Classic Audiobook Collection - Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. by E. Oe. Somerville ~ Full Audiobook [comedy]

Episode Date: November 30, 2022

Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. by E. Oe. Somerville audiobook. Genre: comedy Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. follows the misadventures of Major Sinclair Yeates, an English ex-army officer who arrives in rural west Ireland to take up a post as a Resident Magistrate - a job that sounds orderly on paper but quickly becomes anything but. Thrown into a world of lively market towns, sprawling estates, and tight-knit communities where everyone seems to know everyone else (and where rules bend under the weight of custom), Yeates must learn how to dispense justice without becoming the butt of the joke. Along the way he is assisted, misled, and occasionally rescued by the formidable local police sergeant, the endlessly resourceful servants and neighbors, and a parade of eccentric characters whose schemes, feuds, and tall tales collide with official procedure. Told in crisp, comic episodes, the book delights in culture clash, social satire, and the gap between legal authority and real authority, while also revealing an affectionate eye for the landscape and the people who animate it. The central tension is Yeates's effort to keep his dignity and do his duty as each case turns into a riotous lesson in how Ireland works. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:39:22) Chapter 2 (01:12:00) Chapter 3 (01:42:52) Chapter 4 (02:16:45) Chapter 5 (02:53:16) Chapter 6 (03:31:17) Chapter 7 (04:08:54) Chapter 8 (04:48:11) Chapter 9 (05:21:30) Chapter 10 (05:59:17) Chapter 11 (06:34:43) Chapter 12 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some Experiences of an Irish R. M. By Edith, Enone Somerville, and Martin Ross. Chapter 1 Great Uncle McCarthy A resident magistracy in Ireland is not an easy thing to come by nowadays. Neither is it a very attractive job. Yet on the evening, when I first propounded the idea, to the young lady who had recently consented to become Mrs. Sinclair Yates,

it seemed glittering with possibilities. There was, on that occasion, a sunset and a string band playing the gondoliers, and there was also an ingenuous belief in the omnipotence of a godfather of Philippa's. Philippa was the young lady, who had once been a member of the government. I was then climbing the steep ascent of the captains towards my majority. I have no fault to find with Philip's godfather. He did all and more than even Philippa had expected. Nevertheless, I had a time. to the dignity of mud major, and had spent a good deal on postage stamps and on railway fares to interview people of influence, before I found myself in the hotel at Skiborne,

opening long envelopes addressed to Major Yates, RM. My most immediate concern, as anyone who has spent nine weeks at Mrs. Rafferty's hotel will readily believe, was to leave it at the earliest opportunity. But in those nine weeks I had learned, among other, painful things a little, a very little, of the methods of the artisan in the west of Ireland. Finding a house had been easy enough. I'd had my choice of several, each with some hundreds of acres of shooting, thoroughly poached, and a considerable portion of the roof intact. I had selected one, the one that had the largest extent of roof, in proportion to the shooting, and had been assured

by my landlord that in a fortnight or so it would be fit for occupation. There's a few little odd things to be done, he said easily, a leak of paint here and there, and a slap a plaster. I am short-sighted. I am also of Irish extraction, both facts that make for toleration, but even I thought he was understating the case. So did the contractor. At the end of three weeks, the latter reported progress, which mainly consisted of the fact that the plumber had accused the carpenter of stealing sixteen feet of his inch-pipe to run a bell-wire through, and that the carpenter had replied that he wished the divil might run the plumber, throw at an squill.

The plumber having reflected on the carpenter's parentage, the work of renovation had merged in battle, and at the next petty sessions I was reluctantly compelled to a lot to each competent seven days, without the option of a fine. These and kindred difficulties extended in an unbroken chain through the summer months, until a certain wet and windy day in October, when with my baggage I drove over to establish myself at Shrelayne. It was a tall, ugly house of three-storey high, its walls faced with weather-beaten slates, its windows staring, narrow and vacant.

Around the house ran an area, in which grew from Loresstinus and holly bushes, among ash-heaps and nettles and broken bottles. I stood on the steps, waiting for the door to be opened, while the rain sluiced upon me from a broken-eve-shoot that had, among many other things, escaped the notice of my landlord.

I thought of Philippa, and of her plan broached in today's letter of having the hall done up as a sitting-room. The door opened and revealed the hall. It struck me that I had perhaps overestimated the possibilities. Among them I had certainly not included a flagged floor, sweating with damp, and a reek of cabbage from the adjacent kitchen stairs. A large elderly woman, with a red face and a cap worn helmet-wise, on her forehead, swept me a magnificent courtesy as I crossed the threshold. "'Her Honor's welcome,' she began, and then every door in the house slammed in obedience to the gust that drove through it,

with something that sounded like for mind ye for a back door mrs cadogan abandoned her opening speech and made for the kitchen stairs improbable as it may appear my housekeeper was called a name made locally possible by being pronounced c de gorn only those who have been through a similar experience can know what manner of afternoon i spent i am a martyr to colds in the head and i felt one coming on I made a lager in front of the dining-room fire, with a tattered leather screen and the dinner-table, and gradually, with cigarettes and strong tea, baffled the smell of musts and cats, and fervently trusted that the rain might avert a threatened visit from my landlord. I was then but superficially acquainted with Mr. Florence McCarthy Knox and his habits. At about four-thirty, when the room had warmed up and my cold was yielding to treatment, Mrs. Godaggan entered and informed me that Mr. Flurry was in the yard,

and will be thankful if I'd go out to him, for he couldn't come in. Many of the privileges of the female sex, had I been a woman, I should have unhesitatingly who said that I had a cold in my head. Being a man, I huddled on a Macintosh, and went out into the yard. My landlord was there on horseback, and with him there was a man standing at the head of a stout grey animal. I recognised with despair that I was about to be compelled to buy a horse.

"'Good afternoon, Major,' said Mr. Knox, in his slow, sing-song brogue. "'It's rather soon to be paying your visit, but I thought you might be in a hurry to see the horse I was telling you of.' I could have laughed. As if I were ever in a hurry to see a horse. I thanked him,

and suggested it was rather wet for horse-dealing. Oh, it's nothing when you're used. "'Eust to it,' replied Mr. Knox. "'His gloveless hands were red and wet. "'The rain ran down his nose, "'and his covert coat was soaked to a sodden brown. "'I thought that I did not want to become used to it. "'My relations with horses have been of a purely military character.

"'I have endured the Sandhurst riding school. "'I have galloped for an impetuous general. "'I have been steward at regimental races, "'but none of these feats have altered my own. opinion that the horse, as a means of locomotion, is obsolete. Nevertheless, the man who accepts a resident magistracy in the south-west of Ireland, voluntarily retires into the prehistoric age, to institute a stable became inevitable. "'You ought to throw a leg o' him,' said Mr. Knox,

"'and you welcome to take him over a fence or two if you like. He's a nice flippant jumper.' "'Even to my unexacting eye, the grey horse did not seem to promise flippancy, "'nor did I at all desire to find that quality in him. "'I explained that I wanted something to drive, not to ride. "'Well, that's a fine ricken horse in harness,' said Mr. Knox, "'looking at me with his serious grey eyes, "'and you'd drive him with a sop of hay in his mouth. "'Bring him up here, Michael.'

"'Michael abandoned his efforts to kick the grey horse's forelegs into a becoming position, and led him up to me. I regarded him from under my umbrella with a quite unreasonable disfavour. He had the dreadful beauty of a horse in a toy shop, as chubby, as wooden, and as conscientiously dappled, but it was unreasonable to urge this as an objection, and I was incapable of finding any more technical drawback. Yielding to circumstance, I threw my leg, over the brute, and after pacing gravely round the quadrangle that formed the yard, and jolting to my entrance gate and back, I decide that as he had

neither fallen down, nor kicked me off, it was worth paying twenty-five pounds for him, if only to get in out of the rain. Mr. Knox accompanied me into the house, and had a drink. He was a fair, spare, young man, who looked like a stable-boy among gentlemen, and a gentleman and among stable-boys. He belonged to a clan that cropped up in every grade of society in the county from Sir Valentine Knox of Castle Knox, down to the auctioneer

Knox, who bore the attractive title of Larry the Lyer. So far as I could judge, Florence McCarthy of that ilk, occupied a shifting position about midway in the tribe. I had met him at dinner at Sir Valentine's. I had heard of him

at an illicit auction held by Larry the liar of brandy, stolen from a wreck. They were black Protestants, all of them, in virtue of their descent from a godly soldier of Cromwell, and all were prepared at any moment of the day or night to sell a horse. You'll be apt to find this place a bit lonesome out of the hotel,' remarked Mr. Flurry, sympathetically,

as he placed his foot in its steaming boot on the harb. But it's a fine sound house anywhere, and have lots of rooms in it, though, indeed to tell you the truth, I was never through the hole of them since the time my great-uncle, Dennis McCarthy, died here. The dear knows I had enough of it that time. He paused and lit a cigarette, one of my best, and quite thrown away on him. Those tough flaws now, he resumed, I wouldn't make too free with them, but some of them would jump under you like a spring bed.

Many's the night I was in and out of those attics, following my poor uncle, when he had a bad turn on him, the horrors—you know, there were nights he never stopped walking through. through the house. Good Lord will I ever forget the morning when he saw the devil coming up the avenue. Look at the two horns on him, says he. They're out with his gun and shot him, and began it with his own donkey. Mr. Knox gave a couple of short laughs. He seldom laughed, having in unnatural perfection the gravity of manner that is bred by horse-dealing,

probably from the habitual repression of all emotion save disparagement. The autumn evening, grey with rain, was darkening in the tall windows, and the wind was beginning to make bullying rushes among the shrubs in the area. A shower of soot rattled down the chimney and fell on the hearthrug. "'More rain coming,' said Mr. Knox, rising composedly. "'You'll have to put a goose down these chimneys some day soon. It's the only way in the world to clean them.' "'Well, I'm for the road. You'll come out in the grey next week, I hope. A hounds will be meeting here, give a roar at him, coming in at his jumps. He threw his cigarette into the fire, and extended a hand to me. "'Good-bye, Major. You'll see plenty of me and my hounds before you're done.

There's a power of foxes and the plantations here.' This was scarcely reassuring for a man who hoped to shoot woodcock, and I hinted as much. "'Oh, is it the cock?' said Mr. Flurry. "'Believe me, there never was a woodcock yet that minded hounds, now, no more than they'd mine rabbits. The best chutes ever I had here, the hounds were in it the day before. When Mr. Knox was gone, I began to picture myself going across country, roaring like a man on a fire-engine, while Philippa put the goose down the chimney, but when I sat down to write to her, I did not feel equal to being humorous about it. I dilated ponderously on my cold, my hard work, and my loneliness, and eventually went to bed at ten o'clock, full of cold shivers.

and hot whiskey and water. After a couple of hours of feverish dozing, I began to understand what had driven great-uncle McCarthy to perambulate the house by night. Mrs. Cadogan had assured me that the Pope of Rome hadn't a better bed under him than myself. Wasn't I down on the new flog-mattress the old master bought in Father Scanlan's auction?

