceen will answer him as +good as any docthor! Lave him to me!" He shook him again. "I'll +regulate him!" +</p> + +<p> +The victim here sat up, and shouted something about going home. He was +undoubtedly very drunk. It seemed to me that Slipper's ministrations +would be more suitable to the situation than mine, certainly than +Philippa's. I administered the solatium; then I placed Denis on the +box of the car with the bicycle-lamp in his hand, and drove my family +home. +</p> + +<p> +After church next day we met Flurry Knox. He approached us with the +green glint in his eye that told that game was on foot, whatever that +game might be. +</p> + +<p> +"Who bailed you out, Mrs. Yeates?" he said solicitously. "I heard you +and the Major and Denis Leary were all in the lock-up for furious +driving and killing a man! I'm told he was anointed last night." +</p> + +<p> +Philippa directed what she believed to be a searching glance at +Flurry's face of friendly concern. +</p> + +<p> +"I don't believe a word of it!" she said dauntlessly, while a very +becoming warmth in her complexion betrayed an inward qualm. "Who told +you?" +</p> + +<p> +"The servants heard it at first Mass this morning; and Slipper had me +late for church telling me about it. The fellow says if he lives he's +going to take an action against the Major." +</p> + +<p> +I listened with, I hope, outward serenity. In dealings with Flurry +Knox the possibility that he might be speaking the truth could never +safely be lost sight of. It was also well to remember that he +generally knew what the truth was. +</p> + +<p> +I said loftily, that there had been nothing the matter with the man but +Christmas Eve, and inquired if Flurry knew his name and address. +</p> + +<p> +"Of course I do," said Flurry, "he's one of those mountainy men that +live up in the hill behind Aussolas. Oweneen the Sprat is the name he +goes by, and he's the crossest little thief in the Barony. Never mind, +Mrs. Yeates, I'll see you get fair play in the dock!" +</p> + +<p> +"How silly you are!" said Philippa; but I could see that she was shaken. +</p> + +<p> +Whatever Flurry's servants may have heard at first Mass, was apparently +equalled, if not excelled, by what Denis heard at second. He asked me +next morning, with a gallant attempt at indifference, if I had had any +word of "the man-een." +</p> + +<p> +"'Twas what the people were saying on the roads last night that he +could have the law of us, and there was more was saying that he'd never +do a day's good. Sure they say the backbone is cracked where the wheel +of the car went over him! But didn't yourself and the misthress swear +black and blue that the wheel never went next or nigh him? And didn't +Michael say that there wasn't a Christmas this ten years that that one +hadn't a head on him the size of a bullawawn with the len'th of dhrink?" +</p> + +<p> +In spite of the contributory negligence that might be assumed in the +case of any one with this singular infirmity, I was not without a +secret uneasiness. Two days afterwards I received a letter, written on +copybook paper in a clerkly hand. It had the Aussolas post-mark, in +addition to the imprint of various thumbs, and set forth the injuries +inflicted by me and my driver on Owen Twohig on Christmas Eve, and +finally, it demanded a compensation of twenty pounds for the same. +Failing this satisfaction the law was threatened, but a hope was +finally expressed that the honourable gentleman would not see a poor +man wronged; it was, in fact, the familiar mixture of bluff and whine, +and, as I said to Philippa, the Man-een (under which title he had +passed into the domestic vocabulary) had of course got hold of a letter +writer to do the trick for him. +</p> + +<p> +In the next day or so I met Flurry twice, and found him so rationally +interested, and even concerned, about fresh versions of the accident +that had cropped up, that I was moved to tell him of the incident of +the letter. He looked serious, and said he would go up himself to see +what was wrong with Oweneen. He advised me to keep out of it for the +present, as they might open their mouths too big. +</p> + +<p> +The moon was high as I returned from this interview; when I wheeled my +bicycle into the yard I found that the coach-house in which I was wont +to stable it was locked; so also was the harness-room. Attempting to +enter the house by the kitchen door I found it also was locked; a +gabble of conversation prevailed within, and with the mounting +indignation of one who hears but cannot make himself heard, I banged +ferociously on the door. Silence fell, and Mrs. Cadogan's voice +implored heaven's protection. +</p> + +<p> +"Open the door!" I roared. +</p> + +<p> +A windlike rush of petticoats followed, through which came sibilantly +the words, "Glory be to goodness! 'Tis the masther!" +</p> + +<p> +The door opened, I found myself facing the entire strength of my +establishment, including Denis, and augmented by Slipper. +</p> + +<p> +"They told me you were asking afther me, Major," began Slipper, +descending respectfully from the kitchen table, on which he had been +seated. +</p> + +<p> +I noticed that Mrs. Cadogan was ostentatiously holding her heart, and +that Denis was shaking like the conventional aspen. +</p> + +<p> +"What's all this about?" said I, looking round upon them. "Why is the +whole place locked up?" +</p> + +<p> +"It was a little unaisy they were," said Slipper, snatching the +explanation from Mrs. Cadogan with the determination of the skilled +leader of conversation; "I was telling them I seen two men below in the +plantation, like they'd be watching out for some one, and poor Mr. +Leary here got a reeling in his head after I telling it——" +</p> + +<p> +"Indeed the crayture was as white, now, as white as a masheroon!" broke +in Mrs. Cadogan, "and we dhrew him in here to the fire till your Honour +came home." +</p> + +<p> +"Nonsense!" I said angrily, "a couple of boys poaching rabbits! Upon +my word, Slipper, you have very little to do coming here and +frightening people for nothing." +</p> + +<p> +"What did I say?" demanded Slipper, dramatically facing his audience, +"only that I seen two men in the plantation. How would I know what +business they had in it?" +</p> + +<p> +"Ye said ye heard them whishling to each other like curlews through the +wood," faltered Denis, "and sure that's the whishle them Twohigs has +always——" +</p> + +<p> +"Maybe it's whistling to the girls they were!" suggested Slipper, with +an unabashed eye at Hannah. +</p> + +<p> +I told him to come up with me to my office, and stalked from the +kitchen, full of the comfortless wrath that has failed to find a +suitable victim. +</p> + +<p> +The interview in the office did not last long, nor was it in any way +reassuring. Slipper, with the manner of the confederate who had waded +shoulder to shoulder with me through gore, could only tell me that +though he believed that there was nothing ailed the Man-een, he +wouldn't say but what he might be sevarely hurted. That I wasn't gone +five minutes before near a score of the Twohigs come leathering down +out of the town in two ass-butts (this term indicates donkey-carts of +the usual dimensions), and when Oweneen felt them coming, he let the +most unmarciful screech, upon which Slipper, in just fear of the +Twohigs, got over the wall, and executed a strategic retreat upon the +railway station, leaving the Twohigs to carry away their wounded to the +mountains. That for himself he had been going in dread of them ever +since, and for no one else in the wide world would he have put a hand +to one of them. +</p> + +<p> +I preserved an unshaken front towards Slipper, and I was subsequently +sarcastic and epigrammatic to Philippa on the subject of the curlews +who were rabbiting in the plantation, but something that I justified to +myself as a fear of Philippa's insatiable conscientiousness, made me +resolve that I would, without delay, go "back in the mountain," and +interview Oweneen the Sprat. +</p> + +<p> +New Year's Day favoured my purpose, bringing with it clear frost and +iron roads, a day when even the misanthropic soul of a bicycle awakens +into sympathy and geniality. I started in the sunny vigour of the +early afternoon, I sailed up the hills with the effortless speed of a +seagull, I free-wheeled down them with the dive of a swallow, and, as +it seemed to me, with a good deal of its grace. Had Oweneen the Sprat +had the luck to have met me, when, at the seventh milestone from +Shreelane, I realised that I had beaten my own best time by seven +minutes, he could practically have made his own terms. At that point, +however, I had to leave the high road, and the mountain lane that +ensued restored to me the judicial frame of mind. In the first twenty +yards my bicycle was transformed from a swallow to an opinionated and +semi-paralysed wheelbarrow; struggling in a species of dry watercourse +I shoved it up the steep gradients of a large and brown country of +heather and bog, silent save for the contending voices of the streams. +A family of goats, regarding me from a rocky mound, was the first hint +of civilisation; a more reliable symptom presently advanced in the +shape of a lean and hump-backed sow, who bestowed on me a side glance +of tepid interest as she squeezed past. +</p> + +<p> +The <i>bohireen</i> dropped, with a sudden twist to the right, and revealed +a fold in the hillside, containing a half dozen or so of little fields, +crooked, and heavily walled, and nearly as many thatched cabins, flung +about in the hollows as indiscriminately as the boulders upon the +wastes outside. A group of children rose in front of me like a flight +of starlings, and scudded with barefooted nimbleness to the shelter of +the houses, in a pattering, fluttering stampede. I descended upon the +nearest cabin of the colony. The door was shut; a heavy padlock +linking two staples said Not at Home, and the nose of a dog showed in a +hole above the sill, sniffing deeply and suspiciously. I remembered +that the first of January was a holy-day, and that every man in the +colony had doubtless betaken himself to the nearest village. The next +cottage was some fifty yards away, and the faces of a couple of +children peered at me round the corner of it. As I approached they +vanished, but the door of the cabin was open, and blue turf smoke +breathed placidly outwards from it. The merciful frost had glazed the +inevitable dirty pool in front of the door, and had made practicable +the path beside it; I propped my bicycle against a rock, and projected +into the dark interior an inquiry as to whether there was any one in. +</p> + +<p> +I had to repeat it twice before a small old woman with white hair and a +lemon-coloured face appeared; I asked her if she could tell me where +Owen Twohig lived. +</p> + +<p> +"Your Honour's welcome," she replied, tying the strings of her cap +under her chin with wiry fingers, and eyeing me with concentrated +shrewdness. I repeated the question. +</p> + +<p> +She responded by begging me to come in and rest myself, for this was a +cross place and a backwards place, and I should be famished with the +cold—"sure them little wheels dhraws the wind." +</p> + +<p> +I ignored this peculiarity of bicycles, and, not without exasperation, +again asked for Owen Twohig. +</p> + +<p> +"Are you Major Yeates, I beg your pardon?" I assented to what she knew +as well as I did. +</p> + +<p> +"Why then 'tis here he lives indeed, in this little house, and a poor +place he have to live in. Sure he's my son, the crayture—" her voice +at once ascended to the key of lamentation—"faith, he didn't rise till +to-day. Since Christmas Eve I didn't quinch light in the house with +him stretched in the bed always, and not a bit passed his lips night or +day, only one suppeen of whisky in its purity. Ye'd think the tongue +would light out of his mouth with the heat, and ye'd see the blaze of +darkness in his face! I hadn't as much life in me this morning as that +I could wash my face!" +</p> + +<p> +I replied that I wanted to speak to her son, and was in a hurry. +</p> + +<p> +"He's not within, asthore, he's not within at all. He got the lend of +a little donkey, and he went back the mountain to the bonesetter, to +try could he straighten the leg with him." +</p> + +<p> +"Did Dr. Hickey see him?" I demanded. +</p> + +<p> +"Sure a wise woman came in from Finnaun, a' Stephen's Day," pursued +Mrs. Twohig swiftly, "and she bet three spits down on him, and she said +it's what ailed him he had the Fallen Palate, with the dint o' the blow +the car bet him in the poll, and that any one that have the Fallen +Palate might be speechless for three months with it. She took three +ribs of his hair then, and she was pulling them till she was in a +passpiration, and in the latther end she pulled up the palate." She +paused and wiped her eyes with her apron. "But the leg is what has him +destroyed altogether; she told us we should keep sheep's butter rubbed +to it in the place where the thrack o' the wheel is down in it." +</p> + +<p> +The blush of a frosty sunset was already in the sky, and the children +who had fled before me had returned, reinforced by many others, to +cluster in a whispering swarm round my bicycle, and to group themselves +attentively in the rear of the conversation. +</p> + +<p> +"Look here, Mrs. Twohig," I said, not as yet angry, but in useful +proximity to it, "I've had a letter from your son, and he and his +friends have been trying to frighten my man, Denis Leary; he can come +down and see me if he has anything to say, but you can tell him from me +that I'm not going to stand this sort of thing!" +</p> + +<p> +If the Widow Twohig had been voluble before, this pronouncement had the +effect of bringing her down in spate. She instantly, and at the top of +her voice, called heaven to witness her innocence, and the innocence of +her "little boy"; still at full cry, she sketched her blameless career, +and the unmerited suffering that had ever pursued her and hers; how, +during the past thirty years, she had been drooping over her little +orphans, and how Oweneen, that was the only one she had left to do a +hand's turn for her, would be "under clutches" the longest day that +he'd live. It was at about this point that I gave her five shillings. +It was a thoroughly illogical act, but at the moment it seemed +inevitable, and Mrs. Twohig was good enough to accept it in the same +spirit. I told her that I would send Dr. Hickey to see her son (which +had, it struck me, a somewhat stemming effect upon her eloquence), and +I withdrew, still in magisterial displeasure. I must have been half +way down the lane before it was revealed to me that a future on +crutches was what Mrs. Twohig anticipated for her son. +</p> + +<p> +By that night's post I wrote to Hickey, a strictly impartial letter, +stating the position, and asking him to see Owen Twohig, and to let me +have his professional opinion upon him. Philippa added a postscript, +asking for a nerve-tonic for the parlour-maid, a Dublin girl, who, +since the affair of the curlews in the plantation, had lost all colour +and appetite, and persisted in locking the hall door day and night, to +the infinite annoyance of the dogs. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning, while hurrying through an early breakfast, preparatory to +starting for a distant Petty Sessions, I was told that Denis wished to +speak to me at the hall door. This, as I before have had occasion to +point out, boded affairs of the first importance. I proceeded to the +hall door, and there found Denis, pale as the Lily Maid of Astolat, +with three small fishes in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +"There was one of thim before me in my bed lasht night!" he said in a +hoarse and shaken whisper, "and there was one in the windy in the +harness-room, down on top o' me razor, and there was another nelt to +the stable door with the nail of a horse's shoe." +</p> + +<p> +I made the natural suggestion that some one had done it for a joke. +</p> + +<p> +"Thim's no joke, sir," replied Denis, portentously, "thim's Sprats!" +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="img-275"></a> +<img src="images/img-275.jpg" width="492" height="548" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">"THIM'S NO JOKE, SIR, THIM'S SPRATS!"</p> +</div> + +<p> +"Well, I'm quite aware of that," I said, unmoved by what appeared to be +the crushing significance of the statement. +</p> + +<p> +"Oweneen the <i>Sprat</i>!" murmured Philippa, illuminatingly, emerging from +the dining-room door with her cup of tea in her hand, "it's Hannah, +trying to frighten him!" +</p> + +<p> +Hannah, the housemaid, was known to be the humorist of the household. +</p> + +<p> +"He have a brother a smith, back in the mountain," continued Denis, +wrapping up the sprats and the nail in his handkerchief; "'twas for a +token he put the nail in it. If he dhraws thim mountainy men down on +me, I may as well go under the sod. It isn't yourself or the misthress +they'll folly; it's meself." He crept down the steps as deplorably as +the Jackdaw of Rheims, "and it's what Michael's after telling me, they +have it all through the country that I said you should throw Twohig in +the ditch, and it was good enough for the likes of him, and I said to +Michael 'twas a lie for them, and that we cared him as tender as if he +was our mother itself, and we'd have given the night to him only for +the misthress that was roaring on the car, and no blame to her; sure +the world knows the mother o' children has no courage!" +</p> + +<p> +This drastic generality was unfortunately lost to my wife, as she had +retired to hold a court of inquiry in the kitchen. +</p> + +<p> +The inquiry elicited nothing beyond the fact that since Christmas Day +Denis was "using no food," and that the kitchen, so far from indulging +in practical jokes at his expense, had been instant throughout in +sympathy, and in cups of strong tea, administered for the fortification +of the nerves. All were obviously deeply moved by the incident of the +sprats, the parlour-maid, indeed, having already locked herself into +the pantry, through the door of which, on Philippa's approach, she gave +warning hysterically. +</p> + +<p> +The matter remained unexplained, and was not altogether to my liking. +As I drove down the avenue, and saw Denis carefully close the yard +gates after me, I determined that I would give Murray, the District +Inspector of Police, a brief sketch of the state of affairs. I did not +meet Murray, but, as it happened, this made no difference. Things were +already advancing smoothly and inexorably towards their preordained +conclusion. +</p> + +<p> +I have since heard that none of the servants went to bed that night. +They, including Denis, sat in the kitchen, with locked doors, drinking +tea and reciting religious exercises; Maria, as a further precaution, +being chained to the leg of the table. Their fears were in no degree +allayed by the fact that nothing whatever occurred, and the most +immediate result of the vigil was that my bath next morning boiled as +it stood in the can, and dimmed the room with clouds of steam—a +circumstance sufficiently rare in itself, and absolutely without +precedent on Sunday morning. The next feature of the case was a letter +at breakfast time from a gentleman signing himself "Jas. Fitzmaurice." +He said that Dr. Hickey having gone away for a fortnight's holiday, he +(Fitzmaurice) was acting as his locum tenens. In that capacity he had +opened my letter, and would go and see Twohig as soon as possible. He +enclosed prescription for tonic as requested. +</p> + +<p> +It was a threatening morning, and we did not go to church. I noticed +that my wife's housekeeping <i>séance</i> was unusually prolonged, and even +while I smoked and read the papers, I was travelling in my meditations +to the point of determining that I would have a talk with the priest +about all this infernal nonsense. When Philippa at length rejoined me, +I found that she also had arrived at a conclusion, impelled thereto by +the counsels of Mrs. Cadogan, abetted by her own conscience. +</p> + +<p> +Its result was that immediately after lunch, long before the Sunday +roast beef had been slept off, I found myself carting precarious +parcels—a jug, a bottle, a pudding-dish—to the inside car, in which +Philippa had already placed herself, with a pair of blankets and +various articles culled from my wardrobe (including a pair of boots to +which I was sincerely attached). Denis, pale yellow in complexion and +shrouded in gloom, was on the box, the Quaker was in the shafts. There +was no rain, but the clouds hung black and low. +</p> + +<p> +It was an expedition of purest charity; so Philippa explained to me +over again as we drove away. She said nothing of propitiation or +diplomacy. For my part I said nothing at all, but I reflected on the +peculiar gifts of the Dublin parlour-maid in valeting me, and decided +that it might be better to allow Philippa to run the show on her own +lines, while I maintained an attitude of large-minded disapproval. +</p> + +<p> +The blankets took up as much room in the car as a man; I had to hold in +my hand a jug of partly jellified beef tea. A sourer Lady Bountiful +never set forth upon an errand of mercy. To complete establishment—in +the words of the <i>Gazette</i>—Maria and Minx, on the floor of the car, +wrought and strove in ceaseless and objectless agitation, an infliction +due to the ferocity of a female rival, who terrorised the high road +within hail of my gates. I thanked heaven that I had at least been +firm about not taking the children; for the dogs, at all events, the +moment of summary ejectment would arrive sooner or later. +</p> + +<p> +Seven miles in an inside car are seven miles indeed. The hills that +had run to meet my bicycle and glided away behind it, now sat in their +places to be crawled up and lumbered down, at such a pace as seemed +good to the Quaker, whose appetite for the expedition was, if possible, +less than that of his driver. Appetite was, indeed, the last thing +suggested by the aspect of Denis. His drooping shoulders and +deplorable countenance proclaimed apology and deprecation to the +mountain tops, and more especially to the mountainy men. Looking back +on it now, I recognise the greatness of the tribute to my valour and +omnipotence that he should have consented thus to drive us into the +heart of the enemy's country. +</p> + +<p> +A steep slope, ending with a sharp turn through a cutting, reminded me +that we were near the mountain <i>bohireen</i> that was our goal. I got out +and walked up the hill, stiffly, because the cramp of the covered car +was in my legs. Stiff though I was, I had outpaced the Quaker, and was +near the top of the hill, when something that was apparently a brown +croquet-ball rolled swiftly round the bend above me, charged into the +rock wall of the cutting with a clang, and came on down the hill with a +weight and venom unknown to croquet-balls. It sped past me, missed the +Quaker by an uncommonly near shave, and went on its way, hotly pursued +by the two dogs, who, in the next twenty yards, discovered with horror +that it was made of iron, a fact of which I was already aware. +</p> + +<p> +I have always been as lenient as the law, and other circumstances, +would allow towards the illegal game of "bowling." It consists in +bowling an iron ball along a road, the object being to cover the +greatest possible distance in a given number of bowls. It demands +considerable strength and skill, and it is played with a zest much +enhanced by its illegality and by its facilities as a medium for +betting. The law forbids it, on account of its danger to the +unsuspecting wayfarer, in consideration of which a scout is usually +posted ahead to signal the approach of the police, and to give warning +to passers by. The mountainy men, trusting to their isolation, had +neglected this precaution, with results that came near being serious to +the Quaker, and filled with wrath, both personal and official, I took +the hill at a vengeful run, so as to catch the bowler red-handed. At +the turn in the cutting I met him face to face. As a matter of fact he +nearly ran into my arms, and the yelp of agony with which he dodged my +impending embrace is a life-long possession. He was a very small man; +he doubled like a rabbit, and bolted back towards a swarm of men who +were following the fortunes of the game. He flitted over the wall by +the roadside, and was away over the rocky hillside at a speed that even +in my best days would have left me nowhere. +</p> + +<p> +The swarm on the road melted; a good part of it was quietly absorbed by +the lane up which I had dragged my bicycle two days before, the +remainder, elaborately uninterested and respectable, in their dark blue +Sunday clothes, strolled gravely in the opposite direction. A man on a +bicycle met them, and dismounted to speak to the leaders. I wondered +if he were a policeman in plain clothes on the prowl. He came on to +meet me, leading his bicycle, and I perceived that a small black +leather bag was strapped to the carrier. He was young, and apparently +very hot. +</p> + +<p> +"I beg your pardon," he said in the accents of Dublin, "I understand +you're Major Yeates. I'm Dr. Hickey's 'Locum,' and I've come out to +see the man you wrote to me about. From what you said I thought it +better to lose no time." +</p> + +<p> +I was rather out of breath, but I expressed my sense of indebtedness. +</p> + +<p> +"I think there must be some mistake," went on the "Locum." "I've just +asked these men on the road where Owen Twohig lives, and one of +them—the fellow they call Skipper, or some such name—said Owen Twohig +was the little chap that's just after sprinting up the mountain. He +seemed to think it was a great joke. I suppose you're sure Owen was +the name?" +</p> + +<p> +"Perfectly sure," I said heavily. +</p> + +<p> +The eyes of Dr. Fitzmaurice had travelled past me, and were regarding +with professional alertness something farther down the road. I +followed their direction, dreamily, because in spirit I was far away, +tracking Flurry Knox through deep places. +</p> + +<p> +On the hither side of the rock cutting the covered car had come to a +standstill. The reins had fallen from Denis's hands; he was obviously +having the "wakeness" appropriate to the crisis. Philippa, on the step +below him, was proffering to him the jug of beef tea and the bottle of +port. He accepted the latter. +</p> + +<p> +"He knows what's what!" said the "Locum." +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="img-283"></a> +<img src="images/img-283.jpg" width="509" height="698" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">"HE KNOWS WHAT'S WHAT!" SAID THE LOCUM</p> +</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/img-284.jpg" width="514" height="380" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a> +XII<br/> +THE WHITEBOYS</h2> + +<h3>PART I</h3> + +<p> +It has been said by an excellent authority that children and dogs spoil +conversation. I can confidently say that had Madame de Sévigné and Dr. +Johnson joined me and my family on our wonted Sunday afternoon walk to +the kennels, they would have known what it was to be ignored. This +reflection bears but remotely on the matter in hand, but is, I think, +worthy of record. I pass on to a certain still and steamy afternoon in +late September, when my wife and I headed forth in the accustomed way, +accompanied by, or (to be accurate), in pursuit of, my two sons, my two +dogs, and a couple of hound puppies, to view that spectacle of not +unmixed attractiveness, the feeding of the hounds. +</p> + +<p> +Flurry Knox and Michael were superintending the operation when we +arrived, coldly observing the gobbling line at the trough, like +reporters at a public dinner. It was while the last horrid remnants of +the repast were being wolfed that my wife hesitatingly addressed Mr. +Knox's First Whip and Kennel Huntsman. +</p> + +<p> +"Michael," she said, lowering her voice, "you know the children's old +donkey that I spoke to you about last week—I'm afraid you <i>had</i> +better——" +</p> + +<p> +"Sure he's boiled, ma'am," said Michael with swift and awful brevity, +"that's him in the throch now!" +</p> + +<p> +Philippa hastily withdrew from the vicinity of the trough, murmuring +something incoherent about cannibals or parricides, I am not sure +which, and her eldest son burst into tears that were only assuaged by +the tactful intervention of the kennel-boy with the jawbone of a horse, +used for propping open the window of the boiler-house. +</p> + +<p> +"Never mind, Mrs. Yeates," said Flurry consolingly, "the new hounds +that I'm getting won't be bothered with donkeys as long as there's a +sheep left in the country, if the half I hear of them is true!" He +turned to me. "Major, I didn't tell you I have three couple of +O'Reilly's old Irish hounds bought. They're the old white breed +y'know, and they say they're terrors to hunt." +</p> + +<p> +"They'd steal a thing out of your eye," said Michael, evidently +reverting to an interrupted discussion between himself and his master. +"There's a woman of the O'Reillys married back in the country here, and +she says they killed two cows last season." +</p> + +<p> +"If they kill any cows with me, I'll stop the price of them out of your +wages, Michael, my lad!" said Flurry to his henchman's back. "Look +here, Major, come on with me to-morrow to bring them home!" +</p> + +<p> +It was, I believe, no more than fifty miles across country to the +mountain fastness of the O'Reillys, and a certain chord of romance +thrilled at the thought of the old Irish breed of white hounds, with +their truly national qualities of talent, rebelliousness, and love of +sport. Playboy was one of the same race—Playboy, over whose +recapture, it may be remembered, I had considerably distinguished +myself during my term of office as M.F.H. +</p> + +<p> +I went. At one o'clock next day two lines of rail had done their +uttermost for us, and had ceded the task of conveying us to Fahoura to +the inevitable outside car. And still there remained a long flank of +mountain to be climbed; the good little slave in the shafts made no +complaint, but save for the honour and glory of the thing we might as +well have walked; certainly of the seven Irish miles of road, thrown +over the pass like a strap over a trunk, our consciences compelled us +to tramp at least three. A stream, tawny and translucent as audit ale, +foamed and slid among its brown boulders beside us at the side of the +road; as we crawled upwards the fields became smaller, and the lonely +whitewashed cottages ceased. The heather came down to the wheel marks, +and a pack of grouse suddenly whizzed across the road like a shot fired +across our bows to warn us off. +</p> + +<p> +At the top of the pass we stood, and looked out over half a county to +the pale peaks of Killarney. +</p> + +<p> +"There's Fahoura now, gentlemen," said the carman, pointing downwards +with his whip to a group of whitewashed farm buildings, that had +gathered themselves incongruously about a square grey tower. "I'm told +old Mr. O'Reilly's sick this good while." +</p> + +<p> +"What ails him?" said Flurry. +</p> + +<p> +"You wouldn't know," said the carman, "sure he's very old, and that +'fluenzy has the country destroyed; there's people dying now that never +died before." +</p> + +<p> +"That's bad," said Flurry sympathetically, "I had a letter from him a +week ago, and he only said he was parting the hounds because he +couldn't run with them any more." +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, don't mind him!" said the carman, "it's what it is he'd sooner +sell them now, than to give the nephew the satisfaction of them, after +himself'd be dead." +</p> + +<p> +"Is that the chap that's been hunting them for him?" said Flurry, while +I, for the hundredth time, longed for Flurry's incommunicable gift of +being talked to. +</p> + +<p> +"It is, sir; Lukey O'Reilly—" the carman gave a short laugh. "That's +the lad! They say he often thried to go to America, but he never got +south of Mallow; he gets that drunk sayin' good-bye to his friends!" +</p> + +<p> +"Maybe the old fellow will live a while yet, just to spite him," +suggested Flurry. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, maybe he would, faith!" agreed the carman, "didn't the docthor +say to meself that maybe it's walking the road I'd be, and I to fall +down dead!" he continued complacently, "but sure them docthors, when +they wouldn't know what was in it, they should be saying something!" +</p> + +<p> +We here turned into the lane that led to Mr. O'Reilly's house. +</p> + +<p> +We pulled up at the gate of a wide farmyard, with outcrops of the brown +mountain rock in it, and were assailed in the inevitable way by the +inevitable mongrel collies. Blent with their vulgar abuse was the +mellow baying of hounds, coming, seemingly, from the sky. The carman +pointed to the tower which filled an angle of the yard, and I saw, +about twenty feet from the ground, an arrow-slit, through which +protruded white muzzles, uttering loud and tuneful threats. +</p> + +<p> +"The kitchen door's the handiest way," said Flurry, "but I suppose for +grandeur we'd better go to the front of the house." +</p> + +<p> +He opened a side gate, and I followed him through a wind-swept +enclosure that by virtue of two ragged rose-bushes, and a walk edged +with white stones, probably took rank as a garden. At the front door +we knocked; a long pause ensued, and finally bare feet thudded down a +passage, a crack of the door was opened, and an eye glistened for a +moment in the crack. It was slammed again, and after a further delay +it was reopened, this time by a large elderly woman with crinkled black +and grey hair and one long and commanding tooth in the front of her +mouth. +</p> + +<p> +"Why then I wasn't looking to see ye till to-morrow, Mr. Knox!" she +began, beaming upon Flurry, "but sure ye're welcome any day and all +day, and the gentleman too!" +</p> + +<p> +The gentleman was introduced, and felt himself being summed up in a +single glance of Miss O'Reilly's nimble brown eyes. With many +apologies, she asked us if we would come and see her brother in the +kitchen, as he did not feel well enough to walk out to the parlour, and +she couldn't keep him in the bed at all. +</p> + +<p> +The kitchen differed more in size than in degree from that of the +average cabin. There was the same hummocky earthen floor, the same +sallow whitewashed walls, the same all-pervading turf smoke—the +difference was in the master of the house. He was seated by the fire +in an angular armchair, with an old horse-blanket over his knees, and a +stick in his hand, and beside him lay an ancient white hound, who +scarcely lifted her head at our entrance. The old man laboured to his +feet, and, bent as he was, he towered over Flurry as he took his hand. +</p> + +<p> +"Your father's son is welcome, Mr. Florence Knox, and your friend—" +He was short of breath, and he lowered his great frame into his chair +again. "Sit down, gentlemen, sit down!" he commanded. "Joanna! These +gentlemen are after having a long drive——" +</p> + +<p> +The clink of glasses told that the same fact had occurred to Miss +O'Reilly, and a bottle of port, and another of what looked like water, +but was in effect old potheen, were immediately upon the table. +</p> + +<p> +"How well ye wouldn't put down a glass for me!" thundered old O'Reilly, +"I suppose it's saving it for my wake you are!" +</p> + +<p> +"Or her own wedding, maybe!" said Flurry, shamelessly ogling Miss +O'Reilly, "we'll see that before the wake, I'm thinking!" +</p> + +<p> +"Well, well, isn't he the dead spit of his father!" said Miss O'Reilly +to the rafters. +</p> + +<p> +"Here, woman, give me the kettle," said her brother, "I'll drink my +glass of punch with Mr. Florence Knox, the way I did with his father +before him! The doctor says I might carry out six months, and I think +myself I won't carry out the week, but what the divil do I care! I'm +going to give Mr. Knox his pick of my hounds this day, and that's what +no other man in Ireland would get, and be dam we'll wet our bargain!" +</p> + +<p> +"Well, well," said Miss O'Reilly, remonstratingly, bringing the kettle, +"and you that was that weak last night that if you got Ireland's crown +you couldn't lift the bedclothes off your arms!" +</p> + +<p> +"Them hounds are in my family, seed and breed, this hundred years and +more," continued old O'Reilly, silencing his sister with one black +glance from under his thick grey brows, "and if I had e'er a one that +was fit to come after me they'd never leave it!" He took a gulp of the +hot punch. "Did ye ever hear of my brother Phil that was huntsman to +the Charlevilles long ago, Mr. Knox? Your father knew him well. +Many's the good hunt they rode together. He wasn't up to forty years +when he was killed, broke his neck jumping a hurl, and when they went +to bury him it's straight in over the churchyard wall they took him! +They said he never was one to go round looking for a gate!" +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="img-292"></a> +<img src="images/img-292.jpg" width="512" height="707" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">"THEM HOUNDS ARE IN MY FAMILY, SEED AND BREED, THIS HUNDRED YEARS."</p> +</div> + +<p> +"May the Lord have mercy on him!" murmured Miss O'Reilly in the +background. +</p> + +<p> +"Amen!" growled the old man, taking another pull at his steaming +tumbler, as if he were drinking his brother's health. "And look at me +here," he went on, reddening slowly through the white stubble on his +cheeks, "dying as soft as any owld cow in a boghole, and all they'll be +saying afther me is asking would they get their bellyful of whisky at +my wake! I tell you this—and let you be listening to me, +Joanna!—what hounds Mr. Knox doesn't take, I'll not leave them afther +me to be disgraced in the counthry, running rabbits on Sunday +afternoons with them poaching blackguards up out of the town! No! But +they'll have a stone round their neck and to be thrown below in the +lough!" +</p> + +<p> +I thought of the nephew Luke, whose friends had so frequently failed to +see him off, and I felt very sorry for old O'Reilly. +</p> + +<p> +"They will, they will, to be sure!" said Miss O'Reilly soothingly, "and +look at you now, the way you are! Didn't I know well you had no call +to be drinking punch, you that was coughing all night. On the face of +God's earth, Mr. Knox, I never heard such a cough! 'Tis like a sheep's +cough! I declare it's like the sound of the beating of the drum!" +</p> + +<p> +"Well, Mr. O'Reilly," said Flurry, ignoring these remarkable symptoms, +but none the less playing to her lead, "I suppose we might have a look +at the hounds now." +</p> + +<p> +"Go, tell Tom to open the tower door," said old O'Reilly to his sister, +after a moment's silence. He handed her a key. "And shut the gate +you." +</p> + +<p> +As soon as she had gone he got on to his feet. "Mr. Knox, sir," he +said, "might I put as much trouble on you as to move out this chair to +the door? I'll sit there the way I can see them. Maybe the other +gentleman would reach me down the horn that's up on the wall. He's +near as tall as meself." +</p> + +<p> +Flurry did as he asked, and helped him across the room. +</p> + +<p> +"Close out the half door if you please, Mr. Knox, and give me the old +rug that's there, my feet is destroyed with the rheumatics." +</p> + +<p> +He dropped groaningly into his chair, and I handed him the horn, an old +brass one, bent and dinted. +</p> + +<p> +Already the clamour of the hounds in the tower had broken out like +bells in a steeple, as they heard the footsteps of their jailor on the +stone steps of their prison. +</p> + +<p> +Then Tom's voice, shouting at them in Irish to stand back, and then +through the narrow door of the tower the hounds themselves, a striving +torrent of white flecked with pale yellow, like one of their own +mountain streams. There were about seven couples of them, and in a +moment they overran the yard like spilt quicksilver. +</p> + +<p> +"Look at them now, Mr. Knox!" said their owner, "they'd take a line +over the hob of hell this minute!" +</p> + +<p> +Pending this feat they took a very good line into what was apparently +the hen-house, judging by the hysterics that proceeded from within. +Almost immediately one of them reappeared with an egg in his mouth. +Old O'Reilly gave a laugh and an attempt at a holloa. "Ah ha! That's +Whiteboy! The rogue!" he said, and putting the horn to his lips he +blew a thin and broken note, that was cut short by a cough. +Speechlessly he handed the horn to Flurry, but no further summons was +needed; the hounds had heard him. They converged upon the doorway with +a rush, and Flurry and I were put to it to keep them from jumping in +over the half-door. +</p> + +<p> +I had never seen hounds like them before. One or two were pure white, +but most had some touch of faded yellow or pale grey about them; they +were something smaller than the average foxhound, and were strongly +built, and active as terriers. Their heads were broad, their ears +unrounded, and their legs and feet were far from complying with the +prescribed bedpost standard; but wherein, to the un-professional eye, +they chiefly differed from the established pattern, was in the human +lawlessness of their expression. The old hound by the fire had +struggled up at the note of the horn, and stood staring in perplexity +at her master, and growling, with all the arrogance of the favourite, +at her descendants, who yelped, and clawed, and strove, and thrust +their muzzles over the half-door. +</p> + +<p> +Flurry regarded them in silence. +</p> + +<p> +"There's not a straight one among them," he whispered in my ear through +the din. +</p> + +<p> +"There they are for you now, Mr. Knox," said old O'Reilly, still +panting after his fit of coughing. "There isn't another man in Ireland +would get them but yourself, and you've got them, as I might say, a +present!" +</p> + +<p> +Flurry and I went out into the yard, and the door was closed behind us. +</p> + +<p> +The examination—I may say the cross-examination—of the hounds that +followed, was conducted by Flurry and Michael to the accompaniment of a +saga from Tom, setting forth their miraculous merits and achievements, +to which, at suitable points, the carman shouted "Selah," or words to +that effect, through the bars of the gate. At the end of half-an-hour +Flurry had sorted out six of them; these were then coupled, and by dint +of the exertions of all present, were bestowed in a cart with sides +like a crate, in which pigs went to the fair. +</p> + +<p> +We did not see our host again. His sister told us that he had gone to +bed and wasn't fit to see any one, but he wished Mr. Knox luck with his +bargain, and he sent him this for a luck-penny. She handed Flurry the +dinted horn. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm thinking it's fretting after the hounds he is," she said, turning +her head away to hide the tears in her brown eyes. I have never until +then known Flurry completely at a loss for an answer. +</p> + +<h3>PART II</h3> + +<p> +A fortnight afterwards—to be precise, it was the 10th of October—I +saw the white hounds in the field. I had gone through the dreary +routine of the cub-hunter. The alarm clock had shrilled its exulting +and age-long summons in the pitchy dark. I had burnt my fingers with +the spirit-lamp, and my mouth with hot cocoa; I had accomplished my +bathless toilet, I had groped my way through the puddles in the stable +yard, and got on to my horse by the light of a lantern, and at 5.30 +A.M. I was over the worst, and had met Flurry and the hounds, with +Michael and Dr. Jerome Hickey, at the appointed cross-roads. The meet +was nine miles away, in a comparatively unknown land, to which Flurry +had been summoned by tales of what appeared to be an absolute epidemic +of foxes, accompanied by bills for poultry and threats of poison. It +was still an hour before sunrise, but a pallor was in the sky, and the +hounds, that had at first been like a gliding shoal of fish round the +horses' feet, began to take on their own shapes and colours. +</p> + +<p> +The white Irish hounds were the first to disclose themselves, each +coupled up with a tried old stager. I had been away from home for the +past ten days, and knew nothing of their conduct in their new quarters, +and finding Flurry uncommunicative, I fell back presently to talk about +them to Michael. +</p> + +<p> +"Is it settling down they are?" said Michael derisively. "That's the +fine settling down! Roaring and screeching every minute since they +came into the place! And as for fighting! They weren't in the kennel +three days before they had Rampant ate, and nothing only his paws left +before me in the morning! I didn't give one night in my bed since, +with running down to them. The like o' them trash isn't fit for a +gentleman's kennels. Them O'Reillys had them rared very pettish; it'd +be as good for me to be trying to turn curlews as them!" +</p> + +<p> +The indictment of "The Whiteboys" (a title sarcastically bestowed by +Dr. Hickey), their sheep-killing, their dog-hunting, with the setting +forth of Michael's trials, talents, and unrequited virtues, lasted, +like an Arabian night's tale, till the rising of the sun, and also +until our arrival at the place we were first to draw. This was a long +and deep ravine, red with bracken, bushy with hazel and alders; a black +stream raced downwards through it, spreading at the lower end into bog, +green, undefined, entirely treacherous; a place that instantly assures +the rider that if hounds get away on its farther side he will not be +with them. +</p> + +<p> +A couple of men were waiting for us at the lower end of the ravine. +</p> + +<p> +"They're in it surely!" they said, shoving down a stone gap for our +benefit; "there isn't a morning but we'll see the owld fellow and his +pups funning away for themselves down by the river. My little fellows, +when they does be going to school in the morning, couldn't hardly pass +his nest for the fume that'd be from it." +</p> + +<p> +The first ten minutes proved that the foxes were certainly there, and +during the following half-hour pandemonium itself raged in the ravine. +There were, I believe, a brace and a-half of cubs on foot; they were to +me invisible, but they were viewed about twice in every minute by +Flurry and his subordinates, and continuously by a few early rising +countrymen, who had posted themselves along the edges of the ravine. +The yells of the latter went up like steam whistles, and the hounds, +among whom were five couple of newly entered puppies, were wilder than +I had ever known them. They burst through the bracken and strove in +the furze, in incessant full cry, and still the cubs doubled and +dodged, and made detours round the valley, and Flurry and Michael +roared themselves inside out, without producing the smallest effect +upon anything save their own larynxes. No less than three times a fox +was frantically holloaed away, and when, by incredible exertions on all +our parts, the hounds, or a fair proportion of them, had been got +together on to the line, a fresh outburst of yells announced that, +having run a ring, he had returned to the covert. +</p> + +<p> +Each of these excursions involved— +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +1. Scrambling at best speed down a rocky hill-side. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +2. Coercing a diffident horse across a noisy stream, masked by briars, +out of bog, on to rock. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +3. Reverse of the first proceedings. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +4. Arrival, blown and heated, at the boggy end of the valley, to find +the original conditions prevailing as before. +</p> + +<p> +I should, perhaps, have already mentioned that I was riding a young +horse, to whom I was showing hounds for the first time. My idea had +been to permit him, strictly as an onlooker, to gather some idea of the +rudiments of the game. He was a good young horse, with the large +gravity of demeanour that is often the result of a domestic bringing up +in the family of a small farmer; and when the moment came, and I was +inexorably hustled into acting as Third Whip, he followed in the wake +of Dr. Hickey with an anxious goodwill that made even his awkwardness +attractive. +</p> + +<p> +Throughout these excursions I noticed, as far as I was able to notice +anything, the independent methods of the O'Reilly draft. They ignored +the horn, eluded Michael, and laughed at Hickey and me; they hunted +with bloodthirsty intentness and entirely after their own devices. +Their first achievement was to run the earth-stopper's dog, and having +killed him, to eat him. This horrid feat they accomplished, secure +from interruption, in the briary depths of the ravine, and while the +main body of the pack were industriously tow-rowing up and down the +stream after their lawful fox, a couple of goats were only saved from +"The Whiteboys" by miracles of agility and courage on the part of the +countrymen. The best that could be said for them was that, "linking +one virtue to a thousand crimes," whenever the hounds got fairly out of +covert, the Whiteboys were together, and were in front. +</p> + +<p> +It was about eight o'clock, and the fierce red and grey sunrise had +been over-ridden by a regiment of stormy clouds, when one of the foxes +met his fate, amid ear-piercing whoops, and ecstatic comments from the +onlookers, who had descended from the hill-tops with the speed of +<i>ski</i>-runners. +</p> + +<p> +"Aha! that's the lad had many a fat duck under his rib!" +</p> + +<p> +"He had, faith! I'll go bail 'twas him that picked me wife's +fashionable cocks!" +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<a name="img-302"></a> +<img src="images/img-302.jpg" width="514" height="696" alt="[Illustration: ]" /> +<p class="caption">"I'LL GO BAIL 'TWAS HIM THAT PICKED ME WIFE'S FASHIONABLE COCKS"</p> +</div> + +<p> +"Well, I'm told that if ye'll see a fox taking a hen or a goose, and +ye'll call to him in Irish, that he'll drop it," remarked an older man +to me, as we waited while Flurry and Hickey, in their capacity of +butler and footman to the hounds' repast, snatched the few remaining +morsels from the elder revellers and endeavoured to force them upon the +deeply-reluctant young entry, who, having hunted with the innocent +enthusiasm of the <i>débutante</i>, thought as little of the ensuing meal as +the <i>débutante</i> thinks of supper at her first ball. +</p> + +<p> +"I wonder why the deuce Michael can't get those Irish hounds," said +Flurry, catching at the word and looking round. "I only have Lily +here." +</p> + +<p> +(Lily, I should say, was the romantic name of one of the Whiteboys.) +</p> + +<p> +"I believe I seen a two-three of the white dogs running east awhile +ago," said the elderly farmer, "and they yowling!" +</p> + +<p> +"They're likely killing a sheep now," murmured Hickey to me. +</p> + +<p> +At the same moment I chanced to look up towards the western end of the +ravine, and saw what seemed to be five seagulls gliding up a rift of +grass that showed green between rocks and heather. +</p> + +<p> +"There are your white hounds, Flurry," I called out, "and they're +hunting." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, well," said the farmer, "they're afther wheeling round the +length of the valley in the minute! They're nearly able to fly!" +</p> + +<p> +A distant holloa from Michael, whose head alone was visible above a +forest of furze, rose like a rocket at the end of the sentence, and +every hound sprang to attention. +</p> + +<p> +Once more we traversed the valley at full speed, and tackled the ladder +of mud that formed the cattle track up the ravine; slough up to the +horses' knees, furze bushes and briars meeting over their heads and +ours, hounds and country boys jostling to get forward, with pistol +shots behind from Hickey's thong, and the insistent doubling of +Flurry's horn in front. Up that green rift I went on foot, and, as it +were, hand in hand with my admirable young horse. The rift, on closer +acquaintance, proved to be green with the deceitful verdure of swampy +grass; (in Ireland, it may be noted, water runs up hill, and the +subtlest bog holes lie in wait for their prey on the mountain tops). +As we ascended, the wind that had risen with the sun, fought us every +inch of the way, and by the time I had won to level ground, I was +speechless, and blowing like the bellows of a forge. A country boy, +whose grinning purple face remains a fond and imperishable memory, +caught me by the leg and rammed me into my saddle; just in front of me +Flurry, also speechless, with his foot not as yet in his off stirrup, +was getting up to his hounds. These were casting themselves +uncertainly over a sedgy and heathery slope, on which, in this wind, +the hottest scent would soon be chilled to its marrow. Of Michael and +the Whiteboys nothing was to be seen. +</p> + +<p> +At a little distance a young man was grasping by the ears and nose a +donkey with a back-load of bracken, and a misplaced ardour for the +chase. +</p> + +<p> +"Did ye see the fox?" bellowed Flurry. +</p> + +<p> +"I did! I did!" +</p> + +<p> +"Which way did he go?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yerrah! aren't yer dogs after ateing him below!" shouted the young +man, waltzing strenuously with the donkey. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, there's a pair of you!" replied Flurry, cracking his whip +viciously at the donkey's tail, and thereby much stimulating the dance, +"and if I was given my choice of ye it's the ass I'd take! Here, come +on out of this, Hickey!" He shoved ahead. "Put those hounds on to me, +can't you!" +</p> + +<p> +During this interchange of amenities Lily had wandered aside, and now, +far to the left of the rest of the pack, was thoughtfully nosing along +through tufts of rushes; she worked her way down to a fence, and then, +mute as a wraith, slid over it and slipped away across a grass field, +still in jealous silence. +</p> + +<p> +"Hark forrad to Lily, hounds!" roared Flurry, with electrical +suddenness. "Put them on to her, Jerome!" +</p> + +<p> +"Well, those white hounds are the divil!" said Dr. Hickey, with a break +of admiration in his voice, as the hounds, suddenly driving ahead, +proclaimed to heaven that they had got the line. They were running up +a fierce north-westerly wind, and their cry came brokenly back to us +through it like the fragments of the chimes through the turmoil of +Tschaikowsky's "1812" symphony. The young horse began to realise that +there was something in it, and, with a monster and frog-like leap, flew +over the ensuing heathery bank, landing, shatteringly, on all fours. +We were travelling down hill, a fact that involved heavy drops, but +involved also the privilege, rare for me, of seeing the hounds +comfortably. Lily, leading the rest by half a field, was going great +guns, so were Flurry and Hickey, so, I may say with all modesty, were +the young horse and I. After an eventful and entirely satisfactory ten +minutes of racing over the class of country that has, on a low average, +seventeen jumps to the mile, we skated down a greasy path, and found +ourselves in a deep lane, with the hounds at fault, casting themselves +eagerly right and left. It was here that we came upon Michael, a +dolorous spectacle, leading his mare towards us. She was dead lame. +</p> + +<p> +"What happened her?" shouted Flurry through the rioting wind. +</p> + +<p> +"The foot's dropping off her, sir," replied Michael, with his usual +optimism. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, get away home with her as quick as you can," interrupted Flurry, +accepting the diagnosis with the usual discount of 90 per cent. "What +way did those white hounds go?" +</p> + +<p> +"The last I seen o' them they were heading west over the hill beyond +for Drummig. It might be he was making for an old fort that's back in +the land there behind Donovan's farm. There was a fellow driving a +bread van above in the road there that told me if the hounds got inside +in the fort we'd never see them again. He said there were holes down +in it that'd go from here to the sea." +</p> + +<p> +"What the devil good were you that you didn't stop those hounds?" said +Flurry, cutting short this harangue with a countenance as black as the +weather. "Here, come on!" he called to Hickey and me, "the road'll be +the quickest for us." +</p> + +<p> +It was about a mile by the road to Donovan's farm, and as Hickey and I +pounded along in the rear of the disgusted hounds, big pellets of rain +were flung in our faces, and I began to realise, not for the first +time, that to turn up the collar of one's coat is more of a protest +than a protection. +</p> + +<p> +The farmhouse of Donovan of Drummig was connected with the high road by +the usual narrow and stony lane; as we neared the entrance of the lane +we saw through the swirls of rain a baker's van bumping down it. There +were two men on the van, and in the shafts was a raking young brown +horse, who, having espied the approach of the hounds, was honouring +them with what is politically known as a demonstration. One of the men +held up his hand, and called out a request to "hold on awhile till they +were out on to the road." +</p> + +<p> +"Did you see any hounds?" shouted Flurry, holding back the hounds, as +the van bounded round the corner and into the main road, with an +activity rare in its species. +</p> + +<p> +"We did, sir," returned the men in chorus, clinging to the rail of +their knifeboard seat, like the crew of a racing yacht, "they have him +back in the fort above this minute! Ye can take your time, faith!" +</p> + +<p> +The van horse reared and backed, and Flurry turned in his saddle to eye +him as he ramped ahead in response to a slash from the driver; so did +Dr. Hickey, and so also did Lily, who, with her white nose in the air, +snuffed inquisitively in the wake of the departing van. +</p> + +<p> +"You'd say she knew a good one when she saw him," said Hickey as we +turned the hounds into the lane. +</p> + +<p> +"Or a good loaf of bread," I suggested. +</p> + +<p> +"It's little bread that lad carries!" answered Hickey, thonging the +reluctant Lily on; "I'll go bail, there's as much bottled porter as +bread in that van! He supplies half the shebeens in the country." +</p> + +<p> +As we splashed into the farmyard a young man threw open a gate at its +farther side, shouting to Flurry to hurry on. He waved us on across a +wide field, towards a low hill or mound, red with wet withered bracken, +and crested by a group of lean fir trees, flinging their arms about in +the wild gusts of wind and rain. +</p> + +<p> +"The fox wasn't the length of himself in front of them!" shouted the +young man, running beside us, "and he as big as a donkey! The whole +kit of them is inside in the fort together!" +</p> + +<p> +Flurry turned his horse suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +"Two and a half couple underground is enough for one while," he said, +riding back into the farmyard. "Have you any place I could shove these +hounds into?" +</p> + +<p> +The door of a cow-house was open, and as if in anticipation of his +wishes, the hounds jostled emulously into the darkness within. Again, +guided by the young man, we faced the storm and rain. What Flurry's +intentions were we neither knew nor dared to ask, and, as we followed +him over the soaked fields, a back more expressive of profound and +wrathful gloom it has never been my lot to contemplate. +</p> + +<p> +The place in which the fox and the Irish hounds had entombed +themselves, was one of the prehistoric earthen fortresses that abound +in the south-west of Ireland. The fort at Drummig was like a giant +flat-topped molehill; the spade work of a forgotten race had turned it +into a place of defence, and, like moles, they had burrowed into its +depths. The tongue of the young man who guided us did not weary in the +recital of the ways, and the passages, and the little rooms that was +within in it. He said that a calf belonging to himself was back in it +for a week, and she came out three times fatter than the day she went +in. He also, but with a certain diffidence, mentioned fairies. +</p> + +<p> +Round and about this place of mystery went Flurry, blowing long and +dreary blasts at the mouths of its many holes, uttering "Gone-away" +screeches, of a gaiety deplorably at variance with his furious +countenance. A more pessimistic priest never trumpeted round the walls +of a more impracticable Jericho. +</p> + +<p> +Hickey led the dripping horses to and fro in the lee of the fort, and I +was deputed to listen at a rabbit hole from which the calf was said to +have emerged. After a period of time which I was too much deadened by +misery to compute, Flurry appeared, and told me that he was going home. +Judging from his appearance, he had himself been to ground; what he +said about the white hounds and the weather was very suitable, but +would not read as well as it sounded. +</p> + +<p> +We returned to the farmyard with the wind and rain chivying us from +behind. +</p> + +<p> +"I asked a man, one time," said Dr. Hickey, as side by side, and at a +well-maintained distance, we followed our leader across the field, "why +his father had committed suicide, and he said, 'well, your honour, he +was a little annoyed.' I'm thinking, Major, it'd be no harm for us to +keep an eye on Flurry." +</p> + +<p> +I stooped my head to let the water flow out of the brim of my hat. +</p> + +<p> +"You needn't neglect me either," I said. +</p> + +<p> +While Hickey was getting the hounds out of the cow-house, my young +horse shivered with cold, and gave an ominous cough. I reflected upon +the twelve long miles that lay between him and home, and asked our +saturated guide if I could get a warm drink for him. There was no +difficulty about that; to be sure I could and welcome. I abandoned my +comrades; regret, if it were felt, was not expressed by Flurry. When +the hounds had paddled forth from the cow-house I put my horse into it, +and before they had accomplished half a mile of their direful progress, +I was standing with my back to a glowing turf fire, with my coat +hanging on a chair, and a cup of scalding tea irradiating the inmost +recesses of my person. +</p> + +<p> +My hostess, Mrs. Jeremiah Donovan, was a handsome young woman, tall, +fair, and flushed, agonised with hospitality, shy to ferocity. The +family dog was lifted from the hearth with a side kick worthy of an +International football match; her offspring, clustered, staring, in the +chimney-corner, were dispersed with a scorching whisper, of which the +words, "ye brazen tinkers," gave some clue to its general trend. +Having immured them in an inner room she withdrew, muttering something +about another "goleen o' turf," and I was left alone with an excellent +cake of soda-bread and two boiled eggs. +</p> + +<p> +Presently a slight and mouse-like rattle made me aware that one of the +offspring, aged about five, had escaped from captivity, and was +secretly drawing my whip to him along the floor by the thong. +</p> + +<p> +"What have ye the whip for?" said the offspring, undaunted by discovery. +</p> + +<p> +"To bate the dogs with," I replied, attuning my speech to his as best I +could. +</p> + +<p> +"Is it the big white dogs?" pursued the offspring. +</p> + +<p> +I paused midway in a mouthful of soda-bread. +</p> + +<p> +"Did you see the white dogs?" I asked very gently. +</p> + +<p> +"God knows I did!" said the offspring, warming to his work, "an' they +snapped the bit o' bread out of Joola's hand within in the cow-house! +And Joola said they were a fright!" +</p> + +<p> +I sat still and waited while one might count five, fearful of scaring +the bird that had perched so near me. +</p> + +<p> +"Are the white dogs here now?" I ventured, wooingly. +</p> + +<p> +"They are not." +</p> + +<p> +The crook of my crop was beginning to prove dangerously engrossing, and +the time was short. +</p> + +<p> +"Where did they go?" I persevered. +</p> + +<p> +"Jimmy Mahony and me uncle Lukey took them away in the van," said the +offspring with clearness and simplicity, slashing with my whip at a +member of the guild of Brazen Tinkers whom I assumed to be the already +injured Julia. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +As I bestowed at parting a benefaction upon Jeremiah Donovan, I said +that I hoped he would let Mr. Knox know if any of the white hounds came +out of the fort. He assured me that he would do so. He was, like his +wife, a thoroughly good fellow, and he had wisped the young horse until +one would have said he had never been out of the stable. +</p> + +<p> +The storm had blown itself away, and the rain was nearly over. I rode +home quietly, and in peace and goodwill towards all men; after all, +there was no hurry. This was a thing that was going to last me for the +rest of my life, and Flurry's. +</p> + +<p> +I overtook Michael on the way home. Michael said that sure he knew all +through it was a drag, and if Mr. Flurry had been said by him, he'd +have had neither cut, shuffle, nor deal with them O'Reillys. In the +course of his life Michael had never been known to be in the wrong. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Hickey told me (but this was some time afterwards) that often he +had to get out of his bed to laugh, when he thought of Flurry getting +Jeremiah Donovan to screech in Irish down the holes in the fort, for +fear old O'Reilly's hounds had no English. It is hardly necessary to +say that Dr. Hickey also had been convinced by the way the hounds ran +that it was a drag, but had omitted to mention the fact at the time. +</p> + +<p> +Flurry was lost to home and country for three days. It was darkly said +that he had gone to Fahoura to break every bone in young O'Reilly's +body, and, incidentally, to bring back the white hounds. At the end of +the three days he telegraphed for a man and a saddle to meet the +afternoon train. There was nothing in the telegram about hounds. Next +day I met him riding a young brown horse, with a wildish eye, and a +nasty rub from a misfitting collar. +</p> + +<p> +"I got him in a sort of a swap," said Flurry tranquilly. +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose he got that rub in the bread-van?" I remarked drawing a bow +at a venture. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, that might be, too," assented Flurry, regarding me with an eye +that was like a stone wall with broken glass on the top. +</p> + +<p class="finis"> +THE END +</p> + +<p class="t4"> +Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co. +<br/> +Edinburgh & London +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="t4"> +Crown 8vo, 6s. +</p> + +<p class="t2"> +SOME EXPERIENCES OF +<br/> +AN IRISH R.M. +</p> + +<p class="t4"> +BY +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +E. Å’. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS +</p> + +<p> +With 31 Illustrations by E. Å’. SOMERVILLE. +</p> + +<p> +Speaker.—"There are in its pages more good stories, quaint characters, +and humorous incidents than we remember to have seen since the days of +Lever." +</p> + +<p> +Academy.—"Sheer unadulterated laughter is one of the best things that +even literature can give, and we are hard put to it to remember a book +of these latter days to which we owe more of it than we do to the Irish +R.M." +</p> + +<p> +Pall Mall Gazette.—"We can warmly recommend this book as a sure +antidote for melancholy; it is brimful of brilliant wit and harmless +mirth; it is a tonic for the dyspeptic and a stimulant to the healthy +mind. A more amusing book has not been written for many a year." +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Stephen Gwynn in the "Cornhill Magazine."—"There are few greater +attractions than that of open healthy laughter of the contagious sort; +and it would be black ingratitude not to pay tribute to the authoresses +of 'Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.'—a book that no decorous person +can read with comfort in a railway carriage." +</p> + +<p> +The Baron de Book Worms in "Punch."—"Dulness is banished from the +opening of the book to the close thereof.... Since Charles Lever was +at his best, with 'Harry Lorrequer,' 'Charles O'Malley,' 'Tom Burke of +Ours,' and, may be, 'The Knight of Gwynne,' no such rollicking Irish +book as this has appeared, at least not within the period whereunto the +memory of the Baron runneth not to the contrary.... Nothing of a +sedate or gentle character is to be found here; nearly every story is +calculated to set the table in a roar." +</p> + +<p class="t2"> +THE REAL CHARLOTTE +</p> + +<p class="t4"> +BY +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +E. Å’. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS +</p> + +<p> +Graphic.—"'The Real Charlotte' is indeed a book to enjoy at leisure. +It is full of fascinating actuality; and it should be added that the +authors have united their work without leaving a single visible seam." +</p> + +<p> +Daily News.—"The story provides a liberal entertainment of pathos and +humour. All the actors therein, whether sketched with a few pregnant +strokes, or minutely elaborated, are very much alive." +</p> + +<p> +Athenaeum.—"The book may be too long, but there are so many amusing +and delightful passages, humorous sayings and doings, with here and +there a word or a line which gives away the very heart of an Irish +landscape, or a man or woman, that we really cannot complain." +</p> + +<p> +Pall Mall Gazette.—"'The Real Charlotte' is perhaps one of the best +modern examples of an English (or rather an Irish) realistic novel +extant." +</p> + +<p class="t2"> +THE SILVER FOX +</p> + +<p class="t4"> +BY +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +E. Å’. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS +</p> + +<p> +Queen.—"The book is written in a bright and breezy tone, with +ever-restrained humour. It displays nice sense of light and shadow and +power of characterisation." +</p> + +<p> +Spectator.—"Broadly speaking the novel may be said to exhibit in a +dramatic form the extraordinary hold which superstition still possesses +on the minds of the Irish peasantry and the drawbacks, and even +dangers, which may result from an unsympathetic or intolerant disregard +of such prejudices." +</p> + +<p> +Daily Chronicle.—"We cannot do justice to this book by quotation. Its +method and its writing are so good that they tempt us to say its +authors have nothing to learn from the French novelists." +</p> + +<p class="t2"> +ALL ON THE IRISH SHORE +</p> + +<p class="t4"> +BY +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +E. Å’. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS +</p> + +<p class="t4"> +With 10 Illustrations by E. Å’. SOMERVILLE. +</p> + +<p> +Academy.—"A volume to dispel melancholy and arouse the healthiest +laughter." +</p> + +<p> +Badminton Magazine.—"Excellent tales, racy of the soil, full of humour +and quaint fancy." +</p> + +<p> +Daily Graphic.—"The world is a good deal gayer for a book of sketches +like 'All on the Irish Shore.'" +</p> + +<p> +Daily Telegraph.—"It is fairly safe to predict that the reader who +takes up this book will have no inclination to put it down until he has +read it through from cover to cover." +</p> + +<p> +Times.—"These stories rise far above the mere sporting level, and +exhibit gifts of perception, literary perception, much higher than +anything that has yet appeared from the same clever pens." +</p> + +<p> +Scotsman.—"'All on the Irish Shore' has hardly a page between its +covers that does not contain some touch of rollicking Irish humour that +is calculated to provoke the most serious-minded person to mirth." +</p> + +<p> +Spectator.—"The paramount duty of a reviewer in dealing with this +happily-named volume is one of extreme simplicity—namely, to advise +any one who loves wit, humour, horses, and Ireland to procure it +without delay. The mere fact that it is by the joint authors of 'Some +Experiences of an Irish R.M.' will doubtless prove a ready passport in +the affections of all who have read and re-read that modern classic." +</p> + +<p class="t2"> +AN IRISH COUSIN +</p> + +<p class="t4"> +BY +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +E. Å’. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS +</p> + +<p> +World.—"A clever story brimful of humour." +</p> + +<p> +Irish Monthly.—"This story is very clever and very well written with +fine bits of description and proof of keen observation." +</p> + +<p class="t4"> +LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO., 39 PATERNOSTER Row, LONDON +<br/> +NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FURTHER EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH R.M. ***</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..3905c1a --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #38108 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38108) diff --git a/old/38108-8.txt b/old/38108-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f66bb6f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/38108-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7855 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Further Experiences of an Irish R.M., by +E. OEnone 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: Further Experiences of an Irish R.M. + +Author: E. OEnone Somerville + Martin Ross + +Illustrator: E. OEnone Somerville + +Release Date: November 22, 2011 [EBook #38108] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FURTHER EXPERIENCES OF IRISH R.M. *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: OLD FLYNN, MOVING ALONG THE VERGE, BECAME IDYLLIC] + + + + + +Further Experiences of an + +Irish R.M. + + + +By + +E. [OE]. Somerville and Martin Ross + + +Authors of "Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.," + "Some Irish Yesterdays," "All on the Irish Shore," + "The Real Charlotte," etc. etc. etc. + + + + +With 35 Illustrations by E. [OE]. Somerville + + + + +Longmans, Green, and Co. + +39 Paternoster Row, London + +New York, Bombay, and Calcutta + +1908 + +All rights reserved + + + + +_BY THE SAME AUTHORS_ + + +SOME EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH R.M. + +With 31 Illustrations by E. [OE]. SOMERVILLE. Crown 8vo, 6s. + + +SOME IRISH YESTERDAYS + +With 51 Illustrations by E. [OE]. SOMERVILLE. Crown 8vo, 6s. + + +AN IRISH COUSIN + +Crown 8vo, 6s. + + +THE REAL CHARLOTTE + +Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. + + +THE SILVER FOX + +Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. + + +ALL ON THE IRISH SHORE + +With 10 Illustrations by E. [OE]. SOMERVILLE. Crown 8vo, 6s. + + + +LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. + +LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. THE PUG-NOSED FOX + II. A ROYAL COMMAND + III. POISSON D'AVRIL + IV. "THE MAN THAT CAME TO BUY APPLES" + V. A CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE + VI. THE BOAT'S SHARE + VII. THE LAST DAY OF SHRAFT + VIII. "A HORSE! A HORSE!" (Part I.) + IX. "AHORSE! A HORSE!" (Part II.) + X. SHARPER THAN A FERRET'S TOOTH + XI. OWENEEN THE SPRAT + XII. THE WHITEBOYS + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +HALF-TONE + + +Old Flynn, moving along the verge, became idyllic . . . . Frontispiece + +Suspicious of an ill-timed pleasantry + +"Take me out of this" + +Whizzed like a driven grouse past the combatants + +The guard put his hand over his mouth + +"And not a brown farthing more would he give" + +"I'm dashed if she hasn't got Sullivan's pony" + +He crowned the arrangement with the bottle of potheen + +A trayful of burning sods of turf + +He did not deny himself a most dissolute wink + +Maria's performance was faultless + +The Modulator opened with a long-drawn and nasal cadenza + +"Did ye see the police!" + +"Is that my darlin' Major Yeates?" shouted the cook + +"I will walk--I should really prefer it" + +Flurry and I put in a blazing September day on the mountain + +Braney's Lake + +An intricate and variously moving tide of people + +"Them hounds are in my family, seed and breed, this hundred years" + +"I'll go bail 'twas him that picked me wife's fashionable cocks" + + +IN THE TEXT + + +The egregious Slipper + +The victim came + +"Ye have them in great form, Michael" + +Pure ecstasy stretched his grin from ear to ear + +"They're lovely fish altogether! they're leppin' fresh!" + +The invalid removed herself + +Con Brickley + +"Let the divil clear me out of the sthrand!" + +A witness to be proud of + +His mornings were spent in proffering Irish phrases + +The Sergeant's manner was distressingly apologetic + +"That's a great sign of fine weather when a horse will lie + down in wather that way" + +My wife came and asked me if I would take her to the workhouse + +"Thim's no joke, sir, thim's Sprats!" + +"He knows what's what!" said the Locum + + + + +FURTHER EXPERIENCES OF + AN IRISH R.M. + + + + +I + +THE PUG-NOSED FOX + + "5 Turkies and their Mother + 5 Ducks and the Drake + 5 Hins and the Cock + CATHARINE O'DONOVAN, Skeagh." + + +A leaf from a copy-book, with these words written on it, was placed in +my hand as I was in the act of dragging on a new pair of gloves in the +stableyard. There was something rhythmic in the category, suggestive +of burnt-offerings and incantations; some touch of pathos, pointing to +tragedy; something, finally, that in the light of previous events +recalled to me suddenly and unpleasantly my new-born position of Deputy +M.F.H. + +Not, indeed, that I was in need at that moment of circumstances to +remind me of it. A new hunting-cap, pressing implacably upon my +forehead, an equally new red coat, heavy as a coat of mail, a +glittering horn, red hot from the makers, and so far totally +unresponsive to my apoplectic wooings; these things in themselves, +without the addition of a poultry bill, were sufficient to bring home +to me my amazing folly in having succumbed to the wiles of Mr. Florence +McCarthy Knox, and accepted the charge of his hounds, during his +absence with the Irish Yeomanry at the South African war. + +I had yielded in a burst of patriotic emotion to the spirit of +volunteering that was in the air. It would be, Flurry had assured me, +a purely nominal position. + +"They'll only go out one day a week, and Jerome Hickey and Michael'll +do all the work. I do secretary for myself, but that'll be no trouble +to you. There's nothing at all to do but to send out the cards of the +meets. It'll be a comfort to me to think you were running the show." + +I suggested other names that seemed to me infinitely more comfortable, +but found them blocked by intricate and insuperable objections, and +when I became aware that Mr. Knox had so engineered his case as to get +my wife on his side it seemed simpler to give in. + +A week afterwards I saw Flurry off at the station. His last words to +me were: + +"Well, good-bye, Major. Be fighting my grandmother for her +subscription, and whatever you do, don't give more than half-a-crown +for a donkey. There's no meat on them." + +Upon this touching farewell the train steamed out, and left me +standing, shelterless, a reluctant and incapable Master of Hounds. + +Exhaustive as Flurry's instructions had been on the subject of the +cuisine and other details of kennel management, he had not even hinted +at the difficulties that are usually composed by means of a fowl fund. +My first experience of these had taken place but a week ago, when from +the breakfast-table I had perceived a donkey and cart rambling, +unattended, in the shrubberies, among the young hydrangeas and azaleas. +The owner, a most respectable looking old man, explained that he had +left it there because he was "dilicate" to bring it up to the house, +and added that he had come for compensation for "a beautiful milking +goat" that the hounds had eaten last March, "and she having two kids +that died afther her." + +I asked why he had not long since been to Mr. Knox about it, and was +favoured with an interminable history of the claimant's ill-health +during the summer, consequent on his fretting after the goat; of how he +had been anointed four times, and of how the donkey was lame this long +while where a branch bet her in the thigh one day she ran into the wood +from the hounds. Fearing that the donkey was about to be included in +the bill, I made haste to settle for the goat and her offspring, a +matter of fifteen shillings. + +Next day two women took up a position on the steps at luncheon time, a +course which experience has taught me indicates affairs too exalted and +too personal to be transmitted _viâ_ the kitchen. They were, according +to their own showing, ruined proprietors of poultry yards, in proof of +which they pointed to a row of decapitated hens, laid forth on the +grass like the bag at a fashionable shoot. I was irritably aware of +their triumph in the trophy. + +"Sure he didn't make off with anny of them only three, but he snapped +the heads off all that was in it, and faith, if Masther Flurry was at +home, he'd give us the blood of his arm before he'd see our little hins +desthroyed on us this way." + +I gave them thirty-two and sixpence as an alternative compensation, +not, I admit, without an uneasy sense of something unusual in Peter +Cadogan's expression, as he assiduously raked the gravel hard by. + +It was Michael Leary, Flurry's Michael, who placed the matter of a fowl +fund upon a basis. Catharine O'Donovan and her list of casualties had +been dismissed at a cost of ten shillings, a price so inadequate, and +so cheerfully accepted, as to confirm my dawning suspicions. + +"Is it what would they get from Mr. Flurry?" replied Michael when I put +the matter to him; "it isn't ten shillings, no, nor thirty-two +shillings that they'd get from him, but a pelt of a curse after their +heels! Why wouldn't they keep their hens inside in the house with +themselves at night, the same as annyone that'd have sense, and not to +leave them out enticing the fox this way." + +Michael was in a bad temper, and so, for the matter of that, was I, +quite irrespective of dealings in poultry. Our red coats, our horses, +and the presence of the hounds, did not betoken the chase, they merely +indicated that the Hunt was about to be photographed. The local +photographer, backed by Mrs. Sinclair Yeates, had extorted from me the +privilege of "a sitting," a figurative expression, involving a ride of +five miles to a covert, selected by my wife as being typical of the +country, accompanied by the fourteen and a-half couple of half-bred +harriers who figured in Hound Lists as "Mr. Knox's Fox-hounds." + +It was a blazing day in late August, following on forty-eight hours of +blanketing sea-fog; a day for flannels and a languid game of croquet. +Lady Jane, the grey mare lent to me by Flurry, had been demoralised by +her summer at grass, and was in that peculiarly loathsome frame of mind +that is a blend of laziness and bumptiousness. If I left her to her +own devices she drowsed, stumbling, through the dust; if I corrected +her, she pranced and pulled, and kicked up behind like a donkey. My +huntsman, Doctor Jerome Hickey, who was to have been in the forefront +of the photograph, was twenty miles off in an open boat, on his way to +an island at the far end of his dispensary district, with fifteen cases +of measles ahead of him. I envied him; measles or no, he had on a +turned down collar. As a result of his absence I rode in solitary +dignity at the head of the pack, or, to speak more correctly, I +preceded Michael by some thirty yards of unoccupied road, while the +pack, callous to flogging, and disdainful of my cajoleries, clave to +the heels of Michael's horse. + +In this order, we arrived at the tryst, a heathery hill side, flanked +by a dense and rambling wood. A sea-gull scream from the hill-side +announced the presence of my wife, and summoned me to join her and the +photographer at the spot where they were encamped. I put the mare at a +suitable place in the wall by the roadside. She refused it, which was +no more than I had expected. I sampled my new spurs on her fat sides, +with the result that she charged the wall, slantways, at the exact spot +where Philippa had placed her bicycle against it, missed the bicycle by +a hair's-breadth, landed in the field with a thump, on all four feet, +and ended with two most distressing bucks. It was a consolation to me, +when I came in touch again with the saddle, to find that one of the new +spurs had ploughed a long furrow in her shoulder. + +The photographer was a young man from Belfast, a new comer to the +neighbourhood; Philippa is also a photographer, a fact that did not +tend as much as might have been expected to the harmony of the occasion. + +"Mrs. Yeates has selected this hillock," said Mr. McOstrich, in tones +of acrid resignation, indicating as he spoke a sugar-loaf shaped knoll, +thickly matted with furze and heather. "She considers the background +characteristic. My own suggestion would have been the grass-field +yonder." + +It is an ancient contention of my wife that I, in common with all other +men, in any dispute between a female relative and a tradesman, side +with the tradesman, partly from fear, partly from masculine +clannishness, and most of all from a desire to stand well with the +tradesman. Nothing but the remembrance of this preposterous reproach +kept me from accepting Mr. McOstrich's point of view, and, while I +hesitated, Michael was already taking up his position on the hillock, +perhaps in obedience to some signal from Philippa, perhaps because he +had realised the excellent concealment afforded by the deep heather to +his horse's fetlocks, whose outline was of a somewhat gouty type. It +was part of Flurry Knox's demoniac gift for horseflesh that he should +be able to buy screws and make them serve his exacting purposes. +Michael's horse, Moses, had, at a distance, the appearance of standing +upon four champagne bottles, but he none the less did the work of two +sound horses and did it well. + +I goaded Lady Jane through the furze, and established myself beside +Michael on the sugarloaf, the hounds disposed themselves in an interval +of bracken below, and Mr. McOstrich directed his camera upon us from an +opposite slope. + +"Show your teeth, please," said Mr. McOstrich to Michael. Michael, +already simmering with indignation at the senseless frivolity of the +proceedings, glowered at his knuckles, evidently suspicious of an +ill-timed pleasantry. + +[Illustration: SUSPICIOUS OF AN ILL-TIMED PLEASANTRY] + +"Do you hear, Whip?" repeated Mr. McOstrich, raising his bleak northern +voice, "show your teeth, please!" + +"He only wants to focus us," said I, foreseeing trouble, and hurriedly +displaying my own new front row in a galvanic smile. + +Michael murmured to Moses' withers something that sounded like a +promise to hocus Mr. McOstrich when occasion should serve, and I +reflected on the hardship of having to feel apologetic towards both +Michael and the photographer. + +Only those who have participated in "Hunt Groups" can realise the +combined tediousness and tension of the moments that followed. To keep +thirty hounds headed for the camera, to ensure that your horse has not +closed its eyes and hung its head in a doze of boredom, to preserve for +yourself that alert and workmanlike aspect that becomes a sportsman, +and then, when these things have been achieved and maintained for what +feels like a month, to see the tripod move in spider strides to a fresh +position and know that all has to be begun over again. After several +of these tentative selections of a site, the moment came when Mr. +McOstrich swung his black velvet pall in the air and buried his head +under its portentous folds. The hounds, though uneasy, had hitherto +been comparatively calm, but at this manifestation their nerve broke, +and they unanimously charged the glaring monster in the black hood with +loud and hysterical cries. + +Had not Michael perceived their intention while there was time awful +things might have happened. As it was, the leaders were flogged off +with ignominy, and the ruffled artist returned from the rock to which +he had fled. Michael and I arranged ourselves afresh upon the hillock; +I squared my shoulders, and felt my wonted photographic expression of +hang-dog desperation settle down upon me. + +"The dogs are not in the picture, Whip!" said Mr. McOstrich in the +chill tone of outraged dignity. + +I perceived that the hounds, much demoralised, had melted away from the +slope in front of us, and were huddling in a wisp in the intervening +hollow. Blandishments were of no avail; they wagged and beamed +apologetically, but remained in the hollow. Michael, in whose +sensitive bosom the term "Whip" evidently rankled, became scarlet in +the face and avalanched from the hill top upon his flock with a fury +that was instantly recognised by them. They broke in panic, and the +astute and elderly Venus, followed by two of the young entry, bolted +for the road. They were there met by Mr. McOstrich's carman, who most +creditably headed the puppies with yells and his driving-whip, but was +out-played by Venus, who, dodging like a football professional, doubled +under the car horse, and fled irrevocably. Philippa, who had been +flitting from rock to rock with her kodak, and unnerving me with +injunctions as to the angle of my cap, here entered the lists with a +packet of sandwiches, with which, in spite of the mustard, she restored +a certain confidence to the agitated pack, a proceeding observed from +afar with trembling indignation by Minx, her fox-terrier. By reckless +expenditure of sandwich the hounds were tempted to their proper +position below the horses, but, unfortunately, with their sterns to the +camera, and their eyes fastened on Philippa. + +"Retire, Madam!" said Mr. McOstrich, very severely, "_I_ will attract +the dogs!" + +Thus rebuked, Madam scrambled hastily over the crest of the hillock and +sank in unseemly laughter into the deep heather behind it. + +"Now, very quiet, please," continued Mr. McOstrich, and then +unexpectedly uttered the words, "Pop! Pop! Pop!" in a high soprano. + +Michael clapped his hand over his mouth, the superseded siren in the +heather behind me wallowed in fresh convulsions; the hounds remained +unattracted. + +Then arose, almost at the same moment, a voice from the wood behind us, +the voice of yet a third siren, more potent than that of either of her +predecessors, the voice of Venus hunting a line. For the space of a +breath the hounds hung on the eager hacking yelps, in the next breath +they were gone. + +Matters now began to move on a serious scale, and with a speed that +could not have been foreseen. The wood was but fifty yards from our +sugar-loaf. Before Michael had got out his horn, the hounds were over +the wall, before the last stern had disappeared the leaders had broken +into full cry. + +"Please God it might be a rabbit!" exclaimed Michael, putting spurs to +his horse and bucketing down through the furze towards the wood, with +blasts of the horn that were fraught with indignation and rebuke. + +An instant later, from my point of vantage on the sugar-loaf, I saw a +big and very yellow fox cross an open space of heather high up on the +hill above the covert. He passed and vanished; in half-a-dozen seconds +Venus, plunging through the heather, came shrieking across the open +space and also vanished. Another all too brief an interval, and the +remainder of the pack had stormed through the wood and were away in the +open after Venus, and Michael, who had pulled up short on the hither +side of the covert wall, had started up the open hill side to catch +them. + +The characteristic background chosen by Philippa, however admirable in +a photograph, afforded one of the most diabolic rides of my experience. +Uphill, over courses of rock masked in furze bushes, round the head of +a boggy lake, uphill again through deep and purple heather, over a +horrid wall of long slabs half buried in it; past a ruined cabin, with +thorn bushes crowding low over the only feasible place in the bank, and +at last, the top of the hill, and Michael pulling up to take +observations. + +The best pack in the kingdom, schoolmastered by a regiment of whips, +could not have precipitated themselves out of covert with more academic +precision than had been shown by Flurry Knox's irregulars. They had +already crossed the valley below us, and were running up a long hill as +if under the conventional tablecloth; their cry, floating up to us, +held all the immemorial romance of the chase. + +Michael regarded me with a wild eye; he looked as hot as I felt, which +was saying a good deal, and both horses were puffing. + +"He's all the ways for Temple Braney!" he said. "Sure I know him +well--that's the pug-nosed fox that's in it these last three seasons, +and it's what I wish----" + +(I regret that I cannot transcribe Michael's wish in its own terms, but +I may baldly summarise it as a desire minutely and anatomically +specified that the hounds were eating Mr. McOstrich.) + +Here the spurs were once more applied to Moses' reeking sides, and we +started again, battering down the twists of a rocky lane into the +steaming, stuffy valley. I felt as guilty and as responsible for the +whole affair as Michael intended that I should feel; I knew that he +even laid to my charge the disastrous appearance of the pug-nosed +Temple Braney fox. (Whether this remarkable feature was a freak of +nature, or of Michael's lurid fancy, I have never been able to +ascertain.) + +The valley was boggy, as well as hot, and the deep and sinuous ditch +that by courtesy was supposed to drain it, was blind with rushes and +tall fronds of Osmunda Regalis fern. Where the landing was tolerable, +the take-off was a swamp, where the take-off was sound the landing was +feasible only for a frog: we lost five panting minutes, closely +attended by horse-flies, before we somehow floundered across and began +the ascent of the second hill. To face tall banks, uphill, is at no +time agreeable, especially when they are enveloped in a jungle of +briars, bracken, and waving grass, but a merciful dispensation of +cow-gaps revealed itself; it was one of the few streaks of luck in a +day not conspicuous for such. + +At the top of the hill we took another pull. This afforded to us a +fine view of the Atlantic, also of the surrounding country and all that +was therein, with, however, the single unfortunate exception of the +hounds. There was nothing to be heard save the summery rattle of a +reaping-machine, the strong and steady rasp of a corn-crake, and the +growl of a big steamer from a band of fog that was advancing, +ghostlike, along the blue floor of the sea. Two fields away a man in a +straw hat was slowly combing down the flanks of a haycock with a wooden +rake, while a black and white cur slept in the young after-grass beside +him. We broke into their sylvan tranquillity with a heated demand +whether the hounds had passed that way. Shrill clamour from the dog +was at first the only reply; its owner took off his hat, wiped his +forehead with his sleeve, and stared at us. + +"I'm as deaf as a beetle this three weeks," he said, continuing to look +us up and down in a way that made me realise, if possible, more than +before, the absurdity of looking like a Christmas card in the heat of a +summer's day. + +"Did ye see the HOUNDS?" shouted Michael, shoving the chestnut up +beside him. + +"It's the neurology I got," continued the haymaker, "an' the pain does +be whistlin' out through me ear till I could mostly run into the say +from it." + +"It's a pity ye wouldn't," said Michael, whirling Moses round, "an' +stop in it! Whisht! Look over, sir! Look over!" + +He pointed with his whip along the green slopes. I saw, about half a +mile away, two boys standing on a fence, and beyond them some cattle +galloping in a field: three or four miles farther on the woods of +Temple Braney were a purple smear in the hazy heat of the landscape. +My heart sank; it was obvious even to my limited capacities that the +pug-nosed fox was making good his line with a straightness not to be +expected from one of his personal peculiarity, and that the hounds were +still running as hard as ever on a scent as steamingly hot as the +weather. I wildly thought of removing my coat and leaving it in charge +of the man with neuralgia, but was restrained by the reflection that he +might look upon it as a gift, flung to him in a burst of compassion, a +misunderstanding that, in view of his affliction, it would be +impossible to rectify. + +I picked up my lathered reins and followed Michael at a gloomy trot in +the direction of the galloping cattle. After a few fields a road +presented itself, and was eagerly accepted by the grey mare, on whom +the unbridled gluttonies of a summer's grass were beginning to tell. + +"She's bet up, sir," said Michael, dragging down a rickety gate with +the handle of his whip. "Folly on the road, there's a near way to the +wood from the cross." + +Moses here walked cautiously over the prostrate gate. + +"I'm afraid you'll kill Moses," said I, by no means pleased at the +prospect of being separated from my Intelligence Department. + +"Is it him?" replied Michael, scanning the country ahead of him with +hawk eyes. "Sure he's as hardy as a throut!" + +The last I saw of the trout was his bottle fetlocks disappearing nimbly +in bracken as he dropped down the far side of a bank. + +I "follied on the road" for two stifling miles. The heavy air was pent +between high hedges hung with wisps of hay from passing carts; +(hay-carrying in the south-west of Ireland conforms to the leisure of +the farmer rather than to the accident of season;) phalanxes of flies +arose as if at the approach of royalty, and accompanied my progress at +a hunting jog, which, as interpreted by Lady Jane, was an effective +blend of a Turkish bath and a churn. + +The "near way" from the cross-roads opened seductively with a lane +leading to a farmhouse, and presently degenerated into an unfenced but +plausible cart track through the fields. Breaches had been made in the +banks for its accommodation, and I advanced successfully towards the +long woods of Temple Braney, endeavouring, less successfully, to repel +the attentions of two young horses, who galloped, squealed, and bucked +round me and Lady Jane with the imbecile pleasantry of their kind. The +moment when I at length slammed in their faces the gate of the wood, +was one of sorely needed solace. + +Then came the sudden bath of coolness and shade, and the gradual +realisation that I did not in the least know what to do next. The air +was full of the deeply preoccupied hum of insects, and the interminable +monologue of a wood pigeon; I felt as if I ought to apologise for my +intrusion. None the less I pursued a ride that crossed the wood, +making persevering efforts to blow my horn, and producing nothing but +gramaphonic whispers, fragmentary groans, and a headache. I was near +the farther side of the wood when I saw fresh hoof-tracks on a path +that joined the ride; they preceded me to a singularly untempting bank, +with a branch hanging over it and a potato-field beyond it. A clod had +been newly kicked out of the top of it; I could not evade the +conviction that Michael had gone that way. The grey mare knew it too, +and bundled on to and over the bank with surprising celerity, and +dropped skilfully just short of where the potato beds began. An old +woman was digging at the other side of the field, and I steered for +her, making a long tack down a deep furrow between the "lazy-beds." + +"Did you see the hounds, ma'am?" I called out across the intervening +jungle of potato stalks. + +"Sir!" + +She at all events was not deaf. I amended my inquiry. + +"Did you see any dogs, or a man in a red coat?" + +"Musha, bad cess to them, then I did!" bawled the old woman, "look at +the thrack o' their legs down thro' me little pratie garden! 