w FURTHER EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH R.M. BY THE SAME AUTHORS. Irish Memories. With 23 Illustrations from Drawings by E. CE. SOMERVILLE, and from Photographs. 8vo. Some Experiences of an Irish R. M. With 31 Illustrations by E. (E. SOMERVILLE. Crown 8vo. In Mr. Knox's Country. With 8 Illustrations in two colours by E. CE. SOMERVILLE. Crown 8vo. Some Irish Yesterdays. With 51 Illustrations by E. CE. SOMERVILLE. Crown 8vo, All on the Irish Shore : Irish Sketches. With 10 Illustrations by E. (E. SOMERVUXE. Crown 8vo. An Irish Cousin. Crown 8vo. The Real Charlotte. Crown 8vo. The Silver Fox. Crown 8vo. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA AND MADRAS. OLD FLYNN, MOVING ALONG THE VERGE, BECAME IDYLLIC Further Experiences of an Irish R.M. By E. CE. 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. CE. Somerville New Impression Longmans, Green, and Co. 39 Paternoster Row, London Fourth Avenue & 3Oth Street, New York Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras 1920 All rights reserved CONTENTS PAGE I. THE PUG-NOSED FOX I II. A ROYAL COMMAND . 33 III. POISSON D'AVRIL . . 56 IV. " THE MAN THAT CAME TO BUY APPLES " . 77 V. A CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE 103 VI. THE BOAT'S SHARE 138 VII. THE LAST DAY OF SHRAFT 167 VIII. "AHORSE! A HORSE!" (PART I.) . . . .195 IX. "AHORSE! A HORSE!" (PART II.) . . .214 X. SHARPER THAN A FERRET'S TOOTH . . .232 XI. OWENEEN THE SPRAT 255 XII. THE WIIITEBOYS 285 2058116 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS HALF-TONE Old Flynn, moving along the verge, became idyllic Frontispiece Suspicious of an ill-timed pleasantry . . . Facing p. 8 " Take me out of this" 26 Whizzed like a driven grouse past the combatants . 40 The guard put his hand over his mouth . . . 58 " And not a brown farthing more would he give " , ' 82 " Pm dashed if she hasritgot Sullivan s pony" . 90 He crowned the arrangement with the bottle of potheen ........ 92 A tray ful of burning sods of turf . . . . 114 He did not deny himself a most dissolute wink , 136 Maria s performance was faultless . ... 180 The Modulator opened with a long-drawn and nasal cadenza . . . . . . . 186 "Did ye see the police?" . . . . . . 208 "/> that my darlin 1 Major Yeates?" shouted the COok 212 " 1 'will walk I should really prefer it" . . 228 Flurry and I put in a blazing September day on the mountain 236 Branetfs Lake 240 An intricate and variously moving tide of people . 258 " Them hounds are in my family, seed and breed, this hundred years" 292 " /'// go bail *twas him that picked me wife's fashionable cocks" ...... 302 List of Illustrations IN THE TEXT PAGE The egregious Slipper 35 The 'victim came . . . . . . . .71 " Ye have them in great form, Michael" 106 Pure ecstasy stretched his grin from ear to ear . . -123 " They re lovely fish altogether ! they re leppin fresh / " . . 141 The invalid removed herself . . . . . . .148 Con Brickley 158 " Let the divil clear me out of the sthrand ! " .... 160 A "witness to be proud of . . . . . . . .161 His mornings were spent in proffering Irish phrases . .169 The Sergeanfs manner -was distressingly apologetic . . 192 " Thafs a great sign of fine weather when a horse will lie down in wather that way" 230 My wife came and asked me if I would take her to the work- house 256 '' Thims no joke, sir, thim's Sprats!" . . . -275 " He knows what's what ! " said the Locum .... 283 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 un- pleasantly my new-born position of Deputy M.F.H. Not, indeed, that I was in need at that moment I A Further Experiences of an Irish of circumstances to remind me of it. A new hunting-cap, pressing implacably upon my fore- head, 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 suffi- cient 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 Yeo- manry 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. 2 The Pug-nosed Fox A week afterwards I saw Flurry off at the station. His last words to me were : ' ' Well, good-bye, Major. Be fighting my grand- mother 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, ex- plained 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 3 Further Experiences of an Irish 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 in- cluded 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 vi& the kitchen. They were, according to their own showing, ruined proprietors of poultry yards, in proof of which they pointed to a row of decapi- tated 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 M way. I gave them thirty-two and sixpence as an alternative compensation, not, I admit, without an uneasy sense of something unusual in Peter 4 The Pug-nosed Fox 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 it way. Michael was in a bad temper, and so, for the matter of that, was I, quite irrespective of deal- ings 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 photog- rapher, 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 four- 5 Further Experiences of an Irish teen 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 bumptious- ness. If I left her to her own devices she drowsed, stumbling, through the dust ; if I cor- rected 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 cajo- leries, 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. 6 The Pug-nosed Fox 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 suit- able place in the wall by the roadside. She refused it, which was no more than I had ex- pected. 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." 