And by the smell I recognised that flog meant flock, otherwise I should have said that my couch was stuffed with old boots. I have seldom spent a more wretched night. The rain drummed with soft fingers on my window-panes. The house was full of noises. I seemed to see great-uncle McCarthy ranging the passages with flurry at his heels. Several times I thought I heard him.

Whispers seemed borne on the wind through my keyhole. Bards creaked in the room overhead, and once I could have sworn that a hand passed groping over the panels of my door. I am, I may admit, a believer in ghosts. I even take in a paper that deals with their culture, but I cannot pretend that on that night I looked forward to a manifestation of great-uncle McCarthy with any enthusiasm. The morning broke stormily, and I woke to find Mrs. Cadogan's understudy, a grimy nephew of about eighteen, standing by my bedside with a black bottle in his hand.

"'There is no bath in the house, sir,' was his reply to my complaint. But my aunt said, Would you like a tegine? This alternative proved to be a glass of raw whiskey. I declined it. I look back to that first week of housekeeping at Shre Lane, as to a comedy excessively badly staged, and striped with lurid melodrama. Towards its clothes I was positively homesick for Mrs. Rafferty's,

and I had not a single clean pair of boots. I am not one of those who hold the convention that in Ireland the rain never ceases day or night, but I must say that my first November at Sri Lane was composed of weather of which my friend Flurry Knox remarked, "'You wouldn't meet a Christian out of doors, unless it was a snipe or a dispensary doctor.' To this lamentable category must be added a resident magistrate.

Daily, shrouded in Macintosh, I set forth for the petty sessions courts of my wide district, daily in the inevitable atmosphere of wet freeze and perjury. I listened to indictments of old women who plucked geese alive, of publicans whose hospitality to their friends broke forth uncontrollably on Sunday afternoons, of parties, who in the language of the police sergeant was subtly defined as, "'Not to say drunk, but in good fighting trim.' "'I got used to it all in time.

I suppose one can get used to anything.' I even became callous to the surprises of Mrs. Cadogan's cooking. As the weather hardened, and the woodcock came in, and, one by one, I discovered and nailed up the rat-holes, I began to find life endurable, and even to feel some remote sensation of homecoming, when the grey horse turned in at the gate of Sri Lane. The one feature of my establishment, which I could not become anewed, was the pervading sub-presence of some thing or things, which for my own convenience I summarised as great-uncle McCarthy.

There were nights on which I was certain that I heard the inebriet shuffle of his foot overhead, the touch of his fumbling hand against the walls. There were dark times before the dawn, when sounds went to and fro, the moving of weights, the creaking of doors, a far-away rapping, in which was a workman-like suggestion of the undertaker, a rumbled of wheels on the avenue. once I was impelled to the somewhat imprudent measure of cross-examining Mrs. Godogan. Mrs. Godaggan, taking the preliminary precaution of crossing herself,

asked me faithfully what day of the week it was. "'Friday,' she repeated after me, "'Friday the Lord save us! "'Twas a Friday the old Martha was buried!' At this point a sauceman opportunely boiled over, and Mrs. Cadogan fled with it to the scullery and was seen no more. in the process of time i brought great-uncle mccarthy down to a fine point on friday nights he made coffins and drove hurses during the rest of the week he rarely did more than patter and shuffle in the attics over my head one night about the middle of december i awoke suddenly aware that some noise had fallen like a heavy stone into my dreams as i felt for the matches it came again the long grudging groan and the uncompromising bang of the cross

door at the head of the kitchen stairs. I told myself that it was a draft that had done it, but it was a perfectly still night. Even as I listened, a sound of wheels on the avenue shook the stillness. The thing was getting past a joke. In a few minutes, I was stealthily groping my way down my own staircase, with a box of matches in my hand, enforced my scientific curiosity, but nonetheless, armed with a stick. I stood in the dark at the top of the back stairs and listened. The snores of Mrs. Cadogan and her nephew, Peter, rose tranquilly from their respective lairs. I descended to the kitchen, and lit a candle. There was nothing unusual there, except a great portion of the Cadogan wearing apparel, which was arranged at the fire,

and was being serenaded by two crickets. Whatever had opened the door, my household was blameless. The kitchen was not attractive, yet I felt indisposed to leave it. Nonetheless, it appeared to be my duty to inspect the yard. I put the candle on the table and went forth into the outer darkness. Not a sound was to be heard. The night was very cold, and so dark that I could scarcely distinguish the roofs of the stables against the sky. The house loomed tall and oppressive above me. I was conscious of how lonely it stood in the dumb and barren country. Spirits were certainly futile creatures, childish in their manifestations. stupidly content with the old machinery of raps and rumbles i thought how fine a scene might be played on a stage like this if i were a ghost how bluely i would glimmer at the windows how whimperingly chatter in the wind

something whirled out of the darkness above me and fell with a flop on the ground just at my feet i jumped backwards in point of fact i made for the kitchen door and with my hand on the latch stood still and waited nothing further happened The thing that lay there did not stir. I struck a match. The moment of tension turned to Bathos, as the light flickered on nothing more fateful than a dead crow. Dead, it certainly was. I could have told that without looking at it. But why should it, at some considerable period after its death,

fall from the clouds at my feet? But did it fall from the clouds? I struck another match, and stared up at the impenetrable face of the house. There was no hint of solution in the dark windows, but I was determined to go up and search the rooms that gave upon the yard. How cold it was! I can feel now the frozen, musty air of those attics, with their rat-eaten floors and

wall-papers furred with damp. I went softly from one to another, feeling like a burglar in my own house, and found nothing in elucidation of the mystery. The windows were hermetically shut, and sealed with cobwe. There was no furniture, except in the end-room, where a wardrobe without doors stood in a corner, empty save for the solemn presence of a monstrous tall hat. I went back to bed, cursing those powers of darkness that had got me out of it, and heard no more. My landlord had not failed of his promise to visit my coverts with his hounds.

In fact, he fulfilled it rather more conscientiously than seemed to me quite wholesome for the cock-shooting. I maintained a silence, which I felt to be magnanimous on the part of a man who cared nothing for hunting, and a great deal for shooting, and wished the hounds more success in the slaughter of my foxes than seemed to be granted to them. I met them all one red, frosty evening, as I drove down the long hill to my demean gates, flurry at their head, in his shabby pink coat and dingy breeches, the hounds trailing dejectedly behind him and his half-dozen companions. "'What luck?' I called out, drawing rain as I met them. "'None,' said Mr. Flurry briefly. "'He did not stop. "'Neither did he remove his pipe from the down-twisted corner of his mouth. "'His eye at me was cold and sour. "'The other members of the hunt passed me with equal, hauteur.

"'I thought they took their ill look very badly. "'On foot, among the last of the straggling hounds, "'cracking a carman's whip, and swearing incomprehensibly, them all, slouched my friend's lip, our friendship had begun in court, the relative positions of the dock and the judgment seat, forming no obstacle to its progress, and had been cemented during several days tramping after snipe. He was, as usual, a little drunk, and he hailed me as though I were a ship. "'Ahoi Major Yates!' he shouted, bringing himself up with a lurch against my cart. "'It's hunting you should be, in place of sending poor divils to jail.'

"'But I heard you had no hunting,' I said. "'You heard that, did ye?' "'Slipper rolled upon me and I, like that of a profligate pug. "'Well, begor, you heard no more than the truth.' "'But where are all the foxes?' said I. "'Begore, I don't know, no more than, Your Honor. "'I'm sure, Elaine. "'That there used to be as many foxes in it as there's crosses in the yard of check.

"'Well, well, I'll say nothing for it, only that it's queer. "'Here, Venus, Negress. slipper uttered a yell horse with whisky in a duration of two elderly ladies of the pack who had profited by our conversation to stray away into an adjacent cottage well good-night major mr florris has cross as briers ne'at me eight he set off at a surprisingly steady run cracking his whip and hooping like a manman i hope that when i are also fifty i shall be able to run like slipper that frosty evening was followed by three others like unto it, and a flight of Woodcock came in. I calculated that I could do with five guns, and I dispatched invitations to shoot and dine on the following day to four of the local sportsmen, among whom was, of course, my landlord. I remember that in my letter to the latter, I expressed a facetious hope that my bag of cock would be more successful than his of foxes had been.

The answers to my invitations were not what I expected, all, without so much as a conventional regret, declined my invitation. Mr. Knox added that he hoped the bag of cock would be to my liking, and that I need not be afraid that the hounds would trouble my coverts any more. Here was war! I gazed in stupefaction at the crooked scrawl in which my landlord had declared it. It was wholly and entirely inexplicable, and instead of going to sleep comfortably over the fire and my newspaper as a gentleman should, I spent the evening in irritated ponderings over this bewildering and exasperating change of front on the part of my friendly squirenes. My shoot the next day was scarcely a success. I shot the woods in company with my game-keeper,

Tim Connor, a gentleman whose duties mainly consist of limiting the poaching privileges to his personal friends, and whatever my offence might have been, Mr. Knox could have wished me no bitterer punishment than hearing the unavailing shouts of Mark Cock, and see him, and see him, my birds winging their way from the coverts, far out of shot. Tim Connor and I got ten couple between us. It might have been thirty if my neighbours had not boycotted me, for what I could only suppose was the slackness of their hounds. I was dog-tired that night, having walked enough for three men,

and I slept the deep, insatiable sleep that I had earned. It was somewhere around three a.m. that I was gradually awakened by a continuous knocking, interspersed with muffled calls. Great Uncle McCarthy had never before given tongue, and I freed one ear from blankets to listen. Then I remembered that Peter had told me that the sweep had promised to arrive that morning, and to arrive early.

Blind with sleep and fury, I went to the passage window, and then desired the sweep to go to the devil. It availed me little. For the remainder of the night I could hear him pacing round the house, trying the windows, banging at the doors, and calling on Peter Cadogan as the priests of Baal called upon their God. At six o'clock I had fallen into a troubled doze,

when Mrs. Cadogan knocked at my door, and imparted the information that the sweep had arrived. My answer need not be recorded, but in spite of it the door opened, and my housekeeper, in a weird desaville, effectively lighted by the orange beams of her candle, entered my room. "'God forgive me! I never seen one I hate as much,

as that sweep, she began. "'He's these three hours? "'Ah, what, three hours? No, "'but all night, racing tally-work and tandem "'around the house to get at the chimbleys.' "'Well, for heaven's sake, let him get at the chimneys, "'and let me go to sleep,' I answered, "'goaded to desperation,

"'and you may tell him from me "'that if I hear his voice again, I'll shoot him.' "'Mrs. Godaghan silently left my bedside, "'and as she closed the door, she said to herself, "'The Lord save him.' subsequent events may be briefly summarised. At 7.30 I was awakened anew by a thunderous sound in the chimney, and a brick crashed into the fireplace, followed at a short interval by two dead jackdaws and their nests. At eight I was informed by Peter that there was no hot water,

and that he wished the devil would roast the same sweep. At 9.30, when I came down to breakfast, there was no far anywhere, and my coffee, made in the coach-house, tasted of soot. I put on an overcoat and opened my letters. About fourth or fifth in the uninteresting heap came one in an egregiously disguised hand. Sir, it began. This is to inform you, your unsportsmanlike conduct has been discovered. You have been suspected this good while of shooting the Shrelayne foxes.