'Twasn't +but a whileen ago that they come leppin' out o' the wood to me, and +didn't I think 'twas the Divil and all his young ones, an' I thrun +meself down in the thrinch the way they wouldn't see me, the Lord save +us!" + +My heart warmed to her; I also would gladly have laid down among the +umbrageous stalks of the potatoes, and concealed myself for ever from +Michael and the hounds. + +"What way did they go?" I asked, regretfully dismissing the vision, and +feeling in my pocket for a shilling. + +"They went wesht the road, your Honour, an' they screeching always; +they crossed out the field below over-right the white pony, and faith +ye couldn't hardly see Michael Leary for the shweat! God help ye +asthore, yourself is getting hardship from them as well as another!" + +The shilling here sank into her earthy palm, on which she prayed +passionately that the saints might be surprised at my success. I felt +that as far as I was concerned the surprise would be mutual; I had had +nothing but misfortune since ten o'clock that morning, and there seemed +no reason to believe that the tide had turned. + +The pony proved to be a white mule, a spectral creature, standing in +malign meditation trace-high in bracken; I proceeded in its direction +at a trot, through clumps of bracken and coarse grass, and as I drew +near it uttered a strangled and heart-broken cry of greeting. At the +same moment Lady Jane fell headlong on to her nose and the point of her +right shoulder. It is almost superfluous to observe that I did the +same thing. As I rolled on my face in the bracken, something like a +snake uncoiled itself beneath me and became taut; I clutched at it, +believing it to be the reins, and found I was being hung up, like +clothes on a line, upon the mule's tethering rope. Lady Jane had got +it well round her legs, and had already fallen twice in her efforts to +get up, while the mule, round whose neck the tether rope had been +knotted, was backing hard, like a dog trying to pull its head through +its collar. + +In sunstroke heat I got out my knife, and having cut the rope in two +places, an operation accomplished in the depths of a swarm of flies and +midges, I pulled the mare on to her legs. She was lame on the off +fore, and the rope had skinned her shins in several places; my own +shoulder and arm were bruised, and I had broken a stirrup leather. +Philippa and the photographer had certainly provided me with a day of +varied entertainment, and I could not be sure that I had even yet +drained the cup of pleasure to the dregs. + +I led Lady Jane out into the road, and considered the position. We +were about nine miles from home, and at least five from any place where +I could hire a car. To walk, and lead the mare, was an alternative +that, powerless as events had proved me to be in the hands of +misfortune, I still refused to consider. It was then given me to +remember old McRory. + +My acquaintance with old McRory was of the slightest. He was, it was +understood, a retired Dublin coal merchant, with an enormous family, +and a reputation for great riches. He had, within the last year or so, +taken the derelict house of Temple Braney, and having by strenuous +efforts attained that dubious honour, the Commission of the Peace, it +had happened to me to sit on the Bench with him on one or two +occasions. Of his family I knew little, save that whenever I saw an +unknown young man buying cigarettes at Mr. Dannaher's in Skebawn, I was +informed that it was one of the young McRorys, a medical student, and +"a bit of a lad, but nothing at all to the next youngest." The Misses +McRory were only occasionally viewed, whirling in large companies on +glittering bicycles, and the legend respectfully ran that they had +forty blouses apiece. Perhaps the most definite information about them +was supplied by our cook, Mrs. Cadogan, who assured Philippa that Wild +Pigs in America wouldn't be treated worse than what Mrs. McRory treated +her servants. All these things together made an unpromising aggregate, +but the fact remained that Temple Braney House was within a quarter of +a mile of me, and its charity my only hope. + +The lodge gates of Temple Braney were wide open, so was the door of the +lodge; the weedy drive was scored with fresh wheel-tracks, as also, for +the matter of that, was the grass on either side. I followed it for a +short distance, in the roomy shade of splendid beech-trees, servants of +the old régime, preserving their dignity through the vicissitudes of +the new. Near the house was a second open gate, and on a species of +arch over it I was amazingly greeted by the word "Welcome" in white +letters on a blazing strip of Turkey-red. This was an attention that I +had not anticipated; did it mean a school-feast? + +I made a cautious survey, but saw nobody, and nerved by the increasing +lameness of Lady Jane, I went on to the house and rang the bell. There +was no response; the hall-door was wide open, and from an inner hall +two lanky red setter puppies advanced with their tails between their +legs, barking uncertainly, and acutely conscious of the fact that upon +the collar of each was fastened a flaunting though much chewed bow of +white satin ribbon. Full of foreboding I rang again. The bell tinkled +vigorously in some fastness of the house, but nothing else happened. I +decided to try the stable-yard, and, attended by the decorated puppies, +set forth to find it. + +It was a large quadrangle, of which one side was formed by a wing of +the house; had there been a few more panes of glass in the windows and +slates in the roof it might have been imposing. A cavernous coachhouse +stood open, empty save for the wheelless body of an outside car that +was seated on the floor, with wings outspread like a hatching hen. +Every stable-door gaped wide. Odds and ends of harness lay about, but +neither horse nor human being was visible. A turkey-cock, in +transports of wrath, stormed to and fro in front of his household, and +to some extent dispelled the sentiment of desertion and stampede that +pervaded the place. I led the limping mare into a stable wherein were +two loose-boxes. A sickly smell greeted me, and I perceived that in +one of the boxes was a long low cage, alive with the red-currant-jelly +eyes and pink noses of a colony of ferrets, and in the other was a pile +of empty wine-boxes and several bicycles. Lady Jane snorted heavily, +and I sought elsewhere for a refuge for her. I found it at length in a +long stable with six empty stalls, and proceeded to tie her up in one +of them. + +It was while I was thus engaged that a strange succession of sounds +began overhead, heavy, shapeless sounds in which were blended the +suggestions of shove and thump. There was a brief interval of silence, +during which Lady Jane and I listened with equal intentness; then +followed a hoarse bellow, which resolved itself into the enquiry, + +"Is there any one there?" + +Here was the princess of the enchanted palace waking up with a +vengeance. More and angrier bellows followed; I went stealthily out +into the yard, and took stock of the windows above the stable. One of +them was open, and it was from it that the voice issued, loudly +demanding release. It roared a string of Christian names, which I +supposed to be those of the McRory family, it used most unchristian +language, and it finally settled down into shouts for help, and +asseverations that it was smothering. I admit that my first and almost +overwhelming impulse was to steal a bicycle and wing my way to my +far-away and peaceful home, leaving Michael, the hounds, and the +smothering gentleman to work out their own salvation. Unfortunately +for me, the voice of conscience prevailed. There was a ladder near at +hand leaning against the wall, and I put it to the window, and went up +it as fast as my top boots would allow me, with a vision before me of +old McRory in apoplexy as the probable reward of my labours. I thrust +my head in, blocking the light in so doing; the shouting ceased +abruptly, and after the glare of sunshine outside I could at first see +nothing. Then was revealed to me a long and darksome room, once, +probably, a loft, filled with broken chairs and varieties of primeval +lumber. In the middle of the floor lay an immense feather bed, and my +bewildered eyes discovered, at one end of it, a crimson face, the face, +not of old McRory, but that of a young gentleman of my acquaintance, +one Mr. Tomsy Flood of Curranhilty. The mysteries were deepening. I +straddled the window-sash, and arrived in the room with a +three-cornered tear in the shoulder of my coat, inflicted by a nail in +the frame, and one spur draped with ancestral cobweb. + +"Take me out of this!" howled Mr. Flood hysterically, accepting my +pantomime entrance without question. "Can't you see I'm smothering in +this damned thing?" + +[Illustration: "TAKE ME OUT OF THIS!"] + +Fluff hung from his black moustache and clung to his eyebrows, his hair +was full of feathers; earthquake throes convulsed the feather-bed, and +the fact was suddenly revealed to me that Mr. Flood was not under it, +as I had at first imagined, but in it, stitched in, up to the chin. +The weaned child, or any other conventional innocent, could not have +failed for an instant to recognise the handiwork of practical humorists +of a high order. I asked no questions, but got out my knife once more, +and beginning with due precaution somewhere near Mr. Flood's jugular +vein, proceeded to slit open the end of the "tick." The stitches were +long and strong, and as each one yielded, the feathers burst forth in +stifling puffs, and Tomsy Flood's allusions to the young McRorys were +mercifully merged in sputtering. I did not laugh, not at least till I +found that I had to drag him out like a mummy, accompanied by half the +contents of the bed, and perceived that he was in full evening clothes, +and that he was incapable of helping himself because the legs of his +trousers were sewn together and his coat-sleeves sewn to his sides; +even then, I only gave way in painful secrecy behind the mighty calves +of his legs as I cut the stitches out. Tomsy Flood walked about +fifteen stone and was not in a mood to be trifled with, still less to +see the humour of the position. The medical students had done their +work with a surgical finish, and by the time that I had restored to +Tomsy the use of his legs and arms, the feathers had permeated to every +recess of my being, and I was sneezing as if I had hay fever. + +Having at length, and with considerable difficulty, got Mr. Flood on to +his legs, I ventured, with the tact demanded by the situation, a +question as to whether he had been dining at Temple Braney. + +"Dining?" queried Mr. Flood, with an obvious effort of memory. "Yes, I +was, to be sure! Amn't I staying in the house?" Then, with an equally +obvious shock of recollection, "Sure I'm Best Man at the wedding +to-day!" + +The scattered elements of the situation began to fall symmetrically +into line, from the open gates to the white bows on the puppies' +collars. My chief concern, however, bearing in mind Tomsy Flood's +recent potations and provocations, was to let him down as easily as +possible, and, reserving my conclusions to myself, to escape, swiftly +and silently, while yet there was time. There was always that +stall-full of bicycles; I could borrow clothes from Tomsy, and leave +this accursed tom-foolery of hunting kit to be fetched with the mare, I +could write a beautifully explanatory note when I got home---- + +"Hadn't you better get out of your evening things as quickly as you +can?" I suggested. + +Mr. Flood regarded me with heavy and bloodshot eyes of imperfect +intelligence. + +"Oh! I've time enough. Ye wouldn't get a pick of breakfast here +before ten o'clock in the day. Now that I come to look into you," he +continued, "you're as big a show as myself! Is it for the wedding that +you have the red coat on you?" + +I do not now remember with what lies I composed Tomsy Flood, but I got +him out of the room at last by a door into a passage of seemingly +interminable length; he took my arm, he treated me as his only friend, +he expressed his full confidence that I would see fair play when he got +a hold of Stanley McRory. He also gave it as his private opinion that +his cousin, Harry Flood, was making a hare of himself marrying that +impudent little Pinkie McRory, that was as vulgar as a bag of +straddles, in spite of the money. Indeed, the whole family had too +many airs about them for his fancy. "They take the English _Times_, if +you please, and they all dress for dinner--every night I tell ye! I +call that rot, y'know!" + +We were all this time traversing the house by labyrinthine passages, +flights of stairs, and strange empty lobbies; we progressed +conversationally and with maddening slowness, followed by a fleecy +train of feathers that floated from us as we went. And all the time I +was trying to remember how long it took to get married. In my own case +it seemed as if I had been in the church for two hours at least. + +A swing-door suddenly admitted us to the hall, and Tomsy stood still to +collect his faculties. + +"My room's up there," he began, pointing vaguely up the staircase. + +At this identical moment there was a loud and composite crash from +behind a closed door on our right, followed by minor crashes, and +noises as of chairs falling about. + +"That's the boys!" said Tomsy, a sudden spark kindling in his eye; +"they're breakfasting early, I suppose." + +He dropped my arm unexpectedly, and flung the door open with a yell. + +The first object that met my eyes was the original sinner, Venus, +mounted on a long and highly-adorned luncheon table, cranching and +gulping cold chicken as fast as she could get it down; on the floor +half-a-dozen of her brethren tore at a round of beef amid the débris of +crockery and glass that had been involved in its overthrow. A cataract +of cream was pouring down the table-cloth, and making a lake on the +carpet for the benefit of some others; and President, the patriarch of +the pack, was apparently seated on the wedding-cake, while he +demolished a cold salmon. I had left my whip in the stable, but even +had this paralysing sight left me the force to use it, its services +would not have been needed. The leaders of the revel leaped from the +table, mowing down colonies of wine-glasses in the act, and fled +through the open window, followed by the rest of the party, with a +precipitancy that showed their full consciousness of sin--the last +scramblers over the sill yelping in agonised foretaste of the thong +that they believed was overtaking them. + +At such a moment of catastrophe the craving for human sympathy is +paramount. + +I turned even to the fuddled and feathered Tomsy Flood as to a man and +a brother, and was confronted in the doorway by the Bride and +Bridegroom. + +Behind them, the hall was filling, with the swiftness of an evil dream, +with glowing faces and wedding bonnets; there was a turmoil of wheels +and hoofs at the door, and through it all, like "horns of Elfland +faintly blowing," Michael's blasts of summons to his pirates. Finally, +the towering mauve bonnet and equally towering wrath of Mrs. McRory, as +she advanced upon me and Tomsy Flood. I thought of the Wild Pigs in +America, and wished I were with them. + + +Lest I should find myself the object of a sympathy more acute than I +deserve, it may be well to transcribe portion of a paragraph from the +_Curranhilty Herald_ of the following week:-- + +"... After the ceremony a reception was held at Temple Braney House, +where a sumptuous collation had been provided by the hospitable Mr. and +Mrs. McRory. The health of the Happy Pair having been drunk, that of +the Bridesmaids was proposed, and Mr. T. Flood, who had been prevented +by a slight indisposition from filling the office of Best Man, was +happily sufficiently recovered to return thanks for them in his usual +sprightly vein. Major Sinclair Yeates, R.M., M.F.H., who, in honour of +the festive occasion had donned sporting attire, proposed the health of +the Bride's Mother in felicitous terms...." + + + + +II + +A ROYAL COMMAND + +When I heard that Bernard Shute, of Clountiss, Esquire, late Lieutenant +R.N., was running an Agricultural Show, to be held in his own demesne, +I did not for a moment credit him with either philanthropy or public +spirit. I recognised in it merely another outbreak of his exasperating +health and energy. He bombarded the country with circulars, calling +upon farmers for exhibits, and upon all for subscriptions; he made +raids into neighbouring districts on his motor car, turning vague +promises into bullion, with a success in mendicancy fortunately given +to few. It was in a thoroughly ungenerous spirit that I yielded up my +guinea and promised to attend the Show in my thousands: peace at +twenty-one shillings was comparatively cheap, and there was always a +hope that it might end there. + +The hope was fallacious: the Show boomed; it blossomed into a Grand +Stand, a Brass Band, an Afternoon Tea Tent; finally, fortune, as usual, +played into Bernard's hands and sent a Celebrity. There arrived in a +neighbouring harbour a steam-yacht, owned by one of Mr. Shute's dearest +friends, one Captain Calthorpe, and having on board a coloured +potentate, the Sultan of X----, who had come over from Cowes to see +Ireland and the Dublin Horse Show. The dearest friend--who, as it +happened, having been for three days swathed in a wet fog from the +Atlantic, was becoming something pressed for entertainment for his +charge--tumbled readily into Bernard's snare, and paragraphs appeared +with all speed in the local papers proclaiming the intention of H.H. +the Sultan of X---- to be present at the Clountiss Agricultural Show. +Following up this coup, Bernard achieved for his function a fine, an +even sumptuous day, and the weather and the Sultan between them filled +the Grand Stand beyond the utmost hopes (and possibly the secret +misgivings) of its constructors. + +Having with difficulty found seats on the top-most corner for myself, +my wife, and my two children, I had leisure to speculate upon its +probable collapse. For half an hour, for an hour, for an hour and a +half, we sat on its hot bare boards and surveyed the wide and empty +oval of grass that formed the arena of the Show. Five "made-up" jumps +of varying dimensions and two vagrant fox-terriers were its sole +adornment. A dark rim of spectators encircled it, awaiting +developments, _i.e._ the arrival of the Sultan, with tireless patience, +and the egregious Slipper, attired in a gala costume of tall hat, +frock-coat, white breeches, and butcher boots, gleanings, no doubt, +from bygone jumble sales, swaggered and rolled to and fro, selling +catalogues and cards of the jumping. Away under the tall elms near the +gate, amid the rival clamour of the cattle sheds and the poultry pens, +was stationed the green and yellow band of the "Sons of Liberty"; at +intervals it broke into an excruciating shindy of brass instruments, +through which the big drum drove a ferocious and unfaltering course. +Above the heads of the people, at the far end of the arena, tossing +heads and manes moving ceaselessly backwards and forwards told where +the "jumping horses" were waiting, eaten by flies, inconsolably +agitated by the band, becoming momently more jaded and stale from the +delay. I thanked Heaven that neither my wife nor Bernard Shute had +succeeded in inducing me to snatch my string of two from the paddock in +which they were passing the summer, to take part in this purgatorial +procession. + +[Illustration: THE EGREGIOUS SLIPPER] + +The Grand Stand, a structure bare as a mountain top to the assaults of +sun and wind, was canopied with parasols and prismatic with millinery. +The farmers, from regions unknown to me, had abundantly risen to the +occasion; so also had their wives and daughters; and fashionable +ladies, with comfortable brogues and a vigorous taste in scent, closed +us in on every side. Throughout that burning period of delay went the +searching catechisms of my two sons (aged respectively four and seven) +as to the complexion, disposition, and domestic arrangements of the +Sultan. Philippa says that I ought to have known that they were +thoroughly over-strung; possibly my descriptions of the weapons that he +wore and the cannibal feasts that he attended were a trifle lurid, but +it seemed simpler to let the fancy play on such details than to decide, +for the benefit of an interested _entourage_ of farmers' daughters, +whether the Sultan's face was the colour of my boots or of their +mother's, and whether he had a thousand or a million wives. The +inquiry was interrupted by the quack of a motor horn at the entrance +gate. + +"Here he is!" breathed the Grand Stand as one man. There was a +flocking of stewards towards the gate, and the Sons of Liberty, full of +anxiety to say the suitable thing, burst into the melancholy strains of +"My Old Kentucky Home Far Away." To this somewhat "hearse-like air" +the group of green-rosetted stewards advanced across the arena, +escorting the yacht party, in whose midst moved a squat figure, clad in +grey flannel, and surmounted by a massive and snowy turban. My elder +son became very pale; the younger turned an ominous crimson, and the +corners of his mouth went down, slowly, but, as I well knew, fatally. +The inevitable bellow, that followed in the inevitable routine, had +scarcely died away in the heart of Philippa's feather boa, when Mr. +Shute's red face and monstrous Presidential rosette presented +themselves on the stairs at my elbow. + +"Mrs. Yeates!" he began, in a gusty whisper, "Cecilia implores you to +come and fling yourself to the Lion! She says she simply can't and +won't tackle him single-handed, and she trusts to you to see her +through! He talks French all right, and I know your French is +top-hole! Do come----" + +Incredible as it may appear, my wife received this suggestion with a +reluctance that was obviously but half-hearted. Such it is to have the +Social Gift. + +I presently found myself alone with my offspring, both in tears, and +deaf to my assurances that neither the Sultan, nor his lion, would eat +their mother. Consolation, however, came with the entry of the +"jumping horses" into the arena, which followed with all speed upon +that of the Sultan. The first competitor bucketted up to the +starting-point, and at the same moment the discovery was made that +there was no water in the water-jump, a space of perhaps a foot in +depth by some five feet wide. Nothing but a thin paste of mud +remained, the water having disappeared, unnoticed, during the hot hours +of the morning. + +Swift in expedient, the stewards supplied the difficulty with +quicklime, which was scattered with a lavish hand in the fosse, and +shone like snow through the barrier of furze bushes on the take-off +side. If, as I suppose, the object was to delude the horses into the +belief that it was a water-jump, it was a total failure; they +immediately decided that it was a practical joke, dangerous, and in +indifferent taste. If, on the other side, a variety entertainment for +the public was aimed at, nothing could have been more successful. +Every known class of refusal was successfully exhibited. One horse +endeavoured to climb the rails into the Grand Stand; another, having +stopped dead at the critical point, swung round, and returned in +consternation to the starting-point, with his rider hanging like a +locket round his neck. Another, dowered with a sense of humour unusual +among horses, stepped delicately over the furze-bushes, and, amidst +rounds of applause, walked through the lime with a stoic calm. Yet +another, a ponderous war-horse of seventeen hands, hung, trembling like +an aspen, on the brink, till a sympathiser, possibly his owner, sprang +irrepressibly from his seat on the stand, climbed through the rails, +and attacked him from behind with a large umbrella. It was during this +three-cornered conflict that the green-eyed filly forced herself into +the front rank of events. A chorus of "Hi! Hi! Hi!" fired at the +rate of about fifty per second, volleyed in warning from the crowd +round the starting-point, and a white-legged chestnut, with an +unearthly white face and flying flounces of tawny mane and tail, came +thundering down at the jump. Neither umbrella nor war-horse turned her +by a hair's-breadth from her course, still less did her rider, a lean +and long-legged country boy, whose single object was to keep on her +back. Picking up her white stockings, she took off six feet from the +jump, and whizzed like a driven grouse past the combatants and over the +furze bushes and the lime. Beneath her creamy forelock, I caught a +glimpse of her amazing blue-green eyes. + +[Illustration: WHIZZED LIKE A DRIVEN GROUSE PAST THE COMBATANTS] + +She skimmed the hurdle, she flourished over the wall, flinging high her +white heels with a twist that showed more consideration for their +safety than that of her rider. She ramped over the big double bank, +while the roars of approval swelled with each achievement, and she +ended a faultless round by bolting into the heart of the crowd, which +fled hilariously, and as hilariously, hived in round her again. + +From my exalted seat I could see the Sultan clapping his hands in sweet +accord with Philippa. Somewhere near me a voice yelled: + +"Gripes! She's a monkey! When she jumped the wall she went the height +of a tree over it!" + +To which another voice replied that "It'd be a good bird that'd fly the +height she wouldn't lep, and John Cullinane'd be apt to get first with +her at the Skebawn Show." I remembered casually that John Cullinane +was a neighbour of mine. + +"Well, I wouldn't fancy her at all," said a female voice. "I'd say she +had a very maleecious glance." + +"Ah! ye wouldn't feel that when the winkers'd be on her," said the +first speaker; "she'd make a fine sweeping mare under a side-car." + +Meantime, the war-horse, much embittered by the umbrella, floundered +through the lime, and, continuing his course, threw down the hurdle, +made a breach in the wall that would, as my neighbour put it, give +three hours' work to seven idlers, and came to a sudden conclusion in +front of the bank, while his rider slowly turned a somersault that, by +some process of evolution, placed him sitting on the fence, facing the +large and gloomy countenance of his horse. + +It was after this performance that my wife looked round to see if her +sons were enjoying themselves, and waved her handkerchief. The snowy +turban of the Sultan moved round too, and beneath its voluminous folds +the round, black discs of a pair of field-glasses were directed at us. +The effect was instant. With a simultaneous shriek of terror, my +children flung themselves upon me and buried their faces in my breast. +I shall never forget it to the farmers' daughters that, in this black +hour, their sympathy was prompt and practical. + +"Oh! Fie, fie! Oh! the creatures! 'T was the spy-glasses finished +them altogether! Eat a sweetie now, lovey! that's the grand man! +Pappy'll not let the dirty fella near ye!" + +A piece of the brown sugar-stick, known as "Peggy's leg," accompanied +these consolations, and a tearful composure was gradually restored; but +"Pappy" had arrived at the conclusion that he had had about as much as +he could stand. In shameful publicity I clambered down the steep tiers +of seats, with one child under my arm, the other adhering to my +coat-tail. Philippa made agitated signals to me; I cut her dead, and +went to ground in the tea tent. + +A couple of days later my duty took me to the farthest end of my +district--a matter that involved a night's absence from home. I left +behind me an infant family restored to calm, and a thoroughly +domesticated wife and mother, pledged to one o'clock dinner with the +children and tea in the woods. I returned in time for luncheon next +day, bicycling from the station, as was my wont. It was a hot day, and +as I walked my bicycle up the slope of the avenue, the shade of the +beech trees was passing pleasant; the dogs galloped to meet me over the +soft after-grass, and I thought about flannels and an idle afternoon. + +In the hall I met Margaret, the parlour-maid, engaged, with the +housemaid, in carrying the writing-table out of my smoking-room. They +were talking loudly to each other, and I noticed that their eyes were +very bright and their complexions considerably above par. I am a man +of peace, but the veriest dove will protect its nest, and I demanded +with some heat the cause of this outrage. + +"The Mistress told us to clear this room for the servant of the--the +gentleman's that's coming to lunch to-morrow, sir," replied Margaret +with every appearance of offence. + +She and Hannah staggered onwards with my table, and the contents of the +drawers rolled and rattled. + +"Put down that table," I said firmly. "Where is the Mistress?" + +"I believe she's dressing, sir," replied Margaret; "she only came home +about an hour ago. She was out all night on the sea, I believe." + +Instant on the heels of these astonishing statements the swing door to +the kitchen was flung open, and Mrs. Cadogan's angry voice was +projected through it. + +"Hannah! go tell the Mistress the butcher's below, and he says he never +heard tell of the like, and would she lend him one o' the Major's +spears? How would the likes o' him have a spear! Such goings on!" + +"What the devil is all this about?" I said with an equal anger. "No +one is to touch my spears!" + +"Thanks be to God, the Major's come home!" exclaimed the ruler of the +kitchen, advancing weightily into the hall. "There's no fear I'd put a +hand on your spears, sir, nor the butcher neither, the poor, decent +man! He says he's supplying the gentry for twenty-five years, and he +was never asked to do the like of a nasty thing like that!" + +"Like what!" I said, with growing wrath and bewilderment. + +"It's what the Mistress said," rejoined Mrs. Cadogan, the flush of +injury mounting to her cap-frill. "That what-shall-I-call-him--that +King, wouldn't ate mate without it'd be speared! And it's what I say," +she went on, perorating loudly and suddenly, "what's good enough for +Christians and gentry is good enough for an owld Blackamoor!" + +It was now sufficiently obvious that Philippa had, with incredible +perfidy, taken advantage of my absence to embroil herself in the +entertainment of barbaric royalty. "Tell the butcher to wait," was all +I could trust myself to say, as I started in search of my wife. + +"Wait, Sinclair! I'm coming down!" cried an urgent voice from the +upper landing, and Philippa, attired in what I may perhaps describe as +a tempestuous dressing-gown, came swiftly downstairs and swept me +before her into the drawing-room. + +"My dear," she said breathlessly, "let me break it to you as gently as +possible. The Shutes called for me in the motor after you left +yesterday, and we went on board Bernard's yacht and sailed round to tea +with Captain Calthorpe and the Sultan. We were becalmed coming back, +and we were out all night--we had nothing to eat but the men's +food--not that I wanted anything!" She gave a nauseated shudder of +reminiscence. "There was an awful swell. It rained, too. Cecilia and +I tried to sleep in the cabin with all our clothes on; I never spent a +more horrible night. The yacht crawled in with the tide at about ten +o'clock this morning, and I got back here half-dead, and was just going +up to bed when Captain Calthorpe arrived on a car and said that the +Sultan wanted to lunch here to-morrow. He says we must have him--it's +a kind of Royal command--in fact, I suppose you ought to wear your +frock-coat!" + +"I'm dashed if I do!" I said, with decision. + +"Well, be that as it may," resumed Philippa, discreetly evading this +point, "that green-eyed thing that got the first prize for jumping is +to be here to meet him. He wants to buy it for his State carriage. I +did my best to get out of it, and I told Captain Calthorpe it would be +impossible to manage about the food. I forgot to tell you," faltered +Philippa, with a wan giggle, "that he said he must have speared mutton!" + +"I call it an infernal liberty of Calthorpe's!" I said, with +indignation fanned by the spectacle of Philippa's sleepless +black-rimmed eyes and pallid face, "dumping his confounded menagerie +upon us in this way! And I may tell you that those spears of mine are +poisoned!" + +"Oh! don't be so horrid, Sinclair," said Philippa, "inventing +difficulties like that!" + +I arose the following morning with a heart of lead--of boiling lead--as +I went down early to the smoking-room to look for cigarettes and found +that they, in common with every other thing that I wanted, had been +tidied into oblivion. From earliest dawn I had heard the thumping of +feet, and the swish of petticoats, and the plying of brooms; but for me +the first shot of the engagement was not fired till 8.30, when, as I +was moodily stropping my razor, I was told that John Cullinane was +below, and would be thankful to see me. As I shaved, I could see John +Cullinane standing about in front of the house, in his Sunday clothes, +waiting for me; and I knew that he would so wait, patiently, +inexorably, if I did not come down till noonday. + +I interviewed him, unsympathetically, on the hall door steps, and told +him, firstly, that, as I knew nothing of his filly, I could not "say a +good word" to the Sultan for her; and, secondly, that I certainly would +not mention to the Sultan that, in my opinion, she was a cheap mare at +£80. John Cullinane then changed the conversation by remarking that he +had brought over a small little donkey for a present for the young +gentlemen; to which, with suitable politeness, I responded that my +children already had a donkey, and that I could not think of depriving +him of his, and the interview closed. + +Breakfast was late, and for the most part uneatable, the excitement of +the household having communicated itself to the kitchen-range. + +"If I was to put my head under it, it wouldn't light for me!" Mrs. +Cadogan said to Philippa. + +As a matter of fact, judging by a glimpse vouchsafed to me of her face +as I struggled forth from the cellar with a candle and the champagne, +one might have expected it to cause a conflagration anywhere. + +My smoking-room had been dedicated to the Sultan's personal attendant, +a gentleman who could neither lunch with his master nor with my +servants; I was therefore homeless, and crept, an outcast, to the +drawing-room to try to read the newspaper undisturbed. Sounds from +above told me that trouble was brewing in the nursery; I closed the +door. + +At about eleven-thirty an outside car drove up to the house, and I saw +a personable stranger descend from it, with a black bag in his hand, a +forerunner, no doubt, of the Sultan, come over to see that the +preparations were _en régle_. I saw no reason for my intervention, +and, with a passing hope that Providence might deliver him over to Mrs. +Cadogan, I returned to my paper. The door was flung open. + +"Sinclair, dear," said my wife, very apologetically, "here is Mr. +Werner, the piano-tuner, from Dublin. He says he can't come again--he +thinks he can finish it by luncheon-time. I quite forgot that he was +coming----" + +Mr. Werner's spectacled and supercilious face regarded me over her +shoulder; he evidently had a low opinion of me, I do not know why. +With one Cenci-like glance of reproach at Philippa, I rose and left the +room. As I put on my cap I heard the first fierce chords break forth, +followed by the usual chromatic passages, fluent and searching, which +merged in their turn into a concentrated attack upon a single note. I +hurried from the house. + +It was a perfect August morning; the dogs lay on the hot gravel and +panted politely as I spoke to them, but did not move. Rejected by all, +I betook myself to a plantation near the front gate to see how the work +of clearing a ride was progressing. The cross-cut saw and a bill-hook +lay on the ground, but of workmen there was no sign. From the high +road came the sound of wheels and of rapid trotting, also something +that seemed like cheering. + +"Good heavens!" I thought, my blood running cold, "here they are!" + +I broke through the tall bracken and the larches to an opening from +which the high road was visible. My two workmen were lying on their +stomachs across the coping of the demesne wall, and a line of +countrymen, with their best clothes on and crape "weepers" on their +hats, sat on the opposite fence and applauded what was apparently a +trotting match between a long-legged bay colt and John Cullinane's +chestnut filly, owners up. + +I joined the entertainment, my two men melting like snow from the top +of the wall, and it was explained to me that there had been a funeral +in the locality, and that these were a few of the neighbours that had +been at it, and were now waiting to see the Black Gentleman. An +outside car rested on its shafts by the side of the road, and a horse +with harness on it browsed voraciously on the shrubs inside my gate. +Far away down the road I saw the receding figures of my two children, +going forth to the picnic that had been arranged to allay their panic +and to remove them from the sphere of action. Any Irish person will +readily believe that one of them was mounted on "the small little +donkey," the bribe which I had that morning irrevocably repudiated. I +knew that John Cullinane saw them too, but I was too broken to +interfere; I turned my back and walked rapidly away. + +The rhythmic rasp of the cross-cut told me that work at the clearing +had been resumed; I said to myself vindictively that I would see that +it continued, and returned to the ride. The bill-hook was doing +nothing, and picking it up I fell to snicking and chopping, with +soothing destructiveness, among the briars and ash-saplings. +Notwithstanding heat and horseflies, the time passed not disagreeably, +and I was, at all events, out of range of the piano. I had paused for +the fifteenth time to wipe a heated brow, and extract a thorn from my +finger, when the familiar voice of the Shutes' motor-horn roused me to +the appalling fact that it was nearly luncheon-time, and that I was far +from fit to receive Royalty. As I hurriedly emerged from the wood, +there was a sound of hard galloping, and I beheld the green-eyed filly +flying riderless up the avenue. She crossed the croquet ground, +thoroughly, from corner to corner, and disappeared into the shrubbery +in the direction of the flower garden. I ran as I have seldom run, +dimly aware of a pursuing party of mourners on the avenue behind me, +and, as I ran, I cursed profusely the Sultan, Calthorpe, and chiefly +Bernard Shute and all his works. + +The chase lasted for twenty minutes, and was joined in by not less than +five-and-thirty people. The creamy mane of the filly floated like a +banner before us through the shrubberies, with the dogs in full cry +behind her; through it all went the reiterations of the piano, the +monotonous hammerings, the majestic chords, the pyrotechnic scales; +they expressed as fully as he himself could have desired the complete +indifference of the tuner. The filly was ubiquitous; at one moment she +was in the flower garden, the next, a distant uproar among the poultry +told that she had traversed the yard, whence she emerged, +_ventre-à-terre_, delivered herself of three bucks at sight of her +original enemy the motor, at the hall door, and was away again for the +croquet ground. At every turn I encountered a fresh pursuer; it was +Bernard Shute and the kitchen-maid who slammed the flower-garden gate +in her face; it was Philippa, in her very best dress, abetted by John +Cullinane, very dusty, and waving a crushed and weepered hat, who, with +the best intentions, frustrated a brilliant enveloping movement +directed by me; finally the cross-cut saw men, the tuner's car-driver, +and a selection from the funeral, came so near cornering her that she +charged the sunk fence, floated across its gulf with offensive ease, +and scurried away, with long and defiant squeals, to assault my horses +at the farther end of the paddock. + +When we, _i.e._ Philippa, Bernard, and I, pulled ourselves together on +the top of the steps, it was two o'clock. By the special favour of +Providence the Sultan was late, but the position was desperate. +Philippa had trodden on the front of her dress and torn it, Bernard had +greened the knees of his trousers; I do not know what I looked like, +but when Cecilia Shute emerged, cool and spotless, from the hall, where +she had judiciously remained during the proceedings, she uttered a +faint shriek and covered her face with her hands. + +"I know," I said, with deadly calm, stuffing my tie inside my +waistcoat, "I can't help it----" + +"Here they are!" said Bernard. + +The sound of wheels was indeed in the avenue. We fled as one man into +the back hall, and Philippa, stumbling over her torn flounce, fell on +her knees at the feet of Mr. Werner, the tuner, who stood there, his +task finished, awaiting with cold decorum the reward of his labours. +The wheels stopped. What precisely happened during that crowded moment +I cannot pretend to explain, but as we dragged my wife to her feet I +found that she had knelt on my eyeglass, with the result that may be +imagined. + +All was now lost save honour. I turned at bay, and dimly saw, +silhouetted in the open doorway, a short figure in a frock-coat, with a +species of black turban on its head. I advanced, bowed, and heroically +began: + +"Sire! J'ai l'honneur----" + +"Yerrah my law! Major!" said the bewildered voice of Slipper. "Don't +be making game of me this way! Sure I have a tallagram for you." He +removed the turban, which I now perceived to be a brown tweed cap, +swathed in a crape "weeper," and handed me the telegram. "I got it +from the boy that was after breaking his bike on the road, an' I coming +from the funeral." + +The telegram was from Calthorpe, and said, with suitable regrets, that +the Sultan had been summoned to London on instant and important +business. + +I read it to the back hall, in a voice broken by many emotions. + +"I saw the gentleman you speak of waiting for the Dublin train at Sandy +Bay Station this morning," remarked the tuner, condescending for a +moment to our level. + +"Then why did you not tell us so?" demanded Philippa, with sudden +indignation. + +"I was not aware, madam, that it was of any importance," replied Mr. +Werner, returning to his normal altitude of perpetual frost. + +Incredible as it may seem, it was apparent that Philippa was +disappointed. As for me, my heart was like a singing bird. + + + + +III + +POISSON D'AVRIL + +The atmosphere of the waiting-room set at naught at a single glance the +theory that there can be no smoke without fire. The stationmaster, +when remonstrated with, stated, as an incontrovertible fact, that any +chimney in the world would smoke in a south-easterly wind, and further, +said there wasn't a poker, and that if you poked the fire the grate +would fall out. He was, however, sympathetic, and went on his knees +before the smouldering mound of slack, endeavouring to charm it to a +smile by subtle proddings with the handle of the ticket-punch. +Finally, he took me to his own kitchen fire and talked politics and +salmon-fishing, the former with judicious attention to my presumed +point of view, and careful suppression of his own, the latter with no +less tactful regard for my admission that for three days I had not +caught a fish, while the steam rose from my wet boots, in witness of +the ten miles of rain through which an outside car had carried me. + +Before the train was signalled I realised for the hundredth time the +magnificent superiority of the Irish mind to the trammels of +officialdom, and the inveterate supremacy in Ireland of the Personal +Element. + +"You might get a foot-warmer at Carrig Junction," said a species of lay +porter in a knitted jersey, ramming my suit-case upside down under the +seat. "Sometimes they're in it, and more times they're not." + +The train dragged itself rheumatically from the station, and a cold +spring rain--the time was the middle of a most inclement April--smote +it in flank as it came into the open. I pulled up both windows and +began to smoke; there is, at least, a semblance of warmth in a +thoroughly vitiated atmosphere. + +It is my wife's habit to assert that I do not read her letters, and +being now on my way to join her and my family in Gloucestershire, it +seemed a sound thing to study again her latest letter of instructions. + +"I am starting to-day, as Alice wrote to say we must be there two days +before the wedding, so as to have a rehearsal for the pages. Their +dresses have come, and they look too delicious in them----" + +(I here omit profuse particulars not pertinent to this tale)---- + +"It is sickening for you to have had such bad sport. If the worst +comes to the worst couldn't you buy one?----" + +I smote my hand upon my knee. I had forgotten the infernal salmon! +What a score for Philippa! If these contretemps would only teach her +that I was not to be relied upon, they would have their uses, but +experience is wasted upon her; I have no objection to being called an +idiot, but, that being so, I ought to be allowed the privileges and +exemptions proper to idiots. Philippa had, no doubt, written to Alice +Hervey, and assured her that Sinclair would be only too delighted to +bring her a salmon, and Alice Hervey, who was rich enough to find much +enjoyment in saving money, would reckon upon it, to its final fin in +mayonnaise. + +Plunged in morose meditations, I progressed through a country parcelled +out by shaky and crooked walls into a patchwood of hazel scrub and +rocky fields, veiled in rain. About every six miles there was a +station, wet and windswept; at one the sole occurrence was the +presentation of a newspaper to the guard by the station-master; at the +next the guard read aloud some choice excerpts from the same to the +porter. The Personal Element was potent on this branch of the Munster +and Connaught Railway. Routine, abhorrent to all artistic minds, was +sheathed in conversation; even the engine-driver, a functionary +ordinarily as aloof as the Mikado, alleviated his enforced isolation by +sociable shrieks to every level crossing, while the long row of +public-houses that formed, as far as I could judge, the town of Carrig, +received a special and, as it seemed, humorous salutation. + +The Time-Table decreed that we were to spend ten minutes at Carrig +Junction; it was fifteen before the crowd of market people on the +platform had been assimilated; finally, the window of a neighbouring +carriage was flung open, and a wrathful English voice asked how much +longer the train was going to wait. The stationmaster, who was at the +moment engrossed in conversation with the guard and a man who was +carrying a long parcel wrapped in newspaper, looked round, and said +gravely-- + +"Well now, that's a mystery!" + +The man with the parcel turned away, and convulsively studied a poster. +The guard put his hand over his mouth. + +[Illustration: THE GUARD PUT HIS HAND OVER HIS MOUTH] + +The voice, still more wrathfully, demanded the earliest hour at which +its owner could get to Belfast. + +"Ye'll be asking me next when I take me breakfast," replied the +stationmaster, without haste or palpable annoyance. + +The window went up again with a bang, the man with the parcel dug the +guard in the ribs with his elbow, and the parcel slipped from under his +arm and fell on the platform. + +"Oh my! oh my! Me fish!" exclaimed the man, solicitously picking up a +remarkably good-looking salmon that had slipped from its wrapping of +newspaper. + +Inspiration came to me, and I, in my turn, opened my window and +summoned the station-master. + +Would his friend sell me the salmon? The stationmaster entered upon +the mission with ardour, but without success. + +No; the gentleman was only just after running down to the town for it +in the delay, but why wouldn't I run down and get one for myself? +There was half-a-dozen more of them below at Coffey's, selling cheap; +there would be time enough, the mail wasn't signalled yet. + +I jumped from the carriage and doubled out of the station at top speed, +followed by an assurance from the guard that he would not forget me. + +Congratulating myself on the ascendancy of the Personal Element, I sped +through the soapy limestone mud towards the public-houses. En route I +met a heated man carrying yet another salmon, who, without preamble, +informed me that there were three or four more good fish in it, and +that he was after running down from the train himself. + +"Ye have whips o' time!" he called after me. "It's the first house +that's not a public-house. Ye'll see boots in the window--she'll give +them for tenpence a pound if ye're stiff with her!" + +I ran past the public-houses. + +"Tenpence a pound!" I exclaimed inwardly, "at this time of year! +That's good enough." + +Here I perceived the house with boots in the window, and dived into its +dark doorway. + +A cobbler was at work behind a low counter. He mumbled something about +Herself, through lengths of waxed thread that hung across his mouth, a +fat woman appeared at an inner door, and at that moment I heard, +appallingly near, the whistle of the incoming mail. The fat woman +grasped the situation in an instant, and with what appeared but one +movement, snatched a large fish from the floor of the room behind her +and flung a newspaper round it. + +"Eight pound weight!" she said swiftly. "Ten shillings!" + +A convulsive effort of mental arithmetic assured me that this was more +than tenpence a pound, but it was not the moment for stiffness. I +shoved a half-sovereign into her fishy hand, clasped my salmon in my +arms, and ran. + +Needless to say it was uphill, and at the steepest gradient another +whistle stabbed me like a spur; above the station roof successive and +advancing puffs of steam warned me that the worst had probably +happened, but still I ran. When I gained the platform my train was +already clear of it, but the Personal Element held good. Every soul in +the station, or so it seemed to me, lifted up his voice and yelled. +The stationmaster put his fingers in his mouth and sent after the +departing train an unearthly whistle, with a high trajectory and a +serrated edge. It took effect; the train slackened, I plunged from the +platform and followed it up the rails, and every window in both trains +blossomed with the heads of deeply-interested spectators. The guard +met me on the line, very apologetic and primed with an explanation that +the gentleman going for the boat-train wouldn't let him wait any +longer, while from our rear came an exultant cry from the +station-master. + +"Ye _told_ him ye wouldn't forget him!" + +"There's a few countrywomen in your carriage, sir," said the guard, +ignoring the taunt, as he shoved me and my salmon up the side of the +train, "but they'll be getting out in a couple of stations. There +wasn't another seat in the train for them!" + +My sensational return to my carriage was viewed with the utmost +sympathy by no less than seven shawled and cloaked countrywomen. In +order to make room for me, one of them seated herself on the floor with +her basket in her lap, another, on the seat opposite to me, squeezed +herself under the central elbow flap that had been turned up to make +room. The aromas of wet cloaks, turf smoke, and salt fish formed a +potent blend. I was excessively hot, and the eyes of the seven women +were fastened upon me with intense and unwearying interest. + +"Move west a small piece, Mary Jack, if you please," said a voluminous +matron in the corner, "I declare we're as throng as three in a bed this +minute!" + +"Why then Julia Casey, there's little throubling yourself," grumbled +the woman under the flap. "Look at the way meself is! I wonder is it +to be putting humps on themselves the gentry has them things down on +top o' them! I'd sooner be carrying a basket of turnips on me back +than to be scrooged this way!" + +The woman on the floor at my feet rolled up at me a glance of +compassionate amusement at this rustic ignorance, and tactfully changed +the conversation by supposing that it was at Coffey's I got the salmon. + +I said it was. + +There was a silence, during which it was obvious that one question +burnt in every heart. + +"I'll go bail she axed him tinpence!" said the woman under the flap, as +one who touches the limits of absurdity. + +"It's a beautiful fish!" I said defiantly. "Eight pounds weight. I +gave her ten shillings for it." + +What is described in newspapers as "sensation in court" greeted this +confession. + +"Look!" said the woman under the flap, darting her head out of the hood +of her cloak, like a tortoise, "t' is what it is, ye haven't as much +roguery in your heart as'd make ye a match for her!" + +"Divil blow the ha'penny Eliza Coffey paid for that fish!" burst out +the fat woman in the corner. "Thim lads o' her's had a creel full o' +thim snatched this morning before it was making day!" + +"How would the gentleman be a match for her!" shouted the woman on the +floor through a long-drawn whistle that told of a coming station. +"Sure a Turk itself wouldn't be a match for her! That one has a tongue +that'd clip a hedge!" + +At the station they clambered out laboriously, and with groaning. I +handed down to them their monster baskets, laden, apparently, with +ingots of lead; they told me in return that I was a fine _grauver_ man, +and it was a pity there weren't more like me; they wished, finally, +that my journey might well thrive with me, and passed from my ken, +bequeathing to me, after the agreeable manner of their kind, a certain +comfortable mental sleekness that reason cannot immediately dispel. +They also left me in possession of the fact that I was about to present +the irreproachable Alice Hervey with a contraband salmon. + +The afternoon passed cheerlessly into evening, and my journey did not +conspicuously thrive with me. Somewhere in the dripping twilight I +changed trains, and again later on, and at each change the salmon +moulted some more of its damp raiment of newspaper, and I debated +seriously the idea of interring it, regardless of consequences, in my +portmanteau. A lamp was banged into the roof of my carriage, half an +inch of orange flame, poised in a large glass globe, like a gold-fish, +and of about as much use as an illuminant. Here also was handed in the +dinner basket that I had wired for, and its contents, arid though they +were, enabled me to achieve at least some measure of mechanical +distension, followed by a dreary lethargy that was not far from +drowsiness. + +At the next station we paused long; nothing whatever occurred, and the +rain drummed patiently upon the roof. Two nuns and some school-girls +were in the carriage next door, and their voices came plaintively and +in snatches through the partition; after a long period of apparent +collapse, during which I closed my eyes to evade the cold gaze of the +salmon through the netting, a voice in the next carriage said +resourcefully: + +"Oh, girls, I'll tell you what we'll do! We'll say the Rosary!" + +"Oh, that will be lovely!" said another voice; "well, who'll give it +out? Theresa Condon, you'll give it out." + +Theresa Condon gave it out, in a not unmelodious monotone, interspersed +with the responses, always in a lower cadence; the words were +indistinguishable, but the rise and fall of the western voices was +lulling as the hum of bees. I fell asleep. + +I awoke in total darkness; the train was motionless, and complete and +profound silence reigned. We were at a station, that much I discerned +by the light of the dim lamp at the far end of a platform glistening +with wet. I struck a match and ascertained that it was eleven o'clock, +precisely the hour at which I was to board the mail train. I jumped +out and ran down the platform; there was no one in the train; there was +no one even on the engine, which was forlornly hissing to itself in the +silence. There was not a human being anywhere. Every door was closed, +and all was dark. The name-board of the station was faintly visible; +with a lighted match I went along it letter by letter. It seemed as if +the whole alphabet were in it, and by the time I had got to the end I +had forgotten the beginning. One fact I had, however, mastered, that +it was not the junction at which I was to catch the mail. + +I was undoubtedly awake, but for a moment I was inclined to entertain +the idea that there had been an accident, and that I had entered upon +existence in another world. Once more I assailed the station house and +the appurtenances thereof, the ticket-office, the waiting room, +finally, and at some distance, the goods store, outside which the +single lamp of the station commented feebly on the drizzle and the +darkness. As I approached it a crack of light under the door became +perceptible, and a voice was suddenly uplifted within. + +"Your best now agin that! Throw down your Jack!" + +I opened the door with pardonable violence, and found the guard, the +stationmaster, the driver, and the stoker, seated on barrels round a +packing case, on which they were playing a game of cards. + +To have too egregiously the best of a situation is not, to a generous +mind, a source of strength. In the perfection of their overthrow I +permitted the driver and stoker to wither from their places, and to +fade away into the outer darkness without any suitable send-off; with +the guard and the stationmaster I dealt more faithfully, but the +pleasure of throwing water on drowned rats is not a lasting one. I +accepted the statements that they thought there wasn't a Christian in +the train, that a few minutes here or there wouldn't signify, that they +would have me at the junction in twenty minutes, and it was often the +mail was late. + +Fired by this hope I hurried back to my carriage, preceded at an +emulous gallop by the officials. The guard thrust in with me the +lantern from the card table, and fled to his van. + +"Mind the goods, Tim!" shouted the station-master, as he slammed my +door, "she might be coming anytime now!" + +The answer travelled magnificently back from the engine. + +"Let her come! She'll meet her match!" A war-whoop upon the steam +whistle fittingly closed the speech, and the train sprang into action. + +We had about fifteen miles to go, and we banged and bucketed over it in +what was, I should imagine, record time. The carriage felt as if it +were galloping on four wooden legs, my teeth chattered in my head, and +the salmon slowly churned its way forth from its newspaper, and moved +along the netting with dreadful stealth. + +All was of no avail. + +"Well," said the guard, as I stepped forth on to the deserted platform +of Loughranny, "that owld Limited Mail's th' unpunctualest thrain in +Ireland! If you're a minute late she's gone from you, and may be if +you were early you might be half-an-hour waiting for her!" + +On the whole the guard was a gentleman. He said he would show me the +best hotel in the town, though he feared I would be hard set to get a +bed anywhere because of the "_Feis_" (a Feis, I should explain, is a +Festival, devoted to competitions in Irish songs and dances). He +shouldered my portmanteau, he even grappled successfully with the +salmon, and, as we traversed the empty streets, he explained to me how +easily I could catch the morning boat from Rosslare, and how it was, as +a matter of fact, quite the act of Providence that my original scheme +had been frustrated. + +All was dark at the uninviting portals of the hotel favoured by the +guard. For a full five minutes we waited at them, ringing hard: I +suggested that we should try elsewhere. + +"He'll come," said the guard, with the confidence of the Pied Piper of +Hamelin, retaining an implacable thumb upon the button of the electric +bell. "He'll come. Sure it rings in his room!" + +The victim came, half awake, half dressed, and with an inch of dripping +candle in his fingers. There was not a bed there, he said, nor in the +town neither. + +[Illustration: THE VICTIM CAME] + +I said I would sit in the dining-room till the time for the early train. + +"Sure there's five beds in the dining-room," replied the boots, "and +there's mostly two in every bed." + +His voice was firm, but there was a wavering look in his eye. + +"What about the billiard-room, Mike?" said the guard, in wooing tones. + +"Ah, God bless you! we have a mattress on the table this minute!" +answered the boots, wearily, "and the fellow that got the First Prize +for Reels asleep on top of it!" + +"Well, and can't ye put the palliasse on the floor under it, ye +omadhawn?" said the guard, dumping my luggage and the salmon in the +hall, "sure there's no snugger place in the house! I must run away +home now, before Herself thinks I'm dead altogether!" + +His retreating footsteps went lightly away down the empty street. + +"Annything don't throuble _him_!" said the boots bitterly. + +As for me, nothing save the Personal Element stood between me and +destitution. + + +It was in the dark of the early morning that I woke again to life and +its troubles. A voice, dropping, as it were, over the edge of some +smothering over-world, had awakened me. It was the voice of the First +Prize for Reels, descending through a pocket of the billiard-table. + +"I beg your pardon, sir, are ye going on the 5 to Cork?" + +I grunted a negative. + +"Well, if ye were, ye'd be late," said the voice. + +I received this useful information in indignant silence, and +endeavoured to wrap myself again in the vanishing skirts of a dream. + +"I'm going on the 6.30 meself," proceeded the voice, "and it's unknown +to me how I'll put on me boots. Me feet is swelled the size o' +three-pound loaves with the dint of the little dancing-shoes I had on +me in the competition last night. Me feet's delicate that way, and I'm +a great epicure about me boots." + +I snored aggressively, but the dream was gone. So, for all practical +purposes, was the night. + +The First Prize for Reels arose, presenting an astonishing spectacle of +grass-green breeches, a white shirt, and pearl-grey stockings, and +accomplished a toilet that consisted of removing these and putting on +ordinary garments, completed by the apparently excruciating act of +getting into his boots. At any other hour of the day I might have been +sorry for him. He then removed himself and his belongings to the hall, +and there entered upon a resounding conversation with the boots, while +I crawled forth from my lair to renew the strife with circumstances and +to endeavour to compose a telegram to Alice Hervey of explanation and +apology that should cost less than seven and sixpence. There was also +the salmon to be dealt with. + +Here the boots intervened, opportunely, with a cup of tea, and the +intelligence that he had already done up the salmon in straw +bottle-covers and brown paper, and that I could travel Europe with it +if I liked. He further informed me that he would run up to the station +with the luggage now, and that may be I wouldn't mind carrying the fish +myself; it was on the table in the hall. + +My train went at 6.15. The boots had secured for me one of many empty +carriages, and lingered conversationally till the train started; he +regretted politely my bad night at the hotel, and assured me that only +for Jimmy Durkan having a little drink taken--Jimmy Durkan was the +First Prize for Reels--he would have turned him off the billiard-table +for my benefit. He finally confided to me that Mr. Durkan was engaged +to his sister, and was a rising baker in the town of Limerick, +"indeed," he said, "any girl might be glad to get him. He dances like +whalebone, and he makes grand bread!" + +Here the train started. + +It was late that night when, stiff, dirty, with tired eyes blinking in +the dazzle of electric lights, I was conducted by the Herveys' +beautiful footman into the Herveys' baronial hall, and was told by the +Herveys' imperial butler that dinner was over, and the gentlemen had +just gone into the drawing-room. I was in the act of hastily declining +to join them there, when a voice cried-- + +"Here he is!" + +And Philippa, rustling and radiant, came forth into the hall, followed +in shimmers of satin, and flutterings of lace, by Alice Hervey, by the +bride elect, and by the usual festive rout of exhilarated relatives, +male and female, whose mission it is to keep things lively before a +wedding. + +"Is this a wedding present for me, Uncle Sinclair?" cried the bride +elect, through a deluge of questions and commiserations, and snatched +from under my arm the brown paper parcel that had remained there from +force of direful habit. + +"I advise you not to open it!" I exclaimed; "it's a salmon!" + +The bride elect, with a shriek of disgust, and without an instant of +hesitation, hurled it at her nearest neighbour, the head bridesmaid. +The head bridesmaid, with an answering shriek, sprang to one side, and +the parcel that I had cherished with a mother's care across two +countries and a stormy channel, fell, with a crash, on the flagged +floor. + +_Why did it crash?_ + +"A salmon!" screamed Philippa, gazing at the parcel, round which a pool +was already forming, "why that's whisky! Can't you smell it?" + +The footman here respectfully interposed, and kneeling down, cautiously +extracted from folds of brown paper a straw bottle-cover full of broken +glass and dripping with whisky. + +"I'm afraid the other things are rather spoiled, sir," he said +seriously, and drew forth, successively, a very large pair of high-low +shoes, two long grey worsted stockings, and a pair of grass-green +breeches. + +They brought the house down, in a manner doubtless familiar to them +when they shared the triumphs of Mr. Jimmy Durkan, but they left Alice +Hervey distinctly cold. + +"You know, darling," she said to Philippa afterwards, "I don't think it +was very clever of dear Sinclair to take the wrong parcel. I _had_ +counted on that salmon." + + + + +IV + +"THE MAN THAT CAME TO BUY APPLES" + +It had been freezing hard all the way home, and the Quaker skated +perilously once or twice on the northerly stretches. As I passed the +forge near my gate I issued an order for frost-nails, and while I did +so the stars were kindling like diamonds over the black ridge of +Shreelane Hill. + +The overture to the Frost Symphony had begun, with its usual beauties +and difficulties, and its leading theme was given forth in a missive +from Flurry Knox, that awaited me on the hall table. Flurry's +handwriting was an unattractive blend of the laundress's bill, and the +rambling zigzags of the temperature chart, but he exhibited no more of +it than was strictly necessary in getting to the point. Would I shoot +at Aussolas the following day? There were a lot of cock in, and he had +whipped up four guns in a hurry. There was a postscript, "Bernard +Shute is coming. Tell Mrs. Yeates he didn't kill any one yet this +season." + +Since his marriage Flurry had been promoted to the position of agent to +his grandmother, old Mrs. Knox of Aussolas, and through the +unfathomable mazes of their dealings and fights with each other, the +fact remained that he had secured to himself the Aussolas shooting at +about half its market value. So Mrs. Knox said. Her grandson, on the +other hand, had often informed me that the privilege "had him beggared, +what with beaters and all sorts, and his grandmother's cattle turned +into the woods destroying all the covert--let alone her poaching." +Into the differences of such skilled combatants the prudent did not +intrude themselves, but they accepted without loss of time such +invitations to shoot at Aussolas as came their way. Notwithstanding +the buccaneerings of Flurry's grandmother, the woods of Aussolas, in +decent weather, were usually good for fifteen to twenty couple of cock. + +I sent my acceptance before mentioning to Philippa that Bernard Shute +was to be of the party. It was impossible to make Philippa understand +that those who shot Bernard's pheasants at Clountiss, could hardly do +less than retaliate when occasion served. I had once, in a moment of +regrettable expansion, entertained my wife with an account of how an +entire shooting party had successively cast themselves upon their +faces, while the muzzle of Bernard's gun had followed, half way round +the compass, a rabbit that had broken back. No damage had ensued, not +even to the rabbit, but I had supplied Philippa with a fact that was an +unfortunate combination of a thorn in her pillow and a stone in her +sling. + +The frost held; it did more than hold, it gripped. As I drove to +Aussolas the fields lay rigid in the constraining cold; the trees were +as dead as the telegraph poles, and the whistle of the train came thin +and ghostly across four miles of silent country. Everything was half +alive, with the single exception of the pony, which, filled with the +idiotic exaltation that frost imparts to its race, danced upon its +frost-nails, shied with untiring inventiveness, and made three several +and well-conceived attempts to bolt. Maria, with her nose upon my +gaiter, shuddered uninterruptedly throughout the drive, partly because +of the pinching air, partly in honour of the sovereign presence of the +gun-case. + +Old Mrs. Knox was standing on the steps as I walked round to the hall +door of Aussolas Castle. She held a silver bowl in her hand; on her +head, presumably as a protection against the cold, was a table-napkin; +round her feet a throng of hens and pigeons squabbled for the bits that +she flung to them from the bowl, and a furtive and distrustful peacock +darted a blue neck in among them from the outskirts. + +"'Good-morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham,'" was Mrs. Knox's singular +greeting, "'a good soft pillow for that good grey head were better than +a churlish turf of France'!" + +My friendship with Mrs. Knox was now of several years' standing, and I +knew enough of her to gather that I stood rebuked for being late. + +"Flurry arrived only half-an-hour ago! my first intimation of a +shooting party," she continued, in the dictatorial voice that was +always a shock when taken in connection with her beggar woman's +costume, "a nice time of day to begin to look for beaters! And the +other feather-bed sportsmen haven't arrived yet. In old times they +would have had ten couple by this time, and then Mr. Flurry complains +of the shooting!" + +She was here interrupted by the twitching of the table-napkin from her +head by her body-woman, who had advanced upon her from the rear, with +the reigning member of the dynasty of purple velvet bonnets in her +hand. The bonnet was substituted for the table-napkin, much as a stage +property is shoved on from the wings, and two bony hands, advancing +from behind, tied the strings under Mrs. Knox's chin, while she +uninterruptedly fed the hens, and denounced the effeteness of modern +cock-shooters. The hands descended and fixed a large pin in the +uppermost of her mistress' shawls. + +"Mullins, have done!" exclaimed Mrs. Knox, suddenly tearing herself +from her captor, "you're an intolerable nuisance!" + +"Oh, very well, ma'am, maybe you'd sooner go out with your head naked +and soak the cold!" returned Mullins, retiring with the honours of war +and the table-napkin. + +"Mullins and I get on famously," observed Mrs. Knox, crushing an empty +egg-shell with her yellow diamonded fingers and returning it to its +original donors, "we're both mad, you know!" + +Comment on this might have been difficult, but I was preserved from it +by the approach across the frozen gravel of a short, red-bearded man, +Mrs. Knox's gardener, wood-ranger, and ruling counsellor, John Kane. +He held in his hands two large apples of arsenical hue, and, taking off +his hat to me with much dignity, addressed himself to the lady of the +house. + +"He says he'd sooner walk barefoot to Cork than to give three and +fippence for the likes of them!" + +"I'm sure I've no objection if he does," responded Mrs. Knox, turning +the silver bowl upside down over the scrimmaging hens and pigeons, "I +daresay it would be no novelty to him." + +"And isn't that what I told him!" said John Kane, his voice at once +ascending to the concert pitch of altercation, "I said to him if the +Lord Left'nant and the Pope was follying me around the yard of Aussolas +offering three and a penny for them apples they'd not get them! Sure +the nuns gave us that much for windfalls that was only fit to be making +cherubs with!" + +I might have been struck by the fitness, as well as the ingenuity, of +this industry, but in some remote byway of my brain the remembrance +woke of a "black-currant cherub" prescribed by Mrs. Cadogan for sore +throats, and divined by Philippa to be a syrup. I turned away and lit +a cigarette in order to conceal my feelings from John Kane, round whose +red beard the smoke of battle hung almost palpably. + +"What's between you?" asked his mistress sharply. + +"Three and a penny he's offering, ma'am!" declaimed her deputy, "for +sheeps' noses that there isn't one in the country has but yourself! +And not a brown farthing more would he give!--the consecrated blagyard!" + +[Illustration: "AND NOT A BROWN FARTHING MORE WOULD HE GIVE"] + +Anything less like a sheep's nose than Mrs. Knox's hooked beak, as she +received this information, could hardly be imagined. + +"You're half a fool, John Kane!" she snapped, "and the other half's not +sensible! Go back and tell him Major Yeates is here and wants to buy +every apple I have!" She dealt me a wink that was the next thing to a +dig in the ribs. As she spoke a cart drawn by a cheerful-looking grey +pony, and conducted by a tall, thin man, came into view from the +direction of the yard. It rattled emptily, and proclaimed, as was +intended, the rupture of all business relations. + +"See here, sir," said John Kane to me in one hoarse breath, "when he's +over-right the door I'll ask him the three and fippence again, and when +he refuses, your Honour will say we should split the difference----" + +The cart advanced, it passed the hall door with a dignity but little +impaired by the pony's apprehensive interest in the peacock, and the +tall man took off his hat to Mrs. Knox with as gloomy a respect as if +she had been a funeral. + +John Kane permitted to the salutation the full time due to it, in the +manner of one who counts a semibreve rest, while the cart moved +implacably onwards. The exact, the psychic instant arrived. + +"HONOMAUNDHIAOUL! SULLIVAN!" he shouted, with a full-blown burst of +ferocity, hurtling down the steps in pursuit, "will ye take them or +lave them?" + +To manifest, no doubt, her complete indifference to the issue, Mrs. +Knox turned and went into the house, followed by the majority of the +hens, and left me to await my cue. The play was played out with +infinite credit to both artists, and at the full stretch of their +lungs; at the preordained moment I intervened with the conventional +impromptu, and suggested that the difference should be split. The +curtain immediately fell, and somewhere in the deep of the hall a +glimpse of the purple bonnet told me that Mrs. Knox was in the +auditorium. + +When I rejoined her I found Flurry with her, and something in the +atmosphere told that here also was storm. + +"Well, take them! Take them all!" Mrs. Knox was saying in high +indignation. "Take Mullins and the maids if you like! I daresay they +might be more use than the men!" + +"They'll make more row, anyhow," said Flurry sourly. "I wonder is it +them that put down all the rabbit-traps I'm after seeing in the +coach-house this minute!" + +"It may be _they_, but it certainly is not _them_," retorted Mrs. Knox, +hitting flagrantly below the belt; "and if you want beaters found for +you, you should give me more than five minutes' warning----" She +turned with the last word, and moved towards the staircase. + +"I beg your pardon, ma'am," said John Kane, very respectfully, from the +hall door, "that Sullivan brought this down for your Honour." + +He placed on the table a bottle imperfectly wrapped in newspaper. + +"Tell Sullivan," said Flurry, without an instant's hesitation, "that he +makes the worst potheen in the country, and I'll prosecute him for +bringing it here, unless he comes out to beat with the rest of you." + +Remembering my official position, I discreetly examined the barrels of +my gun. + +"You'll give him no such message!" screamed Mrs. Knox over the dark +rail of the staircase. "Let him take himself and his apples off out of +this!" Then, in the same breath, and almost the same key, "Major +Yeates, which do you prefer, curry, or Irish stew?" + +The _cuisine_ at Aussolas was always fraught with dark possibilities, +being alternately presided over by bibulous veterans from Dublin, or +aboriginal kitchenmaids off the estate. Feeling as Fair Rosamond might +have felt when proffered the dagger or the bowl, I selected curry. + +"Then curry it shall be," said Mrs. Knox, with a sudden and awful +affability. In this gleam of stormy sunshine I thought it well to +withdraw. + +"Did you ever eat my grandmother's curry?" said Flurry to me, later, as +we watched Bernard Shute trying to back his motor into the coach-house. + +I said I thought not. + +"Well, you'd take a splint off a horse with it," said Mrs. Knox's +grandson. + +The Aussolas woods were full of birds that day. Birds bursting out of +holly bushes like corks out of soda-water bottles, skimming low under +the branches of fir trees, bolting across rides at a thousand miles an +hour, swinging away through prohibitive tree tops, but to me had +befallen the inscrutable and invincible accident of being "off my day," +and, by an equal unkindness, Fate had allotted to me the station next +Flurry. Every kind of bird came my way except the easy ones, and, as a +general thing, when I had done no more than add a little pace to their +flight, they went down to Flurry, who never in my experience had been +off his day, and they seldom went farther afield. The beaters, +sportsmen every man of them, had a royal time. They flailed the bushes +and whacked the tree trunks; the discordant chorus of "Hi cock! Hi +cock! Cock! Cock! Prrrr!" rioted through the peaceful woods, and +every other minute a yell of "Mark!" broke like a squib through the +din. The clamour, the banging of the guns, and the expectancy, kept +the nerves tingling; the sky between the grey branches was as blue as +Italy's; despite fingers as icy as the gun-barrels, despite the +speechless reproach of Maria, slinking at my heels in unemployed +dejection, I enjoyed every breath or the frosty day. After all, hit or +miss, a good day with the cock comes very near a good day with the +hounds, without taking into consideration the comfortable fact that in +the former the risk is all on the side of the birds. + +Little Bosanquet, the captain of coastguards, on my left, was doing +remarkably well, so apparently, was Murray the D.I. of Police; how +Bernard Shute was faring I knew not, but he was certainly burning a lot +of powder. At the end of the third beat I found myself beside Murray. +His face was redder than usual, even his freckles conveyed an +impression of impartially sprinkled cayenne pepper. + +"Did you see Shute just now?" he demanded in a ferocious whisper. "A +bird got up between us, and he blazed straight at me! Straight bang in +my face, I tell you! Only that I was in a dead line with the bird he'd +have got me!" + +"I suppose that was about the safest place," I said. "What did you do?" + +"I simply told him that if ever he puts a grain into me I shall let him +have it back, both barrels." + +"Every one says that to Bernard sooner or later," said I, pacifically; +"he'll settle down after lunch." + +"We'll all settle down into our graves," grumbled Murray; "that'll be +the end of it." + +After this it was scarcely composing to a husband and father to find +Mr. Shute occupying the position on my right hand as we embarked upon +the last beat of the Middle Wood. He was still distinctly unsettled, +and most distressingly on the alert. Nothing escaped his vigilance, +the impossible wood pigeon, clattering out of the wrong side of a fir +tree, received its brace of cartridges as instantly as the palpable +rabbit, fleeing down the ride before him, and with an equal immunity. +Between my desire to keep the thickest tree trunks between me and him, +and the companion desire that he should be thoroughly aware of my +whereabouts, my shooting, during that beat, went still more to pieces; +a puff of feathers, wandering softly down through the radiant air, was +the sum total of my achievements. + +The end of the beat brought us to the end of the wood, and out upon an +open space of sedgy grass and bog that stretched away on the right to +the shore of Aussolas Lake; opposite to us, a couple of hundred yards +away, was another and smaller wood, clothing one side of a high +promontory near the head of the lake. Flurry and I were first out of +the covert. + +"We'll have time to run through the Rhododendron Wood before lunch," he +said, looking at his watch. "Here! John Kane!" He put two fingers in +his mouth and projected a whistle that cleft my head like a scimitar. + +John Kane emerged, nymph-like, from a laurel bush in our immediate +vicinity. + +"'Tis only lost time to be beating them rosydandhrums, Master Flurry," +he said volubly, "there wasn't a bird in that bit o' wood this winter. +Not a week passes but I'm in it, making up the bounds fence against the +cattle, and I never seen a one!" + +"You might be more apt to be looking out for a rabbit than a cock, +John," said Flurry expressionlessly, "but isn't it down in the lower +paddocks you have the cattle and the young horses this hard weather?" + +"Oh it is, sir, it is, of course, but indeed it's hard for me to know +where they are, with the Misthress telling this one and that one to put +them in their choice place. Sure she dhrives me to and fro in my mind +till I do have a headache from her!" + +A dull rumble came to us across the marsh, and, as if Mrs. Knox had +been summoned by her henchman's accusation, there laboured into view on +the road that skirted the marsh a long and dilapidated equipage, +silhouetted, with its solitary occupant, against the dull shine of the +frozen lake. + +"Tally-ho! Here comes the curry for you, Major! You'll have to eat it +I tell you!" He paused, "I'm dashed if she hasn't got Sullivan's pony! +Well, she'd steal the horns off a cow!" + +[Illustration: "I'M DASHED IF SHE HASN'T GOT SULLIVAN'S PONY"] + +It was indeed the grey pony that paced demurely in the shafts of Mrs. +Knox's phaeton, and at its head marched Sullivan; fragments of loud and +apparently agreeable conversation reached us, as the procession moved +onwards to the usual luncheon tryst at the head of the lake. + +"Come now, John Kane," said Flurry, eyeing the cortège, "you're half +your day sitting in front of the kitchen fire. How many of my rabbits +went into that curry?'' + +"Rabbits, Master Flurry?" echoed John Kane almost pityingly, "there's +no call for them trash in Aussolas kitchen! And if we wanted them +itself, we'd not get them. I declare to me conscience there's not a +rabbit in Aussolas demesne this minute, with the way your Honour has +them ferreted--let alone the foxes!----" + +"I suppose it's scarcely worth your while to put the traps down," said +Flurry benignly; "that's why they were in the coach-house this morning." + +There was an undissembled titter from a group of beaters in the +background; Flurry tucked his gun under his arm and walked on. + +"It'd be no more than a charity if ye'd eat the lunch now, sir," urged +John Kane at his elbow, in fluent remonstrance, "and leave Sullivan go +home. Sure it'll be black night on him before the Misthress will be +done with him. And as for that wood, it's hardly we can go through it +with the threes that's down since the night of the Big Wind, and +briars, and all sorts. Sure the last time I was through it me pants +was in shreds, and I was that tired when I got home I couldn't stoop to +pick a herrin' off a tongs, and as for the floods and the holes in the +western end--" John Kane drew a full breath, and with a trawling +glance gathered Bernard and me into his audience. "I declare to ye, +gintlemen, me boots when I took them off was more than boots! They +resimbled the mouth of a hake!" + +"Ah, shut your own mouth," said Flurry. + +The big rhododendron was one of the glories of Aussolas. Its original +progenitor had been planted by Flurry's great-grandmother, and now, +after a century of unchecked license, it and its descendants ran riot +among the pine stems on the hillside above the lake, and, in June, +clothed a precipitous half acre with infinite varieties of pale +mysterious mauve. The farm road by which Mrs. Knox had traversed the +marsh, here followed obediently the spurs of the wood and creeks of the +shore, in their alternate give and take. From the exalted station that +had been given me on the brow of the hill, I looked down on it between +the trunks of the pine trees, and saw, instead of mysterious mauve +blossoms, the defiant purple of Mrs. Knox's bonnet, glowing, +motionless, in a sheltered and sunny angle of the road just where it +met the wood. She was drawn up in her phaeton with her back to a +tumble-down erection of stones and branches, that was supposed to bar +the way into the wood, beside her was the great flat boulder that had +for generations been the table for shooting lunches. How, in any area +of less than a quarter of a mile, Sullivan had contrived to turn the +phaeton, was known only to himself, but he had accomplished it, and was +now adding to the varied and unforeseen occupations of his day the task +of unpacking the luncheon basket. As I waited for the whistle that was +the signal for the beat to begin, I viewed the proceedings up to the +point where Sullivan, now warming artistically to his work, crowned the +arrangement with the bottle of potheen. + +[Illustration: HE CROWNED THE ARRANGEMENT WITH THE BOTTLE OF POTHEEN] + +It was at that moment that I espied John Kane break from a rhododendron +bush beside the phaeton, with a sack over his shoulder. This, as far +as I could see through the branches, he placed upon Mrs. Knox's lap, +the invaluable Sullivan hurrying to his aid. The next instant I saw +Murray arrive and take up his allotted station upon the road; John Kane +retired into the evergreen thicket as abruptly as he had emerged from +it, Flurry's whistle sounded, and the yells of "Hi cock" began again. + +We moved forward very slowly, in order to keep station with Murray, who +had to follow on the road the outer curve of the wood, while we struck +straight across it. It was a wood of old and starveling trees, +strangled by ivy, broken by combat with each other in the storms that +rushed upon them up the lake; it was two years since I had last been +through it, and I remembered well the jungle of ferns and the +undergrowth of briars that had shredded the pants of John Kane, and had +held in their thorny depths what Flurry had described as "a dose of +cock." To-day the wood seemed strangely bare, and remarkably out of +keeping with John Kane's impassioned indictment; the ferns, even the +bracken, had almost disappeared, the briar brakes were broken down, and +laced with black paths, and in the frozen paste of dead leaves and peat +mould the hoof-marks of cattle and horses bore witness against them, +like the thumb-prints of a criminal. In the first ten minutes not a +gun had been let off; I anticipated pleasantly, if inadequately, the +remarks that Flurry would address to John Kane at the conclusion of the +beat. To foreshadow John Kane's reply to Flurry was a matter less +simple. Bernard Shute was again the next gun on my left, and kept, as +was his wont, something ahead of his due place in the line; of this I +did not complain, it made it all the easier to keep my eye on him. The +idle cartridges in his gun were obviously intolerable to him; as he +crossed a little glade he discharged both barrels into the firmament, +where far above, in tense flight and steady as a constellation, moved a +wedge of wild geese. The wedge continued its course unshaken, but, as +if lifted by the bang, the first woodcock of the beat got up in front +of me, and swung away into the rhododendrons. "Mark!" I shouted, +loosing an ineffectual cartridge after him. Mr. Shute was equal to the +occasion, and let fly his usual postman's knock with both barrels. In +instant response there arose from behind the rhododendrons the bray of +a donkey, fraught with outrage and terror, followed by crashing of +branches and the thunderous galloping of many hoofs, and I had a +glimpse of a flying party of cattle and horses, bursting from the +rhododendron bushes and charging down a grassy slope in the direction +of the road. Every tail was in the air, the cattle bellowed, and the +donkey, heading the flight, did not cease to proclaim his injuries. + +"How many of them have you hit?" I shouted. + +"I believe I got 'em all, bar the cock!" returned Mr. Shute, with +ecstasy scarcely tempered by horror. + +I hastened to the brow of the hill, and thence beheld Mrs. Knox's live +stock precipitate themselves on to the road, and turn as one man in the +direction of home. With a promptitude for which I have never been +given sufficient credit, I shoved my gun into the branches of a tree +and ran back through the wood at my best pace. In that glimpse of the +route I had recognised the streaming chestnut mane and white legs of +the venerable Trinket, the most indomitable old rogue that had ever +reared up generations of foals in the way they should not go, and I +knew by repute that once she was set going it would take more to stop +her than the half-demolished barricade at the entrance to the wood. + +As I ran I seemed to see Trinket and her disciples hurling themselves +upon Mrs. Knox's phaeton and Sullivan's pony, with what results no man +could tell. They had, however, first to circumnavigate the promontory; +my chance was by crossing it at the neck to get to the phaeton before +them. The going was bad, and the time was short; I went for all I was +worth, and Maria, mystified, but burning with zeal, preceded me with +kangaroo leaps and loud and hysterical barks. A mossy wall ringed the +verge of the hill; I followed Maria over it, and the wall, or a good +part of it, followed me down the hill. I plunged onward amid the +coiling stems and branches of the big rhododendrons, an illuminative +flash of the purple bonnet giving me my bearings. A sort of track +revealed itself, doubling and dodging and dropping down rocky slides, +as if in flight before me. It was near the foot of the hill that a +dead branch extended a claw, and with human malignity plucked the +eye-glass from my eye and snapped the cord: the eye-glass, entering +into the spirit of the thing, aimed for the nearest stone and hit it. +It is the commonest of disasters for the short-sighted, yet custom +cannot stale it; I made the usual comment, with the usual fervour and +futility, and continued to blunder forward in all the discomfort of +half-sight. The trumpeting of the donkey heralded the oncoming of the +stampede; I broke my way through the last of the rhododendrons and +tumbled out on to the road twenty yards ahead of the phaeton. + +Sullivan's pony was on its hind legs, and Sullivan was hanging on to +its head. Mrs. Knox was sitting erect in the phaeton with the reins in +her hand. + +"Get out, ma'am! Get out!" Sullivan was howling, as I scrambled to my +feet. + +"Don't be a fool!" replied Mrs. Knox, without moving. + +The stampede was by this time confronted by the barrier. There was +not, however, a moment of hesitation; Trinket came rocketing out over +it as if her years were four, instead of four-and-twenty; she landed +with her white nose nearly in the back seat of the phaeton, got past +with a swerve and a slip up, and went away for her stable with her tail +over her back, followed with stag-like agility by her last foal, her +last foal but one, and the donkey, with the young cattle hard on their +flying heels. Bernard, it was very evident, had peppered them +impartially all round. Sullivan's pony was alternately ramping +heraldically, and wriggling like an eel in the clutches of Sullivan, +and I found myself snatching blindly at whatever came to my hand of his +headstall. What I caught was a mingled handful of forelock and +brow-band; the pony twitched back his head with the cunning that is +innate in ponies, and the head-stall, which was a good two sizes too +large, slid over its ears as though they had been buttered, and +remained, bit and all, in my hand. There was a moment of struggle, in +which Sullivan made a creditable effort to get the pony's head into +chancery under his arm; foreseeing the issue, I made for the old lady, +with the intention of dragging her from the carriage. She was at the +side furthest from me, and I got one foot into the phaeton and grasped +at her. + +At that precise moment the pony broke away, with a jerk that pitched me +on to my knees on the mat at her feet. Simultaneously I was aware of +Sullivan, at the opposite side, catching Mrs. Knox to his bosom as the +phaeton whirled past him, while I, as sole occupant, wallowed prone +upon a heap of rugs. That ancient vehicle banged in and out of the +ruts with an agility that ill befitted its years, while, with extreme +caution, and the aid of the side rail, I gained the seat vacated by +Mrs. Knox, and holding on there as best I could, was aware that I was +being seriously run away with by the apple-man's pony, on whom my own +disastrous hand had bestowed his freedom. + +The flying gang in front, enlivened no doubt by the noise in their +rear, maintained a stimulating lead. We were now clear of the wood, +and the frozen ditches of the causeway awaited me on either side in +steely parallel lines; out in the open the frost had turned the ruts to +iron, and it was here that the phaeton, entering into the spirit of the +thing, began to throw out ballast. The cushions of the front seat were +the first to go, followed, with a bomb-like crash, by a stone hot-water +jar, that had lurked in the deeps of the rugs. It was in negotiating a +stiffish outcrop of rock in the track that the back seat broke loose +and fell to earth with a hollow thump; with a corresponding thump I +returned to my seat from a considerable altitude, and found that in the +interval the cushion had removed itself from beneath me, and followed +its fellows overboard. Near the end of the causeway we were into +Trinket's rearguard, one of whom, a bouncing young heifer, slammed a +kick into the pony's ribs as he drew level with her, partly as a +witticism, partly as a token of contempt. With that the end came. The +pony wrenched to the left, the off front wheel jammed in a rut, came +off, and the phaeton rose like a live thing beneath me and bucked me +out on to the road. + +A succession of crashes told that the pony was making short work of the +dash-board; for my part, I lay something stunned, and with a twisted +ankle, on the crisp whitened grass of the causeway, and wondered dully +why I was surrounded by dead rabbits. + +By the time I had pulled myself together Sullivan's pony was continuing +his career, accompanied by a fair proportion of the phaeton, and on the +road lay an inexplicable sack, with a rabbit, like Benjamin's cup, in +its mouth. + +Not less inexplicable was the appearance of Minx, my wife's +fox-terrier, whom I had last seen in an arm-chair by the drawing-room +fire at Shreelane, and now, in the role of the faithful St. Bernard, +was licking my face lavishly and disgustingly. Her attentions had the +traditional reviving effect. I sat up and dashed her from me, and in +so doing beheld my wife in the act of taking refuge in the frozen +ditch, as the cavalcade swept past, the phaeton and pony bringing up +the rear like artillery. + +"What has happened? Are you hurt?" she panted, speeding to me. + +"I am; very much hurt," I said, with what was, I think, justifiable +ill-temper, as I got gingerly on to my feet, almost annoyed to find +that my leg was not broken. + +"But, dearest Sinclair, _has_ he shot you? I got so frightened about +you that I bicycled over to-- Ugh! Good gracious!"