7 Further Experiences of an Irish 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 re- proach 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 some- what 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 sugar- loaf, the hounds disposed themselves in an inter- val 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 8 SUSPICIOUS OF AN ILL-TIMED PLEASANTRY The Pug-nosed Fox indignation at the senseless frivolity of the pro- ceedings, glowered at his knuckles, evidently 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 some- thing 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 photog- rapher. 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 pre- serve 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 9 Further Experiences of an Irish 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 photo- graphic 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 10 The Pug-nosed Fox 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 injunc- tions 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 con- fidence 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, "/ 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. ii / Further Experiences of an Irish Michael clapped his hand over his mouth, the superseded siren in the heather behind me wallowed in fresh convulsions ; the hounds re- mained 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 fore- seen. 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 in- dignation 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 12 The Pug-nosed Fox 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 precipi- tated 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. Further 'Experiences of an Irish 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 sum- marise 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 The Pug-nosed Fox swamp, where the take-off was sound the land- ing 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 15 Further Experiences of an Irish 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, whir- ling 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 steam- 16 The Pug-nosed Fox ingly 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 mis- understanding 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 pros- trate 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. 17 B Further Experiences of an Irish 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 acci- dent 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 accommoda- tion, and I advanced successfully towards the long woods of Temple Braney, endeavouring, less suc- cessfully, 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 slairmied 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 ; 18 The Pug-nosed Fox 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 untempt- ing 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' 19 "Further "Experiences of an Irish 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 me- self 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 20 The Pug-nosed Fox trace-high in bracken ; I proceeded in its direc- tion 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 21 Further Experiences of an Irish had even yet drained the cup of pleasure to the dregs. I led Lady Jane out into the road, and con- sidered 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 y ( ear or so, taken the derelict house of Temple Braney, and having by strenuous efforts attained that dubious honour, the Com- mission of the Peace, it had happened to me to sit on the Bench with him on one or two occa- sions. 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 22 The Pug-nosed Fox 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 23 Further Experiences of an Irish puppies advanced with their tails between their legs, barking uncertainly, and acutely conscious of the fact that upon the collar of each was fas- tened 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 im- posing. A cavernous coachhouse stood open, empty save for the wheelless body of an outside car that was seated on the floor, with wings out- spread 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 24 The Pug-nosed Fox 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 assevera- tions that it was smothering. I admit that my first and almost overwhelming impulse was to 25 Further "Experiences of an Irish 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 26 The Pug-nosed Fox without question. "Can't you see I'm smother- ing in this damned thing ? " 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 some- where 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 27 Further Experiences of an Irish 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 diffi- culty, 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 28 The Pug-nosed Fox accursed torn-foolery of hunting kit to be fetched with the mare, I could write a beautifully ex- planatory 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 blood- shot 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 con- tinued, " 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 com- posed 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 con- fidence 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!" 20 Further "Experiences of an Irish e I(.M. 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 breakfast- ing 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 30 The Pug-nosed Fox and glass that had been involved in its over- throw. 