It is known now you'd do worse. Parties have seen your gamekeeper, going regular to meet the Saturday early train at Salters Hill Station, with your grey horse under a cart and your labels on the boxes, and we know as well as your agent in Cork what it is you have in those boxes. Be warned in time. Your well-wisher. I read this through twice before its drift became apparent, and I realised that I was accused of improving my shooting and my finances by the simple expedient of selling my foxes. That is to say, I was in a world.

worse position than if I had stolen a horse or murdered Mrs. Cadogan, or got drunk three times a week in Skiborne. For a few moments I fell into wild laughter, and then, aware that it was rather a bad business to let a lie of this kind get a start, I sat down to demolish the preposterous charges in a letter to Flurry Knox. Somehow, as I selected my sentences, it was borne in upon me that if the letters spoke the truth, circumstantial evidence was rather against me. Mere lofty repudiation would be unavailing, and by my infernal facetiousness about the woodcock, I had effectively filled in the case against myself. At all events, the first thing to do was to establish a basis, and have it out with Tim Connor. I rang the

bell. Peter, is Tim Connor about the place? He is not, sir. I heard him say he was going west the hill to mend the bound's fence. Peter's face was covered with soot. "'His eyes were red, and he coughed ostentatiously. "'The sweeps after breaking one of his brushes within your bedroom chimney, sir,' "'he went on, with all the satisfaction of his class in announcing domestic calamity, "'he is above on the roof now, and he'd be thankful to you to go up to him.' "'I followed him upstairs, in that state of simmering patience "'that any employer of Irish labour must know and sympathise with.

"'I climbed the rickety ladder, and squeezed through the dirty, trap-door, involved in the ascent to the roof, and was confronted by the hideous face of the sweep, black against the frosty blue sky. He had encamped with all his paraphernalia on the flat-top of the roof, and was good enough to rise and put his pipe in his pocket on my arrival. "'Good, marling, Major, that's a grand view you have up here,' said the sweep. He was evidently far too well-bred to talk-shop. I travelled every roof in the country, and there isn't one way you get as handsome a prospect. Theoretically, he was right,

but I had not come up to the roof to discuss scenery, and demanded brutally why he had sent for me. The explanation involved a recital of the special genius required to sweep the Shrelaan chimneys, of the fact that the sweep had in infancy been sent up and down every one of them by great-uncle McCarthy, of the three-assloads of soot that by his peculiar skill he had this morning taken from the kitchen chimney,

of its present purity, the draught being such that it would draw up a young cat with it. Finally, realising that I can endure no more, he explained that my bedroom chimney had got what he called a wind in it, and he proposed to climb a little way down in the stack to try would he get to come at the brush. The sweep was very small, the chimney very large. I stipulated that he should have a rope round his waist,

and despite the illegality I let him go. He went down like a monkey, digging his toes and fingers into the niches made for the purpose in the old chimney. Peter held the rope. I lit a cigarette and waited. Certainly the view from the roof was worth coming up to look at. It was rough, heathery country on one side, with a string of little blue lakes running like a turquoise necklet round the base of a furry hill, and patches of pale green pasture were set amidst the rocks and heather. The silvery flash behind the undulations of the hills Told where the Atlantic lay in immense plains of sunlight

I turned to survey with an owner's eye My own grey woods and straggling plantations of larch And despite a man coming out of the western wood He had something on his back And he was walking very fast A rabbit poacher, no doubt As he passed out of sight into the back avenue He was beginning to run

At the same instant I saw on the hill, beyond my western boundaries, half a dozen horsemen scrambling by zigzag ways down towards the wood. There was one red coat among them. It came first at the gap in the fence that Tim Connor had gone out to mend, and with the others was lost to sight in the cupboard, from which, in another instant, came clearly through the frosty air, a shout of, "'Gon to ground!' Tremendous horn-blowing followed. Then, all in the same moment, I saw the hounds break in full cry from the wood, and come stringing over the grass and up the back avenue towards the yard gate. Were they running a fresh fox into the stables?

I do not profess to be a hunting-man, but I am an Irishman, and so it is perhaps superfluous estate, is Peter. We forgot the sweep as if he had never existed, and precipitated ourselves down the ladder, down the stairs, out into the yard. One side of the yard is formed by the coach-house and a long stable, with a range of lofts above them. planned on the heroic scale in such matters that obtained in Ireland formerly. These join the house at the corner by the back door. A long flight of stone steps leads to the lofts, and up these, as Peter and I emerged from the back door,

the hounds were struggling, helter-skelter. Almost simultaneously there was a confused clatter of hooves in the back avenue, and Flurry Knox came stooping at a gallop under the archway, followed by three or four other riders. they flung themselves from their horses and made for the steps of the loft more hounds pressed yelling on their heels the din was indescribable and justified mrs godaggin's subsequent remark that when she heard the noise she thought it was the end of the world and the devil collecting his own i jostled in the wake of the party and found myself in the loft wading in hay and nearly deafened by the clamour that was banded about the high roof and walls at the farther end of the loft the house were raging in the hay, encouraged thereto by the hoops and screeches of Flurry and his friends. High up in the gable of the loft, when it joined the main wall of the house, there was a small door,

and I noted, with a transient surprise, that there was a long ladder leading up to it. Even as it caught my eyes, a hound fought his way out of a drift of hay, and began to jump at the ladder, throwing his tongue vociferously, and even clambering up a few rungs in his excitement. "'That's the way he's gone,' roared Flurry, "'striving through hounds and hay towards the ladder. "'Trumpeter has him. What's up there back of the door, Major? I don't remember it at all.' My crimes had evidently been forgotten in the supremacy of the moment. While I was futilely asserting that had the fox gone up the ladder,

he could not possibly have opened the door and shut it after him, even if the door led anywhere, which, at the best of my belief, it did not. The door in question opened, and to my amazement the sweep appeared at it. He gesticulated violently, and over the tumult was heard to assevate that there was nothing above there, only a way into the flu, and anyone would be destroyed with the soot. "'Ah, got a blaze with your soot!' interrupted Flurry, already halfway up the ladder. I followed him, the other men, pressing up behind me. That trumpeter had made no mistake, was instantly brought home to our noses by the reek of fox that met us at the door. Instead of a chimney, we found ourselves in a dilapidated bedroom full of people.

Tom Conner was there, the suite was there, and a squalid elderly man and woman on whom I had never set eyes before. There was a large open fireplace, black with a soot the sweep had brought down with him, and on the table stood a bottle of my own special Scotch-whisky. In one corner of the room was a pile of broken packing-cases, and beside these on the floor lay a bag. in which something kicked. Flurry, looking more uncomfortable and non-plussed than I could have believed possible, listened in silence to the ceaseless harangue of the elderly woman. The hounds were yelling like lost spirits in the loft below,

but her voice pierced the uproar like a bagpipe. It was an unspeakably vulgar voice, yet it was not the voice of a countrywoman, and there were frowsy remnants of respectability about her general aspect. "'And is it you, Flurry Knox, that's calling me a disgrace. "'Discraise, indeed, am I? "'Me that was your poor mother's own uncle's daughter, "'and as good a McCarthy as ever stood in Trelane.' "'What followed, I could not comprehend,

"'oing to the fact that the sweep kept up a perpetual undercurrent "'of explanation to me as how he had got down the wrong chimney. "'I noticed that his breath stank of whiskey, "'scotch, not the native variety. "'Never, as long as Flurry Knox lives to blow a horn, "'will he hear the last of the day "'that he ran his mother's first cousin to ground, in the attic. Never, while Mrs. Cadogan can hold a basting-spoon, will she cease to recount how,

on the same occasion, she plucked and roasted ten couple of woodcock in one torrid hour to provide luncheon for the hunt. In the glory of this achievement, her confederacy with the stowaways in the attic is wholly slurred over, in much the same manner, as the startling outburst of summons for trespass, brought by Tim Conner during the remainder of the shooting season, obscured the unfortunate episode of the bagged fox. It was, of course, zeal for my shooting that induced him to assist Mr. Knox's disreputable relations in the deportation of my foxes, and I have allowed it to remain at that. In fact, the only things not allowed to remain were Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy-Gannon. They, as my landlord informed me, in the midst of vast apologies, had been permitted to

squat at Shre Lane until my tenancy began, and having then ostentatiously and abusively left the house they had, with the connivance of the cadogan, secretly returned to roost in the corner attic, to sell foxes under the egos of my name, and to make inroads on my belongings. They retained connection with the outer world by means of the ladder and the loft, and with the house in general and my whiskey in particular, by a door into the other attics, a door concealed by the wardrobe in which reposed great-uncle McCarthy's tall hat. It is with the greatest regret that I relinquished the prospect of writing a monograph on Great Uncle McCarthy for a spiritualistic journal, but with the departure of his relations he ceased to manifest himself, and neither the nailing up of packing cases nor the rumble of the cart that took them to the station disturbed my sleep for the future. I understand that the task of clearing out the McCarthy-Gannon's effects

was of a nature that necessitated two glasses of whiskey per man, and if the remnants of rabbit and jackdore disintern in the process were anything like the crow that was thrown out of the window at my feet, I do not grudge the restorative. As Mrs. Godaghan remarked to the sweep, A Turk couldn't stand it. End of Chapter 1. This is a Librevox recording.

All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For further information, or to find out how you can volunteer, please go to Libravox.org, recording by Andy Minter. Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. By Edith, Inoni Somerville, and Martin Ross. Chapter 2. In the Curran Hilty Country It is hardly credible that I should have been induced to depart from my usual walk of life by a creature so uninspiring as the grey horse that I bought from Flurry Knox for twenty-five pounds.