--as she trod on +and into a mound of rabbits--"what are you doing with all these +horrible things?" + +I looked back in the direction from which I had come, and saw Mrs. Knox +advancing along the causeway arm-in-arm with the now inevitable +Sullivan (who, it may not be out of place to remind the reader, had +come to Aussolas early in the morning, with the pure and single +intention of buying apples). In Mrs. Knox's disengaged arm was +something that I discerned to be the bottle of potheen, and I instantly +resolved to minimise the extent of my injuries. Flurry, and various +items of the shooting party, were converging upon us from the wood by +as many and various short cuts. "I don't quite know what I am doing +with the rabbits," I replied, "but I rather think I'm giving them away." + +As I spoke something darted past Mrs. Knox, something that looked like +a bundle of rags in a cyclone, but was, as a matter of fact, my +faithful water-spaniel, Maria. She came on in zig-zag bounds, in short +maniac rushes. Twice she flung herself by the roadside and rolled, +driving her snout into the ground like the coulter of a plough. Her +eyes were starting from her head, her tail was tucked between her legs. +She bit, and tore frantically with her claws at the solid ice of a +puddle. + +"She's mad! She's gone mad!" exclaimed Philippa, snatching up as a +weapon something that looked like a frying-pan, but was, I believe, the +step of the phaeton. + +Maria was by this time near enough for me to discern a canary-coloured +substance masking her muzzle. + +"Yes, she's quite mad," I replied, possessed by a spirit of divination. +"She's been eating the rabbit curry." + +[Illustration: Chapter IV tailpiece] + + + + +V + +A CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE + +It has not often been my lot to be associated with a being of so +profound and rooted a pessimism as Michael Leary, Huntsman and +Kennelman to Mr. Flurry Knox's Fox-hounds. His attitude was that of +the one and only righteous man in a perfidious and dissolute world. +With, perhaps, the exception of Flurry Knox, he believed in no one save +himself. I was thoroughly aware of my inadequacy as Deputy-Master, and +cherished only a hope that Michael might look upon me as a kind of +Parsifal, a fool perhaps, yet at least a "blameless fool"; but during +my time of office there were many distressing moments in which I was +made to feel not only incapable, but culpable. + +Michael was small, sandy, green-eyed, freckled, and, I believe, +considerably junior to myself; he neither drank nor smoked, and he had +a blistering tongue. I have never tried more sincerely to earn any +one's good opinion. + +It was a pleasant afternoon towards the middle of December, and I was +paying my customary Sunday visit to the kennels to see the hounds fed. +What Michael called "the Throch" was nearly empty; the greedier of the +hounds were flitting from place to place in the line, in the undying +belief that others were better off than they. I was studying the row +of parti-coloured backs, and trying for the fiftieth time to fit each +with its name, when I was aware of a most respectable face, with grey +whiskers, regarding me from between the bars of the kennel door. + +With an effort not inferior to that with which I had just discriminated +between Guardsman and General, I recognised my visitor as Mr. Jeremiah +Flynn, a farmer, and a cattle dealer on a large scale, with whom I had +occasionally done business in a humble way. He was a District +Councillor, and a man of substance; he lived twenty miles away, at a +place on the coast called Knockeenbwee, in a flat-faced, two-storeyed +house of the usual type of hideousness. Once, when an unkind fate had +sent me to that region, I had heard the incongruous tinkle of a piano +proceeding from Mr. Flynn's mansion, as I drove past fighting an +umbrella against the wet wind that swept in from the Atlantic. + +"I beg your pardon, Major Yeates," began Mr. Flynn, with an agreeable +smile, which I saw in sections between the bars; "I had a little +business over this side of the country, and I took the liberty of +taking a stroll around to the kennels to see the hounds." + +I made haste to extend the hospitality of the feeding-yard to my +visitor, who accepted it with equal alacrity, and went on to remark +that it was wonderful weather for the time of year. Having obeyed this +primary instinct of mankind, Mr. Flynn embarked upon large yet able +compliments on the appearance of the hounds. His manners were +excellent; sufficiently robust to accord with his grey frieze coat and +flat-topped felt hat, and with just the extra touch of deference that +expressed his respect for my high qualities and position. + +"Ye have them in great form, Michael," he remarked, surveying the +hounds' bloated sides with a knowledgeable eye; "and upon me word, +there's our own poor Playboy! and a fine dog he is too!" + +[Illustration: "YE HAVE THEM IN GREAT FORM, MICHAEL"] + +"He is; and a fine dog to hunt rabbits!" said Michael, without a +relaxation of his drab countenance. + +"I daresay, Major, you didn't know that it was in my place that fellow +was rared?" continued Mr. Flynn. + +Owing to his providentially distinctive colouring of lemon and white, +Playboy was one of the hounds about whose identity I was never in +doubt. I was able to bestow a suitable glance upon him, and to recall +the fact of his having come from a trencher-fed pack, of which Mr. +Flynn was the ruling spirit, kept by the farmers in the wildernesses +beyond and around Knockeenbwee. + +"Ah! Mr. Knox was too smart for us over that hound!" pursued Mr. Flynn +pleasantly; "there was a small difference between himself and meself in +a matter of a few heifers I was buying off him--a thrifle of fifteen +shillings it was, I believe----" + +"Five and thirty," said Michael to the lash of his thong, in which he +was making a knot. + +"And I had to give him the pup before we could come to terms," ended my +visitor. + +Whether at fifteen or thirty-five shillings Playboy had been a cheap +hound. Brief, and chiefly ornamental, as my term of office had been, I +had learnt to know his voice in covert, and had learned also to act +upon it in moments of solitary and helpless ignorance as to what was +happening. This, however, was not the moment to sing his praises; I +preserved a careful silence. + +"I rared himself and his sister," said Mr. Flynn, patting Playboy +heavily, "but the sister died on me. I think 'twas from all she +fretted after the brother when he went, and 'twas a pity. Those two +had the old Irish breed in them; sure you'd know it by the colour, and +there's no more of them now in the country only the mother, and she had +a right to be shot this long time." + +"Come hounds," said Michael, interrupting this rhapsody, "open the +door, Bat." + +The pack swept out of the feeding-yard and were away on their wonted +constitutional in half a minute. + +"Grand training, grand training!" said Mr. Flynn admiringly, "they're a +credit to you, Major! It's impossible to have hounds anyway +disciplined running wild through the country the way our little pack +is. Indeed it came into my mind on the way here to try could I coax +you to come over and give us a day's hunting. We're destroyed with +foxes. Such marauding I never saw! As for turkeys and fowl, they're +tired of them, and it's my lambs they'll be after next!" + + +The moment of large and general acquiescence in Mr. Flynn's proposal +narrowed itself by imperceptible degrees to the moment, not properly +realised till it arrived, the horrid moment of getting up at a quarter +to seven on a December morning, in order to catch the early train for +Knockeenbwee. + +In the belief that I was acting in the interest of sport I had +announced at the last meet that there was to be a by-day at +Knockeenbwee. To say that the fact was received without enthusiasm is +to put it mildly. I was assured by one authority that I should have to +hunt the hounds from a steam launch; another, more sympathetic, +promised a drag, but tempered the encouragement by saying that the +walls there were all made of slates, and that by the end of the run the +skin would be hanging off the horses' legs like the skins of bananas. +Nothing short of a heart-to-heart appeal to my Whip, Dr. Jerome Hickey, +induced him to promise his support. Michael, from first to last, +remained an impenetrable thunder-cloud. The die, however, was cast, +and the hospitality of Mr. Flynn accepted. The eve of the by-day +arrived, and the Thundercloud and the hounds were sent on by road to +Knockeenbwee, accompanied by my ancient ally Slipper, who led my mare, +and rode Philippa's pony, which had been commandeered for the occasion. + +Next morning at 9.45 A.M. the train stopped by signal at the +flag-station of Moyny, a cheerless strip of platform, from which a dead +straight road retreated to infinity across a bog. An out side car was +being backed hard into the wall of the road by a long, scared rag of a +chestnut horse as Dr. Hickey and I emerged from the station, and its +driver was composing its anxieties as to the nature of trains by +beating it in the face with his whip. This, we were informed, was Mr. +Flynn's equipage, and, at a favourable moment in the conflict, Dr. +Hickey and I mounted it. + +"It's seldom the thrain stands here," said the driver apologetically, +as we started at a strong canter, "and this one's very frightful +always." + +The bog ditches fleeted by at some twelve miles an hour; they were the +softest, blackest, and deepest that I have ever seen, and I thanked +heaven that I was not in my red coat. + +"I suppose you never met the Miss Flynns?" murmured Dr. Hickey to me +across the well of the car. + +I replied in the negative. + +"Oh, they're very grand," went on my companion, with a wary eye on the +humped back of the driver, "I believe they never put their foot outside +the door unless they're going to Paris. Their father told me last week +that lords in the streets of Cork were asking who they were." + +"I suppose that was on their way to Paris," I suggested. + +"It was not," said the driver, with stunning unexpectedness, "'twas +when they went up on th'excursion last month for to have their teeth +pulled. G'wout o' that!" This to the horse, who had shied heavily at +a goat. + +Dr. Hickey and I sank into a stricken silence, five minutes of which, +at the pace we were travelling, sufficed to bring us to a little +plantation, shorn and bent by the Atlantic wind, low whitewashed walls, +an economical sweep of gravel, and an entrance gate constructed to fit +an outside car to an inch. From the moment that these came within the +range of vision the driver beat the horse with the handle of his whip, +a prelude, as we discovered, to the fact that a minor gate, obviously +and invitingly leading to the yard, lolled open on one hinge at the +outset of the plantation. There was a brief dissension, followed by a +hand gallop to the more fitting entrance; that we should find it too +fitting was a foregone conclusion, and Dr. Hickey whirled his legs on +to the seat at the moment when impact between his side of the car and +the gate post became inevitable. The bang that followed was a hearty +one, and the driver transmitted it to me in great perfection with his +elbow as he lurched on to me; there was a second and hollower bang as +the well of the car, detached by the shock, dropped on the axle and +turned over, flinging from it in its somersault a harlequinade +assortment of herrings, loaves of bread, and a band box. It was, I +think, a loaf of bread that hit the horse on the hocks, but under all +the circumstances even a herring would have been ample excuse for the +two sledge hammer kicks which he instantly administered to the +foot-board. While the car still hung in the gateway, a donkey, with a +boy sitting on the far end of its back, was suddenly mingled with the +episode. The boy was off the donkey's back and the driver was off mine +at apparently one and the same moment, and the car was somehow backed +off the pillar; as we scraped through the boy said something to the +driver in a brogue that was a shade more sophisticated than the peasant +tune. It seemed to me to convey the facts that Miss Lynie was waiting +for her hat, and that Maggie Kane was dancing mad for the soft sugar. +We proceeded to the house, leaving the ground strewn with what appeared +to be the elemental stage of a picnic. + +"I suppose you're getting him into form for the hunt, Eugene?" said Dr. +Hickey, as the lathered and panting chestnut came to a stand some ten +yards beyond the hall door. + +"Well, indeed, we thought it no harm to loosen him under the car before +Master Eddy went riding him," replied Eugene, "and begannies I'm not +done with him yet! I have to be before the masther at the next thrain." + +He shed us and our belongings on the steps, and drove away at a gallop. + +The meet had been arranged for half-past eleven. It was half-past ten +when Dr. Hickey and I were incarcerated in a dungeon-cold drawing-room +by a breathless being in tennis shoes, with her hair down her back, +doubtless Maggie Kane, hot from the war-dance brought on by the lack of +soft sugar. She told us in a gusty whisper that the masther would be +in shortly, and the ladies was coming down, and left us to meditate +upon our surroundings. + +A cascade of white paper flowed glacially from the chimney to the +fender; the gloom was Cimmerian, and unalterable, owing to the fact +that the blind was broken; the cold of a never occupied room ate into +our vitals. Footsteps pounded overhead and crept in the hall. The +house was obviously full of people, but no one came near us. Had it +not been for my companion's biographical comments on the photographs +with which the room was decked, all of them, it appeared, suitors of +the Misses Flynn, I think I should have walked back to the station. At +eleven o'clock the hurrying feet overhead were stilled, there was a +rustling in the hall as of a stage storm, and the daughters of the +house made their entry, wonderfully attired in gowns suggestive of a +theatre, or a tropical garden party, and in picture hats. As I viewed +the miracles of hairdressing, black as the raven's wing, the necklaces, +the bracelets, and the lavish top-dressing of powder, I wildly wondered +if Dr. Hickey and I should not have been in evening clothes. + +We fell to a laboured conversation, conducted upon the highest social +plane. The young ladies rolled their black eyes under arched eyebrows, +and in almost unimpeachable English accents supposed I found Ireland +very dull. They asked me if I often went to the London Opera. They +declared that when at home, music was their only resource, and made +such pointed reference to their Italian duetts that I found myself +trembling on the verge of asking them to sing. Dr. Hickey, under whose +wing I had proposed to shelter myself, remained sardonically aloof. A +blessed diversion was created by the entrance, at racing speed, of +Maggie Kane, bearing a trayful of burning sods of turf; the cascade was +torn from the chimney, and the tray was emptied into the grate. +Blinding smoke filled the room, and Maggie Kane murmured an imprecation +upon "jackdahs," their nests, and all their works. + +[Illustration: A TRAYFUL OF BURNING SODS OF TURF] + +The moment seemed propitious for escape; I looked at my watch, and said +that if they would kindly tell me the way to the yard I would go round +and see about things. + +The arched eyebrows went up a shade higher; the Misses Flynn said they +feared they hardly knew the way to the stables. + +Dr. Hickey rose. "Indeed it isn't easy to find them," he said, "but I +daresay the Major and myself will be able to make them out." + +When we got outside he looked down his long nose at me. + +"Stables indeed!" he said, "I hate that dirty little boasting!" + +Mr. Flynn's yard certainly did not at the first glance betray the +presence of stables. It consisted of an indeterminate assembly of +huts, with a long corrugated iron shed standing gauntly in the midst; +swamp of varying depths and shades occupied the intervals. From the +shed proceeded the lamentable and indignant clamours of the hounds, +against its door leaned Michael in his red coat, enacting, obviously, +the role of a righteous man constrained to have his habitation in the +tents of Kedar. A reverential knot of boys admired him from the wall +of a neighbouring pigsty; countrymen of all ages, each armed with a +stick and shadowed by a cur, more or less resembling a fox-hound, stood +about in patient groups; two or three dejected horses were nibbling, +unattended, at a hayrick. Of our host there was no sign. + +At the door of the largest hut Slipper was standing. + +"Come in and see the mare, Major," he called to me in his bantam-cock +voice as I approached. "Last night when we got in she was clean dead +altogether, but this morning when I was giving the feed to the pony she +retched out her neck and met her teeth in me poll! Oh, she's in great +heart now!" + +In confirmation of this statement a shrewish squeal from Lady Jane +proceeded from the interior. + +"Sure I slep' in the straw last night with herself and the pony. She'd +have him ate this morning only for me." + +The record of his devotion was here interrupted by a tremendous +rattling in the farm lane; it heralded the entrance of Mr. Flynn on his +outside car, drawn at full gallop by the young chestnut horse. + +"Oh, look at me, Major, how late I am!" shouted Mr. Flynn jovially, as +he scrambled off the car. "I declare you could light a candle at me +eye with the shame that's in it, as they say! I was back in +Curranhilty last night buying stock, and this was the first train I +could get. Well, well, the day's long and drink's plenty!" + +He bundled into a darksome hole, and emerged with a pair of dirty spurs +and a Malacca crop as heavy as a spade handle. + +"Michael! Did they tell you we have a fox for you in the hill north?" + +"I wasn't speaking to any of them," replied Michael coldly. + +"Well, your hounds will be speaking to him soon! Here, hurry boys, +pull out the horses!" + +His eye fell on the chestnut, upon whose reeking back Eugene was +cramming a saddle, while the boy who had met us at the entrance gate +was proffering to it a tin basin full of oats. + +"What are you doing with the young horse?" he roared. + +"I thought Master Eddy would ride him, sir," replied Eugene. + +"Well, he will not," said Mr. Flynn, conclusively; "the horse has +enough work done, and let you walk him about easy till he's cool. You +can folly the hunt then." + +Two more crestfallen countenances than those of the young gentlemen he +addressed it has seldom been my lot to see. The saddle was slowly +removed. Master Eddy, red up to the roots of his black hair, retired +silently with his basin of oats into the stable behind Slipper. Even +had I not seen his cuff go to his eyes I should have realised that life +would probably never hold for him a bitterer moment. + +The hounds were already surging out of the yard with a following wave, +composed of every living thing in sight. As I took Lady Jane from the +hand of Slipper, Philippa's pony gave a snort. Some touch of +Philippa's criminal weakness for boys assailed me. + +"That boy can ride the pony if he likes," I said to Slipper. + +I followed the hounds and their cortège down a deep and filthy lane. +Mr. Flynn was just in front of me, on a broad-beamed white horse, with +string-halt; three or four of the trencher-fed aliens slunk at his +heels, the mouth of a dingy horn protruded from his coat pocket. I +trembled in spirit as I thought of Michael. + +We were out at length into large and furzy spaces that slanted steeply +to the cliffs; like smuts streaming out of a chimney the followers of +the hunt belched from the lane and spread themselves over the pale +green slopes. From this point the proceedings became merged in total +incoherence. Accompanied, as it seemed, by the whole population of the +district, we moved _en masse_ along the top of the cliffs, while +hounds, curs, and boys strove and scrambled below us, over rocks and +along ledges, which, one might have thought, would have tried the head +of a seagull. Two successive bursts of yelling notified the capture +and slaughter of two rabbits; in the first hour and a half I can recall +no other achievement. + +It was, however, evident that hunting, in its stricter sense, was +looked on as a mere species of side show by the great majority of the +field; the cream of the entertainment was found in the negotiation of +such jumps as fell to the lot of the riders. These were neither +numerous nor formidable, but the storm of cheers that accompanied each +performance would have dignified the win of a Grand National favourite. + +To Master Eddy, on Philippa's pony, it was apparent that the birthday +of his life had come. Attended by Slipper and a howling company of +boon companions, he and the pony played a glorified game of pitch and +toss, in which, as it seemed to me, heads never turned up. It +certainly was an adverse circumstance that the pony's mane had, the day +before, been hogged to the bore, so that at critical moments the rider +slid, unchecked, from saddle to ears, but the boon companions, who +themselves jumped like antelopes, stride for stride with the pony, +replaced him unfailingly with timely snatches at whatever portion of +his frame first offered itself. + +Music, even, was not wanting to our progress. A lame fiddler, on a +donkey, followed in our wake, filling Michael's cup of humiliation to +the brim, by playing jigs during our frequent moments of inaction. The +sun pushed its way out of the grey sky, the sea was grey, with a broad +and flashing highway to the horizon, a frayed edge of foam tracked the +broken coast-line, seagulls screamed and swooped, and the grass on the +cliff summits was wondrous green. Old Flynn, on his white horse, +moving along the verge, and bleating shrilly upon his horn to the +hounds below, became idyllic. + +I believe that I ought to have been in a towering passion, and should +have swept the hounds home in a flood of blasphemy; as a matter of fact +I enjoyed myself. Even Dr. Hickey admitted that it was as pleasant a +day for smoking cigarettes as he had ever been out. + +It must have been nearly three o'clock when one of Mr. Flynn's hounds, +a venerable lady of lemon and white complexion, poked her lean head +through furze-bushes at the top of the cliff, and came up on to the +level ground. + +"That's old Terrible, Playboy's mother," remarked Dr. Hickey, "and a +great stamp of an old hound too, but she can't run up now. Flynn tells +me when she's beat out she'll sit down and yowl on the line, she's that +fond of it." + +Meantime Terrible was becoming busier and looking younger every moment, +as she zigzagged up and across the trampled field towards the hillside. +Dr. Hickey paused in the lighting of what must have been his tenth +cigarette. + +"If we were in a Christian country," he said, "you'd say she had a +line----" + +Old Flynn came pounding up on his white horse, and rode slowly up the +hill behind Terrible, who silently pursued her investigations. Fifty +or sixty yards higher up, my eye lighted on something that might have +been a rusty can, or a wisp of bracken, lying on the sunny side of a +bank. As I looked, it moved, and slid away over the top of the bank. +A yell, followed by a frenzied tootling on Mr. Flynn's ancient horn, +told that he had seen it too, and, in a bedlam of shrieks, chaos was +upon us. Through an inextricable huddle of foot people the hounds came +bursting up from the cliffs, fighting every foot of ground with the +country-boys, yelping with the contagion of excitement, they broke +through, and went screaming up the hill to old Terrible, who was +announcing her find in deep and continuous notes. + +How Lady Jane got over the first bank without trampling Slipper and two +men under foot is known only to herself; as I landed, Master Eddy and +the pony banged heavily into me from the rear, the pony having once and +for all resolved not to be sundered by more than a yard from his stable +companion of the night before. I can safely say that I have never seen +hounds run faster than did Mr. Knox's and the trencher-feds, in that +brief scurry from the cliffs at Knockeenbwee. By the time we had +crossed the second fence the foot people were gone, like things in a +dream. In front of me was Michael, and, in spite of Michael's spurs, +in front of Michael was old Flynn, holding the advantage of his start +with a most admirable jealousy. The white horse got over the ground in +bucks like a rabbit, the string-halt lending an additional fire to his +gait; on every bank his great white hind-quarters stood up against the +sky, like the gable end of a chapel. Had I had time to think of +anything, I should have repented acutely of having lent Master Eddy the +pony, who was practically running away. Twice I replaced his rider in +the saddle with one hand, as he landed off a fence under my stirrup. +Master Eddy had lost his cap and whip, his hair was full of mud, pure +ecstasy stretched his grin from ear to ear, and broke from him in +giggles of delight. + +[Illustration: PURE ECSTASY STRETCHED HIS GRIN FROM EAR TO EAR] + +Providentially, it was, as I have said, only a scurry. It seemed that +we had run across the neck of a promontory, and in ten minutes we were +at the cliffs again, the company reduced to old Flynn, his son, and the +Hunt establishment. Below us Moyny Bay was spread forth, enclosing in +its span a big green island; between us and the island was a good +hundred yards of mud, plump-looking mud, with channels in it. Deep in +this the hounds were wading; some of them were already ashore on the +island, struggling over black rocks thatched with yellow seaweed, their +voices coming faintly back to us against the wind. The white horse's +tail was working like a fan, and we were all, horses and men, blowing +hard enough to turn a windmill. + +"That's better fun than to be eating your dinner!" puffed Mr. Flynn, +purple with pride and heat, as he lowered himself from the saddle. +"There isn't a hound in Ireland would take that stale line up from the +cliff only old Terrible!" + +"What will we do now, sir?" said Michael to me, presenting the +conundrum with colourless calm, and ignoring the coat-tail trailed for +his benefit, "we'll hardly get them out of that island to-night." + +"I suppose you know you're bare-footed, Major?" put in Hickey, my other +Job's comforter, from behind. "Your two fore-shoes are gone." + +A December day is not good for much after half-past three. For half an +hour the horns of Michael and old Flynn blew their summons antiphonally +into the immensities of sea and sky, and summoned only the sunset, and +after it the twilight; the hounds remained unresponsive, invisible. + +"There's rabbits enough in that island to keep ten packs of hounds busy +for a month," said Mr. Flynn; "the last time I was there I thought +'twas the face of the field was running from me. And what was it after +all but the rabbits!" + +"_My_ hounds wouldn't hunt rabbits if they were throwing after them," +said Michael ferociously. + +"Oh, I suppose it's admiring the view they are!" riposted Mr. Flynn; "I +tell ye now, Major, there's a man on the strand below has a +flat-bottomed boat, and here's Eugene just come up, I'll send him over +with the horn as soon as there's water enough, and he'll flog them out +of it." + +The tide crept slowly in over the mud, and a young moon was sending a +slender streak of light along it through the dusk before Eugene had +accomplished his mission. + +The boat returned at last across the channel with a precarious cargo of +three hounds, while the rest splashed and swam after her. + +"I have them all, only one," shouted Eugene as he jumped ashore, and +came scrambling up the steep slants and shaley ledges of the cliff. + +"I hope it isn't Terrible ye left after ye?" roared Mr. Flynn. + +"Faith, I don't know which is it it is. I seen him down from me +floating in the tide. It must be he was clifted. I think 'tis one of +Major Yeates's. We have our own whatever." + +A cold feeling ran down my back. Michael and Hickey silently conned +over the pack in the growing darkness, striking matches and shielding +them in their hands as they told off one hound after another, hemmed in +by an eager circle of countrymen. + +"It's Playboy's gone," said Michael, with awful brevity. "I suppose we +may go home now, sir?" + +"Ah! hold on, hold on," put in Mr. Flynn, "are ye sure now, Eugene, it +wasn't a sheep ye saw? I wouldn't wish it for five pounds that the +Major lost a hound by us." + +"Did ye ever see a sheep with yalla spots on her?" retorted Eugene. + +A shout of laughter instantly broke from the circle of sympathisers. I +mounted Lady Jane in gloomy silence; there was nothing for it but to +face the long homeward road, minus Flurry Knox's best hound, and with +the knowledge that while I lived this day's work would not be forgotten +to me by him, by Dr. Hickey, and by Michael. + +It was Hickey who reminded me that I was also minus two fore-shoes, and +that it was an eighteen mile ride. On my responding irritably that I +was aware of both facts, and would get the mare shod at the forge by +the station, Mr. Flynn, whose voluble and unceasing condolences had not +been the least of my crosses, informed me that the smith had gone away +to his father-in-law's wake, and that there wasn't another forge +between that and Skebawn. + +The steps by which the final disposition of events was arrived at need +not here be recounted. It need only be said that every star went out +of its course to fight against me; even the special luminary that +presided over the Curranhilty and Skebawn branch railway was hostile; I +was told that the last train did not run except on Saturdays. +Therefore it was that, in a blend of matchlight and moonlight, a +telegram was written to Philippa, and, at the hour at which Dr. Hickey, +the hounds, and Michael were nearing their journey's end, I was seated +at the Knockeenbwee dinner-table, tired, thoroughly annoyed, devoured +with sleep, and laboriously discoursing of London and Paris with the +younger Miss Flynn. + +A meal that had opened at six with strong tea, cold mutton, and bottled +porter, was still, at eight o'clock, in slow but unceasing progress, +suggesting successive inspirations on the part of the cook. At about +seven we had had mutton chops and potatoes, and now, after an abysmal +interval of conversation, we were faced by a roast goose and a rice +pudding with currants in it. Through all these things had gone the +heavy sounds and crashes that betokened the conversion of the +drawing-room into a sleeping-place for me. There was, it appeared, no +spare room in the house; I felt positively abject at the thought of the +trouble I was inflicting. My soul abhorred the roast goose, and was +yet conscious that the only possible acknowledgment of the hospitality +that was showered upon me, was to eat my way unflinchingly through all +that was put upon my plate. + +It must have been nine o'clock before we turned our backs upon the +pleasures of the table, and settled down to hot whisky-punch over a +fierce turf fire. Then ensued upon my part one of the most prolonged +death-grapples with sleep that it has been my lot to endure. The +conversation of Mr. Flynn and his daughters passed into my brain like a +narcotic; after circling heavily round various fashionable topics, it +settled at length upon croquet, and it was about here that I began to +slip from my moorings and drift softly towards unconsciousness. I +pulled myself up on the delicious verge of a dream to agree with the +statement that "croquet was a fright! You'd boil a leg of mutton while +you'd be waiting for your turn!" + +Following on this came a period of oblivion, and then an agonised +recovery. Where were we? Thank heaven, we were still at the croquet +party, and Miss Lynie's narrative was continuing. + +"That was the last place I saw Mary. Oh, she was mad! She was mad +with me! 'I was born a lady,' says she, 'and I'll die a lady!' I +never saw her after that day." + +Miss Lynie, with an elegantly curved little finger, finished her +wine-glass of toddy and awaited my comment. + +I was, for the instant, capable only of blinking like an owl, but was +saved from disaster by Mr. Flynn. + +"Indeed ye had no loss," he remarked. "She's like a cow that gives a +good pail o' milk and spoils all by putting her leg in it!" + +I said, "Quite so--exactly," while the fire, old Flynn, and the picture +of a Pope over the chimney-piece, swam back into their places with a +jerk. + +The tale, or whatever it was, wound on. Nodding heavily, I heard how +"Mary," at some period of her remarkable career, had been found +"bawling in the kitchen" because Miss Flynn had refused to kiss her on +both cheeks when she was going to bed, and of how, on that repulse, +Mary had said that Miss Flynn was "squat." I am thankful to say that I +retained sufficient control of my faculties to laugh ironically. + +I think the story must then have merged into a description of some sort +of entertainment, as I distinctly remember Miss Lynie saying that they +"played 'Lodging-houses'--it was young Scully from Ennis made us do +it--a very vulgar game _I_ call it." + +"I don't like that pullin' an' draggin'," said Mr. Flynn. + +I did not feel called upon to intrude my opinion upon the remarkable +pastime in question, and the veils of sleep once more swathed me +irresistibly in their folds. It seemed very long afterwards that the +clang of a fire-iron pulled me up with what I fear must have been an +audible snort. Old Flynn was standing up in front of the fire; he had +obviously reached the climax of a narrative, he awaited my comment. + +"That--that must have been very nice," I said desperately. + +"Nice!" echoed Mr. Flynn, and his astounded face shocked me into +consciousness; "sure she might have burned the house down!" + +What the catastrophe may have been I shall never know, nor do I +remember how I shuffled out of the difficulty; I only know that at this +point I abandoned the unequal struggle, and asked if I might go to bed. + +The obligations of a troublesome and self-inflicted guest seal my lips +as to the expedients by which the drawing-room had been converted into +a sleeping-place for me. But though gratitude may enforce silence, it +could not enforce sleep. The paralysing drowsiness of the parlour +deserted me at the hour of need. The noises in the kitchen ceased, old +Flynn pounded up to bed, the voices of the young ladies overhead died +away, and the house sank into stillness, but I grew more wakeful every +moment. I heard the creeping and scurrying of rats in the walls, I +counted every tick, and cursed every quarter told off by a pragmatical +cuckoo clock in the hall. By the time it had struck twelve I was on +the verge of attacking it with the poker. + +I suppose I may have dozed a little, but I was certainly aware that a +long track of time had elapsed since it had struck two, when a faint +but regular creaking of the staircase impressed itself upon my ear. It +was followed by a stealing foot in the hall; a hand felt over the door, +and knocked very softly. I sat up in my diminutive stretcher-bed and +asked who was there. The handle was turned, and a voice at the crack +of the door said "It's me!" + +Even in the two monosyllables I recognised the accents of the son of +the house. + +"I want to tell you something," pursued the voice. + +I instantly surmised all possibilities of disaster; Slipper drunk and +overlaid by Lady Jane, Philippa's pony dead from over-exertion, or even +a further instalment of the evening meal, only now arrived at +completion. + +"What's the matter? Is anything wrong?" I demanded, raising myself in +the trough of the bed. + +"There is not; but I want to speak to you." + +I had by this time found the matches, and my candle revealed Eddy +Flynn, fully dressed save for his boots, standing in the doorway. He +crept up to my bedside with elaborate stealth. + +"Well, what is it?" I asked, attuning my voice to a conspirator's +whisper. + +"Playboy's above stairs!" + +"Playboy!" I repeated incredulously, "what do you mean?" + +"Eugene cot him. He's above in Eugene's room now," said the boy, his +face becoming suddenly scarlet. + +"Do you mean that he wasn't killed?" I demanded, instantly allocating +in my own mind half a sovereign to Eugene. + +"He wasn't in the island at all," faltered Master Eddy, "Eugene cot him +below on the cliffs when the hounds went down in it at the first go +off, and he hid him back in the house here." + +The allotment of the half-sovereign was abruptly cancelled. + +I swallowed my emotions with some difficulty. + +"Well," I said, after an awkward pause, "I'm very much obliged to you +for telling me. I'll see your father about it in the morning." + +Master Eddy did not accept this as a dismissal. He remained +motionless, except for his eyes that sought refuge anywhere but on my +face. + +There was a silence for some moments; he was almost inaudible as he +said: + +"It would be better for ye to take him now, and to give him to Slipper. +I'd be killed if they knew I let on he was here." Then, as an +afterthought, "Eugene's gone to the wake." + +The inner aspect of the affair began to reveal itself, accompanied by a +singularly unbecoming side light on old Flynn. I perceived also the +useful part that had been played by Philippa's pony, but it did not +alter the fact that Master Eddy was showing his gratitude like a hero. +The situation was, however, too delicate to admit of comment. + +"Very well," I said, without any change of expression, "will you bring +the dog down to me?" + +"I tried to bring him down with me, but he wouldn't let me put a hand +on him." + +I hastily got into the few garments of which I had not divested myself +before getting into the misnamed stretcher-bed, aware that the horrid +task was before me of burglariously probing the depths of Eugene's +bedroom, and acutely uncertain as to Playboy's reception of me. + +"There's a light above in the room," said Master Eddy, with a dubious +glance at the candle in my hand. + +I put it down, and followed him into the dark hall. + +I have seldom done a more preposterous thing than creep up old Flynn's +stairs in the small hours of the morning, in illicit search for my own +property; but, given the dual determination to recover Playboy, and to +shield my confederate, I still fail to see that I could have acted +otherwise. + +We reached the first landing; it vibrated reassuringly with the +enormous snores of Mr. Flynn. Master Eddy's cold paw closed on my +hand, and led me to another and steeper flight of stairs. At the top +of these was a second landing, or rather passage, at the end of which a +crack of light showed under a door. A dim skylight told that the roof +was very near my head; I extended a groping hand for the wall, and +without any warning found my fingers closing improbably, awfully, upon +a warm human face. I defy the most hardened conspirator to have +refrained from some expression of opinion. + +"Good Lord!" I gasped, starting back, and knocking my head hard against +a rafter. "What's that?" + +"It's Maggie Kane, sir!" hissed a female voice. "I'm after bringing up +a bone for the dog to quieten him!" + +That Maggie Kane should also be in the plot was a complication beyond +my stunned intelligence; I grasped only the single fact that she was an +ally, endued with supernatural and sympathetic forethought. She placed +in my hand a tepid and bulky fragment, which, even in the dark, I +recognised as the mighty drumstick of last night's goose; at the same +moment Master Eddy opened the door, and revealed Playboy, tied to the +leg of a low wooden bedstead. + +He was standing up, his eyes gleamed green as emeralds, he looked as +big as a calf. He obviously regarded himself as the guardian of +Eugene's bower, and I failed to see any recognition of me in his +aspect, in point of fact he appeared to be on the verge of an outburst +of suspicion that would waken the house once and for all. We held a +council of war in whispers that perceptibly increased his distrust; I +think it was Maggie Kane who suggested that Master Eddy should proffer +him the bone while I unfastened the rope. The strategy succeeded, +almost too well in fact. Following the alluring drumstick Playboy +burst into the passage, towing me after him on the rope. Still +preceded by the light-footed Master Eddy, he took me down the attic +stairs at a speed which was the next thing to a headlong fall, while +Maggie Kane held the candle at the top. As we stormed past old Flynn's +door I was aware that the snoring had ceased, but "the pace was too +good to enquire." We scrimmaged down the second flight into the +darkness of the hall, fetching up somewhere near the clock, which, as +if to give the alarm, uttered three loud and poignant cuckoos. I think +Playboy must have sprung at it, in the belief that it was the voice of +the drumstick; I only know that my arm was nearly wrenched from its +socket, and that the clock fell with a crash from the table to the +floor, where, by some malevolence of its machinery, it continued to +cuckoo with jocund and implacable persistence. Something that was not +Playboy bumped against me. The cuckoo's note became mysteriously +muffled, and a door, revealing a fire-lit kitchen, was shoved open. We +struggled through it, bound into a sheaf by Playboy's rope, and in our +midst the cuckoo clock, stifled but indomitable, continued its protest +from under Maggie Kane's shawl. + +In the kitchen we drew breath for the first time, and Maggie Kane put +the cuckoo clock into a flour bin; the house remained still as the +grave. Master Eddy opened the back door; behind his head the Plough +glittered wakefully in a clear and frosty sky. It was uncommonly cold. + +Slipper had not gone to the wake, and was quite sober. I shall never +forget it to him. I told him that Playboy had come back, and was to be +taken home at once. He asked no inconvenient questions, but did not +deny himself a most dissolute wink. We helped him to saddle the pony, +while Playboy crunched his hard-earned drumstick in the straw. In less +than ten minutes he rode quietly away in the starlight, with Playboy +trotting at his stirrup, and Playboy's rope tied to his arm. + +[Illustration: HE DID NOT DENY HIMSELF A MOST DISSOLUTE WINK] + +I did not meet Mr. Flynn at breakfast; he had started early for a +distant fair. I have, however, met him frequently since then, and we +are on the best of terms. We have not shirked allusions to the day's +hunting at Knockeenbwee, but Playboy has not on these occasions been +mentioned by either of us. + +I understand that Slipper has put forth a version of the story, in +which the whole matter is resolved into a trial of wits between himself +and Eugene. With this I have not interfered. + + + + +VI + +THE BOAT'S SHARE + +I was sitting on the steps of Shreelane House, smoking a cigarette +after breakfast. By the calendar, the month was November, by the map +it was the South-west of Ireland, but by every token that hot sun and +soft breeze could offer it was the Riviera in April. + +Maria, my wife's water spaniel, elderly now, but unimpaired in figure, +and in character merely fortified in guile by the castigations of seven +winters, reclined on the warm limestone flags beside me. Minx, the +nursery fox-terrier, sat, as was her practice, upon Maria's ribs, +nodding in slumber. All was peace. + +Peace, I say, but even as I expanded in it and the sunshine, there +arose to me from the kitchen window in the area the voice of Mrs. +Cadogan, uplifted in passionate questioning. + +"Bridgie!" it wailed. "Where's me beautiful head and me lovely feet?" + +The answer to this amazing inquiry travelled shrilly from the region of +the scullery. + +"Bilin' in the pot, ma'am." + +I realised that it was merely soup in its elemental stage that was +under discussion, but Peace spread her wings at the cry; it recalled +the fact that Philippa was having a dinner party that same night. In a +small establishment such as mine, a dinner party is an affair of many +aspects, all of them serious. The aspect of the master of the house, +however, is not serious, it is merely contemptible. Having got out the +champagne, and reverentially decanted the port, there remains for him +no further place in the proceedings, no moment in which his presence is +desired. If, at such a time, I wished to have speech with my wife, she +was not to be found; if I abandoned the search and stationed myself in +the hall, she would pass me, on an average, twice in every three +minutes, generally with flowers in her hands, always with an expression +so rapt as to abash all questionings. I therefore sat upon the steps +and read the paper, superfluous to all save the dogs, to whom I at +least offered a harbourage in the general stress. + +Suddenly, and without a word of warning, Minx and Maria were converted +from a slumbrous mound into twin comets--comets that trailed a +continuous shriek of rage as they flew down the avenue. The cause of +the affront presently revealed itself, in the form of a tall woman, +with a shawl over her head, and a basket on her arm. She advanced +unfalteringly, Minx walking on her hind legs beside her, as if in a +circus, attentively smelling the basket, while Maria bayed her at large +in the background. She dropped me a curtsey fit for the Lord +Lieutenant. + +"Does your Honour want any fish this morning?" Her rippling grey hair +gleamed like silver in the sunlight, her face was straight-browed and +pale, her grey eyes met mine with respectful self-possession. She +might have been Deborah the prophetess, or the Mother of the Gracchi; +as a matter of fact I recognised her as a certain Mrs. Honora Brickley, +mother of my present kitchen-maid, a lady whom, not six months before, +I had fined in a matter of trespass and assault. + +"They're lovely fish altogether!" she pursued, "they're leppin' fresh!" + +[Illustration: "THEY'RE LOVELY FISH ALTOGETHER! THEY'RE LEPPIN' +FRESH!"] + +Here was the chance to make myself useful. I called down the area and +asked Mrs. Cadogan if she wanted fish. (It may or may not be necessary +to mention that my cook's name is locally pronounced "Caydogawn.") + +"What fish is it, sir?" replied Mrs. Cadogan, presenting at the kitchen +window a face like a harvest moon. + +"'Tis pollock, ma'am!" shouted Mrs. Brickley from the foot of the steps. + +"'Sha! thim's no good to us!" responded the harvest moon in bitter +scorn. "Thim's not company fish!" + +I was here aware of the presence of my wife in the doorway, with a +menu-slate in one hand, and one of my best silk pocket handkerchiefs, +that had obviously been used as a duster, in the other. + +"Filleted with white sauce--" she murmured to herself, a world of +thought in her blue eyes, "or perhaps quenelles----" + +Mrs. Brickley instantly extracted a long and shapely pollock from her +basket, and, with eulogies of its beauty, of Philippa's beauty, and of +her own magnanimity in proffering her wares to us instead of to a +craving market in Skebawn, laid it on the steps. + +At this point a series of yells from the nursery, of the usual +blood-curdling description, lifted Philippa from the scene of action as +a wind whirls a feather. + +"Buy them!" came back to me from the stairs. + +I kept to myself my long-formed opinion that eating pollock was like +eating boiled cotton wool with pins in it, and the bargain proceeded. +The affair was almost concluded, when Mrs. Brickley, in snatching a +fish from the bottom of her basket to complete an irresistible +half-dozen, let it slip from her fingers. It fell at my feet, +revealing a mangled and gory patch on its side. + +"Why, then, that's the best fish I have!" declared Mrs. Brickley in +response to my protest. "That's the very one her honour Mrs. Yeates +would fancy! She'd always like to see the blood running fresh!" + +This flight of sympathetic insight did not deter me from refusing the +injured pollock, coupled with a regret that Mrs. Brickley's cat should +have been interrupted in its meal. + +Mrs. Brickley did not immediately reply. She peeped down the area, she +glanced into the hall. + +"Cat is it!" she said, sinking her voice to a mysterious whisper. +"Your Honour knows well, God bless you, that it was no cat done that!" + +Obedient to the wholly fallacious axiom that those who ask no questions +will be told no lies, I remained silent. + +"Only for the luck of God being on me they'd have left meself no +betther than they left the fish!" continued Mrs. Brickley. "Your +Honour didn't hear what work was in it on Hare Island Strand last +night? Thim Keohanes had the wooden leg pulled from undher me husband +with the len'th o' fightin'! Oh! Thim's outlawed altogether, and the +faymales is as manly as the men! Sure the polis theirselves does be in +dhread of thim women! The day-and-night-screeching porpoises!" + +Seven years of Resident Magistracy had bestowed upon me some +superficial knowledge of whither all this tended. I rose from the +steps, with the stereotyped statement that if there was to be a case in +court I could not listen to it beforehand. I then closed the hall +door, not, however, before Mrs. Brickley had assured me that I was the +only gentleman, next to the Lord Almighty, in whom she had any +confidence. + +The next incident in the affair occurred at about a quarter to eight +that evening. I was tying my tie when my wife's voice summoned me to +her room in tones that presaged disaster. Philippa was standing erect, +in a white and glittering garment. Her eyes shone, her cheeks glowed. +It is not given to every one to look their best when they are angry, +but it undoubtedly is becoming to Philippa. + +"I ask you to look at my dress," she said in a level voice. + +"It looks very nice----" I said cautiously, knowing there was a trap +somewhere. "I know it, don't I?" + +"Know it!" replied Philippa witheringly, "did you know that it had only +one sleeve?" + +She extended her arms; from one depended vague and transparent films of +whiteness, the other was bare to the shoulder. I rather preferred it +of the two. + +"Well, I can't say I did," I said helplessly, "is that a new fashion?" + +There was a spectral knock at the door, and Hannah, the housemaid, slid +into the room, purple of face, abject of mien. + +"It's what they're afther tellin' me, ma'am," she panted. "'Twas took +to sthrain the soup!" + +"They took my sleeve to strain the soup!" repeated Philippa, in a +crystal clarity of wrath. + +"She said she got it in the press in the passage, ma'am, and she +thought you were afther throwin' it," murmured Hannah, with a glance +that implored my support. + +"Who are you speaking of?" demanded Philippa, looking quite six feet +high. + +The situation, already sufficiently acute, was here intensified by the +massive entry of Mrs. Cadogan, bearing in her hand a plate, on which +was a mound of soaked brownish rag. She was blowing hard, the glare of +the kitchen range at highest power lived in her face. + +"There's your sleeve, ma'am!" she said, "and if I could fall down dead +this minute it'd be no more than a relief to me! And as for Bridgie +Brickley!" continued Mrs. Cadogan, catching her wind with a gasp, "I +thravelled many genthry's kitchens, but thanks be to God, I never seen +the like of her! Five weeks to-morrow she's in this house, and there +isn't a day but I gave her a laceratin'! Sure the hair's droppin' out +o' me head, and the skin rollin' off the soles o' me feet with the +heart scald I get with her! The big, low, dirty buccaneer! And I +declare to you, ma'am, and to the Major, that I have a pain switching +out through me hips this minute that'd bring down a horse!" + +"Oh God!" said Hannah, clapping her hand over her mouth. + +My eye met Philippa's; some tremor of my inward agony declared itself, +and found its fellow on her quivering lips. In the same instant, +wheels rumbled in the avenue. + +"Here are the Knoxes!" I exclaimed, escaping headlong from the room +with my dignity as master of the house still intact. + +Dinner, though somewhat delayed by these agitations, passed off +reasonably well. Its occasion was the return from the South African +war of my landlord and neighbour, Mr. Florence McCarthy Knox, M.F.H., +J.P., who had been serving his country in the Yeomanry for the past +twelve months. The soup gave no hint of its cannibalistic origin, and +was of a transparency that did infinite credit to the services of +Philippa's sleeve; the pollock, chastely robed in white sauce, held no +suggestion of a stormy past, nor, it need scarcely be said, did they +foreshadow their influence on my future. As they made their circuit of +the table I aimed a communing glance at my wife, who, serene in pale +pink and conversation with Mr. Knox, remained unresponsive. + +How the volcano that I knew to be raging below in the kitchen could +have brought forth anything more edible than molten paving stones I was +at a loss to imagine. Had Mrs. Cadogan sent up Bridget Brickley's head +as an _entremet_ it would not, indeed, have surprised me. I could not +know that as the gong sounded for dinner Miss Brickley had retired to +her bed in strong hysterics, announcing that she was paralysed, while +Mrs. Cadogan, rapt by passion to an ecstasy of achievement, coped +single-handed with the emergency. + +At breakfast time next morning Philippa and I were informed that the +invalid had at an early hour removed herself and her wardrobe from the +house, requisitioning for the purpose my donkey-cart and the attendance +of my groom, Peter Cadogan; a proceeding on which the comments of +Peter's aunt, Mrs. Cadogan, left nothing to be desired. + +[Illustration: THE INVALID REMOVED HERSELF] + +The affair on the strand at Hare Island ripened, with infinite +complexity of summonses and cross-summonses, into an imposing Petty +Sessions case. Two separate deputations presented themselves at +Shreelane, equipped with black eyes and other conventional injuries, +one of them armed with a creelful of live lobsters to underline the +argument. To decline the bribe was of no avail: the deputation +decanted them upon the floor of the hall and retired, and the lobsters +spread themselves at large over the house, and to this hour remain the +nightmare of the nursery. + +The next Petty Sessions day was wet; the tall windows of the Court +House were grey and streaming, and the reek of wet humanity ascended to +the ceiling. As I took my seat on the bench I perceived with an inward +groan that the services of the two most eloquent solicitors in Skebawn +had been engaged. This meant that Justice would not have run its +course till heaven knew what dim hour of the afternoon, and that that +course would be devious and difficult. + +All the pews and galleries (any Irish courthouse might, with the +addition of a harmonium, pass presentably as a dissenting chapel) were +full, and a line of flat-capped policemen stood like church-wardens +near the door. Under the galleries, behind what might have answered to +choir-stalls, the witnesses and their friends hid in darkness, which +could, however, but partially conceal two resplendent young ladies, +barmaids, who were to appear in a subsequent Sunday drinking case. I +was a little late, and when I arrived Flurry Knox, supported by a +couple of other magistrates, was in the chair, imperturbable of +countenance as was his wont, his fair and delusive youthfulness of +aspect unimpaired by his varied experiences during the war, his roving, +subtle eye untamed by four years of matrimony. + +A woman was being examined, a square and ugly country-woman, with wispy +fair hair, a slow, dignified manner, and a slight and impressive +stammer. I recognised her as one of the bodyguard of the lobsters. +Mr. Mooney, solicitor for the Brickleys, widely known and respected as +"Roaring Jack," was in possession of that much-enduring organ, the ear +of the Court. + +"Now, Kate Keohane!" he thundered, "tell me what time it was when all +this was going on?" + +"About duskish, sir. Con Brickley was slashing the f-fish at me mother +the same time. He never said a word but to take the shtick and fire me +dead with it on the sthrand. He gave me plenty of blood to dhrink +too," said the witness with acid decorum. She paused to permit this +agreeable fact to sink in, and added, "his wife wanted to f-fashten on +me the same time, an' she havin' the steer of the boat to sthrike me." + +These were not precisely the facts that Mr. Murphy, as solicitor for +the defence, wished to elicit. + +"Would you kindly explain what you mean by the steer of the boat?" he +demanded, sparring for wind in as intimidating a manner as possible. +The witness stared at him. + +"Sure 'tis the shtick, like, that they pulls here and there to go in +their choice place." + +"We may presume that the lady is referring to the tiller," said Mr. +Mooney, with a facetious eye at the Bench. "Maybe now, ma'am, you can +explain to us what sort of a boat is she?" + +"She's that owld that if it wasn't for the weeds that's holding her +together she'd bursht up in the deep." + +"And who owns this valuable property?" pursued Mr. Mooney. + +"She's between Con Brickley and me brother, an' the saine is between +four, an' whatever crew does be in it should get their share, and the +boat has a man's share." + +I made no attempt to comprehend this, relying with well-founded +confidence on Flurry Knox's grasp of such enigmas. + +"Was Con Brickley fishing the same day?" + +"He was not, sir. He was at Lisheen Fair; for as clever as he is, he +couldn't kill two birds under one slat!" + +Kate Keohane's voice moved unhurried from sentence to sentence and her +slow pale eyes turned for an instant to the lair of the witnesses under +the gallery. + +"And you're asking the Bench to believe that this decent man left his +business in Lisheen in order to slash fish at your mother?" said Mr. +Mooney truculently. + +"B'lieve me, sorra much business he laves afther him wherever he'll +go!" returned the witness, "himself and his wife had business enough on +the sthrand when the fish was dividing, and it's then themselves put +every name on me." + +"Ah, what harm are names!" said Mr. Mooney, dallying elegantly with a +massive watch-chain. "Come now, ma'am! will you swear you got any +ill-usage from Con Brickley or his wife?" He leaned over the front of +his pew, and waited for the answer with his massive red head on one +side. + +"I was givin' blood like a c-cow that ye'd shtab with a knife!" said +Kate Keohane, with unshaken dignity. "If it was yourself that was in +it ye'd feel the smart as well as me. My hand and word on it, ye +would! The marks is on me head still, like the prints of dog-bites!" + +She lifted a lock of hair from her forehead, and exhibited a +sufficiently repellant injury. Flurry Knox leaned forward. + +"Are you sure you haven't that since the time there was that business +between yourself and the postmistress at Munig? I'm told you had the +name of the office on your forehead where she struck you with the +office stamp! Try now, sergeant, can you read Munig on her forehead?" + +The Court, not excepting its line of church-wardens, dissolved into +laughter; Kate Keohane preserved an offended silence. + +"I suppose you want us to believe," resumed Mr. Mooney sarcastically, +"that a fine hearty woman like you wasn't defending yourself!" Then +with a turkey-cock burst of fury, "On your oath now! What did you +strike Honora Brickley with? Answer me that now! What had you in your +hand?" + +"I had nothing only the little rod I had afther the ass," answered Miss +Keohane, with childlike candour. "I done nothing to them; but as for +Con Brickley he put his back to the cliff and he took the flannel wrop +that he had on him, and he threwn it on the sthrand, and he said he +should have Blood, Murdher, or F-Fish!" + +She folded her shawl across her breast, a picture of virtue assailed, +yet unassailable. + +"You may go down now," said "Roaring Jack" rather hastily, "I want to +have a few words with your brother." + +Miss Keohane retired, without having moulted a feather of her dignity, +and her brother Jer came heavily up the steps and on to the platform, +his hot, wary, blue eyes gathering in the Bench and the attorneys in +one bold comprehensive glance. He was a tall, dark man of about five +and forty, clean-shaved, save for two clerical inches of black +whiskers, and in feature of the type of a London clergyman who would +probably preach on Browning. + +"Well, sir!" began Mr. Mooney stimulatingly, "and are you the biggest +blackguard from here to America?" + +"I am not," said Jer Keohane tranquilly. + +"We had you here before us not so very long ago about kicking a goat, +wasn't it? You got a little touch of a pound, I think?" + +This delicate allusion to a fine that the Bench had thought fit to +impose did not distress the witness. + +"I did, sir." + +"And how's our friend the goat?" went on Mr. Mooney, with the furious +facetiousness reserved for hustling tough witnesses. + +"Well, I suppose she's something west of the Skelligs by now," replied +Jer Keohane with great composure. + +An appreciative grin ran round the court. The fact that the goat had +died of the kick and been "given the cliff" being regarded as an +excellent jest. + +Mr. Mooney consulted his notes: + +"Well, now, about this fight," he said pleasantly, "did you see your +sister catch Mrs. Brickley and pull her hair down to the ground and +drag the shawl off of her?" + +"Well," said the witness airily, "they had a little bit of a scratch on +account o' the fish. Con Brickley had the shteer o' the boat in his +hand and says he, 'is there any man here that'll take the shteer from +me?' The man was dhrunk, of course," added Jer charitably. + +"Did you have any talk with his wife about the fish?" + +"I couldn't tell the words that she said to me!" replied the witness, +with a reverential glance at the Bench, "and she over-right three +crowds o' men that was on the sthrand." + +Mr. Mooney put his hands in his pockets and surveyed the witness. + +"You're a very refined gentleman upon my word! Were you ever in +England?" + +"I was part of three years." + +"Oh, that accounts for it, I suppose!" said Mr. Mooney, accepting this +lucid statement without a stagger, and passing lightly on. "You're a +widower, I understand, with no objection to consoling yourself?" + +No answer. + +"Now, sir! Can you deny that you made proposals of marriage to Con +Brickley's daughter last Shraft?" + +The plot thickened. Con Brickley's daughter was my late kitchenmaid. + +Jer Keohane smiled tolerantly. + +"Ah! That was a thing o' nothing!" + +"Nothing!" said Mr. Mooney, with the roar of a tornado, "do you call an +impudent proposal of marriage to a respectable man's daughter nothing! +That's English manners, I suppose!" + +"I was goin' home one Sunday," said Jer Keohane, conversationally to +the Bench, "and I met the gerr'l and her mother. I spoke to the gerr'l +in a friendly way, and asked her why wasn't she gettin' marrid, and she +commenced to peg stones at me and dhrew several blows of an umbrella on +me. I had only three bottles o' porther taken. There now was the +whole of it." + +Mrs. Brickley, from under the gallery, groaned heavily and ironically. + +I found it difficult to connect these coquetries with my impressions of +my late kitchenmaid, a furtive and touzled being, who, in conjunction +with a pail and scrubbing brush, had been wont to melt round corners +and into doorways at my approach. + +"Are we trying a breach of promise case?" interpolated Flurry, "if so, +we ought to have the plaintiff in." + +"My purpose, sir," said Mr. Mooney, in a manner discouraging to levity, +"is to show that my clients have received annoyance and contempt from +this man and his sister such as no parents would submit to." + +A hand came forth from under the gallery and plucked at Mr. Mooney's +coat. A red monkey face appeared out of the darkness, and there was a +hoarse whisper whose purport I could not gather. Con Brickley, the +defendant, was giving instructions to his lawyer. + +It was perhaps as a result of these that Jer Keohane's evidence closed +here. There was a brief interval, enlivened by coughs, grinding of +heavy boots on the floor, and some mumbling and groaning under the +gallery. + +"There's great duck-shooting out on a lake on this island," commented +Flurry to me, in a whisper. "My grand-uncle went there one time with +an old duck-gun he had, that he fired with a fuse. He was three hours +stalking the ducks before he got the gun laid. He lit the fuse then, +and it set to work sputtering and hissing like a goods-engine till +there wasn't a duck within ten miles. The gun went off then." + +This useful side light on the matter in hand was interrupted by the +cumbrous ascent of the one-legged Con Brickley to the witness-table. +He sat down heavily, with his slouch hat on his sound knee, and his +wooden stump stuck out before him. His large monkey-face was immovably +serious; his eye was small, light grey, and very quick. + +McCaffery, the opposition attorney, a thin, restless youth, with ears +like the handles of an urn, took him in hand. To the pelting +cross-examination that beset him Con Brickley replied with sombre +deliberation, and with a manner of uninterested honesty, emphasising +what he said with slight, very effective gestures of his big, supple +hands. His voice was deep and pleasant; it betrayed no hint of so +trivial a thing as satisfaction when, in the teeth of Mr. McCaffery's +leading questions, he established the fact that the "little rod" with +which Miss Kate Keohane had beaten his wife was the handle of a +pitchfork. + +[Illustration: CON BRICKLEY] + +"I was counting the fish the same time," went on Con Brickley, in his +rolling basso profundissimo, "and she said, 'Let the divil clear me out +of the sthrand, for there's no one else will put me out!' says she." + +[Illustration: "LET THE DIVIL CLEAR ME OUT OF THE STHRAND!"] + +"It was then she got the blow, I suppose!" said McCaffery venomously; +"you had a stick yourself, I daresay?" + +"Yes. I had a stick. I must have a stick," deep and mellow pathos was +hinted at in the voice; "I am sorry to say. What could I do to her? A +man with a wooden leg on a sthrand could do nothing!" + +Something like a laugh ran round the back of the court. Mr. +McCaffery's ears turned scarlet and became quite decorative. On or off +a strand Con Brickley was not a person to be scored off easily. + +His clumsy yet impressive descent from the witness-stand followed +almost immediately, and was not the least telling feature of his +evidence. Mr. Mooney surveyed his exit with the admiration of one +artist for another, and rising, asked the Bench's permission to call +Mrs. Brickley. + +Mrs. Brickley, as she mounted to the platform, in the dark and nun-like +severity of her long cloak, the stately blue cloth cloak that is the +privilege of the Munster peasant woman, was an example of the rarely +blended qualities of picturesqueness and respectability. As she took +her seat in the chair, she flung the deep hood back on to her +shoulders, and met the gaze of the Court with her grey head erect; she +was a witness to be proud of. + +[Illustration: A WITNESS TO BE PROUD OF] + +"Now Mrs. Brickley," said "Roaring Jack" urbanely, "will you describe +this interview between your daughter and Keohane." + +"It was the last Sunday in Shrove, your Worship, Mr. Flurry Knox, and +gentlemen," began Mrs. Brickley nimbly, "meself and me little gerr'l +was comin' from mass, and Jer Keohane come up to us and got on in a +most unmannerable way. He asked me daughter would she marry him. Me +daughter told him she would not, quite friendly like. I'll tell ye no +lie, gentlemen, she was teasing him with the umbrella the same time, +an' he raised his shtick and dhrew a sthroke on her in the back, an' +the little gerr'l took up a small pebble of a stone and fired it at +him. She put the umbrella up to his mouth, but she called him no +names. But as for him, the names he put on her was to call her 'a +nasty long slopeen of a proud thing, and a slopeen of a proud tinker.'" + +"Very lover-like expressions!" commented Mr. Mooney, doubtless +stimulated by lady-like titters from the barmaids; "and had this +romantic gentleman made any previous proposals for your daughter?" + +"Himself had two friends over from across the water one night to make +the match, a Sathurday it was, and they should land the lee side o' the +island, for the wind was a fright," replied Mrs. Brickley, launching +her tale with the power of easy narration that is bestowed with such +amazing liberality on her class; "the three o' them had dhrink taken, +an' I went to shlap out the door agin them. Me husband said then we +should let them in, if it was a Turk itself, with the rain that was in +it. They were talking in it then till near the dawning, and in the +latther end all that was between them was the boat's share." + +"What do you mean by 'the boat's share'?" said I. + +"'Tis the same as a man's share, me worshipful gintleman," returned +Mrs. Brickley splendidly; "it goes with the boat always, afther the +crew and the saine has their share got." + +I possibly looked as enlightened as I felt by this exposition. + +"You mean that Jer wouldn't have her unless he got the boat's share +with her?" suggested Flurry. + +"He said it over-right all that was in the house, and he reddening his +pipe at the fire," replied Mrs. Brickley, in full-sailed response to +the helm. "'D'ye think,' says I to him, 'that me daughter would leave +a lovely situation, with a kind and tendher masther, for a mean, hungry +blagyard like yerself,' says I, 'that's livin' always in this backwards +place!' says I." + +This touching expression of preference for myself, as opposed to Mr. +Keohane, was received with expressionless respect by the Court. +Flurry, with an impassive countenance, kicked me heavily under cover of +the desk. I said that we had better get on to the assault on the +strand. Nothing could have been more to Mrs. Brickley's taste. We +were minutely instructed as to how Katie Keohane drew the shawleen +forward on Mrs. Brickley's head to stifle her; and how Norrie Keohane +was fast in her hair. Of how Mrs. Brickley had then given a stroke +upwards between herself and her face (whatever that might mean) and +loosed Norrie from her hair. Of how she then sat down and commenced to +cry from the use they had for her. + +"'Twas all I done," she concluded, looking like a sacred picture, "I +gave a sthroke of a pollock on them." Then, an after-thought, "an' if +I did, 'twas myself was at the loss of the same pollock!" + +I fixed my eyes immovably on my desk. I knew that the slightest +symptom of intelligence on my part would instantly draw forth the +episode of the fish-buying on the morning of the dinner party, with the +rape of Philippa's sleeve, and the unjust aspersion on Miss Brickley +following in due sequence, ending with the paralytic seizure and +dignified departure of the latter to her parents' residence in Hare +Island. The critical moment was averted by a question from Mr. Mooney. + +"As for language," replied Mrs. Brickley, with clear eyes a little +uplifted in the direction of the ceiling, "there was no name from +heaven and hell but she had it on me, and wishin' the divil might burn +the two heels off me, and the like o' me wasn't in sivin parishes! And +that was the clane part of the discoorse, yer Worships!" + +Mrs. Brickley here drew her cloak more closely about her, as though to +enshroud herself in her own refinement, and presented to the Bench a +silence as elaborate as a drop scene. It implied, amongst other +things, a generous confidence in the imaginative powers of her audience. + +Whether or no this was misplaced, Mrs. Brickley was not invited further +to enlighten the Court. After her departure the case droned on in +inexhaustible rancour, and trackless complications as to the shares of +the fish. Its ethics and its arithmetic would have defied the allied +intellects of Solomon and Bishop Colenso. It was somewhere in that +dead hour of the afternoon, when it is too late for lunch and too early +for tea, that the Bench, wan with hunger, wound up the affair by +impartially binding both parties in sheaves "to the Peace." + +As a sub-issue I arranged with Mr. Knox to shoot duck on the one-legged +man's land on Hare Island as soon as should be convenient, and lightly +dismissed from my mind my dealings, official and otherwise, with the +House of Brickley. + +But even as there are people who never give away old clothes, so are +there people, of whom is Flurry Knox, who never dismiss anything from +their minds. + + + + +VII + +THE LAST DAY OF SHRAFT + +It was not many days after the Keohane and Brickley trial that my +wife's elderly step-brother, Maxwell Bruce, wrote to us to say that he +was engaged in a tour through the Irish-speaking counties, and would +look us up on his way from Kerry. The letter began "_O Bean uasal_," +and broke into eruptions of Erse at various points, but the excerpts +from Bradshaw were, fortunately, in the vernacular. + +Philippa assured me she could read it all. During the previous winter +she had had five lessons and a half in the Irish language from the +National Schoolmaster, and believed herself to be one of the props of +the Celtic movement. My own attitude with regard to the Celtic +movement was sympathetic, but a brief inspection of the grammar +convinced me that my sympathies would not survive the strain of +tripthongs, eclipsed consonants, and synthetic verbs, and that I should +do well to refrain from embittering my declining years by an impotent +and humiliating pursuit of the most elusive of pronunciations. +Philippa had attained to the height of being able to greet the +schoolmaster in Irish, and, if the day happened to be fine, she was +capable of stating the fact; other aspects of the weather, however +remarkable, she epitomised in a brilliant smile, and the schoolmaster +was generally considerate enough not to press the matter. + +My step-brother-in-law neither hunted, shot, nor fished, yet as a guest +he never gave me a moment's anxiety. He possessed the attribute, +priceless in guests, a good portable hobby, involving no machinery, +accessories, or paraphernalia of any kind. It did not even involve the +personal attendance of his host. His mornings were spent in proffering +Irish phrases to bewildered beggars at the hall door, or to the +respectfully bored Peter Cadogan in the harness-room. He held +_conversaziones_ in the servants' hall after dinner, while I slept +balmily in front of the drawing-room fire. When not thus engaged, he +sat in his room making notes, and writing letters to the Archimandrites +of his faith. Truly an ideal visitor, one to whom neglect was a +kindness, and entertainments an abomination; certainly not a person to +take to Hare Island to shoot ducks with Flurry Knox. + +[Illustration: HIS MORNINGS WERE SPENT IN PROFFERING IRISH PHRASES] + +But it was otherwise ordained by Philippa. Hare Island was, she said, +and the schoolmaster said, a place where the Irish language was still +spoken with a purity worthy of the Isles of Aran. Its folk-lore was an +unworked mine, and it was moreover the home of one Shemus Ruadth, a +singer and poet (and, I may add, a smuggler of tobacco) of high local +renown: Maxwell should on no account miss such a chance. I mentioned +that Hare Island was at present going through the measles phase of its +usual rotation of epidemics. My wife wavered, in a manner that showed +me that I had been on the verge of a family picnic, and I said I had +heard that there was whooping-cough there too. The children had had +neither. The picnic expired without a sound, but my +step-brother-in-law had made up his mind. + +It was a grey and bitter February morning when Maxwell and I, +accompanied by Peter Cadogan, stood waiting on the beach at Yokahn for +Flurry to arrive. Maria, as was her wont, was nosing my gun as if she +expected to see a woodcock fly out of it; that Minx was beside her was +due to the peculiar inveteracy of Minx. How she had achieved it is of +no consequence; the distressing fact remained that she was there, +seated, shuddering, upon a space of wet stone no larger than a +sixpence, and had to be accepted as one of the party. It struck me +that Mr. Cadogan had rather overdressed the part of dog-boy and +bag-bearer, being attired in a striped blue flannel suit that had once +been mine, a gaudy new cap, and yellow boots. The social possibilities +of Hare Island had faded from my mind; I merely experienced the usual +humiliation of perceiving how discarded garments can, in a lower +sphere, renew their youth and blossom as the rose. I was even +formulating a system of putting my old clothes out at grass, as it +were, with Peter Cadogan, when a messenger arrived with a note from +Flurry Knox in which he informed me, with many regrets, that he was +kept at home on unexpected business, but he had arranged that we should +find a boat ready to take us to the island, and Con Brickley would look +after us when we got there. The boat was even now nearing the beach, +rowed by two men, who, in beautiful accord with our "binding to the +Peace," proved to be the Widower, Jer Keohane, and his late antagonist, +the one-legged Con Brickley. In view of this millennial state of +affairs it seemed alarmingly probable that the boat which had come for +us was that on which, as on a pivot, the late battle had turned. A +witness had said, on oath, that "if it wasn't for the weeds that's +holding her together she'd bursht up in the deep." I inspected her +narrowly, and was relieved to see that the weeds still held their +ground. + +A mile of slatey water tumbled between us and the island, and an undue +proportion of it, highly flavoured by fish, flowed in uneasy tides in +the bottom of the boat, with a final disposition towards the well-laden +stern. There were no bottom boards, and, judging by the depth of the +flood over the keel, her draught appeared to be equal to that of a +racing yacht. We sat precariously upon strips of nine-inch plank, our +feet propped against the tarred sides just out of the wash; the boat +climbed and wallowed with a three-cornered roll, the dogs panted in +mingled nausea and agitation, and the narrow blades of the oars dipped +their frayed edges in the waves in short and untiring jerks. + +My brother-in-law, with a countenance leaden magenta from cold, +struggled with the whirling leaves of a phrase book. He was tall and +thin, of the famished vegetarian type of looks, with unpractical, +prominent eyes, and a complexion that on the hottest day in summer +imparted a chill to the beholder; in this raw November wind it was a +positive suffering even to think of his nose, and my eyes rested, in +unconscious craving for warmth, upon the changeless, impartial red of +Con Brickley's monkey face. + +We landed with a rush on the steep shingle of a sheltered cove. The +island boasted a pier, built with "Relief" money, but it was two miles +from the lake where I was to shoot, and this small triangle of beach, +tucked away in a notch of the cliff, was within ten minutes' walk of +it. At the innermost angle of the cove, where the notch ended in a +tortuous fissure, there was a path that zigzagged to the top of the +cliff, a remarkably excellent path, and a well-worn one, with steps +here and there. I commented on it to Mr. Brickley. + +"Why, thin, it was in this same place that I losht the owld leg, sir," +he replied in his sombre voice. "I took a shlip on a dark night and me +landlord was that much sorry for me that he made a good pat' in it." +He was pitching himself up the steps on his crutches as he spoke, an +object of compassion of the most obvious and silencing sort. Why, +then, should Peter Cadogan smile furtively at the Widower? + +At the top of the fissure, where it melted into a hollow between low, +grassy hills, stood the Brickleys' cottage, long, low, and whitewashed, +deep in shelter, with big stones, hung in halters of hay-rope, lying on +its thatch, to keep the roof on in the Atlantic gales. A thick fuchsia +hedge surrounded it; from its open door proceeded sounds of furious +altercation; apparently a man and woman hurling invective and +personalities at each other in Irish, at the tops of their voices. Con +Brickley sprang forward on his crutch, a girl at the door vanished into +the house, and a sudden silence fell. With scarcely a perceptible +interval, Mrs. Brickley appeared in the doorway, a red shawl tied over +her rippling grey hair, her manner an inimitable blend of deference and +hospitality. + +"Your Honour's welcome, Major Yeates," she said with a curtsey. A door +banged at the back of the cottage. "That was a poor man from across +the water that came apologisin' to me for dhrawin' me name down in a +little disagreement that he had about a settin' o' goose eggs." + +I suppose that it was contrition that caused the apologist to stumble +heavily as he came round the corner of the house, and departed at a +tangent through an opening in the fuchsia hedge. Feeling that comment +on the incident was too delicate a matter for my capacities, I +introduced Maxwell and his aspirations to the lady of the house. Any +qualms that I might have had as to how to dispose of him while I was +shooting were set at rest by Mrs. Brickley's instant grasp of the +situation. I regret to say that I can neither transcribe nor translate +the rolling periods in which my brother-in-law addressed himself to +her. I have reason to believe that he apostrophised her as "O worthy +woman of cows!" invoking upon her and her household a comprehensive and +classic blessing, dating from the time of Cuchulain. + +Mrs. Brickley received it without a perceptible stagger, and in the +course of the next few minutes, Miss Bridget Brickley (who, it may be +remembered, had but recently renounced the office of kitchenmaid in my +house) emerged, beautifully dressed, from the cottage, and was +despatched, at full speed, to summon Shemus Ruadth, the poet, as well +as one or two of "the neighbours" reputed to speak Irish of the purest +kind. If to make a guest feel himself to be the one person in the +world whose welfare is of any importance is the aim of hostesses, they +can study the art in its perfection under the smoky rafters of Irish +cabins. If it is insincere, it is equally to be respected; it is often +amiable to be insincere. + +My own share of the day's enjoyment opened plausibly enough, though +not, possibly, as cloudlessly as Maxwell's. Attended by Maria, Peter +Cadogan, and the Widower, and by a smell of whisky that floated to me +on the chill breeze when the Widower was to windward, I set forth, +having--as I fatuously imagined--disposed of Minx and of her intention +to join the shooting-party, by tying a stout piece of cord to her +collar, and placing its other end in my brother-in-law's hand. I had, +by Flurry's advice, postponed the shooting of the lake till the last +thing before leaving the island, and turning my back upon it, I tramped +inland along half-thawed marshes in search of snipe, and crept behind +walls after plover, whose elusive whistling was always two fields +ahead. After an unfruitful hour or so the entertainment began to drag, +and another plan of campaign seemed advisable: I made a cache of my +retinue behind a rock, one of the many rocks that stood like fossilised +mammoths upon the ragged hill slopes, and, with Maria at my heels, +accomplished a long and laborious detour. At length, through the +crannies of a wall, I perceived just within shot a stand of plover, +hopping, gobbling, squealing, quite unaware of my proximity. I +cautiously laid my gun on the top of the wall. As I cocked it, a white +form appeared on a fence behind the birds, poised itself for an instant +with elf-like ears spread wide, then, volleying barks, the intolerable +Minx burst like a firework into the heart of the plover. In lightning +response to her comrade's tally-ho Maria rocketted over the wall; the +plover rose as one man, and, as I missed with both barrels, swirled out +of range and sight. By way, I suppose, of rounding off the jest +effectively, Maria rushed in scientific zigzags through the field, in +search of the bird that she well knew I had not shot, deaf as the dead +to words of command, while Minx, stark mad with excitement, circled and +shrieked round Maria. To take off Maria's collar and thrash her +heavily with the buckle end of it was futile, except as a personal +gratification, but I did it. To thrash Minx was not only absurd but +impossible; one might as well have tried to thrash a grasshopper. + +I whistled for Peter and the Widower without avail, and finally, in +just indignation, went back to look for them. They were gone. Not a +soul was in sight. I concluded that they had gone on towards the lake, +and having sacrificed a sandwich to the capture of Minx I coupled her +to Maria by means of the cord that still trailed from her collar, and +again set forth. The island was a large one, three or four miles long +by nearly as many wide; I had opened my campaign along its western +shores, where heather struggled with bog, and stones, big and little, +bestrewed any patch sound enough to carry them. Here and there were +places where turf had been cut for fuel, leaving a drop like a sunk +fence with black water at its foot, a matter requiring a hearty jump on +to what might or might not be sound landing. When two maniacs are +unequally yoked together by their necks, heartiness and activity are of +less importance than unanimity, and it was in unanimity that Maria and +Minx chiefly failed. At such moments, profoundly as I detested Minx, +my sympathies reluctantly were hers. Conscious, as are all little +dogs, of her superior astuteness, she yet had to submit to Maria's +choice of pace, to Maria's professional quarterings and questings of +obviously barren tracts of bogland. In bursts of squealing fury she +hung from Maria's ear, she tore mouthfuls of brown wool from her neck, +she jibbed with all her claws stuck into the ground; none the less she +was swept across the ditches, and lugged over the walls, in seeming +oneness of purpose, in total and preposterous absurdity. At one +juncture a snipe, who must, I think, have been deaf, remained long +enough within their sphere of action for me to shoot him. The couple, +unanimous for once, charged down upon the remains; the corpse was +secured by Maria, but was torn piecemeal from her jaws by Minx. They +then galloped emulously back to me for applause, still bitterly +contesting every inch of the snipe, and, having grudgingly relinquished +the fragments, waited wild-eyed and panting, with tongues hanging like +aprons to their knees. + +It was towards the close of the incident that I was aware of a sibilant +whispering near me, and found that I was being observed from the rear +with almost passionate interest, by two little girls and a pair of +goats. I addressed the party with an enquiry as to whether they had +seen Jer Keohane. + +The biggest little girl said that she had not seen him, but, in a _non +sequitur_ full of intelligence, added that she had seen Peter Cadogan a +while ago, sitting down under a wall, himself and Pidge. + +"What's Pidge?" said I cautiously. "Is it a dog?" + +"Oh Christians!" said the smaller child, swiftly covering her mouth +with her pinafore. + +The elder, with an untrammelled grin, explained that "Pidge" was the +name by which my late kitchenmaid was known in the home circle. + +I postponed comment till Peter should be delivered into my hand, then, +rightly concluding that the tendance of Hare Island goats would ensure +the qualities necessary for dealing with even Maria and Minx, I engaged +the pair as dog-boys. + +My progress from this point to the lake might have been taken from the +Old Testament, or the Swiss Family Robinson. In front of me paced the +goats, who had sociably declined to be left out of the expedition; +behind me strove the dogs, with the wiry and scarlet fingers of their +attendants knotted in Mrs. Brickley's invaluable piece of string. It +proved to be a thoroughly successful working arrangement; I even shot a +plover, which was retrieved _en masse_ by all except the goats. + +In complete amity we reached the lake, a reedy strip of water that +twisted in and out between low hills, its indeterminate shores cloaked +with reeds. It was now past three o'clock, and the cold grey afternoon +was already heaping into the west the pile of dark clouds that was to +be its equivalent for sunset. I crept warily forward round the flank +of the nearest hill, leaving the dogs and their keepers in death +grapple, and the goats snatching mouthfuls of grass beside them, in the +petulant, fractious manner of goats, that so ill assorts with their +Presbyterian grey beards. + +The frost had been preceded by a flood, and the swamp bordering the +lake was very bad going; the tussocks were rotten, the holes were +delusively covered with lids of white ice, and to traverse these in the +attitude of a man with acute lumbago was no light matter. But the +ducks were there. I could hear them quacking and splashing beyond the +screen of reeds, and, straightening my back for an observation, caught +sight of four or five swimming in a line, well within range. There was +not an instant to lose; balancing precariously on a tussock, I flung up +my gun and fired. Terrific quacking followed, interspersed by distant +and heartrending yells from the dogs, but the inexplicable feature of +the case was that the ducks did not rise from the water. Had I slain +the whole crowd? There was a sound as if the marsh behind me was being +slashed with a flail; a brown body whizzed past me, closely followed by +a white one. "From his mountain home King James had rushing come," in +other words, my retrievers had hurled themselves upon their prey. + +Maria's performance was faultless; in half a minute she had laid a bird +at my feet, a very large pale drake, quite unlike any wild drake that I +had ever---- + +[Illustration: MARIA'S PERFORMANCE WAS FAULTLESS] + +Out of the silence that followed came a thin, shrill voice from the +hill: + +"Thim's Mrs. Brickley's ducks!" + +In horrid confirmation of this appalling statement I perceived the +survivors already landing on the far side of the lake, and hurrying +homeward up the hill with direful clamours, while a wedge-shaped ripple +in the grey water with a white speck at its apex, told of Minx in an +ecstasy of pursuit. + +"Stop the dog!" I shouted to my maids-of-honour, "run round and catch +her!" + +Maria here, in irrepressible appropriation of the mission, bolted +between my legs, and sent me staggering backwards into a very +considerable boghole. + +I will not labour the details. After some flounderings I achieved +safety and the awe-stricken comments of the maids-of-honour, as wet as +I have ever been in my life, and about five times as cold. One of my +young ladies captured Minx in the act of getting ashore; the other +collected the slaughtered drake and shrouded him in her pinafore, with +a grasp of the position that did credit to both heart and head, and +they finally informed me that Mrs. Brickley's house was only a small +pieceen away. + +I had left Mrs. Brickley's house a well-equipped sportsman, creditably +escorted by Peter Cadogan and the Widower. I returned to it a muddy +and dripping outcast, attended by two little girls, two goats, and her +own eight ducks, whom my hand had widowed. My sodden clothes clung +clammily about me; the wind, as it pierced them, carried with it all +the iciness of the boghole. I walked at top speed to get up some +semblance of a circulation; I should have run were it not for the +confusion that such a proceeding would have caused to my cortège. As +it was, the ducks fled before me in waddling panic, with occasional +help from their wings, and panting and pattering in the rear told that +the maids-of-honour, the goats, and the dogs were maintaining with +difficulty their due places in the procession. As I neared the cottage +I saw a boy go quickly into it and shut the door; I passed into the +yard within the fuchsia hedge and heard some one inside howling and +droning a song in Irish, and as I knocked, with frozen knuckles, the +house gave the indefinable feeling of being full of people. There was +no response; I lifted the latch. The door opened into the +frieze-covered backs of several men, and an evenly blended smell of +whisky, turf smoke, and crowded humanity steamed forth. + +The company made way for me, awkwardly; I noticed a tendency amongst +them to hold on to each other, and there was a hilarious light in Mrs. +Brickley's eye as she hustled forward to meet me. My brother-in-law +was sitting at a table by the window writing in a notebook by the last +light of the waning day; he gave me a glance laden with affairs to +which I was superfluous. A red-eyed, red-headed man, evidently the +singer, was standing in the middle of the room; it must have been in +conformity with some irresistible law of nature that his hair stood out +round his head in the orthodox poetic aureole. + +In spite of the painful publicity of the moment there was but one +course open to me. I tendered to my hostess the corpse of the drake, +with abject apologies and explanations. To say that Mrs. Brickley +accepted them favourably is quite inadequate. She heaped insults upon +the drake, for his age, for his ugliness, for his temerity in getting +in my way; she, in fact, accepted his slaughter in the light of a +personal favour and an excellent jest combined, and passed rapidly on +to explain that the company consisted of a few of the neighbours that +was gathered to talk to the gentleman, and to be singing "them owld +songs" for him; their number and their zeal being entirely due to the +deep personal regard entertained for me by Hare Island. She further +mentioned that it was Shrove Tuesday, and that people should "jolly +themselves" before Lent. I was hurriedly conveyed to what is known as +"Back in the room," a blend of best parlour and bedroom, with an +immense bed in the corner. A fire was lighted, by the simple method of +importing most of the kitchen fire, bodily, in a bucket, and placing it +on the hearth, and I was conjured to "sthrip" and to put on a new suit +of clothes belonging to my host while my own were being dried. He +himself valeted me, inaugurating the ceremony with a tumbler of hot +whisky and water. The suit of new clothes was of the thickest blue +cloth, stiff as boards, and they smelt horribly of stale turf smoke. +The discovery that the trousers consisted of but a leg and a half was +startling; I had forgotten this aspect of the case, but now, in the +proprietor's presence, it was impossible to withdraw from the loan. I +could, at all events, remain perdu. Through all these preparations I +was aware of highly incensed and fruitless callings for "Pidge"; of +Peter Cadogan no tidings were forthcoming, and although a conventional +sense of honour withheld me from disclosing the information I might +have given about the young lady, it did not deter me from mentally +preparing a warm reception for her squire. + +I sat by the fire in regal seclusion, with my clothes steaming on a +chair opposite to me, and the strong glow of the red turf scorching the +shin that was unprotected. Maria and Minx, also steaming, sat in +exquisite serenity in front of the blaze, retiring every now and then +to fling themselves, panting, on a cold space of floor. The hot whisky +and water sent its vulgar and entirely acceptable consolations into the +frozen recesses of my being, a feeling of sociability stole upon me; I +felt magnanimously pleased at the thought that Maxwell, at least, had +had a perfectly successful day; I glowed with gratitude towards Con +Brickley and his wife. + +Judged by the usual test of hostesses, that is to say, noise, the +_conversazione_ in Maxwell's honour was a high success. Gabble and +hum, harangue and argument, and, through all, Maxwell's unemotional +educated voice in discussion with the poet. Scraps of English here and +there presently told me that the talk had centred itself upon the +tragedy of the drake. I had the gratification of hearing Mrs. Brickley +inform her friends that "if that owld dhrake was shot, itself, he was +in the want of it, and divil mend him, going parading there till he had +the Major put asthray! Sure that's the gintleman that's like a child! +and Pidge could tell ye the same." + +"Faith and thrue for ye," said another apologist, also female, "and ye +wouldn't blame him if he didn't leave duck nor dhrake livin' afther +him, with the annoyance he got from thim that should be tinding him, +and he bloated with the walk and all!" + +(I may, in my own interest, explain that this unattractive description +merely implied that I was heated from excessive exercise.) + +"And as for the same Pidge," broke in Mrs. Brickley with sudden fire, +"when I ketch her it isn't to bate her I'll go, no! but to dhrag her by +the hair o' the head round the kitchen." + +These agreeable anticipations were interrupted by other voices. Some +one named Paddy was called upon to sing the song about Ned Flaherty's +drake. + +"Sing up, Paddy boy, for the gentleman! Arrah, what ails ye, Paddy! +Don't be ashamed at all!" + +"'Tis a lovely song, your honour, sir!" (this to my brother-in-law). + +"Is it an ancient song?" I heard Maxwell enquire with serious eagerness. + +"It is, your honour; 'twas himself made it up lasht year, and he sings +it beautiful! Oh! Paddy's a perfect modulator!" + +With curiosity stimulated by this mysterious encomium I rose softly and +half opened the door in order to obtain a view of the Modulator. A +lamp with a glaring tin reflector was on the table beside Maxwell; it +illumined Paddy, the Modulator, an incredibly freckled youth, standing +in front of my brother-in-law, with eyes fixed on the ground and arms +hanging limply at his sides, like a prisoner awaiting sentence. It +illumined also the artistic contempt on the elder Poet's countenance, +and further revealed to me the fact that from twenty-five to thirty men +and women were packed into the small kitchen. + +The Modulator opened with a long-drawn and nasal cadenza, suggestive of +the droning preliminary canter of a bagpipe, which merged into the +statement that + + The poor little fella', + His legs they were yella', + His bosom was blue, he could swim like a hake; + But some wicked savage, + To grease his white cabbage, + Murdered Ned Flaherty's beautiful dhrake! + +[Illustration: THE MODULATOR OPENED WITH A LONG-DRAWN AND NASAL CADENZA] + +Riotous applause followed on this startlingly appropriate requiem. +Maxwell coldly laid down his stylograph with the manner of a reporter +during an unimportant speech; the Poet took a clay pipe out of his +pocket and examined its contents with an air of detachment; Paddy, with +a countenance of undiminished gloom, prepared the way for the next +verse with some half-dozen jig-steps, ending with a sledge-hammer stamp +on the earthen floor. Fresh thunders of approval greeted the effort. +It seemed to me that Con Brickley's hospitality had been a trifle +excessive; I even meditated a hint to that effect, but neither my host +nor my hostess was visible. They were apparently holding an overflow +meeting in a room at the other end of the house, and I noticed that +although there was a steady flow of passers in and out between it and +the kitchen, the door was carefully closed after each opening. + +Suddenly the lamp on Maxwell's table flared up smokily as the door of +the house was burst open. The second verse of the drake's elegy ceased +at its first line. A woman whom I recognised as Kate Keohane, sister +of the Widower, drove her way into the kitchen, sweeping back the +people on either side of her with her arms, as though she was swimming. +Her face was scarlet. + +"Is Jer Keohane within here?" she shouted. + +"He is not!" replied several voices. + +Instantly the door of the inner room flew open, and like a stag (or a +tom-cat, either simile would serve), answering the challenge of a +rival, Mrs. Brickley came forth. + +"Is it yer brother you're wantin', ma'am?" she said with lofty +politeness. "Ye can search out the house for him if ye like. It's +little he troubles my house or myself now, thanks be to God, and to the +Magistrates that took my part before all that was in the Coort-house! +Me that he had goin' in dhread o' me life, with him afther me always in +me thrack like a lap-dog!" + +"And who has him enticed now but your own daughther?" shrieked Miss +Keohane with lightning rapidity. "Isn't Ellen, the Chapel-woman, +afther tellin' me she seen herself and himself shneakin' down +behindside the chapel, like they'd be goin' aisht to the far sthrand, +and she dhressed out, and the coat she stole from Mrs. Yeates on her +and a bundle in her hand! Sure doesn't the world know she has her +passage paid to Ameriky this two months!" + +"Ye lie!" panted Mrs. Brickley, catching her antagonist by the arm, not +in attack, but in the the awful truce of mutual panic. + +Miss Keohane flung her off, only the better to gather force for the +prolonged and direful howl of which she delivered herself. + +"If she didn't come here with him it's to Ameriky she's taken him! +Look in yer box an' ye'll see where she got the passage money! She has +the boat's share taken from ye in spite of yer teeth!" Miss Keohane +here dropped upon her knees. "An' I pray," she continued, lyrically, +"that the devil may melt her, the same as ye'd melt the froth off +porther----" + +Groans, hoots, and drunken laughter overwhelmed the close of this +aspiration. Oblivious of my costume, I stepped forward, with the +intention of attracting Maxwell's attention, and withdrawing him and +myself as swiftly and unobtrusively as possible from a position that +threatened to become too hot to hold us. + +Even as I did so, I saw in the dark blue space of the open door a face +that was strangely familiar, a face at once civilised and martial, +whose gaze was set incredulously upon me. + +"Here's the Polis!" squeaked a little girl. + +The poet blew out the lamp. The house was in an instant full of the +voiceless and strenuous shoving and trampling of people trying to +escape. I heard the table go over with a crash, and could only suppose +that Maxwell had gone with it, and Maria and Minx, convinced that a +cat-hunt was at the root of the matter, barked deafeningly and +unceasingly. + +In a blinding flash of insight I realised that my brother-in-law and I +had been taken red-handed in a "Shebeen," that is to say, a house in +which drink is illicitly sold without a license. + +The Police Sergeant was egregiously tactful. During the conversation +that I held with him in the inner room he did not permit his eye to +condescend lower than the top button of Mr. Brickley's coat, a +consideration that but served to make me more conscious of the +humiliating deficiency below, nor did it deviate towards the empty +tumbler, with the incriminating spoon in it, that stood on the table. + +He explained to me and to Maxwell, whose presence I felt to be my sole +link with respectability, that the raid had been planned in consequence +of information received after the trial. + +"I was going to you, sir, to sign the warrant, but Mr. Knox and Dr. +Hickey signed it for us. It was Mr. Knox advised us to come here +to-day. We've found three half-barrels of porter under the bed in the +room over there, and about two gallons of potheen hid under fishing +nets. I'll have about thirty summonses out of it." + +The Sergeant's manner was distressingly apologetic. I said nothing, +but my heart burned within me as I recognised the hand of Flurry Knox. + +[Illustration: THE SERGEANT'S MANNER WAS DISTRESSINGLY APOLOGETIC] + +"In case you might be looking for your man Cadogan, sir," went on the +Sergeant, "we seen him in a boat, with two other parties, a man and a +woman, going to the mainland when we were coming over. The man that +was pulling the other oar had the appearance of having drink taken." + +A second flash, less blinding than the first, but equally illuminative, +revealed to me that the brown boots, the flannel suit, had been a +wedding garment, the predetermined attire of the Best Man, and a third +recalled the fact that Shrove Tuesday was the last day between this and +Easter on which a marriage could take place. + +Maxwell and I went back with the police, and Maxwell explained to me at +some length the origin of the word shebeen. As I neared the mainland, +which to-morrow would ring with Flurry's artistic version of the day's +events, the future held but one bright spot, the thought of putting +Peter Cadogan to fire and sword. + +But even that was denied to me. It must have been at the identical +moment that my cook, Mrs. Cadogan (aunt of the missing Peter), was +placing her wedding ring in the Shrove Tuesday pancakes that evening, +that my establishment was felled as one man by tidings that still +remain preëminent among the sensations of Shreelane. They reached me, +irrepressibly, with the coffee. + +Hard on the heels of the flushed parlour-maid followed the flat and +heavy tread of Mrs. Cadogan, who, like the avenging deities, was +habitually shod with felt. + +"And now, sir, what do ye say to Pether Cadogan!" she began, launching +the enigma into space from the obscurity of the deep doorway. "What do +ye say to him now? The raving scamp!" + +I replied that I had a great deal to say to him, and that if I might so +far trespass on his leisure as to request his presence in the hall, I +would say it. + +"Hall is it!" echoed Peter's aunt in bitter wrath. "It's my heart's +grief that he ever stood in Shreelane hall to dhraw disgrace on me and +on yer Honour! God forgive me, when I heard it I had to spit! Himself +and Bridget Brickley got married in Skebawn this evening and the two o' +them is gone to Ameriky on the thrain to-night, and it's all I'll say +for her, whatever sort of a thrash she is, she's good enough for him!" +There was a pause while one might pant twice. + +"I'll tell ye no lie. If I had a gun in me hand, I'd shoot him like a +bird! I'd down the brat!" + +The avenging deity retired. + +What part the Widower proposed to play in the day's proceedings will +never be clearly known. He was picked up next day in Hare Island +Sound, drifting seaward in the boat whose "share" had formed the +marriage portion of Mrs. Peter Cadogan. Both oars were gone; there +remained to him an empty bottle of "potheen," and a bucket. He was +rowing the boat with the bucket. + + + + +VIII + +"A HORSE! A HORSE!" + +PART I + +"Old Jimmy Porteous!" I ejaculated, while a glow of the ancient +enthusiasm irradiated my bosom, "Philippa, I say! Do you see this? +Jimmy Porteous is to command this District!" + +"No, darling, _not_ with an egg!" replied Philippa, removing the honey +spoon from the grasp of her youngest child, just too late to avert +disaster, "we _don't_ eat honey with eggs." + +The heavy hand of experience has taught me that at moments such as +these the only possible course is to lie to, head to wind, till the +squall passes, and then begin from the beginning again. I readdressed +myself to my newspaper, while the incident went, like a successful +burlesque, with a roar, sustained from the foot of the stairs to the +point when the nursery door slammed upon it. + +Philippa resumed her seat at the breakfast table. + +"Yes, dear, what were you saying?" she said, yielding me the laborious +but vague attention that is the best any husband can expect from any +wife on such occasions. + +I repeated my statement, and was scandalised to find that Philippa had +but the most shadowy remembrance of Jimmy Porteous, who, in the days +when I first joined my regiment had been its senior subaltern, and, for +me and my fellows, one of the most revered of its law-givers. As a +captain he left us, and proceeded to do something brilliant on +somebody's staff, and, what time I got my company, had moved on in +radiance into a lofty existence in the War Office and newspaper +paragraphs. + +I recalled these things to my wife, coupling them with the information +that she would have to call on Lady Porteous, when the door opened, and +the face of Flurry Knox, unshaven and blue, with the miserable +mother-o'-pearl blueness of fair people in cold weather, appeared in +the opening. + +He had looked in, he said, on his way home from the fair, to try would +we give him a cup of tea, and he went on to remark that the wind was +cold enough to cut the horns off a cow. + +I asked him if he had seen my beasts there, and if they had been sold. + +"Oh, they were, they were," he said tolerantly; "it was a wonderful +good fair. The dealers were buying all before them. There was a man +said to me, 'If you had a little dog there, and he to be a calf, you'd +have sold him.'" + +It was one of Flurry Knox's ruling principles in life to disparage the +live stock of his friends; it was always within the bounds of +possibility that the moment might arrive when he would wish to buy them. + +"I met a man from Sir Thomas Purcell's country yesterday," said Flurry +presently; "he says there's been the father and mother of a row down +there between old Sir Thomas and Hackett, that's the man has the +harriers. Sir Thomas is wild because they say the soldiers are giving +Hackett as good a subscription as himself, and he says Hackett has all +the foxes killed." + +"But surely--harriers don't hunt foxes?" said Philippa ingenuously. + +Flurry looked at her for a moment in silence. "Is it Hackett's +harriers!" he said compassionately; "sure he flogs them off hares." + +"Talking of soldiers, they've just sent a man who used to be in my +regiment to command this district," I said, plucking my own topic from +the tangle of inter-hunt squabbles; "a great man to hounds he used to +be, too." + +"Would he buy the Dodger?" asked Flurry swiftly. "Would he give a +price?" + +"I daresay he would if he liked the horse. If I got a chance I might +tell him," I said, magnanimously. + +"I tell you what, Major," said Flurry, with an eye on his ally, +Philippa, "you and me and Mrs. Yeates will go up and have a day with +Sir Thomas's hounds, and you'll say the word for me to the General!" + +Looking back at it all now, I recognise that here was the moment for +firmness. I let the moment slip, and became immersed in tracking +General Sir James Porteous, K.C.B., through the pages of an elderly +Army List. By the time I had located him in three separate columns, I +found that Philippa and Flurry had arranged unalterably the details of +what my wife is pleased to call a ramp--_i.e._ an expedition that, as +its name implies, suggests a raid made by tramps. + +"--Why, my gracious! aren't they cousins of my own? They'll be only +delighted! Sure, Sally had measles there three years ago, and 'twas as +good as a play for them!--Put us up, is it? Of course they will! The +whole lot of us. D'ye think Sally'd stay at home?