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 pre- cipitancy 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," Further "Experiences of an Irish Michael's blasts of summons to his pirates. Finally, the towering mauve bonnet and equally towering wrath of Mrs. McRory, as she ad- vanced 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 sump- tuous collation had been provided by the hos- pitable 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 indisposi- tion 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 re- cognised 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, 33 c Further Experiences of an Irish 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 Sul- tan 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 34 <^f Royal Command and two vagrant fox-terriers were its sole adorn- ment. A dark rim of spectators encircled it, it , . THE EGREGIOUS SLIPPER awaiting developments, i.e. the arrival of the Sultan, with tireless patience, and the egregious Slipper, attired in a gala costume of tall hat, 35 Further 'Experiences of an Irish 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 purga- torial procession. The Grand Stand, a structure bare as a moun- tain 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 36 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 ! 116 *A Conspiracy of Silence 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 reek- ing 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 ycu doing with the young horse?" he roared. " I thought Master Eddy would ride him, sir," replied Eugene. "Well, he will not," said Mr. Flynn, con- clusively ; " 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 117 Further 'Experiences of an Irish 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 118 *A Conspiracy of Silence 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 cap- ture 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 accom- panied 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 cer- tainly was an adverse circumstance that the pony's mane had, the day before, been hogged to the bone, so that at critical moments the rider slid, unchecked, from saddle to ears, but the boon companions, who themselves jumped like ante- lopes, stride for stride with the pony, replaced Further 'Experiences of an Irish 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 ,/hite horse, moving along the verge, and bleat- ing shrilly upon his horn to the hounds below, became idyllic. I believe that I ought to have been in a tower- ing passion, and should have swept the hounds home in a flood of blasphemy; as a matter of fact I enjoyed myself. Even Dr. Hickey ad- mitted that it was as pleasant a day for smok- ing 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," re- marked Dr. Hickey, "and a great stamp of an 1 20 *A Conspiracy of Silence 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 hill- side. 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 some- thing 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 excite- ment, 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 with- 121 "Further Experiences of an Irish out 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 Knockeen- bwee. 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. Providentially, it was, as I have said, only a 122 *A Conspiracy of Silence scurry. It seemed that we had run across the neck of a promontory, and in ten minutes we PURE ECSTASY STRETCHED HIS GRIN FROM EAR TO EAR were at the cliffs again, the company reduced to old Flynn, his son, and the Hunt establishment. 123 Further "Experiences of an Irish 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 com- forter, 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 anti- phonally into the immensities of sea and sky, 124 // Conspiracy of Silence 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. 125 Further Experiences of an Irish " 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 126 *A Conspiracy of Silence 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 Satur- days. Therefore it was that, in a blend of match- light 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, suggest- ing successive inspirations on the part of the cook. At about seven we had had mutton chops and potatoes, and now, after an abysmal interval 127 Further Experiences of an Irish 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 un- flinchingly 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 con- .versation 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 ! " 128 ^4 Conspiracy of Silence 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 ! ' 1 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. Nod- ding 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 con- trol of my faculties to laugh ironically. 129 i Further Experiences of an Irish 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 / 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 narra- tive, 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- 130 *A Conspiracy of Silence 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 grati- tude 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 tract 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. "Iwant to tell you something/'pursued thevoice. Further Experiences of an Irish I instantly surmised all possibilities of disaster ; Slipper drunk and overlaid by Lady Jane, Phi- lippa'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. 44 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 s'ud- denly 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." <^4 Conspiracy of Silence 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 after- thought, " 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 ? " 11 1 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 133 Further Experiences of an Irish 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 un- certain 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 re- assuringly 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. 134