Perhaps it was the monotony of being questioned by every other person with whom I had five minutes' conversation as to when I was coming out with the hounds, and being further informed that in the days when Captain Brown, the late Coast Guard officer, had owned the grey, there was not a fence between this and Mallow big enough to please them. At all events, there came an epoch-making day, and I mounted the Quaker, and presented myself at a meet of Mr. Knox's hounds. It is my belief that six out of every dozen people who go out hunting

are disagreeably conscious of a nervous system, and that two of the six are in what is brutally known as a blue funk. I was not in a blue funk, but I was conscious not only of a nervous system, but of the anatomical fact, that I possessed large, round legs, handsome in their way, even admirable in their proper sphere, but singularly ill-adapted for adhering to the slippery surface of a saddle. By a fatal intervention of Providence, the sport on this my first day in the hunting-field was such as I could have enjoyed from a bath-chair. The hunting-field was, on this occasion, a relative term, implying long stretches of unfenced moorland, and bog, anything in fact save a field. The hunt itself might also have been termed a relative

one, being mainly composed of Mr. Knox's relations in all degrees of cousinhood. It was a day when frost and sunshine combined went to one's head like ice champagne. The distant sea looked like the Mediterranean, and for four sunny hours the Knox relatives and I followed nine couple of hounds at a tranquil foot-pace along the hills, our progress mildly enlivened by one or two scrambles in the shape of jumps. At three o'clock I jogged home, and felt within me the newborn desire to brag to Peter Cadogan of the Quaker's doings, as I dismounted rather stiffly in my own yard. I little thought that the result would be that three weeks later I should find myself in a railway carriage at an early hour of a December morning, in

company with Flurry Knox and four or five of his clan, journeying towards an unknown town named Drunkurran, with an appropriate number of horses in boxes behind us, and a van full of hounds in front. Mr. Knox's hounds were on their way, by invitation, to have a day in the country of their neighbours, the Curran Hilty Harriers. And with amazing fortuity, I had allowed myself to be cajoled into joining the party. A northerly shower was striking in long spikes on the glass.

of the window. The atmosphere of the carriage was blue with tobacco smoke, and my feet, in a pair of new Blucher boots, had sunk into a species of Arctic sleep. "'Well, you got my letter about the dance at the hotel tonight,' said Flurry Knox, breaking off a whispered conversation with his amateur whip, Dr. Jerome Hickey, and sitting down beside me. "'And we're to go out with the Harry's to-day, and they were sure-fox for our hounds to-morrow. I tell you you'll have the best fun ever you had. It's great country to ride. Fine, honest banks that you can come racing at anywhere you like. Dr. Hickey, a saturnine young man, with a long nose and a black torpedo beard,

returned to his pocket the lancet, which he had been trimming his nails. They're like the Tipperary banks, he said. You climb down nine feet, and you fall the rest. It occurred to me that the Quaker and I would most probably for all the way, but I said nothing. "'I hear Tomsy Frudd has a good horse this season,' resumed Flurry. "'Then it's not the one you sold him,' said the doctor. "'I'll take my oath it's not,' said Flurry with a grin. "'I believe he has in for me still over that one.'

Dr. Jerome's moustache went up under his nose and showed his white teeth. Small blame to him. When you sold him a mare that was wrong of both her hind legs, "'Do you know what he did, Major Eates?' The mare was lame going into the fair, and he took the two hind shoes off her, and told poor flood that she'd kicked them off in the box, and that was why she was going tender,

and he was so drunk that he believed him. The conversation here deepened into the trackless obscurities of horse-deaning. I took out my stylograph pen, and finished a letter to Philippa, with the feeling that it would probably be my last. The next step in the day's enjoyment consisted in trotting in cavalcade through the streets of Drum Curran, with another northerly shower descending upon us, the mud splashing in my face, and my feet coming torturingly to life. Every man and boy in the town ran with us. The Harriers were somewhat in the tumultor head, and the Quaker began to pull and hump his back ominously. I arrived at the meet considerably heated, and found myself one of six.

some 30 or 40 riders, who with traps and bicycles and footpeople were jammed into the narrow, muddy road. We were late, and a move was immediately made across a series of grass fields, all considerably furnished with gates. There was a glacial gleam of sunshine, and people began to turn down the collars for their coats. As they spread over the field, I observed that Mr. Knox was no longer riding with old Captain Hancock, the master of the Harriers, but had attached himself to a square-shouldered young lady with effective coils of dark hair and a grey habit. She was riding a fidgety black mare with great decision and a not-disagreable smagger. It was at about this moment that the hounds began to run, fast and silently, and everyone began to canter.

"'This is nothing at all,' said Dr. Hickey, thundering alongside of me on a huge young chestnut. There might have been a hare here last week, or a red herring this morning. I wouldn't care if you only got what had warm us. For the matter of that, I'd as soon hunt a cat as a hare. I was already getting quite enough to warm me. The Quaker's respectable grey head had twice disappeared between his forelegs in a brace of most unsettling bucks,

and all my experiences at the riding school at Sandhurst did not prepare me for the sensation of jumping a briary wall with a heavy drop into a lane so narrow that each horse had to turn at right angles as he landed. I did not so take. but saved myself from entire disgrace by a timely clutch at the main. We scrambled out of the lane over a pile of stones and furs-brushes, and at the end of the next field were confronted by a tall stone-faced bank.

Everyone, always accepting myself, was riding with that furious valour which is so conspicuous when neighbouring hunts meet, and the leading half-dozen charged the obstacle at steeple-chaise speed. I caught a glimpse of the young lady in the grey honourable-chance speed. grey habit, sitting square and strong as her mare topped the bank, with Flurry and the redoubtable Mr. Tomsy flood riding on either hand. I followed in their wake, with a blind confidence in the Quaker, and none at all in myself. He refused it. I supposed it was in token of affection and gratitude that I fell upon his neck. At all events I had reason to respect his judgment. As before

I had recovered myself, the hounds were straggling back into the field by a gap lower down. It finally appeared that the hounds could do no more with the line they had been hunting, and we proceeded to jog interminably. I knew not with her. During this unpleasant process, Flurry Knox bestowed on me many items of information, chiefly as to the pangs of jealousy he was inflicting on Mr. Flood, by his attention to the lady in the grey habit, Miss Bobby Bennett. She'll have all old Hancock's money one of these days.

She's his niece, you know, and she's a good friend. good girl to ride, but she's not as young as she was ten years ago. You'll be looking at a chick in a long while before you thought of her. She might take Tomsy some day if she can't do any better. He stopped and looked at me with a gleam in his eye. Come on, and I'll introduce you to her. Before, however, this privilege could be mine, the whole cavalcade that was stopped by a series of distant yells, which apparently conveyed information to the hunt, though to me they only suggested a red Indian scalping his enemy. The yells travelled rapidly nearer, and a young man with a scarlet face and a long stick sprang upon the fence, and explained that he and Patsy

Lorry were after chasing a hare two miles down out of the hill above, and near a dog nor a one with them but themselves, and she was lying, beat out, under a bush, and Patsy Lorry was minding her until the hounds would come. I had a vision of the humane Patsy Lorry fanning the hair with his hat, but apparently nobody else found the fact unusual. The hounds were hurried into the fields, the hair was again spurred into action, and I was again confronted with the responsibilities of the chase. After the first five minutes I had discovered several facts about the Quaker. If the bank was above a certain height, he refused it, irrevocably.

If it accorded with his ideas, he got his forelegs over, and ploughed through the rest of it on his stupe. or if a gripe made this inexpedient, he remained poised on top till the fabric crumbled under his weight. In the case of walls, he butted them down with his knees, or squandered them with his hind legs. These operations took time, and the leaders of the hunt streamed farther and farther away over the crest of a hill, while the Quaker pursued at the equable gallop of a horse in the Bayeur tapestry. I began to perceive that I had been adopted as a pioneer by a small band of followers, who, as one of their number candidly explained, liked to have someone

ahead of them to soften the banks, and accordingly waited respectfully till the Quaker had made the rough places smooth, and taken the raw edge off the walls. They, in their turn, showed me alternative routes, when the obstacle proved above the Quaker's limit. Thus, in ignoble confederacy, I and the off-scarings of the Curranhilty hunt pursued our way across some four miles of country. When at last we parted, it was with extreme regret on both sides. A river crossed our course, with boggy banks, pitted deep with the hoof-marks of our forerunners.

I suggested it to the Quaker, and discovered that nature had not in vain endowed him with the hindquarters of the hippopotamus. I presume the others had jumped it. The Quaker, with abysmal floundrings, walked through and heaved himself to safety on the farther bank. It was the dividing of the ways. My friendly company turned aside as one man, and I was left with the world before me, and no guide save the hoofmarks in the grass. These presently led me to a road,

on the other side of which was a bank that was at once added to the Quaker's blacklist. The rain had again begun to fall heavily, and was soaking in about my elbows. I suddenly asked myself, why in heaven's name I should go any farther? No adequate reason. occurred to me, and I turned in what I believed to be the direction of Drum-Carran.

I rode on for possibly two or three miles without seeing a human being, until from the top of a hill I descried a solitary lady rider. I started in pursuit. The rain kept blurring my eyeglass, but it seemed to me that the rider was a school-girl with her hair hanging down her back, and that her horse was a trifle lame. I pressed on to ask my way, and discovered that I had been privileged, to overtake, no less a person, than Miss Bobby Bennett. My question as to the route led to information of a varied character. Miss Bennett was going that way herself.

Her mare had given her what she called a toss and a half, whereby she had strained her arm, and the mare her shoulder, her habit had been torn, and she had lost all her hairpins. "'I am an awful object,' she concluded. "'My hair's the plague of my life out hunting. I declare I wish to goodness I was bald.' I struggled to the level of the occasion with an appropriate protest. She had really very brilliant grey eyes, and her complexion was undeniable.

Philippa has since explained to me that it is a mere male fallacy that any woman can look well with her hair down her back, but I have always maintained that Miss Bobby Bennett, with the rain glistening on her dark tresses, looked uncommonly well. I shall never get it dry for the dance tonight, she complained. "'I wish I could help you,' said I. "'Perhaps you've got a hairpin or two about you,' said she, with a glance that had certainly done great execution before now. I disclaimed the possession of any such tokens, but volunteered to go and look for some at a neighbouring cottage.

The cottage door was shut, and my knockings were answered by a stupefied-looking elderly man. Conscious of my own absurdity, I asked him if he had any hairpins. "'I didn't see a hair this week,' he responded in a slow bellow. "'Hairpins!' I roared. "'Has your wife any hairpins?' "'She has not,' then as an afterthought.

"'She's dead these ten years.' At this point a young woman emerged from the cottage, and with many coy grins plucked from her own head some half-dozen hairpins, crooked and grey with age, but still hairpins, and, as such, well worth my shilling. I returned with my spoil to Miss Bennet, only to be confronted with the fresh difficulty. The arm that she had strained was too stiff to raise to her head.

Miss Bobby turned her handsome eyes upon me. "'It's no use,' she said plaintively. "'I can't do it.' I looked up and down the road. There was no one in sight. I offered to do it for her. Miss Bennet's hair was long, thick and soft. It was also slippess.

with rain. I twisted it conscientiously as if it were a hay-rope, until Miss Bennet, with an irrepressible shriek told me it would break off. I coiled the rope with some success, and proceeded to nail it to her head with the hair-pins. At all the most critical points, one, if not both of the horses, moved. Hairpins were driven home into Miss Bennet's skull, and were with difficulty plucked forth again. In fact, a more harrowing performance can hardly be imagined. But Miss Bennet, bore it with the heroism of a pincushion. I was putting the finishing touches to the coiffure, when some sound made me look round,

and I beheld, at a distance of some fifty yards, the entire hunt approaching us at a foot-pace. I lost my head, and instead of continuing my task, I dropped the last hair-pin as if it were red-hot, and kicked the Quaker away to the far side of the road, thus, if it were possible, giving the position away a shade more generously. There were fifty-five. riders in the group that overtook us, and fourteen of them, including the whip, were grinning from ear to ear.