--No, you'll not take +your own horses at all. Hire from Flavin; I'll see he does you well." + +"And you know, Sinclair"--thus the other conspirator--"it would be an +excellent chance for you to meet your beloved Jimmy Porteous!" + +It was not Mr. Knox's habit to let the grass grow under his feet. +Before I had at all grasped the realities of the project, my wife heard +from Mrs. Sally Knox to say that she had arranged it all with the +Butler-Knoxes, and that we were to stay on for a second night in order +to go to a dance at which we should meet the General. At intervals +during the following week I said to Philippa that it was preposterous +and monstrous to dump ourselves upon the Butler-Knoxes, unknown people +whom we had but once met at a function at the Bishop's. My remembrance +of them, though something blurred by throngs of the clergy and their +wives, did not suggest the type of person who might be expected to keep +open house for stray fox-hunters. I said all this to Philippa, who +entirely agreed with me, and continued her preparations, after the +manner of experienced wives. + +It was raining hard one afternoon in the following week when a +four-wheeled inside car--an admirable vehicle, which I wish in no way +to disparage--disgorged its burden at the door of Garden Mount House. +One item of the burden was experiencing a sensation only too familiar, +such a sensation as a respectable seaman might feel on being pressed +into a crew of buccaneers. The house loomed over us, large, square, +and serious, in the wet moonlight of the January evening; the husky, +over-fed bark of an elderly dog was incessant in the hall. If by +laying hold of the coat-tails of the leading pirate, as he got out to +ring the bell, I could then and there have brought the expedition to a +close, I would thankfully have done so. + +The door was opened by a melancholy old gentleman with a grey moustache +and whiskers; he might have been Colonel Newcome in his decadence, but +from the fact that he wore an evening coat and grey trousers, I +gathered that he was the butler, and for any one skilled in Irish +households, he at once placed the establishment--rich, godly, low +church, and consistently and contentedly dull. As we entered the hall +there arose from some fastness in the house a shrill clamour that +resolved itself into the first line of a hymn. + +Flurry dug me in the ribs with his elbow. "They've found!" he +whispered, "you needn't look so frightened. It's only Lucy and Louisa +having the choir practice!" + +To these strains Colonel Newcome ushered us into the drawing-room. +There was no one in it. It was a large double drawing-room, and +nothing but heavy maroon curtains now separated us from the choir +practice. The hymn continued, a loud and long-drawn proclamation, and, +pending its conclusion, my wife and Mrs. Flurry Knox swiftly and +stealthily circumnavigated the room, and appraised all its contents, +from a priceless Battersea basket filled with dusty bulbs, to a +Chippendale card-table with a sewing machine clamped on to it, while +Flurry, in a stage whisper, dilated to me upon the superfluous wealth +that Providence had seen fit to waste upon the Butler-Knoxes. The +household, as I had gradually learnt, consisted of an elderly bachelor, +Mr. Lucius Butler-Knox (commonly known as "Looshy "), his unmarried +sister, Miss Louisa, his widowed sister, Mrs. Hodnett, and a corpulent, +grey-muzzled black-and-tan terrier. Their occupations were gardening, +and going to what they called "the city," _i.e._ the neighbouring +county town, to attend charitable committee meetings; they kept a +species of philanthropic registry office for servants; their foible was +hospitality, disastrously coupled with the fact that they dined at +half-past six. It was one of the mysteries of kinship that Flurry Knox +and our host and hostess should possess a nearer relative in common +than Adam. That he should have established their respectable home as +his hostelry and house of call was one of the mysteries of Flurry Knox. + +The hymn ceased, the raiders hastily formed into line, the maroon +drapery parted, and the ladies of the house, flushed with song, and +importing with them a potent sample of the atmosphere of the back +drawing-room, were upon us, loud in hospitable apologies, instant in +offers of tea; the situation opened and swallowed us up. + +The half-past six o'clock dinner came all too swiftly. Glared upon by +an unshaded lamp that sat like a ball of fire in the centre of the +table, we laboured in the trough of a sea of the thickest ox-tail soup; +a large salmon followed; with the edge of dubious appetite already +turned, we saw the succeeding items of the menu spread forth on the +table like a dummy hand at bridge. The boiled turkey, with its +satellite ham, the roast saddle of mutton, with its stable companion +the stack of cutlets; the succeeding course, where a team of four wild +duck struggled for the lead with an open tart and a sago pudding. Like +Agag, we went delicately, and, like Agag, it availed us nothing. + +I watched my _vis-à-vis_, little Mrs. Flurry, furtively burying a slab +of turkey beneath mashed potatoes as neatly as a little dog buries a +bone; her green kitten's eyes met mine without a change of expression, +and turned to her glass, which Colonel Newcome had filled with claret. +"The beaded bubbles, winking at the brim," had a greyish tinge. + +"Cousin Lucius!" observed Mrs. Flurry, in a silence that presently +happened to fall, "can you remember who painted that picture of our +great-grandfather--the one over the door I mean?" + +Mr. Butler-Knox, a small, grey-bearded, elderly gentleman, wholly, up +to the present, immersed in carving, removed the steam of the ducks +from his eye-glasses, and concentrated them upon the picture. + +"It's by Maclise, isn't it?" went on Sally, leaning forward to get a +nearer view. + +In that moment, when all heads turned to the picture, I plainly saw her +draw the glass of claret to the verge of the table, it disappeared +beneath it and returned to its place empty. Almost simultaneously, the +black-and-tan terrier sprang from a lair near my feet, and hurried from +the room, shaking his ears vigorously. Mrs. Flurry's eyes wavered from +the portrait to mine, and her face became slowly and evenly pink, like +an afterglow. + +It was but one of the many shameless acts of my party during the +age-long evening. At ten o'clock we retired to rest, for my own part, +thoroughly overfed, not in the least sleepy, worn with conversation, +and oppressed by the consciousness of flippant, even brutal, +ingratitude. + +The weather had cleared next morning to mild greyness, that softened +even the asperity of half-past eight breakfast. I lumbered stiffly +downstairs in a pair of new butcher boots, and found with thankfulness +that our hosts, exhausted possibly by their efforts, had kept their +rooms. + +Marshalled in order upon the sideboard stood the remains of all the +more enduring items of last night's dinner, cold indeed, but firm and +undefeated; hot dishes of ancient silver roasted before the noble +brass-mounted fireplace; there were vats of lethargic cream, a clutch +of new-laid eggs, a heap of hot scones. + +"It's easy seen it wasn't cracking blind nuts made Lucy Hodnett and +Louisa the size they are!" remarked Flurry, as the party, feeling more +piratical than ever, embarked upon this collation. "Mrs. Yeates, do +you think I am bound to dance with the pair of them to-night? You are, +Major, anyway! But I might get off with Louisa." + +"Oh, Sinclair's card is full," said my wife, who was engaged in trying +to decipher the marks on the cream jug without upsetting the cream; "he +and the General are plighted to one another for the evening." + +"I wonder if the claret has stained the carpet!" said Mrs. Flurry, +diving under the table. "It has! How awful!" Mrs. Flurry's voice +indicated the highest enjoyment. "Never mind, they'll never see it! +They're too fat to get under the table!" + +"If they did, it'd be the first time old Looshy's claret ever put +anyone there!" said Flurry. + +We have never known the precise moment in this speech at which "Old +Looshy's" butler entered the room; we only know that while Mrs. Flurry, +much hampered by habit and boots, was in the act of struggling from +beneath the table, he was there, melancholy and righteous, with a +telegram on a salver. + +It was from Flavin, the livery stableman, and its effect upon the +spirits of the company was that of a puncture in a tyre. + +"Regret horses not available; am trying to procure others; will send by +next train if possible." + +We said that there was no answer, and we finished our breakfasts in a +gravity scarcely lightened by Flurry's almost religious confidence in +Flavin's infallibility, and in his power of making horses out of +rushes, like the fairies, if need be. + +I was, I may admit, from the first thoroughly pessimistic. I almost +went up and got into ordinary clothes; I at least talked of doing so, +as a means of preparing Philippa for the worst. I said it was a mere +waste of time to send the Butler-Knox coachman to the station, as had +been arranged, and I did my best to dissuade Flurry from his intention +of riding to the meet by way of the station to help in unboxing animals +that could not possibly be there. + +In abysmal dejection my wife and I surveyed the departing forms of Mr. +and Mrs. Florence Knox; the former on the Dodger, a leggy brown +four-year-old, the planting of whom upon General Porteous had been the +germ of the expedition; while Sally skipped and sidled upon a narrow, +long-tailed chestnut mare, an undefeated jumper, and up to about as +much weight as would go by; parcel post for ninepence. There then +ensued a period of total desolation, in which we looked morosely at old +photograph books in the drawing-room, and faced the prospect of a long +day with the Butler-Knoxes, while heavy footsteps overhead warned us +that our entertainers were astir, and that at any moment the day's +conversation might begin. + +I was engaged, not, I fancy, for the first time, in telling Philippa +that I had always said that the entire expedition was a mistake, when +Colonel Newcome again entered the room. + +"The Master sent me to ask you, sir, if you'd like to have the +pony-phaeton to drive down to the station to meet the half-past ten +train. Flavin might be sending the horses on it, and it'd save you +time to meet them there." + +We closed with the offer; at its worst, the pony-carriage could be +smoked in, which the drawing-room could not; at its best, it might save +half-an-hour in getting to the meet. We presently seated ourselves in +it, low down behind an obese piebald pony, with a pink nose, and a mane +hogged to the height of its ears. As I took up the whip it turned and +regarded us with an unblinkered eye, pink-lidded and small as a pig's. + +"You should go through Fir Grove, sir," said the boy who had brought +the equipage to the door, "it's half a mile of a short cut, and that's +the way Tom will come with the horses. It's the first gate-lodge +you'll meet on the road." + +The mud was deep, and the piebald pony plodded through it at a sullen +jog. The air was mild and chilly, like an uninteresting woman; the +fore-knowledge of fiasco lay heavily upon us; it hardly seemed worth +while to beat the pony when he sank into a walk; it was the most +heart-broken forlorn hope that ever took the field. + +The gate-lodge of Fir Grove fulfilled the assignation made for it by +the stable boy, and met us on the road. The gates stood wide open, and +the pony turned in as by an accustomed route, and crawled through them +with that simulation of complete exhaustion that is the gift of lazy +ponies. Loud narrative in a male voice proceeded from the dark +interior of the lodge, and, as we passed, a woman's voice said, in +horrified rejoinder: + +"The Lord save us! She must be Anti-Christ!" + +Here, apparently, the speaker became aware of our proximity, and an old +woman looked forth. Her face was apprehensive. + +"Did ye see the police, sir?" she asked. + +[Illustration: "DID YE SEE THE POLICE?"] + +We replied in the negative. + +"Please God, she'll not come our way!" she said, and banged the door. + +We moved on, heavily, in the deep gravel of the avenue. + +"Isn't this rather awful? Shall we go on?" said Philippa. + +I replied with truth that there was no room to turn. On either side of +the narrow drive laurels and rhododendrons were crammed as thickly as +they could be planted, their dark foliage met overhead; if the +inexpressible "She" referred to by the lodge-keeper did come our way, +retreat would be out of the question. The tunnel ran uphill, and I +drove the pony up it as one drives a hoop, by incessant beating; had I +relaxed my efforts he would probably, like a hoop, have lain down. +Presently, and still uphill, we turned a corner, the tunnel ceased, and +we were face to face with a large pink house. + +As we advanced, feeling to the full the degradation of making a +short-cut past a strange house, in tall hats and a grovelling +pony-carriage, we beheld figures rushing past the windows of one of the +rooms on the ground floor, as if in headlong flight. Was this the +fulfilment of the dark sayings of the lodge-keeper, and was "She" +"coming our way?" The bouncing strains of a measure, known, I believe, +as "Whistling Rufus," came forth to us hilariously as we drew nearer. +The problem changed, but I am not sure that the horror did not deepen. + +Divining the determination of the piebald pony to die, if necessary, +rather than pass a hall door without stopping at it, yet debarred by +the decencies from thrashing him past the long line of windows, I +administered two or three rousing tugs to his wooden mouth. At the +third tug the near rein broke. The pony stopped dead. Simultaneously +the hall door was flung open, and a young and lovely being, tall, and +beautifully dressed, fluttered out on to the steps and peered at us +through long-handled eye-glasses. + +"Oh! I thought you were the police!" exclaimed the being, with +unaffected disappointment. + +The position seemed, from all points, to demand an apology. I +disengaged myself from the pony-carriage and proffered it; I also +volunteered any help that a mere man, not a policeman, might be capable +of rendering. + +The young lady aimed her glasses at the pie-bald, motionless in malign +stupor, and replied irrelevantly: + +"Why! That's the Knoxes' pony!" + +I made haste to explain our disaster and the position generally, +winding up with a request for a piece of string. + +"You're staying at the Butler-Knoxes!" exclaimed the lady of the house. +"How funny that is! Do you know you're coming to our dance to-night, +to meet your old friend the General! I know all about it, you see!" +She advanced with a beaming yet perturbed countenance upon Philippa, +"I'm so glad to meet you. Do come in! We've got an infuriated cook at +bay in the kitchen, and things are rather disorganised, but I think we +can rise to a bit of string! The pony's all right--he'll sleep there +for months, he always does." + +We followed her into a hall choked with the exiled furniture of the +drawing-room, and saw through an open door the whirling forms of two or +three couples of young men and maidens. + +"They're polishing the floor," said our hostess, swiftly shutting the +door, "they make a hideous noise, but it keeps them quiet--if you know +what I mean. It's most disastrous that my husband has gone out +hunting," she pursued; "this odious cook only arrived two days ago, +and----" + +At this juncture a door at the end of the hall burst open, disclosing a +long passage and a young and crimson housemaid. + +"She's coming, my lady! She's coming! Mr. Ralph's sent me on to get +the door open!" she panted. + +At the same moment a loud and wrathful voice arose in the passage and a +massive form, filling it from wall to wall, appeared; the capitulating +cook, moving down upon us with the leisurely and majestic truculence of +a traction-engine. As she came she chanted these words in measured +cadence: + + "Lady Flora, + Gets her brother + To do her dirty work." + + +By the time this rune had been repeated three times she was in the +hall, shepherded by a tall young man, obviously the brother referred +to, and by the butler, the vista being filled in the rear by a wavering +assortment of female domestics. As the cook tacked to weather a sofa, +there was something about her that woke a vague and unpleasant chord of +memory. Her ranging eye met mine, and the chord positively twanged as +I recognised the formidable countenance of a female, technically known +as a "job-cook," who for two cyclonic weeks had terrorised our +household while Mrs. Cadogan was on leave. I backed convulsively into +Lady Flora, in futile and belated attempt to take cover, but even as I +did so the chanting ceased and I knew the worst had happened. + +"Is that my darlin' Major Yeates?" shouted the cook, tacking again and +bearing down on me full-sailed. "Thanks be to God I have the gentleman +that'll see I get justice! And Mrs. Yeates, a noble lady, that'd never +set foot in my kitchen without she'd ask my leave! Ah, ha! As +Shakespeare says, I'd know a rale lady as soon as I'd put an eye on +her, if she was boiling cabbage!" + +[Illustration: "IS THAT MY DARLIN' MAJOR YEATES?" SHOUTED THE COOK] + +She caught my reluctant hand and waved it up and down, and the muffled +triumphings of "Whistling Rufus" in the drawing-room filled up the +position. + +Through them came a sound of wheels on the gravel, and through this +again a strangled whisper from behind: + +"Take her out to the steps; I hear the car with the police!" + +Holding the fervid hand of the job-cook, I advanced with her through +the furniture, skew-wise, as in the visiting figure of the Lancers; +there was an undoubted effort on her part to keep time to the music, +and she did not cease to inform the company that Major and Mrs. Yeates +were the real old nobility, and that they would see she got her rights. + +Followed closely by the shepherd and the butler, we moved forth on to +the steps. The police were not there. There was nothing there save a +complicated pattern of arcs and angles on the gravel, as of a +four-wheeled vehicle that has taken an uncommonly short turn. At the +bend of the avenue the pony-carriage, our link with the world without, +was disappearing from view, the piebald pony heading for home at a +pig-like but determined gallop. The job-cook clasped her hands on my +arm and announced to the landscape that she would live and die with the +Major. + + + + +IX + +"A HORSE! A HORSE!" + +PART II + +A quarter of an hour later Philippa and I stood in the high road, with +the sense of deliverance throbbing in every grateful nerve, and viewed +the car, with the job-cook and the policeman, swing heavily away +towards the railway station. + +Mine was the strategy that had brought about our escape, mine were the +attractions that had lured the cook to mount the policeman's car with +me, and still more inalienably mine was the searing moment when, still +arm-in-arm with the cook, we drove away from the deeply appreciative +party on the doorsteps. Philippa and a policeman were on the opposite +side of the car; the second policeman, very considerately, walked. + +We were close to the station, the cook had sung herself to sleep, and +Philippa and I had relapsed into the depths of abysmal despondency, +when our incredulous eyes beheld the Butler-Knoxes' coachman coming +towards us at a trot, riding a bay horse and leading a grey, on which +was a side-saddle. Flavin, the horse dealer, had, after all, been as +good as Flurry's word--the hirelings were here, and all was right with +the world. + +The car slackened to a walk, we slid from it silently, and it and its +burden passed into that place of shadows to which all extraneous +affairs of life betake themselves on a hunting morning, when the hour +is come, and the horse. + +Looshy's coachman delivered to me the bay horse, a large and +notable-looking animal, with a Roman nose adorned with a crooked blaze, +a tranquil eye, and two white stockings. In his left hand he held a +compact iron-grey mare, hogged and docked, who came up to the bank by +the roadside, to be mounted, as neatly as a man-o'-war boat comes +alongside. Hirelings of so superior a class it had never before been +my privilege to meet, and I made up my mind that they were either +incurably vicious or broken winded. + +"It's easy known that this mare's carried a lady before, sir," said the +coachman, a young man with a soul for higher things than driving the +Butler-Knox covered car, "and the big horse is the best I ever seen +come out of Flavin's! He's in grand condition, he's as slick as a +mouse! Only for Mr. Flurry being there we'd hardly have got them," he +continued, while he lengthened my stirrup-leathers, "the chap Flavin +sent with them had drink taken, and the porters had the box shunted and +himself in it, stretched, and the bottle of whisky with him!" + +Flavin's man and his bottle of whisky were now negligible incidents for +me. Philippa was already under way, and the time was short. The bay +horse, arching his neck and reaching pleasantly at his bit, went away +at a rhythmic and easy trot, the grey mare flitted beside him with +equal precision; it was, perhaps, rather fast for riding to a meet, but +we were late, and were they not hirelings? + +We followed our guides, the telegraph posts, for some four miles of +level road; they dropped down a deepening valley to a grey and brimming +river, and presently came slate roofs and white-washed houses, staring +at each other across an empty village street. We had arrived at +Kilbarron, the scene of the meet, and the meet was not. + +"They've gone on! they've gone on!" screamed an old woman from a +doorway, "away up over the hill!" + +Evidently every other live thing had followed the hunt, and we did not +spare Mr. Flavin's horses in doing the same. We reached the top of the +long hill in a remarkably brief space of time, and, having done so, +realised that we were not too late. A couple of fields away a row of +figures, standing like palings along the top of a bank, with their +backs to us, told that the hounds were still in view; even as we +sighted them, the palings plunged _en masse_ from their standpoint with +that composite yell that in Ireland denotes the breaking (and +frequently the heading) of a fox, and vanished. Whatever was +happening, it was not coming our way. I turned my hireling at the bank +by the roadside, he came round with a responsive swing, and in two +large and orderly bounds he was over. Before I had time to look round, +the grey mare, with the faintest hint of a buck, galloped emulously +past me. + +"Perfection!" panted Philippa, putting her hat straight. + +As we came up on to the next bank, recently vacated by its human +palisade, we found that fortune had smiled upon us. Just below, on our +right, was a long strip of gorse covert; three big fields beyond it, +gliding from us like a flock of seagulls, were the clamouring hounds, +and in the space between us and them bucketed the hunt, in the first +fine frenzy of getting away. Flavin's bay immediately caught hold, not +implacably, but with the firmness of superior knowledge; the grey mare, +having ascertained that Philippa was not going to interfere, thought +better of going on alone, and took the time from her stable companion. +The field was already sorting itself into the usual divisions of the +forward, the cunning, and the useless; our luck stood to us; the +forward division, carried away by the enthusiasm of a good start and a +sympathetic fall of ground, succeeded in less than a quarter of a mile +in hustling the hounds over the line, and brought about a check. We +joined the rearguard, and worked our way towards the front, +unobtrusively, because Sir Thomas Purcell's comments on the situation +were circling like a stock-whip among the guilty, and were not sparing +the innocent. At this moment we found Flurry Knox beside us. + +"Sir Thomas is giving the soldiers their tea in a mug!" he said; "and +they were in the want of it! How are those horses doing with you?" he +went on, looking our steeds up and down. "They look up to your +weights, anyhow! I suppose you didn't see your friend, the General? +He was at the meet in a motor." + +"In a motor!" repeated Philippa. "I thought he was such a wonderful +rider." + +"He knows how to get a motor along, anyhow," replied Flurry, his +attentive eyes following the operations of the hounds; "maybe he has +the gout. You'd say he had by the colour of his face. Hullo! Boys! +They're away again! Come on, Mrs. Yeates! Knock your two guineas' +worth out of Flavin!" + +Short as it was, the burst had been long enough to tranquillise my +anxieties as to our hirelings' wind, and when we started again we found +them almost excessively ready for the stone-faced bank that confronted +us at the end of the field. Some twenty of us, including the chidden, +but wholly unabashed soldiers, went at it in line, and, after the +manner of stone-faced banks, it grew very tall as we approached it. +Flavin's bay strode unfalteringly over it; it was as though he grasped +it and flung it behind him. The grey mare, full of jealousy and +vain-glory, had a hard try to fly the whole thing, but retained +sufficient self-control to change feet at the last possible instant; +with or without a scramble or a peck, we all arrived somehow in the +next field, and saw, topping the succeeding fence, the bulky chestnut +quarters of Sir Thomas Purcell's horse and the square scarlet back of +Sir Thomas. Away to the left, on an assortment of astute crocks, three +of the Misses Purcell followed the First Whip, at as considerable a +distance from their parent as was consistent with a good place. Their +voices came confusedly to us; apparently each was telling the others to +get out of her way. + +For a quarter of an hour the hounds ran hard over the clean +pasture-land, whose curves rose before us and glided astern like the +long rollers under an Atlantic liner. Innocent of rocks or pitfalls, +unimpeachable as to surface, it was a page of fair print as compared +with the black letter manuscript to which the country of Mr. Flurry +Knox's hounds might be likened. Never before have I crossed fences as +sound, as seductive, it was like jumping large and well-upholstered +Chesterfield sofas; Chesterfieldian also were the manners of Flavin's +bay. I found myself in the magnificent position of giving a lead to +Flurry and the Dodger, of giving several leads to the soldiery; once, +when a wide and boggy stream occurred, the Misses Purcell and the +crocks looked to me as their pioneer. The hustle and the hurry never +relaxed; the hounds had fastened on the line and were running it as +though it were a footpath; but for the check at the start, no fox could +have held his lead for so long at such a pace, and whatever the pace, +the tails of the horses of Sir Thomas and the First Whip never failed +to disappear over the bank just ahead. + +For me, in the unwonted glory of heading the desperadoes of the first +flight, life and the future were contained in the question of how much +longer I could count on my hireling. I was just able to spare a hasty +thought or two to Philippa and the grey, and I remember that it was +after a heavy drop into a road that I noticed, with the just and +impotent wrath of a husband, that her hair was beginning to come down. + +It was just then that I first saw the motor. The fox had run the road +for some little distance; we clattered and splashed along it, until an +intimidating roar from Sir Thomas and the sight of his right arm in the +air, brought us, bumping and tugging, to a standstill. The hounds were +for a moment at fault, swarming, with their heads down, over every inch +of the road, and beyond them, about a hundred yards from us, was a +resplendent scarlet motor, whose nearer approach was summarily +interdicted by the First Whip. I am short-sighted, but I caught an +impression of two elderly gentlemen, one of whom, wearing a white +moustache and a tall hat, was responding warmly to the fulminations of +Sir Thomas. If this were my ancient brother-in-arms, Jimmy Porteous, +following hounds in a motor, times were indeed changed. I dismissed +the possibility from my mind. Just then I caught sight of Flurry's +face; it had in it the fearful joy of a schoolboy who has seen a squib +put into the tail pocket of the schoolmaster, and awaits the result. +Mrs. Flurry, in the heroic act of plucking a hairpin from her own +unshaken golden-red plaits, and yielding it to Philippa, met his eye +with a glance that was so expressionless as to amount to a danger +signal. + +At this moment the hounds jostled over the wall with a clatter of +falling stones; they spread themselves in the field like the opening of +a fan, they narrowed to the recovered line like the closing of one; Sir +Thomas's chestnut hoisted himself and his fifteen-stone burden out of +the road with the heave of an earthquake. The riders shoved after him, +and we were swept again into the current of the hunt. + +As we thundered away up the field threatening shouts from the checked +motorists followed us; apparently, after the manner of their kind, they +had not a moment to spare, and the delay had annoyed them. The next +fence arrived, and they, and all else, were forgotten. + +There was a wood ahead of us, cresting a long upland, and for it the +hounds were making, at a pace that brutally ignored the rise of ground, +and the fact that in these higher levels the fields were smaller, and +the fences had to be faced up a hill that momently grew steeper. + +"Hold on, Mrs. Yeates, till I take down that pole for you!" Flurry's +voice followed us up the hill, and there was that in it that told he +was making heavy weather of it. He was leading the dripping Dodger, +and I have seldom seen a redder face than his as he laboured past +Philippa and dragged away the shaft of a cart that barred a gap. "Bad +luck to this for a close country!" he puffed. "You're not off one +fence before you're on top of the next!" Flavin's horses were +certainly lathering pretty freely, but were otherwise making no remark +on the situation, and neither of them had so far made a mistake of any +kind. I saw the First Whip regard the bay with obvious respect, and +turn with a confidential comment to the nearest Miss Purcell. It +hall-marked my achievements. + +Philippa and I were among the first into the wood; even Flurry had been +left three fields behind, and the glory of our position radiated from +us, as we stood at the end of the main ride, sublimely surveying the +arrival of the rest of the streaming hunt. Sir Thomas and the hounds +had dived out of sight into the recesses of the wood; a period of +inaction ensued, and for a few balmy minutes peace with honour was ours. + +Balmy, however, as were the minutes, there crept into them an anxiety +as to what the hounds were doing. A great and complete silence had +fallen as far as they and Sir Thomas were concerned, and Philippa and +I, conscious of our high estate as leaders of the hunt, melted away +from the crowd to investigate matters. We followed a path that took us +across the wood, and the deeper we went the deeper was the silence, and +the more acute became our fears that we had been left behind. Sir +Thomas had an evil reputation for slipping his field and getting away +alone. + +"There's the horn!" cried Philippa. "It's outside the wood! They +_have_ gone away. Hurry!" + +We were squeezing along the farther edge of the covert, looking for a +way out, and I, too, heard the note, faint, yet commanding. I hurried. +That is to say, with my hat over my eyes, and my cheek laid against the +bay's neck, I followed my wife up an alley that was barely wide enough +for a woodcock. + +On our left was an impassable hedge of small trees, crowning a heavy +drop into the field outside the wood; our faces were rowelled by the +branches of young spruce firs. It was all very well for Philippa, +riding nearly two hands lower than I, to twist her way in and out +through them like a squirrel, but for me, on a 16.2 horse, resolved on +following his stable companion through a keyhole if necessary, it was +anything but well. My eyes were tightly shut, my arm was in front of +them, and my eye-glass was hanging down my back, when I felt the bay +stop. + +"Here's a way out," said my wife's voice, apparently from the middle of +a fir tree, "there's a sort of a cattle track here." + +There followed a scramble and a slide, then Philippa's voice again, +enjoining me to keep to the right. + +She has since explained that she really meant the left, and that, in +any case, I might have known that she always said right when she meant +left; be that as it may, when the bay and I had committed ourselves to +the steep descent--half water-course, half cattle track--I was smitten +in the face by a holly branch. Before I had recovered from its impact, +a stout beechen bough, that it had masked, met me violently across the +waistcoat and held me in mid-air, as the gorilla is reputed to grasp +and hold the traveller, while my horse moved firmly downward from +beneath me. After a moment of suspense, mental and physical, I fell to +earth, like the arrow in the song, I knew not where, and tobogganed +painfully down something steep and stony, with briers in it. + +As I rose to my feet, the mellow note of the horn that had beguiled us +from the wood, again sounded; nearer now, and with a harsher cadence, +and I perceived, at the farther end of the field in which I had +arrived, a bullock, with his head over a gate, sending a long and +lamentable bugle note to the companions from whom he had been +separated. Simultaneously the hounds opened far back in the wood +behind me, and I knew that the flood-tide of luck had turned against us. + +Flavin's bay had not waited for me. He was already well away, going +with head and tail high held, a gentleman at large, seeking for +entertainment at a lively and irresponsible trot. Pursuing him, with +more zeal than discretion, was Philippa on the grey mare; he broke into +a canter, and I had the pleasure of seeing them both swing through a +gateway and proceed at a round gallop across the next field. I +followed them at the best imitation of the same pace that my boots +permitted, and squelched through the mire of the gateway in time to see +the bay horse jump a tall bank, and drop with a clatter into a road. +At the same moment the drumming and hooting of a motor-car broke upon +my ear, and three heads, one of them wearing a tall hat, slid at high +speed along the line of the fence. At sight of this apparition the bay +horse gave a massive buck, and fled at full speed up a lane. To my +surprise and gratification, the motor-car instantly stopped, and one of +its occupants--the wearer of the tall hat--sprang out and gave chase to +my horse. + +My attention was here abruptly transferred to my wife, who, having +followed the chase, whether by her own wish or that of the grey mare I +have never been able to discover, was now combating the desire of the +latter to jump the bank at the exact spot calculated to land them both +in the lap of the motor-car. The dispute ended in a slanting and +crab-like rush at a place twenty yards lower down, and it was then that +the figure of our host, Mr. Lucius Butler-Knox, rose, amazingly, in the +motor-car, making semaphore gestures of warning. + +The mare jumped crookedly on to the bank, hung there for half a second, +and launched herself into space, the launch being followed, +appropriately, by a mighty splash. Neither she nor Philippa reappeared. + +Throughout these events I had not ceased to run, and the next thing I +can distinctly recall is scrambling, thoroughly blown, on to the fence, +whence a moving scene presented itself to me. The grey mare and +Philippa had, with singular ingenuity, selected between them the one +place in the fence where disaster was inevitable; and I now beheld my +wife prone in two feet of yellow water, the overflow of a flooded ditch +that had turned a hollow by the roadside into a sufficiently imposing +pond. Mr. Butler-Knox and the chauffeur were already rendering all the +assistance possible, short of wetting their feet, and were hauling her +ashore; while the grey mare, recumbent in deeper water, surveyed the +operation with composure, and made no attempt to move. When I joined +the party--a process involving a wide circuit of the flood--Philippa +had sunk, dripping, upon a heap of stones by the roadside, in laughter +as inexplicable as it was unsuitable. There was, at all events, no +need to ask if she were hurt. + +"The most appalling thing that you ever knew in your life has +happened!" she wailed, and instantly fell again into unseemly +convulsions. + +Whatever the jest might be, it did not appeal to the chauffeur, who +withdrew in silence to his motor, coldly wiping the vicarious duckweed +from his knees with a silk pocket-handkerchief. Still less did it +appeal to me. Any fair-minded person will admit that I had cause to be +excessively angry with Philippa. That a grown woman, the mother of two +children, should mistake the bellow of a bullock for the note of a horn +was bad enough; but that when, having caused a serious accident by not +knowing her right hand from her left, and having, by further +insanities, driven one valuable horse adrift into the country, probably +broken the back of another, laid the seeds of heart disease in her +husband from shock and over-exertion, and of rheumatic fever in +herself; when, I repeat, after all these outrages, she should sit in a +soaking heap by the roadside, laughing like a maniac, I feel that the +sympathy of the public will not be withheld from me. + +The mystery of Mr. Butler-Knox's appearance in the motor-car passed by +me like a feather in a whirlwind; I strode without a word into the +yellow flood in which the mare was lying, and got hold of her reins +with the handle of my crop; I might as well have tried to draw out +Behemoth with a hook. Her hind-quarters were well fixed in the hidden +ditch, she made not the slightest effort to stir, and continued to +recline, contentedly, not to say defiantly. + +"That's a great sign of fine weather," said a voice behind me in +affable comment, "when a horse will lie down in wather that way." + +[Illustration: "THAT'S A GREAT SIGN OF FINE WEATHER WHEN A HORSE WILL +LIE DOWN IN WATHER THAT WAY"] + +I turned upon my consoler, and saw a young countryman with a fur-lined +coat hanging upon his arm. + +"I got this thrown in the bohireen above," he said, "the other +gentleman, that's follying the bay horse, stripped it off him, and God +knows it's itself that's weighty!" + +"My dear Major!" began Looshy, addressing me agitatedly from the bank, +as a hen might address a refractory duckling, "there has been a most +unfortunate mistake." + +"There has! There has! It's all Flurry's fault!" gasped Philippa, +staggering towards me like a drunken woman. + +"I fear the General is terribly annoyed," continued Looshy, wiping his +grey beard and mopping his collar to remove the muddy imprint of +Philippa's arm; "he rushed into Garden Mount in search of his horses +when he found they were not at the meet nor at the station--he left +Lady Porteous with my sisters and took me to identify you; I mentioned +your name, but he did not seem to grasp it--indeed his language +was--er--was such that I thought it unwise to press the point." + +I dropped the reins and began, slowly, to wade out of the pool. + +"I understand he has but just paid £300 for these horses--it was an +unpardonable mistake of Flurry's," went on Looshy, "he found the +General's horses at the station and thought that they were Flavin's." + +"Dear Flurry!" sobbed Philippa, shamelessly, reeling against me and +clutching my arm. + +"Begor' he have the horse!" said the young countryman, looking up the +hill. + +A stout figure in a red coat and tall hat was approaching by way of the +bohireen, followed by a man leading a limping horse. + +"I think," said Looshy nervously, "that Mrs. Yeates had better have my +seat in the motor-car and hurry home. I will walk--I should really +prefer it. The General will be quite happy now that he has found his +horses and his old friend." + +[Illustration: "I WILL WALK--I SHOULD REALLY PREFER IT"] + +The chauffeur, plying a long-necked oil-can, smiled sardonically. + + + + +X + +SHARPER THAN A FERRET'S TOOTH + +"My dear Philippa," said Miss Shute gloomily, "I have about as much +chance of spending next winter in Florence as I have of spending it in +the moon. I despair of ever getting Bernard married. I look upon him +as hopeless." + +"I don't agree with you at all," replied Philippa, "don't you remember +how demented he was about Sally Knox? And when we all thought he was +on the verge of suicide, we discovered that he was deep in a flirtation +with that American girl. It seems to me he's ready to be devoted to +any one who takes him in hand. He has none of that deadly helpless +fidelity about him." + +"I ought never to have allowed him to take up gardening," said Miss +Shute, despondently pursuing her own line of thought, "it only promotes +intimacies with dowagers." + +"Yes, and it makes men elderly, and contented, and stay-at-home," +agreed Philippa; "it's one of the worst signs! But I can easily make +Sybil Hervey think she's a gardener. She's a thoroughly nice, +coercible girl. Alice has always been so particular about her girls. +Of course with their money they've been run after a good deal, but +they're not in the least spoilt." + +"I don't think," I murmured privately to Maria, who was trying to +hypnotise me into letting her crawl on to the sofa beside me, "that +we'll borrow half-a-crown to get drunk with her." + +Maria wagged her tail in servile acquiescence. + +"Nonsense!" said my wife largely. + +A month from the date of this conversation, Sybil Hervey, my wife's +pretty, young, and well-dowered niece, was staying beneath our roof. I +had not changed my mind about the half-crown, though Maria, perfidious +as ever, feigned for her the impassioned affection that had so often +imposed upon the guileless guest within my gates. + +"Why, this dog has taken the most extraordinary fancy to me!" Sybil +Hervey (who was really a very amiable girl) would say, and Maria, with +a furtive eye upon her owners, would softly draw the guest's third +piece of cake into the brown velvet bag that she called her mouth. + +This was all very well from Maria's point of view, but a friendship +with Maria had not been the object of Miss Hervey's importation. I +evade, by main strength, the quotation from Burns proper to this state +of affairs, and proceed to say that the matrimonial scheme laid by my +wife and Miss Shute was not prospering. Sybil Hervey, the coercible, +the thoroughly nice, shied persistently at the instructive pages of +Robinson's "English Flower Garden," and stuck in her toes and refused +point blank to weed seedlings for her Aunt Philippa. Nor was a +comprehensive garden party at Clountiss attended with any success; far +otherwise. Miss Shute unfortunately thought it incumbent on her to +trawl in deep waters, and to invite even the McRory family to her +entertainment, with the result that her brother, Bernard--I quote my +wife verbatim--made a ridiculous spectacle of himself by walking about +all the afternoon with a fluffy-haired, certainly-rather-pretty, little +abomination, a creature who was staying with the McRorys. Worse even +than this, Sybil had disappointed, if not disgraced, her backers, by +vanishing from the ken of un-gentle men with Mr. De Lacy McRory, known +to his friends as "Curly." + +I have before now dealt, superficially, and quite inadequately, with +the McRorys. It may even be permitted to me to recall again the +generic description of each young male McRory. "A bit of a lad, but +nothing at all to the next youngest." Since that time the family had +worn its way, unequally and in patches, into the tolerance of the +neighbourhood. It was said, apologetically, that the daughters danced, +and played tennis and golf so well, and the sons did the same and were +such excellent shots, and that Mrs. McRory bought, uncomplainingly, all +that was offered to her at bazaars, and could always be counted on for +a whole row of seats at local concerts. As for old McRory, people said +that he was certainly rather awful, but that he was better than his +family in that he knew that he was awful, and kept out of the way. As +a matter of history, there were not many functions where a McRory of +some kind, in accordance with its special accomplishment, did not find, +at all events, standing room; fewer still where they did not form a +valued topic of conversation. + +Curly McRory was, perhaps, the pioneer of his family in their advance +to cross what has been usefully called "the bounder-y line." He played +all games well, and he was indisputably good-looking, he knew how to be +discreetly silent; he also, apparently, knew how to talk to Sybil what +time her accredited chaperon, oblivious of her position, played two +engrossing sets of tennis. + +After this fiasco came a period of stagnation, during which Mr. De Lacy +McRory honoured us with his first visit to Shreelane, bicycling over to +see me, on business connected with the golf club; in my regretted +absence he asked for Mrs. Yeates, and stayed for tea. Following upon +this Sybil took to saying, "I will," in what she believed to be a +brogue, instead of "yes," and was detected in fruitless search for the +McRorys of Temple Braney in the pages of Burke's Irish Landed Gentry. + +It was at this unsatisfactory juncture that Mrs. Flurry Knox entered +into the affair with an invitation to us to spend three days at +Aussolas Castle, one of which was to be devoted to the destruction of a +pack of grouse, fabled by John Kane, the keeper, to frequent a mountain +back of Aussolas: the Shutes were also to be of the party. I seemed to +detect in the arrangement a hand more diplomatic than that of +Providence, but I said nothing. + +The Flurry Knoxes were, for the moment, in residence at Aussolas, while +old Mrs. Knox made her annual pilgrimage to Buxton. They were sent +there to keep the servants from fighting, and because John Kane had +said that there was no such enemies to pigs as servants on board wages. +(A dark saying, bearing indirectly on the plenishing of pig-buckets.) + +Between servants and pigs, as indeed in most affairs of life, little +Mrs. Flurry held the scales of justice with a remarkably steady hand, +and under her régime one could at all events be reasonably sure of +having one's boots cleaned, and of getting a hot bath in the morning. +We went to Aussolas, and Flurry and Bernard Shute and I put in a +blazing September day on the mountain, wading knee deep in matted +heather and furze, in pursuit of the mythical grouse, and brought home +two hares and a headache (the latter being my contribution to the bag). +The ladies met us with tea; Sybil, in Harris tweed and admirable boots, +looked, I must admit, uncommonly smart. Even Flurry was impressed, and +it was palpable to the most superficial observer that Bernard was at +length beginning, like a baby, to "take notice." After tea he and she +moved away in sweet accord to wash teacups in a bog-hole, from whence +their prattle came prosperously to the ears of the three diplomatists, +seated, like the witches in Macbeth, upon the heath, and, like them, +arranging futures for other people. Bearing in mind that one of the +witches had (in a previous incarnation as Miss Sally Knox) held Bernard +in her thrall, and still retained him in a platonic sphere of +influence, any person of experience would have said that the odds were +greatly against Mr. Shute. + +[Illustration: FLURRY AND I PUT IN A BLAZING SEPTEMBER DAY ON THE +MOUNTAIN] + +The hot bath that was the _fine fleur_ of Mrs. Flurry's régime at +Aussolas failed conspicuously next morning. It was the precursor of a +general slump. When, at a liberal 9.30, I arrived in the dining-room, +of neither host, hostess, nor breakfast was there any sign. The host, +it appeared, had gone to a fair; having waited for a hungry half-hour +we were coming to the conclusion that the hostess had gone with him, +when the door opened and Mrs. Flurry came swiftly into the room. Her +face was as a book, where men might read strange matters; it was also +of a hue that suggested the ardent climate of the kitchen; in her hand +she carried a toast-rack, and following hard on her heels came three +maids, also heavily flushed, bearing various foods, and all, +apparently, on the verge of tears. This cortège having retired, Mrs. +Flurry proceeded to explain. The butler, Johnny, a dingy young man, +once Mrs. Knox's bathchair-attendant, had departed at 8 A.M., +accompanied by Michael the pantry boy, to dig a grave for a cousin. To +those acquainted with Aussolas there was nothing remarkable in this, +but Sybil Hervey's china-blue eyes opened wide, and I heard her ask +Bernard in a low voice if he thought it was anything agrarian. The +annoyance of the cook at the defection of the butler and pantry boy was +so acute that she had retired to her room and refused to send in +breakfast. + +"That was no more than I should have expected from the servants here," +said Mrs. Flurry vindictively, "but what was just a little too much was +finding the yard-boy cramming the toast into the toast-rack with his +fingers." + +At this my wife's niece uttered the loud yell which all young women +with any pretension to smartness have by them for use on emergencies, +and exclaimed-- + +"Oh, _don't_!" + +"You needn't be frightened," said Mrs. Flurry, giving Miss Hervey the +eighth part of a glance of her greeny-grey eyes; "I made this stuff +myself, and you may all think yourselves lucky to get anything," she +went on, "as one of the herd of incapables downstairs said, 'to get as +much milk as'd do the tea itself, that was the stratagem'!" + +Hard on the heels of the quotation there came a rushing sound in the +hall without, a furious grappling with the door-handle, and the cook +herself, or rather the Tragic Muse in person, burst into the room. Her +tawny hair hung loose about her head; her yellow-brown eyes blazed in +an ashen and extremely handsome face; she shook a pair of freckled +fists at the universe. I cannot pretend to do more than indicate the +drift of her denunciation. Brunhilde, ascending the funeral pyre, with +full orchestral accompaniment, could not more fully and deafeningly +have held her audience, and the theme might have been taken out of the +darkest corner of any of the Sagas. + +The burying-ground of her clan was--so she had been informed by a swift +runner--even now being broken into by the butler and the pantry boy, +and the graves of her ancestors were being thrown open to the Four +Winds of the World, to make room for the Scuff of the Country (whatever +that might mean). Here followed the most capable and comprehensive +cursings of the butler and the pantry boy that it has ever been my lot +to admire, delivered at lightning speed, and with gestures worthy of +the highest traditions of classic drama, the whole ending with the +statement that she was on her way to the graveyard now to drink their +blood. + +"I trust you will, Kate," cordially responded Mrs. Flurry, "don't wait +a moment!" + +The Tragic Muse, startled into an instant of silence, stared wildly at +Mrs. Flurry, seemed to scent afar off the possibility that she was not +being taken seriously, and whirled from the room, a Vampire on the +warpath. + +"I meant every word I said to her!" said Sally, looking round upon us +defiantly, "I was very near offering her your motor, Mr. Shute! The +sooner she kills Johnny and Michael the better pleased I shall be! And +I may tell you all," she added, "that we shall have no luncheon to-day, +and most probably no dinner!" + +"Oh, that's all right!" said Philippa, seeing her chance, and hammering +in her wedge with all speed, "now there's nothing for it but sandwiches +and a picnic!" + +The lake at Aussolas was one of a winding chain of three, connected by +narrow channels cut through the bog for the passage of boats that +carried turf to the lake-side dwellers. The end one of these, known as +Braney's Lake, was a recognised place for picnics; a ruined oratory on +a wooded point supplying the pretext, and a reliable spring well +completing the equipment. The weather was of the variety specially +associated in my mind with Philippa's picnics, brilliantly fine, with a +falling glass, and 12 o'clock saw us shoving out from the Aussolas turf +quay, through the reeds and the rocks. + +[Illustration: BRANEY'S LAKE] + +We were a party of six, in two boats; diplomacy, whose I know not, had +so disposed matters that Bernard Shute and Sybil Hervey were despatched +together in a dapper punt, and I, realising to the full the +insignificance of my position as a married man, found myself tugging at +a tough and ponderous oar, in a species of barge, known to history as +"The-Yallow-Boat-that-was-painted-black." My wife and Mrs. Flurry took +turns in assisting my labours by paddling with a scull in the bow, +while Miss Shute languidly pulled the wrong string at intervals, in the +stern. Why, I grumbled contentiously, should, as it were, fish be made +of Bernard and flesh be made of me (which was a highly figurative way +of describing a performance that would take a stone off my weight ere +all was done). Why, I repeated, should not Bernard put his broad back +into it in the heavy boat with me, and leave the punt for the ladies? +My wife tore herself from _sotto voce_ gabblings with Sally in the bow +to tell me that I was thoroughly unsympathetic, what time she dealt me +an unintentional but none the less disabling blow in the spine, in her +effort to fall again into stroke. Mrs. Flurry, in order to take turns +at the oar with Philippa, had seated herself on the luncheon basket in +the bow, thereby sinking the old tub by the head, and, as we afterwards +found, causing her to leak in the sun-dried upper seams. To us +travelled the voice of Bernard, lightly propelling his skiff over the +ruffled and sparkling blue water. + +"He's telling her about all the alterations he's going to make at +Clountiss!" hissed Sally down the back of Philippa's neck. + +"Almost actionable!" responded my wife, and in her enthusiasm her oar +again took me heavily between the shoulder blades. + +We laboured out of the Aussolas lake, and poled down the narrow channel +into the middle lake, where shallows, and a heavy summer's growth of +reeds, did not facilitate our advance. The day began to cloud over; as +we wobbled out of the second channel into Braney's lake the sun went +in, a sharp shower began to whip the water, and simultaneously Miss +Shute announced that her feet were wet, and that she thought the boat +must be leaking. I then perceived that the water was up to the bottom +boards, and was coming in faster than I could have wished. A baler was +required, and I proceeded with confidence to search for the rusty +mustard tin, or cracked jam-crock, that fills that office. There was +nothing to be found. + +"There are plenty of cups in the luncheon basket," said Sally, +tranquilly; "Flurry once had to bale this old boat out with one of his +grandmother's galoshes." + +Philippa and I began to row with some vigour, while Sally wrestled with +the fastening of the luncheon basket in the bow. The lid opened with a +jerk and a crack. There was one long and speechless moment, and then +Sally said in a very gentle voice: + +"They've sent the washing-basket, with all the clean clothes!" + +Of the general bearings of this catastrophe there was no time to think; +its most pressing feature was the fact that there were no cups with +which to bale the boat. I looked over my shoulder and saw Bernard +dragging the punt ashore under the ruined oratory, a quarter of a mile +away; there was nothing for it but to turn and make for the shore on +our right at the best pace attainable. Sally and Philippa +double-banked the bow oar, and the old boat, leaking harder at each +moment, wallowed on towards a landing stage that suddenly became +visible amid the reeds--the bottom boards were by this time awash, and +Miss Shute's complexion and that of her holland dress matched to a +shade. + +"Could you throw the washing overboard?" I suggested over my shoulder, +labouring the while at my massy oar. + +"My--new--nightgowns!" panted Mrs. Flurry, "never!" + +Just then big rocks began to show yellow in the depths, the next moment +the boat scraped over one, and, almost immediately afterwards, settled +down quietly and with dignity in some three feet of brown water and mud. + +Only those who have tried to get out of a submerged boat, can form any +idea of what then befell. Our feet and legs turned to lead, the water +to glue, all that was floatable in the boat rose to the surface, and +lay about there impeding our every movement. We had foundered in sight +of port and were not half-a-dozen yards from the landing stage, but to +drag myself and three women, all up to our waists in water, and the +ladies hopelessly handicapped by their petticoats, over the gunwale of +a sunken boat, and to flounder ashore with them in mud, over unsteady +rocks, and through the ever-hampering reeds, was infinitely more +difficult and exhausting than it may seem. + +Clasping a slimy post to my bosom with one arm, I was in the act of +shoving Miss Shute up on to the landing stage, when I heard the +unmistakeable Dublin light tenor voice of a McRory hail me, announcing +that he was coming to our rescue. More distant shouts, and the rapid +creaking of hard-pulled oars told that Bernard and Sybil were also +speeding to our aid. The three diplomates, dripping on the end of the +pier, looked at each other bodefully, and Philippa murmured: + +"The worst has happened!" + +After that the worst continued to happen, and at a pace that overbore +all resistance. Mr. De Lacy McRory, tall and beautiful, in lily-white +flannels, took the lead into his own hands and played his game +faultlessly. Philippa was the object of his chief solicitude, Sally +and Miss Shute had their share of a manly tenderness that resolutely +ignored the degrading absurdity of their appearance; his father's +house, and all that was therein was laid at our feet. Captive and +helpless, we slopped and squelched beside him through the shrubberies +of Temple Braney House, with the shower, now matured into a heavy +down-pour, completing our saturation, too spiritless to resent the +heavy pleasantries of Bernard, the giggling condolences of Sybil. + +We have never been able to decide at which moment the knife of +humiliation cut deepest, whether it was when we stood and dripped on +the steps, while Curly McRory summoned in trumpet tones his women-kind, +or when, still dripping, we stood in the hall and were presented to +Mrs. McRory and a troop of young men and maidens, vociferous in +sympathy and hospitality; or when, having progressed like water carts +through the house, we found ourselves installed, like the Plague of +Frogs, in the bedchambers of the McRorys, face to face with the supreme +embarrassment of either going to bed, or of arraying ourselves in the +all too gorgeous garments that were flung before us with a generous +abandon worthy of Sir Walter Raleigh. + +I chose the latter course, and, in process of time, found myself +immaculately clothed in what is, I believe, known to tailors as "a +Lounge Suit," though not for untold gold would I have lounged, or by +any carelessness endangered the perfection of the creases of its dark +grey trousers. + +The luncheon gong sounded, and, like the leading gentleman in any +drawing-room drama, I put forth from my dressing-room, and at the head +of the stairs met my wife and Miss Shute. They were, if possible, +grander than I, and looked as if they were going to a wedding. + +"We had the choice of about eighty silk blouses," breathed Philippa, +gathering up a long and silken train, "Sally has to wear Madame's +clothes, nothing else were short enough. We're in for it, you know," +she added, "a luncheon is inevitable, and goodness knows when we can +get away, especially if this rain lasts--" her voice broke +hysterically; I turned and saw Mrs. Flurry shuffling towards us in +velvet slippers, holding up with both hands a flowing purple brocade +skirt. I pointed repressively downwards, to where, in the window seat +of the hall below, were visible the crispéd golden curls of Mr. De Lacy +McRory, and the shining rolls and undulations of Miss Sybil Hervey's +_chevelure_. Their heads were in close proximity, and their voices +were low and confidential. + +"This must be put a stop to!" said Philippa, rustling swiftly +downstairs. + +We all moved processionally in to lunch, arm in arm with the McRorys. +To Philippa had fallen old McRory, who was the best of the party (in +being so awful that he knew he was awful). He maintained an unbroken +silence throughout the meal, but whistled jigs secretly through his +teeth, a method of keeping up his courage of which I believe he was +quite unconscious. Of the brilliance of the part that I played with +Mrs. McRory it would ill become me to speak; what is more worthy of +record is the rapid and Upas-like growth of intimacy between Curly +McRory and my wife's niece. She had probably never before encountered +a young man so anxious to be agreeable, so skilled in achieving that +end. The fact that he was Irish accounted, no doubt, in her eyes, for +all that was unusual in his voice and manners, and his long eyelashes +did the rest. Sybil grew momently pinker and prettier as the long, +extraordinary meal marched on. + +Of its component parts I can only remember that there was a soup tureen +full of custard, a mountainous dish of trifle, in whose veins ran +honey, instead of jam, and to whose enlivenment a bottle at least of +whisky had been dedicated; certainly, at one period, Philippa had on +one side of her plate a cup of soup, and on the other a cup of tea. +Cecilia Shute was perhaps the member of our party who took it all +hardest. Pale and implacable, attired in a brilliant blue garment that +was an outrage alike to her convictions and her complexion, she sat +between two young McRorys, who understood no more of her language than +she did of theirs, and was obliged to view with the frigid tranquillity +boasted of by Doctor Johnson, the spectacle of her brother devoting +himself enthusiastically to that McRory cousin whom Philippa had +described as a fluffy-haired abomination. Everything, in fact, was +occurring that was least desired by the ladies of my party, with the +single exception of my niece by marriage; and the glowing satisfaction +of the McRory family was not hid from us, and did not ameliorate the +position. + +When luncheon was at length brought to a close nothing could well have +been blacker than the outlook. The rain, and the splendour of our +borrowed plumes, put a return by boat out of the question. It was a +good seven miles round by road, and the McRory family, fleet and +tireless bicyclists, had but one horse, which was lame. A telegram to +Aussolas had been despatched an hour ago, but as Mrs. Flurry was +gloomily certain that every servant there had gone to the funeral, the +time of our release was unknown. + +I do not now distinctly remember what occurred immediately after lunch, +but I know there came a period when I found myself alone in the hall, +turning over the pages of a dreary comic paper, uncertain what to do, +but determined on one point, that neither principalities nor powers +should force me into the drawing-room, where sat the three unhappy +women of my party, being entertained within an inch of their lives by +Mrs. McRory. Sybil and Bernard and their boon companions had betaken +themselves to that distant and dilapidated wing of the house in which I +had once unearthed Tomsy Flood, there to play squash racquets in one of +the empty rooms. I was consequently enacting the part laid down for me +by my lounge suit; I was lounging, as a gentleman should, without for +an instant disturbing the creases of my trousers. + +At times I was aware of the silent and respectful surveillance of Mr. +McRory in the inner hall, but I thought it best for us both to feign +unconsciousness of his presence. Through a swing door that, true to +its definition, swung wheezily to the cabbage-laden draughts from the +lower regions, I could hear the tide of battle rolling through the +disused wing. The squash racquets seemed to be of a most pervading +character; the thunder of rushing feet, blent with the long, +progressive shriek of an express train, would at intervals approach +almost to the swing door, but I remained unmolested. I had entered +upon my second cigarette, and a period of comparative peace, when I +heard a stealing foot, and found at my elbow a female McRory of about +twelve as years go, but dowered with the accumulated experience of six +elder sisters. + +"Did Pinkie and Mr. Shute come in this way to hide?" she began, looking +at me as if "Pinkie," whoever she might be, was in my pocket. "We're +playing hide'n-go-seek, and we can't find them." + +I said I knew nothing of them. + +The McRory child looked at me with supernal intelligence from under the +wing of dark hair that was tied over one ear. + +"They're not playing fair anyhow, and there's Curly and Miss Hervey +that wouldn't play at all!" She eyed me again. "He took her out to +show her the ferrets and they never came back. I was watching them; +she said one of the ferrets bit her finger, and Curly kissed it!" + +"I suppose you mean he kissed the ferret," I said repressively, while I +thought of Alice Hervey, mother of Sybil, and trembled. + +"Ah, go on! what a fool you're letting on to be!" replied the McRory +child, with elegant sarcasm. She swung round on her heel and sped away +again upon the trail, cannoning against old McRory in the back hall. + +"I tell you, that's the lady!" soliloquised old McRory, from the deep +of the back hall. I gathered that he was referring to the social +capacity of his youngest daughter and thought he was probably right. + +It was at this moment that deliverance broke like a sunburst upon us; I +saw through the windows of the hall a dogcart and an outside car whirl +past the door and onwards to the yard. The former was driven by Flurry +Knox, the car by Michael the Aussolas pantry boy, apparently none the +worse for his encounter with the vampire cook. I snatched an umbrella, +and, regardless of the lounge suit, followed with all speed the golden +path of the sunburst. + +Flurry, clad in glistening yellow oilskins, met me in the yard, wearing +an expression of ill-concealed exultation worthy of Job's comforters at +their brightest. + +"D'ye know who opened your wire?" he began, regarding me with an all +observant eye from under his sou-wester, while the rain drops ran down +his nose. "I can tell you there's the Old Gentleman to pay at +Aussolas--or the old lady, and that's worse! That's a nice suit--you +ought to buy that from Curly." + +"Who opened my telegram?" I said. I was not at all amused. + +"'When she got there, the cupboard was bare,'" returned Flurry. "'Not +a servant in the house, not a bit in the larder!' If it wasn't that by +the mercy of providence I found the picnic basket that you bright boys +had left after you, she'd have torn the house down!" + +"I suppose you mean that your grandmother has come back," I said +stonily. + +"She fought with her unfortunate devil of a doctor at Buxton," said +Flurry, permitting himself a grin of remembrance, "he told her she was +too old to eat late dinner, and she told him she wasn't going to be a +slave to her stomach or to him either, and she'd eat her dinner when +she pleased, and she landed in at Aussolas by the mid-day train without +a word." + +"What did she say when she opened my telegram?" I faltered. + +"She said 'Thank God I'm not a fool!'" replied her grandson. + +The proposition was unanswerable, and I took it, so to speak, lying +down. + +"Here!" said Flurry, summoning the pantry boy. "These horses must go +in out of the rain. I'll look over there for some place I can put +them." + +"I see Michael got back from the funeral," I said, following Flurry +across the wide and wet expanse of the yard, "I suppose the cook killed +Johnny?" + +"Ah, not at all," said Flurry, "anyway, my grandmother had the two of +them up unpacking her trunks when I left. Here, this place looks like +a stable----" + +He opened a door, in front of which a cascade from a broken water-shoot +was splashing noisily. The potent smell of ferrets greeted us. + +Seated on the ferrets' box were Mr. De Lacy McRory, and Sybil, daughter +of Alice Hervey. Apparently she had again been bitten by the ferret, +but this time the bite was not on her finger. + + + + +XI + +OWENEEN THE SPRAT + +I was labouring under the slough of Christmas letters and bills, when +my wife came in and asked me if I would take her to the Workhouse. + +[Illustration: MY WIFE CAME AND ASKED ME IF I WOULD TAKE HER TO THE +WORKHOUSE] + +"My dear," I replied, ponderously, but, I think, excusably, "you have, +as usual, anticipated my intention, but I think we can hold out until +after Christmas." + +Philippa declined to pay the jest the respect to which its age entitled +it, and replied inconsequently that I knew perfectly well that she +could not drive the outside car with the children and the Christmas +tree. I assented that they would make an awkward team, and offered, as +a substitute for my services, those of Denis, the stopgap. + +Those who live in Ireland best know the staying powers of stopgaps. +Denis, uncle of Michael Leary the Whip, had been imported into the +kennels during my ministry, to bridge a hiatus in the long dynasty of +the kennel-boys, and had remained for eighteen months, a notable +instance of the survival of what might primarily have been considered +the unfittest. That Denis should so long have endured his nephew's +rule was due not so much to the tie of blood, as to the privileged +irresponsibility of a stopgap. Nothing was expected of him, and he +pursued an unmolested course, until the return of Flurry Knox from +South Africa changed the general conditions. He then remained +submerged until he drifted into the gap formed in my own establishment +by Mr. Peter Cadogan's elopement. + +Philippa's workhouse-tea took place on Christmas Eve. We were still +hurrying through an early luncheon when the nodding crest of the +Christmas tree passed the dining-room windows. My youngest son +immediately upset his pudding into his lap; and Philippa hustled forth +to put on her hat, an operation which, like the making of an omelette, +can apparently only be successfully performed at the last moment. With +feelings of mingled apprehension and relief I saw the party drive from +the door, the Christmas tree seated on one side of the car, Philippa on +the other, clutching her offspring, Denis on the box, embosomed, like a +wood-pigeon, in the boughs of the spruce fir. I congratulated myself +that the Quaker, now white with the snows of many winters, was in the +shafts. Had I not been too deeply engaged in so arranging the rug that +it should not trail in the mud all the way to Skebawn, I might have +noticed that the lamps had been forgotten. + +It was, as I have said, Christmas Eve, and as the afternoon wore on I +began to reflect upon what the road from Skebawn would be in another +hour, full of drunken people, and, what was worse, of carts steered by +drunken people. I had assured Philippa (with what I believe she +describes as masculine _esprit de corps_) of Denis's adequacy as a +driver, but that did not alter the fact that in the last rays of the +setting sun, I got out my bicycle and set forth for the Workhouse. +When I reached the town it was dark, but the Christmas shoppers showed +no tendency to curtail their operations on that account, and the +streets were filled with an intricate and variously moving tide of +people and carts. The paraffin lamps in the shops did their best, +behind bunches of holly, oranges, and monstrous Christmas candles, and +partially illumined the press of dark-cloaked women, and more or less +drunken men, who swayed and shoved and held vast conversations on the +narrow pavements. The red glare of the chemist's globe transformed the +leading female beggar of the town into a being from the Brocken; her +usual Christmas family, contributed for the festival by the neighbours, +as to a Christmas number, were grouped in fortunate ghastliness in the +green light. She extracted from me her recognised tribute, and pursued +by her assurance that she would forgive me now till Easter (_i.e._ that +further alms would not be exacted for at least a fortnight), I made my +way onward into the outer darkness, beyond the uttermost link in the +chain of public-houses. + +[Illustration: AN INTRICATE AND VARIOUSLY MOVING TIDE OF PEOPLE] + +The road that led to the Workhouse led also to the railway station; a +quarter of a mile away the green light of a signal-post stood high in +the darkness, like an emerald. As I neared the Workhouse I recognised +the deliberate footfall of the Quaker, and presently his long pale face +entered the circle illuminated by my bicycle-lamp. My family were not +at all moved by my solicitude for their safety, but, being in want of +an audience, were pleased to suggest that I should drive home with +them. The road was disgustingly muddy; I tied my bicycle to the back +of the car with the rope that is found in wells of all outside cars. +It was not till I had put out the bicycle lamp that I noticed that the +car-lamps had been forgotten, but Denis, true to the convention of his +tribe, asseverated that he could see better without lights. I took the +place vacated by the Christmas tree, the Quaker pounded on at his usual +stone-breaking trot, and my offspring, in strenuous and entangled duet, +declaimed to me the events of the afternoon. + +It was without voice or warning that a row of men was materialised out +of the darkness, under the Quaker's nose; they fell away to right and +left, but one, as if stupefied, held on his way in the middle of the +road. It is not easy to divert the Quaker from his course; we swung to +the right, but the wing of the car, on my side, struck the man full in +the chest. He fell as instantly and solidly as if he were a stone +pillar, and, like a stone, he lay in the mud. Loud and inebriate howls +rose from the others, and, as if in answer, came a long and distant +shriek from an incoming train. Upon this, without bestowing an +instant's further heed to their fallen comrade, the party took to their +heels and ran to the station. It was all done in a dozen seconds; by +the time the Quaker was pulled up we were alone with our victim, and +Denis was hoarsely suggesting to me that it would be better to drive +away at once. I have often since then regretted that I did not take +his advice. + +The victim was a very small man; Denis and I dragged him to the side of +the road, and propped him up against the wall. He was of an alarming +limpness, but there was a something reassuring in the reek of whisky +that arose as I leaned over him, trying to diagnose his injuries by the +aid of a succession of lighted matches. His head lay crookedly on his +chest; he breathed heavily, but peacefully, and his limbs seemed +uninjured. Denis at my elbow, did not cease to assure me, tremulously, +that there was nothing ailed the man, that he was a stranger, and that +it would be as good for us to go home. Philippa, on the car, strove as +best she might with the unappeasable curiosity of her sons and with the +pigheaded anxiety of the Quaker to get home to his dinner. At this +juncture a voice, fifty yards away in the darkness, uplifted itself in +song-- + + "Heaven's refle-hex! Killa-ar-ney!" + +it bawled hideously. + +It fell as balm upon my ear, in its assurance of the proximity of +Slipper. + +"Sure I know the man well," he said, shielding the flame of a match in +his hand with practised skill. "Wake up, me _bouchaleen_!" He shook +him unmercifully. "Open your eyes, darlin'!" + +The invalid here showed signs of animation by uttering an incoherent +but, as it seemed, a threatening roar. It lifted Denis as a feather is +lifted by a wind, and wafted him to the Quaker's head, where he +remained in strict attention to his duties. It also lifted Philippa. + +"Is he very bad, do you think?" she murmured at my elbow. "Shall I +drive for the doctor?" + +"Arrah, what docthor?" said Slipper magnificently. "Give me a +half-a-crown, Major, and I'll get him what meddyceen will answer him as +good as any docthor! Lave him to me!" He shook him again. "I'll +regulate him!" + +The victim here sat up, and shouted something about going home. He was +undoubtedly very drunk. It seemed to me that Slipper's ministrations +would be more suitable to the situation than mine, certainly than +Philippa's. I administered the solatium; then I placed Denis on the +box of the car with the bicycle-lamp in his hand, and drove my family +home. + +After church next day we met Flurry Knox. He approached us with the +green glint in his eye that told that game was on foot, whatever that +game might be. + +"Who bailed you out, Mrs. Yeates?" he said solicitously. "I heard you +and the Major and Denis Leary were all in the lock-up for furious +driving and killing a man! I'm told he was anointed last night." + +Philippa directed what she believed to be a searching glance at +Flurry's face of friendly concern. + +"I don't believe a word of it!" she said dauntlessly, while a very +becoming warmth in her complexion betrayed an inward qualm. "Who told +you?" + +"The servants heard it at first Mass this morning; and Slipper had me +late for church telling me about it. The fellow says if he lives he's +going to take an action against the Major." + +I listened with, I hope, outward serenity. In dealings with Flurry +Knox the possibility that he might be speaking the truth could never +safely be lost sight of. It was also well to remember that he +generally knew what the truth was. + +I said loftily, that there had been nothing the matter with the man but +Christmas Eve, and inquired if Flurry knew his name and address. + +"Of course I do," said Flurry, "he's one of those mountainy men that +live up in the hill behind Aussolas. Oweneen the Sprat is the name he +goes by, and he's the crossest little thief in the Barony. Never mind, +Mrs. Yeates, I'll see you get fair play in the dock!" + +"How silly you are!" said Philippa; but I could see that she was shaken. + +Whatever Flurry's servants may have heard at first Mass, was apparently +equalled, if not excelled, by what Denis heard at second. He asked me +next morning, with a gallant attempt at indifference, if I had had any +word of "the man-een." + +"'Twas what the people were saying on the roads last night that he +could have the law of us, and there was more was saying that he'd never +do a day's good. Sure they say the backbone is cracked where the wheel +of the car went over him! But didn't yourself and the misthress swear +black and blue that the wheel never went next or nigh him? And didn't +Michael say that there wasn't a Christmas this ten years that that one +hadn't a head on him the size of a bullawawn with the len'th of dhrink?" + +In spite of the contributory negligence that might be assumed in the +case of any one with this singular infirmity, I was not without a +secret uneasiness. Two days afterwards I received a letter, written on +copybook paper in a clerkly hand. It had the Aussolas post-mark, in +addition to the imprint of various thumbs, and set forth the injuries +inflicted by me and my driver on Owen Twohig on Christmas Eve, and +finally, it demanded a compensation of twenty pounds for the same. +Failing this satisfaction the law was threatened, but a hope was +finally expressed that the honourable gentleman would not see a poor +man wronged; it was, in fact, the familiar mixture of bluff and whine, +and, as I said to Philippa, the Man-een (under which title he had +passed into the domestic vocabulary) had of course got hold of a letter +writer to do the trick for him. + +In the next day or so I met Flurry twice, and found him so rationally +interested, and even concerned, about fresh versions of the accident +that had cropped up, that I was moved to tell him of the incident of +the letter. He looked serious, and said he would go up himself to see +what was wrong with Oweneen. He advised me to keep out of it for the +present, as they might open their mouths too big. + +The moon was high as I returned from this interview; when I wheeled my +bicycle into the yard I found that the coach-house in which I was wont +to stable it was locked; so also was the harness-room. Attempting to +enter the house by the kitchen door I found it also was locked; a +gabble of conversation prevailed within, and with the mounting +indignation of one who hears but cannot make himself heard, I banged +ferociously on the door. Silence fell, and Mrs. Cadogan's voice +implored heaven's protection. + +"Open the door!" I roared. + +A windlike rush of petticoats followed, through which came sibilantly +the words, "Glory be to goodness! 'Tis the masther!" + +The door opened, I found myself facing the entire strength of my +establishment, including Denis, and augmented by Slipper. + +"They told me you were asking afther me, Major," began Slipper, +descending respectfully from the kitchen table, on which he had been +seated. + +I noticed that Mrs. Cadogan was ostentatiously holding her heart, and +that Denis was shaking like the conventional aspen. + +"What's all this about?" said I, looking round upon them. "Why is the +whole place locked up?" + +"It was a little unaisy they were," said Slipper, snatching the +explanation from Mrs. Cadogan with the determination of the skilled +leader of conversation; "I was telling them I seen two men below in the +plantation, like they'd be watching out for some one, and poor Mr. +Leary here got a reeling in his head after I telling it----" + +"Indeed the crayture was as white, now, as white as a masheroon!" broke +in Mrs. Cadogan, "and we dhrew him in here to the fire till your Honour +came home." + +"Nonsense!" I said angrily, "a couple of boys poaching rabbits! Upon +my word, Slipper, you have very little to do coming here and +frightening people for nothing." + +"What did I say?" demanded Slipper, dramatically facing his audience, +"only that I seen two men in the plantation. How would I know what +business they had in it?" + +"Ye said ye heard them whishling to each other like curlews through the +wood," faltered Denis, "and sure that's the whishle them Twohigs has +always----" + +"Maybe it's whistling to the girls they were!" suggested Slipper, with +an unabashed eye at Hannah. + +I told him to come up with me to my office, and stalked from the +kitchen, full of the comfortless wrath that has failed to find a +suitable victim. + +The interview in the office did not last long, nor was it in any way +reassuring. Slipper, with the manner of the confederate who had waded +shoulder to shoulder with me through gore, could only tell me that +though he believed that there was nothing ailed the Man-een, he +wouldn't say but what he might be sevarely hurted. That I wasn't gone +five minutes before near a score of the Twohigs come leathering down +out of the town in two ass-butts (this term indicates donkey-carts of +the usual dimensions), and when Oweneen felt them coming, he let the +most unmarciful screech, upon which Slipper, in just fear of the +Twohigs, got over the wall, and executed a strategic retreat upon the +railway station, leaving the Twohigs to carry away their wounded to the +mountains. That for himself he had been going in dread of them ever +since, and for no one else in the wide world would he have put a hand +to one of them. + +I preserved an unshaken front towards Slipper, and I was subsequently +sarcastic and epigrammatic to Philippa on the subject of the curlews +who were rabbiting in the plantation, but something that I justified to +myself as a fear of Philippa's insatiable conscientiousness, made me +resolve that I would, without delay, go "back in the mountain," and +interview Oweneen the Sprat. + +New Year's Day favoured my purpose, bringing with it clear frost and +iron roads, a day when even the misanthropic soul of a bicycle awakens +into sympathy and geniality. I started in the sunny vigour of the +early afternoon, I sailed up the hills with the effortless speed of a +seagull, I free-wheeled down them with the dive of a swallow, and, as +it seemed to me, with a good deal of its grace. Had Oweneen the Sprat +had the luck to have met me, when, at the seventh milestone from +Shreelane, I realised that I had beaten my own best time by seven +minutes, he could practically have made his own terms. At that point, +however, I had to leave the high road, and the mountain lane that +ensued restored to me the judicial frame of mind. In the first twenty +yards my bicycle was transformed from a swallow to an opinionated and +semi-paralysed wheelbarrow; struggling in a species of dry watercourse +I shoved it up the steep gradients of a large and brown country of +heather and bog, silent save for the contending voices of the streams. +A family of goats, regarding me from a rocky mound, was the first hint +of civilisation; a more reliable symptom presently advanced in the +shape of a lean and hump-backed sow, who bestowed on me a side glance +of tepid interest as she squeezed past. + +The _bohireen_ dropped, with a sudden twist to the right, and revealed +a fold in the hillside, containing a half dozen or so of little fields, +crooked, and heavily walled, and nearly as many thatched cabins, flung +about in the hollows as indiscriminately as the boulders upon the +wastes outside. A group of children rose in front of me like a flight +of starlings, and scudded with barefooted nimbleness to the shelter of +the houses, in a pattering, fluttering stampede. I descended upon the +nearest cabin of the colony. The door was shut; a heavy padlock +linking two staples said Not at Home, and the nose of a dog showed in a +hole above the sill, sniffing deeply and suspiciously. I remembered +that the first of January was a holy-day, and that every man in the +colony had doubtless betaken himself to the nearest village. The next +cottage was some fifty yards away, and the faces of a couple of +children peered at me round the corner of it. As I approached they +vanished, but the door of the cabin was open, and blue turf smoke +breathed placidly outwards from it. The merciful frost had glazed the +inevitable dirty pool in front of the door, and had made practicable +the path beside it; I propped my bicycle against a rock, and projected +into the dark interior an inquiry as to whether there was any one in. + +I had to repeat it twice before a small old woman with white hair and a +lemon-coloured face appeared; I asked her if she could tell me where +Owen Twohig lived. + +"Your Honour's welcome," she replied, tying the strings of her cap +under her chin with wiry fingers, and eyeing me with concentrated +shrewdness. I repeated the question. + +She responded by begging me to come in and rest myself, for this was a +cross place and a backwards place, and I should be famished with the +cold--"sure them little wheels dhraws the wind." + +I ignored this peculiarity of bicycles, and, not without exasperation, +again asked for Owen Twohig. + +"Are you Major Yeates, I beg your pardon?" I assented to what she knew +as well as I did. + +"Why then 'tis here he lives indeed, in this little house, and a poor +place he have to live in. Sure he's my son, the crayture--" her voice +at once ascended to the key of lamentation--"faith, he didn't rise till +to-day. Since Christmas Eve I didn't quinch light in the house with +him stretched in the bed always, and not a bit passed his lips night or +day, only one suppeen of whisky in its purity. Ye'd think the tongue +would light out of his mouth with the heat, and ye'd see the blaze of +darkness in his face! I hadn't as much life in me this morning as that +I could wash my face!" + +I replied that I wanted to speak to her son, and was in a hurry. + +"He's not within, asthore, he's not within at all. He got the lend of +a little donkey, and he went back the mountain to the bonesetter, to +try could he straighten the leg with him." + +"Did Dr. Hickey see him?" I demanded. + +"Sure a wise woman came in from Finnaun, a' Stephen's Day," pursued +Mrs. Twohig swiftly, "and she bet three spits down on him, and she said +it's what ailed him he had the Fallen Palate, with the dint o' the blow +the car bet him in the poll, and that any one that have the Fallen +Palate might be speechless for three months with it. She took three +ribs of his hair then, and she was pulling them till she was in a +passpiration, and in the latther end she pulled up the palate." She +paused and wiped her eyes with her apron. "But the leg is what has him +destroyed altogether; she told us we should keep sheep's butter rubbed +to it in the place where the thrack o' the wheel is down in it." + +The blush of a frosty sunset was already in the sky, and the children +who had fled before me had returned, reinforced by many others, to +cluster in a whispering swarm round my bicycle, and to group themselves +attentively in the rear of the conversation. + +"Look here, Mrs. Twohig," I said, not as yet angry, but in useful +proximity to it, "I've had a letter from your son, and he and his +friends have been trying to frighten my man, Denis Leary; he can come +down and see me if he has anything to say, but you can tell him from me +that I'm not going to stand this sort of thing!" + +If the Widow Twohig had been voluble before, this pronouncement had the +effect of bringing her down in spate. She instantly, and at the top of +her voice, called heaven to witness her innocence, and the innocence of +her "little boy"; still at full cry, she sketched her blameless career, +and the unmerited suffering that had ever pursued her and hers; how, +during the past thirty years, she had been drooping over her little +orphans, and how Oweneen, that was the only one she had left to do a +hand's turn for her, would be "under clutches" the longest day that +he'd live. It was at about this point that I gave her five shillings. +It was a thoroughly illogical act, but at the moment it seemed +inevitable, and Mrs. Twohig was good enough to accept it in the same +spirit. I told her that I would send Dr. Hickey to see her son (which +had, it struck me, a somewhat stemming effect upon her eloquence), and +I withdrew, still in magisterial displeasure. I must have been half +way down the lane before it was revealed to me that a future on +crutches was what Mrs. Twohig anticipated for her son. + +By that night's post I wrote to Hickey, a strictly impartial letter, +stating the position, and asking him to see Owen Twohig, and to let me +have his professional opinion upon him. Philippa added a postscript, +asking for a nerve-tonic for the parlour-maid, a Dublin girl, who, +since the affair of the curlews in the plantation, had lost all colour +and appetite, and persisted in locking the hall door day and night, to +the infinite annoyance of the dogs. + +Next morning, while hurrying through an early breakfast, preparatory to +starting for a distant Petty Sessions, I was told that Denis wished to +speak to me at the hall door. This, as I before have had occasion to +point out, boded affairs of the first importance. I proceeded to the +hall door, and there found Denis, pale as the Lily Maid of Astolat, +with three small fishes in his hand. + +"There was one of thim before me in my bed lasht night!" he said in a +hoarse and shaken whisper, "and there was one in the windy in the +harness-room, down on top o' me razor, and there was another nelt to +the stable door with the nail of a horse's shoe." + +I made the natural suggestion that some one had done it for a joke. + +"Thim's no joke, sir," replied Denis, portentously, "thim's Sprats!" + +[Illustration: "THIM'S NO JOKE, SIR, THIM'S SPRATS!"] + +"Well, I'm quite aware of that," I said, unmoved by what appeared to be +the crushing significance of the statement. + +"Oweneen the _Sprat_!" murmured Philippa, illuminatingly, emerging from +the dining-room door with her cup of tea in her hand, "it's Hannah, +trying to frighten him!" + +Hannah, the housemaid, was known to be the humorist of the household. + +"He have a brother a smith, back in the mountain," continued Denis, +wrapping up the sprats and the nail in his handkerchief; "'twas for a +token he put the nail in it. If he dhraws thim mountainy men down on +me, I may as well go under the sod. It isn't yourself or the misthress +they'll folly; it's meself." He crept down the steps as deplorably as +the Jackdaw of Rheims, "and it's what Michael's after telling me, they +have it all through the country that I said you should throw Twohig in +the ditch, and it was good enough for the likes of him, and I said to +Michael 'twas a lie for them, and that we cared him as tender as if he +was our mother itself, and we'd have given the night to him only for +the misthress that was roaring on the car, and no blame to her; sure +the world knows the mother o' children has no courage!" + +This drastic generality was unfortunately lost to my wife, as she had +retired to hold a court of inquiry in the kitchen. + +The inquiry elicited nothing beyond the fact that since Christmas Day +Denis was "using no food," and that the kitchen, so far from indulging +in practical jokes at his expense, had been instant throughout in +sympathy, and in cups of strong tea, administered for the fortification +of the nerves. All were obviously deeply moved by the incident of the +sprats, the parlour-maid, indeed, having already locked herself into +the pantry, through the door of which, on Philippa's approach, she gave +warning hysterically. + +The matter remained unexplained, and was not altogether to my liking. +As I drove down the avenue, and saw Denis carefully close the yard +gates after me, I determined that I would give Murray, the District +Inspector of Police, a brief sketch of the state of affairs. I did not +meet Murray, but, as it happened, this made no difference. Things were +already advancing smoothly and inexorably towards their preordained +conclusion. + +I have since heard that none of the servants went to bed that night. +They, including Denis, sat in the kitchen, with locked doors, drinking +tea and reciting religious exercises; Maria, as a further precaution, +being chained to the leg of the table. Their fears were in no degree +allayed by the fact that nothing whatever occurred, and the most +immediate result of the vigil was that my bath next morning boiled as +it stood in the can, and dimmed the room with clouds of steam--a +circumstance sufficiently rare in itself, and absolutely without +precedent on Sunday morning. The next feature of the case was a letter +at breakfast time from a gentleman signing himself "Jas. Fitzmaurice." +He said that Dr. Hickey having gone away for a fortnight's holiday, he +(Fitzmaurice) was acting as his locum tenens. In that capacity he had +opened my letter, and would go and see Twohig as soon as possible. He +enclosed prescription for tonic as requested. + +It was a threatening morning, and we did not go to church. I noticed +that my wife's housekeeping _séance_ was unusually prolonged, and even +while I smoked and read the papers, I was travelling in my meditations +to the point of determining that I would have a talk with the priest +about all this infernal nonsense. When Philippa at length rejoined me, +I found that she also had arrived at a conclusion, impelled thereto by +the counsels of Mrs. Cadogan, abetted by her own conscience. + +Its result was that immediately after lunch, long before the Sunday +roast beef had been slept off, I found myself carting precarious +parcels--a jug, a bottle, a pudding-dish--to the inside car, in which +Philippa had already placed herself, with a pair of blankets and +various articles culled from my wardrobe (including a pair of boots to +which I was sincerely attached). Denis, pale yellow in complexion and +shrouded in gloom, was on the box, the Quaker was in the shafts. There +was no rain, but the clouds hung black and low. + +It was an expedition of purest charity; so Philippa explained to me +over again as we drove away. She said nothing of propitiation or +diplomacy. For my part I said nothing at all, but I reflected on the +peculiar gifts of the Dublin parlour-maid in valeting me, and decided +that it might be better to allow Philippa to run the show on her own +lines, while I maintained an attitude of large-minded disapproval. + +The blankets took up as much room in the car as a man; I had to hold in +my hand a jug of partly jellified beef tea. A sourer Lady Bountiful +never set forth upon an errand of mercy. To complete establishment--in +the words of the _Gazette_--Maria and Minx, on the floor of the car, +wrought and strove in ceaseless and objectless agitation, an infliction +due to the ferocity of a female rival, who terrorised the high road +within hail of my gates. I thanked heaven that I had at least been +firm about not taking the children; for the dogs, at all events, the +moment of summary ejectment would arrive sooner or later. + +Seven miles in an inside car are seven miles indeed. The hills that +had run to meet my bicycle and glided away behind it, now sat in their +places to be crawled up and lumbered down, at such a pace as seemed +good to the Quaker, whose appetite for the expedition was, if possible, +less than that of his driver. Appetite was, indeed, the last thing +suggested by the aspect of Denis. His drooping shoulders and +deplorable countenance proclaimed apology and deprecation to the +mountain tops, and more especially to the mountainy men. Looking back +on it now, I recognise the greatness of the tribute to my valour and +omnipotence that he should have consented thus to drive us into the +heart of the enemy's country. + +A steep slope, ending with a sharp turn through a cutting, reminded me +that we were near the mountain _bohireen_ that was our goal. I got out +and walked up the hill, stiffly, because the cramp of the covered car +was in my legs. Stiff though I was, I had outpaced the Quaker, and was +near the top of the hill, when something that was apparently a brown +croquet-ball rolled swiftly round the bend above me, charged into the +rock wall of the cutting with a clang, and came on down the hill with a +weight and venom unknown to croquet-balls. It sped past me, missed the +Quaker by an uncommonly near shave, and went on its way, hotly pursued +by the two dogs, who, in the next twenty yards, discovered with horror +that it was made of iron, a fact of which I was already aware. + +I have always been as lenient as the law, and other circumstances, +would allow towards the illegal game of "bowling." It consists in +bowling an iron ball along a road, the object being to cover the +greatest possible distance in a given number of bowls. It demands +considerable strength and skill, and it is played with a zest much +enhanced by its illegality and by its facilities as a medium for +betting. The law forbids it, on account of its danger to the +unsuspecting wayfarer, in consideration of which a scout is usually +posted ahead to signal the approach of the police, and to give warning +to passers by. The mountainy men, trusting to their isolation, had +neglected this precaution, with results that came near being serious to +the Quaker, and filled with wrath, both personal and official, I took +the hill at a vengeful run, so as to catch the bowler red-handed. At +the turn in the cutting I met him face to face. As a matter of fact he +nearly ran into my arms, and the yelp of agony with which he dodged my +impending embrace is a life-long possession. He was a very small man; +he doubled like a rabbit, and bolted back towards a swarm of men who +were following the fortunes of the game. He flitted over the wall by +the roadside, and was away over the rocky hillside at a speed that even +in my best days would have left me nowhere. + +The swarm on the road melted; a good part of it was quietly absorbed by +the lane up which I had dragged my bicycle two days before, the +remainder, elaborately uninterested and respectable, in their dark blue +Sunday clothes, strolled gravely in the opposite direction. A man on a +bicycle met them, and dismounted to speak to the leaders. I wondered +if he were a policeman in plain clothes on the prowl. He came on to +meet me, leading his bicycle, and I perceived that a small black +leather bag was strapped to the carrier. He was young, and apparently +very hot. + +"I beg your pardon," he said in the accents of Dublin, "I understand +you're Major Yeates. I'm Dr. Hickey's 'Locum,' and I've come out to +see the man you wrote to me about. From what you said I thought it +better to lose no time." + +I was rather out of breath, but I expressed my sense of indebtedness. + +"I think there must be some mistake," went on the "Locum." "I've just +asked these men on the road where Owen Twohig lives, and one of +them--the fellow they call Skipper, or some such name--said Owen Twohig +was the little chap that's just after sprinting up the mountain. He +seemed to think it was a great joke. I suppose you're sure Owen was +the name?" + +"Perfectly sure," I said heavily. + +The eyes of Dr. Fitzmaurice had travelled past me, and were regarding +with professional alertness something farther down the road. I +followed their direction, dreamily, because in spirit I was far away, +tracking Flurry Knox through deep places. + +On the hither side of the rock cutting the covered car had come to a +standstill. The reins had fallen from Denis's hands; he was obviously +having the "wakeness" appropriate to the crisis. Philippa, on the step +below him, was proffering to him the jug of beef tea and the bottle of +port. He accepted the latter. + +"He knows what's what!" said the "Locum." + +[Illustration: "HE KNOWS WHAT'S WHAT!" SAID THE LOCUM] + +[Illustration: ] + + + + +XII + +THE WHITEBOYS + +PART I + +It has been said by an excellent authority that children and dogs spoil +conversation. I can confidently say that had Madame de Sévigné and Dr. +Johnson joined me and my family on our wonted Sunday afternoon walk to +the kennels, they would have known what it was to be ignored. This +reflection bears but remotely on the matter in hand, but is, I think, +worthy of record. I pass on to a certain still and steamy afternoon in +late September, when my wife and I headed forth in the accustomed way, +accompanied by, or (to be accurate), in pursuit of, my two sons, my two +dogs, and a couple of hound puppies, to view that spectacle of not +unmixed attractiveness, the feeding of the hounds. + +Flurry Knox and Michael were superintending the operation when we +arrived, coldly observing the gobbling line at the trough, like +reporters at a public dinner. It was while the last horrid remnants of +the repast were being wolfed that my wife hesitatingly addressed Mr. +Knox's First Whip and Kennel Huntsman. + +"Michael," she said, lowering her voice, "you know the children's old +donkey that I spoke to you about last week--I'm afraid you _had_ +better----" + +"Sure he's boiled, ma'am," said Michael with swift and awful brevity, +"that's him in the throch now!" + +Philippa hastily withdrew from the vicinity of the trough, murmuring +something incoherent about cannibals or parricides, I am not sure +which, and her eldest son burst into tears that were only assuaged by +the tactful intervention of the kennel-boy with the jawbone of a horse, +used for propping open the window of the boiler-house. + +"Never mind, Mrs. Yeates," said Flurry consolingly, "the new hounds +that I'm getting won't be bothered with donkeys as long as there's a +sheep left in the country, if the half I hear of them is true!" He +turned to me. "Major, I didn't tell you I have three couple of +O'Reilly's old Irish hounds bought. They're the old white breed +y'know, and they say they're terrors to hunt." + +"They'd steal a thing out of your eye," said Michael, evidently +reverting to an interrupted discussion between himself and his master. +"There's a woman of the O'Reillys married back in the country here, and +she says they killed two cows last season." + +"If they kill any cows with me, I'll stop the price of them out of your +wages, Michael, my lad!" said Flurry to his henchman's back. "Look +here, Major, come on with me to-morrow to bring them home!" + +It was, I believe, no more than fifty miles across country to the +mountain fastness of the O'Reillys, and a certain chord of romance +thrilled at the thought of the old Irish breed of white hounds, with +their truly national qualities of talent, rebelliousness, and love of +sport. Playboy was one of the same race--Playboy, over whose +recapture, it may be remembered, I had considerably distinguished +myself during my term of office as M.F.H. + +I went. At one o'clock next day two lines of rail had done their +uttermost for us, and had ceded the task of conveying us to Fahoura to +the inevitable outside car. And still there remained a long flank of +mountain to be climbed; the good little slave in the shafts made no +complaint, but save for the honour and glory of the thing we might as +well have walked; certainly of the seven Irish miles of road, thrown +over the pass like a strap over a trunk, our consciences compelled us +to tramp at least three. A stream, tawny and translucent as audit ale, +foamed and slid among its brown boulders beside us at the side of the +road; as we crawled upwards the fields became smaller, and the lonely +whitewashed cottages ceased. The heather came down to the wheel marks, +and a pack of grouse suddenly whizzed across the road like a shot fired +across our bows to warn us off. + +At the top of the pass we stood, and looked out over half a county to +the pale peaks of Killarney. + +"There's Fahoura now, gentlemen," said the carman, pointing downwards +with his whip to a group of whitewashed farm buildings, that had +gathered themselves incongruously about a square grey tower. "I'm told +old Mr. O'Reilly's sick this good while." + +"What ails him?" said Flurry. + +"You wouldn't know," said the carman, "sure he's very old, and that +'fluenzy has the country destroyed; there's people dying now that never +died before." + +"That's bad," said Flurry sympathetically, "I had a letter from him a +week ago, and he only said he was parting the hounds because he +couldn't run with them any more." + +"Ah, don't mind him!" said the carman, "it's what it is he'd sooner +sell them now, than to give the nephew the satisfaction of them, after +himself'd be dead." + +"Is that the chap that's been hunting them for him?" said Flurry, while +I, for the hundredth time, longed for Flurry's incommunicable gift of +being talked to. + +"It is, sir; Lukey O'Reilly--" the carman gave a short laugh. "That's +the lad! They say he often thried to go to America, but he never got +south of Mallow; he gets that drunk sayin' good-bye to his friends!" + +"Maybe the old fellow will live a while yet, just to spite him," +suggested Flurry. + +"Well, maybe he would, faith!" agreed the carman, "didn't the docthor +say to meself that maybe it's walking the road I'd be, and I to fall +down dead!" he continued complacently, "but sure them docthors, when +they wouldn't know what was in it, they should be saying something!" + +We here turned into the lane that led to Mr. O'Reilly's house. + +We pulled up at the gate of a wide farmyard, with outcrops of the brown +mountain rock in it, and were assailed in the inevitable way by the +inevitable mongrel collies. Blent with their vulgar abuse was the +mellow baying of hounds, coming, seemingly, from the sky. The carman +pointed to the tower which filled an angle of the yard, and I saw, +about twenty feet from the ground, an arrow-slit, through which +protruded white muzzles, uttering loud and tuneful threats. + +"The kitchen door's the handiest way," said Flurry, "but I suppose for +grandeur we'd better go to the front of the house." + +He opened a side gate, and I followed him through a wind-swept +enclosure that by virtue of two ragged rose-bushes, and a walk edged +with white stones, probably took rank as a garden. At the front door +we knocked; a long pause ensued, and finally bare feet thudded down a +passage, a crack of the door was opened, and an eye glistened for a +moment in the crack. It was slammed again, and after a further delay +it was reopened, this time by a large elderly woman with crinkled black +and grey hair and one long and commanding tooth in the front of her +mouth. + +"Why then I wasn't looking to see ye till to-morrow, Mr. Knox!" she +began, beaming upon Flurry, "but sure ye're welcome any day and all +day, and the gentleman too!" + +The gentleman was introduced, and felt himself being summed up in a +single glance of Miss O'Reilly's nimble brown eyes. With many +apologies, she asked us if we would come and see her brother in the +kitchen, as he did not feel well enough to walk out to the parlour, and +she couldn't keep him in the bed at all. + +The kitchen differed more in size than in degree from that of the +average cabin. There was the same hummocky earthen floor, the same +sallow whitewashed walls, the same all-pervading turf smoke--the +difference was in the master of the house. He was seated by the fire +in an angular armchair, with an old horse-blanket over his knees, and a +stick in his hand, and beside him lay an ancient white hound, who +scarcely lifted her head at our entrance. The old man laboured to his +feet, and, bent as he was, he towered over Flurry as he took his hand. + +"Your father's son is welcome, Mr. Florence Knox, and your friend--" +He was short of breath, and he lowered his great frame into his chair +again. "Sit down, gentlemen, sit down!" he commanded. "Joanna! These +gentlemen are after having a long drive----" + +The clink of glasses told that the same fact had occurred to Miss +O'Reilly, and a bottle of port, and another of what looked like water, +but was in effect old potheen, were immediately upon the table. + +"How well ye wouldn't put down a glass for me!" thundered old O'Reilly, +"I suppose it's saving it for my wake you are!" + +"Or her own wedding, maybe!" said Flurry, shamelessly ogling Miss +O'Reilly, "we'll see that before the wake, I'm thinking!" + +"Well, well, isn't he the dead spit of his father!" said Miss O'Reilly +to the rafters. + +"Here, woman, give me the kettle," said her brother, "I'll drink my +glass of punch with Mr. Florence Knox, the way I did with his father +before him! The doctor says I might carry out six months, and I think +myself I won't carry out the week, but what the divil do I care! I'm +going to give Mr. Knox his pick of my hounds this day, and that's what +no other man in Ireland would get, and be dam we'll wet our bargain!" + +"Well, well," said Miss O'Reilly, remonstratingly, bringing the kettle, +"and you that was that weak last night that if you got Ireland's crown +you couldn't lift the bedclothes off your arms!" + +"Them hounds are in my family, seed and breed, this hundred years and +more," continued old O'Reilly, silencing his sister with one black +glance from under his thick grey brows, "and if I had e'er a one that +was fit to come after me they'd never leave it!" He took a gulp of the +hot punch. "Did ye ever hear of my brother Phil that was huntsman to +the Charlevilles long ago, Mr. Knox? Your father knew him well. +Many's the good hunt they rode together. He wasn't up to forty years +when he was killed, broke his neck jumping a hurl, and when they went +to bury him it's straight in over the churchyard wall they took him! +They said he never was one to go round looking for a gate!" + +[Illustration: "THEM HOUNDS ARE IN MY FAMILY, SEED AND BREED, THIS +HUNDRED YEARS."] + +"May the Lord have mercy on him!" murmured Miss O'Reilly in the +background. + +"Amen!" growled the old man, taking another pull at his steaming +tumbler, as if he were drinking his brother's health. "And look at me +here," he went on, reddening slowly through the white stubble on his +cheeks, "dying as soft as any owld cow in a boghole, and all they'll be +saying afther me is asking would they get their bellyful of whisky at +my wake! I tell you this--and let you be listening to me, +Joanna!--what hounds Mr. Knox doesn't take, I'll not leave them afther +me to be disgraced in the counthry, running rabbits on Sunday +afternoons with them poaching blackguards up out of the town! No! But +they'll have a stone round their neck and to be thrown below in the +lough!" + +I thought of the nephew Luke, whose friends had so frequently failed to +see him off, and I felt very sorry for old O'Reilly. + +"They will, they will, to be sure!" said Miss O'Reilly soothingly, "and +look at you now, the way you are! Didn't I know well you had no call +to be drinking punch, you that was coughing all night. On the face of +God's earth, Mr. Knox, I never heard such a cough! 'Tis like a sheep's +cough! I declare it's like the sound of the beating of the drum!" + +"Well, Mr. O'Reilly," said Flurry, ignoring these remarkable symptoms, +but none the less playing to her lead, "I suppose we might have a look +at the hounds now." + +"Go, tell Tom to open the tower door," said old O'Reilly to his sister, +after a moment's silence. He handed her a key. "And shut the gate +you." + +As soon as she had gone he got on to his feet. "Mr. Knox, sir," he +said, "might I put as much trouble on you as to move out this chair to +the door? I'll sit there the way I can see them. Maybe the other +gentleman would reach me down the horn that's up on the wall. He's +near as tall as meself." + +Flurry did as he asked, and helped him across the room. + +"Close out the half door if you please, Mr. Knox, and give me the old +rug that's there, my feet is destroyed with the rheumatics." + +He dropped groaningly into his chair, and I handed him the horn, an old +brass one, bent and dinted. + +Already the clamour of the hounds in the tower had broken out like +bells in a steeple, as they heard the footsteps of their jailor on the +stone steps of their prison. + +Then Tom's voice, shouting at them in Irish to stand back, and then +through the narrow door of the tower the hounds themselves, a striving +torrent of white flecked with pale yellow, like one of their own +mountain streams. There were about seven couples of them, and in a +moment they overran the yard like spilt quicksilver. + +"Look at them now, Mr. Knox!" said their owner, "they'd take a line +over the hob of hell this minute!" + +Pending this feat they took a very good line into what was apparently +the hen-house, judging by the hysterics that proceeded from within. +Almost immediately one of them reappeared with an egg in his mouth. +Old O'Reilly gave a laugh and an attempt at a holloa. "Ah ha! That's +Whiteboy! The rogue!" he said, and putting the horn to his lips he +blew a thin and broken note, that was cut short by a cough. +Speechlessly he handed the horn to Flurry, but no further summons was +needed; the hounds had heard him. They converged upon the doorway with +a rush, and Flurry and I were put to it to keep them from jumping in +over the half-door. + +I had never seen hounds like them before. One or two were pure white, +but most had some touch of faded yellow or pale grey about them; they +were something smaller than the average foxhound, and were strongly +built, and active as terriers. Their heads were broad, their ears +unrounded, and their legs and feet were far from complying with the +prescribed bedpost standard; but wherein, to the un-professional eye, +they chiefly differed from the established pattern, was in the human +lawlessness of their expression. The old hound by the fire had +struggled up at the note of the horn, and stood staring in perplexity +at her master, and growling, with all the arrogance of the favourite, +at her descendants, who yelped, and clawed, and strove, and thrust +their muzzles over the half-door. + +Flurry regarded them in silence. + +"There's not a straight one among them," he whispered in my ear through +the din. + +"There they are for you now, Mr. Knox," said old O'Reilly, still +panting after his fit of coughing. "There isn't another man in Ireland +would get them but yourself, and you've got them, as I might say, a +present!" + +Flurry and I went out into the yard, and the door was closed behind us. + +The examination--I may say the cross-examination--of the hounds that +followed, was conducted by Flurry and Michael to the accompaniment of a +saga from Tom, setting forth their miraculous merits and achievements, +to which, at suitable points, the carman shouted "Selah," or words to +that effect, through the bars of the gate. At the end of half-an-hour +Flurry had sorted out six of them; these were then coupled, and by dint +of the exertions of all present, were bestowed in a cart with sides +like a crate, in which pigs went to the fair. + +We did not see our host again. His sister told us that he had gone to +bed and wasn't fit to see any one, but he wished Mr. Knox luck with his +bargain, and he sent him this for a luck-penny. She handed Flurry the +dinted horn. + +"I'm thinking it's fretting after the hounds he is," she said, turning +her head away to hide the tears in her brown eyes. I have never until +then known Flurry completely at a loss for an answer. + + + +PART II + +A fortnight afterwards--to be precise, it was the 10th of October--I +saw the white hounds in the field. I had gone through the dreary +routine of the cub-hunter. The alarm clock had shrilled its exulting +and age-long summons in the pitchy dark. I had burnt my fingers with +the spirit-lamp, and my mouth with hot cocoa; I had accomplished my +bathless toilet, I had groped my way through the puddles in the stable +yard, and got on to my horse by the light of a lantern, and at 5.30 +A.M. I was over the worst, and had met Flurry and the hounds, with +Michael and Dr. Jerome Hickey, at the appointed cross-roads. The meet +was nine miles away, in a comparatively unknown land, to which Flurry +had been summoned by tales of what appeared to be an absolute epidemic +of foxes, accompanied by bills for poultry and threats of poison. It +was still an hour before sunrise, but a pallor was in the sky, and the +hounds, that had at first been like a gliding shoal of fish round the +horses' feet, began to take on their own shapes and colours. + +The white Irish hounds were the first to disclose themselves, each +coupled up with a tried old stager. I had been away from home for the +past ten days, and knew nothing of their conduct in their new quarters, +and finding Flurry uncommunicative, I fell back presently to talk about +them to Michael. + +"Is it settling down they are?" said Michael derisively. "That's the +fine settling down! Roaring and screeching every minute since they +came into the place! And as for fighting! They weren't in the kennel +three days before they had Rampant ate, and nothing only his paws left +before me in the morning! I didn't give one night in my bed since, +with running down to them. The like o' them trash isn't fit for a +gentleman's kennels. Them O'Reillys had them rared very pettish; it'd +be as good for me to be trying to turn curlews as them!" + +The indictment of "The Whiteboys" (a title sarcastically bestowed by +Dr. Hickey), their sheep-killing, their dog-hunting, with the setting +forth of Michael's trials, talents, and unrequited virtues, lasted, +like an Arabian night's tale, till the rising of the sun, and also +until our arrival at the place we were first to draw. This was a long +and deep ravine, red with bracken, bushy with hazel and alders; a black +stream raced downwards through it, spreading at the lower end into bog, +green, undefined, entirely treacherous; a place that instantly assures +the rider that if hounds get away on its farther side he will not be +with them. + +A couple of men were waiting for us at the lower end of the ravine. + +"They're in it surely!" they said, shoving down a stone gap for our +benefit; "there isn't a morning but we'll see the owld fellow and his +pups funning away for themselves down by the river. My little fellows, +when they does be going to school in the morning, couldn't hardly pass +his nest for the fume that'd be from it." + +The first ten minutes proved that the foxes were certainly there, and +during the following half-hour pandemonium itself raged in the ravine. +There were, I believe, a brace and a-half of cubs on foot; they were to +me invisible, but they were viewed about twice in every minute by +Flurry and his subordinates, and continuously by a few early rising +countrymen, who had posted themselves along the edges of the ravine. +The yells of the latter went up like steam whistles, and the hounds, +among whom were five couple of newly entered puppies, were wilder than +I had ever known them. They burst through the bracken and strove in +the furze, in incessant full cry, and still the cubs doubled and +dodged, and made detours round the valley, and Flurry and Michael +roared themselves inside out, without producing the smallest effect +upon anything save their own larynxes. No less than three times a fox +was frantically holloaed away, and when, by incredible exertions on all +our parts, the hounds, or a fair proportion of them, had been got +together on to the line, a fresh outburst of yells announced that, +having run a ring, he had returned to the covert. + +Each of these excursions involved-- + +1. Scrambling at best speed down a rocky hill side. + +2. Coercing a diffident horse across a noisy stream, masked by briars, +out of bog, on to rock. + +3. Reverse of the first proceedings. + +4. Arrival, blown and heated, at the boggy end of the valley, to find +the original conditions prevailing as before. + +I should, perhaps, have already mentioned that I was riding a young +horse, to whom I was showing hounds for the first time. My idea had +been to permit him, strictly as an onlooker, to gather some idea of the +rudiments of the game. He was a good young horse, with the large +gravity of demeanour that is often the result of a domestic bringing up +in the family of a small farmer; and when the moment came, and I was +inexorably hustled into acting as Third Whip, he followed in the wake +of Dr. Hickey with an anxious goodwill that made even his awkwardness +attractive. + +Throughout these excursions I noticed, as far as I was able to notice +anything, the independent methods of the O'Reilly draft. They ignored +the horn, eluded Michael, and laughed at Hickey and me; they hunted +with bloodthirsty intentness and entirely after their own devices. +Their first achievement was to run the earth-stopper's dog, and having +killed him, to eat him. This horrid feat they accomplished, secure +from interruption, in the briary depths of the ravine, and while the +main body of the pack were industriously tow-rowing up and down the +stream after their lawful fox, a couple of goats were only saved from +"The Whiteboys" by miracles of agility and courage on the part of the +countrymen. The best that could be said for them was that, "linking +one virtue to a thousand crimes," whenever the hounds got fairly out of +covert, the Whiteboys were together, and were in front. + +It was about eight o'clock, and the fierce red and grey sunrise had +been over-ridden by a regiment of stormy clouds, when one of the foxes +met his fate, amid ear-piercing whoops, and ecstatic comments from the +onlookers, who had descended from the hill-tops with the speed of +_ski_-runners. + +"Aha! that's the lad had many a fat duck under his rib!" + +"He had, faith! I'll go bail 'twas him that picked me wife's +fashionable cocks!" + +[Illustration: "I'LL GO BAIL 'TWAS HIM THAT PICKED ME WIFE'S +FASHIONABLE COCKS"] + +"Well, I'm told that if ye'll see a fox taking a hen or a goose, and +ye'll call to him in Irish, that he'll drop it," remarked an older man +to me, as we waited while Flurry and Hickey, in their capacity of +butler and footman to the hounds' repast, snatched the few remaining +morsels from the elder revellers and endeavoured to force them upon the +deeply-reluctant young entry, who, having hunted with the innocent +enthusiasm of the _dêbutante_, thought as little of the ensuing meal as +the _dêbutante_ thinks of supper at her first ball. + +"I wonder why the deuce Michael can't get those Irish hounds," said +Flurry, catching at the word and looking round. "I only have Lily +here." + +(Lily, I should say, was the romantic name of one of the Whiteboys.) + +"I believe I seen a two-three of the white dogs running east awhile +ago," said the elderly farmer, "and they yowling!" + +"They're likely killing a sheep now," murmured Hickey to me. + +At the same moment I chanced to look up towards the western end of the +ravine, and saw what seemed to be five seagulls gliding up a rift of +grass that showed green between rocks and heather. + +"There are your white hounds, Flurry," I called out, "and they're +hunting." + +"Well, well," said the farmer, "they're afther wheeling round the +length of the valley in the minute! They're nearly able to fly!" + +A distant holloa from Michael, whose head alone was visible above a +forest of furze, rose like a rocket at the end of the sentence, and +every hound sprang to attention. + +Once more we traversed the valley at full speed, and tackled the ladder +of mud that formed the cattle track up the ravine; slough up to the +horses' knees, furze bushes and briars meeting over their heads and +ours, hounds and country boys jostling to get forward, with pistol +shots behind from Hickey's thong, and the insistent doubling of +Flurry's horn in front. Up that green rift I went on foot, and, as it +were, hand in hand with my admirable young horse. The rift, on closer +acquaintance, proved to be green with the deceitful verdure of swampy +grass; (in Ireland, it may be noted, water runs up hill, and the +subtlest bog holes lie in wait for their prey on the mountain tops). +As we ascended, the wind that had risen with the sun, fought us every +inch of the way, and by the time I had won to level ground, I was +speechless, and blowing like the bellows of a forge. A country boy, +whose grinning purple face remains a fond and imperishable memory, +caught me by the leg and rammed me into my saddle; just in front of me +Flurry, also speechless, with his foot not as yet in his off stirrup, +was getting up to his hounds. These were casting themselves +uncertainly over a sedgy and heathery slope, on which, in this wind, +the hottest scent would soon be chilled to its marrow. Of Michael and +the Whiteboys nothing was to be seen. + +At a little distance a young man was grasping by the ears and nose a +donkey with a back-load of bracken, and a misplaced ardour for the +chase. + +"Did ye see the fox?" bellowed Flurry. + +"I did! I did!" + +"Which way did he go?" + +"Yerrah! aren't yer dogs after ateing him below!" shouted the young +man, waltzing strenuously with the donkey. + +"Well, there's a pair of you!" replied Flurry, cracking his whip +viciously at the donkey's tail, and thereby much stimulating the dance, +"and if I was given my choice of ye it's the ass I'd take! Here, come +on out of this, Hickey!" He shoved ahead. "Put those hounds on to me, +can't you!" + +During this interchange of amenities Lily had wandered aside, and now, +far to the left of the rest of the pack, was thoughtfully nosing along +through tufts of rushes; she worked her way down to a fence, and then, +mute as a wraith, slid over it and slipped away across a grass field, +still in jealous silence. + +"Hark forrad to Lily, hounds!" roared Flurry, with electrical +suddenness. "Put them on to her, Jerome!" + +"Well, those white hounds are the divil!" said Dr. Hickey, with a break +of admiration in his voice, as the hounds, suddenly driving ahead, +proclaimed to heaven that they had got the line. They were running up +a fierce north-westerly wind, and their cry came brokenly back to us +through it like the fragments of the chimes through the turmoil of +Tschaikowsky's "1812" symphony. The young horse began to realise that +there was something in it, and, with a monster and frog-like leap, flew +over the ensuing heathery bank, landing, shatteringly, on all fours. +We were travelling down hill, a fact that involved heavy drops, but +involved also the privilege, rare for me, of seeing the hounds +comfortably. Lily, leading the rest by half a field, was going great +guns, so were Flurry and Hickey, so, I may say with all modesty, were +the young horse and I. After an eventful and entirely satisfactory ten +minutes of racing over the class of country that has, on a low average, +seventeen jumps to the mile, we skated down a greasy path, and found +ourselves in a deep lane, with the hounds at fault, casting themselves +eagerly right and left. It was here that we came upon Michael, a +dolorous spectacle, leading his mare towards us. She was dead lame. + +"What happened her?" shouted Flurry through the rioting wind. + +"The foot's dropping off her, sir," replied Michael, with his usual +optimism. + +"Well, get away home with her as quick as you can," interrupted Flurry, +accepting the diagnosis with the usual discount of 90 per cent. "What +way did those white hounds go?" + +"The last I seen o' them they were heading west over the hill beyond +for Drummig. It might be he was making for an old fort that's back in +the land there behind Donovan's farm. There was a fellow driving a +bread van above in the road there that told me if the hounds got inside +in the fort we'd never see them again. He said there were holes down +in it that'd go from here to the sea." + +"What the devil good were you that you didn't stop those hounds?" said +Flurry, cutting short this harangue with a countenance as black as the +weather. "Here, come on!" he called to Hickey and me, "the road'll be +the quickest for us." + +It was about a mile by the road to Donovan's farm, and as Hickey and I +pounded along in the rear of the disgusted hounds, big pellets of rain +were flung in our faces, and I began to realise, not for the first +time, that to turn up the collar of one's coat is more of a protest +than a protection. + +The farmhouse of Donovan of Drummig was connected with the high road by +the usual narrow and stony lane; as we neared the entrance of the lane +we saw through the swirls of rain a baker's van bumping down it. There +were two men on the van, and in the shafts was a raking young brown +horse, who, having espied the approach of the hounds, was honouring +them with what is politically known as a demonstration. One of the men +held up his hand, and called out a request to "hold on awhile till they +were out on to the road." + +"Did you see any hounds?" shouted Flurry, holding back the hounds, as +the van bounded round the corner and into the main road, with an +activity rare in its species. + +"We did, sir," returned the men in chorus, clinging to the rail of +their knifeboard seat, like the crew of a racing yacht, "they have him +back in the fort above this minute! Ye can take your time, faith!" + +The van horse reared and backed, and Flurry turned in his saddle to eye +him as he ramped ahead in response to a slash from the driver; so did +Dr. Hickey, and so also did Lily, who, with her white nose in the air, +snuffed inquisitively in the wake of the departing van. + +"You'd say she knew a good one when she saw him," said Hickey as we +turned the hounds into the lane. + +"Or a good loaf of bread," I suggested. + +"It's little bread that lad carries!" answered Hickey, thonging the +reluctant Lily on; "I'll go bail, there's as much bottled porter as +bread in that van! He supplies half the shebeens in the country." + +As we splashed into the farmyard a young man threw open a gate at its +farther side, shouting to Flurry to hurry on. He waved us on across a +wide field, towards a low hill or mound, red with wet withered bracken, +and crested by a group of lean fir trees, flinging their arms about in +the wild gusts of wind and rain. + +"The fox wasn't the length of himself in front of them!" shouted the +young man, running beside us, "and he as big as a donkey! The whole +kit of them is inside in the fort together!" + +Flurry turned his horse suddenly. + +"Two and a half couple underground is enough for one while," he said, +riding back into the farmyard. "Have you any place I could shove these +hounds into?" + +The door of a cow-house was open, and as if in anticipation of his +wishes, the hounds jostled emulously into the darkness within. Again, +guided by the young man, we faced the storm and rain. What Flurry's +intentions were we neither knew nor dared to ask, and, as we followed +him over the soaked fields, a back more expressive of profound and +wrathful gloom it has never been my lot to contemplate. + +The place in which the fox and the Irish hounds had entombed +themselves, was one of the prehistoric earthen fortresses that abound +in the south-west of Ireland. The fort at Drummig was like a giant +flat-topped molehill; the spade work of a forgotten race had turned it +into a place of defence, and, like moles, they had burrowed into its +depths. The tongue of the young man who guided us did not weary in the +recital of the ways, and the passages, and the little rooms that was +within in it. He said that a calf belonging to himself was back in it +for a week, and she came out three times fatter than the day she went +in. He also, but with a certain diffidence, mentioned fairies. + +Round and about this place of mystery went Flurry, blowing long and +dreary blasts at the mouths of its many holes, uttering "Gone-away" +screeches, of a gaiety deplorably at variance with his furious +countenance. A more pessimistic priest never trumpeted round the walls +of a more impracticable Jericho. + +Hickey led the dripping horses to and fro in the lee of the fort, and I +was deputed to listen at a rabbit hole from which the calf was said to +have emerged. After a period of time which I was too much deadened by +misery to compute, Flurry appeared, and told me that he was going home. +Judging from his appearance, he had himself been to ground; what he +said about the white hounds and the weather was very suitable, but +would not read as well as it sounded. + +We returned to the farmyard with the wind and rain chivying us from +behind. + +"I asked a man, one time," said Dr. Hickey, as side by side, and at a +well-maintained distance, we followed our leader across the field, "why +his father had committed suicide, and he said, 'well, your honour, he +was a little annoyed.' I'm thinking, Major, it'd be no harm for us to +keep an eye on Flurry." + +I stooped my head to let the water flow out of the brim of my hat. + +"You needn't neglect me either," I said. + +While Hickey was getting the hounds out of the cow-house, my young +horse shivered with cold, and gave an ominous cough. I reflected upon +the twelve long miles that lay between him and home, and asked our +saturated guide if I could get a warm drink for him. There was no +difficulty about that; to be sure I could and welcome. I abandoned my +comrades; regret, if it were felt, was not expressed by Flurry. When +the hounds had paddled forth from the cow-house I put my horse into it, +and before they had accomplished half a mile of their direful progress, +I was standing with my back to a glowing turf fire, with my coat +hanging on a chair, and a cup of scalding tea irradiating the inmost +recesses of my person. + +My hostess, Mrs. Jeremiah Donovan, was a handsome young woman, tall, +fair, and flushed, agonised with hospitality, shy to ferocity. The +family dog was lifted from the hearth with a side kick worthy of an +International football match; her offspring, clustered, staring, in the +chimney-corner, were dispersed with a scorching whisper, of which the +words, "ye brazen tinkers," gave some clue to its general trend. +Having immured them in an inner room she withdrew, muttering something +about another "goleen o' turf," and I was left alone with an excellent +cake of soda-bread and two boiled eggs. + +Presently a slight and mouse-like rattle made me aware that one of the +offspring, aged about five, had escaped from captivity, and was +secretly drawing my whip to him along the floor by the thong. + +"What have ye the whip for?" said the offspring, undaunted by discovery. + +"To bate the dogs with," I replied, attuning my speech to his as best I +could. + +"Is it the big white dogs?" pursued the offspring. + +I paused midway in a mouthful of soda-bread. + +"Did you see the white dogs?" I asked very gently. + +"God knows I did!" said the offspring, warming to his work, "an' they +snapped the bit o' bread out of Joola's hand within in the cow-house! +And Joola said they were a fright!" + +I sat still and waited while one might count five, fearful of scaring +the bird that had perched so near me. + +"Are the white dogs here now?" I ventured, wooingly. + +"They are not." + +The crook of my crop was beginning to prove dangerously engrossing, and +the time was short. + +"Where did they go?" I persevered. + +"Jimmy Mahony and me uncle Lukey took them away in the van," said the +offspring with clearness and simplicity, slashing with my whip at a +member of the guild of Brazen Tinkers whom I assumed to be the already +injured Julia. + + * * * * * + +As I bestowed at parting a benefaction upon Jeremiah Donovan, I said +that I hoped he would let Mr. Knox know if any of the white hounds came +out of the fort. He assured me that he would do so. He was, like his +wife, a thoroughly good fellow, and he had wisped the young horse until +one would have said he had never been out of the stable. + +The storm had blown itself away, and the rain was nearly over. I rode +home quietly, and in peace and goodwill towards all men; after all, +there was no hurry. This was a thing that was going to last me for the +rest of my life, and Flurry's. + +I overtook Michael on the way home. Michael said that sure he knew all +through it was a drag, and if Mr. Flurry had been said by him, he'd +have had neither cut, shuffle, nor deal with them O'Reillys. In the +course of his life Michael had never been known to be in the wrong. + +Dr. Hickey told me (but this was some time afterwards) that often he +had to get out of his bed to laugh, when he thought of Flurry getting +Jeremiah Donovan to screech in Irish down the holes in the fort, for +fear old O'Reilly's hounds had no English. It is hardly necessary to +say that Dr. Hickey also had been convinced by the way the hounds ran +that it was a drag, but had omitted to mention the fact at the time. + +Flurry was lost to home and country for three days. It was darkly said +that he had gone to Fahoura to break every bone in young O'Reilly's +body, and, incidentally, to bring back the white hounds. At the end of +the three days he telegraphed for a man and a saddle to meet the +afternoon train. There was nothing in the telegram about hounds. Next +day I met him riding a young brown horse, with a wildish eye, and a +nasty rub from a misfitting collar. + +"I got him in a sort of a swap," said Flurry tranquilly. + +"I suppose he got that rub in the bread-van?" I remarked drawing a bow +at a venture. + +"Well, that might be, too," assented Flurry, regarding me with an eye +that was like a stone wall with broken glass on the top. + + + + +THE END + + + + +Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co. + +Edinburgh & London + + + + +Crown 8vo, 6s. + +SOME EXPERIENCES OF + +AN IRISH R.M. + + +BY + +E. [OE]. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS + +With 31 Illustrations by E. [OE]. SOMERVILLE. + +Speaker.--"There are in its pages more good stories, quaint characters, +and humorous incidents than we remember to have seen since the days of +Lever." + +Academy.--"Sheer unadulterated laughter is one of the best things that +even literature can give, and we are hard put to it to remember a book +of these latter days to which we owe more of it than we do to the Irish +R.M." + +Pall Mall Gazette.--"We can warmly recommend this book as a sure +antidote for melancholy; it is brimful of brilliant wit and harmless +mirth; it is a tonic for the dyspeptic and a stimulant to the healthy +mind. A more amusing book has not been written for many a year." + +Mr. Stephen Gwynn in the "Cornhill Magazine."--"There are few greater +attractions than that of open healthy laughter of the contagious sort; +and it would be black ingratitude not to pay tribute to the authoresses +of 'Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.'--a book that no decorous person +can read with comfort in a railway carriage." + +The Baron de Book Worms in "Punch."--"Dulness is banished from the +opening of the book to the close thereof.... Since Charles Lever was +at his best, with 'Harry Lorrequer,' 'Charles O'Malley,' 'Tom Burke of +Ours,' and, may be, 'The Knight of Gwynne,' no such rollicking Irish +book as this has appeared, at least not within the period whereunto the +memory of the Baron runneth not to the contrary.... Nothing of a +sedate or gentle character is to be found here; nearly every story is +calculated to set the table in a roar." + + + +THE REAL CHARLOTTE + +BY + +E. [OE]. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS + +Graphic.--"'The Real Charlotte' is indeed a book to enjoy at leisure. +It is full of fascinating actuality; and it should be added that the +authors have united their work without leaving a single visible seam." + +Daily News.--"The story provides a liberal entertainment of pathos and +humour. All the actors therein, whether sketched with a few pregnant +strokes, or minutely elaborated, are very much alive." + +Athenaeum.--"The book may be too long, but there are so many amusing +and delightful passages, humorous sayings and doings, with here and +there a word or a line which gives away the very heart of an Irish +landscape, or a man or woman, that we really cannot complain." + +Pall Mall Gazette.--"'The Real Charlotte' is perhaps one of the best +modern examples of an English (or rather an Irish) realistic novel +extant." + + + +THE SILVER FOX + +BY + +E. [OE]. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS + +Queen.--"The book is written in a bright and breezy tone, with +ever-restrained humour. It displays nice sense of light and shadow and +power of characterisation." + +Spectator.--"Broadly speaking the novel may be said to exhibit in a +dramatic form the extraordinary hold which superstition still possesses +on the minds of the Irish peasantry and the drawbacks, and even +dangers, which may result from an unsympathetic or intolerant disregard +of such prejudices." + +Daily Chronicle.--"We cannot do justice to this book by quotation. Its +method and its writing are so good that they tempt us to say its +authors have nothing to learn from the French novelists." + + + +ALL ON THE IRISH SHORE + +BY + +E. [OE]. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS + +With 10 Illustrations by E. [OE]. SOMERVILLE. + +Academy.--"A volume to dispel melancholy and arouse the healthiest +laughter." + +Badminton Magazine.--"Excellent tales, racy of the soil, full of humour +and quaint fancy." + +Daily Graphic.--"The world is a good deal gayer for a book of sketches +like 'All on the Irish Shore.'" + +Daily Telegraph.--"It is fairly safe to predict that the reader who +takes up this book will have no inclination to put it down until he has +read it through from cover to cover." + +Times.--"These stories rise far above the mere sporting level, and +exhibit gifts of perception, literary perception, much higher than +anything that has yet appeared from the same clever pens." + +Scotsman.--"'All on the Irish Shore' has hardly a page between its +covers that does not contain some touch of rollicking Irish humour that +is calculated to provoke the most serious-minded person to mirth." + +Spectator.--"The paramount duty of a reviewer in dealing with this +happily-named volume is one of extreme simplicity--namely, to advise +any one who loves wit, humour, horses, and Ireland to procure it +without delay. The mere fact that it is by the joint authors of 'Some +Experiences of an Irish R.M.' will doubtless prove a ready passport in +the affections of all who have read and re-read that modern classic." + + + +AN IRISH COUSIN + +BY + +E. [OE]. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS + +World.--"A clever story brimful of humour." + +Irish Monthly.--"This story is very clever and very well written with +fine bits of description and proof of keen observation." + + + +LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO., 39 PATERNOSTER Row, LONDON + +NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Further Experiences of an Irish R.M., by +E. OEnone Somerville and Martin Ross + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FURTHER EXPERIENCES OF IRISH R.M. *** + +***** This file should be named 38108-8.txt or 38108-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/1/0/38108/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +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. 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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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/38108-8.zip b/old/38108-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0eec0f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/38108-8.zip diff --git a/old/38108.txt b/old/38108.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..617db54 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/38108.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7855 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Further Experiences of an Irish R.M., by +E. OEnone 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: Further Experiences of an Irish R.M. + +Author: E. OEnone Somerville + Martin Ross + +Illustrator: E. OEnone Somerville + +Release Date: November 22, 2011 [EBook #38108] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FURTHER EXPERIENCES OF IRISH R.M. *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: OLD FLYNN, MOVING ALONG THE VERGE, BECAME IDYLLIC] + + + + + +Further Experiences of an + +Irish R.M. + + + +By + +E. [OE]. Somerville and Martin Ross + + +Authors of "Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.," + "Some Irish Yesterdays," "All on the Irish Shore," + "The Real Charlotte," etc. etc. etc. + + + + +With 35 Illustrations by E. [OE]. Somerville + + + + +Longmans, Green, and Co. + +39 Paternoster Row, London + +New York, Bombay, and Calcutta + +1908 + +All rights reserved + + + + +_BY THE SAME AUTHORS_ + + +SOME EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH R.M. + +With 31 Illustrations by E. [OE]. SOMERVILLE. Crown 8vo, 6s. + + +SOME IRISH YESTERDAYS + +With 51 Illustrations by E. [OE]. SOMERVILLE. Crown 8vo, 6s. + + +AN IRISH COUSIN + +Crown 8vo, 6s. + + +THE REAL CHARLOTTE + +Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. + + +THE SILVER FOX + +Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. + + +ALL ON THE IRISH SHORE + +With 10 Illustrations by E. [OE]. SOMERVILLE. Crown 8vo, 6s. + + + +LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. + +LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. THE PUG-NOSED FOX + II. A ROYAL COMMAND + III. POISSON D'AVRIL + IV. "THE MAN THAT CAME TO BUY APPLES" + V. A CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE + VI. THE BOAT'S SHARE + VII. THE LAST DAY OF SHRAFT + VIII. "A HORSE! A HORSE!" (Part I.) + IX. "AHORSE! A HORSE!" (Part II.) + X. SHARPER THAN A FERRET'S TOOTH + XI. OWENEEN THE SPRAT + XII. THE WHITEBOYS + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +HALF-TONE + + +Old Flynn, moving along the verge, became idyllic . . . . Frontispiece + +Suspicious of an ill-timed pleasantry + +"Take me out of this" + +Whizzed like a driven grouse past the combatants + +The guard put his hand over his mouth + +"And not a brown farthing more would he give" + +"I'm dashed if she hasn't got Sullivan's pony" + +He crowned the arrangement with the bottle of potheen + +A trayful of burning sods of turf + +He did not deny himself a most dissolute wink + +Maria's performance was faultless + +The Modulator opened with a long-drawn and nasal cadenza + +"Did ye see the police!" + +"Is that my darlin' Major Yeates?" shouted the cook + +"I will walk--I should really prefer it" + +Flurry and I put in a blazing September day on the mountain + +Braney's Lake + +An intricate and variously moving tide of people + +"Them hounds are in my family, seed and breed, this hundred years" + +"I'll go bail 'twas him that picked me wife's fashionable cocks" + + +IN THE TEXT + + +The egregious Slipper + +The victim came + +"Ye have them in great form, Michael" + +Pure ecstasy stretched his grin from ear to ear + +"They're lovely fish altogether! they're leppin' fresh!" + +The invalid removed herself + +Con Brickley + +"Let the divil clear me out of the sthrand!" + +A witness to be proud of + +His mornings were spent in proffering Irish phrases + +The Sergeant's manner was distressingly apologetic + +"That's a great sign of fine weather when a horse will lie + down in wather that way" + +My wife came and asked me if I would take her to the workhouse + +"Thim's no joke, sir, thim's Sprats!" + +"He knows what's what!" said the Locum + + + + +FURTHER EXPERIENCES OF + AN IRISH R.M. + + + + +I + +THE PUG-NOSED FOX + + "5 Turkies and their Mother + 5 Ducks and the Drake + 5 Hins and the Cock + CATHARINE O'DONOVAN, Skeagh." + + +A leaf from a copy-book, with these words written on it, was placed in +my hand as I was in the act of dragging on a new pair of gloves in the +stableyard. There was something rhythmic in the category, suggestive +of burnt-offerings and incantations; some touch of pathos, pointing to +tragedy; something, finally, that in the light of previous events +recalled to me suddenly and unpleasantly my new-born position of Deputy +M.F.H. + +Not, indeed, that I was in need at that moment of circumstances to +remind me of it. A new hunting-cap, pressing implacably upon my +forehead, an equally new red coat, heavy as a coat of mail, a +glittering horn, red hot from the makers, and so far totally +unresponsive to my apoplectic wooings; these things in themselves, +without the addition of a poultry bill, were sufficient to bring home +to me my amazing folly in having succumbed to the wiles of Mr. Florence +McCarthy Knox, and accepted the charge of his hounds, during his +absence with the Irish Yeomanry at the South African war. + +I had yielded in a burst of patriotic emotion to the spirit of +volunteering that was in the air. It would be, Flurry had assured me, +a purely nominal position. + +"They'll only go out one day a week, and Jerome Hickey and Michael'll +do all the work. I do secretary for myself, but that'll be no trouble +to you. There's nothing at all to do but to send out the cards of the +meets. It'll be a comfort to me to think you were running the show." + +I suggested other names that seemed to me infinitely more comfortable, +but found them blocked by intricate and insuperable objections, and +when I became aware that Mr. Knox had so engineered his case as to get +my wife on his side it seemed simpler to give in. + +A week afterwards I saw Flurry off at the station. His last words to +me were: + +"Well, good-bye, Major. Be fighting my grandmother for her +subscription, and whatever you do, don't give more than half-a-crown +for a donkey. There's no meat on them." + +Upon this touching farewell the train steamed out, and left me +standing, shelterless, a reluctant and incapable Master of Hounds. + +Exhaustive as Flurry's instructions had been on the subject of the +cuisine and other details of kennel management, he had not even hinted +at the difficulties that are usually composed by means of a fowl fund. +My first experience of these had taken place but a week ago, when from +the breakfast-table I had perceived a donkey and cart rambling, +unattended, in the shrubberies, among the young hydrangeas and azaleas. +The owner, a most respectable looking old man, explained that he had +left it there because he was "dilicate" to bring it up to the house, +and added that he had come for compensation for "a beautiful milking +goat" that the hounds had eaten last March, "and she having two kids +that died afther her." + +I asked why he had not long since been to Mr. Knox about it, and was +favoured with an interminable history of the claimant's ill-health +during the summer, consequent on his fretting after the goat; of how he +had been anointed four times, and of how the donkey was lame this long +while where a branch bet her in the thigh one day she ran into the wood +from the hounds. Fearing that the donkey was about to be included in +the bill, I made haste to settle for the goat and her offspring, a +matter of fifteen shillings. + +Next day two women took up a position on the steps at luncheon time, a +course which experience has taught me indicates affairs too exalted and +too personal to be transmitted _via_ the kitchen. They were, according +to their own showing, ruined proprietors of poultry yards, in proof of +which they pointed to a row of decapitated hens, laid forth on the +grass like the bag at a fashionable shoot. I was irritably aware of +their triumph in the trophy. + +"Sure he didn't make off with anny of them only three, but he snapped +the heads off all that was in it, and faith, if Masther Flurry was at +home, he'd give us the blood of his arm before he'd see our little hins +desthroyed on us this way." + +I gave them thirty-two and sixpence as an alternative compensation, +not, I admit, without an uneasy sense of something unusual in Peter +Cadogan's expression, as he assiduously raked the gravel hard by. + +It was Michael Leary, Flurry's Michael, who placed the matter of a fowl +fund upon a basis. Catharine O'Donovan and her list of casualties had +been dismissed at a cost of ten shillings, a price so inadequate, and +so cheerfully accepted, as to confirm my dawning suspicions. + +"Is it what would they get from Mr. Flurry?" replied Michael when I put +the matter to him; "it isn't ten shillings, no, nor thirty-two +shillings that they'd get from him, but a pelt of a curse after their +heels! Why wouldn't they keep their hens inside in the house with +themselves at night, the same as annyone that'd have sense, and not to +leave them out enticing the fox this way." + +Michael was in a bad temper, and so, for the matter of that, was I, +quite irrespective of dealings in poultry. Our red coats, our horses, +and the presence of the hounds, did not betoken the chase, they merely +indicated that the Hunt was about to be photographed. The local +photographer, backed by Mrs. Sinclair Yeates, had extorted from me the +privilege of "a sitting," a figurative expression, involving a ride of +five miles to a covert, selected by my wife as being typical of the +country, accompanied by the fourteen and a-half couple of half-bred +harriers who figured in Hound Lists as "Mr. Knox's Fox-hounds." + +It was a blazing day in late August, following on forty-eight hours of +blanketing sea-fog; a day for flannels and a languid game of croquet. +Lady Jane, the grey mare lent to me by Flurry, had been demoralised by +her summer at grass, and was in that peculiarly loathsome frame of mind +that is a blend of laziness and bumptiousness. If I left her to her +own devices she drowsed, stumbling, through the dust; if I corrected +her, she pranced and pulled, and kicked up behind like a donkey. My +huntsman, Doctor Jerome Hickey, who was to have been in the forefront +of the photograph, was twenty miles off in an open boat, on his way to +an island at the far end of his dispensary district, with fifteen cases +of measles ahead of him. I envied him; measles or no, he had on a +turned down collar. As a result of his absence I rode in solitary +dignity at the head of the pack, or, to speak more correctly, I +preceded Michael by some thirty yards of unoccupied road, while the +pack, callous to flogging, and disdainful of my cajoleries, clave to +the heels of Michael's horse. + +In this order, we arrived at the tryst, a heathery hill side, flanked +by a dense and rambling wood. A sea-gull scream from the hill-side +announced the presence of my wife, and summoned me to join her and the +photographer at the spot where they were encamped. I put the mare at a +suitable place in the wall by the roadside. She refused it, which was +no more than I had expected. I sampled my new spurs on her fat sides, +with the result that she charged the wall, slantways, at the exact spot +where Philippa had placed her bicycle against it, missed the bicycle by +a hair's-breadth, landed in the field with a thump, on all four feet, +and ended with two most distressing bucks. It was a consolation to me, +when I came in touch again with the saddle, to find that one of the new +spurs had ploughed a long furrow in her shoulder. + +The photographer was a young man from Belfast, a new comer to the +neighbourhood; Philippa is also a photographer, a fact that did not +tend as much as might have been expected to the harmony of the occasion. + +"Mrs. Yeates has selected this hillock," said Mr. McOstrich, in tones +of acrid resignation, indicating as he spoke a sugar-loaf shaped knoll, +thickly matted with furze and heather. "She considers the background +characteristic. My own suggestion would have been the grass-field +yonder." + +It is an ancient contention of my wife that I, in common with all other +men, in any dispute between a female relative and a tradesman, side +with the tradesman, partly from fear, partly from masculine +clannishness, and most of all from a desire to stand well with the +tradesman. Nothing but the remembrance of this preposterous reproach +kept me from accepting Mr. McOstrich's point of view, and, while I +hesitated, Michael was already taking up his position on the hillock, +perhaps in obedience to some signal from Philippa, perhaps because he +had realised the excellent concealment afforded by the deep heather to +his horse's fetlocks, whose outline was of a somewhat gouty type. It +was part of Flurry Knox's demoniac gift for horseflesh that he should +be able to buy screws and make them serve his exacting purposes. +Michael's horse, Moses, had, at a distance, the appearance of standing +upon four champagne bottles, but he none the less did the work of two +sound horses and did it well. + +I goaded Lady Jane through the furze, and established myself beside +Michael on the sugarloaf, the hounds disposed themselves in an interval +of bracken below, and Mr. McOstrich directed his camera upon us from an +opposite slope. + +"Show your teeth, please," said Mr. McOstrich to Michael. Michael, +already simmering with indignation at the senseless frivolity of the +proceedings, glowered at his knuckles, evidently suspicious of an +ill-timed pleasantry. + +[Illustration: SUSPICIOUS OF AN ILL-TIMED PLEASANTRY] + +"Do you hear, Whip?" repeated Mr. McOstrich, raising his bleak northern +voice, "show your teeth, please!" + +"He only wants to focus us," said I, foreseeing trouble, and hurriedly +displaying my own new front row in a galvanic smile. + +Michael murmured to Moses' withers something that sounded like a +promise to hocus Mr. McOstrich when occasion should serve, and I +reflected on the hardship of having to feel apologetic towards both +Michael and the photographer. + +Only those who have participated in "Hunt Groups" can realise the +combined tediousness and tension of the moments that followed. To keep +thirty hounds headed for the camera, to ensure that your horse has not +closed its eyes and hung its head in a doze of boredom, to preserve for +yourself that alert and workmanlike aspect that becomes a sportsman, +and then, when these things have been achieved and maintained for what +feels like a month, to see the tripod move in spider strides to a fresh +position and know that all has to be begun over again. After several +of these tentative selections of a site, the moment came when Mr. +McOstrich swung his black velvet pall in the air and buried his head +under its portentous folds. The hounds, though uneasy, had hitherto +been comparatively calm, but at this manifestation their nerve broke, +and they unanimously charged the glaring monster in the black hood with +loud and hysterical cries. + +Had not Michael perceived their intention while there was time awful +things might have happened. As it was, the leaders were flogged off +with ignominy, and the ruffled artist returned from the rock to which +he had fled. Michael and I arranged ourselves afresh upon the hillock; +I squared my shoulders, and felt my wonted photographic expression of +hang-dog desperation settle down upon me. + +"The dogs are not in the picture, Whip!" said Mr. McOstrich in the +chill tone of outraged dignity. + +I perceived that the hounds, much demoralised, had melted away from the +slope in front of us, and were huddling in a wisp in the intervening +hollow. Blandishments were of no avail; they wagged and beamed +apologetically, but remained in the hollow. Michael, in whose +sensitive bosom the term "Whip" evidently rankled, became scarlet in +the face and avalanched from the hill top upon his flock with a fury +that was instantly recognised by them. They broke in panic, and the +astute and elderly Venus, followed by two of the young entry, bolted +for the road. They were there met by Mr. McOstrich's carman, who most +creditably headed the puppies with yells and his driving-whip, but was +out-played by Venus, who, dodging like a football professional, doubled +under the car horse, and fled irrevocably. Philippa, who had been +flitting from rock to rock with her kodak, and unnerving me with +injunctions as to the angle of my cap, here entered the lists with a +packet of sandwiches, with which, in spite of the mustard, she restored +a certain confidence to the agitated pack, a proceeding observed from +afar with trembling indignation by Minx, her fox-terrier. By reckless +expenditure of sandwich the hounds were tempted to their proper +position below the horses, but, unfortunately, with their sterns to the +camera, and their eyes fastened on Philippa. + +"Retire, Madam!" said Mr. McOstrich, very severely, "_I_ will attract +the dogs!" + +Thus rebuked, Madam scrambled hastily over the crest of the hillock and +sank in unseemly laughter into the deep heather behind it. + +"Now, very quiet, please," continued Mr. McOstrich, and then +unexpectedly uttered the words, "Pop! Pop! Pop!" in a high soprano. + +Michael clapped his hand over his mouth, the superseded siren in the +heather behind me wallowed in fresh convulsions; the hounds remained +unattracted. + +Then arose, almost at the same moment, a voice from the wood behind us, +the voice of yet a third siren, more potent than that of either of her +predecessors, the voice of Venus hunting a line. For the space of a +breath the hounds hung on the eager hacking yelps, in the next breath +they were gone. + +Matters now began to move on a serious scale, and with a speed that +could not have been foreseen. The wood was but fifty yards from our +sugar-loaf. Before Michael had got out his horn, the hounds were over +the wall, before the last stern had disappeared the leaders had broken +into full cry. + +"Please God it might be a rabbit!" exclaimed Michael, putting spurs to +his horse and bucketing down through the furze towards the wood, with +blasts of the horn that were fraught with indignation and rebuke. + +An instant later, from my point of vantage on the sugar-loaf, I saw a +big and very yellow fox cross an open space of heather high up on the +hill above the covert. He passed and vanished; in half-a-dozen seconds +Venus, plunging through the heather, came shrieking across the open +space and also vanished. Another all too brief an interval, and the +remainder of the pack had stormed through the wood and were away in the +open after Venus, and Michael, who had pulled up short on the hither +side of the covert wall, had started up the open hill side to catch +them. + +The characteristic background chosen by Philippa, however admirable in +a photograph, afforded one of the most diabolic rides of my experience. +Uphill, over courses of rock masked in furze bushes, round the head of +a boggy lake, uphill again through deep and purple heather, over a +horrid wall of long slabs half buried in it; past a ruined cabin, with +thorn bushes crowding low over the only feasible place in the bank, and +at last, the top of the hill, and Michael pulling up to take +observations. + +The best pack in the kingdom, schoolmastered by a regiment of whips, +could not have precipitated themselves out of covert with more academic +precision than had been shown by Flurry Knox's irregulars. They had +already crossed the valley below us, and were running up a long hill as +if under the conventional tablecloth; their cry, floating up to us, +held all the immemorial romance of the chase. + +Michael regarded me with a wild eye; he looked as hot as I felt, which +was saying a good deal, and both horses were puffing. + +"He's all the ways for Temple Braney!" he said. "Sure I know him +well--that's the pug-nosed fox that's in it these last three seasons, +and it's what I wish----" + +(I regret that I cannot transcribe Michael's wish in its own terms, but +I may baldly summarise it as a desire minutely and anatomically +specified that the hounds were eating Mr. McOstrich.) + +Here the spurs were once more applied to Moses' reeking sides, and we +started again, battering down the twists of a rocky lane into the +steaming, stuffy valley. I felt as guilty and as responsible for the +whole affair as Michael intended that I should feel; I knew that he +even laid to my charge the disastrous appearance of the pug-nosed +Temple Braney fox. (Whether this remarkable feature was a freak of +nature, or of Michael's lurid fancy, I have never been able to +ascertain.) + +The valley was boggy, as well as hot, and the deep and sinuous ditch +that by courtesy was supposed to drain it, was blind with rushes and +tall fronds of Osmunda Regalis fern. Where the landing was tolerable, +the take-off was a swamp, where the take-off was sound the landing was +feasible only for a frog: we lost five panting minutes, closely +attended by horse-flies, before we somehow floundered across and began +the ascent of the second hill. To face tall banks, uphill, is at no +time agreeable, especially when they are enveloped in a jungle of +briars, bracken, and waving grass, but a merciful dispensation of +cow-gaps revealed itself; it was one of the few streaks of luck in a +day not conspicuous for such. + +At the top of the hill we took another pull. This afforded to us a +fine view of the Atlantic, also of the surrounding country and all that +was therein, with, however, the single unfortunate exception of the +hounds. There was nothing to be heard save the summery rattle of a +reaping-machine, the strong and steady rasp of a corn-crake, and the +growl of a big steamer from a band of fog that was advancing, +ghostlike, along the blue floor of the sea. Two fields away a man in a +straw hat was slowly combing down the flanks of a haycock with a wooden +rake, while a black and white cur slept in the young after-grass beside +him. We broke into their sylvan tranquillity with a heated demand +whether the hounds had passed that way. Shrill clamour from the dog +was at first the only reply; its owner took off his hat, wiped his +forehead with his sleeve, and stared at us. + +"I'm as deaf as a beetle this three weeks," he said, continuing to look +us up and down in a way that made me realise, if possible, more than +before, the absurdity of looking like a Christmas card in the heat of a +summer's day. + +"Did ye see the HOUNDS?" shouted Michael, shoving the chestnut up +beside him. + +"It's the neurology I got," continued the haymaker, "an' the pain does +be whistlin' out through me ear till I could mostly run into the say +from it." + +"It's a pity ye wouldn't," said Michael, whirling Moses round, "an' +stop in it! Whisht! Look over, sir! Look over!" + +He pointed with his whip along the green slopes. I saw, about half a +mile away, two boys standing on a fence, and beyond them some cattle +galloping in a field: three or four miles farther on the woods of +Temple Braney were a purple smear in the hazy heat of the landscape. +My heart sank; it was obvious even to my limited capacities that the +pug-nosed fox was making good his line with a straightness not to be +expected from one of his personal peculiarity, and that the hounds were +still running as hard as ever on a scent as steamingly hot as the +weather. I wildly thought of removing my coat and leaving it in charge +of the man with neuralgia, but was restrained by the reflection that he +might look upon it as a gift, flung to him in a burst of compassion, a +misunderstanding that, in view of his affliction, it would be +impossible to rectify. + +I picked up my lathered reins and followed Michael at a gloomy trot in +the direction of the galloping cattle. After a few fields a road +presented itself, and was eagerly accepted by the grey mare, on whom +the unbridled gluttonies of a summer's grass were beginning to tell. + +"She's bet up, sir," said Michael, dragging down a rickety gate with +the handle of his whip. "Folly on the road, there's a near way to the +wood from the cross." + +Moses here walked cautiously over the prostrate gate. + +"I'm afraid you'll kill Moses," said I, by no means pleased at the +prospect of being separated from my Intelligence Department. + +"Is it him?" replied Michael, scanning the country ahead of him with +hawk eyes. "Sure he's as hardy as a throut!" + +The last I saw of the trout was his bottle fetlocks disappearing nimbly +in bracken as he dropped down the far side of a bank. + +I "follied on the road" for two stifling miles. The heavy air was pent +between high hedges hung with wisps of hay from passing carts; +(hay-carrying in the south-west of Ireland conforms to the leisure of +the farmer rather than to the accident of season;) phalanxes of flies +arose as if at the approach of royalty, and accompanied my progress at +a hunting jog, which, as interpreted by Lady Jane, was an effective +blend of a Turkish bath and a churn. + +The "near way" from the cross-roads opened seductively with a lane +leading to a farmhouse, and presently degenerated into an unfenced but +plausible cart track through the fields. Breaches had been made in the +banks for its accommodation, and I advanced successfully towards the +long woods of Temple Braney, endeavouring, less successfully, to repel +the attentions of two young horses, who galloped, squealed, and bucked +round me and Lady Jane with the imbecile pleasantry of their kind. The +moment when I at length slammed in their faces the gate of the wood, +was one of sorely needed solace. + +Then came the sudden bath of coolness and shade, and the gradual +realisation that I did not in the least know what to do next. The air +was full of the deeply preoccupied hum of insects, and the interminable +monologue of a wood pigeon; I felt as if I ought to apologise for my +intrusion. None the less I pursued a ride that crossed the wood, +making persevering efforts to blow my horn, and producing nothing but +gramaphonic whispers, fragmentary groans, and a headache. I was near +the farther side of the wood when I saw fresh hoof-tracks on a path +that joined the ride; they preceded me to a singularly untempting bank, +with a branch hanging over it and a potato-field beyond it. A clod had +been newly kicked out of the top of it; I could not evade the +conviction that Michael had gone that way. The grey mare knew it too, +and bundled on to and over the bank with surprising celerity, and +dropped skilfully just short of where the potato beds began. An old +woman was digging at the other side of the field, and I steered for +her, making a long tack down a deep furrow between the "lazy-beds." + +"Did you see the hounds, ma'am?" I called out across the intervening +jungle of potato stalks. + +"Sir!" + +She at all events was not deaf. I amended my inquiry. + +"Did you see any dogs, or a man in a red coat?" + +"Musha, bad cess to them, then I did!" bawled the old woman, "look at +the thrack o' their legs down thro' me little pratie garden! 'Twasn't +but a whileen ago that they come leppin' out o' the wood to me, and +didn't I think 'twas the Divil and all his young ones, an' I thrun +meself down in the thrinch the way they wouldn't see me, the Lord save +us!" + +My heart warmed to her; I also would gladly have laid down among the +umbrageous stalks of the potatoes, and concealed myself for ever from +Michael and the hounds. + +"What way did they go?" I asked, regretfully dismissing the vision, and +feeling in my pocket for a shilling. + +"They went wesht the road, your Honour, an' they screeching always; +they crossed out the field below over-right the white pony, and faith +ye couldn't hardly see Michael Leary for the shweat! God help ye +asthore, yourself is getting hardship from them as well as another!" + +The shilling here sank into her earthy palm, on which she prayed +passionately that the saints might be surprised at my success. I felt +that as far as I was concerned the surprise would be mutual; I had had +nothing but misfortune since ten o'clock that morning, and there seemed +no reason to believe that the tide had turned. + +The pony proved to be a white mule, a spectral creature, standing in +malign meditation trace-high in bracken; I proceeded in its direction +at a trot, through clumps of bracken and coarse grass, and as I drew +near it uttered a strangled and heart-broken cry of greeting. At the +same moment Lady Jane fell headlong on to her nose and the point of her +right shoulder. It is almost superfluous to observe that I did the +same thing. As I rolled on my face in the bracken, something like a +snake uncoiled itself beneath me and became taut; I clutched at it, +believing it to be the reins, and found I was being hung up, like +clothes on a line, upon the mule's tethering rope. Lady Jane had got +it well round her legs, and had already fallen twice in her efforts to +get up, while the mule, round whose neck the tether rope had been +knotted, was backing hard, like a dog trying to pull its head through +its collar. + +In sunstroke heat I got out my knife, and having cut the rope in two +places, an operation accomplished in the depths of a swarm of flies and +midges, I pulled the mare on to her legs. She was lame on the off +fore, and the rope had skinned her shins in several places; my own +shoulder and arm were bruised, and I had broken a stirrup leather. +Philippa and the photographer had certainly provided me with a day of +varied entertainment, and I could not be sure that I had even yet +drained the cup of pleasure to the dregs. + +I led Lady Jane out into the road, and considered the position. We +were about nine miles from home, and at least five from any place where +I could hire a car. To walk, and lead the mare, was an alternative +that, powerless as events had proved me to be in the hands of +misfortune, I still refused to consider. It was then given me to +remember old McRory. + +My acquaintance with old McRory was of the slightest. He was, it was +understood, a retired Dublin coal merchant, with an enormous family, +and a reputation for great riches. He had, within the last year or so, +taken the derelict house of Temple Braney, and having by strenuous +efforts attained that dubious honour, the Commission of the Peace, it +had happened to me to sit on the Bench with him on one or two +occasions. Of his family I knew little, save that whenever I saw an +unknown young man buying cigarettes at Mr. Dannaher's in Skebawn, I was +informed that it was one of the young McRorys, a medical student, and +"a bit of a lad, but nothing at all to the next youngest." The Misses +McRory were only occasionally viewed, whirling in large companies on +glittering bicycles, and the legend respectfully ran that they had +forty blouses apiece. Perhaps the most definite information about them +was supplied by our cook, Mrs. Cadogan, who assured Philippa that Wild +Pigs in America wouldn't be treated worse than what Mrs. McRory treated +her servants. All these things together made an unpromising aggregate, +but the fact remained that Temple Braney House was within a quarter of +a mile of me, and its charity my only hope. + +The lodge gates of Temple Braney were wide open, so was the door of the +lodge; the weedy drive was scored with fresh wheel-tracks, as also, for +the matter of that, was the grass on either side. I followed it for a +short distance, in the roomy shade of splendid beech-trees, servants of +the old regime, preserving their dignity through the vicissitudes of +the new. Near the house was a second open gate, and on a species of +arch over it I was amazingly greeted by the word "Welcome" in white +letters on a blazing strip of Turkey-red. This was an attention that I +had not anticipated; did it mean a school-feast? + +I made a cautious survey, but saw nobody, and nerved by the increasing +lameness of Lady Jane, I went on to the house and rang the bell. There +was no response; the hall-door was wide open, and from an inner hall +two lanky red setter puppies advanced with their tails between their +legs, barking uncertainly, and acutely conscious of the fact that upon +the collar of each was fastened a flaunting though much chewed bow of +white satin ribbon. Full of foreboding I rang again. The bell tinkled +vigorously in some fastness of the house, but nothing else happened. I +decided to try the stable-yard, and, attended by the decorated puppies, +set forth to find it. + +It was a large quadrangle, of which one side was formed by a wing of +the house; had there been a few more panes of glass in the windows and +slates in the roof it might have been imposing. A cavernous coachhouse +stood open, empty save for the wheelless body of an outside car that +was seated on the floor, with wings outspread like a hatching hen. +Every stable-door gaped wide. Odds and ends of harness lay about, but +neither horse nor human being was visible. A turkey-cock, in +transports of wrath, stormed to and fro in front of his household, and +to some extent dispelled the sentiment of desertion and stampede that +pervaded the place. I led the limping mare into a stable wherein were +two loose-boxes. A sickly smell greeted me, and I perceived that in +one of the boxes was a long low cage, alive with the red-currant-jelly +eyes and pink noses of a colony of ferrets, and in the other was a pile +of empty wine-boxes and several bicycles. Lady Jane snorted heavily, +and I sought elsewhere for a refuge for her. I found it at length in a +long stable with six empty stalls, and proceeded to tie her up in one +of them. + +It was while I was thus engaged that a strange succession of sounds +began overhead, heavy, shapeless sounds in which were blended the +suggestions of shove and thump. There was a brief interval of silence, +during which Lady Jane and I listened with equal intentness; then +followed a hoarse bellow, which resolved itself into the enquiry, + +"Is there any one there?" + +Here was the princess of the enchanted palace waking up with a +vengeance. More and angrier bellows followed; I went stealthily out +into the yard, and took stock of the windows above the stable. One of +them was open, and it was from it that the voice issued, loudly +demanding release. It roared a string of Christian names, which I +supposed to be those of the McRory family, it used most unchristian +language, and it finally settled down into shouts for help, and +asseverations that it was smothering. I admit that my first and almost +overwhelming impulse was to steal a bicycle and wing my way to my +far-away and peaceful home, leaving Michael, the hounds, and the +smothering gentleman to work out their own salvation. Unfortunately +for me, the voice of conscience prevailed. There was a ladder near at +hand leaning against the wall, and I put it to the window, and went up +it as fast as my top boots would allow me, with a vision before me of +old McRory in apoplexy as the probable reward of my labours. I thrust +my head in, blocking the light in so doing; the shouting ceased +abruptly, and after the glare of sunshine outside I could at first see +nothing. Then was revealed to me a long and darksome room, once, +probably, a loft, filled with broken chairs and varieties of primeval +lumber. In the middle of the floor lay an immense feather bed, and my +bewildered eyes discovered, at one end of it, a crimson face, the face, +not of old McRory, but that of a young gentleman of my acquaintance, +one Mr. Tomsy Flood of Curranhilty. The mysteries were deepening. I +straddled the window-sash, and arrived in the room with a +three-cornered tear in the shoulder of my coat, inflicted by a nail in +the frame, and one spur draped with ancestral cobweb. + +"Take me out of this!" howled Mr. Flood hysterically, accepting my +pantomime entrance without question. "Can't you see I'm smothering in +this damned thing?" + +[Illustration: "TAKE ME OUT OF THIS!"] + +Fluff hung from his black moustache and clung to his eyebrows, his hair +was full of feathers; earthquake throes convulsed the feather-bed, and +the fact was suddenly revealed to me that Mr. Flood was not under it, +as I had at first imagined, but in it, stitched in, up to the chin. +The weaned child, or any other conventional innocent, could not have +failed for an instant to recognise the handiwork of practical humorists +of a high order. I asked no questions, but got out my knife once more, +and beginning with due precaution somewhere near Mr. Flood's jugular +vein, proceeded to slit open the end of the "tick." The stitches were +long and strong, and as each one yielded, the feathers burst forth in +stifling puffs, and Tomsy Flood's allusions to the young McRorys were +mercifully merged in sputtering. I did not laugh, not at least till I +found that I had to drag him out like a mummy, accompanied by half the +contents of the bed, and perceived that he was in full evening clothes, +and that he was incapable of helping himself because the legs of his +trousers were sewn together and his coat-sleeves sewn to his sides; +even then, I only gave way in painful secrecy behind the mighty calves +of his legs as I cut the stitches out. Tomsy Flood walked about +fifteen stone and was not in a mood to be trifled with, still less to +see the humour of the position. The medical students had done their +work with a surgical finish, and by the time that I had restored to +Tomsy the use of his legs and arms, the feathers had permeated to every +recess of my being, and I was sneezing as if I had hay fever. + +Having at length, and with considerable difficulty, got Mr. Flood on to +his legs, I ventured, with the tact demanded by the situation, a +question as to whether he had been dining at Temple Braney. + +"Dining?" queried Mr. Flood, with an obvious effort of memory. "Yes, I +was, to be sure! Amn't I staying in the house?" Then, with an equally +obvious shock of recollection, "Sure I'm Best Man at the wedding +to-day!" + +The scattered elements of the situation began to fall symmetrically +into line, from the open gates to the white bows on the puppies' +collars. My chief concern, however, bearing in mind Tomsy Flood's +recent potations and provocations, was to let him down as easily as +possible, and, reserving my conclusions to myself, to escape, swiftly +and silently, while yet there was time. There was always that +stall-full of bicycles; I could borrow clothes from Tomsy, and leave +this accursed tom-foolery of hunting kit to be fetched with the mare, I +could write a beautifully explanatory note when I got home---- + +"Hadn't you better get out of your evening things as quickly as you +can?" I suggested. + +Mr. Flood regarded me with heavy and bloodshot eyes of imperfect +intelligence. + +"Oh! I've time enough. Ye wouldn't get a pick of breakfast here +before ten o'clock in the day. Now that I come to look into you," he +continued, "you're as big a show as myself! Is it for the wedding that +you have the red coat on you?" + +I do not now remember with what lies I composed Tomsy Flood, but I got +him out of the room at last by a door into a passage of seemingly +interminable length; he took my arm, he treated me as his only friend, +he expressed his full confidence that I would see fair play when he got +a hold of Stanley McRory. He also gave it as his private opinion that +his cousin, Harry Flood, was making a hare of himself marrying that +impudent little Pinkie McRory, that was as vulgar as a bag of +straddles, in spite of the money. Indeed, the whole family had too +many airs about them for his fancy. "They take the English _Times_, if +you please, and they all dress for dinner--every night I tell ye! I +call that rot, y'know!" + +We were all this time traversing the house by labyrinthine passages, +flights of stairs, and strange empty lobbies; we progressed +conversationally and with maddening slowness, followed by a fleecy +train of feathers that floated from us as we went. And all the time I +was trying to remember how long it took to get married. In my own case +it seemed as if I had been in the church for two hours at least. + +A swing-door suddenly admitted us to the hall, and Tomsy stood still to +collect his faculties. + +"My room's up there," he began, pointing vaguely up the staircase. + +At this identical moment there was a loud and composite crash from +behind a closed door on our right, followed by minor crashes, and +noises as of chairs falling about. + +"That's the boys!" said Tomsy, a sudden spark kindling in his eye; +"they're breakfasting early, I suppose." + +He dropped my arm unexpectedly, and flung the door open with a yell. + +The first object that met my eyes was the original sinner, Venus, +mounted on a long and highly-adorned luncheon table, cranching and +gulping cold chicken as fast as she could get it down; on the floor +half-a-dozen of her brethren tore at a round of beef amid the debris of +crockery and glass that had been involved in its overthrow. A cataract +of cream was pouring down the table-cloth, and making a lake on the +carpet for the benefit of some others; and President, the patriarch of +the pack, was apparently seated on the wedding-cake, while he +demolished a cold salmon. I had left my whip in the stable, but even +had this paralysing sight left me the force to use it, its services +would not have been needed. The leaders of the revel leaped from the +table, mowing down colonies of wine-glasses in the act, and fled +through the open window, followed by the rest of the party, with a +precipitancy that showed their full consciousness of sin--the last +scramblers over the sill yelping in agonised foretaste of the thong +that they believed was overtaking them. + +At such a moment of catastrophe the craving for human sympathy is +paramount. + +I turned even to the fuddled and feathered Tomsy Flood as to a man and +a brother, and was confronted in the doorway by the Bride and +Bridegroom. + +Behind them, the hall was filling, with the swiftness of an evil dream, +with glowing faces and wedding bonnets; there was a turmoil of wheels +and hoofs at the door, and through it all, like "horns of Elfland +faintly blowing," Michael's blasts of summons to his pirates. Finally, +the towering mauve bonnet and equally towering wrath of Mrs. McRory, as +she advanced upon me and Tomsy Flood. I thought of the Wild Pigs in +America, and wished I were with them. + + +Lest I should find myself the object of a sympathy more acute than I +deserve, it may be well to transcribe portion of a paragraph from the +_Curranhilty Herald_ of the following week:-- + +"... After the ceremony a reception was held at Temple Braney House, +where a sumptuous collation had been provided by the hospitable Mr. and +Mrs. McRory. The health of the Happy Pair having been drunk, that of +the Bridesmaids was proposed, and Mr. T. Flood, who had been prevented +by a slight indisposition from filling the office of Best Man, was +happily sufficiently recovered to return thanks for them in his usual +sprightly vein. Major Sinclair Yeates, R.M., M.F.H., who, in honour of +the festive occasion had donned sporting attire, proposed the health of +the Bride's Mother in felicitous terms...." + + + + +II + +A ROYAL COMMAND + +When I heard that Bernard Shute, of Clountiss, Esquire, late Lieutenant +R.N., was running an Agricultural Show, to be held in his own demesne, +I did not for a moment credit him with either philanthropy or public +spirit. I recognised in it merely another outbreak of his exasperating +health and energy. He bombarded the country with circulars, calling +upon farmers for exhibits, and upon all for subscriptions; he made +raids into neighbouring districts on his motor car, turning vague +promises into bullion, with a success in mendicancy fortunately given +to few. It was in a thoroughly ungenerous spirit that I yielded up my +guinea and promised to attend the Show in my thousands: peace at +twenty-one shillings was comparatively cheap, and there was always a +hope that it might end there. + +The hope was fallacious: the Show boomed; it blossomed into a Grand +Stand, a Brass Band, an Afternoon Tea Tent; finally, fortune, as usual, +played into Bernard's hands and sent a Celebrity. There arrived in a +neighbouring harbour a steam-yacht, owned by one of Mr. Shute's dearest +friends, one Captain Calthorpe, and having on board a coloured +potentate, the Sultan of X----, who had come over from Cowes to see +Ireland and the Dublin Horse Show. The dearest friend--who, as it +happened, having been for three days swathed in a wet fog from the +Atlantic, was becoming something pressed for entertainment for his +charge--tumbled readily into Bernard's snare, and paragraphs appeared +with all speed in the local papers proclaiming the intention of H.H. +the Sultan of X---- to be present at the Clountiss Agricultural Show. +Following up this coup, Bernard achieved for his function a fine, an +even sumptuous day, and the weather and the Sultan between them filled +the Grand Stand beyond the utmost hopes (and possibly the secret +misgivings) of its constructors. + +Having with difficulty found seats on the top-most corner for myself, +my wife, and my two children, I had leisure to speculate upon its +probable collapse. For half an hour, for an hour, for an hour and a +half, we sat on its hot bare boards and surveyed the wide and empty +oval of grass that formed the arena of the Show. Five "made-up" jumps +of varying dimensions and two vagrant fox-terriers were its sole +adornment. A dark rim of spectators encircled it, awaiting +developments, _i.e._ the arrival of the Sultan, with tireless patience, +and the egregious Slipper, attired in a gala costume of tall hat, +frock-coat, white breeches, and butcher boots, gleanings, no doubt, +from bygone jumble sales, swaggered and rolled to and fro, selling +catalogues and cards of the jumping. Away under the tall elms near the +gate, amid the rival clamour of the cattle sheds and the poultry pens, +was stationed the green and yellow band of the "Sons of Liberty"; at +intervals it broke into an excruciating shindy of brass instruments, +through which the big drum drove a ferocious and unfaltering course. +Above the heads of the people, at the far end of the arena, tossing +heads and manes moving ceaselessly backwards and forwards told where +the "jumping horses" were waiting, eaten by flies, inconsolably +agitated by the band, becoming momently more jaded and stale from the +delay. I thanked Heaven that neither my wife nor Bernard Shute had +succeeded in inducing me to snatch my string of two from the paddock in +which they were passing the summer, to take part in this purgatorial +procession. + +[Illustration: THE EGREGIOUS SLIPPER] + +The Grand Stand, a structure bare as a mountain top to the assaults of +sun and wind, was canopied with parasols and prismatic with millinery. +The farmers, from regions unknown to me, had abundantly risen to the +occasion; so also had their wives and daughters; and fashionable +ladies, with comfortable brogues and a vigorous taste in scent, closed +us in on every side. Throughout that burning period of delay went the +searching catechisms of my two sons (aged respectively four and seven) +as to the complexion, disposition, and domestic arrangements of the +Sultan. Philippa says that I ought to have known that they were +thoroughly over-strung; possibly my descriptions of the weapons that he +wore and the cannibal feasts that he attended were a trifle lurid, but +it seemed simpler to let the fancy play on such details than to decide, +for the benefit of an interested _entourage_ of farmers' daughters, +whether the Sultan's face was the colour of my boots or of their +mother's, and whether he had a thousand or a million wives. The +inquiry was interrupted by the quack of a motor horn at the entrance +gate. + +"Here he is!" breathed the Grand Stand as one man. There was a +flocking of stewards towards the gate, and the Sons of Liberty, full of +anxiety to say the suitable thing, burst into the melancholy strains of +"My Old Kentucky Home Far Away." To this somewhat "hearse-like air" +the group of green-rosetted stewards advanced across the arena, +escorting the yacht party, in whose midst moved a squat figure, clad in +grey flannel, and surmounted by a massive and snowy turban. My elder +son became very pale; the younger turned an ominous crimson, and the +corners of his mouth went down, slowly, but, as I well knew, fatally. +The inevitable bellow, that followed in the inevitable routine, had +scarcely died away in the heart of Philippa's feather boa, when Mr. +Shute's red face and monstrous Presidential rosette presented +themselves on the stairs at my elbow. + +"Mrs. Yeates!" he began, in a gusty whisper, "Cecilia implores you to +come and fling yourself to the Lion! She says she simply can't and +won't tackle him single-handed, and she trusts to you to see her +through! He talks French all right, and I know your French is +top-hole! Do come----" + +Incredible as it may appear, my wife received this suggestion with a +reluctance that was obviously but half-hearted. Such it is to have the +Social Gift. + +I presently found myself alone with my offspring, both in tears, and +deaf to my assurances that neither the Sultan, nor his lion, would eat +their mother. Consolation, however, came with the entry of the +"jumping horses" into the arena, which followed with all speed upon +that of the Sultan. The first competitor bucketted up to the +starting-point, and at the same moment the discovery was made that +there was no water in the water-jump, a space of perhaps a foot in +depth by some five feet wide. Nothing but a thin paste of mud +remained, the water having disappeared, unnoticed, during the hot hours +of the morning. + +Swift in expedient, the stewards supplied the difficulty with +quicklime, which was scattered with a lavish hand in the fosse, and +shone like snow through the barrier of furze bushes on the take-off +side. If, as I suppose, the object was to delude the horses into the +belief that it was a water-jump, it was a total failure; they +immediately decided that it was a practical joke, dangerous, and in +indifferent taste. If, on the other side, a variety entertainment for +the public was aimed at, nothing could have been more successful. +Every known class of refusal was successfully exhibited. One horse +endeavoured to climb the rails into the Grand Stand; another, having +stopped dead at the critical point, swung round, and returned in +consternation to the starting-point, with his rider hanging like a +locket round his neck. Another, dowered with a sense of humour unusual +among horses, stepped delicately over the furze-bushes, and, amidst +rounds of applause, walked through the lime with a stoic calm. Yet +another, a ponderous war-horse of seventeen hands, hung, trembling like +an aspen, on the brink, till a sympathiser, possibly his owner, sprang +irrepressibly from his seat on the stand, climbed through the rails, +and attacked him from behind with a large umbrella. It was during this +three-cornered conflict that the green-eyed filly forced herself into +the front rank of events. A chorus of "Hi! Hi! Hi!" fired at the +rate of about fifty per second, volleyed in warning from the crowd +round the starting-point, and a white-legged chestnut, with an +unearthly white face and flying flounces of tawny mane and tail, came +thundering down at the jump. Neither umbrella nor war-horse turned her +by a hair's-breadth from her course, still less did her rider, a lean +and long-legged country boy, whose single object was to keep on her +back. Picking up her white stockings, she took off six feet from the +jump, and whizzed like a driven grouse past the combatants and over the +furze bushes and the lime. Beneath her creamy forelock, I caught a +glimpse of her amazing blue-green eyes. + +[Illustration: WHIZZED LIKE A DRIVEN GROUSE PAST THE COMBATANTS] + +She skimmed the hurdle, she flourished over the wall, flinging high her +white heels with a twist that showed more consideration for their +safety than that of her rider. She ramped over the big double bank, +while the roars of approval swelled with each achievement, and she +ended a faultless round by bolting into the heart of the crowd, which +fled hilariously, and as hilariously, hived in round her again. + +From my exalted seat I could see the Sultan clapping his hands in sweet +accord with Philippa. Somewhere near me a voice yelled: + +"Gripes! She's a monkey! When she jumped the wall she went the height +of a tree over it!" + +To which another voice replied that "It'd be a good bird that'd fly the +height she wouldn't lep, and John Cullinane'd be apt to get first with +her at the Skebawn Show." I remembered casually that John Cullinane +was a neighbour of mine. + +"Well, I wouldn't fancy her at all," said a female voice. "I'd say she +had a very maleecious glance." + +"Ah! ye wouldn't feel that when the winkers'd be on her," said the +first speaker; "she'd make a fine sweeping mare under a side-car." + +Meantime, the war-horse, much embittered by the umbrella, floundered +through the lime, and, continuing his course, threw down the hurdle, +made a breach in the wall that would, as my neighbour put it, give +three hours' work to seven idlers, and came to a sudden conclusion in +front of the bank, while his rider slowly turned a somersault that, by +some process of evolution, placed him sitting on the fence, facing the +large and gloomy countenance of his horse. + +It was after this performance that my wife looked round to see if her +sons were enjoying themselves, and waved her handkerchief. The snowy +turban of the Sultan moved round too, and beneath its voluminous folds +the round, black discs of a pair of field-glasses were directed at us. +The effect was instant. With a simultaneous shriek of terror, my +children flung themselves upon me and buried their faces in my breast. +I shall never forget it to the farmers' daughters that, in this black +hour, their sympathy was prompt and practical. + +"Oh! Fie, fie! Oh! the creatures! 'T was the spy-glasses finished +them altogether! Eat a sweetie now, lovey! that's the grand man! +Pappy'll not let the dirty fella near ye!" + +A piece of the brown sugar-stick, known as "Peggy's leg," accompanied +these consolations, and a tearful composure was gradually restored; but +"Pappy" had arrived at the conclusion that he had had about as much as +he could stand. In shameful publicity I clambered down the steep tiers +of seats, with one child under my arm, the other adhering to my +coat-tail. Philippa made agitated signals to me; I cut her dead, and +went to ground in the tea tent. + +A couple of days later my duty took me to the farthest end of my +district--a matter that involved a night's absence from home. I left +behind me an infant family restored to calm, and a thoroughly +domesticated wife and mother, pledged to one o'clock dinner with the +children and tea in the woods. I returned in time for luncheon next +day, bicycling from the station, as was my wont. It was a hot day, and +as I walked my bicycle up the slope of the avenue, the shade of the +beech trees was passing pleasant; the dogs galloped to meet me over the +soft after-grass, and I thought about flannels and an idle afternoon. + +In the hall I met Margaret, the parlour-maid, engaged, with the +housemaid, in carrying the writing-table out of my smoking-room. They +were talking loudly to each other, and I noticed that their eyes were +very bright and their complexions considerably above par. I am a man +of peace, but the veriest dove will protect its nest, and I demanded +with some heat the cause of this outrage. + +"The Mistress told us to clear this room for the servant of the--the +gentleman's that's coming to lunch to-morrow, sir," replied Margaret +with every appearance of offence. + +She and Hannah staggered onwards with my table, and the contents of the +drawers rolled and rattled. + +"Put down that table," I said firmly. "Where is the Mistress?" + +"I believe she's dressing, sir," replied Margaret; "she only came home +about an hour ago. She was out all night on the sea, I believe." + +Instant on the heels of these astonishing statements the swing door to +the kitchen was flung open, and Mrs. Cadogan's angry voice was +projected through it. + +"Hannah! go tell the Mistress the butcher's below, and he says he never +heard tell of the like, and would she lend him one o' the Major's +spears? How would the likes o' him have a spear! Such goings on!" + +"What the devil is all this about?" I said with an equal anger. "No +one is to touch my spears!" + +"Thanks be to God, the Major's come home!" exclaimed the ruler of the +kitchen, advancing weightily into the hall. "There's no fear I'd put a +hand on your spears, sir, nor the butcher neither, the poor, decent +man! He says he's supplying the gentry for twenty-five years, and he +was never asked to do the like of a nasty thing like that!" + +"Like what!" I said, with growing wrath and bewilderment. + +"It's what the Mistress said," rejoined Mrs. Cadogan, the flush of +injury mounting to her cap-frill. "That what-shall-I-call-him--that +King, wouldn't ate mate without it'd be speared! And it's what I say," +she went on, perorating loudly and suddenly, "what's good enough for +Christians and gentry is good enough for an owld Blackamoor!" + +It was now sufficiently obvious that Philippa had, with incredible +perfidy, taken advantage of my absence to embroil herself in the +entertainment of barbaric royalty. "Tell the butcher to wait," was all +I could trust myself to say, as I started in search of my wife. + +"Wait, Sinclair! I'm coming down!" cried an urgent voice from the +upper landing, and Philippa, attired in what I may perhaps describe as +a tempestuous dressing-gown, came swiftly downstairs and swept me +before her into the drawing-room. + +"My dear," she said breathlessly, "let me break it to you as gently as +possible. The Shutes called for me in the motor after you left +yesterday, and we went on board Bernard's yacht and sailed round to tea +with Captain Calthorpe and the Sultan. We were becalmed coming back, +and we were out all night--we had nothing to eat but the men's +food--not that I wanted anything!" She gave a nauseated shudder of +reminiscence. "There was an awful swell. It rained, too. Cecilia and +I tried to sleep in the cabin with all our clothes on; I never spent a +more horrible night. The yacht crawled in with the tide at about ten +o'clock this morning, and I got back here half-dead, and was just going +up to bed when Captain Calthorpe arrived on a car and said that the +Sultan wanted to lunch here to-morrow. He says we must have him--it's +a kind of Royal command--in fact, I suppose you ought to wear your +frock-coat!" + +"I'm dashed if I do!" I said, with decision. + +"Well, be that as it may," resumed Philippa, discreetly evading this +point, "that green-eyed thing that got the first prize for jumping is +to be here to meet him. He wants to buy it for his State carriage. I +did my best to get out of it, and I told Captain Calthorpe it would be +impossible to manage about the food. I forgot to tell you," faltered +Philippa, with a wan giggle, "that he said he must have speared mutton!" + +"I call it an infernal liberty of Calthorpe's!" I said, with +indignation fanned by the spectacle of Philippa's sleepless +black-rimmed eyes and pallid face, "dumping his confounded menagerie +upon us in this way! And I may tell you that those spears of mine are +poisoned!" + +"Oh! don't be so horrid, Sinclair," said Philippa, "inventing +difficulties like that!" + +I arose the following morning with a heart of lead--of boiling lead--as +I went down early to the smoking-room to look for cigarettes and found +that they, in common with every other thing that I wanted, had been +tidied into oblivion. From earliest dawn I had heard the thumping of +feet, and the swish of petticoats, and the plying of brooms; but for me +the first shot of the engagement was not fired till 8.30, when, as I +was moodily stropping my razor, I was told that John Cullinane was +below, and would be thankful to see me. As I shaved, I could see John +Cullinane standing about in front of the house, in his Sunday clothes, +waiting for me; and I knew that he would so wait, patiently, +inexorably, if I did not come down till noonday. + +I interviewed him, unsympathetically, on the hall door steps, and told +him, firstly, that, as I knew nothing of his filly, I could not "say a +good word" to the Sultan for her; and, secondly, that I certainly would +not mention to the Sultan that, in my opinion, she was a cheap mare at +L80. John Cullinane then changed the conversation by remarking that he +had brought over a small little donkey for a present for the young +gentlemen; to which, with suitable politeness, I responded that my +children already had a donkey, and that I could not think of depriving +him of his, and the interview closed. + +Breakfast was late, and for the most part uneatable, the excitement of +the household having communicated itself to the kitchen-range. + +"If I was to put my head under it, it wouldn't light for me!" Mrs. +Cadogan said to Philippa. + +As a matter of fact, judging by a glimpse vouchsafed to me of her face +as I struggled forth from the cellar with a candle and the champagne, +one might have expected it to cause a conflagration anywhere. + +My smoking-room had been dedicated to the Sultan's personal attendant, +a gentleman who could neither lunch with his master nor with my +servants; I was therefore homeless, and crept, an outcast, to the +drawing-room to try to read the newspaper undisturbed. Sounds from +above told me that trouble was brewing in the nursery; I closed the +door. + +At about eleven-thirty an outside car drove up to the house, and I saw +a personable stranger descend from it, with a black bag in his hand, a +forerunner, no doubt, of the Sultan, come over to see that the +preparations were _en regle_. I saw no reason for my intervention, +and, with a passing hope that Providence might deliver him over to Mrs. +Cadogan, I returned to my paper. The door was flung open. + +"Sinclair, dear," said my wife, very apologetically, "here is Mr. +Werner, the piano-tuner, from Dublin. He says he can't come again--he +thinks he can finish it by luncheon-time. I quite forgot that he was +coming----" + +Mr. Werner's spectacled and supercilious face regarded me over her +shoulder; he evidently had a low opinion of me, I do not know why. +With one Cenci-like glance of reproach at Philippa, I rose and left the +room. As I put on my cap I heard the first fierce chords break forth, +followed by the usual chromatic passages, fluent and searching, which +merged in their turn into a concentrated attack upon a single note. I +hurried from the house. + +It was a perfect August morning; the dogs lay on the hot gravel and +panted politely as I spoke to them, but did not move. Rejected by all, +I betook myself to a plantation near the front gate to see how the work +of clearing a ride was progressing. The cross-cut saw and a bill-hook +lay on the ground, but of workmen there was no sign. From the high +road came the sound of wheels and of rapid trotting, also something +that seemed like cheering. + +"Good heavens!" I thought, my blood running cold, "here they are!" + +I broke through the tall bracken and the larches to an opening from +which the high road was visible. My two workmen were lying on their +stomachs across the coping of the demesne wall, and a line of +countrymen, with their best clothes on and crape "weepers" on their +hats, sat on the opposite fence and applauded what was apparently a +trotting match between a long-legged bay colt and John Cullinane's +chestnut filly, owners up. + +I joined the entertainment, my two men melting like snow from the top +of the wall, and it was explained to me that there had been a funeral +in the locality, and that these were a few of the neighbours that had +been at it, and were now waiting to see the Black Gentleman. An +outside car rested on its shafts by the side of the road, and a horse +with harness on it browsed voraciously on the shrubs inside my gate. +Far away down the road I saw the receding figures of my two children, +going forth to the picnic that had been arranged to allay their panic +and to remove them from the sphere of action. Any Irish person will +readily believe that one of them was mounted on "the small little +donkey," the bribe which I had that morning irrevocably repudiated. I +knew that John Cullinane saw them too, but I was too broken to +interfere; I turned my back and walked rapidly away. + +The rhythmic rasp of the cross-cut told me that work at the clearing +had been resumed; I said to myself vindictively that I would see that +it continued, and returned to the ride. The bill-hook was doing +nothing, and picking it up I fell to snicking and chopping, with +soothing destructiveness, among the briars and ash-saplings. +Notwithstanding heat and horseflies, the time passed not disagreeably, +and I was, at all events, out of range of the piano. I had paused for +the fifteenth time to wipe a heated brow, and extract a thorn from my +finger, when the familiar voice of the Shutes' motor-horn roused me to +the appalling fact that it was nearly luncheon-time, and that I was far +from fit to receive Royalty. As I hurriedly emerged from the wood, +there was a sound of hard galloping, and I beheld the green-eyed filly +flying riderless up the avenue. She crossed the croquet ground, +thoroughly, from corner to corner, and disappeared into the shrubbery +in the direction of the flower garden. I ran as I have seldom run, +dimly aware of a pursuing party of mourners on the avenue behind me, +and, as I ran, I cursed profusely the Sultan, Calthorpe, and chiefly +Bernard Shute and all his works. + +The chase lasted for twenty minutes, and was joined in by not less than +five-and-thirty people. The creamy mane of the filly floated like a +banner before us through the shrubberies, with the dogs in full cry +behind her; through it all went the reiterations of the piano, the +monotonous hammerings, the majestic chords, the pyrotechnic scales; +they expressed as fully as he himself could have desired the complete +indifference of the tuner. The filly was ubiquitous; at one moment she +was in the flower garden, the next, a distant uproar among the poultry +told that she had traversed the yard, whence she emerged, +_ventre-a-terre_, delivered herself of three bucks at sight of her +original enemy the motor, at the hall door, and was away again for the +croquet ground. At every turn I encountered a fresh pursuer; it was +Bernard Shute and the kitchen-maid who slammed the flower-garden gate +in her face; it was Philippa, in her very best dress, abetted by John +Cullinane, very dusty, and waving a crushed and weepered hat, who, with +the best intentions, frustrated a brilliant enveloping movement +directed by me; finally the cross-cut saw men, the tuner's car-driver, +and a selection from the funeral, came so near cornering her that she +charged the sunk fence, floated across its gulf with offensive ease, +and scurried away, with long and defiant squeals, to assault my horses +at the farther end of the paddock. + +When we, _i.e._ Philippa, Bernard, and I, pulled ourselves together on +the top of the steps, it was two o'clock. By the special favour of +Providence the Sultan was late, but the position was desperate. +Philippa had trodden on the front of her dress and torn it, Bernard had +greened the knees of his trousers; I do not know what I looked like, +but when Cecilia Shute emerged, cool and spotless, from the hall, where +she had judiciously remained during the proceedings, she uttered a +faint shriek and covered her face with her hands. + +"I know," I said, with deadly calm, stuffing my tie inside my +waistcoat, "I can't help it----" + +"Here they are!" said Bernard. + +The sound of wheels was indeed in the avenue. We fled as one man into +the back hall, and Philippa, stumbling over her torn flounce, fell on +her knees at the feet of Mr. Werner, the tuner, who stood there, his +task finished, awaiting with cold decorum the reward of his labours. +The wheels stopped. What precisely happened during that crowded moment +I cannot pretend to explain, but as we dragged my wife to her feet I +found that she had knelt on my eyeglass, with the result that may be +imagined. + +All was now lost save honour. I turned at bay, and dimly saw, +silhouetted in the open doorway, a short figure in a frock-coat, with a +species of black turban on its head. I advanced, bowed, and heroically +began: + +"Sire! J'ai l'honneur----" + +"Yerrah my law! Major!" said the bewildered voice of Slipper. "Don't +be making game of me this way! Sure I have a tallagram for you." He +removed the turban, which I now perceived to be a brown tweed cap, +swathed in a crape "weeper," and handed me the telegram. "I got it +from the boy that was after breaking his bike on the road, an' I coming +from the funeral." + +The telegram was from Calthorpe, and said, with suitable regrets, that +the Sultan had been summoned to London on instant and important +business. + +I read it to the back hall, in a voice broken by many emotions. + +"I saw the gentleman you speak of waiting for the Dublin train at Sandy +Bay Station this morning," remarked the tuner, condescending for a +moment to our level. + +"Then why did you not tell us so?" demanded Philippa, with sudden +indignation. + +"I was not aware, madam, that it was of any importance," replied Mr. +Werner, returning to his normal altitude of perpetual frost. + +Incredible as it may seem, it was apparent that Philippa was +disappointed. As for me, my heart was like a singing bird. + + + + +III + +POISSON D'AVRIL + +The atmosphere of the waiting-room set at naught at a single glance the +theory that there can be no smoke without fire. The stationmaster, +when remonstrated with, stated, as an incontrovertible fact, that any +chimney in the world would smoke in a south-easterly wind, and further, +said there wasn't a poker, and that if you poked the fire the grate +would fall out. He was, however, sympathetic, and went on his knees +before the smouldering mound of slack, endeavouring to charm it to a +smile by subtle proddings with the handle of the ticket-punch. +Finally, he took me to his own kitchen fire and talked politics and +salmon-fishing, the former with judicious attention to my presumed +point of view, and careful suppression of his own, the latter with no +less tactful regard for my admission that for three days I had not +caught a fish, while the steam rose from my wet boots, in witness of +the ten miles of rain through which an outside car had carried me. + +Before the train was signalled I realised for the hundredth time the +magnificent superiority of the Irish mind to the trammels of +officialdom, and the inveterate supremacy in Ireland of the Personal +Element. + +"You might get a foot-warmer at Carrig Junction," said a species of lay +porter in a knitted jersey, ramming my suit-case upside down under the +seat. "Sometimes they're in it, and more times they're not." + +The train dragged itself rheumatically from the station, and a cold +spring rain--the time was the middle of a most inclement April--smote +it in flank as it came into the open. I pulled up both windows and +began to smoke; there is, at least, a semblance of warmth in a +thoroughly vitiated atmosphere. + +It is my wife's habit to assert that I do not read her letters, and +being now on my way to join her and my family in Gloucestershire, it +seemed a sound thing to study again her latest letter of instructions. + +"I am starting to-day, as Alice wrote to say we must be there two days +before the wedding, so as to have a rehearsal for the pages. Their +dresses have come, and they look too delicious in them----" + +(I here omit profuse particulars not pertinent to this tale)---- + +"It is sickening for you to have had such bad sport. If the worst +comes to the worst couldn't you buy one?