The fifteenth was Mr. Tomsey Flood, and he showed no sign of appreciation. He shoved his horse past me and up to Miss Bennet, his red-mastash bristling, truculence in every outline of his heavy shoulders. His green coat was muddy, and his hat had a cave in it. Things had apparently gone ill with him. Flurry's witticisms held out for almost two miles and a half. I do not give them, because they were not amusing. But they all dealt ultimately with the animosity that I, in common with himself, should henceforth have to fear from Mr. Flood. Oh, he's a holy terror, he said conclusively.

He was riding the tails off the hounds today to beat me. He was near killing me twice. We had some words about it, I can tell you. I very nearly took my whip to him. "'such a bull-rider of a fellow I never saw. "'He wouldn't so much stop as to catch Bobby Bennet's horse "'when I picked her up, he was riding so jealous. "'His own girl, mind you.

"'And such a crumpler as she got, too. "'I declare she knocked a groan out of the road when she struck it. "'She doesn't seem so much hurt,' I said. "'Hurt,' said Flurry, flicking casually at a hound. "'You couldn't hurt that one unless she took a hatchet to her.' "'The rain had reached a pitch that put further hunting out of the question, and we bumped home at that intolerable pace known as a hound jog. I spent the remainder of the afternoon over a fire in my bedroom in the Royal Hotel

Drumcurran, official letters to write having mercifully provided me with an excuse for seclusion, while the bar and the billiard-room hummed below, and the Quakers' three-cornered gallop reeked its inevitable revenge upon my person. As this process continued, and I became proportionately embittered, I asked myself, not for the first time, what Philippa would say when introduced to my present circle of acquaintances. I have already mentioned that a dance was to take place at the hotel, given as far as I could gather by the leading lights of the Curranhilty Hunt.

A less jocund guest than the wreck who at the pastoral hour of nine crept stiffly down to chase the glowing hours with flying feet, can hardly have been encountered. The dance was held in the coffee-room, and a couple of. conspicuous object outside the door was a saucer-bath full of something that looked like flower. "'Dravjeet in that,' said Flurry. "'That's French chalk. "'They hadn't time to do the floor, so they hit on this dodge.' I complied with this encouraging direction, and followed him into the room.

Dancing had already begun, and the first sight that caught my eye was Miss Bennet, in a yellow dress, waltzing with Mr. Tomsey Flood. She looked very handsome, and in spite of her accident she was getting round. the sticky floor, and her still more sticky partner, with the swing of a racing-cutter. Her eye caught mine immediately, and with confidence. Clearly, our acquaintance that in the space of twenty minutes had blossomed tropically into hairdressing was not to be allowed to wither, nor was I myself allowed to wither. Men, known and unknown, plied me with partners, till my shirt-cuff was black with names,

and the number of dances stretched away into the blue distance of tomorrow morning. The music was supplied by the organist of the church, who played with religious unction, and at the pace of a processional hymn. I put forth into the melee with a junior Bennet, inferior in calibre to Miss Bobby, but a strong goer, and I fear made but a sorry debut in the eyes of Drunk Curran. At every other moment I bumped into the unforeseen orbits of those who reversed, and of those who walked their partners backwards down the room with faces of ineffable supremacy. Being unskilled in these intricacies

of an elder civilisation, the younger Miss Bennet fared but ingloriously at my hands. The music pounded interminably on, until the heel of Mr. Flood put a period to our sufferings. "'The nasty, dirty, filthy brute!' shrieked the younger Miss Bennet in a single breath. "'He's torn the gown off my back!' She whirled me to the cloak-room.

We parted, mutually unregreted at its door, and by, I fear, common consent, evaded a-and, our second dance together. Many, many times during the evening I asked myself why I did not go to bed. Perhaps it was the remembrance that my bed was situated some ten feet above the piano in a direct line. But whatever the reason, the night wore on, and found me still working my way down my shirt-cuff. I sat out as much as possible, and found my partners to be, as a body, pretty talkative and ill-dressed, and during the evening I had many and varied opportunities of observing the rapid progress of Mr. Knox's flirtation with Miss Bobby Bennett.

From number four to number eight they were invisible. That they were behind the screen in the commercial room might be inferred from Mr. Flood's thunder-cloud presence in the passage outside. At number nine the young lady emerged for one of her dances with me. It was a barn dance, and particularly trying to my momentless, stiffening. muscles. But Miss Bobby, whether in dancing or sitting out, went in for the rigour of the game. She was in as hard condition as one of her uncle's hounds, and for a full fifteen minutes I capered and swooped beside her, larding the lean earth as I went, and replying but spasmodically to her even flow of conversation.

"'That'll take the stiffness out of you,' she exclaimed, as the organists slowed down reverentially to a conclusion. "'I had a bit with Flurry Knox over that dance. you weren't up to my weight at the pace. I led her forth to the refreshment-table, and was watching with awe her fearless consumption of claret-cup that I would not have touched for a sovereign, when Flurry with the partner on his arm strolled past us. "'Well, you bun the gloves, Miss Bobby,' he said. "'Don't you wish you may get them?' "'Gloves without the G, Mr. Knox,' replied Miss Bennet, in a voice loud enough to catch the end of the passage,

where Mr Thomas Flood was burying his nose in a very brown whiskey and soda. "'Your hair's coming down,' retorted Flurry. "'Ask Major Leitz if he can spare you a few hairpins.' Swifter than lightning Miss Bennet hurled a macaroon at her retreating foe, missed him and subsided laughing onto a sofa. I mopped my brow and took my seat beside her, wondering how much longer I could live up to the social exigencies of Drum Curran. Miss Bennet, however, proved excellent company.

She told me artfully and inch by inch, all that Mr. Flood had said to her on the subject of my hairdressing. She admitted that she had as a punishment cut him out of three dances and given them to Flurry Knox. When I remarked that, in fairness, they should have been given to me, she darted a very attractive glance at me, and pertinently observed that I had not asked for them. As steals the dawn into a fevered room,

and says, Be of good cheer, the day is born. So did the rumour of supper passed among the chaperones, male and female. It was obviously due to a sense of the fitness of things that Mrs. Bennet was apportioned to me,

and I found myself in the gratifying position of heading with her the procession to supper. My impressions of Mrs. Bennet are few but salient. She wore an apple-green satin dress, and filled it tightly, wisely, wisely mistrusting the hotel-suffering the hotel supper she had imported sandwiches and cake in a pocket-handkerchief, and, warmed by two glasses of sherry, she made me the recipient of a remarkable confidence that she had but two

back teeth in her head, but thank God they met. When with the other starving men I fell upon the remains of the feast, I regretted that I had declined her offer of a sandwich. Of the the remainder of the evening I am unable to give a detailed account. Let it not for one instant be imagined that I had looked upon the wine of the Royal Hotel when it was red, or indeed any other colour. As a matter of fact, I had espied an inconspicuous corner in the entrance hall, and there I first smoked a cigarette, and subsequently sank into uneasy sleep. Through my dreams I was aware of the measured pounding of the piano, of the clatter of glasses at the bar, of wheels in the street, and then, more clearly, of Flurry's voice, assuring Miss Bennet, that if she'd only

wait for another dance, he'd get the RM out of bed to do her hair for her, and then again oblivion. At some later period I was dropping down a chasm on the Quaker's back, and landing with a shock. I was twisting his mane into a chignon, when he turned round his head and caught my arm in his teeth. I awoke with the dew of terror on my forehead, to find Miss Bennet leaning over me in a scarlet cloak with a hood over her head, and shaking me by my coat-sleeves. "'Mager Yeats,' she began at once in a hurried whisper, "'I hunt you to find Flurry Knox, "'and tell him there's a plan to feed his hounds at six o'clock in the morning,

"'so it's to spoil their hunting.' "'How do you know?' I asked, jumping up. "'My little brother told me. "'He came in with us to-night to see the dance, "'and he was hanging around in the stables, "'and he heard one of the men telling another there "'that was a dead mule in an outhouse in Bride's alley, "'all cut up ready to give to Mr. Knox's hounds.'

"'But why shouldn't they get it?' I asked, in sleepy stupidity. "'Is it to fill them up with an old mule? "'Just before they're going out hunting,' flashed Miss Bennet. "'Hurry and tell Mr. Knox, "'don't let Tomsey Flood see you telling him, or anyone else.' "'Oh, then it's Mr. Flood's game,' I said, "'grasping the situation at length.

"'It is,' said Miss Bennett, suddenly turning Scarlet. "'He's a disgrace. "'I'm ashamed of him. I'm done with him.' "'I resisted a strong disposition to shake Miss Bennett by the hand. "'I can't wait,' she. she continued. "'I made my mother drive back a mile. She doesn't know a thing about it. I said I'd left my purse in the co-cru. "'Good-night. Don't tell a soul but Flurry.' She was off, and upon my incapable shoulders rested the responsibility of the enterprise. It was just past four o'clock, and the last bars of the last waltz were being played. At the bar, a knot of men with Flurry in their midst were tossing, odd man out for a bottle of champagne. Flurry was not in the least. Flurry was not in the least.

drunk, a circumstance worthy of remark in his present company, and I got him out into the hall and unfolded my tidings. The light of battle lit in his eye as he listened. "'I knew Tonsie was shaping for a mischief,' he said Cooldie. He's taken as much liquor as'll stiffen a tinker, and he's only half-drunk this minute. Hold on till I get Jerome Hickey and Charlie Knox. They're sober. I'll be back in a minute. I was not present at the Council of thus hurriedly convened, I was merely informed when they returned that we were all to hurry on. My best evening pumps have never recovered from the subsequent proceedings. They, with my swelled and aching feet inside them, were raced down one filthy lane after another,

until somewhere, on the outskirts of Drumcurran, a flurry pushed open the gate of a yard and went in. It was nearly five o'clock on that raw December morning, low down in the sky, a hazy moon, she had a diffused light. All the surrounding houses were still and dark. At our footsteps, an angry bark or two came from inside the stable. "'Wish'd said Flurry. I say a word to them, before I open the door.' At his voice a chorus of hysterical welcome arose. Without more delay he flung open the stable door,

and instantly we were all knee-deep in a rush of hounds. There was not a moment lost. Flurry started at a quick run out of the yard, with the whole pack pattering at his heels. "'Charlie Knox vanished. "'Dr. Hickie and I followed the hounds, "'splashing into puddles and hobbling over patches of broken stones, "'till we left the town behind, and hedges arose on either hand.

"'Here's the house,' said Flurry, stopping short at a low entrance gate. "'Mendies the time I've been here when his father had it. "'This'll be a queer thing if I can't find a window I can manage. "'And the old cookie has it's as deaf as the dead.' "'He and Dr. Hickey went in at the gate with the hounds. I hesitated ignobly in the mud. "'This isn't an R. M's job,' said Flurry in a whisper, closing the gate in my face. "'You'd better keep clear of house-breaking.'

I accepted his advice, but I may admit that before I turned for home, a sash was gently raised. A light had sprung up in one of the lower windows, and I heard Flurry's voice saying, "'Over, over, over to his hounds!' There seemed to me to be no interval at all between these events, moment when I woke in bright sunlight to find Dr. Hickey standing by my bedside in a red coat with a tall glass in his hand. It's nine o'clock, he said. I'm just after waking bloody knocks. There wasn't one stirring in the hotel till I went down and pulled the boots from under the kitchen table. It's well for us the meats in the town, and by the by, your grey horse has

four legs on him the size of bolsters this morning. He won't be fit to go out, I'm afraid. Drink this anyway. You'll run the want of it. Dr Hickey's eyelids were rather pink, but his hand was as steady as a rock. The whisky and soda was singularly unempting. What happened last night? I asked eagerly as I gulped it. Oh, it all went off very nicely, thank you, said Hickey, twisting his black beard to a point.

We benched as many of the hounds in Flood's bed as had fit, and we shut the lot into the room. We had them just comfortable when he heard his latch-key below at the door. He broke off and began to snigger. "'Well?' I said, sitting bolt upright. "'Well, he got in at last, and he lit a candle then. "'That took him five minutes. "'He was pretty tight.

"'We were looking at him over the banisters "'until he started to come up, "'and according as he came up, "'we went on up the top flight. "'He stood admiring his candle for a while on the landing, "'and we wondered he didn't hear the hound snuffling under the door. "'He opened it then, and on the minute three of them bolted out between his legs.' dr hickie again paused to indulge in mephistopholeon laughter well you do he went on when the man in poor tom's condition sees six dogs jumping out of his bed he's up to make a wrong diagnosis

he gave a roar and pitched the candlestick at them and ran for his life downstairs and all the hounds after him gone away screeches that devil flurry pelting downstairs on top of em in the dark i believe i screeched too good heavens i gasped i was wretched well out of that. Well, he were, admitted the doctor. However, Tomsy bested them in the dark, and he got to ground in the pantry. I heard the cups and saucers go as he slammed the door on the hound's noses, and the minute he was in,

Flurry turned the key on him. "'They are real dogs, Tommy, my buck,' said Flurry, just to quiet him, and there we left him. "'Was he hurt?' I asked, conscious of the triviality of the question. Well, he lost his brush, "'Push,' replied Dr. Hickey.

"'Old merry-legs tore the coltails off him. "'We got them on the floor when we struck a light. "'Flurry has them to nail on his kennel-door. "'Charlie Knox had a pleasant time, too,' he went on, "'with the man that brought the barrel-load of meat to the stable. "'We picked out the tastiest bits, "'and arranged them round Flood's breakfast-table for him. "'They smelt very nice.

"'Well, I'm delaying you with my talking.' "'Flurry's hounds had the run of the season that day. I saw it admirably throughout, from Miss Bennet's pony-cart. She drove extremely well in spite of her strained arm. End of Chapter 2. This is a Librivox recording. All Librebox recordings are in the public domain. For further information, or to find out how you can volunteer,

please go to Librevox.org. Recording by Andy Minter Some Experiences of an Irish R. M. by Edith Enone Somerville and Martin Ross. Chapter 3. Trinkets Cult It was Petty Sessions Day in Skibourne, a cold grey day of February. A case of trespass had dragged its burden of cross-summonses and cross-swearing far into the afternoon, and when I left the bench, my head was singing from the bellowings of the attorneys,

and the smell of their clients was heavy upon my palate. The streets still testified to the fact that it was market-day, and I evaded, with difficulty, the sinuous course of carts full of suddenly screwed people, and steered an equally devious one for myself among the groups anchored round the doors of the public houses. Skiborne possesses, among its legion of public houses, one establishment, which timorously, and almost imperceptibly,

proffers tea to the third. I turned in there, as was my custom on court days, and found the little dingy den, known as the lady's coffee-room, in the occupancy of my friend Mr. Florence McCarthy Knox, who was drinking strong tea and eating buns with serious simplicity. It was a first and quite unexpected glimpse of that domesticity that has now become a marked feature of his character. "'You're the very man I wanted to see,' I said as I sat down beside him at the oil-cloth-covered table. A man I know in England, who is not much of a judge of character, has asked me to buy him a four-year-old down here, and as I should rather be stuck by a friend than a dealer, I wish you'd take over the job.' Flurry poured himself out another cup of tea, and dropped three lumps of sugar into it in silence. Finally, he said,

There isn't a four-year-old in this country that I'd be seen dead with at a pig fare. This was discouraging from the Premier Authority on horse-flesh in the district. But it isn't six weeks since you told me you had the finest filly in your stables that was ever folled in the county cork, I protested.

What's wrong with her? Oh, is it that filly? said Mr. Knox, with a lenient smile. She's gone these three weeks from me. I swapped her and six years. pounds for a three-year-old ironmonger colt, and after that I swapped the colt and nineteen pounds for that bandon horse I rode last week at your place. And after that again, I sold the bandon horse for seventy-five pounds to old wealthy, and I had to give him back a couple of sovereign's luck money. You see, I did pretty well with the filly, after all.

Yes, yes, oh, rather, I assented, as one dizzily accepts the propositions of a bimetallist, and you don't know of anything else? The room in which we were seated was closely screened from the shop by a door with a muslin-covered window in it. Several of the panes were broken, and at this juncture two voices that had for some time carried on a discussion forced themselves upon our attention. "'Megging your pardon for contradicting, Imam,' said the voice of Mrs. MacDonald, proprietress of the tea-shop, and a leading light in Skiborne dissenting circles, shrilly tremulous with indignation. "'If the servants I recommend you won't stop with you, it's no fault of mine. If respectable young girls are set picking grut out of your gravel, in trace of their proper work, certainly they will give warning.'

The voice that replied struck me as being a notable one, well-bred and imperious. "'When I take a bare-footed slut out of a cabin, I don't expect her to dictate to me what her duties are.' Flurry jerked up his chin in a noiseless laugh. "'It's my grandmother,' he whispered. "'I bet you Mrs. MacDonald doesn't get much change out of her.' "'If I set her to clean the pig-stire, I expect her to obey me,' continued the voice in accents that would have made me clean forty pig-stires, and she desired me to do so.

"'Very well, ma'am,' retorted Mrs. MacDonald, "'if that's the way you treat her servants, you needn't come here again looking for them. "'I consider your conduct is neither that of a lady nor a Christian.' "'Don't you indeed?' replied Flurry's grandmother. "'Well, your opinion doesn't greatly distress me. "'For to tell you the truth, I don't think you're much of a judge.' "'Didn't I tell you she'd score?' murmured Flurry, "'who was by this time applying his eye to a hole in the muslin curtain.

"'She's off,' he went on, returning to his tea. "'She's a great character. She's eighty-three if she's a day, "'and she's a sound on her legs as a three-year-old. "'Did you see that old Shandridan of hers in the street a while ago, and a fellow on the box with a red beard on him like Robinson Crusoe. That old mare that was on the near side, Trinket, her name is. His mighty near clean bread. I can tell you her fools are worth a bit of money.

I had heard of old Mrs. Knox of Orseless. Indeed, I had seldom dined out in the neighbourhood, without hearing some new story of her and her remarkable menage. But it had not yet been my privilege to meet her. "'Well, now,' went on Flurry in his slow voice. "'I'll tell you a thing that's just come into my head. My grandmother promised me a foal of trinkets the day I was one and twenty, and that's five years ago, and you so one I've got from her yet.

You never were at Osiras. No, you were not. Well, I tell you, the place there is like a circus with horses. She has a couple of score of them running wild in the woods like deer. Oh, come,' I said. I'm a bit of a liar myself. Well, she has a dozen of them. "'Anyhow, battling good Colts, too, some of them.

"'But they might as well be donkeys, for all the good they are to me or anyone. "'It's not once in three years she sells one, "'and there she has them walking after her for bits of sugar, "'like a lot of dirty lap-dogs,' ended Flurry with disgust. "'Well, what's your plan? Do you want me to make her a bid for one of the lap-dogs?' "'I was thinking,' replied Flurry, with great deliberation, "'that my birthday's this week. "'And maybe I could work a four-year or,

old colt of trinkets she has out of her in order of the occasion, and sell your grandmother's birthday present to me?' "'Just that, I suppose,' answered Flurry with a slow wink. A few days afterwards a letter from Mr. Knox informed me that he had squared the old lady, and it would be all right about the cult. He further told me that Mrs. Knox had been good enough to offer me, with him, a day's snipe-shooting on the celebrated Osolus Boggs, and he proposed to drive me there the following Monday, if convenient. Most people found it convenient to shoot the orseless night-bog when they got the chance. Eight o'clock on the following Monday morning saw Flurry, myself and a groom packed into a dog-cart,

with portmanteau, gun-cases, and two rampant red-setters. It was a long drive, twelve miles at least, and a very cold one. We passed through long tracts of pasture country, fraught for Flurry with memories of runs, which were recorded for me, fence by fence, in every one of which the biggest dog-fox in the country had gone to ground, with not two feet measured accurately on the handle of the whip, between him and the leading hound, through bogs that imperceptibly melted into lakes, and finally down and down into a valley, where the fir-trees of Osolus clustered darkly round a glittering lake, and all but hid the grey roofs and pointed gables of Osolus Castle.

There's a nice stretch of a demean for you. remarked Flurry, pointing downwards with the whip, and one little old woman holding it all in the heel of her fist. Well able to hold it she is too, and always was. And she'll live twenty years yet, if it's only to spite the whole lot of us, and when all said and done goodness knows how she'll leave it. It strikes me that you were lucky to keep her up to her promise about the cold,

I said. Flurry administered a composing kick to the ceaseless strivings of the red setters under the seat. "'I used to be rather a pet with her,' he said, after a pause. "'But mind you, I haven't got him yet. "'And if she gets any notion I want to sell him, I'll never get him, "'so say nothing about the business to her.' The tall gates of Osolus shrieked on their hinges as they admitted us, and shut with a clang behind us,

in the faces of an old mare and a cuttle of young horses, who foiled in their break for the excitements of the outer world, turned and galloped defiantly on either side of us. Flurray's admirable Cobb, hammered on, regardless of all things, save his duty. "'He's the only one I have that I'd trust myself here with,' said his master, flicking him approvingly with the whip. "'There are plenty of people afraid to come here at all. And when my grandmother goes out driving, she has a boy in the box with a basket full of stones to peg at them.'

"'Tog of the Dickens, here she is herself.' A short, upright old woman was approaching, preceded by a white-woolie dog with sore eyes and a bark like a tin trumpet. We both got out of the trap and advanced to meet the Lady of the Manor. I may summarise her attire by saying that she looked as if she had robbed a scarecrow. Her face was small and incongruously refined. The skinny hand that she extended to me had the grubby tan that bespoke the professional gardener, and was decorated with a magnificent diamond ring. On her head was a massive purple velvet bonnet. "'I am very glad to meet you, Major Yates,' she said, with an old-fashioned precision of utterance.