----" + +I smote my hand upon my knee. I had forgotten the infernal salmon! +What a score for Philippa! If these contretemps would only teach her +that I was not to be relied upon, they would have their uses, but +experience is wasted upon her; I have no objection to being called an +idiot, but, that being so, I ought to be allowed the privileges and +exemptions proper to idiots. Philippa had, no doubt, written to Alice +Hervey, and assured her that Sinclair would be only too delighted to +bring her a salmon, and Alice Hervey, who was rich enough to find much +enjoyment in saving money, would reckon upon it, to its final fin in +mayonnaise. + +Plunged in morose meditations, I progressed through a country parcelled +out by shaky and crooked walls into a patchwood of hazel scrub and +rocky fields, veiled in rain. About every six miles there was a +station, wet and windswept; at one the sole occurrence was the +presentation of a newspaper to the guard by the station-master; at the +next the guard read aloud some choice excerpts from the same to the +porter. The Personal Element was potent on this branch of the Munster +and Connaught Railway. Routine, abhorrent to all artistic minds, was +sheathed in conversation; even the engine-driver, a functionary +ordinarily as aloof as the Mikado, alleviated his enforced isolation by +sociable shrieks to every level crossing, while the long row of +public-houses that formed, as far as I could judge, the town of Carrig, +received a special and, as it seemed, humorous salutation. + +The Time-Table decreed that we were to spend ten minutes at Carrig +Junction; it was fifteen before the crowd of market people on the +platform had been assimilated; finally, the window of a neighbouring +carriage was flung open, and a wrathful English voice asked how much +longer the train was going to wait. The stationmaster, who was at the +moment engrossed in conversation with the guard and a man who was +carrying a long parcel wrapped in newspaper, looked round, and said +gravely-- + +"Well now, that's a mystery!" + +The man with the parcel turned away, and convulsively studied a poster. +The guard put his hand over his mouth. + +[Illustration: THE GUARD PUT HIS HAND OVER HIS MOUTH] + +The voice, still more wrathfully, demanded the earliest hour at which +its owner could get to Belfast. + +"Ye'll be asking me next when I take me breakfast," replied the +stationmaster, without haste or palpable annoyance. + +The window went up again with a bang, the man with the parcel dug the +guard in the ribs with his elbow, and the parcel slipped from under his +arm and fell on the platform. + +"Oh my! oh my! Me fish!" exclaimed the man, solicitously picking up a +remarkably good-looking salmon that had slipped from its wrapping of +newspaper. + +Inspiration came to me, and I, in my turn, opened my window and +summoned the station-master. + +Would his friend sell me the salmon? The stationmaster entered upon +the mission with ardour, but without success. + +No; the gentleman was only just after running down to the town for it +in the delay, but why wouldn't I run down and get one for myself? +There was half-a-dozen more of them below at Coffey's, selling cheap; +there would be time enough, the mail wasn't signalled yet. + +I jumped from the carriage and doubled out of the station at top speed, +followed by an assurance from the guard that he would not forget me. + +Congratulating myself on the ascendancy of the Personal Element, I sped +through the soapy limestone mud towards the public-houses. En route I +met a heated man carrying yet another salmon, who, without preamble, +informed me that there were three or four more good fish in it, and +that he was after running down from the train himself. + +"Ye have whips o' time!" he called after me. "It's the first house +that's not a public-house. Ye'll see boots in the window--she'll give +them for tenpence a pound if ye're stiff with her!" + +I ran past the public-houses. + +"Tenpence a pound!" I exclaimed inwardly, "at this time of year! +That's good enough." + +Here I perceived the house with boots in the window, and dived into its +dark doorway. + +A cobbler was at work behind a low counter. He mumbled something about +Herself, through lengths of waxed thread that hung across his mouth, a +fat woman appeared at an inner door, and at that moment I heard, +appallingly near, the whistle of the incoming mail. The fat woman +grasped the situation in an instant, and with what appeared but one +movement, snatched a large fish from the floor of the room behind her +and flung a newspaper round it. + +"Eight pound weight!" she said swiftly. "Ten shillings!" + +A convulsive effort of mental arithmetic assured me that this was more +than tenpence a pound, but it was not the moment for stiffness. I +shoved a half-sovereign into her fishy hand, clasped my salmon in my +arms, and ran. + +Needless to say it was uphill, and at the steepest gradient another +whistle stabbed me like a spur; above the station roof successive and +advancing puffs of steam warned me that the worst had probably +happened, but still I ran. When I gained the platform my train was +already clear of it, but the Personal Element held good. Every soul in +the station, or so it seemed to me, lifted up his voice and yelled. +The stationmaster put his fingers in his mouth and sent after the +departing train an unearthly whistle, with a high trajectory and a +serrated edge. It took effect; the train slackened, I plunged from the +platform and followed it up the rails, and every window in both trains +blossomed with the heads of deeply-interested spectators. The guard +met me on the line, very apologetic and primed with an explanation that +the gentleman going for the boat-train wouldn't let him wait any +longer, while from our rear came an exultant cry from the +station-master. + +"Ye _told_ him ye wouldn't forget him!" + +"There's a few countrywomen in your carriage, sir," said the guard, +ignoring the taunt, as he shoved me and my salmon up the side of the +train, "but they'll be getting out in a couple of stations. There +wasn't another seat in the train for them!" + +My sensational return to my carriage was viewed with the utmost +sympathy by no less than seven shawled and cloaked countrywomen. In +order to make room for me, one of them seated herself on the floor with +her basket in her lap, another, on the seat opposite to me, squeezed +herself under the central elbow flap that had been turned up to make +room. The aromas of wet cloaks, turf smoke, and salt fish formed a +potent blend. I was excessively hot, and the eyes of the seven women +were fastened upon me with intense and unwearying interest. + +"Move west a small piece, Mary Jack, if you please," said a voluminous +matron in the corner, "I declare we're as throng as three in a bed this +minute!" + +"Why then Julia Casey, there's little throubling yourself," grumbled +the woman under the flap. "Look at the way meself is! I wonder is it +to be putting humps on themselves the gentry has them things down on +top o' them! I'd sooner be carrying a basket of turnips on me back +than to be scrooged this way!" + +The woman on the floor at my feet rolled up at me a glance of +compassionate amusement at this rustic ignorance, and tactfully changed +the conversation by supposing that it was at Coffey's I got the salmon. + +I said it was. + +There was a silence, during which it was obvious that one question +burnt in every heart. + +"I'll go bail she axed him tinpence!" said the woman under the flap, as +one who touches the limits of absurdity. + +"It's a beautiful fish!" I said defiantly. "Eight pounds weight. I +gave her ten shillings for it." + +What is described in newspapers as "sensation in court" greeted this +confession. + +"Look!" said the woman under the flap, darting her head out of the hood +of her cloak, like a tortoise, "t' is what it is, ye haven't as much +roguery in your heart as'd make ye a match for her!" + +"Divil blow the ha'penny Eliza Coffey paid for that fish!" burst out +the fat woman in the corner. "Thim lads o' her's had a creel full o' +thim snatched this morning before it was making day!" + +"How would the gentleman be a match for her!" shouted the woman on the +floor through a long-drawn whistle that told of a coming station. +"Sure a Turk itself wouldn't be a match for her! That one has a tongue +that'd clip a hedge!" + +At the station they clambered out laboriously, and with groaning. I +handed down to them their monster baskets, laden, apparently, with +ingots of lead; they told me in return that I was a fine _grauver_ man, +and it was a pity there weren't more like me; they wished, finally, +that my journey might well thrive with me, and passed from my ken, +bequeathing to me, after the agreeable manner of their kind, a certain +comfortable mental sleekness that reason cannot immediately dispel. +They also left me in possession of the fact that I was about to present +the irreproachable Alice Hervey with a contraband salmon. + +The afternoon passed cheerlessly into evening, and my journey did not +conspicuously thrive with me. Somewhere in the dripping twilight I +changed trains, and again later on, and at each change the salmon +moulted some more of its damp raiment of newspaper, and I debated +seriously the idea of interring it, regardless of consequences, in my +portmanteau. A lamp was banged into the roof of my carriage, half an +inch of orange flame, poised in a large glass globe, like a gold-fish, +and of about as much use as an illuminant. Here also was handed in the +dinner basket that I had wired for, and its contents, arid though they +were, enabled me to achieve at least some measure of mechanical +distension, followed by a dreary lethargy that was not far from +drowsiness. + +At the next station we paused long; nothing whatever occurred, and the +rain drummed patiently upon the roof. Two nuns and some school-girls +were in the carriage next door, and their voices came plaintively and +in snatches through the partition; after a long period of apparent +collapse, during which I closed my eyes to evade the cold gaze of the +salmon through the netting, a voice in the next carriage said +resourcefully: + +"Oh, girls, I'll tell you what we'll do! We'll say the Rosary!" + +"Oh, that will be lovely!" said another voice; "well, who'll give it +out? Theresa Condon, you'll give it out." + +Theresa Condon gave it out, in a not unmelodious monotone, interspersed +with the responses, always in a lower cadence; the words were +indistinguishable, but the rise and fall of the western voices was +lulling as the hum of bees. I fell asleep. + +I awoke in total darkness; the train was motionless, and complete and +profound silence reigned. We were at a station, that much I discerned +by the light of the dim lamp at the far end of a platform glistening +with wet. I struck a match and ascertained that it was eleven o'clock, +precisely the hour at which I was to board the mail train. I jumped +out and ran down the platform; there was no one in the train; there was +no one even on the engine, which was forlornly hissing to itself in the +silence. There was not a human being anywhere. Every door was closed, +and all was dark. The name-board of the station was faintly visible; +with a lighted match I went along it letter by letter. It seemed as if +the whole alphabet were in it, and by the time I had got to the end I +had forgotten the beginning. One fact I had, however, mastered, that +it was not the junction at which I was to catch the mail. + +I was undoubtedly awake, but for a moment I was inclined to entertain +the idea that there had been an accident, and that I had entered upon +existence in another world. Once more I assailed the station house and +the appurtenances thereof, the ticket-office, the waiting room, +finally, and at some distance, the goods store, outside which the +single lamp of the station commented feebly on the drizzle and the +darkness. As I approached it a crack of light under the door became +perceptible, and a voice was suddenly uplifted within. + +"Your best now agin that! Throw down your Jack!" + +I opened the door with pardonable violence, and found the guard, the +stationmaster, the driver, and the stoker, seated on barrels round a +packing case, on which they were playing a game of cards. + +To have too egregiously the best of a situation is not, to a generous +mind, a source of strength. In the perfection of their overthrow I +permitted the driver and stoker to wither from their places, and to +fade away into the outer darkness without any suitable send-off; with +the guard and the stationmaster I dealt more faithfully, but the +pleasure of throwing water on drowned rats is not a lasting one. I +accepted the statements that they thought there wasn't a Christian in +the train, that a few minutes here or there wouldn't signify, that they +would have me at the junction in twenty minutes, and it was often the +mail was late. + +Fired by this hope I hurried back to my carriage, preceded at an +emulous gallop by the officials. The guard thrust in with me the +lantern from the card table, and fled to his van. + +"Mind the goods, Tim!" shouted the station-master, as he slammed my +door, "she might be coming anytime now!" + +The answer travelled magnificently back from the engine. + +"Let her come! She'll meet her match!" A war-whoop upon the steam +whistle fittingly closed the speech, and the train sprang into action. + +We had about fifteen miles to go, and we banged and bucketed over it in +what was, I should imagine, record time. The carriage felt as if it +were galloping on four wooden legs, my teeth chattered in my head, and +the salmon slowly churned its way forth from its newspaper, and moved +along the netting with dreadful stealth. + +All was of no avail. + +"Well," said the guard, as I stepped forth on to the deserted platform +of Loughranny, "that owld Limited Mail's th' unpunctualest thrain in +Ireland! If you're a minute late she's gone from you, and may be if +you were early you might be half-an-hour waiting for her!" + +On the whole the guard was a gentleman. He said he would show me the +best hotel in the town, though he feared I would be hard set to get a +bed anywhere because of the "_Feis_" (a Feis, I should explain, is a +Festival, devoted to competitions in Irish songs and dances). He +shouldered my portmanteau, he even grappled successfully with the +salmon, and, as we traversed the empty streets, he explained to me how +easily I could catch the morning boat from Rosslare, and how it was, as +a matter of fact, quite the act of Providence that my original scheme +had been frustrated. + +All was dark at the uninviting portals of the hotel favoured by the +guard. For a full five minutes we waited at them, ringing hard: I +suggested that we should try elsewhere. + +"He'll come," said the guard, with the confidence of the Pied Piper of +Hamelin, retaining an implacable thumb upon the button of the electric +bell. "He'll come. Sure it rings in his room!" + +The victim came, half awake, half dressed, and with an inch of dripping +candle in his fingers. There was not a bed there, he said, nor in the +town neither. + +[Illustration: THE VICTIM CAME] + +I said I would sit in the dining-room till the time for the early train. + +"Sure there's five beds in the dining-room," replied the boots, "and +there's mostly two in every bed." + +His voice was firm, but there was a wavering look in his eye. + +"What about the billiard-room, Mike?" said the guard, in wooing tones. + +"Ah, God bless you! we have a mattress on the table this minute!" +answered the boots, wearily, "and the fellow that got the First Prize +for Reels asleep on top of it!" + +"Well, and can't ye put the palliasse on the floor under it, ye +omadhawn?" said the guard, dumping my luggage and the salmon in the +hall, "sure there's no snugger place in the house! I must run away +home now, before Herself thinks I'm dead altogether!" + +His retreating footsteps went lightly away down the empty street. + +"Annything don't throuble _him_!" said the boots bitterly. + +As for me, nothing save the Personal Element stood between me and +destitution. + + +It was in the dark of the early morning that I woke again to life and +its troubles. A voice, dropping, as it were, over the edge of some +smothering over-world, had awakened me. It was the voice of the First +Prize for Reels, descending through a pocket of the billiard-table. + +"I beg your pardon, sir, are ye going on the 5 to Cork?" + +I grunted a negative. + +"Well, if ye were, ye'd be late," said the voice. + +I received this useful information in indignant silence, and +endeavoured to wrap myself again in the vanishing skirts of a dream. + +"I'm going on the 6.30 meself," proceeded the voice, "and it's unknown +to me how I'll put on me boots. Me feet is swelled the size o' +three-pound loaves with the dint of the little dancing-shoes I had on +me in the competition last night. Me feet's delicate that way, and I'm +a great epicure about me boots." + +I snored aggressively, but the dream was gone. So, for all practical +purposes, was the night. + +The First Prize for Reels arose, presenting an astonishing spectacle of +grass-green breeches, a white shirt, and pearl-grey stockings, and +accomplished a toilet that consisted of removing these and putting on +ordinary garments, completed by the apparently excruciating act of +getting into his boots. At any other hour of the day I might have been +sorry for him. He then removed himself and his belongings to the hall, +and there entered upon a resounding conversation with the boots, while +I crawled forth from my lair to renew the strife with circumstances and +to endeavour to compose a telegram to Alice Hervey of explanation and +apology that should cost less than seven and sixpence. There was also +the salmon to be dealt with. + +Here the boots intervened, opportunely, with a cup of tea, and the +intelligence that he had already done up the salmon in straw +bottle-covers and brown paper, and that I could travel Europe with it +if I liked. He further informed me that he would run up to the station +with the luggage now, and that may be I wouldn't mind carrying the fish +myself; it was on the table in the hall. + +My train went at 6.15. The boots had secured for me one of many empty +carriages, and lingered conversationally till the train started; he +regretted politely my bad night at the hotel, and assured me that only +for Jimmy Durkan having a little drink taken--Jimmy Durkan was the +First Prize for Reels--he would have turned him off the billiard-table +for my benefit. He finally confided to me that Mr. Durkan was engaged +to his sister, and was a rising baker in the town of Limerick, +"indeed," he said, "any girl might be glad to get him. He dances like +whalebone, and he makes grand bread!" + +Here the train started. + +It was late that night when, stiff, dirty, with tired eyes blinking in +the dazzle of electric lights, I was conducted by the Herveys' +beautiful footman into the Herveys' baronial hall, and was told by the +Herveys' imperial butler that dinner was over, and the gentlemen had +just gone into the drawing-room. I was in the act of hastily declining +to join them there, when a voice cried-- + +"Here he is!" + +And Philippa, rustling and radiant, came forth into the hall, followed +in shimmers of satin, and flutterings of lace, by Alice Hervey, by the +bride elect, and by the usual festive rout of exhilarated relatives, +male and female, whose mission it is to keep things lively before a +wedding. + +"Is this a wedding present for me, Uncle Sinclair?" cried the bride +elect, through a deluge of questions and commiserations, and snatched +from under my arm the brown paper parcel that had remained there from +force of direful habit. + +"I advise you not to open it!" I exclaimed; "it's a salmon!" + +The bride elect, with a shriek of disgust, and without an instant of +hesitation, hurled it at her nearest neighbour, the head bridesmaid. +The head bridesmaid, with an answering shriek, sprang to one side, and +the parcel that I had cherished with a mother's care across two +countries and a stormy channel, fell, with a crash, on the flagged +floor. + +_Why did it crash?_ + +"A salmon!" screamed Philippa, gazing at the parcel, round which a pool +was already forming, "why that's whisky! Can't you smell it?" + +The footman here respectfully interposed, and kneeling down, cautiously +extracted from folds of brown paper a straw bottle-cover full of broken +glass and dripping with whisky. + +"I'm afraid the other things are rather spoiled, sir," he said +seriously, and drew forth, successively, a very large pair of high-low +shoes, two long grey worsted stockings, and a pair of grass-green +breeches. + +They brought the house down, in a manner doubtless familiar to them +when they shared the triumphs of Mr. Jimmy Durkan, but they left Alice +Hervey distinctly cold. + +"You know, darling," she said to Philippa afterwards, "I don't think it +was very clever of dear Sinclair to take the wrong parcel. I _had_ +counted on that salmon." + + + + +IV + +"THE MAN THAT CAME TO BUY APPLES" + +It had been freezing hard all the way home, and the Quaker skated +perilously once or twice on the northerly stretches. As I passed the +forge near my gate I issued an order for frost-nails, and while I did +so the stars were kindling like diamonds over the black ridge of +Shreelane Hill. + +The overture to the Frost Symphony had begun, with its usual beauties +and difficulties, and its leading theme was given forth in a missive +from Flurry Knox, that awaited me on the hall table. Flurry's +handwriting was an unattractive blend of the laundress's bill, and the +rambling zigzags of the temperature chart, but he exhibited no more of +it than was strictly necessary in getting to the point. Would I shoot +at Aussolas the following day? There were a lot of cock in, and he had +whipped up four guns in a hurry. There was a postscript, "Bernard +Shute is coming. Tell Mrs. Yeates he didn't kill any one yet this +season." + +Since his marriage Flurry had been promoted to the position of agent to +his grandmother, old Mrs. Knox of Aussolas, and through the +unfathomable mazes of their dealings and fights with each other, the +fact remained that he had secured to himself the Aussolas shooting at +about half its market value. So Mrs. Knox said. Her grandson, on the +other hand, had often informed me that the privilege "had him beggared, +what with beaters and all sorts, and his grandmother's cattle turned +into the woods destroying all the covert--let alone her poaching." +Into the differences of such skilled combatants the prudent did not +intrude themselves, but they accepted without loss of time such +invitations to shoot at Aussolas as came their way. Notwithstanding +the buccaneerings of Flurry's grandmother, the woods of Aussolas, in +decent weather, were usually good for fifteen to twenty couple of cock. + +I sent my acceptance before mentioning to Philippa that Bernard Shute +was to be of the party. It was impossible to make Philippa understand +that those who shot Bernard's pheasants at Clountiss, could hardly do +less than retaliate when occasion served. I had once, in a moment of +regrettable expansion, entertained my wife with an account of how an +entire shooting party had successively cast themselves upon their +faces, while the muzzle of Bernard's gun had followed, half way round +the compass, a rabbit that had broken back. No damage had ensued, not +even to the rabbit, but I had supplied Philippa with a fact that was an +unfortunate combination of a thorn in her pillow and a stone in her +sling. + +The frost held; it did more than hold, it gripped. As I drove to +Aussolas the fields lay rigid in the constraining cold; the trees were +as dead as the telegraph poles, and the whistle of the train came thin +and ghostly across four miles of silent country. Everything was half +alive, with the single exception of the pony, which, filled with the +idiotic exaltation that frost imparts to its race, danced upon its +frost-nails, shied with untiring inventiveness, and made three several +and well-conceived attempts to bolt. Maria, with her nose upon my +gaiter, shuddered uninterruptedly throughout the drive, partly because +of the pinching air, partly in honour of the sovereign presence of the +gun-case. + +Old Mrs. Knox was standing on the steps as I walked round to the hall +door of Aussolas Castle. She held a silver bowl in her hand; on her +head, presumably as a protection against the cold, was a table-napkin; +round her feet a throng of hens and pigeons squabbled for the bits that +she flung to them from the bowl, and a furtive and distrustful peacock +darted a blue neck in among them from the outskirts. + +"'Good-morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham,'" was Mrs. Knox's singular +greeting, "'a good soft pillow for that good grey head were better than +a churlish turf of France'!" + +My friendship with Mrs. Knox was now of several years' standing, and I +knew enough of her to gather that I stood rebuked for being late. + +"Flurry arrived only half-an-hour ago! my first intimation of a +shooting party," she continued, in the dictatorial voice that was +always a shock when taken in connection with her beggar woman's +costume, "a nice time of day to begin to look for beaters! And the +other feather-bed sportsmen haven't arrived yet. In old times they +would have had ten couple by this time, and then Mr. Flurry complains +of the shooting!" + +She was here interrupted by the twitching of the table-napkin from her +head by her body-woman, who had advanced upon her from the rear, with +the reigning member of the dynasty of purple velvet bonnets in her +hand. The bonnet was substituted for the table-napkin, much as a stage +property is shoved on from the wings, and two bony hands, advancing +from behind, tied the strings under Mrs. Knox's chin, while she +uninterruptedly fed the hens, and denounced the effeteness of modern +cock-shooters. The hands descended and fixed a large pin in the +uppermost of her mistress' shawls. + +"Mullins, have done!" exclaimed Mrs. Knox, suddenly tearing herself +from her captor, "you're an intolerable nuisance!" + +"Oh, very well, ma'am, maybe you'd sooner go out with your head naked +and soak the cold!" returned Mullins, retiring with the honours of war +and the table-napkin. + +"Mullins and I get on famously," observed Mrs. Knox, crushing an empty +egg-shell with her yellow diamonded fingers and returning it to its +original donors, "we're both mad, you know!" + +Comment on this might have been difficult, but I was preserved from it +by the approach across the frozen gravel of a short, red-bearded man, +Mrs. Knox's gardener, wood-ranger, and ruling counsellor, John Kane. +He held in his hands two large apples of arsenical hue, and, taking off +his hat to me with much dignity, addressed himself to the lady of the +house. + +"He says he'd sooner walk barefoot to Cork than to give three and +fippence for the likes of them!" + +"I'm sure I've no objection if he does," responded Mrs. Knox, turning +the silver bowl upside down over the scrimmaging hens and pigeons, "I +daresay it would be no novelty to him." + +"And isn't that what I told him!" said John Kane, his voice at once +ascending to the concert pitch of altercation, "I said to him if the +Lord Left'nant and the Pope was follying me around the yard of Aussolas +offering three and a penny for them apples they'd not get them! Sure +the nuns gave us that much for windfalls that was only fit to be making +cherubs with!" + +I might have been struck by the fitness, as well as the ingenuity, of +this industry, but in some remote byway of my brain the remembrance +woke of a "black-currant cherub" prescribed by Mrs. Cadogan for sore +throats, and divined by Philippa to be a syrup. I turned away and lit +a cigarette in order to conceal my feelings from John Kane, round whose +red beard the smoke of battle hung almost palpably. + +"What's between you?" asked his mistress sharply. + +"Three and a penny he's offering, ma'am!" declaimed her deputy, "for +sheeps' noses that there isn't one in the country has but yourself! +And not a brown farthing more would he give!--the consecrated blagyard!" + +[Illustration: "AND NOT A BROWN FARTHING MORE WOULD HE GIVE"] + +Anything less like a sheep's nose than Mrs. Knox's hooked beak, as she +received this information, could hardly be imagined. + +"You're half a fool, John Kane!" she snapped, "and the other half's not +sensible! Go back and tell him Major Yeates is here and wants to buy +every apple I have!" She dealt me a wink that was the next thing to a +dig in the ribs. As she spoke a cart drawn by a cheerful-looking grey +pony, and conducted by a tall, thin man, came into view from the +direction of the yard. It rattled emptily, and proclaimed, as was +intended, the rupture of all business relations. + +"See here, sir," said John Kane to me in one hoarse breath, "when he's +over-right the door I'll ask him the three and fippence again, and when +he refuses, your Honour will say we should split the difference----" + +The cart advanced, it passed the hall door with a dignity but little +impaired by the pony's apprehensive interest in the peacock, and the +tall man took off his hat to Mrs. Knox with as gloomy a respect as if +she had been a funeral. + +John Kane permitted to the salutation the full time due to it, in the +manner of one who counts a semibreve rest, while the cart moved +implacably onwards. The exact, the psychic instant arrived. + +"HONOMAUNDHIAOUL! SULLIVAN!" he shouted, with a full-blown burst of +ferocity, hurtling down the steps in pursuit, "will ye take them or +lave them?" + +To manifest, no doubt, her complete indifference to the issue, Mrs. +Knox turned and went into the house, followed by the majority of the +hens, and left me to await my cue. The play was played out with +infinite credit to both artists, and at the full stretch of their +lungs; at the preordained moment I intervened with the conventional +impromptu, and suggested that the difference should be split. The +curtain immediately fell, and somewhere in the deep of the hall a +glimpse of the purple bonnet told me that Mrs. Knox was in the +auditorium. + +When I rejoined her I found Flurry with her, and something in the +atmosphere told that here also was storm. + +"Well, take them! Take them all!" Mrs. Knox was saying in high +indignation. "Take Mullins and the maids if you like! I daresay they +might be more use than the men!" + +"They'll make more row, anyhow," said Flurry sourly. "I wonder is it +them that put down all the rabbit-traps I'm after seeing in the +coach-house this minute!" + +"It may be _they_, but it certainly is not _them_," retorted Mrs. Knox, +hitting flagrantly below the belt; "and if you want beaters found for +you, you should give me more than five minutes' warning----" She +turned with the last word, and moved towards the staircase. + +"I beg your pardon, ma'am," said John Kane, very respectfully, from the +hall door, "that Sullivan brought this down for your Honour." + +He placed on the table a bottle imperfectly wrapped in newspaper. + +"Tell Sullivan," said Flurry, without an instant's hesitation, "that he +makes the worst potheen in the country, and I'll prosecute him for +bringing it here, unless he comes out to beat with the rest of you." + +Remembering my official position, I discreetly examined the barrels of +my gun. + +"You'll give him no such message!" screamed Mrs. Knox over the dark +rail of the staircase. "Let him take himself and his apples off out of +this!" Then, in the same breath, and almost the same key, "Major +Yeates, which do you prefer, curry, or Irish stew?" + +The _cuisine_ at Aussolas was always fraught with dark possibilities, +being alternately presided over by bibulous veterans from Dublin, or +aboriginal kitchenmaids off the estate. Feeling as Fair Rosamond might +have felt when proffered the dagger or the bowl, I selected curry. + +"Then curry it shall be," said Mrs. Knox, with a sudden and awful +affability. In this gleam of stormy sunshine I thought it well to +withdraw. + +"Did you ever eat my grandmother's curry?" said Flurry to me, later, as +we watched Bernard Shute trying to back his motor into the coach-house. + +I said I thought not. + +"Well, you'd take a splint off a horse with it," said Mrs. Knox's +grandson. + +The Aussolas woods were full of birds that day. Birds bursting out of +holly bushes like corks out of soda-water bottles, skimming low under +the branches of fir trees, bolting across rides at a thousand miles an +hour, swinging away through prohibitive tree tops, but to me had +befallen the inscrutable and invincible accident of being "off my day," +and, by an equal unkindness, Fate had allotted to me the station next +Flurry. Every kind of bird came my way except the easy ones, and, as a +general thing, when I had done no more than add a little pace to their +flight, they went down to Flurry, who never in my experience had been +off his day, and they seldom went farther afield. The beaters, +sportsmen every man of them, had a royal time. They flailed the bushes +and whacked the tree trunks; the discordant chorus of "Hi cock! Hi +cock! Cock! Cock! Prrrr!" rioted through the peaceful woods, and +every other minute a yell of "Mark!" broke like a squib through the +din. The clamour, the banging of the guns, and the expectancy, kept +the nerves tingling; the sky between the grey branches was as blue as +Italy's; despite fingers as icy as the gun-barrels, despite the +speechless reproach of Maria, slinking at my heels in unemployed +dejection, I enjoyed every breath or the frosty day. After all, hit or +miss, a good day with the cock comes very near a good day with the +hounds, without taking into consideration the comfortable fact that in +the former the risk is all on the side of the birds. + +Little Bosanquet, the captain of coastguards, on my left, was doing +remarkably well, so apparently, was Murray the D.I. of Police; how +Bernard Shute was faring I knew not, but he was certainly burning a lot +of powder. At the end of the third beat I found myself beside Murray. +His face was redder than usual, even his freckles conveyed an +impression of impartially sprinkled cayenne pepper. + +"Did you see Shute just now?" he demanded in a ferocious whisper. "A +bird got up between us, and he blazed straight at me! Straight bang in +my face, I tell you! Only that I was in a dead line with the bird he'd +have got me!" + +"I suppose that was about the safest place," I said. "What did you do?" + +"I simply told him that if ever he puts a grain into me I shall let him +have it back, both barrels." + +"Every one says that to Bernard sooner or later," said I, pacifically; +"he'll settle down after lunch." + +"We'll all settle down into our graves," grumbled Murray; "that'll be +the end of it." + +After this it was scarcely composing to a husband and father to find +Mr. Shute occupying the position on my right hand as we embarked upon +the last beat of the Middle Wood. He was still distinctly unsettled, +and most distressingly on the alert. Nothing escaped his vigilance, +the impossible wood pigeon, clattering out of the wrong side of a fir +tree, received its brace of cartridges as instantly as the palpable +rabbit, fleeing down the ride before him, and with an equal immunity. +Between my desire to keep the thickest tree trunks between me and him, +and the companion desire that he should be thoroughly aware of my +whereabouts, my shooting, during that beat, went still more to pieces; +a puff of feathers, wandering softly down through the radiant air, was +the sum total of my achievements. + +The end of the beat brought us to the end of the wood, and out upon an +open space of sedgy grass and bog that stretched away on the right to +the shore of Aussolas Lake; opposite to us, a couple of hundred yards +away, was another and smaller wood, clothing one side of a high +promontory near the head of the lake. Flurry and I were first out of +the covert. + +"We'll have time to run through the Rhododendron Wood before lunch," he +said, looking at his watch. "Here! John Kane!" He put two fingers in +his mouth and projected a whistle that cleft my head like a scimitar. + +John Kane emerged, nymph-like, from a laurel bush in our immediate +vicinity. + +"'Tis only lost time to be beating them rosydandhrums, Master Flurry," +he said volubly, "there wasn't a bird in that bit o' wood this winter. +Not a week passes but I'm in it, making up the bounds fence against the +cattle, and I never seen a one!" + +"You might be more apt to be looking out for a rabbit than a cock, +John," said Flurry expressionlessly, "but isn't it down in the lower +paddocks you have the cattle and the young horses this hard weather?" + +"Oh it is, sir, it is, of course, but indeed it's hard for me to know +where they are, with the Misthress telling this one and that one to put +them in their choice place. Sure she dhrives me to and fro in my mind +till I do have a headache from her!" + +A dull rumble came to us across the marsh, and, as if Mrs. Knox had +been summoned by her henchman's accusation, there laboured into view on +the road that skirted the marsh a long and dilapidated equipage, +silhouetted, with its solitary occupant, against the dull shine of the +frozen lake. + +"Tally-ho! Here comes the curry for you, Major! You'll have to eat it +I tell you!" He paused, "I'm dashed if she hasn't got Sullivan's pony! +Well, she'd steal the horns off a cow!" + +[Illustration: "I'M DASHED IF SHE HASN'T GOT SULLIVAN'S PONY"] + +It was indeed the grey pony that paced demurely in the shafts of Mrs. +Knox's phaeton, and at its head marched Sullivan; fragments of loud and +apparently agreeable conversation reached us, as the procession moved +onwards to the usual luncheon tryst at the head of the lake. + +"Come now, John Kane," said Flurry, eyeing the cortege, "you're half +your day sitting in front of the kitchen fire. How many of my rabbits +went into that curry?'' + +"Rabbits, Master Flurry?" echoed John Kane almost pityingly, "there's +no call for them trash in Aussolas kitchen! And if we wanted them +itself, we'd not get them. I declare to me conscience there's not a +rabbit in Aussolas demesne this minute, with the way your Honour has +them ferreted--let alone the foxes!----" + +"I suppose it's scarcely worth your while to put the traps down," said +Flurry benignly; "that's why they were in the coach-house this morning." + +There was an undissembled titter from a group of beaters in the +background; Flurry tucked his gun under his arm and walked on. + +"It'd be no more than a charity if ye'd eat the lunch now, sir," urged +John Kane at his elbow, in fluent remonstrance, "and leave Sullivan go +home. Sure it'll be black night on him before the Misthress will be +done with him. And as for that wood, it's hardly we can go through it +with the threes that's down since the night of the Big Wind, and +briars, and all sorts. Sure the last time I was through it me pants +was in shreds, and I was that tired when I got home I couldn't stoop to +pick a herrin' off a tongs, and as for the floods and the holes in the +western end--" John Kane drew a full breath, and with a trawling +glance gathered Bernard and me into his audience. "I declare to ye, +gintlemen, me boots when I took them off was more than boots! They +resimbled the mouth of a hake!" + +"Ah, shut your own mouth," said Flurry. + +The big rhododendron was one of the glories of Aussolas. Its original +progenitor had been planted by Flurry's great-grandmother, and now, +after a century of unchecked license, it and its descendants ran riot +among the pine stems on the hillside above the lake, and, in June, +clothed a precipitous half acre with infinite varieties of pale +mysterious mauve. The farm road by which Mrs. Knox had traversed the +marsh, here followed obediently the spurs of the wood and creeks of the +shore, in their alternate give and take. From the exalted station that +had been given me on the brow of the hill, I looked down on it between +the trunks of the pine trees, and saw, instead of mysterious mauve +blossoms, the defiant purple of Mrs. Knox's bonnet, glowing, +motionless, in a sheltered and sunny angle of the road just where it +met the wood. She was drawn up in her phaeton with her back to a +tumble-down erection of stones and branches, that was supposed to bar +the way into the wood, beside her was the great flat boulder that had +for generations been the table for shooting lunches. How, in any area +of less than a quarter of a mile, Sullivan had contrived to turn the +phaeton, was known only to himself, but he had accomplished it, and was +now adding to the varied and unforeseen occupations of his day the task +of unpacking the luncheon basket. As I waited for the whistle that was +the signal for the beat to begin, I viewed the proceedings up to the +point where Sullivan, now warming artistically to his work, crowned the +arrangement with the bottle of potheen. + +[Illustration: HE CROWNED THE ARRANGEMENT WITH THE BOTTLE OF POTHEEN] + +It was at that moment that I espied John Kane break from a rhododendron +bush beside the phaeton, with a sack over his shoulder. This, as far +as I could see through the branches, he placed upon Mrs. Knox's lap, +the invaluable Sullivan hurrying to his aid. The next instant I saw +Murray arrive and take up his allotted station upon the road; John Kane +retired into the evergreen thicket as abruptly as he had emerged from +it, Flurry's whistle sounded, and the yells of "Hi cock" began again. + +We moved forward very slowly, in order to keep station with Murray, who +had to follow on the road the outer curve of the wood, while we struck +straight across it. It was a wood of old and starveling trees, +strangled by ivy, broken by combat with each other in the storms that +rushed upon them up the lake; it was two years since I had last been +through it, and I remembered well the jungle of ferns and the +undergrowth of briars that had shredded the pants of John Kane, and had +held in their thorny depths what Flurry had described as "a dose of +cock." To-day the wood seemed strangely bare, and remarkably out of +keeping with John Kane's impassioned indictment; the ferns, even the +bracken, had almost disappeared, the briar brakes were broken down, and +laced with black paths, and in the frozen paste of dead leaves and peat +mould the hoof-marks of cattle and horses bore witness against them, +like the thumb-prints of a criminal. In the first ten minutes not a +gun had been let off; I anticipated pleasantly, if inadequately, the +remarks that Flurry would address to John Kane at the conclusion of the +beat. To foreshadow John Kane's reply to Flurry was a matter less +simple. Bernard Shute was again the next gun on my left, and kept, as +was his wont, something ahead of his due place in the line; of this I +did not complain, it made it all the easier to keep my eye on him. The +idle cartridges in his gun were obviously intolerable to him; as he +crossed a little glade he discharged both barrels into the firmament, +where far above, in tense flight and steady as a constellation, moved a +wedge of wild geese. The wedge continued its course unshaken, but, as +if lifted by the bang, the first woodcock of the beat got up in front +of me, and swung away into the rhododendrons. "Mark!" I shouted, +loosing an ineffectual cartridge after him. Mr. Shute was equal to the +occasion, and let fly his usual postman's knock with both barrels. In +instant response there arose from behind the rhododendrons the bray of +a donkey, fraught with outrage and terror, followed by crashing of +branches and the thunderous galloping of many hoofs, and I had a +glimpse of a flying party of cattle and horses, bursting from the +rhododendron bushes and charging down a grassy slope in the direction +of the road. Every tail was in the air, the cattle bellowed, and the +donkey, heading the flight, did not cease to proclaim his injuries. + +"How many of them have you hit?" I shouted. + +"I believe I got 'em all, bar the cock!" returned Mr. Shute, with +ecstasy scarcely tempered by horror. + +I hastened to the brow of the hill, and thence beheld Mrs. Knox's live +stock precipitate themselves on to the road, and turn as one man in the +direction of home. With a promptitude for which I have never been +given sufficient credit, I shoved my gun into the branches of a tree +and ran back through the wood at my best pace. In that glimpse of the +route I had recognised the streaming chestnut mane and white legs of +the venerable Trinket, the most indomitable old rogue that had ever +reared up generations of foals in the way they should not go, and I +knew by repute that once she was set going it would take more to stop +her than the half-demolished barricade at the entrance to the wood. + +As I ran I seemed to see Trinket and her disciples hurling themselves +upon Mrs. Knox's phaeton and Sullivan's pony, with what results no man +could tell. They had, however, first to circumnavigate the promontory; +my chance was by crossing it at the neck to get to the phaeton before +them. The going was bad, and the time was short; I went for all I was +worth, and Maria, mystified, but burning with zeal, preceded me with +kangaroo leaps and loud and hysterical barks. A mossy wall ringed the +verge of the hill; I followed Maria over it, and the wall, or a good +part of it, followed me down the hill. I plunged onward amid the +coiling stems and branches of the big rhododendrons, an illuminative +flash of the purple bonnet giving me my bearings. A sort of track +revealed itself, doubling and dodging and dropping down rocky slides, +as if in flight before me. It was near the foot of the hill that a +dead branch extended a claw, and with human malignity plucked the +eye-glass from my eye and snapped the cord: the eye-glass, entering +into the spirit of the thing, aimed for the nearest stone and hit it. +It is the commonest of disasters for the short-sighted, yet custom +cannot stale it; I made the usual comment, with the usual fervour and +futility, and continued to blunder forward in all the discomfort of +half-sight. The trumpeting of the donkey heralded the oncoming of the +stampede; I broke my way through the last of the rhododendrons and +tumbled out on to the road twenty yards ahead of the phaeton. + +Sullivan's pony was on its hind legs, and Sullivan was hanging on to +its head. Mrs. Knox was sitting erect in the phaeton with the reins in +her hand. + +"Get out, ma'am! Get out!" Sullivan was howling, as I scrambled to my +feet. + +"Don't be a fool!" replied Mrs. Knox, without moving. + +The stampede was by this time confronted by the barrier. There was +not, however, a moment of hesitation; Trinket came rocketing out over +it as if her years were four, instead of four-and-twenty; she landed +with her white nose nearly in the back seat of the phaeton, got past +with a swerve and a slip up, and went away for her stable with her tail +over her back, followed with stag-like agility by her last foal, her +last foal but one, and the donkey, with the young cattle hard on their +flying heels. Bernard, it was very evident, had peppered them +impartially all round. Sullivan's pony was alternately ramping +heraldically, and wriggling like an eel in the clutches of Sullivan, +and I found myself snatching blindly at whatever came to my hand of his +headstall. What I caught was a mingled handful of forelock and +brow-band; the pony twitched back his head with the cunning that is +innate in ponies, and the head-stall, which was a good two sizes too +large, slid over its ears as though they had been buttered, and +remained, bit and all, in my hand. There was a moment of struggle, in +which Sullivan made a creditable effort to get the pony's head into +chancery under his arm; foreseeing the issue, I made for the old lady, +with the intention of dragging her from the carriage. She was at the +side furthest from me, and I got one foot into the phaeton and grasped +at her. + +At that precise moment the pony broke away, with a jerk that pitched me +on to my knees on the mat at her feet. Simultaneously I was aware of +Sullivan, at the opposite side, catching Mrs. Knox to his bosom as the +phaeton whirled past him, while I, as sole occupant, wallowed prone +upon a heap of rugs. That ancient vehicle banged in and out of the +ruts with an agility that ill befitted its years, while, with extreme +caution, and the aid of the side rail, I gained the seat vacated by +Mrs. Knox, and holding on there as best I could, was aware that I was +being seriously run away with by the apple-man's pony, on whom my own +disastrous hand had bestowed his freedom. + +The flying gang in front, enlivened no doubt by the noise in their +rear, maintained a stimulating lead. We were now clear of the wood, +and the frozen ditches of the causeway awaited me on either side in +steely parallel lines; out in the open the frost had turned the ruts to +iron, and it was here that the phaeton, entering into the spirit of the +thing, began to throw out ballast. The cushions of the front seat were +the first to go, followed, with a bomb-like crash, by a stone hot-water +jar, that had lurked in the deeps of the rugs. It was in negotiating a +stiffish outcrop of rock in the track that the back seat broke loose +and fell to earth with a hollow thump; with a corresponding thump I +returned to my seat from a considerable altitude, and found that in the +interval the cushion had removed itself from beneath me, and followed +its fellows overboard. Near the end of the causeway we were into +Trinket's rearguard, one of whom, a bouncing young heifer, slammed a +kick into the pony's ribs as he drew level with her, partly as a +witticism, partly as a token of contempt. With that the end came. The +pony wrenched to the left, the off front wheel jammed in a rut, came +off, and the phaeton rose like a live thing beneath me and bucked me +out on to the road. + +A succession of crashes told that the pony was making short work of the +dash-board; for my part, I lay something stunned, and with a twisted +ankle, on the crisp whitened grass of the causeway, and wondered dully +why I was surrounded by dead rabbits. + +By the time I had pulled myself together Sullivan's pony was continuing +his career, accompanied by a fair proportion of the phaeton, and on the +road lay an inexplicable sack, with a rabbit, like Benjamin's cup, in +its mouth. + +Not less inexplicable was the appearance of Minx, my wife's +fox-terrier, whom I had last seen in an arm-chair by the drawing-room +fire at Shreelane, and now, in the role of the faithful St. Bernard, +was licking my face lavishly and disgustingly. Her attentions had the +traditional reviving effect. I sat up and dashed her from me, and in +so doing beheld my wife in the act of taking refuge in the frozen +ditch, as the cavalcade swept past, the phaeton and pony bringing up +the rear like artillery. + +"What has happened? Are you hurt?" she panted, speeding to me. + +"I am; very much hurt," I said, with what was, I think, justifiable +ill-temper, as I got gingerly on to my feet, almost annoyed to find +that my leg was not broken. + +"But, dearest Sinclair, _has_ he shot you? I got so frightened about +you that I bicycled over to-- Ugh! Good gracious!"--as she trod on +and into a mound of rabbits--"what are you doing with all these +horrible things?" + +I looked back in the direction from which I had come, and saw Mrs. Knox +advancing along the causeway arm-in-arm with the now inevitable +Sullivan (who, it may not be out of place to remind the reader, had +come to Aussolas early in the morning, with the pure and single +intention of buying apples). In Mrs. Knox's disengaged arm was +something that I discerned to be the bottle of potheen, and I instantly +resolved to minimise the extent of my injuries. Flurry, and various +items of the shooting party, were converging upon us from the wood by +as many and various short cuts. "I don't quite know what I am doing +with the rabbits," I replied, "but I rather think I'm giving them away." + +As I spoke something darted past Mrs. Knox, something that looked like +a bundle of rags in a cyclone, but was, as a matter of fact, my +faithful water-spaniel, Maria. She came on in zig-zag bounds, in short +maniac rushes. Twice she flung herself by the roadside and rolled, +driving her snout into the ground like the coulter of a plough. Her +eyes were starting from her head, her tail was tucked between her legs. +She bit, and tore frantically with her claws at the solid ice of a +puddle. + +"She's mad! She's gone mad!" exclaimed Philippa, snatching up as a +weapon something that looked like a frying-pan, but was, I believe, the +step of the phaeton. + +Maria was by this time near enough for me to discern a canary-coloured +substance masking her muzzle. + +"Yes, she's quite mad," I replied, possessed by a spirit of divination. +"She's been eating the rabbit curry." + +[Illustration: Chapter IV tailpiece] + + + + +V + +A CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE + +It has not often been my lot to be associated with a being of so +profound and rooted a pessimism as Michael Leary, Huntsman and +Kennelman to Mr. Flurry Knox's Fox-hounds. His attitude was that of +the one and only righteous man in a perfidious and dissolute world. +With, perhaps, the exception of Flurry Knox, he believed in no one save +himself. I was thoroughly aware of my inadequacy as Deputy-Master, and +cherished only a hope that Michael might look upon me as a kind of +Parsifal, a fool perhaps, yet at least a "blameless fool"; but during +my time of office there were many distressing moments in which I was +made to feel not only incapable, but culpable. + +Michael was small, sandy, green-eyed, freckled, and, I believe, +considerably junior to myself; he neither drank nor smoked, and he had +a blistering tongue. I have never tried more sincerely to earn any +one's good opinion. + +It was a pleasant afternoon towards the middle of December, and I was +paying my customary Sunday visit to the kennels to see the hounds fed. +What Michael called "the Throch" was nearly empty; the greedier of the +hounds were flitting from place to place in the line, in the undying +belief that others were better off than they. I was studying the row +of parti-coloured backs, and trying for the fiftieth time to fit each +with its name, when I was aware of a most respectable face, with grey +whiskers, regarding me from between the bars of the kennel door. + +With an effort not inferior to that with which I had just discriminated +between Guardsman and General, I recognised my visitor as Mr. Jeremiah +Flynn, a farmer, and a cattle dealer on a large scale, with whom I had +occasionally done business in a humble way. He was a District +Councillor, and a man of substance; he lived twenty miles away, at a +place on the coast called Knockeenbwee, in a flat-faced, two-storeyed +house of the usual type of hideousness. Once, when an unkind fate had +sent me to that region, I had heard the incongruous tinkle of a piano +proceeding from Mr. Flynn's mansion, as I drove past fighting an +umbrella against the wet wind that swept in from the Atlantic. + +"I beg your pardon, Major Yeates," began Mr. Flynn, with an agreeable +smile, which I saw in sections between the bars; "I had a little +business over this side of the country, and I took the liberty of +taking a stroll around to the kennels to see the hounds." + +I made haste to extend the hospitality of the feeding-yard to my +visitor, who accepted it with equal alacrity, and went on to remark +that it was wonderful weather for the time of year. Having obeyed this +primary instinct of mankind, Mr. Flynn embarked upon large yet able +compliments on the appearance of the hounds. His manners were +excellent; sufficiently robust to accord with his grey frieze coat and +flat-topped felt hat, and with just the extra touch of deference that +expressed his respect for my high qualities and position. + +"Ye have them in great form, Michael," he remarked, surveying the +hounds' bloated sides with a knowledgeable eye; "and upon me word, +there's our own poor Playboy! and a fine dog he is too!" + +[Illustration: "YE HAVE THEM IN GREAT FORM, MICHAEL"] + +"He is; and a fine dog to hunt rabbits!" said Michael, without a +relaxation of his drab countenance. + +"I daresay, Major, you didn't know that it was in my place that fellow +was rared?" continued Mr. Flynn. + +Owing to his providentially distinctive colouring of lemon and white, +Playboy was one of the hounds about whose identity I was never in +doubt. I was able to bestow a suitable glance upon him, and to recall +the fact of his having come from a trencher-fed pack, of which Mr. +Flynn was the ruling spirit, kept by the farmers in the wildernesses +beyond and around Knockeenbwee. + +"Ah! Mr. Knox was too smart for us over that hound!" pursued Mr. Flynn +pleasantly; "there was a small difference between himself and meself in +a matter of a few heifers I was buying off him--a thrifle of fifteen +shillings it was, I believe----" + +"Five and thirty," said Michael to the lash of his thong, in which he +was making a knot. + +"And I had to give him the pup before we could come to terms," ended my +visitor. + +Whether at fifteen or thirty-five shillings Playboy had been a cheap +hound. Brief, and chiefly ornamental, as my term of office had been, I +had learnt to know his voice in covert, and had learned also to act +upon it in moments of solitary and helpless ignorance as to what was +happening. This, however, was not the moment to sing his praises; I +preserved a careful silence. + +"I rared himself and his sister," said Mr. Flynn, patting Playboy +heavily, "but the sister died on me. I think 'twas from all she +fretted after the brother when he went, and 'twas a pity. Those two +had the old Irish breed in them; sure you'd know it by the colour, and +there's no more of them now in the country only the mother, and she had +a right to be shot this long time." + +"Come hounds," said Michael, interrupting this rhapsody, "open the +door, Bat." + +The pack swept out of the feeding-yard and were away on their wonted +constitutional in half a minute. + +"Grand training, grand training!" said Mr. Flynn admiringly, "they're a +credit to you, Major! It's impossible to have hounds anyway +disciplined running wild through the country the way our little pack +is. Indeed it came into my mind on the way here to try could I coax +you to come over and give us a day's hunting. We're destroyed with +foxes. Such marauding I never saw! As for turkeys and fowl, they're +tired of them, and it's my lambs they'll be after next!" + + +The moment of large and general acquiescence in Mr. Flynn's proposal +narrowed itself by imperceptible degrees to the moment, not properly +realised till it arrived, the horrid moment of getting up at a quarter +to seven on a December morning, in order to catch the early train for +Knockeenbwee. + +In the belief that I was acting in the interest of sport I had +announced at the last meet that there was to be a by-day at +Knockeenbwee. To say that the fact was received without enthusiasm is +to put it mildly. I was assured by one authority that I should have to +hunt the hounds from a steam launch; another, more sympathetic, +promised a drag, but tempered the encouragement by saying that the +walls there were all made of slates, and that by the end of the run the +skin would be hanging off the horses' legs like the skins of bananas. +Nothing short of a heart-to-heart appeal to my Whip, Dr. Jerome Hickey, +induced him to promise his support. Michael, from first to last, +remained an impenetrable thunder-cloud. The die, however, was cast, +and the hospitality of Mr. Flynn accepted. The eve of the by-day +arrived, and the Thundercloud and the hounds were sent on by road to +Knockeenbwee, accompanied by my ancient ally Slipper, who led my mare, +and rode Philippa's pony, which had been commandeered for the occasion. + +Next morning at 9.45 A.M. the train stopped by signal at the +flag-station of Moyny, a cheerless strip of platform, from which a dead +straight road retreated to infinity across a bog. An out side car was +being backed hard into the wall of the road by a long, scared rag of a +chestnut horse as Dr. Hickey and I emerged from the station, and its +driver was composing its anxieties as to the nature of trains by +beating it in the face with his whip. This, we were informed, was Mr. +Flynn's equipage, and, at a favourable moment in the conflict, Dr. +Hickey and I mounted it. + +"It's seldom the thrain stands here," said the driver apologetically, +as we started at a strong canter, "and this one's very frightful +always." + +The bog ditches fleeted by at some twelve miles an hour; they were the +softest, blackest, and deepest that I have ever seen, and I thanked +heaven that I was not in my red coat. + +"I suppose you never met the Miss Flynns?" murmured Dr. Hickey to me +across the well of the car. + +I replied in the negative. + +"Oh, they're very grand," went on my companion, with a wary eye on the +humped back of the driver, "I believe they never put their foot outside +the door unless they're going to Paris. Their father told me last week +that lords in the streets of Cork were asking who they were." + +"I suppose that was on their way to Paris," I suggested. + +"It was not," said the driver, with stunning unexpectedness, "'twas +when they went up on th'excursion last month for to have their teeth +pulled. G'wout o' that!" This to the horse, who had shied heavily at +a goat. + +Dr. Hickey and I sank into a stricken silence, five minutes of which, +at the pace we were travelling, sufficed to bring us to a little +plantation, shorn and bent by the Atlantic wind, low whitewashed walls, +an economical sweep of gravel, and an entrance gate constructed to fit +an outside car to an inch. From the moment that these came within the +range of vision the driver beat the horse with the handle of his whip, +a prelude, as we discovered, to the fact that a minor gate, obviously +and invitingly leading to the yard, lolled open on one hinge at the +outset of the plantation. There was a brief dissension, followed by a +hand gallop to the more fitting entrance; that we should find it too +fitting was a foregone conclusion, and Dr. Hickey whirled his legs on +to the seat at the moment when impact between his side of the car and +the gate post became inevitable. The bang that followed was a hearty +one, and the driver transmitted it to me in great perfection with his +elbow as he lurched on to me; there was a second and hollower bang as +the well of the car, detached by the shock, dropped on the axle and +turned over, flinging from it in its somersault a harlequinade +assortment of herrings, loaves of bread, and a band box. It was, I +think, a loaf of bread that hit the horse on the hocks, but under all +the circumstances even a herring would have been ample excuse for the +two sledge hammer kicks which he instantly administered to the +foot-board. While the car still hung in the gateway, a donkey, with a +boy sitting on the far end of its back, was suddenly mingled with the +episode. The boy was off the donkey's back and the driver was off mine +at apparently one and the same moment, and the car was somehow backed +off the pillar; as we scraped through the boy said something to the +driver in a brogue that was a shade more sophisticated than the peasant +tune. It seemed to me to convey the facts that Miss Lynie was waiting +for her hat, and that Maggie Kane was dancing mad for the soft sugar. +We proceeded to the house, leaving the ground strewn with what appeared +to be the elemental stage of a picnic. + +"I suppose you're getting him into form for the hunt, Eugene?" said Dr. +Hickey, as the lathered and panting chestnut came to a stand some ten +yards beyond the hall door. + +"Well, indeed, we thought it no harm to loosen him under the car before +Master Eddy went riding him," replied Eugene, "and begannies I'm not +done with him yet! I have to be before the masther at the next thrain." + +He shed us and our belongings on the steps, and drove away at a gallop. + +The meet had been arranged for half-past eleven. It was half-past ten +when Dr. Hickey and I were incarcerated in a dungeon-cold drawing-room +by a breathless being in tennis shoes, with her hair down her back, +doubtless Maggie Kane, hot from the war-dance brought on by the lack of +soft sugar. She told us in a gusty whisper that the masther would be +in shortly, and the ladies was coming down, and left us to meditate +upon our surroundings. + +A cascade of white paper flowed glacially from the chimney to the +fender; the gloom was Cimmerian, and unalterable, owing to the fact +that the blind was broken; the cold of a never occupied room ate into +our vitals. Footsteps pounded overhead and crept in the hall. The +house was obviously full of people, but no one came near us. Had it +not been for my companion's biographical comments on the photographs +with which the room was decked, all of them, it appeared, suitors of +the Misses Flynn, I think I should have walked back to the station. At +eleven o'clock the hurrying feet overhead were stilled, there was a +rustling in the hall as of a stage storm, and the daughters of the +house made their entry, wonderfully attired in gowns suggestive of a +theatre, or a tropical garden party, and in picture hats. As I viewed +the miracles of hairdressing, black as the raven's wing, the necklaces, +the bracelets, and the lavish top-dressing of powder, I wildly wondered +if Dr. Hickey and I should not have been in evening clothes. + +We fell to a laboured conversation, conducted upon the highest social +plane. The young ladies rolled their black eyes under arched eyebrows, +and in almost unimpeachable English accents supposed I found Ireland +very dull. They asked me if I often went to the London Opera. They +declared that when at home, music was their only resource, and made +such pointed reference to their Italian duetts that I found myself +trembling on the verge of asking them to sing. Dr. Hickey, under whose +wing I had proposed to shelter myself, remained sardonically aloof. A +blessed diversion was created by the entrance, at racing speed, of +Maggie Kane, bearing a trayful of burning sods of turf; the cascade was +torn from the chimney, and the tray was emptied into the grate. +Blinding smoke filled the room, and Maggie Kane murmured an imprecation +upon "jackdahs," their nests, and all their works. + +[Illustration: A TRAYFUL OF BURNING SODS OF TURF] + +The moment seemed propitious for escape; I looked at my watch, and said +that if they would kindly tell me the way to the yard I would go round +and see about things. + +The arched eyebrows went up a shade higher; the Misses Flynn said they +feared they hardly knew the way to the stables. + +Dr. Hickey rose. "Indeed it isn't easy to find them," he said, "but I +daresay the Major and myself will be able to make them out." + +When we got outside he looked down his long nose at me. + +"Stables indeed!" he said, "I hate that dirty little boasting!" + +Mr. Flynn's yard certainly did not at the first glance betray the +presence of stables. It consisted of an indeterminate assembly of +huts, with a long corrugated iron shed standing gauntly in the midst; +swamp of varying depths and shades occupied the intervals. From the +shed proceeded the lamentable and indignant clamours of the hounds, +against its door leaned Michael in his red coat, enacting, obviously, +the role of a righteous man constrained to have his habitation in the +tents of Kedar. A reverential knot of boys admired him from the wall +of a neighbouring pigsty; countrymen of all ages, each armed with a +stick and shadowed by a cur, more or less resembling a fox-hound, stood +about in patient groups; two or three dejected horses were nibbling, +unattended, at a hayrick. Of our host there was no sign. + +At the door of the largest hut Slipper was standing. + +"Come in and see the mare, Major," he called to me in his bantam-cock +voice as I approached. "Last night when we got in she was clean dead +altogether, but this morning when I was giving the feed to the pony she +retched out her neck and met her teeth in me poll! Oh, she's in great +heart now!" + +In confirmation of this statement a shrewish squeal from Lady Jane +proceeded from the interior. + +"Sure I slep' in the straw last night with herself and the pony. She'd +have him ate this morning only for me." + +The record of his devotion was here interrupted by a tremendous +rattling in the farm lane; it heralded the entrance of Mr. Flynn on his +outside car, drawn at full gallop by the young chestnut horse. + +"Oh, look at me, Major, how late I am!" shouted Mr. Flynn jovially, as +he scrambled off the car. "I declare you could light a candle at me +eye with the shame that's in it, as they say! I was back in +Curranhilty last night buying stock, and this was the first train I +could get. Well, well, the day's long and drink's plenty!" + +He bundled into a darksome hole, and emerged with a pair of dirty spurs +and a Malacca crop as heavy as a spade handle. + +"Michael! Did they tell you we have a fox for you in the hill north?" + +"I wasn't speaking to any of them," replied Michael coldly. + +"Well, your hounds will be speaking to him soon! Here, hurry boys, +pull out the horses!" + +His eye fell on the chestnut, upon whose reeking back Eugene was +cramming a saddle, while the boy who had met us at the entrance gate +was proffering to it a tin basin full of oats. + +"What are you doing with the young horse?" he roared. + +"I thought Master Eddy would ride him, sir," replied Eugene. + +"Well, he will not," said Mr. Flynn, conclusively; "the horse has +enough work done, and let you walk him about easy till he's cool. You +can folly the hunt then." + +Two more crestfallen countenances than those of the young gentlemen he +addressed it has seldom been my lot to see. The saddle was slowly +removed. Master Eddy, red up to the roots of his black hair, retired +silently with his basin of oats into the stable behind Slipper. Even +had I not seen his cuff go to his eyes I should have realised that life +would probably never hold for him a bitterer moment. + +The hounds were already surging out of the yard with a following wave, +composed of every living thing in sight. As I took Lady Jane from the +hand of Slipper, Philippa's pony gave a snort. Some touch of +Philippa's criminal weakness for boys assailed me. + +"That boy can ride the pony if he likes," I said to Slipper. + +I followed the hounds and their cortege down a deep and filthy lane. +Mr. Flynn was just in front of me, on a broad-beamed white horse, with +string-halt; three or four of the trencher-fed aliens slunk at his +heels, the mouth of a dingy horn protruded from his coat pocket. I +trembled in spirit as I thought of Michael. + +We were out at length into large and furzy spaces that slanted steeply +to the cliffs; like smuts streaming out of a chimney the followers of +the hunt belched from the lane and spread themselves over the pale +green slopes. From this point the proceedings became merged in total +incoherence. Accompanied, as it seemed, by the whole population of the +district, we moved _en masse_ along the top of the cliffs, while +hounds, curs, and boys strove and scrambled below us, over rocks and +along ledges, which, one might have thought, would have tried the head +of a seagull. Two successive bursts of yelling notified the capture +and slaughter of two rabbits; in the first hour and a half I can recall +no other achievement. + +It was, however, evident that hunting, in its stricter sense, was +looked on as a mere species of side show by the great majority of the +field; the cream of the entertainment was found in the negotiation of +such jumps as fell to the lot of the riders. These were neither +numerous nor formidable, but the storm of cheers that accompanied each +performance would have dignified the win of a Grand National favourite. + +To Master Eddy, on Philippa's pony, it was apparent that the birthday +of his life had come. Attended by Slipper and a howling company of +boon companions, he and the pony played a glorified game of pitch and +toss, in which, as it seemed to me, heads never turned up. It +certainly was an adverse circumstance that the pony's mane had, the day +before, been hogged to the bore, so that at critical moments the rider +slid, unchecked, from saddle to ears, but the boon companions, who +themselves jumped like antelopes, stride for stride with the pony, +replaced him unfailingly with timely snatches at whatever portion of +his frame first offered itself. + +Music, even, was not wanting to our progress. A lame fiddler, on a +donkey, followed in our wake, filling Michael's cup of humiliation to +the brim, by playing jigs during our frequent moments of inaction. The +sun pushed its way out of the grey sky, the sea was grey, with a broad +and flashing highway to the horizon, a frayed edge of foam tracked the +broken coast-line, seagulls screamed and swooped, and the grass on the +cliff summits was wondrous green. Old Flynn, on his white horse, +moving along the verge, and bleating shrilly upon his horn to the +hounds below, became idyllic. + +I believe that I ought to have been in a towering passion, and should +have swept the hounds home in a flood of blasphemy; as a matter of fact +I enjoyed myself. Even Dr. Hickey admitted that it was as pleasant a +day for smoking cigarettes as he had ever been out. + +It must have been nearly three o'clock when one of Mr. Flynn's hounds, +a venerable lady of lemon and white complexion, poked her lean head +through furze-bushes at the top of the cliff, and came up on to the +level ground. + +"That's old Terrible, Playboy's mother," remarked Dr. Hickey, "and a +great stamp of an old hound too, but she can't run up now. Flynn tells +me when she's beat out she'll sit down and yowl on the line, she's that +fond of it." + +Meantime Terrible was becoming busier and looking younger every moment, +as she zigzagged up and across the trampled field towards the hillside. +Dr. Hickey paused in the lighting of what must have been his tenth +cigarette. + +"If we were in a Christian country," he said, "you'd say she had a +line----" + +Old Flynn came pounding up on his white horse, and rode slowly up the +hill behind Terrible, who silently pursued her investigations. Fifty +or sixty yards higher up, my eye lighted on something that might have +been a rusty can, or a wisp of bracken, lying on the sunny side of a +bank. As I looked, it moved, and slid away over the top of the bank. +A yell, followed by a frenzied tootling on Mr. Flynn's ancient horn, +told that he had seen it too, and, in a bedlam of shrieks, chaos was +upon us. Through an inextricable huddle of foot people the hounds came +bursting up from the cliffs, fighting every foot of ground with the +country-boys, yelping with the contagion of excitement, they broke +through, and went screaming up the hill to old Terrible, who was +announcing her find in deep and continuous notes. + +How Lady Jane got over the first bank without trampling Slipper and two +men under foot is known only to herself; as I landed, Master Eddy and +the pony banged heavily into me from the rear, the pony having once and +for all resolved not to be sundered by more than a yard from his stable +companion of the night before. I can safely say that I have never seen +hounds run faster than did Mr. Knox's and the trencher-feds, in that +brief scurry from the cliffs at Knockeenbwee. By the time we had +crossed the second fence the foot people were gone, like things in a +dream. In front of me was Michael, and, in spite of Michael's spurs, +in front of Michael was old Flynn, holding the advantage of his start +with a most admirable jealousy. The white horse got over the ground in +bucks like a rabbit, the string-halt lending an additional fire to his +gait; on every bank his great white hind-quarters stood up against the +sky, like the gable end of a chapel. Had I had time to think of +anything, I should have repented acutely of having lent Master Eddy the +pony, who was practically running away. Twice I replaced his rider in +the saddle with one hand, as he landed off a fence under my stirrup. +Master Eddy had lost his cap and whip, his hair was full of mud, pure +ecstasy stretched his grin from ear to ear, and broke from him in +giggles of delight. + +[Illustration: PURE ECSTASY STRETCHED HIS GRIN FROM EAR TO EAR] + +Providentially, it was, as I have said, only a scurry. It seemed that +we had run across the neck of a promontory, and in ten minutes we were +at the cliffs again, the company reduced to old Flynn, his son, and the +Hunt establishment. Below us Moyny Bay was spread forth, enclosing in +its span a big green island; between us and the island was a good +hundred yards of mud, plump-looking mud, with channels in it. Deep in +this the hounds were wading; some of them were already ashore on the +island, struggling over black rocks thatched with yellow seaweed, their +voices coming faintly back to us against the wind. The white horse's +tail was working like a fan, and we were all, horses and men, blowing +hard enough to turn a windmill. + +"That's better fun than to be eating your dinner!" puffed Mr. Flynn, +purple with pride and heat, as he lowered himself from the saddle. +"There isn't a hound in Ireland would take that stale line up from the +cliff only old Terrible!" + +"What will we do now, sir?" said Michael to me, presenting the +conundrum with colourless calm, and ignoring the coat-tail trailed for +his benefit, "we'll hardly get them out of that island to-night." + +"I suppose you know you're bare-footed, Major?" put in Hickey, my other +Job's comforter, from behind. "Your two fore-shoes are gone." + +A December day is not good for much after half-past three. For half an +hour the horns of Michael and old Flynn blew their summons antiphonally +into the immensities of sea and sky, and summoned only the sunset, and +after it the twilight; the hounds remained unresponsive, invisible. + +"There's rabbits enough in that island to keep ten packs of hounds busy +for a month," said Mr. Flynn; "the last time I was there I thought +'twas the face of the field was running from me. And what was it after +all but the rabbits!" + +"_My_ hounds wouldn't hunt rabbits if they were throwing after them," +said Michael ferociously. + +"Oh, I suppose it's admiring the view they are!" riposted Mr. Flynn; "I +tell ye now, Major, there's a man on the strand below has a +flat-bottomed boat, and here's Eugene just come up, I'll send him over +with the horn as soon as there's water enough, and he'll flog them out +of it." + +The tide crept slowly in over the mud, and a young moon was sending a +slender streak of light along it through the dusk before Eugene had +accomplished his mission. + +The boat returned at last across the channel with a precarious cargo of +three hounds, while the rest splashed and swam after her. + +"I have them all, only one," shouted Eugene as he jumped ashore, and +came scrambling up the steep slants and shaley ledges of the cliff. + +"I hope it isn't Terrible ye left after ye?" roared Mr. Flynn. + +"Faith, I don't know which is it it is. I seen him down from me +floating in the tide. It must be he was clifted. I think 'tis one of +Major Yeates's. We have our own whatever." + +A cold feeling ran down my back. Michael and Hickey silently conned +over the pack in the growing darkness, striking matches and shielding +them in their hands as they told off one hound after another, hemmed in +by an eager circle of countrymen. + +"It's Playboy's gone," said Michael, with awful brevity. "I suppose we +may go home now, sir?" + +"Ah! hold on, hold on," put in Mr. Flynn, "are ye sure now, Eugene, it +wasn't a sheep ye saw? I wouldn't wish it for five pounds that the +Major lost a hound by us." + +"Did ye ever see a sheep with yalla spots on her?" retorted Eugene. + +A shout of laughter instantly broke from the circle of sympathisers. I +mounted Lady Jane in gloomy silence; there was nothing for it but to +face the long homeward road, minus Flurry Knox's best hound, and with +the knowledge that while I lived this day's work would not be forgotten +to me by him, by Dr. Hickey, and by Michael. + +It was Hickey who reminded me that I was also minus two fore-shoes, and +that it was an eighteen mile ride. On my responding irritably that I +was aware of both facts, and would get the mare shod at the forge by +the station, Mr. Flynn, whose voluble and unceasing condolences had not +been the least of my crosses, informed me that the smith had gone away +to his father-in-law's wake, and that there wasn't another forge +between that and Skebawn. + +The steps by which the final disposition of events was arrived at need +not here be recounted. It need only be said that every star went out +of its course to fight against me; even the special luminary that +presided over the Curranhilty and Skebawn branch railway was hostile; I +was told that the last train did not run except on Saturdays. +Therefore it was that, in a blend of matchlight and moonlight, a +telegram was written to Philippa, and, at the hour at which Dr. Hickey, +the hounds, and Michael were nearing their journey's end, I was seated +at the Knockeenbwee dinner-table, tired, thoroughly annoyed, devoured +with sleep, and laboriously discoursing of London and Paris with the +younger Miss Flynn. + +A meal that had opened at six with strong tea, cold mutton, and bottled +porter, was still, at eight o'clock, in slow but unceasing progress, +suggesting successive inspirations on the part of the cook. At about +seven we had had mutton chops and potatoes, and now, after an abysmal +interval of conversation, we were faced by a roast goose and a rice +pudding with currants in it. Through all these things had gone the +heavy sounds and crashes that betokened the conversion of the +drawing-room into a sleeping-place for me. There was, it appeared, no +spare room in the house; I felt positively abject at the thought of the +trouble I was inflicting. My soul abhorred the roast goose, and was +yet conscious that the only possible acknowledgment of the hospitality +that was showered upon me, was to eat my way unflinchingly through all +that was put upon my plate. + +It must have been nine o'clock before we turned our backs upon the +pleasures of the table, and settled down to hot whisky-punch over a +fierce turf fire. Then ensued upon my part one of the most prolonged +death-grapples with sleep that it has been my lot to endure. The +conversation of Mr. Flynn and his daughters passed into my brain like a +narcotic; after circling heavily round various fashionable topics, it +settled at length upon croquet, and it was about here that I began to +slip from my moorings and drift softly towards unconsciousness. I +pulled myself up on the delicious verge of a dream to agree with the +statement that "croquet was a fright! You'd boil a leg of mutton while +you'd be waiting for your turn!" + +Following on this came a period of oblivion, and then an agonised +recovery. Where were we? Thank heaven, we were still at the croquet +party, and Miss Lynie's narrative was continuing. + +"That was the last place I saw Mary. Oh, she was mad! She was mad +with me! 'I was born a lady,' says she, 'and I'll die a lady!' I +never saw her after that day." + +Miss Lynie, with an elegantly curved little finger, finished her +wine-glass of toddy and awaited my comment. + +I was, for the instant, capable only of blinking like an owl, but was +saved from disaster by Mr. Flynn. + +"Indeed ye had no loss," he remarked. "She's like a cow that gives a +good pail o' milk and spoils all by putting her leg in it!" + +I said, "Quite so--exactly," while the fire, old Flynn, and the picture +of a Pope over the chimney-piece, swam back into their places with a +jerk. + +The tale, or whatever it was, wound on. Nodding heavily, I heard how +"Mary," at some period of her remarkable career, had been found +"bawling in the kitchen" because Miss Flynn had refused to kiss her on +both cheeks when she was going to bed, and of how, on that repulse, +Mary had said that Miss Flynn was "squat." I am thankful to say that I +retained sufficient control of my faculties to laugh ironically. + +I think the story must then have merged into a description of some sort +of entertainment, as I distinctly remember Miss Lynie saying that they +"played 'Lodging-houses'--it was young Scully from Ennis made us do +it--a very vulgar game _I_ call it." + +"I don't like that pullin' an' draggin'," said Mr. Flynn. + +I did not feel called upon to intrude my opinion upon the remarkable +pastime in question, and the veils of sleep once more swathed me +irresistibly in their folds. It seemed very long afterwards that the +clang of a fire-iron pulled me up with what I fear must have been an +audible snort. Old Flynn was standing up in front of the fire; he had +obviously reached the climax of a narrative, he awaited my comment. + +"That--that must have been very nice," I said desperately. + +"Nice!" echoed Mr. Flynn, and his astounded face shocked me into +consciousness; "sure she might have burned the house down!" + +What the catastrophe may have been I shall never know, nor do I +remember how I shuffled out of the difficulty; I only know that at this +point I abandoned the unequal struggle, and asked if I might go to bed. + +The obligations of a troublesome and self-inflicted guest seal my lips +as to the expedients by which the drawing-room had been converted into +a sleeping-place for me. But though gratitude may enforce silence, it +could not enforce sleep. The paralysing drowsiness of the parlour +deserted me at the hour of need. The noises in the kitchen ceased, old +Flynn pounded up to bed, the voices of the young ladies overhead died +away, and the house sank into stillness, but I grew more wakeful every +moment. I heard the creeping and scurrying of rats in the walls, I +counted every tick, and cursed every quarter told off by a pragmatical +cuckoo clock in the hall. By the time it had struck twelve I was on +the verge of attacking it with the poker. + +I suppose I may have dozed a little, but I was certainly aware that a +long track of time had elapsed since it had struck two, when a faint +but regular creaking of the staircase impressed itself upon my ear. It +was followed by a stealing foot in the hall; a hand felt over the door, +and knocked very softly. I sat up in my diminutive stretcher-bed and +asked who was there. The handle was turned, and a voice at the crack +of the door said "It's me!" + +Even in the two monosyllables I recognised the accents of the son of +the house. + +"I want to tell you something," pursued the voice. + +I instantly surmised all possibilities of disaster; Slipper drunk and +overlaid by Lady Jane, Philippa's pony dead from over-exertion, or even +a further instalment of the evening meal, only now arrived at +completion. + +"What's the matter? Is anything wrong?" I demanded, raising myself in +the trough of the bed. + +"There is not; but I want to speak to you." + +I had by this time found the matches, and my candle revealed Eddy +Flynn, fully dressed save for his boots, standing in the doorway. He +crept up to my bedside with elaborate stealth. + +"Well, what is it?" I asked, attuning my voice to a conspirator's +whisper. + +"Playboy's above stairs!" + +"Playboy!" I repeated incredulously, "what do you mean?" + +"Eugene cot him. He's above in Eugene's room now," said the boy, his +face becoming suddenly scarlet. + +"Do you mean that he wasn't killed?" I demanded, instantly allocating +in my own mind half a sovereign to Eugene. + +"He wasn't in the island at all," faltered Master Eddy, "Eugene cot him +below on the cliffs when the hounds went down in it at the first go +off, and he hid him back in the house here." + +The allotment of the half-sovereign was abruptly cancelled. + +I swallowed my emotions with some difficulty. + +"Well," I said, after an awkward pause, "I'm very much obliged to you +for telling me. I'll see your father about it in the morning." + +Master Eddy did not accept this as a dismissal. He remained +motionless, except for his eyes that sought refuge anywhere but on my +face. + +There was a silence for some moments; he was almost inaudible as he +said: + +"It would be better for ye to take him now, and to give him to Slipper. +I'd be killed if they knew I let on he was here." Then, as an +afterthought, "Eugene's gone to the wake." + +The inner aspect of the affair began to reveal itself, accompanied by a +singularly unbecoming side light on old Flynn. I perceived also the +useful part that had been played by Philippa's pony, but it did not +alter the fact that Master Eddy was showing his gratitude like a hero. +The situation was, however, too delicate to admit of comment. + +"Very well," I said, without any change of expression, "will you bring +the dog down to me?" + +"I tried to bring him down with me, but he wouldn't let me put a hand +on him." + +I hastily got into the few garments of which I had not divested myself +before getting into the misnamed stretcher-bed, aware that the horrid +task was before me of burglariously probing the depths of Eugene's +bedroom, and acutely uncertain as to Playboy's reception of me. + +"There's a light above in the room," said Master Eddy, with a dubious +glance at the candle in my hand. + +I put it down, and followed him into the dark hall. + +I have seldom done a more preposterous thing than creep up old Flynn's +stairs in the small hours of the morning, in illicit search for my own +property; but, given the dual determination to recover Playboy, and to +shield my confederate, I still fail to see that I could have acted +otherwise. + +We reached the first landing; it vibrated reassuringly with the +enormous snores of Mr. Flynn. Master Eddy's cold paw closed on my +hand, and led me to another and steeper flight of stairs. At the top +of these was a second landing, or rather passage, at the end of which a +crack of light showed under a door. A dim skylight told that the roof +was very near my head; I extended a groping hand for the wall, and +without any warning found my fingers closing improbably, awfully, upon +a warm human face. I defy the most hardened conspirator to have +refrained from some expression of opinion. + +"Good Lord!" I gasped, starting back, and knocking my head hard against +a rafter. "What's that?" + +"It's Maggie Kane, sir!" hissed a female voice. "I'm after bringing up +a bone for the dog to quieten him!" + +That Maggie Kane should also be in the plot was a complication beyond +my stunned intelligence; I grasped only the single fact that she was an +ally, endued with supernatural and sympathetic forethought. She placed +in my hand a tepid and bulky fragment, which, even in the dark, I +recognised as the mighty drumstick of last night's goose; at the same +moment Master Eddy opened the door, and revealed Playboy, tied to the +leg of a low wooden bedstead. + +He was standing up, his eyes gleamed green as emeralds, he looked as +big as a calf. He obviously regarded himself as the guardian of +Eugene's bower, and I failed to see any recognition of me in his +aspect, in point of fact he appeared to be on the verge of an outburst +of suspicion that would waken the house once and for all. We held a +council of war in whispers that perceptibly increased his distrust; I +think it was Maggie Kane who suggested that Master Eddy should proffer +him the bone while I unfastened the rope. The strategy succeeded, +almost too well in fact. Following the alluring drumstick Playboy +burst into the passage, towing me after him on the rope. Still +preceded by the light-footed Master Eddy, he took me down the attic +stairs at a speed which was the next thing to a headlong fall, while +Maggie Kane held the candle at the top. As we stormed past old Flynn's +door I was aware that the snoring had ceased, but "the pace was too +good to enquire." We scrimmaged down the second flight into the +darkness of the hall, fetching up somewhere near the clock, which, as +if to give the alarm, uttered three loud and poignant cuckoos. I think +Playboy must have sprung at it, in the belief that it was the voice of +the drumstick; I only know that my arm was nearly wrenched from its +socket, and that the clock fell with a crash from the table to the +floor, where, by some malevolence of its machinery, it continued to +cuckoo with jocund and implacable persistence. Something that was not +Playboy bumped against me. The cuckoo's note became mysteriously +muffled, and a door, revealing a fire-lit kitchen, was shoved open. We +struggled through it, bound into a sheaf by Playboy's rope, and in our +midst the cuckoo clock, stifled but indomitable, continued its protest +from under Maggie Kane's shawl. + +In the kitchen we drew breath for the first time, and Maggie Kane put +the cuckoo clock into a flour bin; the house remained still as the +grave. Master Eddy opened the back door; behind his head the Plough +glittered wakefully in a clear and frosty sky. It was uncommonly cold. + +Slipper had not gone to the wake, and was quite sober. I shall never +forget it to him. I told him that Playboy had come back, and was to be +taken home at once. He asked no inconvenient questions, but did not +deny himself a most dissolute wink. We helped him to saddle the pony, +while Playboy crunched his hard-earned drumstick in the straw. In less +than ten minutes he rode quietly away in the starlight, with Playboy +trotting at his stirrup, and Playboy's rope tied to his arm. + +[Illustration: HE DID NOT DENY HIMSELF A MOST DISSOLUTE WINK] + +I did not meet Mr. Flynn at breakfast; he had started early for a +distant fair. I have, however, met him frequently since then, and we +are on the best of terms. We have not shirked allusions to the day's +hunting at Knockeenbwee, but Playboy has not on these occasions been +mentioned by either of us. + +I understand that Slipper has put forth a version of the story, in +which the whole matter is resolved into a trial of wits between himself +and Eugene. With this I have not interfered. + + + + +VI + +THE BOAT'S SHARE + +I was sitting on the steps of Shreelane House, smoking a cigarette +after breakfast. By the calendar, the month was November, by the map +it was the South-west of Ireland, but by every token that hot sun and +soft breeze could offer it was the Riviera in April. + +Maria, my wife's water spaniel, elderly now, but unimpaired in figure, +and in character merely fortified in guile by the castigations of seven +winters, reclined on the warm limestone flags beside me. Minx, the +nursery fox-terrier, sat, as was her practice, upon Maria's ribs, +nodding in slumber. All was peace. + +Peace, I say, but even as I expanded in it and the sunshine, there +arose to me from the kitchen window in the area the voice of Mrs. +Cadogan, uplifted in passionate questioning. + +"Bridgie!" it wailed. "Where's me beautiful head and me lovely feet?" + +The answer to this amazing inquiry travelled shrilly from the region of +the scullery. + +"Bilin' in the pot, ma'am." + +I realised that it was merely soup in its elemental stage that was +under discussion, but Peace spread her wings at the cry; it recalled +the fact that Philippa was having a dinner party that same night. In a +small establishment such as mine, a dinner party is an affair of many +aspects, all of them serious. The aspect of the master of the house, +however, is not serious, it is merely contemptible. Having got out the +champagne, and reverentially decanted the port, there remains for him +no further place in the proceedings, no moment in which his presence is +desired. If, at such a time, I wished to have speech with my wife, she +was not to be found; if I abandoned the search and stationed myself in +the hall, she would pass me, on an average, twice in every three +minutes, generally with flowers in her hands, always with an expression +so rapt as to abash all questionings. I therefore sat upon the steps +and read the paper, superfluous to all save the dogs, to whom I at +least offered a harbourage in the general stress. + +Suddenly, and without a word of warning, Minx and Maria were converted +from a slumbrous mound into twin comets--comets that trailed a +continuous shriek of rage as they flew down the avenue. The cause of +the affront presently revealed itself, in the form of a tall woman, +with a shawl over her head, and a basket on her arm. She advanced +unfalteringly, Minx walking on her hind legs beside her, as if in a +circus, attentively smelling the basket, while Maria bayed her at large +in the background. She dropped me a curtsey fit for the Lord +Lieutenant. + +"Does your Honour want any fish this morning?" Her rippling grey hair +gleamed like silver in the sunlight, her face was straight-browed and +pale, her grey eyes met mine with respectful self-possession. She +might have been Deborah the prophetess, or the Mother of the Gracchi; +as a matter of fact I recognised her as a certain Mrs. Honora Brickley, +mother of my present kitchen-maid, a lady whom, not six months before, +I had fined in a matter of trespass and assault. + +"They're lovely fish altogether!" she pursued, "they're leppin' fresh!" + +[Illustration: "THEY'RE LOVELY FISH ALTOGETHER! THEY'RE LEPPIN' +FRESH!"] + +Here was the chance to make myself useful. I called down the area and +asked Mrs. Cadogan if she wanted fish. (It may or may not be necessary +to mention that my cook's name is locally pronounced "Caydogawn.") + +"What fish is it, sir?" replied Mrs. Cadogan, presenting at the kitchen +window a face like a harvest moon. + +"'Tis pollock, ma'am!" shouted Mrs. Brickley from the foot of the steps. + +"'Sha! thim's no good to us!" responded the harvest moon in bitter +scorn. "Thim's not company fish!" + +I was here aware of the presence of my wife in the doorway, with a +menu-slate in one hand, and one of my best silk pocket handkerchiefs, +that had obviously been used as a duster, in the other. + +"Filleted with white sauce--" she murmured to herself, a world of +thought in her blue eyes, "or perhaps quenelles----" + +Mrs. Brickley instantly extracted a long and shapely pollock from her +basket, and, with eulogies of its beauty, of Philippa's beauty, and of +her own magnanimity in proffering her wares to us instead of to a +craving market in Skebawn, laid it on the steps. + +At this point a series of yells from the nursery, of the usual +blood-curdling description, lifted Philippa from the scene of action as +a wind whirls a feather. + +"Buy them!" came back to me from the stairs. + +I kept to myself my long-formed opinion that eating pollock was like +eating boiled cotton wool with pins in it, and the bargain proceeded. +The affair was almost concluded, when Mrs. Brickley, in snatching a +fish from the bottom of her basket to complete an irresistible +half-dozen, let it slip from her fingers. It fell at my feet, +revealing a mangled and gory patch on its side. + +"Why, then, that's the best fish I have!" declared Mrs. Brickley in +response to my protest. "That's the very one her honour Mrs. Yeates +would fancy! She'd always like to see the blood running fresh!" + +This flight of sympathetic insight did not deter me from refusing the +injured pollock, coupled with a regret that Mrs. Brickley's cat should +have been interrupted in its meal. + +Mrs. Brickley did not immediately reply. She peeped down the area, she +glanced into the hall. + +"Cat is it!" she said, sinking her voice to a mysterious whisper. +"Your Honour knows well, God bless you, that it was no cat done that!" + +Obedient to the wholly fallacious axiom that those who ask no questions +will be told no lies, I remained silent. + +"Only for the luck of God being on me they'd have left meself no +betther than they left the fish!" continued Mrs. Brickley. "Your +Honour didn't hear what work was in it on Hare Island Strand last +night? Thim Keohanes had the wooden leg pulled from undher me husband +with the len'th o' fightin'! Oh! Thim's outlawed altogether, and the +faymales is as manly as the men! Sure the polis theirselves does be in +dhread of thim women! The day-and-night-screeching porpoises!" + +Seven years of Resident Magistracy had bestowed upon me some +superficial knowledge of whither all this tended. I rose from the +steps, with the stereotyped statement that if there was to be a case in +court I could not listen to it beforehand. I then closed the hall +door, not, however, before Mrs. Brickley had assured me that I was the +only gentleman, next to the Lord Almighty, in whom she had any +confidence. + +The next incident in the affair occurred at about a quarter to eight +that evening. I was tying my tie when my wife's voice summoned me to +her room in tones that presaged disaster. Philippa was standing erect, +in a white and glittering garment. Her eyes shone, her cheeks glowed. +It is not given to every one to look their best when they are angry, +but it undoubtedly is becoming to Philippa. + +"I ask you to look at my dress," she said in a level voice. + +"It looks very nice----" I said cautiously, knowing there was a trap +somewhere. "I know it, don't I?" + +"Know it!" replied Philippa witheringly, "did you know that it had only +one sleeve?" + +She extended her arms; from one depended vague and transparent films of +whiteness, the other was bare to the shoulder. I rather preferred it +of the two. + +"Well, I can't say I did," I said helplessly, "is that a new fashion?" + +There was a spectral knock at the door, and Hannah, the housemaid, slid +into the room, purple of face, abject of mien. + +"It's what they're afther tellin' me, ma'am," she panted. "'Twas took +to sthrain the soup!" + +"They took my sleeve to strain the soup!" repeated Philippa, in a +crystal clarity of wrath. + +"She said she got it in the press in the passage, ma'am, and she +thought you were afther throwin' it," murmured Hannah, with a glance +that implored my support. + +"Who are you speaking of?" demanded Philippa, looking quite six feet +high. + +The situation, already sufficiently acute, was here intensified by the +massive entry of Mrs. Cadogan, bearing in her hand a plate, on which +was a mound of soaked brownish rag. She was blowing hard, the glare of +the kitchen range at highest power lived in her face. + +"There's your sleeve, ma'am!" she said, "and if I could fall down dead +this minute it'd be no more than a relief to me! And as for Bridgie +Brickley!" continued Mrs. Cadogan, catching her wind with a gasp, "I +thravelled many genthry's kitchens, but thanks be to God, I never seen +the like of her! Five weeks to-morrow she's in this house, and there +isn't a day but I gave her a laceratin'! Sure the hair's droppin' out +o' me head, and the skin rollin' off the soles o' me feet with the +heart scald I get with her! The big, low, dirty buccaneer! And I +declare to you, ma'am, and to the Major, that I have a pain switching +out through me hips this minute that'd bring down a horse!" + +"Oh God!" said Hannah, clapping her hand over her mouth. + +My eye met Philippa's; some tremor of my inward agony declared itself, +and found its fellow on her quivering lips. In the same instant, +wheels rumbled in the avenue. + +"Here are the Knoxes!" I exclaimed, escaping headlong from the room +with my dignity as master of the house still intact. + +Dinner, though somewhat delayed by these agitations, passed off +reasonably well. Its occasion was the return from the South African +war of my landlord and neighbour, Mr. Florence McCarthy Knox, M.F.H., +J.P., who had been serving his country in the Yeomanry for the past +twelve months. The soup gave no hint of its cannibalistic origin, and +was of a transparency that did infinite credit to the services of +Philippa's sleeve; the pollock, chastely robed in white sauce, held no +suggestion of a stormy past, nor, it need scarcely be said, did they +foreshadow their influence on my future. As they made their circuit of +the table I aimed a communing glance at my wife, who, serene in pale +pink and conversation with Mr. Knox, remained unresponsive. + +How the volcano that I knew to be raging below in the kitchen could +have brought forth anything more edible than molten paving stones I was +at a loss to imagine. Had Mrs. Cadogan sent up Bridget Brickley's head +as an _entremet_ it would not, indeed, have surprised me. I could not +know that as the gong sounded for dinner Miss Brickley had retired to +her bed in strong hysterics, announcing that she was paralysed, while +Mrs. Cadogan, rapt by passion to an ecstasy of achievement, coped +single-handed with the emergency. + +At breakfast time next morning Philippa and I were informed that the +invalid had at an early hour removed herself and her wardrobe from the +house, requisitioning for the purpose my donkey-cart and the attendance +of my groom, Peter Cadogan; a proceeding on which the comments of +Peter's aunt, Mrs. Cadogan, left nothing to be desired. + +[Illustration: THE INVALID REMOVED HERSELF] + +The affair on the strand at Hare Island ripened, with infinite +complexity of summonses and cross-summonses, into an imposing Petty +Sessions case. Two separate deputations presented themselves at +Shreelane, equipped with black eyes and other conventional injuries, +one of them armed with a creelful of live lobsters to underline the +argument. To decline the bribe was of no avail: the deputation +decanted them upon the floor of the hall and retired, and the lobsters +spread themselves at large over the house, and to this hour remain the +nightmare of the nursery. + +The next Petty Sessions day was wet; the tall windows of the Court +House were grey and streaming, and the reek of wet humanity ascended to +the ceiling. As I took my seat on the bench I perceived with an inward +groan that the services of the two most eloquent solicitors in Skebawn +had been engaged. This meant that Justice would not have run its +course till heaven knew what dim hour of the afternoon, and that that +course would be devious and difficult. + +All the pews and galleries (any Irish courthouse might, with the +addition of a harmonium, pass presentably as a dissenting chapel) were +full, and a line of flat-capped policemen stood like church-wardens +near the door. Under the galleries, behind what might have answered to +choir-stalls, the witnesses and their friends hid in darkness, which +could, however, but partially conceal two resplendent young ladies, +barmaids, who were to appear in a subsequent Sunday drinking case. I +was a little late, and when I arrived Flurry Knox, supported by a +couple of other magistrates, was in the chair, imperturbable of +countenance as was his wont, his fair and delusive youthfulness of +aspect unimpaired by his varied experiences during the war, his roving, +subtle eye untamed by four years of matrimony. + +A woman was being examined, a square and ugly country-woman, with wispy +fair hair, a slow, dignified manner, and a slight and impressive +stammer. I recognised her as one of the bodyguard of the lobsters. +Mr. Mooney, solicitor for the Brickleys, widely known and respected as +"Roaring Jack," was in possession of that much-enduring organ, the ear +of the Court. + +"Now, Kate Keohane!" he thundered, "tell me what time it was when all +this was going on?" + +"About duskish, sir. Con Brickley was slashing the f-fish at me mother +the same time. He never said a word but to take the shtick and fire me +dead with it on the sthrand. He gave me plenty of blood to dhrink +too," said the witness with acid decorum. She paused to permit this +agreeable fact to sink in, and added, "his wife wanted to f-fashten on +me the same time, an' she havin' the steer of the boat to sthrike me." + +These were not precisely the facts that Mr. Murphy, as solicitor for +the defence, wished to elicit. + +"Would you kindly explain what you mean by the steer of the boat?" he +demanded, sparring for wind in as intimidating a manner as possible. +The witness stared at him. + +"Sure 'tis the shtick, like, that they pulls here and there to go in +their choice place." + +"We may presume that the lady is referring to the tiller," said Mr. +Mooney, with a facetious eye at the Bench. "Maybe now, ma'am, you can +explain to us what sort of a boat is she?" + +"She's that owld that if it wasn't for the weeds that's holding her +together she'd bursht up in the deep." + +"And who owns this valuable property?" pursued Mr. Mooney. + +"She's between Con Brickley and me brother, an' the saine is between +four, an' whatever crew does be in it should get their share, and the +boat has a man's share." + +I made no attempt to comprehend this, relying with well-founded +confidence on Flurry Knox's grasp of such enigmas. + +"Was Con Brickley fishing the same day?" + +"He was not, sir. He was at Lisheen Fair; for as clever as he is, he +couldn't kill two birds under one slat!" + +Kate Keohane's voice moved unhurried from sentence to sentence and her +slow pale eyes turned for an instant to the lair of the witnesses under +the gallery. + +"And you're asking the Bench to believe that this decent man left his +business in Lisheen in order to slash fish at your mother?" said Mr. +Mooney truculently. + +"B'lieve me, sorra much business he laves afther him wherever he'll +go!" returned the witness, "himself and his wife had business enough on +the sthrand when the fish was dividing, and it's then themselves put +every name on me." + +"Ah, what harm are names!" said Mr. Mooney, dallying elegantly with a +massive watch-chain. "Come now, ma'am! will you swear you got any +ill-usage from Con Brickley or his wife?" He leaned over the front of +his pew, and waited for the answer with his massive red head on one +side. + +"I was givin' blood like a c-cow that ye'd shtab with a knife!" said +Kate Keohane, with unshaken dignity. "If it was yourself that was in +it ye'd feel the smart as well as me. My hand and word on it, ye +would! The marks is on me head still, like the prints of dog-bites!" + +She lifted a lock of hair from her forehead, and exhibited a +sufficiently repellant injury. Flurry Knox leaned forward. + +"Are you sure you haven't that since the time there was that business +between yourself and the postmistress at Munig? I'm told you had the +name of the office on your forehead where she struck you with the +office stamp! Try now, sergeant, can you read Munig on her forehead?" + +The Court, not excepting its line of church-wardens, dissolved into +laughter; Kate Keohane preserved an offended silence. + +"I suppose you want us to believe," resumed Mr. Mooney sarcastically, +"that a fine hearty woman like you wasn't defending yourself!" Then +with a turkey-cock burst of fury, "On your oath now! What did you +strike Honora Brickley with? Answer me that now! What had you in your +hand?" + +"I had nothing only the little rod I had afther the ass," answered Miss +Keohane, with childlike candour. "I done nothing to them; but as for +Con Brickley he put his back to the cliff and he took the flannel wrop +that he had on him, and he threwn it on the sthrand, and he said he +should have Blood, Murdher, or F-Fish!" + +She folded her shawl across her breast, a picture of virtue assailed, +yet unassailable. + +"You may go down now," said "Roaring Jack" rather hastily, "I want to +have a few words with your brother." + +Miss Keohane retired, without having moulted a feather of her dignity, +and her brother Jer came heavily up the steps and on to the platform, +his hot, wary, blue eyes gathering in the Bench and the attorneys in +one bold comprehensive glance. He was a tall, dark man of about five +and forty, clean-shaved, save for two clerical inches of black +whiskers, and in feature of the type of a London clergyman who would +probably preach on Browning. + +"Well, sir!" began Mr. Mooney stimulatingly, "and are you the biggest +blackguard from here to America?" + +"I am not," said Jer Keohane tranquilly. + +"We had you here before us not so very long ago about kicking a goat, +wasn't it? You got a little touch of a pound, I think?" + +This delicate allusion to a fine that the Bench had thought fit to +impose did not distress the witness. + +"I did, sir." + +"And how's our friend the goat?" went on Mr. Mooney, with the furious +facetiousness reserved for hustling tough witnesses. + +"Well, I suppose she's something west of the Skelligs by now," replied +Jer Keohane with great composure. + +An appreciative grin ran round the court. The fact that the goat had +died of the kick and been "given the cliff" being regarded as an +excellent jest. + +Mr. Mooney consulted his notes: + +"Well, now, about this fight," he said pleasantly, "did you see your +sister catch Mrs. Brickley and pull her hair down to the ground and +drag the shawl off of her?" + +"Well," said the witness airily, "they had a little bit of a scratch on +account o' the fish. Con Brickley had the shteer o' the boat in his +hand and says he, 'is there any man here that'll take the shteer from +me?' The man was dhrunk, of course," added Jer charitably. + +"Did you have any talk with his wife about the fish?" + +"I couldn't tell the words that she said to me!" replied the witness, +with a reverential glance at the Bench, "and she over-right three +crowds o' men that was on the sthrand." + +Mr. Mooney put his hands in his pockets and surveyed the witness. + +"You're a very refined gentleman upon my word! Were you ever in +England?" + +"I was part of three years." + +"Oh, that accounts for it, I suppose!" said Mr. Mooney, accepting this +lucid statement without a stagger, and passing lightly on. "You're a +widower, I understand, with no objection to consoling yourself?" + +No answer. + +"Now, sir! Can you deny that you made proposals of marriage to Con +Brickley's daughter last Shraft?" + +The plot thickened. Con Brickley's daughter was my late kitchenmaid. + +Jer Keohane smiled tolerantly. + +"Ah! That was a thing o' nothing!" + +"Nothing!" said Mr. Mooney, with the roar of a tornado, "do you call an +impudent proposal of marriage to a respectable man's daughter nothing! +That's English manners, I suppose!" + +"I was goin' home one Sunday," said Jer Keohane, conversationally to +the Bench, "and I met the gerr'l and her mother. I spoke to the gerr'l +in a friendly way, and asked her why wasn't she gettin' marrid, and she +commenced to peg stones at me and dhrew several blows of an umbrella on +me. I had only three bottles o' porther taken. There now was the +whole of it." + +Mrs. Brickley, from under the gallery, groaned heavily and ironically. + +I found it difficult to connect these coquetries with my impressions of +my late kitchenmaid, a furtive and touzled being, who, in conjunction +with a pail and scrubbing brush, had been wont to melt round corners +and into doorways at my approach. + +"Are we trying a breach of promise case?" interpolated Flurry, "if so, +we ought to have the plaintiff in." + +"My purpose, sir," said Mr. Mooney, in a manner discouraging to levity, +"is to show that my clients have received annoyance and contempt from +this man and his sister such as no parents would submit to." + +A hand came forth from under the gallery and plucked at Mr. Mooney's +coat. A red monkey face appeared out of the darkness, and there was a +hoarse whisper whose purport I could not gather. Con Brickley, the +defendant, was giving instructions to his lawyer. + +It was perhaps as a result of these that Jer Keohane's evidence closed +here. There was a brief interval, enlivened by coughs, grinding of +heavy boots on the floor, and some mumbling and groaning under the +gallery. + +"There's great duck-shooting out on a lake on this island," commented +Flurry to me, in a whisper. "My grand-uncle went there one time with +an old duck-gun he had, that he fired with a fuse. He was three hours +stalking the ducks before he got the gun laid. He lit the fuse then, +and it set to work sputtering and hissing like a goods-engine till +there wasn't a duck within ten miles. The gun went off then." + +This useful side light on the matter in hand was interrupted by the +cumbrous ascent of the one-legged Con Brickley to the witness-table. +He sat down heavily, with his slouch hat on his sound knee, and his +wooden stump stuck out before him. His large monkey-face was immovably +serious; his eye was small, light grey, and very quick. + +McCaffery, the opposition attorney, a thin, restless youth, with ears +like the handles of an urn, took him in hand. To the pelting +cross-examination that beset him Con Brickley replied with sombre +deliberation, and with a manner of uninterested honesty, emphasising +what he said with slight, very effective gestures of his big, supple +hands. His voice was deep and pleasant; it betrayed no hint of so +trivial a thing as satisfaction when, in the teeth of Mr. McCaffery's +leading questions, he established the fact that the "little rod" with +which Miss Kate Keohane had beaten his wife was the handle of a +pitchfork. + +[Illustration: CON BRICKLEY] + +"I was counting the fish the same time," went on Con Brickley, in his +rolling basso profundissimo, "and she said, 'Let the divil clear me out +of the sthrand, for there's no one else will put me out!' says she." + +[Illustration: "LET THE DIVIL CLEAR ME OUT OF THE STHRAND!"] + +"It was then she got the blow, I suppose!" said McCaffery venomously; +"you had a stick yourself, I daresay?" + +"Yes. I had a stick. I must have a stick," deep and mellow pathos was +hinted at in the voice; "I am sorry to say. What could I do to her? A +man with a wooden leg on a sthrand could do nothing!" + +Something like a laugh ran round the back of the court. Mr. +McCaffery's ears turned scarlet and became quite decorative. On or off +a strand Con Brickley was not a person to be scored off easily. + +His clumsy yet impressive descent from the witness-stand followed +almost immediately, and was not the least telling feature of his +evidence. Mr. Mooney surveyed his exit with the admiration of one +artist for another, and rising, asked the Bench's permission to call +Mrs. Brickley. + +Mrs. Brickley, as she mounted to the platform, in the dark and nun-like +severity of her long cloak, the stately blue cloth cloak that is the +privilege of the Munster peasant woman, was an example of the rarely +blended qualities of picturesqueness and respectability. As she took +her seat in the chair, she flung the deep hood back on to her +shoulders, and met the gaze of the Court with her grey head erect; she +was a witness to be proud of. + +[Illustration: A WITNESS TO BE PROUD OF] + +"Now Mrs. Brickley," said "Roaring Jack" urbanely, "will you describe +this interview between your daughter and Keohane." + +"It was the last Sunday in Shrove, your Worship, Mr. Flurry Knox, and +gentlemen," began Mrs. Brickley nimbly, "meself and me little gerr'l +was comin' from mass, and Jer Keohane come up to us and got on in a +most unmannerable way. He asked me daughter would she marry him. Me +daughter told him she would not, quite friendly like. I'll tell ye no +lie, gentlemen, she was teasing him with the umbrella the same time, +an' he raised his shtick and dhrew a sthroke on her in the back, an' +the little gerr'l took up a small pebble of a stone and fired it at +him. She put the umbrella up to his mouth, but she called him no +names. But as for him, the names he put on her was to call her 'a +nasty long slopeen of a proud thing, and a slopeen of a proud tinker.'" + +"Very lover-like expressions!" commented Mr. Mooney, doubtless +stimulated by lady-like titters from the barmaids; "and had this +romantic gentleman made any previous proposals for your daughter?" + +"Himself had two friends over from across the water one night to make +the match, a Sathurday it was, and they should land the lee side o' the +island, for the wind was a fright," replied Mrs. Brickley, launching +her tale with the power of easy narration that is bestowed with such +amazing liberality on her class; "the three o' them had dhrink taken, +an' I went to shlap out the door agin them. Me husband said then we +should let them in, if it was a Turk itself, with the rain that was in +it. They were talking in it then till near the dawning, and in the +latther end all that was between them was the boat's share." + +"What do you mean by 'the boat's share'?" said I. + +"'Tis the same as a man's share, me worshipful gintleman," returned +Mrs. Brickley splendidly; "it goes with the boat always, afther the +crew and the saine has their share got." + +I possibly looked as enlightened as I felt by this exposition. + +"You mean that Jer wouldn't have her unless he got the boat's share +with her?" suggested Flurry. + +"He said it over-right all that was in the house, and he reddening his +pipe at the fire," replied Mrs. Brickley, in full-sailed response to +the helm. "'D'ye think,' says I to him, 'that me daughter would leave +a lovely situation, with a kind and tendher masther, for a mean, hungry +blagyard like yerself,' says I, 'that's livin' always in this backwards +place!' says I." + +This touching expression of preference for myself, as opposed to Mr. +Keohane, was received with expressionless respect by the Court. +Flurry, with an impassive countenance, kicked me heavily under cover of +the desk. I said that we had better get on to the assault on the +strand. Nothing could have been more to Mrs. Brickley's taste. We +were minutely instructed as to how Katie Keohane drew the shawleen +forward on Mrs. Brickley's head to stifle her; and how Norrie Keohane +was fast in her hair. Of how Mrs. Brickley had then given a stroke +upwards between herself and her face (whatever that might mean) and +loosed Norrie from her hair. Of how she then sat down and commenced to +cry from the use they had for her. + +"'Twas all I done," she concluded, looking like a sacred picture, "I +gave a sthroke of a pollock on them." Then, an after-thought, "an' if +I did, 'twas myself was at the loss of the same pollock!" + +I fixed my eyes immovably on my desk. I knew that the slightest +symptom of intelligence on my part would instantly draw forth the +episode of the fish-buying on the morning of the dinner party, with the +rape of Philippa's sleeve, and the unjust aspersion on Miss Brickley +following in due sequence, ending with the paralytic seizure and +dignified departure of the latter to her parents' residence in Hare +Island. The critical moment was averted by a question from Mr. Mooney. + +"As for language," replied Mrs. Brickley, with clear eyes a little +uplifted in the direction of the ceiling, "there was no name from +heaven and hell but she had it on me, and wishin' the divil might burn +the two heels off me, and the like o' me wasn't in sivin parishes! And +that was the clane part of the discoorse, yer Worships!" + +Mrs. Brickley here drew her cloak more closely about her, as though to +enshroud herself in her own refinement, and presented to the Bench a +silence as elaborate as a drop scene. It implied, amongst other +things, a generous confidence in the imaginative powers of her audience. + +Whether or no this was misplaced, Mrs. Brickley was not invited further +to enlighten the Court. After her departure the case droned on in +inexhaustible rancour, and trackless complications as to the shares of +the fish. Its ethics and its arithmetic would have defied the allied +intellects of Solomon and Bishop Colenso. It was somewhere in that +dead hour of the afternoon, when it is too late for lunch and too early +for tea, that the Bench, wan with hunger, wound up the affair by +impartially binding both parties in sheaves "to the Peace." + +As a sub-issue I arranged with Mr. Knox to shoot duck on the one-legged +man's land on Hare Island as soon as should be convenient, and lightly +dismissed from my mind my dealings, official and otherwise, with the +House of Brickley. + +But even as there are people who never give away old clothes, so are +there people, of whom is Flurry Knox, who never dismiss anything from +their minds. + + + + +VII + +THE LAST DAY OF SHRAFT + +It was not many days after the Keohane and Brickley trial that my +wife's elderly step-brother, Maxwell Bruce, wrote to us to say that he +was engaged in a tour through the Irish-speaking counties, and would +look us up on his way from Kerry. The letter began "_O Bean uasal_," +and broke into eruptions of Erse at various points, but the excerpts +from Bradshaw were, fortunately, in the vernacular. + +Philippa assured me she could read it all. During the previous winter +she had had five lessons and a half in the Irish language from the +National Schoolmaster, and believed herself to be one of the props of +the Celtic movement. My own attitude with regard to the Celtic +movement was sympathetic, but a brief inspection of the grammar +convinced me that my sympathies would not survive the strain of +tripthongs, eclipsed consonants, and synthetic verbs, and that I should +do well to refrain from embittering my declining years by an impotent +and humiliating pursuit of the most elusive of pronunciations. +Philippa had attained to the height of being able to greet the +schoolmaster in Irish, and, if the day happened to be fine, she was +capable of stating the fact; other aspects of the weather, however +remarkable, she epitomised in a brilliant smile, and the schoolmaster +was generally considerate enough not to press the matter. + +My step-brother-in-law neither hunted, shot, nor fished, yet as a guest +he never gave me a moment's anxiety. He possessed the attribute, +priceless in guests, a good portable hobby, involving no machinery, +accessories, or paraphernalia of any kind. It did not even involve the +personal attendance of his host. His mornings were spent in proffering +Irish phrases to bewildered beggars at the hall door, or to the +respectfully bored Peter Cadogan in the harness-room. He held +_conversaziones_ in the servants' hall after dinner, while I slept +balmily in front of the drawing-room fire. When not thus engaged, he +sat in his room making notes, and writing letters to the Archimandrites +of his faith. Truly an ideal visitor, one to whom neglect was a +kindness, and entertainments an abomination; certainly not a person to +take to Hare Island to shoot ducks with Flurry Knox. + +[Illustration: HIS MORNINGS WERE SPENT IN PROFFERING IRISH PHRASES] + +But it was otherwise ordained by Philippa. Hare Island was, she said, +and the schoolmaster said, a place where the Irish language was still +spoken with a purity worthy of the Isles of Aran. Its folk-lore was an +unworked mine, and it was moreover the home of one Shemus Ruadth, a +singer and poet (and, I may add, a smuggler of tobacco) of high local +renown: Maxwell should on no account miss such a chance. I mentioned +that Hare Island was at present going through the measles phase of its +usual rotation of epidemics. My wife wavered, in a manner that showed +me that I had been on the verge of a family picnic, and I said I had +heard that there was whooping-cough there too. The children had had +neither. The picnic expired without a sound, but my +step-brother-in-law had made up his mind. + +It was a grey and bitter February morning when Maxwell and I, +accompanied by Peter Cadogan, stood waiting on the beach at Yokahn for +Flurry to arrive. Maria, as was her wont, was nosing my gun as if she +expected to see a woodcock fly out of it; that Minx was beside her was +due to the peculiar inveteracy of Minx. How she had achieved it is of +no consequence; the distressing fact remained that she was there, +seated, shuddering, upon a space of wet stone no larger than a +sixpence, and had to be accepted as one of the party. It struck me +that Mr. Cadogan had rather overdressed the part of dog-boy and +bag-bearer, being attired in a striped blue flannel suit that had once +been mine, a gaudy new cap, and yellow boots. The social possibilities +of Hare Island had faded from my mind; I merely experienced the usual +humiliation of perceiving how discarded garments can, in a lower +sphere, renew their youth and blossom as the rose. I was even +formulating a system of putting my old clothes out at grass, as it +were, with Peter Cadogan, when a messenger arrived with a note from +Flurry Knox in which he informed me, with many regrets, that he was +kept at home on unexpected business, but he had arranged that we should +find a boat ready to take us to the island, and Con Brickley would look +after us when we got there. The boat was even now nearing the beach, +rowed by two men, who, in beautiful accord with our "binding to the +Peace," proved to be the Widower, Jer Keohane, and his late antagonist, +the one-legged Con Brickley. In view of this millennial state of +affairs it seemed alarmingly probable that the boat which had come for +us was that on which, as on a pivot, the late battle had turned. A +witness had said, on oath, that "if it wasn't for the weeds that's +holding her together she'd bursht up in the deep." I inspected her +narrowly, and was relieved to see that the weeds still held their +ground. + +A mile of slatey water tumbled between us and the island, and an undue +proportion of it, highly flavoured by fish, flowed in uneasy tides in +the bottom of the boat, with a final disposition towards the well-laden +stern. There were no bottom boards, and, judging by the depth of the +flood over the keel, her draught appeared to be equal to that of a +racing yacht. We sat precariously upon strips of nine-inch plank, our +feet propped against the tarred sides just out of the wash; the boat +climbed and wallowed with a three-cornered roll, the dogs panted in +mingled nausea and agitation, and the narrow blades of the oars dipped +their frayed edges in the waves in short and untiring jerks. + +My brother-in-law, with a countenance leaden magenta from cold, +struggled with the whirling leaves of a phrase book. He was tall and +thin, of the famished vegetarian type of looks, with unpractical, +prominent eyes, and a complexion that on the hottest day in summer +imparted a chill to the beholder; in this raw November wind it was a +positive suffering even to think of his nose, and my eyes rested, in +unconscious craving for warmth, upon the changeless, impartial red of +Con Brickley's monkey face. + +We landed with a rush on the steep shingle of a sheltered cove. The +island boasted a pier, built with "Relief" money, but it was two miles +from the lake where I was to shoot, and this small triangle of beach, +tucked away in a notch of the cliff, was within ten minutes' walk of +it. At the innermost angle of the cove, where the notch ended in a +tortuous fissure, there was a path that zigzagged to the top of the +cliff, a remarkably excellent path, and a well-worn one, with steps +here and there. I commented on it to Mr. Brickley. + +"Why, thin, it was in this same place that I losht the owld leg, sir," +he replied in his sombre voice. "I took a shlip on a dark night and me +landlord was that much sorry for me that he made a good pat' in it." +He was pitching himself up the steps on his crutches as he spoke, an +object of compassion of the most obvious and silencing sort. Why, +then, should Peter Cadogan smile furtively at the Widower? + +At the top of the fissure, where it melted into a hollow between low, +grassy hills, stood the Brickleys' cottage, long, low, and whitewashed, +deep in shelter, with big stones, hung in halters of hay-rope, lying on +its thatch, to keep the roof on in the Atlantic gales. A thick fuchsia +hedge surrounded it; from its open door proceeded sounds of furious +altercation; apparently a man and woman hurling invective and +personalities at each other in Irish, at the tops of their voices. Con +Brickley sprang forward on his crutch, a girl at the door vanished into +the house, and a sudden silence fell. With scarcely a perceptible +interval, Mrs. Brickley appeared in the doorway, a red shawl tied over +her rippling grey hair, her manner an inimitable blend of deference and +hospitality. + +"Your Honour's welcome, Major Yeates," she said with a curtsey. A door +banged at the back of the cottage. "That was a poor man from across +the water that came apologisin' to me for dhrawin' me name down in a +little disagreement that he had about a settin' o' goose eggs." + +I suppose that it was contrition that caused the apologist to stumble +heavily as he came round the corner of the house, and departed at a +tangent through an opening in the fuchsia hedge. Feeling that comment +on the incident was too delicate a matter for my capacities, I +introduced Maxwell and his aspirations to the lady of the house. Any +qualms that I might have had as to how to dispose of him while I was +shooting were set at rest by Mrs. Brickley's instant grasp of the +situation. I regret to say that I can neither transcribe nor translate +the rolling periods in which my brother-in-law addressed himself to +her. I have reason to believe that he apostrophised her as "O worthy +woman of cows!" invoking upon her and her household a comprehensive and +classic blessing, dating from the time of Cuchulain. + +Mrs. Brickley received it without a perceptible stagger, and in the +course of the next few minutes, Miss Bridget Brickley (who, it may be +remembered, had but recently renounced the office of kitchenmaid in my +house) emerged, beautifully dressed, from the cottage, and was +despatched, at full speed, to summon Shemus Ruadth, the poet, as well +as one or two of "the neighbours" reputed to speak Irish of the purest +kind. If to make a guest feel himself to be the one person in the +world whose welfare is of any importance is the aim of hostesses, they +can study the art in its perfection under the smoky rafters of Irish +cabins. If it is insincere, it is equally to be respected; it is often +amiable to be insincere. + +My own share of the day's enjoyment opened plausibly enough, though +not, possibly, as cloudlessly as Maxwell's. Attended by Maria, Peter +Cadogan, and the Widower, and by a smell of whisky that floated to me +on the chill breeze when the Widower was to windward, I set forth, +having--as I fatuously imagined--disposed of Minx and of her intention +to join the shooting-party, by tying a stout piece of cord to her +collar, and placing its other end in my brother-in-law's hand. I had, +by Flurry's advice, postponed the shooting of the lake till the last +thing before leaving the island, and turning my back upon it, I tramped +inland along half-thawed marshes in search of snipe, and crept behind +walls after plover, whose elusive whistling was always two fields +ahead. After an unfruitful hour or so the entertainment began to drag, +and another plan of campaign seemed advisable: I made a cache of my +retinue behind a rock, one of the many rocks that stood like fossilised +mammoths upon the ragged hill slopes, and, with Maria at my heels, +accomplished a long and laborious detour. At length, through the +crannies of a wall, I perceived just within shot a stand of plover, +hopping, gobbling, squealing, quite unaware of my proximity. I +cautiously laid my gun on the top of the wall. As I cocked it, a white +form appeared on a fence behind the birds, poised itself for an instant +with elf-like ears spread wide, then, volleying barks, the intolerable +Minx burst like a firework into the heart of the plover. In lightning +response to her comrade's tally-ho Maria rocketted over the wall; the +plover rose as one man, and, as I missed with both barrels, swirled out +of range and sight. By way, I suppose, of rounding off the jest +effectively, Maria rushed in scientific zigzags through the field, in +search of the bird that she well knew I had not shot, deaf as the dead +to words of command, while Minx, stark mad with excitement, circled and +shrieked round Maria. To take off Maria's collar and thrash her +heavily with the buckle end of it was futile, except as a personal +gratification, but I did it. To thrash Minx was not only absurd but +impossible; one might as well have tried to thrash a grasshopper. + +I whistled for Peter and the Widower without avail, and finally, in +just indignation, went back to look for them. They were gone. Not a +soul was in sight. I concluded that they had gone on towards the lake, +and having sacrificed a sandwich to the capture of Minx I coupled her +to Maria by means of the cord that still trailed from her collar, and +again set forth. The island was a large one, three or four miles long +by nearly as many wide; I had opened my campaign along its western +shores, where heather struggled with bog, and stones, big and little, +bestrewed any patch sound enough to carry them. Here and there were +places where turf had been cut for fuel, leaving a drop like a sunk +fence with black water at its foot, a matter requiring a hearty jump on +to what might or might not be sound landing. When two maniacs are +unequally yoked together by their necks, heartiness and activity are of +less importance than unanimity, and it was in unanimity that Maria and +Minx chiefly failed. At such moments, profoundly as I detested Minx, +my sympathies reluctantly were hers. Conscious, as are all little +dogs, of her superior astuteness, she yet had to submit to Maria's +choice of pace, to Maria's professional quarterings and questings of +obviously barren tracts of bogland. In bursts of squealing fury she +hung from Maria's ear, she tore mouthfuls of brown wool from her neck, +she jibbed with all her claws stuck into the ground; none the less she +was swept across the ditches, and lugged over the walls, in seeming +oneness of purpose, in total and preposterous absurdity. At one +juncture a snipe, who must, I think, have been deaf, remained long +enough within their sphere of action for me to shoot him. The couple, +unanimous for once, charged down upon the remains; the corpse was +secured by Maria, but was torn piecemeal from her jaws by Minx. They +then galloped emulously back to me for applause, still bitterly +contesting every inch of the snipe, and, having grudgingly relinquished +the fragments, waited wild-eyed and panting, with tongues hanging like +aprons to their knees. + +It was towards the close of the incident that I was aware of a sibilant +whispering near me, and found that I was being observed from the rear +with almost passionate interest, by two little girls and a pair of +goats. I addressed the party with an enquiry as to whether they had +seen Jer Keohane. + +The biggest little girl said that she had not seen him, but, in a _non +sequitur_ full of intelligence, added that she had seen Peter Cadogan a +while ago, sitting down under a wall, himself and Pidge. + +"What's Pidge?" said I cautiously. "Is it a dog?" + +"Oh Christians!" said the smaller child, swiftly covering her mouth +with her pinafore. + +The elder, with an untrammelled grin, explained that "Pidge" was the +name by which my late kitchenmaid was known in the home circle. + +I postponed comment till Peter should be delivered into my hand, then, +rightly concluding that the tendance of Hare Island goats would ensure +the qualities necessary for dealing with even Maria and Minx, I engaged +the pair as dog-boys. + +My progress from this point to the lake might have been taken from the +Old Testament, or the Swiss Family Robinson. In front of me paced the +goats, who had sociably declined to be left out of the expedition; +behind me strove the dogs, with the wiry and scarlet fingers of their +attendants knotted in Mrs. Brickley's invaluable piece of string. It +proved to be a thoroughly successful working arrangement; I even shot a +plover, which was retrieved _en masse_ by all except the goats. + +In complete amity we reached the lake, a reedy strip of water that +twisted in and out between low hills, its indeterminate shores cloaked +with reeds. It was now past three o'clock, and the cold grey afternoon +was already heaping into the west the pile of dark clouds that was to +be its equivalent for sunset. I crept warily forward round the flank +of the nearest hill, leaving the dogs and their keepers in death +grapple, and the goats snatching mouthfuls of grass beside them, in the +petulant, fractious manner of goats, that so ill assorts with their +Presbyterian grey beards. + +The frost had been preceded by a flood, and the swamp bordering the +lake was very bad going; the tussocks were rotten, the holes were +delusively covered with lids of white ice, and to traverse these in the +attitude of a man with acute lumbago was no light matter. But the +ducks were there. I could hear them quacking and splashing beyond the +screen of reeds, and, straightening my back for an observation, caught +sight of four or five swimming in a line, well within range. There was +not an instant to lose; balancing precariously on a tussock, I flung up +my gun and fired. Terrific quacking followed, interspersed by distant +and heartrending yells from the dogs, but the inexplicable feature of +the case was that the ducks did not rise from the water. Had I slain +the whole crowd? There was a sound as if the marsh behind me was being +slashed with a flail; a brown body whizzed past me, closely followed by +a white one. "From his mountain home King James had rushing come," in +other words, my retrievers had hurled themselves upon their prey. + +Maria's performance was faultless; in half a minute she had laid a bird +at my feet, a very large pale drake, quite unlike any wild drake that I +had ever---- + +[Illustration: MARIA'S PERFORMANCE WAS FAULTLESS] + +Out of the silence that followed came a thin, shrill voice from the +hill: + +"Thim's Mrs. Brickley's ducks!" + +In horrid confirmation of this appalling statement I perceived the +survivors already landing on the far side of the lake, and hurrying +homeward up the hill with direful clamours, while a wedge-shaped ripple +in the grey water with a white speck at its apex, told of Minx in an +ecstasy of pursuit. + +"Stop the dog!" I shouted to my maids-of-honour, "run round and catch +her!" + +Maria here, in irrepressible appropriation of the mission, bolted +between my legs, and sent me staggering backwards into a very +considerable boghole. + +I will not labour the details. After some flounderings I achieved +safety and the awe-stricken comments of the maids-of-honour, as wet as +I have ever been in my life, and about five times as cold. One of my +young ladies captured Minx in the act of getting ashore; the other +collected the slaughtered drake and shrouded him in her pinafore, with +a grasp of the position that did credit to both heart and head, and +they finally informed me that Mrs. Brickley's house was only a small +pieceen away. + +I had left Mrs. Brickley's house a well-equipped sportsman, creditably +escorted by Peter Cadogan and the Widower. I returned to it a muddy +and dripping outcast, attended by two little girls, two goats, and her +own eight ducks, whom my hand had widowed. My sodden clothes clung +clammily about me; the wind, as it pierced them, carried with it all +the iciness of the boghole. I walked at top speed to get up some +semblance of a circulation; I should have run were it not for the +confusion that such a proceeding would have caused to my cortege. As +it was, the ducks fled before me in waddling panic, with occasional +help from their wings, and panting and pattering in the rear told that +the maids-of-honour, the goats, and the dogs were maintaining with +difficulty their due places in the procession. As I neared the cottage +I saw a boy go quickly into it and shut the door; I passed into the +yard within the fuchsia hedge and heard some one inside howling and +droning a song in Irish, and as I knocked, with frozen knuckles, the +house gave the indefinable feeling of being full of people. There was +no response; I lifted the latch. The door opened into the +frieze-covered backs of several men, and an evenly blended smell of +whisky, turf smoke, and crowded humanity steamed forth. + +The company made way for me, awkwardly; I noticed a tendency amongst +them to hold on to each other, and there was a hilarious light in Mrs. +Brickley's eye as she hustled forward to meet me. My brother-in-law +was sitting at a table by the window writing in a notebook by the last +light of the waning day; he gave me a glance laden with affairs to +which I was superfluous. A red-eyed, red-headed man, evidently the +singer, was standing in the middle of the room; it must have been in +conformity with some irresistible law of nature that his hair stood out +round his head in the orthodox poetic aureole. + +In spite of the painful publicity of the moment there was but one +course open to me. I tendered to my hostess the corpse of the drake, +with abject apologies and explanations. To say that Mrs. Brickley +accepted them favourably is quite inadequate. She heaped insults upon +the drake, for his age, for his ugliness, for his temerity in getting +in my way; she, in fact, accepted his slaughter in the light of a +personal favour and an excellent jest combined, and passed rapidly on +to explain that the company consisted of a few of the neighbours that +was gathered to talk to the gentleman, and to be singing "them owld +songs" for him; their number and their zeal being entirely due to the +deep personal regard entertained for me by Hare Island. She further +mentioned that it was Shrove Tuesday, and that people should "jolly +themselves" before Lent. I was hurriedly conveyed to what is known as +"Back in the room," a blend of best parlour and bedroom, with an +immense bed in the corner. A fire was lighted, by the simple method of +importing most of the kitchen fire, bodily, in a bucket, and placing it +on the hearth, and I was conjured to "sthrip" and to put on a new suit +of clothes belonging to my host while my own were being dried. He +himself valeted me, inaugurating the ceremony with a tumbler of hot +whisky and water. The suit of new clothes was of the thickest blue +cloth, stiff as boards, and they smelt horribly of stale turf smoke. +The discovery that the trousers consisted of but a leg and a half was +startling; I had forgotten this aspect of the case, but now, in the +proprietor's presence, it was impossible to withdraw from the loan. I +could, at all events, remain perdu. Through all these preparations I +was aware of highly incensed and fruitless callings for "Pidge"; of +Peter Cadogan no tidings were forthcoming, and although a conventional +sense of honour withheld me from disclosing the information I might +have given about the young lady, it did not deter me from mentally +preparing a warm reception for her squire. + +I sat by the fire in regal seclusion, with my clothes steaming on a +chair opposite to me, and the strong glow of the red turf scorching the +shin that was unprotected. Maria and Minx, also steaming, sat in +exquisite serenity in front of the blaze, retiring every now and then +to fling themselves, panting, on a cold space of floor. The hot whisky +and water sent its vulgar and entirely acceptable consolations into the +frozen recesses of my being, a feeling of sociability stole upon me; I +felt magnanimously pleased at the thought that Maxwell, at least, had +had a perfectly successful day; I glowed with gratitude towards Con +Brickley and his wife. + +Judged by the usual test of hostesses, that is to say, noise, the +_conversazione_ in Maxwell's honour was a high success. Gabble and +hum, harangue and argument, and, through all, Maxwell's unemotional +educated voice in discussion with the poet. Scraps of English here and +there presently told me that the talk had centred itself upon the +tragedy of the drake. I had the gratification of hearing Mrs. Brickley +inform her friends that "if that owld dhrake was shot, itself, he was +in the want of it, and divil mend him, going parading there till he had +the Major put asthray! Sure that's the gintleman that's like a child! +and Pidge could tell ye the same." + +"Faith and thrue for ye," said another apologist, also female, "and ye +wouldn't blame him if he didn't leave duck nor dhrake livin' afther +him, with the annoyance he got from thim that should be tinding him, +and he bloated with the walk and all!" + +(I may, in my own interest, explain that this unattractive description +merely implied that I was heated from excessive exercise.) + +"And as for the same Pidge," broke in Mrs. Brickley with sudden fire, +"when I ketch her it isn't to bate her I'll go, no! but to dhrag her by +the hair o' the head round the kitchen." + +These agreeable anticipations were interrupted by other voices. Some +one named Paddy was called upon to sing the song about Ned Flaherty's +drake. + +"Sing up, Paddy boy, for the gentleman! Arrah, what ails ye, Paddy! +Don't be ashamed at all!" + +"'Tis a lovely song, your honour, sir!" (this to my brother-in-law). + +"Is it an ancient song?" I heard Maxwell enquire with serious eagerness. + +"It is, your honour; 'twas himself made it up lasht year, and he sings +it beautiful! Oh! Paddy's a perfect modulator!" + +With curiosity stimulated by this mysterious encomium I rose softly and +half opened the door in order to obtain a view of the Modulator. A +lamp with a glaring tin reflector was on the table beside Maxwell; it +illumined Paddy, the Modulator, an incredibly freckled youth, standing +in front of my brother-in-law, with eyes fixed on the ground and arms +hanging limply at his sides, like a prisoner awaiting sentence. It +illumined also the artistic contempt on the elder Poet's countenance, +and further revealed to me the fact that from twenty-five to thirty men +and women were packed into the small kitchen. + +The Modulator opened with a long-drawn and nasal cadenza, suggestive of +the droning preliminary canter of a bagpipe, which merged into the +statement that + + The poor little fella', + His legs they were yella', + His bosom was blue, he could swim like a hake; + But some wicked savage, + To grease his white cabbage, + Murdered Ned Flaherty's beautiful dhrake! + +[Illustration: THE MODULATOR OPENED WITH A LONG-DRAWN AND NASAL CADENZA] + +Riotous applause followed on this startlingly appropriate requiem. +Maxwell coldly laid down his stylograph with the manner of a reporter +during an unimportant speech; the Poet took a clay pipe out of his +pocket and examined its contents with an air of detachment; Paddy, with +a countenance of undiminished gloom, prepared the way for the next +verse with some half-dozen jig-steps, ending with a sledge-hammer stamp +on the earthen floor. Fresh thunders of approval greeted the effort. +It seemed to me that Con Brickley's hospitality had been a trifle +excessive; I even meditated a hint to that effect, but neither my host +nor my hostess was visible. They were apparently holding an overflow +meeting in a room at the other end of the house, and I noticed that +although there was a steady flow of passers in and out between it and +the kitchen, the door was carefully closed after each opening. + +Suddenly the lamp on Maxwell's table flared up smokily as the door of +the house was burst open. The second verse of the drake's elegy ceased +at its first line. A woman whom I recognised as Kate Keohane, sister +of the Widower, drove her way into the kitchen, sweeping back the +people on either side of her with her arms, as though she was swimming. +Her face was scarlet. + +"Is Jer Keohane within here?" she shouted. + +"He is not!" replied several voices. + +Instantly the door of the inner room flew open, and like a stag (or a +tom-cat, either simile would serve), answering the challenge of a +rival, Mrs. Brickley came forth. + +"Is it yer brother you're wantin', ma'am?" she said with lofty +politeness. "Ye can search out the house for him if ye like. It's +little he troubles my house or myself now, thanks be to God, and to the +Magistrates that took my part before all that was in the Coort-house! +Me that he had goin' in dhread o' me life, with him afther me always in +me thrack like a lap-dog!" + +"And who has him enticed now but your own daughther?" shrieked Miss +Keohane with lightning rapidity. "Isn't Ellen, the Chapel-woman, +afther tellin' me she seen herself and himself shneakin' down +behindside the chapel, like they'd be goin' aisht to the far sthrand, +and she dhressed out, and the coat she stole from Mrs. Yeates on her +and a bundle in her hand! Sure doesn't the world know she has her +passage paid to Ameriky this two months!" + +"Ye lie!" panted Mrs. Brickley, catching her antagonist by the arm, not +in attack, but in the the awful truce of mutual panic. + +Miss Keohane flung her off, only the better to gather force for the +prolonged and direful howl of which she delivered herself. + +"If she didn't come here with him it's to Ameriky she's taken him! +Look in yer box an' ye'll see where she got the passage money! She has +the boat's share taken from ye in spite of yer teeth!" Miss Keohane +here dropped upon her knees. "An' I pray," she continued, lyrically, +"that the devil may melt her, the same as ye'd melt the froth off +porther----" + +Groans, hoots, and drunken laughter overwhelmed the close of this +aspiration. Oblivious of my costume, I stepped forward, with the +intention of attracting Maxwell's attention, and withdrawing him and +myself as swiftly and unobtrusively as possible from a position that +threatened to become too hot to hold us. + +Even as I did so, I saw in the dark blue space of the open door a face +that was strangely familiar, a face at once civilised and martial, +whose gaze was set incredulously upon me. + +"Here's the Polis!" squeaked a little girl. + +The poet blew out the lamp. The house was in an instant full of the +voiceless and strenuous shoving and trampling of people trying to +escape. I heard the table go over with a crash, and could only suppose +that Maxwell had gone with it, and Maria and Minx, convinced that a +cat-hunt was at the root of the matter, barked deafeningly and +unceasingly. + +In a blinding flash of insight I realised that my brother-in-law and I +had been taken red-handed in a "Shebeen," that is to say, a house in +which drink is illicitly sold without a license. + +The Police Sergeant was egregiously tactful. During the conversation +that I held with him in the inner room he did not permit his eye to +condescend lower than the top button of Mr. Brickley's coat, a +consideration that but served to make me more conscious of the +humiliating deficiency below, nor did it deviate towards the empty +tumbler, with the incriminating spoon in it, that stood on the table. + +He explained to me and to Maxwell, whose presence I felt to be my sole +link with respectability, that the raid had been planned in consequence +of information received after the trial. + +"I was going to you, sir, to sign the warrant, but Mr. Knox and Dr. +Hickey signed it for us. It was Mr. Knox advised us to come here +to-day. We've found three half-barrels of porter under the bed in the +room over there, and about two gallons of potheen hid under fishing +nets. I'll have about thirty summonses out of it." + +The Sergeant's manner was distressingly apologetic. I said nothing, +but my heart burned within me as I recognised the hand of Flurry Knox. + +[Illustration: THE SERGEANT'S MANNER WAS DISTRESSINGLY APOLOGETIC] + +"In case you might be looking for your man Cadogan, sir," went on the +Sergeant, "we seen him in a boat, with two other parties, a man and a +woman, going to the mainland when we were coming over. The man that +was pulling the other oar had the appearance of having drink taken." + +A second flash, less blinding than the first, but equally illuminative, +revealed to me that the brown boots, the flannel suit, had been a +wedding garment, the predetermined attire of the Best Man, and a third +recalled the fact that Shrove Tuesday was the last day between this and +Easter on which a marriage could take place. + +Maxwell and I went back with the police, and Maxwell explained to me at +some length the origin of the word shebeen. As I neared the mainland, +which to-morrow would ring with Flurry's artistic version of the day's +events, the future held but one bright spot, the thought of putting +Peter Cadogan to fire and sword. + +But even that was denied to me. It must have been at the identical +moment that my cook, Mrs. Cadogan (aunt of the missing Peter), was +placing her wedding ring in the Shrove Tuesday pancakes that evening, +that my establishment was felled as one man by tidings that still +remain preeminent among the sensations of Shreelane. They reached me, +irrepressibly, with the coffee. + +Hard on the heels of the flushed parlour-maid followed the flat and +heavy tread of Mrs. Cadogan, who, like the avenging deities, was +habitually shod with felt. + +"And now, sir, what do ye say to Pether Cadogan!" she began, launching +the enigma into space from the obscurity of the deep doorway. "What do +ye say to him now? The raving scamp!" + +I replied that I had a great deal to say to him, and that if I might so +far trespass on his leisure as to request his presence in the hall, I +would say it. + +"Hall is it!" echoed Peter's aunt in bitter wrath. "It's my heart's +grief that he ever stood in Shreelane hall to dhraw disgrace on me and +on yer Honour! God forgive me, when I heard it I had to spit! Himself +and Bridget Brickley got married in Skebawn this evening and the two o' +them is gone to Ameriky on the thrain to-night, and it's all I'll say +for her, whatever sort of a thrash she is, she's good enough for him!" +There was a pause while one might pant twice. + +"I'll tell ye no lie. If I had a gun in me hand, I'd shoot him like a +bird! I'd down the brat!" + +The avenging deity retired. + +What part the Widower proposed to play in the day's proceedings will +never be clearly known. He was picked up next day in Hare Island +Sound, drifting seaward in the boat whose "share" had formed the +marriage portion of Mrs. Peter Cadogan. Both oars were gone; there +remained to him an empty bottle of "potheen," and a bucket. He was +rowing the boat with the bucket. + + + + +VIII + +"A HORSE! A HORSE!" + +PART I + +"Old Jimmy Porteous!" I ejaculated, while a glow of the ancient +enthusiasm irradiated my bosom, "Philippa, I say! Do you see this? +Jimmy Porteous is to command this District!" + +"No, darling, _not_ with an egg!" replied Philippa, removing the honey +spoon from the grasp of her youngest child, just too late to avert +disaster, "we _don't_ eat honey with eggs." + +The heavy hand of experience has taught me that at moments such as +these the only possible course is to lie to, head to wind, till the +squall passes, and then begin from the beginning again. I readdressed +myself to my newspaper, while the incident went, like a successful +burlesque, with a roar, sustained from the foot of the stairs to the +point when the nursery door slammed upon it. + +Philippa resumed her seat at the breakfast table. + +"Yes, dear, what were you saying?" she said, yielding me the laborious +but vague attention that is the best any husband can expect from any +wife on such occasions. + +I repeated my statement, and was scandalised to find that Philippa had +but the most shadowy remembrance of Jimmy Porteous, who, in the days +when I first joined my regiment had been its senior subaltern, and, for +me and my fellows, one of the most revered of its law-givers. As a +captain he left us, and proceeded to do something brilliant on +somebody's staff, and, what time I got my company, had moved on in +radiance into a lofty existence in the War Office and newspaper +paragraphs. + +I recalled these things to my wife, coupling them with the information +that she would have to call on Lady Porteous, when the door opened, and +the face of Flurry Knox, unshaven and blue, with the miserable +mother-o'-pearl blueness of fair people in cold weather, appeared in +the opening. + +He had looked in, he said, on his way home from the fair, to try would +we give him a cup of tea, and he went on to remark that the wind was +cold enough to cut the horns off a cow. + +I asked him if he had seen my beasts there, and if they had been sold. + +"Oh, they were, they were," he said tolerantly; "it was a wonderful +good fair. The dealers were buying all before them. There was a man +said to me, 'If you had a little dog there, and he to be a calf, you'd +have sold him.'" + +It was one of Flurry Knox's ruling principles in life to disparage the +live stock of his friends; it was always within the bounds of +possibility that the moment might arrive when he would wish to buy them. + +"I met a man from Sir Thomas Purcell's country yesterday," said Flurry +presently; "he says there's been the father and mother of a row down +there between old Sir Thomas and Hackett, that's the man has the +harriers. Sir Thomas is wild because they say the soldiers are giving +Hackett as good a subscription as himself, and he says Hackett has all +the foxes killed." + +"But surely--harriers don't hunt foxes?" said Philippa ingenuously. + +Flurry looked at her for a moment in silence. "Is it Hackett's +harriers!" he said compassionately; "sure he flogs them off hares." + +"Talking of soldiers, they've just sent a man who used to be in my +regiment to command this district," I said, plucking my own topic from +the tangle of inter-hunt squabbles; "a great man to hounds he used to +be, too." + +"Would he buy the Dodger?" asked Flurry swiftly. "Would he give a +price?" + +"I daresay he would if he liked the horse. If I got a chance I might +tell him," I said, magnanimously. + +"I tell you what, Major," said Flurry, with an eye on his ally, +Philippa, "you and me and Mrs. Yeates will go up and have a day with +Sir Thomas's hounds, and you'll say the word for me to the General!" + +Looking back at it all now, I recognise that here was the moment for +firmness. I let the moment slip, and became immersed in tracking +General Sir James Porteous, K.C.B., through the pages of an elderly +Army List. By the time I had located him in three separate columns, I +found that Philippa and Flurry had arranged unalterably the details of +what my wife is pleased to call a ramp--_i.e._ an expedition that, as +its name implies, suggests a raid made by tramps. + +"--Why, my gracious! aren't they cousins of my own? They'll be only +delighted! Sure, Sally had measles there three years ago, and 'twas as +good as a play for them!--Put us up, is it? Of course they will! The +whole lot of us. D'ye think Sally'd stay at home?--No, you'll not take +your own horses at all. Hire from Flavin; I'll see he does you well." + +"And you know, Sinclair"--thus the other conspirator--"it would be an +excellent chance for you to meet your beloved Jimmy Porteous!" + +It was not Mr. Knox's habit to let the grass grow under his feet. +Before I had at all grasped the realities of the project, my wife heard +from Mrs. Sally Knox to say that she had arranged it all with the +Butler-Knoxes, and that we were to stay on for a second night in order +to go to a dance at which we should meet the General. At intervals +during the following week I said to Philippa that it was preposterous +and monstrous to dump ourselves upon the Butler-Knoxes, unknown people +whom we had but once met at a function at the Bishop's. My remembrance +of them, though something blurred by throngs of the clergy and their +wives, did not suggest the type of person who might be expected to keep +open house for stray fox-hunters. I said all this to Philippa, who +entirely agreed with me, and continued her preparations, after the +manner of experienced wives. + +It was raining hard one afternoon in the following week when a +four-wheeled inside car--an admirable vehicle, which I wish in no way +to disparage--disgorged its burden at the door of Garden Mount House. +One item of the burden was experiencing a sensation only too familiar, +such a sensation as a respectable seaman might feel on being pressed +into a crew of buccaneers. The house loomed over us, large, square, +and serious, in the wet moonlight of the January evening; the husky, +over-fed bark of an elderly dog was incessant in the hall. If by +laying hold of the coat-tails of the leading pirate, as he got out to +ring the bell, I could then and there have brought the expedition to a +close, I would thankfully have done so. + +The door was opened by a melancholy old gentleman with a grey moustache +and whiskers; he might have been Colonel Newcome in his decadence, but +from the fact that he wore an evening coat and grey trousers, I +gathered that he was the butler, and for any one skilled in Irish +households, he at once placed the establishment--rich, godly, low +church, and consistently and contentedly dull. As we entered the hall +there arose from some fastness in the house a shrill clamour that +resolved itself into the first line of a hymn. + +Flurry dug me in the ribs with his elbow. "They've found!" he +whispered, "you needn't look so frightened. It's only Lucy and Louisa +having the choir practice!" + +To these strains Colonel Newcome ushered us into the drawing-room. +There was no one in it. It was a large double drawing-room, and +nothing but heavy maroon curtains now separated us from the choir +practice. The hymn continued, a loud and long-drawn proclamation, and, +pending its conclusion, my wife and Mrs. Flurry Knox swiftly and +stealthily circumnavigated the room, and appraised all its contents, +from a priceless Battersea basket filled with dusty bulbs, to a +Chippendale card-table with a sewing machine clamped on to it, while +Flurry, in a stage whisper, dilated to me upon the superfluous wealth +that Providence had seen fit to waste upon the Butler-Knoxes. The +household, as I had gradually learnt, consisted of an elderly bachelor, +Mr. Lucius Butler-Knox (commonly known as "Looshy "), his unmarried +sister, Miss Louisa, his widowed sister, Mrs. Hodnett, and a corpulent, +grey-muzzled black-and-tan terrier. Their occupations were gardening, +and going to what they called "the city," _i.e._ the neighbouring +county town, to attend charitable committee meetings; they kept a +species of philanthropic registry office for servants; their foible was +hospitality, disastrously coupled with the fact that they dined at +half-past six. It was one of the mysteries of kinship that Flurry Knox +and our host and hostess should possess a nearer relative in common +than Adam. That he should have established their respectable home as +his hostelry and house of call was one of the mysteries of Flurry Knox. + +The hymn ceased, the raiders hastily formed into line, the maroon +drapery parted, and the ladies of the house, flushed with song, and +importing with them a potent sample of the atmosphere of the back +drawing-room, were upon us, loud in hospitable apologies, instant in +offers of tea; the situation opened and swallowed us up. + +The half-past six o'clock dinner came all too swiftly. Glared upon by +an unshaded lamp that sat like a ball of fire in the centre of the +table, we laboured in the trough of a sea of the thickest ox-tail soup; +a large salmon followed; with the edge of dubious appetite already +turned, we saw the succeeding items of the menu spread forth on the +table like a dummy hand at bridge. The boiled turkey, with its +satellite ham, the roast saddle of mutton, with its stable companion +the stack of cutlets; the succeeding course, where a team of four wild +duck struggled for the lead with an open tart and a sago pudding. Like +Agag, we went delicately, and, like Agag, it availed us nothing. + +I watched my _vis-a-vis_, little Mrs. Flurry, furtively burying a slab +of turkey beneath mashed potatoes as neatly as a little dog buries a +bone; her green kitten's eyes met mine without a change of expression, +and turned to her glass, which Colonel Newcome had filled with claret. +"The beaded bubbles, winking at the brim," had a greyish tinge. + +"Cousin Lucius!" observed Mrs. Flurry, in a silence that presently +happened to fall, "can you remember who painted that picture of our +great-grandfather--the one over the door I mean?" + +Mr. Butler-Knox, a small, grey-bearded, elderly gentleman, wholly, up +to the present, immersed in carving, removed the steam of the ducks +from his eye-glasses, and concentrated them upon the picture. + +"It's by Maclise, isn't it?" went on Sally, leaning forward to get a +nearer view. + +In that moment, when all heads turned to the picture, I plainly saw her +draw the glass of claret to the verge of the table, it disappeared +beneath it and returned to its place empty. Almost simultaneously, the +black-and-tan terrier sprang from a lair near my feet, and hurried from +the room, shaking his ears vigorously. Mrs. Flurry's eyes wavered from +the portrait to mine, and her face became slowly and evenly pink, like +an afterglow. + +It was but one of the many shameless acts of my party during the +age-long evening. At ten o'clock we retired to rest, for my own part, +thoroughly overfed, not in the least sleepy, worn with conversation, +and oppressed by the consciousness of flippant, even brutal, +ingratitude. + +The weather had cleared next morning to mild greyness, that softened +even the asperity of half-past eight breakfast. I lumbered stiffly +downstairs in a pair of new butcher boots, and found with thankfulness +that our hosts, exhausted possibly by their efforts, had kept their +rooms. + +Marshalled in order upon the sideboard stood the remains of all the +more enduring items of last night's dinner, cold indeed, but firm and +undefeated; hot dishes of ancient silver roasted before the noble +brass-mounted fireplace; there were vats of lethargic cream, a clutch +of new-laid eggs, a heap of hot scones. + +"It's easy seen it wasn't cracking blind nuts made Lucy Hodnett and +Louisa the size they are!" remarked Flurry, as the party, feeling more +piratical than ever, embarked upon this collation. "Mrs. Yeates, do +you think I am bound to dance with the pair of them to-night? You are, +Major, anyway! But I might get off with Louisa." + +"Oh, Sinclair's card is full," said my wife, who was engaged in trying +to decipher the marks on the cream jug without upsetting the cream; "he +and the General are plighted to one another for the evening." + +"I wonder if the claret has stained the carpet!" said Mrs. Flurry, +diving under the table. "It has! How awful!" Mrs. Flurry's voice +indicated the highest enjoyment. "Never mind, they'll never see it! +They're too fat to get under the table!" + +"If they did, it'd be the first time old Looshy's claret ever put +anyone there!" said Flurry. + +We have never known the precise moment in this speech at which "Old +Looshy's" butler entered the room; we only know that while Mrs. Flurry, +much hampered by habit and boots, was in the act of struggling from +beneath the table, he was there, melancholy and righteous, with a +telegram on a salver. + +It was from Flavin, the livery stableman, and its effect upon the +spirits of the company was that of a puncture in a tyre. + +"Regret horses not available; am trying to procure others; will send by +next train if possible." + +We said that there was no answer, and we finished our breakfasts in a +gravity scarcely lightened by Flurry's almost religious confidence in +Flavin's infallibility, and in his power of making horses out of +rushes, like the fairies, if need be. + +I was, I may admit, from the first thoroughly pessimistic. I almost +went up and got into ordinary clothes; I at least talked of doing so, +as a means of preparing Philippa for the worst. I said it was a mere +waste of time to send the Butler-Knox coachman to the station, as had +been arranged, and I did my best to dissuade Flurry from his intention +of riding to the meet by way of the station to help in unboxing animals +that could not possibly be there. + +In abysmal dejection my wife and I surveyed the departing forms of Mr. +and Mrs. Florence Knox; the former on the Dodger, a leggy brown +four-year-old, the planting of whom upon General Porteous had been the +germ of the expedition; while Sally skipped and sidled upon a narrow, +long-tailed chestnut mare, an undefeated jumper, and up to about as +much weight as would go by; parcel post for ninepence. There then +ensued a period of total desolation, in which we looked morosely at old +photograph books in the drawing-room, and faced the prospect of a long +day with the Butler-Knoxes, while heavy footsteps overhead warned us +that our entertainers were astir, and that at any moment the day's +conversation might begin. + +I was engaged, not, I fancy, for the first time, in telling Philippa +that I had always said that the entire expedition was a mistake, when +Colonel Newcome again entered the room. + +"The Master sent me to ask you, sir, if you'd like to have the +pony-phaeton to drive down to the station to meet the half-past ten +train. Flavin might be sending the horses on it, and it'd save you +time to meet them there." + +We closed with the offer; at its worst, the pony-carriage could be +smoked in, which the drawing-room could not; at its best, it might save +half-an-hour in getting to the meet. We presently seated ourselves in +it, low down behind an obese piebald pony, with a pink nose, and a mane +hogged to the height of its ears. As I took up the whip it turned and +regarded us with an unblinkered eye, pink-lidded and small as a pig's. + +"You should go through Fir Grove, sir," said the boy who had brought +the equipage to the door, "it's half a mile of a short cut, and that's +the way Tom will come with the horses. It's the first gate-lodge +you'll meet on the road." + +The mud was deep, and the piebald pony plodded through it at a sullen +jog. The air was mild and chilly, like an uninteresting woman; the +fore-knowledge of fiasco lay heavily upon us; it hardly seemed worth +while to beat the pony when he sank into a walk; it was the most +heart-broken forlorn hope that ever took the field. + +The gate-lodge of Fir Grove fulfilled the assignation made for it by +the stable boy, and met us on the road. The gates stood wide open, and +the pony turned in as by an accustomed route, and crawled through them +with that simulation of complete exhaustion that is the gift of lazy +ponies. Loud narrative in a male voice proceeded from the dark +interior of the lodge, and, as we passed, a woman's voice said, in +horrified rejoinder: + +"The Lord save us! She must be Anti-Christ!" + +Here, apparently, the speaker became aware of our proximity, and an old +woman looked forth. Her face was apprehensive. + +"Did ye see the police, sir?" she asked. + +[Illustration: "DID YE SEE THE POLICE?"] + +We replied in the negative. + +"Please God, she'll not come our way!" she said, and banged the door. + +We moved on, heavily, in the deep gravel of the avenue. + +"Isn't this rather awful? Shall we go on?" said Philippa. + +I replied with truth that there was no room to turn. On either side of +the narrow drive laurels and rhododendrons were crammed as thickly as +they could be planted, their dark foliage met overhead; if the +inexpressible "She" referred to by the lodge-keeper did come our way, +retreat would be out of the question. The tunnel ran uphill, and I +drove the pony up it as one drives a hoop, by incessant beating; had I +relaxed my efforts he would probably, like a hoop, have lain down. +Presently, and still uphill, we turned a corner, the tunnel ceased, and +we were face to face with a large pink house. + +As we advanced, feeling to the full the degradation of making a +short-cut past a strange house, in tall hats and a grovelling +pony-carriage, we beheld figures rushing past the windows of one of the +rooms on the ground floor, as if in headlong flight. Was this the +fulfilment of the dark sayings of the lodge-keeper, and was "She" +"coming our way?" The bouncing strains of a measure, known, I believe, +as "Whistling Rufus," came forth to us hilariously as we drew nearer. +The problem changed, but I am not sure that the horror did not deepen. + +Divining the determination of the piebald pony to die, if necessary, +rather than pass a hall door without stopping at it, yet debarred by +the decencies from thrashing him past the long line of windows, I +administered two or three rousing tugs to his wooden mouth. At the +third tug the near rein broke. The pony stopped dead. Simultaneously +the hall door was flung open, and a young and lovely being, tall, and +beautifully dressed, fluttered out on to the steps and peered at us +through long-handled eye-glasses. + +"Oh! I thought you were the police!" exclaimed the being, with +unaffected disappointment. + +The position seemed, from all points, to demand an apology. I +disengaged myself from the pony-carriage and proffered it; I also +volunteered any help that a mere man, not a policeman, might be capable +of rendering. + +The young lady aimed her glasses at the pie-bald, motionless in malign +stupor, and replied irrelevantly: + +"Why! That's the Knoxes' pony!" + +I made haste to explain our disaster and the position generally, +winding up with a request for a piece of string. + +"You're staying at the Butler-Knoxes!" exclaimed the lady of the house. +"How funny that is! Do you know you're coming to our dance to-night, +to meet your old friend the General! I know all about it, you see!" +She advanced with a beaming yet perturbed countenance upon Philippa, +"I'm so glad to meet you. Do come in! We've got an infuriated cook at +bay in the kitchen, and things are rather disorganised, but I think we +can rise to a bit of string! The pony's all right--he'll sleep there +for months, he always does." + +We followed her into a hall choked with the exiled furniture of the +drawing-room, and saw through an open door the whirling forms of two or +three couples of young men and maidens. + +"They're polishing the floor," said our hostess, swiftly shutting the +door, "they make a hideous noise, but it keeps them quiet--if you know +what I mean. It's most disastrous that my husband has gone out +hunting," she pursued; "this odious cook only arrived two days ago, +and----" + +At this juncture a door at the end of the hall burst open, disclosing a +long passage and a young and crimson housemaid. + +"She's coming, my lady! She's coming! Mr. Ralph's sent me on to get +the door open!" she panted. + +At the same moment a loud and wrathful voice arose in the passage and a +massive form, filling it from wall to wall, appeared; the capitulating +cook, moving down upon us with the leisurely and majestic truculence of +a traction-engine. As she came she chanted these words in measured +cadence: + + "Lady Flora, + Gets her brother + To do her dirty work." + + +By the time this rune had been repeated three times she was in the +hall, shepherded by a tall young man, obviously the brother referred +to, and by the butler, the vista being filled in the rear by a wavering +assortment of female domestics. As the cook tacked to weather a sofa, +there was something about her that woke a vague and unpleasant chord of +memory. Her ranging eye met mine, and the chord positively twanged as +I recognised the formidable countenance of a female, technically known +as a "job-cook," who for two cyclonic weeks had terrorised our +household while Mrs. Cadogan was on leave. I backed convulsively into +Lady Flora, in futile and belated attempt to take cover, but even as I +did so the chanting ceased and I knew the worst had happened. + +"Is that my darlin' Major Yeates?" shouted the cook, tacking again and +bearing down on me full-sailed. "Thanks be to God I have the gentleman +that'll see I get justice! And Mrs. Yeates, a noble lady, that'd never +set foot in my kitchen without she'd ask my leave! Ah, ha! As +Shakespeare says, I'd know a rale lady as soon as I'd put an eye on +her, if she was boiling cabbage!" + +[Illustration: "IS THAT MY DARLIN' MAJOR YEATES?" SHOUTED THE COOK] + +She caught my reluctant hand and waved it up and down, and the muffled +triumphings of "Whistling Rufus" in the drawing-room filled up the +position. + +Through them came a sound of wheels on the gravel, and through this +again a strangled whisper from behind: + +"Take her out to the steps; I hear the car with the police!" + +Holding the fervid hand of the job-cook, I advanced with her through +the furniture, skew-wise, as in the visiting figure of the Lancers; +there was an undoubted effort on her part to keep time to the music, +and she did not cease to inform the company that Major and Mrs. Yeates +were the real old nobility, and that they would see she got her rights. + +Followed closely by the shepherd and the butler, we moved forth on to +the steps. The police were not there. There was nothing there save a +complicated pattern of arcs and angles on the gravel, as of a +four-wheeled vehicle that has taken an uncommonly short turn. At the +bend of the avenue the pony-carriage, our link with the world without, +was disappearing from view, the piebald pony heading for home at a +pig-like but determined gallop. The job-cook clasped her hands on my +arm and announced to the landscape that she would live and die with the +Major. + + + + +IX + +"A HORSE! A HORSE!" + +PART II + +A quarter of an hour later Philippa and I stood in the high road, with +the sense of deliverance throbbing in every grateful nerve, and viewed +the car, with the job-cook and the policeman, swing heavily away +towards the railway station. + +Mine was the strategy that had brought about our escape, mine were the +attractions that had lured the cook to mount the policeman's car with +me, and still more inalienably mine was the searing moment when, still +arm-in-arm with the cook, we drove away from the deeply appreciative +party on the doorsteps. Philippa and a policeman were on the opposite +side of the car; the second policeman, very considerately, walked. + +We were close to the station, the cook had sung herself to sleep, and +Philippa and I had relapsed into the depths of abysmal despondency, +when our incredulous eyes beheld the Butler-Knoxes' coachman coming +towards us at a trot, riding a bay horse and leading a grey, on which +was a side-saddle. Flavin, the horse dealer, had, after all, been as +good as Flurry's word--the hirelings were here, and all was right with +the world. + +The car slackened to a walk, we slid from it silently, and it and its +burden passed into that place of shadows to which all extraneous +affairs of life betake themselves on a hunting morning, when the hour +is come, and the horse. + +Looshy's coachman delivered to me the bay horse, a large and +notable-looking animal, with a Roman nose adorned with a crooked blaze, +a tranquil eye, and two white stockings. In his left hand he held a +compact iron-grey mare, hogged and docked, who came up to the bank by +the roadside, to be mounted, as neatly as a man-o'-war boat comes +alongside. Hirelings of so superior a class it had never before been +my privilege to meet, and I made up my mind that they were either +incurably vicious or broken winded. + +"It's easy known that this mare's carried a lady before, sir," said the +coachman, a young man with a soul for higher things than driving the +Butler-Knox covered car, "and the big horse is the best I ever seen +come out of Flavin's! He's in grand condition, he's as slick as a +mouse! Only for Mr. Flurry being there we'd hardly have got them," he +continued, while he lengthened my stirrup-leathers, "the chap Flavin +sent with them had drink taken, and the porters had the box shunted and +himself in it, stretched, and the bottle of whisky with him!" + +Flavin's man and his bottle of whisky were now negligible incidents for +me. Philippa was already under way, and the time was short. The bay +horse, arching his neck and reaching pleasantly at his bit, went away +at a rhythmic and easy trot, the grey mare flitted beside him with +equal precision; it was, perhaps, rather fast for riding to a meet, but +we were late, and were they not hirelings? + +We followed our guides, the telegraph posts, for some four miles of +level road; they dropped down a deepening valley to a grey and brimming +river, and presently came slate roofs and white-washed houses, staring +at each other across an empty village street. We had arrived at +Kilbarron, the scene of the meet, and the meet was not. + +"They've gone on! they've gone on!" screamed an old woman from a +doorway, "away up over the hill!" + +Evidently every other live thing had followed the hunt, and we did not +spare Mr. Flavin's horses in doing the same. We reached the top of the +long hill in a remarkably brief space of time, and, having done so, +realised that we were not too late. A couple of fields away a row of +figures, standing like palings along the top of a bank, with their +backs to us, told that the hounds were still in view; even as we +sighted them, the palings plunged _en masse_ from their standpoint with +that composite yell that in Ireland denotes the breaking (and +frequently the heading) of a fox, and vanished. Whatever was +happening, it was not coming our way. I turned my hireling at the bank +by the roadside, he came round with a responsive swing, and in two +large and orderly bounds he was over. Before I had time to look round, +the grey mare, with the faintest hint of a buck, galloped emulously +past me. + +"Perfection!" panted Philippa, putting her hat straight. + +As we came up on to the next bank, recently vacated by its human +palisade, we found that fortune had smiled upon us. Just below, on our +right, was a long strip of gorse covert; three big fields beyond it, +gliding from us like a flock of seagulls, were the clamouring hounds, +and in the space between us and them bucketed the hunt, in the first +fine frenzy of getting away. Flavin's bay immediately caught hold, not +implacably, but with the firmness of superior knowledge; the grey mare, +having ascertained that Philippa was not going to interfere, thought +better of going on alone, and took the time from her stable companion. +The field was already sorting itself into the usual divisions of the +forward, the cunning, and the useless; our luck stood to us; the +forward division, carried away by the enthusiasm of a good start and a +sympathetic fall of ground, succeeded in less than a quarter of a mile +in hustling the hounds over the line, and brought about a check. We +joined the rearguard, and worked our way towards the front, +unobtrusively, because Sir Thomas Purcell's comments on the situation +were circling like a stock-whip among the guilty, and were not sparing +the innocent. At this moment we found Flurry Knox beside us. + +"Sir Thomas is giving the soldiers their tea in a mug!" he said; "and +they were in the want of it! How are those horses doing with you?" he +went on, looking our steeds up and down. "They look up to your +weights, anyhow! I suppose you didn't see your friend, the General? +He was at the meet in a motor." + +"In a motor!" repeated Philippa. "I thought he was such a wonderful +rider." + +"He knows how to get a motor along, anyhow," replied Flurry, his +attentive eyes following the operations of the hounds; "maybe he has +the gout. You'd say he had by the colour of his face. Hullo! Boys! +They're away again! Come on, Mrs. Yeates! Knock your two guineas' +worth out of Flavin!" + +Short as it was, the burst had been long enough to tranquillise my +anxieties as to our hirelings' wind, and when we started again we found +them almost excessively ready for the stone-faced bank that confronted +us at the end of the field. Some twenty of us, including the chidden, +but wholly unabashed soldiers, went at it in line, and, after the +manner of stone-faced banks, it grew very tall as we approached it. +Flavin's bay strode unfalteringly over it; it was as though he grasped +it and flung it behind him. The grey mare, full of jealousy and +vain-glory, had a hard try to fly the whole thing, but retained +sufficient self-control to change feet at the last possible instant; +with or without a scramble or a peck, we all arrived somehow in the +next field, and saw, topping the succeeding fence, the bulky chestnut +quarters of Sir Thomas Purcell's horse and the square scarlet back of +Sir Thomas. Away to the left, on an assortment of astute crocks, three +of the Misses Purcell followed the First Whip, at as considerable a +distance from their parent as was consistent with a good place. Their +voices came confusedly to us; apparently each was telling the others to +get out of her way. + +For a quarter of an hour the hounds ran hard over the clean +pasture-land, whose curves rose before us and glided astern like the +long rollers under an Atlantic liner. Innocent of rocks or pitfalls, +unimpeachable as to surface, it was a page of fair print as compared +with the black letter manuscript to which the country of Mr. Flurry +Knox's hounds might be likened. Never before have I crossed fences as +sound, as seductive, it was like jumping large and well-upholstered +Chesterfield sofas; Chesterfieldian also were the manners of Flavin's +bay. I found myself in the magnificent position of giving a lead to +Flurry and the Dodger, of giving several leads to the soldiery; once, +when a wide and boggy stream occurred, the Misses Purcell and the +crocks looked to me as their pioneer. The hustle and the hurry never +relaxed; the hounds had fastened on the line and were running it as +though it were a footpath; but for the check at the start, no fox could +have held his lead for so long at such a pace, and whatever the pace, +the tails of the horses of Sir Thomas and the First Whip never failed +to disappear over the bank just ahead. + +For me, in the unwonted glory of heading the desperadoes of the first +flight, life and the future were contained in the question of how much +longer I could count on my hireling. I was just able to spare a hasty +thought or two to Philippa and the grey, and I remember that it was +after a heavy drop into a road that I noticed, with the just and +impotent wrath of a husband, that her hair was beginning to come down. + +It was just then that I first saw the motor. The fox had run the road +for some little distance; we clattered and splashed along it, until an +intimidating roar from Sir Thomas and the sight of his right arm in the +air, brought us, bumping and tugging, to a standstill. The hounds were +for a moment at fault, swarming, with their heads down, over every inch +of the road, and beyond them, about a hundred yards from us, was a +resplendent scarlet motor, whose nearer approach was summarily +interdicted by the First Whip. I am short-sighted, but I caught an +impression of two elderly gentlemen, one of whom, wearing a white +moustache and a tall hat, was responding warmly to the fulminations of +Sir Thomas. If this were my ancient brother-in-arms, Jimmy Porteous, +following hounds in a motor, times were indeed changed. I dismissed +the possibility from my mind. Just then I caught sight of Flurry's +face; it had in it the fearful joy of a schoolboy who has seen a squib +put into the tail pocket of the schoolmaster, and awaits the result. +Mrs. Flurry, in the heroic act of plucking a hairpin from her own +unshaken golden-red plaits, and yielding it to Philippa, met his eye +with a glance that was so expressionless as to amount to a danger +signal. + +At this moment the hounds jostled over the wall with a clatter of +falling stones; they spread themselves in the field like the opening of +a fan, they narrowed to the recovered line like the closing of one; Sir +Thomas's chestnut hoisted himself and his fifteen-stone burden out of +the road with the heave of an earthquake. The riders shoved after him, +and we were swept again into the current of the hunt. + +As we thundered away up the field threatening shouts from the checked +motorists followed us; apparently, after the manner of their kind, they +had not a moment to spare, and the delay had annoyed them. The next +fence arrived, and they, and all else, were forgotten. + +There was a wood ahead of us, cresting a long upland, and for it the +hounds were making, at a pace that brutally ignored the rise of ground, +and the fact that in these higher levels the fields were smaller, and +the fences had to be faced up a hill that momently grew steeper. + +"Hold on, Mrs. Yeates, till I take down that pole for you!" Flurry's +voice followed us up the hill, and there was that in it that told he +was making heavy weather of it. He was leading the dripping Dodger, +and I have seldom seen a redder face than his as he laboured past +Philippa and dragged away the shaft of a cart that barred a gap. "Bad +luck to this for a close country!" he puffed. "You're not off one +fence before you're on top of the next!" Flavin's horses were +certainly lathering pretty freely, but were otherwise making no remark +on the situation, and neither of them had so far made a mistake of any +kind. I saw the First Whip regard the bay with obvious respect, and +turn with a confidential comment to the nearest Miss Purcell. It +hall-marked my achievements. + +Philippa and I were among the first into the wood; even Flurry had been +left three fields behind, and the glory of our position radiated from +us, as we stood at the end of the main ride, sublimely surveying the +arrival of the rest of the streaming hunt. Sir Thomas and the hounds +had dived out of sight into the recesses of the wood; a period of +inaction ensued, and for a few balmy minutes peace with honour was ours. + +Balmy, however, as were the minutes, there crept into them an anxiety +as to what the hounds were doing. A great and complete silence had +fallen as far as they and Sir Thomas were concerned, and Philippa and +I, conscious of our high estate as leaders of the hunt, melted away +from the crowd to investigate matters. We followed a path that took us +across the wood, and the deeper we went the deeper was the silence, and +the more acute became our fears that we had been left behind. Sir +Thomas had an evil reputation for slipping his field and getting away +alone. + +"There's the horn!" cried Philippa. "It's outside the wood! They +_have_ gone away. Hurry!" + +We were squeezing along the farther edge of the covert, looking for a +way out, and I, too, heard the note, faint, yet commanding. I hurried. +That is to say, with my hat over my eyes, and my cheek laid against the +bay's neck, I followed my wife up an alley that was barely wide enough +for a woodcock. + +On our left was an impassable hedge of small trees, crowning a heavy +drop into the field outside the wood; our faces were rowelled by the +branches of young spruce firs. It was all very well for Philippa, +riding nearly two hands lower than I, to twist her way in and out +through them like a squirrel, but for me, on a 16.2 horse, resolved on +following his stable companion through a keyhole if necessary, it was +anything but well. My eyes were tightly shut, my arm was in front of +them, and my eye-glass was hanging down my back, when I felt the bay +stop. + +"Here's a way out," said my wife's voice, apparently from the middle of +a fir tree, "there's a sort of a cattle track here." + +There followed a scramble and a slide, then Philippa's voice again, +enjoining me to keep to the right. + +She has since explained that she really meant the left, and that, in +any case, I might have known that she always said right when she meant +left; be that as it may, when the bay and I had committed ourselves to +the steep descent--half water-course, half cattle track--I was smitten +in the face by a holly branch. Before I had recovered from its impact, +a stout beechen bough, that it had masked, met me violently across the +waistcoat and held me in mid-air, as the gorilla is reputed to grasp +and hold the traveller, while my horse moved firmly downward from +beneath me. After a moment of suspense, mental and physical, I fell to +earth, like the arrow in the song, I knew not where, and tobogganed +painfully down something steep and stony, with briers in it. + +As I rose to my feet, the mellow note of the horn that had beguiled us +from the wood, again sounded; nearer now, and with a harsher cadence, +and I perceived, at the farther end of the field in which I had +arrived, a bullock, with his head over a gate, sending a long and +lamentable bugle note to the companions from whom he had been +separated. Simultaneously the hounds opened far back in the wood +behind me, and I knew that the flood-tide of luck had turned against us. + +Flavin's bay had not waited for me. He was already well away, going +with head and tail high held, a gentleman at large, seeking for +entertainment at a lively and irresponsible trot. Pursuing him, with +more zeal than discretion, was Philippa on the grey mare; he broke into +a canter, and I had the pleasure of seeing them both swing through a +gateway and proceed at a round gallop across the next field. I +followed them at the best imitation of the same pace that my boots +permitted, and squelched through the mire of the gateway in time to see +the bay horse jump a tall bank, and drop with a clatter into a road. +At the same moment the drumming and hooting of a motor-car broke upon +my ear, and three heads, one of them wearing a tall hat, slid at high +speed along the line of the fence. At sight of this apparition the bay +horse gave a massive buck, and fled at full speed up a lane. To my +surprise and gratification, the motor-car instantly stopped, and one of +its occupants--the wearer of the tall hat--sprang out and gave chase to +my horse. + +My attention was here abruptly transferred to my wife, who, having +followed the chase, whether by her own wish or that of the grey mare I +have never been able to discover, was now combating the desire of the +latter to jump the bank at the exact spot calculated to land them both +in the lap of the motor-car. The dispute ended in a slanting and +crab-like rush at a place twenty yards lower down, and it was then that +the figure of our host, Mr. Lucius Butler-Knox, rose, amazingly, in the +motor-car, making semaphore gestures of warning. + +The mare jumped crookedly on to the bank, hung there for half a second, +and launched herself into space, the launch being followed, +appropriately, by a mighty splash. Neither she nor Philippa reappeared. + +Throughout these events I had not ceased to run, and the next thing I +can distinctly recall is scrambling, thoroughly blown, on to the fence, +whence a moving scene presented itself to me. The grey mare and +Philippa had, with singular ingenuity, selected between them the one +place in the fence where disaster was inevitable; and I now beheld my +wife prone in two feet of yellow water, the overflow of a flooded ditch +that had turned a hollow by the roadside into a sufficiently imposing +pond. Mr. Butler-Knox and the chauffeur were already rendering all the +assistance possible, short of wetting their feet, and were hauling her +ashore; while the grey mare, recumbent in deeper water, surveyed the +operation with composure, and made no attempt to move. When I joined +the party--a process involving a wide circuit of the flood--Philippa +had sunk, dripping, upon a heap of stones by the roadside, in laughter +as inexplicable as it was unsuitable. There was, at all events, no +need to ask if she were hurt. + +"The most appalling thing that you ever knew in your life has +happened!" she wailed, and instantly fell again into unseemly +convulsions. + +Whatever the jest might be, it did not appeal to the chauffeur, who +withdrew in silence to his motor, coldly wiping the vicarious duckweed +from his knees with a silk pocket-handkerchief. Still less did it +appeal to me. Any fair-minded person will admit that I had cause to be +excessively angry with Philippa. That a grown woman, the mother of two +children, should mistake the bellow of a bullock for the note of a horn +was bad enough; but that when, having caused a serious accident by not +knowing her right hand from her left, and having, by further +insanities, driven one valuable horse adrift into the country, probably +broken the back of another, laid the seeds of heart disease in her +husband from shock and over-exertion, and of rheumatic fever in +herself; when, I repeat, after all these outrages, she should sit in a +soaking heap by the roadside, laughing like a maniac, I feel that the +sympathy of the public will not be withheld from me. + +The mystery of Mr. Butler-Knox's appearance in the motor-car passed by +me like a feather in a whirlwind; I strode without a word into the +yellow flood in which the mare was lying, and got hold of her reins +with the handle of my crop; I might as well have tried to draw out +Behemoth with a hook. Her hind-quarters were well fixed in the hidden +ditch, she made not the slightest effort to stir, and continued to +recline, contentedly, not to say defiantly. + +"That's a great sign of fine weather," said a voice behind me in +affable comment, "when a horse will lie down in wather that way." + +[Illustration: "THAT'S A GREAT SIGN OF FINE WEATHER WHEN A HORSE WILL +LIE DOWN IN WATHER THAT WAY"] + +I turned upon my consoler, and saw a young countryman with a fur-lined +coat hanging upon his arm. + +"I got this thrown in the bohireen above," he said, "the other +gentleman, that's follying the bay horse, stripped it off him, and God +knows it's itself that's weighty!" + +"My dear Major!" began Looshy, addressing me agitatedly from the bank, +as a hen might address a refractory duckling, "there has been a most +unfortunate mistake." + +"There has! There has! It's all Flurry's fault!" gasped Philippa, +staggering towards me like a drunken woman. + +"I fear the General is terribly annoyed," continued Looshy, wiping his +grey beard and mopping his collar to remove the muddy imprint of +Philippa's arm; "he rushed into Garden Mount in search of his horses +when he found they were not at the meet nor at the station--he left +Lady Porteous with my sisters and took me to identify you; I mentioned +your name, but he did not seem to grasp it--indeed his language +was--er--was such that I thought it unwise to press the point." + +I dropped the reins and began, slowly, to wade out of the pool. + +"I understand he has but just paid L300 for these horses--it was an +unpardonable mistake of Flurry's," went on Looshy, "he found the +General's horses at the station and thought that they were Flavin's." + +"Dear Flurry!" sobbed Philippa, shamelessly, reeling against me and +clutching my arm. + +"Begor' he have the horse!" said the young countryman, looking up the +hill. + +A stout figure in a red coat and tall hat was approaching by way of the +bohireen, followed by a man leading a limping horse. + +"I think," said Looshy nervously, "that Mrs. Yeates had better have my +seat in the motor-car and hurry home. I will walk--I should really +prefer it. The General will be quite happy now that he has found his +horses and his old friend." + +[Illustration: "I WILL WALK--I SHOULD REALLY PREFER IT"] + +The chauffeur, plying a long-necked oil-can, smiled sardonically. + + + + +X + +SHARPER THAN A FERRET'S TOOTH + +"My dear Philippa," said Miss Shute gloomily, "I have about as much +chance of spending next winter in Florence as I have of spending it in +the moon. I despair of ever getting Bernard married. I look upon him +as hopeless." + +"I don't agree with you at all," replied Philippa, "don't you remember +how demented he was about Sally Knox? And when we all thought he was +on the verge of suicide, we discovered that he was deep in a flirtation +with that American girl. It seems to me he's ready to be devoted to +any one who takes him in