"'Your grandfather was a dancing partner of mine in the old days at the castle, when he was a handsome young aide-de-cant there, and I was—' "'You may judge for yourself what I was?' She ended with a startling little hoot of laughter, and I was aware that she quite realised the world's opinion of her, and was indifferent to it. Our way to the bogs took us across Mrs. Knox's home farm, and through a large field in which several young horses were grazing. "'Dear now, that's my fellow,' said Flurry, pointing to a fine-looking colt,

the chestnut with the white diamond on his forehead. He'll run into three figures before he's done, but we'll not tell that to the old lady. The famous, alsoless bogs were as full of snipe as usual, and a great deal fuller of water than any bogs I had ever shot before. i was on my day and flurry was not and as he is ordinarily an infinitely better snipe-shot than i i felt at peace with the world and all men as we walked back wet through at five o'clock the sunset had waned and a big white moon was making the eastern tower of orselas look like a thing in a fairy tale or a play when we arrived at the hall door an individual whom i recognised as the robinson crusoe coachman admitted us to a hall the like of which was a play when we arrived at the hall which was a hall which we arrived at the hall which we arrived at the hall which we arrived at the hall which we had arrived at the hall which we had arrived at the hall the little one does not often see. The walls were panelled with dark oak up to the gallery that ran round

three sides of it. The balusters of the wide staircase were heavily carved, and blackened portraits of Flurry's ancestors on the spindle-side stared sourly down on their descendant as he tramped upstairs with the bog-mould on his hob-nailed boots. We had just changed into dry clothes, when Robinson Crusoe shoved his red beard round the corner of the door, with the information that the mistress said we were to stay for dinner. My heart sank. It was then barely half-past five. I said something about having no evening clothes, and having to get home early. Sure, the dinner will be in another half-hour, said Robinson Crusoe, joining hospitably in the conversation, and as for evening-clothes. God bless ye! The door closed behind him. Never mind, said Flurry.

A dear sea, you'll be glad enough to wait another dinner by the time you get home. He laughed. "'Poor Slipper,' he added inconsequently, and only laughed again when I asked for an explanation. Old Mrs. Knox received us in the library, where she was seated by a roaring turf fire, which lit the room a good deal more effectively than the pair of candles that stood beside her in tall silver candlesticks. Ceaseless and implacable growls from under her chair indicated the presence of the woolly dog. She talked with confounding culture of the books that rose all around the round. her to the ceiling. Her evening dress was accomplished by means of an additional white shawl, rather dirtier than its congenres. As I took her into dinner, she quoted Virgil to me,

and in the same breath screeched an objurgation at a being whose matted head rose suddenly into view from behind an ancient Chinese screen, as I have seen the head of a Zulu woman peer over a bush. Dinner was as incongruous as everything else. Detestable soup, in a splendid old silver tureen that was nearly as dark in hue as Robinson Crusoe's thumb, a perfect salmon, perfectly cooked, on a chipped kitchen dish, and cut glass, as is not easy to find nowadays. Sherry, that has Flurry subsequently remarked would burn the shell off an egg, and a bottle of port draped in immemorial cobwebs, one with age and probably priceless. Throughout the vicissitudes of the meal, Mrs. Knox's conversation flowed on undismayed,

directed sometimes at me, she had installed me in the position of friend of her youth, and talked to me as if I were my own grandfather, sometimes at Crusoe, with whom she had several heated arguments, and sometimes she would make a statement of remarkable frankness on the subject of her horse-farming affairs to Flurry, who, very much on his best behaviour, agreed with all she said, and risk no original remark. As I listened to them both, I remembered with infinite amusement

how he had told me once that a pet name she had for him was Tony Lumpkin, and that no one but herself knew what she meant by it. It seemed strange that she made no allusion to trink its cold, or to Flurry's birthday, but, mindful of my instructions, I held my peace. As at about half-past eight we drove away in the moonlight, Flurry congratulated me solemnly on my success with his grandmother. He was good enough to tell me that she would marry me to-morrow, if I asked her, and he wished I would, even it was only to see what a nice grandson he'd be

for me. A sympathetic giggle behind me, told me that Michael on the back seat had heard and relished the jest. We had left the gates of Orselaus about half a mile behind, when, at the corner of a by-road, Flurry pulled up. A short, squat figure arose from the black shadow of a firze-bush, and came out into the moonlight, swinging its arms like a cabman, and cursing audibly. "'Oh, mother, oh mother, Mr. Flurry! "'What kept you at all? "'Tot perish the crows to be waiting here the way I am these two hours.' "'Ah, shut your mouth, Slipper,' said Flurry.

"'Who, to my surprise, had turned back the rug, "'and was taking off his driving-coat? "'I couldn't help it. "'Come on, Yeats. We've got to get out here.' "'What for?' I asked, in not unnatural bewilderment. "'It's all right. "'I'll tell you as we go along,' replied my companion, "'who was already turning to follow Slipper up the by-road.'

take the trap on michael and wait at rivers cross he waited for me to come up with him and then put his hand on my arm you see major this is the way it is my grandmother's given me that coltrite enough but if i waited for her to send him over to me i'd never see a hair of his tail so we just thought that as we were over here we might as well take him back with us and maybe you'll give us a help with him he'll not be altogether too handy for a first go off i was staggered an infant in arms could scarcely have failed to discern the fyshiness of the transaction and i begged mr knox not to put himself to this trouble on my account as i had no doubt i could find a horse for my friend elsewhere mr knox assured me but it was no trouble at all quite the contrary and that since his grandmother had given him the cold he saw no reason why he should not take him when he wanted him also that if i didn't want him he'd be glad enough to keep him himself and finally that i wasn't the chap to go back on a friend but i was welcome to drive back to shrelayne with michael this minute if i liked of course i yielded in the end i told flurry that i should lose my job over the business and he said i could then marry his grandmother and the discussion was abruptly closed by the necessity of following slepper over a locked five-barred gate our pioneer took us over about half a mile of country knocking down stone gaps where practicable and scrambling over to the same way practicable and scrambling over to the same way of the road of the country and scrambling over to tall banks in the deceptive moonlight. We found ourselves at length in a field with a shed in one corner of it, in a dim group of farm buildings a little way off, a light was shining.

"'Wait here,' said Flurry to me in a whisper, "'the less nice the better, it's an open shed, and we'll just step in and coax him out.' Slipper unwarned from his waist, a halter, and my colleagues glided like specters into the shadow of the shed, leaving me to meditate on my duties as resident magistrate. and on the questions that would be asked in the house by our local member when slipper had given away the adventure in his cups in less than a minute three shadows emerged from the shed where two had gone in they had got the colt he came out as quiet as a calf when he winded the sugar said flurry it was well for me i filled my pockets from my grandmother's sugar basin he and slipper had a rope from each side of the colt's head they took him quickly across a field towards a gate The colt stepped daintily between them over the moonlit grass. He snorted occasionally, but appeared on the whole amenable.

The trouble began later, and was due, as trouble often is, to the beguilements of a short cut. Against the maturer judgment of Slipper, Flurry insisted on following a route that he assured as he knew as well as his own pocket, and the consequence was that in about five minutes I found myself standing on top of a bank, hanging onto a rope, on the other end of which the colt dangled and danced, while flurry with the other rope lay prone in the ditch, and slipper administered to the bewildered Coates' hindquarters such chastisement as could be mentioned on. I have no space to narrate in detail the atrocious difficulties and disasters of the short cut, how the cult set to work to buck and went across a field dragging the faithful slipper,

literally van Tartier, after him, while I picked myself in ignomion. out of a briar-patch, and Flurry cursed himself black in the face. How we were attacked by ferocious cur-dogs, and I lost my eyeglass, and how, as we neared the river's cross, Flurry espied the police patrol on the road, and we all hid behind a rick of turf, while I realised in fullness what an exceptional ass I was to have been beguiled into an enterprise that involved hiding with slipper from the Royal Irish Constabulary. Let it suffice to say that Trinket's infernal offspring was finally handed over on the highway to Michael and Slipper, and Flurry drove me home in a state of mental and physical overthrow.

I saw nothing of my friend Mr. Knox for the next couple of days, by the end of which time I had worked up a high polish on my misgivings, and had determined to tell him that under no circumstances would I have anything to say to his grandmother's birthday present. It was like my usual luck that, instead of writing a note to this, if I was a effect, I thought it would be good for my liver to walk across the hills to Tory Cottage and tell Flurry so in person. It was a bright, blustery morning, after a muggy day. The feeling of spring was in the air, the daffodils were already in bud, and crocuses showed purple in the grass on either side of the avenue. It was only a couple of miles to Tory Cottage by way across the hills. I walked fast, and it was barely twelve o'clock when I saw its pink walls and clumps of the clumps of evergreens below me. As I looked down at it, the chiming of Flurry's hounds in the kennels came to me on the wind. I stood still to listen, and could almost have sworn that

I was hearing again the clash of Maudlin bells hard at work on May morning. The path that I was following led downwards through a larch plantation to Flurray's back gate. Hot wafts of some hideous cauldron at the other side of the wall apprised me of the vicinity of the kennels and their cuisine, and the fir-trees round were hung with gruesome and unknown joints. I thanked heaven that I was not a master of hounds, and passed on as quickly as might be to the hall door. I rang two or three times without response. Then the door opened a couple of inches, and was instantly slammed in my face.

I heard the hurried paddling of bare feet on oil-cloth, and a voice, "'Hurry, Bridgy, hurry! That's quality at the door!' bridgie holding a dirty cap on with one hand presently arrived and informed me that she believed mr knox was out about the place she seemed perturbed and she cast scared glances down the drive while speaking to me i knew enough of flurry's habits to shape a tolerably direct course for his whereabouts he was as i had expected in the training paddock a field behind the stable yard in which he had put up practice jumps for his horses it was a good-sized field with clumps of furs in it, and Flurry was standing near one of these with his hands in his pockets, singly unoccupied. I supposed that he was prospecting for a place to put up another jump. He did not see me coming, and turned with a start as I spoke to him.

There was a queer expression of mingled guilt, and what I can only describe as divilment, in his grey eyes as he greeted me. In my dealings with Flurry Knox, I have since formed the habit of sitting tight in a general way, when I see that expression. "'Well, who's coming next, I wonder,' he said, as he shook hands with me. "'It's not ten minutes since I had two of your damned pealers here, searching the whole place from my grandmother's colt.' "'What?' I exclaimed, feeling cold all down my back.

"'Do you mean the police have got hold of it?' "'They haven't got hold of the colt anyway,' said Flurry, looking sideways at me from under the peak of his cap, with the glint of the sun in his eye. "'I got worried in time before they came. "'What do you mean?' I demanded. "'Where is he? For heaven's sake, don't tell me you've sent the brute over to my place.' "'It's a good job for you. I didn't,' replied Flurry.