hand. He has none of that deadly helpless +fidelity about him." + +"I ought never to have allowed him to take up gardening," said Miss +Shute, despondently pursuing her own line of thought, "it only promotes +intimacies with dowagers." + +"Yes, and it makes men elderly, and contented, and stay-at-home," +agreed Philippa; "it's one of the worst signs! But I can easily make +Sybil Hervey think she's a gardener. She's a thoroughly nice, +coercible girl. Alice has always been so particular about her girls. +Of course with their money they've been run after a good deal, but +they're not in the least spoilt." + +"I don't think," I murmured privately to Maria, who was trying to +hypnotise me into letting her crawl on to the sofa beside me, "that +we'll borrow half-a-crown to get drunk with her." + +Maria wagged her tail in servile acquiescence. + +"Nonsense!" said my wife largely. + +A month from the date of this conversation, Sybil Hervey, my wife's +pretty, young, and well-dowered niece, was staying beneath our roof. I +had not changed my mind about the half-crown, though Maria, perfidious +as ever, feigned for her the impassioned affection that had so often +imposed upon the guileless guest within my gates. + +"Why, this dog has taken the most extraordinary fancy to me!" Sybil +Hervey (who was really a very amiable girl) would say, and Maria, with +a furtive eye upon her owners, would softly draw the guest's third +piece of cake into the brown velvet bag that she called her mouth. + +This was all very well from Maria's point of view, but a friendship +with Maria had not been the object of Miss Hervey's importation. I +evade, by main strength, the quotation from Burns proper to this state +of affairs, and proceed to say that the matrimonial scheme laid by my +wife and Miss Shute was not prospering. Sybil Hervey, the coercible, +the thoroughly nice, shied persistently at the instructive pages of +Robinson's "English Flower Garden," and stuck in her toes and refused +point blank to weed seedlings for her Aunt Philippa. Nor was a +comprehensive garden party at Clountiss attended with any success; far +otherwise. Miss Shute unfortunately thought it incumbent on her to +trawl in deep waters, and to invite even the McRory family to her +entertainment, with the result that her brother, Bernard--I quote my +wife verbatim--made a ridiculous spectacle of himself by walking about +all the afternoon with a fluffy-haired, certainly-rather-pretty, little +abomination, a creature who was staying with the McRorys. Worse even +than this, Sybil had disappointed, if not disgraced, her backers, by +vanishing from the ken of un-gentle men with Mr. De Lacy McRory, known +to his friends as "Curly." + +I have before now dealt, superficially, and quite inadequately, with +the McRorys. It may even be permitted to me to recall again the +generic description of each young male McRory. "A bit of a lad, but +nothing at all to the next youngest." Since that time the family had +worn its way, unequally and in patches, into the tolerance of the +neighbourhood. It was said, apologetically, that the daughters danced, +and played tennis and golf so well, and the sons did the same and were +such excellent shots, and that Mrs. McRory bought, uncomplainingly, all +that was offered to her at bazaars, and could always be counted on for +a whole row of seats at local concerts. As for old McRory, people said +that he was certainly rather awful, but that he was better than his +family in that he knew that he was awful, and kept out of the way. As +a matter of history, there were not many functions where a McRory of +some kind, in accordance with its special accomplishment, did not find, +at all events, standing room; fewer still where they did not form a +valued topic of conversation. + +Curly McRory was, perhaps, the pioneer of his family in their advance +to cross what has been usefully called "the bounder-y line." He played +all games well, and he was indisputably good-looking, he knew how to be +discreetly silent; he also, apparently, knew how to talk to Sybil what +time her accredited chaperon, oblivious of her position, played two +engrossing sets of tennis. + +After this fiasco came a period of stagnation, during which Mr. De Lacy +McRory honoured us with his first visit to Shreelane, bicycling over to +see me, on business connected with the golf club; in my regretted +absence he asked for Mrs. Yeates, and stayed for tea. Following upon +this Sybil took to saying, "I will," in what she believed to be a +brogue, instead of "yes," and was detected in fruitless search for the +McRorys of Temple Braney in the pages of Burke's Irish Landed Gentry. + +It was at this unsatisfactory juncture that Mrs. Flurry Knox entered +into the affair with an invitation to us to spend three days at +Aussolas Castle, one of which was to be devoted to the destruction of a +pack of grouse, fabled by John Kane, the keeper, to frequent a mountain +back of Aussolas: the Shutes were also to be of the party. I seemed to +detect in the arrangement a hand more diplomatic than that of +Providence, but I said nothing. + +The Flurry Knoxes were, for the moment, in residence at Aussolas, while +old Mrs. Knox made her annual pilgrimage to Buxton. They were sent +there to keep the servants from fighting, and because John Kane had +said that there was no such enemies to pigs as servants on board wages. +(A dark saying, bearing indirectly on the plenishing of pig-buckets.) + +Between servants and pigs, as indeed in most affairs of life, little +Mrs. Flurry held the scales of justice with a remarkably steady hand, +and under her regime one could at all events be reasonably sure of +having one's boots cleaned, and of getting a hot bath in the morning. +We went to Aussolas, and Flurry and Bernard Shute and I put in a +blazing September day on the mountain, wading knee deep in matted +heather and furze, in pursuit of the mythical grouse, and brought home +two hares and a headache (the latter being my contribution to the bag). +The ladies met us with tea; Sybil, in Harris tweed and admirable boots, +looked, I must admit, uncommonly smart. Even Flurry was impressed, and +it was palpable to the most superficial observer that Bernard was at +length beginning, like a baby, to "take notice." After tea he and she +moved away in sweet accord to wash teacups in a bog-hole, from whence +their prattle came prosperously to the ears of the three diplomatists, +seated, like the witches in Macbeth, upon the heath, and, like them, +arranging futures for other people. Bearing in mind that one of the +witches had (in a previous incarnation as Miss Sally Knox) held Bernard +in her thrall, and still retained him in a platonic sphere of +influence, any person of experience would have said that the odds were +greatly against Mr. Shute. + +[Illustration: FLURRY AND I PUT IN A BLAZING SEPTEMBER DAY ON THE +MOUNTAIN] + +The hot bath that was the _fine fleur_ of Mrs. Flurry's regime at +Aussolas failed conspicuously next morning. It was the precursor of a +general slump. When, at a liberal 9.30, I arrived in the dining-room, +of neither host, hostess, nor breakfast was there any sign. The host, +it appeared, had gone to a fair; having waited for a hungry half-hour +we were coming to the conclusion that the hostess had gone with him, +when the door opened and Mrs. Flurry came swiftly into the room. Her +face was as a book, where men might read strange matters; it was also +of a hue that suggested the ardent climate of the kitchen; in her hand +she carried a toast-rack, and following hard on her heels came three +maids, also heavily flushed, bearing various foods, and all, +apparently, on the verge of tears. This cortege having retired, Mrs. +Flurry proceeded to explain. The butler, Johnny, a dingy young man, +once Mrs. Knox's bathchair-attendant, had departed at 8 A.M., +accompanied by Michael the pantry boy, to dig a grave for a cousin. To +those acquainted with Aussolas there was nothing remarkable in this, +but Sybil Hervey's china-blue eyes opened wide, and I heard her ask +Bernard in a low voice if he thought it was anything agrarian. The +annoyance of the cook at the defection of the butler and pantry boy was +so acute that she had retired to her room and refused to send in +breakfast. + +"That was no more than I should have expected from the servants here," +said Mrs. Flurry vindictively, "but what was just a little too much was +finding the yard-boy cramming the toast into the toast-rack with his +fingers." + +At this my wife's niece uttered the loud yell which all young women +with any pretension to smartness have by them for use on emergencies, +and exclaimed-- + +"Oh, _don't_!" + +"You needn't be frightened," said Mrs. Flurry, giving Miss Hervey the +eighth part of a glance of her greeny-grey eyes; "I made this stuff +myself, and you may all think yourselves lucky to get anything," she +went on, "as one of the herd of incapables downstairs said, 'to get as +much milk as'd do the tea itself, that was the stratagem'!" + +Hard on the heels of the quotation there came a rushing sound in the +hall without, a furious grappling with the door-handle, and the cook +herself, or rather the Tragic Muse in person, burst into the room. Her +tawny hair hung loose about her head; her yellow-brown eyes blazed in +an ashen and extremely handsome face; she shook a pair of freckled +fists at the universe. I cannot pretend to do more than indicate the +drift of her denunciation. Brunhilde, ascending the funeral pyre, with +full orchestral accompaniment, could not more fully and deafeningly +have held her audience, and the theme might have been taken out of the +darkest corner of any of the Sagas. + +The burying-ground of her clan was--so she had been informed by a swift +runner--even now being broken into by the butler and the pantry boy, +and the graves of her ancestors were being thrown open to the Four +Winds of the World, to make room for the Scuff of the Country (whatever +that might mean). Here followed the most capable and comprehensive +cursings of the butler and the pantry boy that it has ever been my lot +to admire, delivered at lightning speed, and with gestures worthy of +the highest traditions of classic drama, the whole ending with the +statement that she was on her way to the graveyard now to drink their +blood. + +"I trust you will, Kate," cordially responded Mrs. Flurry, "don't wait +a moment!" + +The Tragic Muse, startled into an instant of silence, stared wildly at +Mrs. Flurry, seemed to scent afar off the possibility that she was not +being taken seriously, and whirled from the room, a Vampire on the +warpath. + +"I meant every word I said to her!" said Sally, looking round upon us +defiantly, "I was very near offering her your motor, Mr. Shute! The +sooner she kills Johnny and Michael the better pleased I shall be! And +I may tell you all," she added, "that we shall have no luncheon to-day, +and most probably no dinner!" + +"Oh, that's all right!" said Philippa, seeing her chance, and hammering +in her wedge with all speed, "now there's nothing for it but sandwiches +and a picnic!" + +The lake at Aussolas was one of a winding chain of three, connected by +narrow channels cut through the bog for the passage of boats that +carried turf to the lake-side dwellers. The end one of these, known as +Braney's Lake, was a recognised place for picnics; a ruined oratory on +a wooded point supplying the pretext, and a reliable spring well +completing the equipment. The weather was of the variety specially +associated in my mind with Philippa's picnics, brilliantly fine, with a +falling glass, and 12 o'clock saw us shoving out from the Aussolas turf +quay, through the reeds and the rocks. + +[Illustration: BRANEY'S LAKE] + +We were a party of six, in two boats; diplomacy, whose I know not, had +so disposed matters that Bernard Shute and Sybil Hervey were despatched +together in a dapper punt, and I, realising to the full the +insignificance of my position as a married man, found myself tugging at +a tough and ponderous oar, in a species of barge, known to history as +"The-Yallow-Boat-that-was-painted-black." My wife and Mrs. Flurry took +turns in assisting my labours by paddling with a scull in the bow, +while Miss Shute languidly pulled the wrong string at intervals, in the +stern. Why, I grumbled contentiously, should, as it were, fish be made +of Bernard and flesh be made of me (which was a highly figurative way +of describing a performance that would take a stone off my weight ere +all was done). Why, I repeated, should not Bernard put his broad back +into it in the heavy boat with me, and leave the punt for the ladies? +My wife tore herself from _sotto voce_ gabblings with Sally in the bow +to tell me that I was thoroughly unsympathetic, what time she dealt me +an unintentional but none the less disabling blow in the spine, in her +effort to fall again into stroke. Mrs. Flurry, in order to take turns +at the oar with Philippa, had seated herself on the luncheon basket in +the bow, thereby sinking the old tub by the head, and, as we afterwards +found, causing her to leak in the sun-dried upper seams. To us +travelled the voice of Bernard, lightly propelling his skiff over the +ruffled and sparkling blue water. + +"He's telling her about all the alterations he's going to make at +Clountiss!" hissed Sally down the back of Philippa's neck. + +"Almost actionable!" responded my wife, and in her enthusiasm her oar +again took me heavily between the shoulder blades. + +We laboured out of the Aussolas lake, and poled down the narrow channel +into the middle lake, where shallows, and a heavy summer's growth of +reeds, did not facilitate our advance. The day began to cloud over; as +we wobbled out of the second channel into Braney's lake the sun went +in, a sharp shower began to whip the water, and simultaneously Miss +Shute announced that her feet were wet, and that she thought the boat +must be leaking. I then perceived that the water was up to the bottom +boards, and was coming in faster than I could have wished. A baler was +required, and I proceeded with confidence to search for the rusty +mustard tin, or cracked jam-crock, that fills that office. There was +nothing to be found. + +"There are plenty of cups in the luncheon basket," said Sally, +tranquilly; "Flurry once had to bale this old boat out with one of his +grandmother's galoshes." + +Philippa and I began to row with some vigour, while Sally wrestled with +the fastening of the luncheon basket in the bow. The lid opened with a +jerk and a crack. There was one long and speechless moment, and then +Sally said in a very gentle voice: + +"They've sent the washing-basket, with all the clean clothes!" + +Of the general bearings of this catastrophe there was no time to think; +its most pressing feature was the fact that there were no cups with +which to bale the boat. I looked over my shoulder and saw Bernard +dragging the punt ashore under the ruined oratory, a quarter of a mile +away; there was nothing for it but to turn and make for the shore on +our right at the best pace attainable. Sally and Philippa +double-banked the bow oar, and the old boat, leaking harder at each +moment, wallowed on towards a landing stage that suddenly became +visible amid the reeds--the bottom boards were by this time awash, and +Miss Shute's complexion and that of her holland dress matched to a +shade. + +"Could you throw the washing overboard?" I suggested over my shoulder, +labouring the while at my massy oar. + +"My--new--nightgowns!" panted Mrs. Flurry, "never!" + +Just then big rocks began to show yellow in the depths, the next moment +the boat scraped over one, and, almost immediately afterwards, settled +down quietly and with dignity in some three feet of brown water and mud. + +Only those who have tried to get out of a submerged boat, can form any +idea of what then befell. Our feet and legs turned to lead, the water +to glue, all that was floatable in the boat rose to the surface, and +lay about there impeding our every movement. We had foundered in sight +of port and were not half-a-dozen yards from the landing stage, but to +drag myself and three women, all up to our waists in water, and the +ladies hopelessly handicapped by their petticoats, over the gunwale of +a sunken boat, and to flounder ashore with them in mud, over unsteady +rocks, and through the ever-hampering reeds, was infinitely more +difficult and exhausting than it may seem. + +Clasping a slimy post to my bosom with one arm, I was in the act of +shoving Miss Shute up on to the landing stage, when I heard the +unmistakeable Dublin light tenor voice of a McRory hail me, announcing +that he was coming to our rescue. More distant shouts, and the rapid +creaking of hard-pulled oars told that Bernard and Sybil were also +speeding to our aid. The three diplomates, dripping on the end of the +pier, looked at each other bodefully, and Philippa murmured: + +"The worst has happened!" + +After that the worst continued to happen, and at a pace that overbore +all resistance. Mr. De Lacy McRory, tall and beautiful, in lily-white +flannels, took the lead into his own hands and played his game +faultlessly. Philippa was the object of his chief solicitude, Sally +and Miss Shute had their share of a manly tenderness that resolutely +ignored the degrading absurdity of their appearance; his father's +house, and all that was therein was laid at our feet. Captive and +helpless, we slopped and squelched beside him through the shrubberies +of Temple Braney House, with the shower, now matured into a heavy +down-pour, completing our saturation, too spiritless to resent the +heavy pleasantries of Bernard, the giggling condolences of Sybil. + +We have never been able to decide at which moment the knife of +humiliation cut deepest, whether it was when we stood and dripped on +the steps, while Curly McRory summoned in trumpet tones his women-kind, +or when, still dripping, we stood in the hall and were presented to +Mrs. McRory and a troop of young men and maidens, vociferous in +sympathy and hospitality; or when, having progressed like water carts +through the house, we found ourselves installed, like the Plague of +Frogs, in the bedchambers of the McRorys, face to face with the supreme +embarrassment of either going to bed, or of arraying ourselves in the +all too gorgeous garments that were flung before us with a generous +abandon worthy of Sir Walter Raleigh. + +I chose the latter course, and, in process of time, found myself +immaculately clothed in what is, I believe, known to tailors as "a +Lounge Suit," though not for untold gold would I have lounged, or by +any carelessness endangered the perfection of the creases of its dark +grey trousers. + +The luncheon gong sounded, and, like the leading gentleman in any +drawing-room drama, I put forth from my dressing-room, and at the head +of the stairs met my wife and Miss Shute. They were, if possible, +grander than I, and looked as if they were going to a wedding. + +"We had the choice of about eighty silk blouses," breathed Philippa, +gathering up a long and silken train, "Sally has to wear Madame's +clothes, nothing else were short enough. We're in for it, you know," +she added, "a luncheon is inevitable, and goodness knows when we can +get away, especially if this rain lasts--" her voice broke +hysterically; I turned and saw Mrs. Flurry shuffling towards us in +velvet slippers, holding up with both hands a flowing purple brocade +skirt. I pointed repressively downwards, to where, in the window seat +of the hall below, were visible the crisped golden curls of Mr. De Lacy +McRory, and the shining rolls and undulations of Miss Sybil Hervey's +_chevelure_. Their heads were in close proximity, and their voices +were low and confidential. + +"This must be put a stop to!" said Philippa, rustling swiftly +downstairs. + +We all moved processionally in to lunch, arm in arm with the McRorys. +To Philippa had fallen old McRory, who was the best of the party (in +being so awful that he knew he was awful). He maintained an unbroken +silence throughout the meal, but whistled jigs secretly through his +teeth, a method of keeping up his courage of which I believe he was +quite unconscious. Of the brilliance of the part that I played with +Mrs. McRory it would ill become me to speak; what is more worthy of +record is the rapid and Upas-like growth of intimacy between Curly +McRory and my wife's niece. She had probably never before encountered +a young man so anxious to be agreeable, so skilled in achieving that +end. The fact that he was Irish accounted, no doubt, in her eyes, for +all that was unusual in his voice and manners, and his long eyelashes +did the rest. Sybil grew momently pinker and prettier as the long, +extraordinary meal marched on. + +Of its component parts I can only remember that there was a soup tureen +full of custard, a mountainous dish of trifle, in whose veins ran +honey, instead of jam, and to whose enlivenment a bottle at least of +whisky had been dedicated; certainly, at one period, Philippa had on +one side of her plate a cup of soup, and on the other a cup of tea. +Cecilia Shute was perhaps the member of our party who took it all +hardest. Pale and implacable, attired in a brilliant blue garment that +was an outrage alike to her convictions and her complexion, she sat +between two young McRorys, who understood no more of her language than +she did of theirs, and was obliged to view with the frigid tranquillity +boasted of by Doctor Johnson, the spectacle of her brother devoting +himself enthusiastically to that McRory cousin whom Philippa had +described as a fluffy-haired abomination. Everything, in fact, was +occurring that was least desired by the ladies of my party, with the +single exception of my niece by marriage; and the glowing satisfaction +of the McRory family was not hid from us, and did not ameliorate the +position. + +When luncheon was at length brought to a close nothing could well have +been blacker than the outlook. The rain, and the splendour of our +borrowed plumes, put a return by boat out of the question. It was a +good seven miles round by road, and the McRory family, fleet and +tireless bicyclists, had but one horse, which was lame. A telegram to +Aussolas had been despatched an hour ago, but as Mrs. Flurry was +gloomily certain that every servant there had gone to the funeral, the +time of our release was unknown. + +I do not now distinctly remember what occurred immediately after lunch, +but I know there came a period when I found myself alone in the hall, +turning over the pages of a dreary comic paper, uncertain what to do, +but determined on one point, that neither principalities nor powers +should force me into the drawing-room, where sat the three unhappy +women of my party, being entertained within an inch of their lives by +Mrs. McRory. Sybil and Bernard and their boon companions had betaken +themselves to that distant and dilapidated wing of the house in which I +had once unearthed Tomsy Flood, there to play squash racquets in one of +the empty rooms. I was consequently enacting the part laid down for me +by my lounge suit; I was lounging, as a gentleman should, without for +an instant disturbing the creases of my trousers. + +At times I was aware of the silent and respectful surveillance of Mr. +McRory in the inner hall, but I thought it best for us both to feign +unconsciousness of his presence. Through a swing door that, true to +its definition, swung wheezily to the cabbage-laden draughts from the +lower regions, I could hear the tide of battle rolling through the +disused wing. The squash racquets seemed to be of a most pervading +character; the thunder of rushing feet, blent with the long, +progressive shriek of an express train, would at intervals approach +almost to the swing door, but I remained unmolested. I had entered +upon my second cigarette, and a period of comparative peace, when I +heard a stealing foot, and found at my elbow a female McRory of about +twelve as years go, but dowered with the accumulated experience of six +elder sisters. + +"Did Pinkie and Mr. Shute come in this way to hide?" she began, looking +at me as if "Pinkie," whoever she might be, was in my pocket. "We're +playing hide'n-go-seek, and we can't find them." + +I said I knew nothing of them. + +The McRory child looked at me with supernal intelligence from under the +wing of dark hair that was tied over one ear. + +"They're not playing fair anyhow, and there's Curly and Miss Hervey +that wouldn't play at all!" She eyed me again. "He took her out to +show her the ferrets and they never came back. I was watching them; +she said one of the ferrets bit her finger, and Curly kissed it!" + +"I suppose you mean he kissed the ferret," I said repressively, while I +thought of Alice Hervey, mother of Sybil, and trembled. + +"Ah, go on! what a fool you're letting on to be!" replied the McRory +child, with elegant sarcasm. She swung round on her heel and sped away +again upon the trail, cannoning against old McRory in the back hall. + +"I tell you, that's the lady!" soliloquised old McRory, from the deep +of the back hall. I gathered that he was referring to the social +capacity of his youngest daughter and thought he was probably right. + +It was at this moment that deliverance broke like a sunburst upon us; I +saw through the windows of the hall a dogcart and an outside car whirl +past the door and onwards to the yard. The former was driven by Flurry +Knox, the car by Michael the Aussolas pantry boy, apparently none the +worse for his encounter with the vampire cook. I snatched an umbrella, +and, regardless of the lounge suit, followed with all speed the golden +path of the sunburst. + +Flurry, clad in glistening yellow oilskins, met me in the yard, wearing +an expression of ill-concealed exultation worthy of Job's comforters at +their brightest. + +"D'ye know who opened your wire?" he began, regarding me with an all +observant eye from under his sou-wester, while the rain drops ran down +his nose. "I can tell you there's the Old Gentleman to pay at +Aussolas--or the old lady, and that's worse! That's a nice suit--you +ought to buy that from Curly." + +"Who opened my telegram?" I said. I was not at all amused. + +"'When she got there, the cupboard was bare,'" returned Flurry. "'Not +a servant in the house, not a bit in the larder!' If it wasn't that by +the mercy of providence I found the picnic basket that you bright boys +had left after you, she'd have torn the house down!" + +"I suppose you mean that your grandmother has come back," I said +stonily. + +"She fought with her unfortunate devil of a doctor at Buxton," said +Flurry, permitting himself a grin of remembrance, "he told her she was +too old to eat late dinner, and she told him she wasn't going to be a +slave to her stomach or to him either, and she'd eat her dinner when +she pleased, and she landed in at Aussolas by the mid-day train without +a word." + +"What did she say when she opened my telegram?" I faltered. + +"She said 'Thank God I'm not a fool!'" replied her grandson. + +The proposition was unanswerable, and I took it, so to speak, lying +down. + +"Here!" said Flurry, summoning the pantry boy. "These horses must go +in out of the rain. I'll look over there for some place I can put +them." + +"I see Michael got back from the funeral," I said, following Flurry +across the wide and wet expanse of the yard, "I suppose the cook killed +Johnny?" + +"Ah, not at all," said Flurry, "anyway, my grandmother had the two of +them up unpacking her trunks when I left. Here, this place looks like +a stable----" + +He opened a door, in front of which a cascade from a broken water-shoot +was splashing noisily. The potent smell of ferrets greeted us. + +Seated on the ferrets' box were Mr. De Lacy McRory, and Sybil, daughter +of Alice Hervey. Apparently she had again been bitten by the ferret, +but this time the bite was not on her finger. + + + + +XI + +OWENEEN THE SPRAT + +I was labouring under the slough of Christmas letters and bills, when +my wife came in and asked me if I would take her to the Workhouse. + +[Illustration: MY WIFE CAME AND ASKED ME IF I WOULD TAKE HER TO THE +WORKHOUSE] + +"My dear," I replied, ponderously, but, I think, excusably, "you have, +as usual, anticipated my intention, but I think we can hold out until +after Christmas." + +Philippa declined to pay the jest the respect to which its age entitled +it, and replied inconsequently that I knew perfectly well that she +could not drive the outside car with the children and the Christmas +tree. I assented that they would make an awkward team, and offered, as +a substitute for my services, those of Denis, the stopgap. + +Those who live in Ireland best know the staying powers of stopgaps. +Denis, uncle of Michael Leary the Whip, had been imported into the +kennels during my ministry, to bridge a hiatus in the long dynasty of +the kennel-boys, and had remained for eighteen months, a notable +instance of the survival of what might primarily have been considered +the unfittest. That Denis should so long have endured his nephew's +rule was due not so much to the tie of blood, as to the privileged +irresponsibility of a stopgap. Nothing was expected of him, and he +pursued an unmolested course, until the return of Flurry Knox from +South Africa changed the general conditions. He then remained +submerged until he drifted into the gap formed in my own establishment +by Mr. Peter Cadogan's elopement. + +Philippa's workhouse-tea took place on Christmas Eve. We were still +hurrying through an early luncheon when the nodding crest of the +Christmas tree passed the dining-room windows. My youngest son +immediately upset his pudding into his lap; and Philippa hustled forth +to put on her hat, an operation which, like the making of an omelette, +can apparently only be successfully performed at the last moment. With +feelings of mingled apprehension and relief I saw the party drive from +the door, the Christmas tree seated on one side of the car, Philippa on +the other, clutching her offspring, Denis on the box, embosomed, like a +wood-pigeon, in the boughs of the spruce fir. I congratulated myself +that the Quaker, now white with the snows of many winters, was in the +shafts. Had I not been too deeply engaged in so arranging the rug that +it should not trail in the mud all the way to Skebawn, I might have +noticed that the lamps had been forgotten. + +It was, as I have said, Christmas Eve, and as the afternoon wore on I +began to reflect upon what the road from Skebawn would be in another +hour, full of drunken people, and, what was worse, of carts steered by +drunken people. I had assured Philippa (with what I believe she +describes as masculine _esprit de corps_) of Denis's adequacy as a +driver, but that did not alter the fact that in the last rays of the +setting sun, I got out my bicycle and set forth for the Workhouse. +When I reached the town it was dark, but the Christmas shoppers showed +no tendency to curtail their operations on that account, and the +streets were filled with an intricate and variously moving tide of +people and carts. The paraffin lamps in the shops did their best, +behind bunches of holly, oranges, and monstrous Christmas candles, and +partially illumined the press of dark-cloaked women, and more or less +drunken men, who swayed and shoved and held vast conversations on the +narrow pavements. The red glare of the chemist's globe transformed the +leading female beggar of the town into a being from the Brocken; her +usual Christmas family, contributed for the festival by the neighbours, +as to a Christmas number, were grouped in fortunate ghastliness in the +green light. She extracted from me her recognised tribute, and pursued +by her assurance that she would forgive me now till Easter (_i.e._ that +further alms would not be exacted for at least a fortnight), I made my +way onward into the outer darkness, beyond the uttermost link in the +chain of public-houses. + +[Illustration: AN INTRICATE AND VARIOUSLY MOVING TIDE OF PEOPLE] + +The road that led to the Workhouse led also to the railway station; a +quarter of a mile away the green light of a signal-post stood high in +the darkness, like an emerald. As I neared the Workhouse I recognised +the deliberate footfall of the Quaker, and presently his long pale face +entered the circle illuminated by my bicycle-lamp. My family were not +at all moved by my solicitude for their safety, but, being in want of +an audience, were pleased to suggest that I should drive home with +them. The road was disgustingly muddy; I tied my bicycle to the back +of the car with the rope that is found in wells of all outside cars. +It was not till I had put out the bicycle lamp that I noticed that the +car-lamps had been forgotten, but Denis, true to the convention of his +tribe, asseverated that he could see better without lights. I took the +place vacated by the Christmas tree, the Quaker pounded on at his usual +stone-breaking trot, and my offspring, in strenuous and entangled duet, +declaimed to me the events of the afternoon. + +It was without voice or warning that a row of men was materialised out +of the darkness, under the Quaker's nose; they fell away to right and +left, but one, as if stupefied, held on his way in the middle of the +road. It is not easy to divert the Quaker from his course; we swung to +the right, but the wing of the car, on my side, struck the man full in +the chest. He fell as instantly and solidly as if he were a stone +pillar, and, like a stone, he lay in the mud. Loud and inebriate howls +rose from the others, and, as if in answer, came a long and distant +shriek from an incoming train. Upon this, without bestowing an +instant's further heed to their fallen comrade, the party took to their +heels and ran to the station. It was all done in a dozen seconds; by +the time the Quaker was pulled up we were alone with our victim, and +Denis was hoarsely suggesting to me that it would be better to drive +away at once. I have often since then regretted that I did not take +his advice. + +The victim was a very small man; Denis and I dragged him to the side of +the road, and propped him up against the wall. He was of an alarming +limpness, but there was a something reassuring in the reek of whisky +that arose as I leaned over him, trying to diagnose his injuries by the +aid of a succession of lighted matches. His head lay crookedly on his +chest; he breathed heavily, but peacefully, and his limbs seemed +uninjured. Denis at my elbow, did not cease to assure me, tremulously, +that there was nothing ailed the man, that he was a stranger, and that +it would be as good for us to go home. Philippa, on the car, strove as +best she might with the unappeasable curiosity of her sons and with the +pigheaded anxiety of the Quaker to get home to his dinner. At this +juncture a voice, fifty yards away in the darkness, uplifted itself in +song-- + + "Heaven's refle-hex! Killa-ar-ney!" + +it bawled hideously. + +It fell as balm upon my ear, in its assurance of the proximity of +Slipper. + +"Sure I know the man well," he said, shielding the flame of a match in +his hand with practised skill. "Wake up, me _bouchaleen_!" He shook +him unmercifully. "Open your eyes, darlin'!" + +The invalid here showed signs of animation by uttering an incoherent +but, as it seemed, a threatening roar. It lifted Denis as a feather is +lifted by a wind, and wafted him to the Quaker's head, where he +remained in strict attention to his duties. It also lifted Philippa. + +"Is he very bad, do you think?" she murmured at my elbow. "Shall I +drive for the doctor?" + +"Arrah, what docthor?" said Slipper magnificently. "Give me a +half-a-crown, Major, and I'll get him what meddyceen will answer him as +good as any docthor! Lave him to me!" He shook him again. "I'll +regulate him!" + +The victim here sat up, and shouted something about going home. He was +undoubtedly very drunk. It seemed to me that Slipper's ministrations +would be more suitable to the situation than mine, certainly than +Philippa's. I administered the solatium; then I placed Denis on the +box of the car with the bicycle-lamp in his hand, and drove my family +home. + +After church next day we met Flurry Knox. He approached us with the +green glint in his eye that told that game was on foot, whatever that +game might be. + +"Who bailed you out, Mrs. Yeates?" he said solicitously. "I heard you +and the Major and Denis Leary were all in the lock-up for furious +driving and killing a man! I'm told he was anointed last night." + +Philippa directed what she believed to be a searching glance at +Flurry's face of friendly concern. + +"I don't believe a word of it!" she said dauntlessly, while a very +becoming warmth in her complexion betrayed an inward qualm. "Who told +you?" + +"The servants heard it at first Mass this morning; and Slipper had me +late for church telling me about it. The fellow says if he lives he's +going to take an action against the Major." + +I listened with, I hope, outward serenity. In dealings with Flurry +Knox the possibility that he might be speaking the truth could never +safely be lost sight of. It was also well to remember that he +generally knew what the truth was. + +I said loftily, that there had been nothing the matter with the man but +Christmas Eve, and inquired if Flurry knew his name and address. + +"Of course I do," said Flurry, "he's one of those mountainy men that +live up in the hill behind Aussolas. Oweneen the Sprat is the name he +goes by, and he's the crossest little thief in the Barony. Never mind, +Mrs. Yeates, I'll see you get fair play in the dock!" + +"How silly you are!" said Philippa; but I could see that she was shaken. + +Whatever Flurry's servants may have heard at first Mass, was apparently +equalled, if not excelled, by what Denis heard at second. He asked me +next morning, with a gallant attempt at indifference, if I had had any +word of "the man-een." + +"'Twas what the people were saying on the roads last night that he +could have the law of us, and there was more was saying that he'd never +do a day's good. Sure they say the backbone is cracked where the wheel +of the car went over him! But didn't yourself and the misthress swear +black and blue that the wheel never went next or nigh him? And didn't +Michael say that there wasn't a Christmas this ten years that that one +hadn't a head on him the size of a bullawawn with the len'th of dhrink?" + +In spite of the contributory negligence that might be assumed in the +case of any one with this singular infirmity, I was not without a +secret uneasiness. Two days afterwards I received a letter, written on +copybook paper in a clerkly hand. It had the Aussolas post-mark, in +addition to the imprint of various thumbs, and set forth the injuries +inflicted by me and my driver on Owen Twohig on Christmas Eve, and +finally, it demanded a compensation of twenty pounds for the same. +Failing this satisfaction the law was threatened, but a hope was +finally expressed that the honourable gentleman would not see a poor +man wronged; it was, in fact, the familiar mixture of bluff and whine, +and, as I said to Philippa, the Man-een (under which title he had +passed into the domestic vocabulary) had of course got hold of a letter +writer to do the trick for him. + +In the next day or so I met Flurry twice, and found him so rationally +interested, and even concerned, about fresh versions of the accident +that had cropped up, that I was moved to tell him of the incident of +the letter. He looked serious, and said he would go up himself to see +what was wrong with Oweneen. He advised me to keep out of it for the +present, as they might open their mouths too big. + +The moon was high as I returned from this interview; when I wheeled my +bicycle into the yard I found that the coach-house in which I was wont +to stable it was locked; so also was the harness-room. Attempting to +enter the house by the kitchen door I found it also was locked; a +gabble of conversation prevailed within, and with the mounting +indignation of one who hears but cannot make himself heard, I banged +ferociously on the door. Silence fell, and Mrs. Cadogan's voice +implored heaven's protection. + +"Open the door!" I roared. + +A windlike rush of petticoats followed, through which came sibilantly +the words, "Glory be to goodness! 'Tis the masther!" + +The door opened, I found myself facing the entire strength of my +establishment, including Denis, and augmented by Slipper. + +"They told me you were asking afther me, Major," began Slipper, +descending respectfully from the kitchen table, on which he had been +seated. + +I noticed that Mrs. Cadogan was ostentatiously holding her heart, and +that Denis was shaking like the conventional aspen. + +"What's all this about?" said I, looking round upon them. "Why is the +whole place locked up?" + +"It was a little unaisy they were," said Slipper, snatching the +explanation from Mrs. Cadogan with the determination of the skilled +leader of conversation; "I was telling them I seen two men below in the +plantation, like they'd be watching out for some one, and poor Mr. +Leary here got a reeling in his head after I telling it----" + +"Indeed the crayture was as white, now, as white as a masheroon!" broke +in Mrs. Cadogan, "and we dhrew him in here to the fire till your Honour +came home." + +"Nonsense!" I said angrily, "a couple of boys poaching rabbits! Upon +my word, Slipper, you have very little to do coming here and +frightening people for nothing." + +"What did I say?" demanded Slipper, dramatically facing his audience, +"only that I seen two men in the plantation. How would I know what +business they had in it?" + +"Ye said ye heard them whishling to each other like curlews through the +wood," faltered Denis, "and sure that's the whishle them Twohigs has +always----" + +"Maybe it's whistling to the girls they were!" suggested Slipper, with +an unabashed eye at Hannah. + +I told him to come up with me to my office, and stalked from the +kitchen, full of the comfortless wrath that has failed to find a +suitable victim. + +The interview in the office did not last long, nor was it in any way +reassuring. Slipper, with the manner of the confederate who had waded +shoulder to shoulder with me through gore, could only tell me that +though he believed that there was nothing ailed the Man-een, he +wouldn't say but what he might be sevarely hurted. That I wasn't gone +five minutes before near a score of the Twohigs come leathering down +out of the town in two ass-butts (this term indicates donkey-carts of +the usual dimensions), and when Oweneen felt them coming, he let the +most unmarciful screech, upon which Slipper, in just fear of the +Twohigs, got over the wall, and executed a strategic retreat upon the +railway station, leaving the Twohigs to carry away their wounded to the +mountains. That for himself he had been going in dread of them ever +since, and for no one else in the wide world would he have put a hand +to one of them. + +I preserved an unshaken front towards Slipper, and I was subsequently +sarcastic and epigrammatic to Philippa on the subject of the curlews +who were rabbiting in the plantation, but something that I justified to +myself as a fear of Philippa's insatiable conscientiousness, made me +resolve that I would, without delay, go "back in the mountain," and +interview Oweneen the Sprat. + +New Year's Day favoured my purpose, bringing with it clear frost and +iron roads, a day when even the misanthropic soul of a bicycle awakens +into sympathy and geniality. I started in the sunny vigour of the +early afternoon, I sailed up the hills with the effortless speed of a +seagull, I free-wheeled down them with the dive of a swallow, and, as +it seemed to me, with a good deal of its grace. Had Oweneen the Sprat +had the luck to have met me, when, at the seventh milestone from +Shreelane, I realised that I had beaten my own best time by seven +minutes, he could practically have made his own terms. At that point, +however, I had to leave the high road, and the mountain lane that +ensued restored to me the judicial frame of mind. In the first twenty +yards my bicycle was transformed from a swallow to an opinionated and +semi-paralysed wheelbarrow; struggling in a species of dry watercourse +I shoved it up the steep gradients of a large and brown country of +heather and bog, silent save for the contending voices of the streams. +A family of goats, regarding me from a rocky mound, was the first hint +of civilisation; a more reliable symptom presently advanced in the +shape of a lean and hump-backed sow, who bestowed on me a side glance +of tepid interest as she squeezed past. + +The _bohireen_ dropped, with a sudden twist to the right, and revealed +a fold in the hillside, containing a half dozen or so of little fields, +crooked, and heavily walled, and nearly as many thatched cabins, flung +about in the hollows as indiscriminately as the boulders upon the +wastes outside. A group of children rose in front of me like a flight +of starlings, and scudded with barefooted nimbleness to the shelter of +the houses, in a pattering, fluttering stampede. I descended upon the +nearest cabin of the colony. The door was shut; a heavy padlock +linking two staples said Not at Home, and the nose of a dog showed in a +hole above the sill, sniffing deeply and suspiciously. I remembered +that the first of January was a holy-day, and that every man in the +colony had doubtless betaken himself to the nearest village. The next +cottage was some fifty yards away, and the faces of a couple of +children peered at me round the corner of it. As I approached they +vanished, but the door of the cabin was open, and blue turf smoke +breathed placidly outwards from it. The merciful frost had glazed the +inevitable dirty pool in front of the door, and had made practicable +the path beside it; I propped my bicycle against a rock, and projected +into the dark interior an inquiry as to whether there was any one in. + +I had to repeat it twice before a small old woman with white hair and a +lemon-coloured face appeared; I asked her if she could tell me where +Owen Twohig lived. + +"Your Honour's welcome," she replied, tying the strings of her cap +under her chin with wiry fingers, and eyeing me with concentrated +shrewdness. I repeated the question. + +She responded by begging me to come in and rest myself, for this was a +cross place and a backwards place, and I should be famished with the +cold--"sure them little wheels dhraws the wind." + +I ignored this peculiarity of bicycles, and, not without exasperation, +again asked for Owen Twohig. + +"Are you Major Yeates, I beg your pardon?" I assented to what she knew +as well as I did. + +"Why then 'tis here he lives indeed, in this little house, and a poor +place he have to live in. Sure he's my son, the crayture--" her voice +at once ascended to the key of lamentation--"faith, he didn't rise till +to-day. Since Christmas Eve I didn't quinch light in the house with +him stretched in the bed always, and not a bit passed his lips night or +day, only one suppeen of whisky in its purity. Ye'd think the tongue +would light out of his mouth with the heat, and ye'd see the blaze of +darkness in his face! I hadn't as much life in me this morning as that +I could wash my face!" + +I replied that I wanted to speak to her son, and was in a hurry. + +"He's not within, asthore, he's not within at all. He got the lend of +a little donkey, and he went back the mountain to the bonesetter, to +try could he straighten the leg with him." + +"Did Dr. Hickey see him?" I demanded. + +"Sure a wise woman came in from Finnaun, a' Stephen's Day," pursued +Mrs. Twohig swiftly, "and she bet three spits down on him, and she said +it's what ailed him he had the Fallen Palate, with the dint o' the blow +the car bet him in the poll, and that any one that have the Fallen +Palate might be speechless for three months with it. She took three +ribs of his hair then, and she was pulling them till she was in a +passpiration, and in the latther end she pulled up the palate." She +paused and wiped her eyes with her apron. "But the leg is what has him +destroyed altogether; she told us we should keep sheep's butter rubbed +to it in the place where the thrack o' the wheel is down in it." + +The blush of a frosty sunset was already in the sky, and the children +who had fled before me had returned, reinforced by many others, to +cluster in a whispering swarm round my bicycle, and to group themselves +attentively in the rear of the conversation. + +"Look here, Mrs. Twohig," I said, not as yet angry, but in useful +proximity to it, "I've had a letter from your son, and he and his +friends have been trying to frighten my man, Denis Leary; he can come +down and see me if he has anything to say, but you can tell him from me +that I'm not going to stand this sort of thing!" + +If the Widow Twohig had been voluble before, this pronouncement had the +effect of bringing her down in spate. She instantly, and at the top of +her voice, called heaven to witness her innocence, and the innocence of +her "little boy"; still at full cry, she sketched her blameless career, +and the unmerited suffering that had ever pursued her and hers; how, +during the past thirty years, she had been drooping over her little +orphans, and how Oweneen, that was the only one she had left to do a +hand's turn for her, would be "under clutches" the longest day that +he'd live. It was at about this point that I gave her five shillings. +It was a thoroughly illogical act, but at the moment it seemed +inevitable, and Mrs. Twohig was good enough to accept it in the same +spirit. I told her that I would send Dr. Hickey to see her son (which +had, it struck me, a somewhat stemming effect upon her eloquence), and +I withdrew, still in magisterial displeasure. I must have been half +way down the lane before it was revealed to me that a future on +crutches was what Mrs. Twohig anticipated for her son. + +By that night's post I wrote to Hickey, a strictly impartial letter, +stating the position, and asking him to see Owen Twohig, and to let me +have his professional opinion upon him. Philippa added a postscript, +asking for a nerve-tonic for the parlour-maid, a Dublin girl, who, +since the affair of the curlews in the plantation, had lost all colour +and appetite, and persisted in locking the hall door day and night, to +the infinite annoyance of the dogs. + +Next morning, while hurrying through an early breakfast, preparatory to +starting for a distant Petty Sessions, I was told that Denis wished to +speak to me at the hall door. This, as I before have had occasion to +point out, boded affairs of the first importance. I proceeded to the +hall door, and there found Denis, pale as the Lily Maid of Astolat, +with three small fishes in his hand. + +"There was one of thim before me in my bed lasht night!" he said in a +hoarse and shaken whisper, "and there was one in the windy in the +harness-room, down on top o' me razor, and there was another nelt to +the stable door with the nail of a horse's shoe." + +I made the natural suggestion that some one had done it for a joke. + +"Thim's no joke, sir," replied Denis, portentously, "thim's Sprats!" + +[Illustration: "THIM'S NO JOKE, SIR, THIM'S SPRATS!"] + +"Well, I'm quite aware of that," I said, unmoved by what appeared to be +the crushing significance of the statement. + +"Oweneen the _Sprat_!" murmured Philippa, illuminatingly, emerging from +the dining-room door with her cup of tea in her hand, "it's Hannah, +trying to frighten him!" + +Hannah, the housemaid, was known to be the humorist of the household. + +"He have a brother a smith, back in the mountain," continued Denis, +wrapping up the sprats and the nail in his handkerchief; "'twas for a +token he put the nail in it. If he dhraws thim mountainy men down on +me, I may as well go under the sod. It isn't yourself or the misthress +they'll folly; it's meself." He crept down the steps as deplorably as +the Jackdaw of Rheims, "and it's what Michael's after telling me, they +have it all through the country that I said you should throw Twohig in +the ditch, and it was good enough for the likes of him, and I said to +Michael 'twas a lie for them, and that we cared him as tender as if he +was our mother itself, and we'd have given the night to him only for +the misthress that was roaring on the car, and no blame to her; sure +the world knows the mother o' children has no courage!" + +This drastic generality was unfortunately lost to my wife, as she had +retired to hold a court of inquiry in the kitchen. + +The inquiry elicited nothing beyond the fact that since Christmas Day +Denis was "using no food," and that the kitchen, so far from indulging +in practical jokes at his expense, had been instant throughout in +sympathy, and in cups of strong tea, administered for the fortification +of the nerves. All were obviously deeply moved by the incident of the +sprats, the parlour-maid, indeed, having already locked herself into +the pantry, through the door of which, on Philippa's approach, she gave +warning hysterically. + +The matter remained unexplained, and was not altogether to my liking. +As I drove down the avenue, and saw Denis carefully close the yard +gates after me, I determined that I would give Murray, the District +Inspector of Police, a brief sketch of the state of affairs. I did not +meet Murray, but, as it happened, this made no difference. Things were +already advancing smoothly and inexorably towards their preordained +conclusion. + +I have since heard that none of the servants went to bed that night. +They, including Denis, sat in the kitchen, with locked doors, drinking +tea and reciting religious exercises; Maria, as a further precaution, +being chained to the leg of the table. Their fears were in no degree +allayed by the fact that nothing whatever occurred, and the most +immediate result of the vigil was that my bath next morning boiled as +it stood in the can, and dimmed the room with clouds of steam--a +circumstance sufficiently rare in itself, and absolutely without +precedent on Sunday morning. The next feature of the case was a letter +at breakfast time from a gentleman signing himself "Jas. Fitzmaurice." +He said that Dr. Hickey having gone away for a fortnight's holiday, he +(Fitzmaurice) was acting as his locum tenens. In that capacity he had +opened my letter, and would go and see Twohig as soon as possible. He +enclosed prescription for tonic as requested. + +It was a threatening morning, and we did not go to church. I noticed +that my wife's housekeeping _seance_ was unusually prolonged, and even +while I smoked and read the papers, I was travelling in my meditations +to the point of determining that I would have a talk with the priest +about all this infernal nonsense. When Philippa at length rejoined me, +I found that she also had arrived at a conclusion, impelled thereto by +the counsels of Mrs. Cadogan, abetted by her own conscience. + +Its result was that immediately after lunch, long before the Sunday +roast beef had been slept off, I found myself carting precarious +parcels--a jug, a bottle, a pudding-dish--to the inside car, in which +Philippa had already placed herself, with a pair of blankets and +various articles culled from my wardrobe (including a pair of boots to +which I was sincerely attached). Denis, pale yellow in complexion and +shrouded in gloom, was on the box, the Quaker was in the shafts. There +was no rain, but the clouds hung black and low. + +It was an expedition of purest charity; so Philippa explained to me +over again as we drove away. She said nothing of propitiation or +diplomacy. For my part I said nothing at all, but I reflected on the +peculiar gifts of the Dublin parlour-maid in valeting me, and decided +that it might be better to allow Philippa to run the show on her own +lines, while I maintained an attitude of large-minded disapproval. + +The blankets took up as much room in the car as a man; I had to hold in +my hand a jug of partly jellified beef tea. A sourer Lady Bountiful +never set forth upon an errand of mercy. To complete establishment--in +the words of the _Gazette_--Maria and Minx, on the floor of the car, +wrought and strove in ceaseless and objectless agitation, an infliction +due to the ferocity of a female rival, who terrorised the high road +within hail of my gates. I thanked heaven that I had at least been +firm about not taking the children; for the dogs, at all events, the +moment of summary ejectment would arrive sooner or later. + +Seven miles in an inside car are seven miles indeed. The hills that +had run to meet my bicycle and glided away behind it, now sat in their +places to be crawled up and lumbered down, at such a pace as seemed +good to the Quaker, whose appetite for the expedition was, if possible, +less than that of his driver. Appetite was, indeed, the last thing +suggested by the aspect of Denis. His drooping shoulders and +deplorable countenance proclaimed apology and deprecation to the +mountain tops, and more especially to the mountainy men. Looking back +on it now, I recognise the greatness of the tribute to my valour and +omnipotence that he should have consented thus to drive us into the +heart of the enemy's country. + +A steep slope, ending with a sharp turn through a cutting, reminded me +that we were near the mountain _bohireen_ that was our goal. I got out +and walked up the hill, stiffly, because the cramp of the covered car +was in my legs. Stiff though I was, I had outpaced the Quaker, and was +near the top of the hill, when something that was apparently a brown +croquet-ball rolled swiftly round the bend above me, charged into the +rock wall of the cutting with a clang, and came on down the hill with a +weight and venom unknown to croquet-balls. It sped past me, missed the +Quaker by an uncommonly near shave, and went on its way, hotly pursued +by the two dogs, who, in the next twenty yards, discovered with horror +that it was made of iron, a fact of which I was already aware. + +I have always been as lenient as the law, and other circumstances, +would allow towards the illegal game of "bowling." It consists in +bowling an iron ball along a road, the object being to cover the +greatest possible distance in a given number of bowls. It demands +considerable strength and skill, and it is played with a zest much +enhanced by its illegality and by its facilities as a medium for +betting. The law forbids it, on account of its danger to the +unsuspecting wayfarer, in consideration of which a scout is usually +posted ahead to signal the approach of the police, and to give warning +to passers by. The mountainy men, trusting to their isolation, had +neglected this precaution, with results that came near being serious to +the Quaker, and filled with wrath, both personal and official, I took +the hill at a vengeful run, so as to catch the bowler red-handed. At +the turn in the cutting I met him face to face. As a matter of fact he +nearly ran into my arms, and the yelp of agony with which he dodged my +impending embrace is a life-long possession. He was a very small man; +he doubled like a rabbit, and bolted back towards a swarm of men who +were following the fortunes of the game. He flitted over the wall by +the roadside, and was away over the rocky hillside at a speed that even +in my best days would have left me nowhere. + +The swarm on the road melted; a good part of it was quietly absorbed by +the lane up which I had dragged my bicycle two days before, the +remainder, elaborately uninterested and respectable, in their dark blue +Sunday clothes, strolled gravely in the opposite direction. A man on a +bicycle met them, and dismounted to speak to the leaders. I wondered +if he were a policeman in plain clothes on the prowl. He came on to +meet me, leading his bicycle, and I perceived that a small black +leather bag was strapped to the carrier. He was young, and apparently +very hot. + +"I beg your pardon," he said in the accents of Dublin, "I understand +you're Major Yeates. I'm Dr. Hickey's 'Locum,' and I've come out to +see the man you wrote to me about. From what you said I thought it +better to lose no time." + +I was rather out of breath, but I expressed my sense of indebtedness. + +"I think there must be some mistake," went on the "Locum." "I've just +asked these men on the road where Owen Twohig lives, and one of +them--the fellow they call Skipper, or some such name--said Owen Twohig +was the little chap that's just after sprinting up the mountain. He +seemed to think it was a great joke. I suppose you're sure Owen was +the name?" + +"Perfectly sure," I said heavily. + +The eyes of Dr. Fitzmaurice had travelled past me, and were regarding +with professional alertness something farther down the road. I +followed their direction, dreamily, because in spirit I was far away, +tracking Flurry Knox through deep places. + +On the hither side of the rock cutting the covered car had come to a +standstill. The reins had fallen from Denis's hands; he was obviously +having the "wakeness" appropriate to the crisis. Philippa, on the step +below him, was proffering to him the jug of beef tea and the bottle of +port. He accepted the latter. + +"He knows what's what!" said the "Locum." + +[Illustration: "HE KNOWS WHAT'S WHAT!" SAID THE LOCUM] + +[Illustration: ] + + + + +XII + +THE WHITEBOYS + +PART I + +It has been said by an excellent authority that children and dogs spoil +conversation. I can confidently say that had Madame de Sevigne and Dr. +Johnson joined me and my family on our wonted Sunday afternoon walk to +the kennels, they would have known what it was to be ignored. This +reflection bears but remotely on the matter in hand, but is, I think, +worthy of record. I pass on to a certain still and steamy afternoon in +late September, when my wife and I headed forth in the accustomed way, +accompanied by, or (to be accurate), in pursuit of, my two sons, my two +dogs, and a couple of hound puppies, to view that spectacle of not +unmixed attractiveness, the feeding of the hounds. + +Flurry Knox and Michael were superintending the operation when we +arrived, coldly observing the gobbling line at the trough, like +reporters at a public dinner. It was while the last horrid remnants of +the repast were being wolfed that my wife hesitatingly addressed Mr. +Knox's First Whip and Kennel Huntsman. + +"Michael," she said, lowering her voice, "you know the children's old +donkey that I spoke to you about last week--I'm afraid you _had_ +better----" + +"Sure he's boiled, ma'am," said Michael with swift and awful brevity, +"that's him in the throch now!" + +Philippa hastily withdrew from the vicinity of the trough, murmuring +something incoherent about cannibals or parricides, I am not sure +which, and her eldest son burst into tears that were only assuaged by +the tactful intervention of the kennel-boy with the jawbone of a horse, +used for propping open the window of the boiler-house. + +"Never mind, Mrs. Yeates," said Flurry consolingly, "the new hounds +that I'm getting won't be bothered with donkeys as long as there's a +sheep left in the country, if the half I hear of them is true!" He +turned to me. "Major, I didn't tell you I have three couple of +O'Reilly's old Irish hounds bought. They're the old white breed +y'know, and they say they're terrors to hunt." + +"They'd steal a thing out of your eye," said Michael, evidently +reverting to an interrupted discussion between himself and his master. +"There's a woman of the O'Reillys married back in the country here, and +she says they killed two cows last season." + +"If they kill any cows with me, I'll stop the price of them out of your +wages, Michael, my lad!" said Flurry to his henchman's back. "Look +here, Major, come on with me to-morrow to bring them home!" + +It was, I believe, no more than fifty miles across country to the +mountain fastness of the O'Reillys, and a certain chord of romance +thrilled at the thought of the old Irish breed of white hounds, with +their truly national qualities of talent, rebelliousness, and love of +sport. Playboy was one of the same race--Playboy, over whose +recapture, it may be remembered, I had considerably distinguished +myself during my term of office as M.F.H. + +I went. At one o'clock next day two lines of rail had done their +uttermost for us, and had ceded the task of conveying us to Fahoura to +the inevitable outside car. And still there remained a long flank of +mountain to be climbed; the good little slave in the shafts made no +complaint, but save for the honour and glory of the thing we might as +well have walked; certainly of the seven Irish miles of road, thrown +over the pass like a strap over a trunk, our consciences compelled us +to tramp at least three. A stream, tawny and translucent as audit ale, +foamed and slid among its brown boulders beside us at the side of the +road; as we crawled upwards the fields became smaller, and the lonely +whitewashed cottages ceased. The heather came down to the wheel marks, +and a pack of grouse suddenly whizzed across the road like a shot fired +across our bows to warn us off. + +At the top of the pass we stood, and looked out over half a county to +the pale peaks of Killarney. + +"There's Fahoura now, gentlemen," said the carman, pointing downwards +with his whip to a group of whitewashed farm buildings, that had +gathered themselves incongruously about a square grey tower. "I'm told +old Mr. O'Reilly's sick this good while." + +"What ails him?" said Flurry. + +"You wouldn't know," said the carman, "sure he's very old, and that +'fluenzy has the country destroyed; there's people dying now that never +died before." + +"That's bad," said Flurry sympathetically, "I had a letter from him a +week ago, and he only said he was parting the hounds because he +couldn't run with them any more." + +"Ah, don't mind him!" said the carman, "it's what it is he'd sooner +sell them now, than to give the nephew the satisfaction of them, after +himself'd be dead." + +"Is that the chap that's been hunting them for him?" said Flurry, while +I, for the hundredth time, longed for Flurry's incommunicable gift of +being talked to. + +"It is, sir; Lukey O'Reilly--" the carman gave a short laugh. "That's +the lad! They say he often thried to go to America, but he never got +south of Mallow; he gets that drunk sayin' good-bye to his friends!" + +"Maybe the old fellow will live a while yet, just to spite him," +suggested Flurry. + +"Well, maybe he would, faith!" agreed the carman, "didn't the docthor +say to meself that maybe it's walking the road I'd be, and I to fall +down dead!" he continued complacently, "but sure them docthors, when +they wouldn't know what was in it, they should be saying something!" + +We here turned into the lane that led to Mr. O'Reilly's house. + +We pulled up at the gate of a wide farmyard, with outcrops of the brown +mountain rock in it, and were assailed in the inevitable way by the +inevitable mongrel collies. Blent with their vulgar abuse was the +mellow baying of hounds, coming, seemingly, from the sky. The carman +pointed to the tower which filled an angle of the yard, and I saw, +about twenty feet from the ground, an arrow-slit, through which +protruded white muzzles, uttering loud and tuneful threats. + +"The kitchen door's the handiest way," said Flurry, "but I suppose for +grandeur we'd better go to the front of the house." + +He opened a side gate, and I followed him through a wind-swept +enclosure that by virtue of two ragged rose-bushes, and a walk edged +with white stones, probably took rank as a garden. At the front door +we knocked; a long pause ensued, and finally bare feet thudded down a +passage, a crack of the door was opened, and an eye glistened for a +moment in the crack. It was slammed again, and after a further delay +it was reopened, this time by a large elderly woman with crinkled black +and grey hair and one long and commanding tooth in the front of her +mouth. + +"Why then I wasn't looking to see ye till to-morrow, Mr. Knox!" she +began, beaming upon Flurry, "but sure ye're welcome any day and all +day, and the gentleman too!" + +The gentleman was introduced, and felt himself being summed up in a +single glance of Miss O'Reilly's nimble brown eyes. With many +apologies, she asked us if we would come and see her brother in the +kitchen, as he did not feel well enough to walk out to the parlour, and +she couldn't keep him in the bed at all. + +The kitchen differed more in size than in degree from that of the +average cabin. There was the same hummocky earthen floor, the same +sallow whitewashed walls, the same all-pervading turf smoke--the +difference was in the master of the house. He was seated by the fire +in an angular armchair, with an old horse-blanket over his knees, and a +stick in his hand, and beside him lay an ancient white hound, who +scarcely lifted her head at our entrance. The old man laboured to his +feet, and, bent as he was, he towered over Flurry as he took his hand. + +"Your father's son is welcome, Mr. Florence Knox, and your friend--" +He was short of breath, and he lowered his great frame into his chair +again. "Sit down, gentlemen, sit down!" he commanded. "Joanna! These +gentlemen are after having a long drive----" + +The clink of glasses told that the same fact had occurred to Miss +O'Reilly, and a bottle of port, and another of what looked like water, +but was in effect old potheen, were immediately upon the table. + +"How well ye wouldn't put down a glass for me!" thundered old O'Reilly, +"I suppose it's saving it for my wake you are!" + +"Or her own wedding, maybe!" said Flurry, shamelessly ogling Miss +O'Reilly, "we'll see that before the wake, I'm thinking!" + +"Well, well, isn't he the dead spit of his father!" said Miss O'Reilly +to the rafters. + +"Here, woman, give me the kettle," said her brother, "I'll drink my +glass of punch with Mr. Florence Knox, the way I did with his father +before him! The doctor says I might carry out six months, and I think +myself I won't carry out the week, but what the divil do I care! I'm +going to give Mr. Knox his pick of my hounds this day, and that's what +no other man in Ireland would get, and be dam we'll wet our bargain!" + +"Well, well," said Miss O'Reilly, remonstratingly, bringing the kettle, +"and you that was that weak last night that if you got Ireland's crown +you couldn't lift the bedclothes off your arms!" + +"Them hounds are in my family, seed and breed, this hundred years and +more," continued old O'Reilly, silencing his sister with one black +glance from under his thick grey brows, "and if I had e'er a one that +was fit to come after me they'd never leave it!" He took a gulp of the +hot punch. "Did ye ever hear of my brother Phil that was huntsman to +the Charlevilles long ago, Mr. Knox? Your father knew him well. +Many's the good hunt they rode together. He wasn't up to forty years +when he was killed, broke his neck jumping a hurl, and when they went +to bury him it's straight in over the churchyard wall they took him! +They said he never was one to go round looking for a gate!" + +[Illustration: "THEM HOUNDS ARE IN MY FAMILY, SEED AND BREED, THIS +HUNDRED YEARS."] + +"May the Lord have mercy on him!" murmured Miss O'Reilly in the +background. + +"Amen!" growled the old man, taking another pull at his steaming +tumbler, as if he were drinking his brother's health. "And look at me +here," he went on, reddening slowly through the white stubble on his +cheeks, "dying as soft as any owld cow in a boghole, and all they'll be +saying afther me is asking would they get their bellyful of whisky at +my wake! I tell you this--and let you be listening to me, +Joanna!--what hounds Mr. Knox doesn't take, I'll not leave them afther +me to be disgraced in the counthry, running rabbits on Sunday +afternoons with them poaching blackguards up out of the town! No! But +they'll have a stone round their neck and to be thrown below in the +lough!" + +I thought of the nephew Luke, whose friends had so frequently failed to +see him off, and I felt very sorry for old O'Reilly. + +"They will, they will, to be sure!" said Miss O'Reilly soothingly, "and +look at you now, the way you are! Didn't I know well you had no call +to be drinking punch, you that was coughing all night. On the face of +God's earth, Mr. Knox, I never heard such a cough! 'Tis like a sheep's +cough! I declare it's like the sound of the beating of the drum!" + +"Well, Mr. O'Reilly," said Flurry, ignoring these remarkable symptoms, +but none the less playing to her lead, "I suppose we might have a look +at the hounds now." + +"Go, tell Tom to open the tower door," said old O'Reilly to his sister, +after a moment's silence. He handed her a key. "And shut the gate +you." + +As soon as she had gone he got on to his feet. "Mr. Knox, sir," he +said, "might I put as much trouble on you as to move out this chair to +the door? I'll sit there the way I can see them. Maybe the other +gentleman would reach me down the horn that's up on the wall. He's +near as tall as meself." + +Flurry did as he asked, and helped him across the room. + +"Close out the half door if you please, Mr. Knox, and give me the old +rug that's there, my feet is destroyed with the rheumatics." + +He dropped groaningly into his chair, and I handed him the horn, an old +brass one, bent and dinted. + +Already the clamour of the hounds in the tower had broken out like +bells in a steeple, as they heard the footsteps of their jailor on the +stone steps of their prison. + +Then Tom's voice, shouting at them in Irish to stand back, and then +through the narrow door of the tower the hounds themselves, a striving +torrent of white flecked with pale yellow, like one of their own +mountain streams. There were about seven couples of them, and in a +moment they overran the yard like spilt quicksilver. + +"Look at them now, Mr. Knox!" said their owner, "they'd take a line +over the hob of hell this minute!" + +Pending this feat they took a very good line into what was apparently +the hen-house, judging by the hysterics that proceeded from within. +Almost immediately one of them reappeared with an egg in his mouth. +Old O'Reilly gave a laugh and an attempt at a holloa. "Ah ha! That's +Whiteboy! The rogue!" he said, and putting the horn to his lips he +blew a thin and broken note, that was cut short by a cough. +Speechlessly he handed the horn to Flurry, but no further summons was +needed; the hounds had heard him. They converged upon the doorway with +a rush, and Flurry and I were put to it to keep them from jumping in +over the half-door. + +I had never seen hounds like them before. One or two were pure white, +but most had some touch of faded yellow or pale grey about them; they +were something smaller than the average foxhound, and were strongly +built, and active as terriers. Their heads were broad, their ears +unrounded, and their legs and feet were far from complying with the +prescribed bedpost standard; but wherein, to the un-professional eye, +they chiefly differed from the established pattern, was in the human +lawlessness of their expression. The old hound by the fire had +struggled up at the note of the horn, and stood staring in perplexity +at her master, and growling, with all the arrogance of the favourite, +at her descendants, who yelped, and clawed, and strove, and thrust +their muzzles over the half-door. + +Flurry regarded them in silence. + +"There's not a straight one among them," he whispered in my ear through +the din. + +"There they are for you now, Mr. Knox," said old O'Reilly, still +panting after his fit of coughing. "There isn't another man in Ireland +would get them but yourself, and you've got them, as I might say, a +present!" + +Flurry and I went out into the yard, and the door was closed behind us. + +The examination--I may say the cross-examination--of the hounds that +followed, was conducted by Flurry and Michael to the accompaniment of a +saga from Tom, setting forth their miraculous merits and achievements, +to which, at suitable points, the carman shouted "Selah," or words to +that effect, through the bars of the gate. At the end of half-an-hour +Flurry had sorted out six of them; these were then coupled, and by dint +of the exertions of all present, were bestowed in a cart with sides +like a crate, in which pigs went to the fair. + +We did not see our host again. His sister told us that he had gone to +bed and wasn't fit to see any one, but he wished Mr. Knox luck with his +bargain, and he sent him this for a luck-penny. She handed Flurry the +dinted horn. + +"I'm thinking it's fretting after the hounds he is," she said, turning +her head away to hide the tears in her brown eyes. I have never until +then known Flurry completely at a loss for an answer. + + + +PART II + +A fortnight afterwards--to be precise, it was the 10th of October--I +saw the white hounds in the field. I had gone through the dreary +routine of the cub-hunter. The alarm clock had shrilled its exulting +and age-long summons in the pitchy dark. I had burnt my fingers with +the spirit-lamp, and my mouth with hot cocoa; I had accomplished my +bathless toilet, I had groped my way through the puddles in the stable +yard, and got on to my horse by the light of a lantern, and at 5.30 +A.M. I was over the worst, and had met Flurry and the hounds, with +Michael and Dr. Jerome Hickey, at the appointed cross-roads. The meet +was nine miles away, in a comparatively unknown land, to which Flurry +had been summoned by tales of what appeared to be an absolute epidemic +of foxes, accompanied by bills for poultry and threats of poison. It +was still an hour before sunrise, but a pallor was in the sky, and the +hounds, that had at first been like a gliding shoal of fish round the +horses' feet, began to take on their own shapes and colours. + +The white Irish hounds were the first to disclose themselves, each +coupled up with a tried old stager. I had been away from home for the +past ten days, and knew nothing of their conduct in their new quarters, +and finding Flurry uncommunicative, I fell back presently to talk about +them to Michael. + +"Is it settling down they are?" said Michael derisively. "That's the +fine settling down! Roaring and screeching every minute since they +came into the place! And as for fighting! They weren't in the kennel +three days before they had Rampant ate, and nothing only his paws left +before me in the morning! I didn't give one night in my bed since, +with running down to them. The like o' them trash isn't fit for a +gentleman's kennels. Them O'Reillys had them rared very pettish; it'd +be as good for me to be trying to turn curlews as them!" + +The indictment of "The Whiteboys" (a title sarcastically bestowed by +Dr. Hickey), their sheep-killing, their dog-hunting, with the setting +forth of Michael's trials, talents, and unrequited virtues, lasted, +like an Arabian night's tale, till the rising of the sun, and also +until our arrival at the place we were first to draw. This was a long +and deep ravine, red with bracken, bushy with hazel and alders; a black +stream raced downwards through it, spreading at the lower end into bog, +green, undefined, entirely treacherous; a place that instantly assures +the rider that if hounds get away on its farther side he will not be +with them. + +A couple of men were waiting for us at the lower end of the ravine. + +"They're in it surely!" they said, shoving down a stone gap for our +benefit; "there isn't a morning but we'll see the owld fellow and his +pups funning away for themselves down by the river. My little fellows, +when they does be going to school in the morning, couldn't hardly pass +his nest for the fume that'd be from it." + +The first ten minutes proved that the foxes were certainly there, and +during the following half-hour pandemonium itself raged in the ravine. +There were, I believe, a brace and a-half of cubs on foot; they were to +me invisible, but they were viewed about twice in every minute by +Flurry and his subordinates, and continuously by a few early rising +countrymen, who had posted themselves along the edges of the ravine. +The yells of the latter went up like steam whistles, and the hounds, +among whom were five couple of newly entered puppies, were wilder than +I had ever known them. They burst through the bracken and strove in +the furze, in incessant full cry, and still the cubs doubled and +dodged, and made detours round the valley, and Flurry and Michael +roared themselves inside out, without producing the smallest effect +upon anything save their own larynxes. No less than three times a fox +was frantically holloaed away, and when, by incredible exertions on all +our parts, the hounds, or a fair proportion of them, had been got +together on to the line, a fresh outburst of yells announced that, +having run a ring, he had returned to the covert. + +Each of these excursions involved-- + +1. Scrambling at best speed down a rocky hill side. + +2. Coercing a diffident horse across a noisy stream, masked by briars, +out of bog, on to rock. + +3. Reverse of the first proceedings. + +4. Arrival, blown and heated, at the boggy end of the valley, to find +the original conditions prevailing as before. + +I should, perhaps, have already mentioned that I was riding a young +horse, to whom I was showing hounds for the first time. My idea had +been to permit him, strictly as an onlooker, to gather some idea of the +rudiments of the game. He was a good young horse, with the large +gravity of demeanour that is often the result of a domestic bringing up +in the family of a small farmer; and when the moment came, and I was +inexorably hustled into acting as Third Whip, he followed in the wake +of Dr. Hickey with an anxious goodwill that made even his awkwardness +attractive. + +Throughout these excursions I noticed, as far as I was able to notice +anything, the independent methods of the O'Reilly draft. They ignored +the horn, eluded Michael, and laughed at Hickey and me; they hunted +with bloodthirsty intentness and entirely after their own devices. +Their first achievement was to run the earth-stopper's dog, and having +killed him, to eat him. This horrid feat they accomplished, secure +from interruption, in the briary depths of the ravine, and while the +main body of the pack were industriously tow-rowing up and down the +stream after their lawful fox, a couple of goats were only saved from +"The Whiteboys" by miracles of agility and courage on the part of the +countrymen. The best that could be said for them was that, "linking +one virtue to a thousand crimes," whenever the hounds got fairly out of +covert, the Whiteboys were together, and were in front. + +It was about eight o'clock, and the fierce red and grey sunrise had +been over-ridden by a regiment of stormy clouds, when one of the foxes +met his fate, amid ear-piercing whoops, and ecstatic comments from the +onlookers, who had descended from the hill-tops with the speed of +_ski_-runners. + +"Aha! that's the lad had many a fat duck under his rib!" + +"He had, faith! I'll go bail 'twas him that picked me wife's +fashionable cocks!" + +[Illustration: "I'LL GO BAIL 'TWAS HIM THAT PICKED ME WIFE'S +FASHIONABLE COCKS"] + +"Well, I'm told that if ye'll see a fox taking a hen or a goose, and +ye'll call to him in Irish, that he'll drop it," remarked an older man +to me, as we waited while Flurry and Hickey, in their capacity of +butler and footman to the hounds' repast, snatched the few remaining +morsels from the elder revellers and endeavoured to force them upon the +deeply-reluctant young entry, who, having hunted with the innocent +enthusiasm of the _debutante_, thought as little of the ensuing meal as +the _debutante_ thinks of supper at her first ball. + +"I wonder why the deuce Michael can't get those Irish hounds," said +Flurry, catching at the word and looking round. "I only have Lily +here." + +(Lily, I should say, was the romantic name of one of the Whiteboys.) + +"I believe I seen a two-three of the white dogs running east awhile +ago," said the elderly farmer, "and they yowling!" + +"They're likely killing a sheep now," murmured Hickey to me. + +At the same moment I chanced to look up towards the western end of the +ravine, and saw what seemed to be five seagulls gliding up a rift of +grass that showed green between rocks and heather. + +"There are your white hounds, Flurry," I called out, "and they're +hunting." + +"Well, well," said the farmer, "they're afther wheeling round the +length of the valley in the minute! They're nearly able to fly!" + +A distant holloa from Michael, whose head alone was visible above a +forest of furze, rose like a rocket at the end of the sentence, and +every hound sprang to attention. + +Once more we traversed the valley at full speed, and tackled the ladder +of mud that formed the cattle track up the ravine; slough up to the +horses' knees, furze bushes and briars meeting over their heads and +ours, hounds and country boys jostling to get forward, with pistol +shots behind from Hickey's thong, and the insistent doubling of +Flurry's horn in front. Up that green rift I went on foot, and, as it +were, hand in hand with my admirable young horse. The rift, on closer +acquaintance, proved to be green with the deceitful verdure of swampy +grass; (in Ireland, it may be noted, water runs up hill, and the +subtlest bog holes lie in wait for their prey on the mountain tops). +As we ascended, the wind that had risen with the sun, fought us every +inch of the way, and by the time I had won to level ground, I was +speechless, and blowing like the bellows of a forge. A country boy, +whose grinning purple face remains a fond and imperishable memory, +caught me by the leg and rammed me into my saddle; just in front of me +Flurry, also speechless, with his foot not as yet in his off stirrup, +was getting up to his hounds. These were casting themselves +uncertainly over a sedgy and heathery slope, on which, in this wind, +the hottest scent would soon be chilled to its marrow. Of Michael and +the Whiteboys nothing was to be seen. + +At a little distance a young man was grasping by the ears and nose a +donkey with a back-load of bracken, and a misplaced ardour for the +chase. + +"Did ye see the fox?" bellowed Flurry. + +"I did! I did!" + +"Which way did he go?" + +"Yerrah! aren't yer dogs after ateing him below!" shouted the young +man, waltzing strenuously with the donkey. + +"Well, there's a pair of you!" replied Flurry, cracking his whip +viciously at the donkey's tail, and thereby much stimulating the dance, +"and if I was given my choice of ye it's the ass I'd take! Here, come +on out of this, Hickey!" He shoved ahead. "Put those hounds on to me, +can't you!" + +During this interchange of amenities Lily had wandered aside, and now, +far to the left of the rest of the pack, was thoughtfully nosing along +through tufts of rushes; she worked her way down to a fence, and then, +mute as a wraith, slid over it and slipped away across a grass field, +still in jealous silence. + +"Hark forrad to Lily, hounds!" roared Flurry, with electrical +suddenness. "Put them on to her, Jerome!" + +"Well, those white hounds are the divil!" said Dr. Hickey, with a break +of admiration in his voice, as the hounds, suddenly driving ahead, +proclaimed to heaven that they had got the line. They were running up +a fierce north-westerly wind, and their cry came brokenly back to us +through it like the fragments of the chimes through the turmoil of +Tschaikowsky's "1812" symphony. The young horse began to realise that +there was something in it, and, with a monster and frog-like leap, flew +over the ensuing heathery bank, landing, shatteringly, on all fours. +We were travelling down hill, a fact that involved heavy drops, but +involved also the privilege, rare for me, of seeing the hounds +comfortably. Lily, leading the rest by half a field, was going great +guns, so were Flurry and Hickey, so, I may say with all modesty, were +the young horse and I. After an eventful and entirely satisfactory ten +minutes of racing over the class of country that has, on a low average, +seventeen jumps to the mile, we skated down a greasy path, and found +ourselves in a deep lane, with the hounds at fault, casting themselves +eagerly right and left. It was here that we came upon Michael, a +dolorous spectacle, leading his mare towards us. She was dead lame. + +"What happened her?" shouted Flurry through the rioting wind. + +"The foot's dropping off her, sir," replied Michael, with his usual +optimism. + +"Well, get away home with her as quick as you can," interrupted Flurry, +accepting the diagnosis with the usual discount of 90 per cent. "What +way did those white hounds go?" + +"The last I seen o' them they were heading west over the hill beyond +for Drummig. It might be he was making for an old fort that's back in +the land there behind Donovan's farm. There was a fellow driving a +bread van above in the road there that told me if the hounds got inside +in the fort we'd never see them again. He said there were holes down +in it that'd go from here to the sea." + +"What the devil good were you that you didn't stop those hounds?" said +Flurry, cutting short this harangue with a countenance as black as the +weather. "Here, come on!" he called to Hickey and me, "the road'll be +the quickest for us." + +It was about a mile by the road to Donovan's farm, and as Hickey and I +pounded along in the rear of the disgusted hounds, big pellets of rain +were flung in our faces, and I began to realise, not for the first +time, that to turn up the collar of one's coat is more of a protest +than a protection. + +The farmhouse of Donovan of Drummig was connected with the high road by +the usual narrow and stony lane; as we neared the entrance of the lane +we saw through the swirls of rain a baker's van bumping down it. There +were two men on the van, and in the shafts was a raking young brown +horse, who, having espied the approach of the hounds, was honouring +them with what is politically known as a demonstration. One of the men +held up his hand, and called out a request to "hold on awhile till they +were out on to the road." + +"Did you see any hounds?" shouted Flurry, holding back the hounds, as +the van bounded round the corner and into the main road, with an +activity rare in its species. + +"We did, sir," returned the men in chorus, clinging to the rail of +their knifeboard seat, like the crew of a racing yacht, "they have him +back in the fort above this minute! Ye can take your time, faith!" + +The van horse reared and backed, and Flurry turned in his saddle to eye +him as he ramped ahead in response to a slash from the driver; so did +Dr. Hickey, and so also did Lily, who, with her white nose in the air, +snuffed inquisitively in the wake of the departing van. + +"You'd say she knew a good one when she saw him," said Hickey as we +turned the hounds into the lane. + +"Or a good loaf of bread," I suggested. + +"It's little bread that lad carries!" answered Hickey, thonging the +reluctant Lily on; "I'll go bail, there's as much bottled porter as +bread in that van! He supplies half the shebeens in the country." + +As we splashed into the farmyard a young man threw open a gate at its +farther side, shouting to Flurry to hurry on. He waved us on across a +wide field, towards a low hill or mound, red with wet withered bracken, +and crested by a group of lean fir trees, flinging their arms about in +the wild gusts of wind and rain. + +"The fox wasn't the length of himself in front of them!" shouted the +young man, running beside us, "and he as big as a donkey! The whole +kit of them is inside in the fort together!" + +Flurry turned his horse suddenly. + +"Two and a half couple underground is enough for one while," he said, +riding back into the farmyard. "Have you any place I could shove these +hounds into?" + +The door of a cow-house was open, and as if in anticipation of his +wishes, the hounds jostled emulously into the darkness within. Again, +guided by the young man, we faced the storm and rain. What Flurry's +intentions were we neither knew nor dared to ask, and, as we followed +him over the soaked fields, a back more expressive of profound and +wrathful gloom it has never been my lot to contemplate. + +The place in which the fox and the Irish hounds had entombed +themselves, was one of the prehistoric earthen fortresses that abound +in the south-west of Ireland. The fort at Drummig was like a giant +flat-topped molehill; the spade work of a forgotten race had turned it +into a place of defence, and, like moles, they had burrowed into its +depths. The tongue of the young man who guided us did not weary in the +recital of the ways, and the passages, and the little rooms that was +within in it. He said that a calf belonging to himself was back in it +for a week, and she came out three times fatter than the day she went +in. He also, but with a certain diffidence, mentioned fairies. + +Round and about this place of mystery went Flurry, blowing long and +dreary blasts at the mouths of its many holes, uttering "Gone-away" +screeches, of a gaiety deplorably at variance with his furious +countenance. A more pessimistic priest never trumpeted round the walls +of a more impracticable Jericho. + +Hickey led the dripping horses to and fro in the lee of the fort, and I +was deputed to listen at a rabbit hole from which the calf was said to +have emerged. After a period of time which I was too much deadened by +misery to compute, Flurry appeared, and told me that he was going home. +Judging from his appearance, he had himself been to ground; what he +said about the white hounds and the weather was very suitable, but +would not read as well as it sounded. + +We returned to the farmyard with the wind and rain chivying us from +behind. + +"I asked a man, one time," said Dr. Hickey, as side by side, and at a +well-maintained distance, we followed our leader across the field, "why +his father had committed suicide, and he said, 'well, your honour, he +was a little annoyed.' I'm thinking, Major, it'd be no harm for us to +keep an eye on Flurry." + +I stooped my head to let the water flow out of the brim of my hat. + +"You needn't neglect me either," I said. + +While Hickey was getting the hounds out of the cow-house, my young +horse shivered with cold, and gave an ominous cough. I reflected upon +the twelve long miles that lay between him and home, and asked our +saturated guide if I could get a warm drink for him. There was no +difficulty about that; to be sure I could and welcome. I abandoned my +comrades; regret, if it were felt, was not expressed by Flurry. When +the hounds had paddled forth from the cow-house I put my horse into it, +and before they had accomplished half a mile of their direful progress, +I was standing with my back to a glowing turf fire, with my coat +hanging on a chair, and a cup of scalding tea irradiating the inmost +recesses of my person. + +My hostess, Mrs. Jeremiah Donovan, was a handsome young woman, tall, +fair, and flushed, agonised with hospitality, shy to ferocity. The +family dog was lifted from the hearth with a side kick worthy of an +International football match; her offspring, clustered, staring, in the +chimney-corner, were dispersed with a scorching whisper, of which the +words, "ye brazen tinkers," gave some clue to its general trend. +Having immured them in an inner room she withdrew, muttering something +about another "goleen o' turf," and I was left alone with an excellent +cake of soda-bread and two boiled eggs. + +Presently a slight and mouse-like rattle made me aware that one of the +offspring, aged about five, had escaped from captivity, and was +secretly drawing my whip to him along the floor by the thong. + +"What have ye the whip for?" said the offspring, undaunted by discovery. + +"To bate the dogs with," I replied, attuning my speech to his as best I +could. + +"Is it the big white dogs?" pursued the offspring. + +I paused midway in a mouthful of soda-bread. + +"Did you see the white dogs?" I asked very gently. + +"God knows I did!" said the offspring, warming to his work, "an' they +snapped the bit o' bread out of Joola's hand within in the cow-house! +And Joola said they were a fright!" + +I sat still and waited while one might count five, fearful of scaring +the bird that had perched so near me. + +"Are the white dogs here now?" I ventured, wooingly. + +"They are not." + +The crook of my crop was beginning to prove dangerously engrossing, and +the time was short. + +"Where did they go?" I persevered. + +"Jimmy Mahony and me uncle Lukey took them away in the van," said the +offspring with clearness and simplicity, slashing with my whip at a +member of the guild of Brazen Tinkers whom I assumed to be the already +injured Julia. + + * * * * * + +As I bestowed at parting a benefaction upon Jeremiah Donovan, I said +that I hoped he would let Mr. Knox know if any of the white hounds came +out of the fort. He assured me that he would do so. He was, like his +wife, a thoroughly good fellow, and he had wisped the young horse until +one would have said he had never been out of the stable. + +The storm had blown itself away, and the rain was nearly over. I rode +home quietly, and in peace and goodwill towards all men; after all, +there was no hurry. This was a thing that was going to last me for the +rest of my life, and Flurry's. + +I overtook Michael on the way home. Michael said that sure he knew all +through it was a drag, and if Mr. Flurry had been said by him, he'd +have had neither cut, shuffle, nor deal with them O'Reillys. In the +course of his life Michael had never been known to be in the wrong. + +Dr. Hickey told me (but this was some time afterwards) that often he +had to get out of his bed to laugh, when he thought of Flurry getting +Jeremiah Donovan to screech in Irish down the holes in the fort, for +fear old O'Reilly's hounds had no English. It is hardly necessary to +say that Dr. Hickey also had been convinced by the way the hounds ran +that it was a drag, but had omitted to mention the fact at the time. + +Flurry was lost to home and country for three days. It was darkly said +that he had gone to Fahoura to break every bone in young O'Reilly's +body, and, incidentally, to bring back the white hounds. At the end of +the three days he telegraphed for a man and a saddle to meet the +afternoon train. There was nothing in the telegram about hounds. Next +day I met him riding a young brown horse, with a wildish eye, and a +nasty rub from a misfitting collar. + +"I got him in a sort of a swap," said Flurry tranquilly. + +"I suppose he got that rub in the bread-van?" I remarked drawing a bow +at a venture. + +"Well, that might be, too," assented Flurry, regarding me with an eye +that was like a stone wall with broken glass on the top. + + + + +THE END + + + + +Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co. + +Edinburgh & London + + + + +Crown 8vo, 6s. + +SOME EXPERIENCES OF + +AN IRISH R.M. + + +BY + +E. [OE]. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS + +With 31 Illustrations by E. [OE]. SOMERVILLE. + +Speaker.--"There are in its pages more good stories, quaint characters, +and humorous incidents than we remember to have seen since the days of +Lever." + +Academy.--"Sheer unadulterated laughter is one of the best things that +even literature can give, and we are hard put to it to remember a book +of these latter days to which we owe more of it than we do to the Irish +R.M." + +Pall Mall Gazette.--"We can warmly recommend this book as a sure +antidote for melancholy; it is brimful of brilliant wit and harmless +mirth; it is a tonic for the dyspeptic and a stimulant to the healthy +mind. A more amusing book has not been written for many a year." + +Mr. Stephen Gwynn in the "Cornhill Magazine."--"There are few greater +attractions than that of open healthy laughter of the contagious sort; +and it would be black ingratitude not to pay tribute to the authoresses +of 'Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.'--a book that no decorous person +can read with comfort in a railway carriage." + +The Baron de Book Worms in "Punch."--"Dulness is banished from the +opening of the book to the close thereof.... Since Charles Lever was +at his best, with 'Harry Lorrequer,' 'Charles O'Malley,' 'Tom Burke of +Ours,' and, may be, 'The Knight of Gwynne,' no such rollicking Irish +book as this has appeared, at least not within the period whereunto the +memory of the Baron runneth not to the contrary.... Nothing of a +sedate or gentle character is to be found here; nearly every story is +calculated to set the table in a roar." + + + +THE REAL CHARLOTTE + +BY + +E. [OE]. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS + +Graphic.--"'The Real Charlotte' is indeed a book to enjoy at leisure. +It is full of fascinating actuality; and it should be added that the +authors have united their work without leaving a single visible seam." + +Daily News.--"The story provides a liberal entertainment of pathos and +humour. All the actors therein, whether sketched with a few pregnant +strokes, or minutely elaborated, are very much alive." + +Athenaeum.--"The book may be too long, but there are so many amusing +and delightful passages, humorous sayings and doings, with here and +there a word or a line which gives away the very heart of an Irish +landscape, or a man or woman, that we really cannot complain." + +Pall Mall Gazette.--"'The Real Charlotte' is perhaps one of the best +modern examples of an English (or rather an Irish) realistic novel +extant." + + + +THE SILVER FOX + +BY + +E. [OE]. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS + +Queen.--"The book is written in a bright and breezy tone, with +ever-restrained humour. It displays nice sense of light and shadow and +power of characterisation." + +Spectator.--"Broadly speaking the novel may be said to exhibit in a +dramatic form the extraordinary hold which superstition still possesses +on the minds of the Irish peasantry and the drawbacks, and even +dangers, which may result from an unsympathetic or intolerant disregard +of such prejudices." + +Daily Chronicle.--"We cannot do justice to this book by quotation. Its +method and its writing are so good that they tempt us to say its +authors have nothing to learn from the French novelists." + + + +ALL ON THE IRISH SHORE + +BY + +E. [OE]. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS + +With 10 Illustrations by E. [OE]. SOMERVILLE. + +Academy.--"A volume to dispel melancholy and arouse the healthiest +laughter." + +Badminton Magazine.--"Excellent tales, racy of the soil, full of humour +and quaint fancy." + +Daily Graphic.--"The world is a good deal gayer for a book of sketches +like 'All on the Irish Shore.'" + +Daily Telegraph.--"It is fairly safe to predict that the reader who +takes up this book will have no inclination to put it down until he has +read it through from cover to cover." + +Times.--"These stories rise far above the mere sporting level, and +exhibit gifts of perception, literary perception, much higher than +anything that has yet appeared from the same clever pens." + +Scotsman.--"'All on the Irish Shore' has hardly a page between its +covers that does not contain some touch of rollicking Irish humour that +is calculated to provoke the most serious-minded person to mirth." + +Spectator.--"The paramount duty of a reviewer in dealing with this +happily-named volume is one of extreme simplicity--namely, to advise +any one who loves wit, humour, horses, and Ireland to procure it +without delay. The mere fact that it is by the joint authors of 'Some +Experiences of an Irish R.M.' will doubtless prove a ready passport in +the affections of all who have read and re-read that modern classic." + + + +AN IRISH COUSIN + +BY + +E. [OE]. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN ROSS + +World.--"A clever story brimful of humour." + +Irish Monthly.--"This story is very clever and very well written with +fine bits of description and proof of keen observation." + + + +LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO., 39 PATERNOSTER Row, LONDON + +NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Further Experiences of an Irish R.M., by +E. 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