"'As the police are on their way to Sri Loh on this minute to consult you about it?' "'You?' He gave utterance to one of his short, diabolical fits of laughter. "'He's where they'll not find him anyhow.' "'Oh, it's the funniest hand I ever played.' "'Oh, yes, it's devilish funny. I've no doubt,' I retorted, beginning to lose my temper, as is the manner of many people when they're frightened. But I give you fair warning that if Mrs. Knox asks me any questions about it,

I shall tell her the whole story.' "'All right,' responded Flurry. "'And when you do, don't forget to tell her how you flogged the colt out onto the road over her own-bound's ditch.' "'Very well,' I said hotly. "'I may as well go home and send in my papers. They'll break me over this.' "'Ah, hold on, Major,' said Flurry soothingly. "'It'll be all right.

Nobody knows anything.' it's only on speck the old lady sent the bobby's here if you'll keep quiet it'll all blow over i don't care i said struggling hopelessly in the toils if i meet your grandmother and she asks me about it i shall tell her all i know please god you'll not meet her after all it's not more than once in a blue moon that she began flurry even as he said the words his face changed holy fly he ejaculated isn't that her dog coming into the field look at her bonnet over the wall "'Haid, hide for your life!' He caught me by the shoulder, and shoved me down among the firs-bushes before I realised what had happened. "'Get in there. I'll talk to her.' I may as well confess that at the mere sight of Mrs. Knox's purple bonnet, my heart had turned to water. In that moment I knew what it would be like to tell her how I, having eaten her salmon and capped her quotations, and drunk her best port, had gone forth and helped to steal her horse.

I abandoned my dignity, my sense of honour. I took the first prickles to my breast and wallowed in them. Mrs. Knox had advanced with vengeful speed. Already she was in high altercation with Flurry at no great distance from where I lay. Varying sounds of battle reached me, and I gathered that Flurry was not, to put it mildly, shrinking from that economy of truth that the situation required. Is it that Kirby, long-backed brute? You promised him to me a long time ago, but I wouldn't be bothered.

the old lady uttered a laugh of shrill derision. "'Is it likely I'd promise you my best cult, and still more, is it likely that you'd refuse him if I did?' "'Very well, ma'am,' Flurry's voice was admirably indignant. "'Then I suppose I'm a liar and a thief.' "'I'd be more obliged to the information if I hadn't known it before,' responded his grandmother with lightning speed. "'If you swore to me on a stack of Bibles you knew nothing about my cult, I wouldn't

believe you. I shall go straight to Major Yates and ask his advice. I believe him to be a gentleman, in spite of the company he keeps. I writhed deeper into the fir's bushes, and thereby discovered a sandy rabbit run, along which I crawled with my cap well over my eyes, and the fur's needles stabbing me through my stockings. The ground shelved a little, promising profound a concealment, but the bushes were very thick, and I laid hold of the bare stem of one to help my progress. It lifted out of the ground in my hand, revealing a freshly cut stump. Something snorted, not a yard away. I glared through the opening, and was confronted by the long, horrified face of Mrs. Knox's colt, mysteriously on a level with my own. Even without the white diamond on his

forehead I should have divined the truth, but how, in the name of wonder, had Flurry persuaded him to couch like a woodcock in the heart of a furze-break. For a full minute I lay as still as death for fear of frightening him, while the voices of Flurry and his grandmother raged on alarmingly close to me. The Colt snorted, and blew long breaths through his wide nostrils, but he did not move. I crawled an inch or two nearer, and after a few seconds of cautious peering, I grasped the position.

They had buried him. A small sand-pit among the firs had been utilised as a grave. They'd have filled him in up to his withers with sand, and a few firs-bushes artistically disposed round the pit had done the rest. As the depths of Flurry's guile was revealed, laughter came on me like a flood. I gurgled and shut apoplectically, and the colt gazed at me with serious surprise,

until a sudden outburst of barking close to my elbow administered a fresh shock to my tottering nerves. Mrs. Knox's woolly dog had tracked me into the furs, and was now baying the colt and me with mingled terror and indignation. I addressed him in a whisper, and with perfidious endearments, advancing a crafty hand towards him the while, made a snatch for the back of his neck, missed it badly, and got him by the ragged fleece of his hindquarters as he tried to flee. If I had flayed him alive he could hardly have uttered a more deafening series of yells, but like a fool, instead of letting him, him go, I dragged him towards me, and tried to stifle the noise by holding his muzzle. The tussle lasted engrossingly for a few seconds, and then the climax of the nightmare arrived. Mrs. Knox's voice, close behind me, said,

"'Let go of my dog this minute, sir! Who are you?' Her voice faded away, and I knew that she also had seen the Colt's head. I positively felt sorry for her. At her age there was no knowing what if the shock might have on her. I scrambled to my feet and confronted her. "'Major Yeats,' she said. There was a deathly pause. "'Will you kindly tell me?' said Mrs. Knox, slowly. "'Am I in bedlam, or are you? And what is that?' she pointed to the colt, and that unfortunate animal, recognising the voice of his mistress, uttered a hoarse and lamentable

Winnie. Mrs. Knox felt around her for support, found only furze-prickles, gazed speechlessly at me, and then, to her eternal honour, fell into wild cackles of laughter. So, I may say, did Flurry and I. I embarked on my explanation, and broke down. Flurry followed suit and broke down, too. Overwhelming laughter held us all three, disintegrating our very souls. "'Mrs. Knox pulled herself together first. "'I acquit you, Major Yates. "'I acquit you, though appearances are against you. "'It's clear enough to me you've fallen amongst thieves.'

"'She stopped and glowered at Flurry. "'Her purple bonnet was over one eye. "'I'll thank you, sir,' she said, "'to dig out that horse before I leave this place. "'And when you've dug him out, you may keep him. "'I'll be no receiver of stolen goods.' She broke off and shook her fist at him. "'Upon my conscience, Tony, I'd give a guinea to have thought of it myself.'

End of Chapter 3. This is a Librevox recording. All Librebox recordings are in the public domain. For further information, or to find out how you can volunteer, please go to Librevox.org. Recording by Andy Minter Some Experiences of an Irish R. M. by Edith, Enone Somerville, and Martin Ross.

Chapter 4. The Waters of Strife I knew Bat Callaghan's face long before I was able to put a name to it. There was seldom a court day in Skiborne that I was not aware of his level brows and superfluously intense expression, somewhere among the knot of Corner Boys, who patronised the weekly city. of the bench of magistrates. His social position appeared to fluctuate. I have seen him driving a car. He sometimes held my horse for me.

That is to say, he sat on the counter of a public house, while the Quaker slumbered in the gutter. And on one occasion he retired at my bidding to court jail, there to meditate upon the inadvisability of defending a friend from the attention of the police with the tailboard of a cart. He next obtained prominence in my regard at a regatta held under the auspices of The Sons of Liberty, a local football club that justified its title by the Patriot Green of its

jerseys and its free interpretation of the rules of the game. The announcement of my name on the posters as a patron, a privilege acquired at the cost of a reluctant half-sovereign, made it incumbent on me to put in an appearance, even though the festival coincided with my petty sessions day at Skiborne, and at some five of the clock, on a brilliant September afternoon, I found myself driving down the stony road that dropped in zigzags to the borders of the lake, on which the races were to come off.

I believe that the selection of Loch Lohnen, as the scene of the regatta, was not unconnected with the fact that the secretary of the club owned a public house at the crossroads at one end of it. Nonetheless, the President of the Royal Academy could scarcely have chosen more picturesque surroundings. A mountain towered steeply up from the lake's edge, dark with the sad green of beech-trees in September, fir-woods followed the curve of the shore, and leaned far over the answering darkness of the water, and above the trees rose the toppling steepnesses of the hill, painted with a purple glow of heather.

The lake was about a mile long, and, tumbling from its farther end, a fierce and narrow river fled away west to the sea, some four or five miles off. I had not seen a boat race since I was at Oxford, and the words still called up before my eyes a vision of smart parasols, of gorgeous barges, of snowy-clad youths, and of low, slim, outriggers, winged with the level flight of oars, slitting the water to the sway of the line of flat backs. certainly undreamed of possibilities in aquatics were revealed to me as i reigned in the quaker on the outskirts of the crowd and saw below me the festival of the suns of liberty in full swing boats of all shapes and sizes outrageously overladen moved about the lake with oars flourishing to the strains of concertinas black swarms of people seethed along the water's edge congesting here and there round the dingy tents and stalls of green apples and a club's celebrated brass band, enthroned in a wagonette, and stimulated by the presence of a barrel of porter on the box-seat, was belching forth the boys of Wexford, under the guidance of a disreputable ex-milicia drummer,

in a series of crashing discords. Almost as I arrived, a pistol-shot set the echoes clattering round the lake, and three boats burst out abreast from the throng into the open water. Two of the crews were in shirt-sleeves. The third wore the green-dress. jerseys of the football club. The boats were of the heavy sea-going builds, and pulled six oars apiece, oars of which the looms were scarcely narrower than the blades, and were of the two but a shade heavier. Nonetheless, the rowers started dauntlessly at thirty-five

strokes a minute, quickening up, incredible as it may seem, as they rounded the marked boat in the first lap of the two-mile course. The rowing was, in general style, more akin to the action of beating up eggs with a fork than to any other form of athletic exercise. But in its unorthodox way, it kicked the heavy boats along at a surprising pace. The oars squeaked and grunted against the thole-pins, the coxons kept up as unceasing flow of oratory, and superfluous little boys in punts contrived to intervene at all the more critical turning-points of the race, only evading the flail of the oncoming oars by performing prodigies of waggling with a single oar at the stern. I took out my watch and counted the strokes when they were passing the mark-boat for the second time.

They were pulling a fraction over forty. One of the shirts-leaved crews was obviously in trouble. The other, with humped backs and jerking oars, was holding its own against the green jerseys, amid the blended yells of friends and foes. When for the last time they rounded the green flag, there were but two boats in the race, and the foul that had been imminent throughout was at length achieved, with a rattle of oars and a storm of curses. They were clear again in a moment. The shirts left crew getting away with a distinct lead, and it was at about this juncture that

I became aware that the coxons had abandoned their long-handled tillers, and were standing over their respective strokes, showing frantically at their oars, and maintaining the while a ceaseless ball of encouragement and defiance. It looked like a foregone conclusion for the leaders, and the war of cheers rose to Frenzley. The word cheering, Indeed, is but a euphemism, and in no way expresses the serrated yell, composed of epithets, advice and imprecations, that was flung like a live thing at the oncoming boats. The green jerseys answered to this stimulant with a wild spurt that drove the bow of their boat within a measurable distance of their opponent's stroke or.

In another second a thoroughly successful foul would have been effected, but the cocks of the leading boat proved himself equal to the emergency, by unshipping his tiller, and with it dealing bow, of the green jerseys, such a blow over the head as effectually dismissed him from the sphere of practical politics. A great roar of laughter greeted this feat of arms, and a voice at my dog-cart's wheel pierced the clamour. More power to you laddie me, old darling! I looked down, and saw Bat Callaghan with shining eyes and a face white with excitement, poising himself on one foot on the box of my wheel in order to get a better view of the race. Almost before I had time to

Recognise him. A man in a green jersey caught him round the legs and jerked him down. Callahan fell into the throng, recovered himself in an instant, and rushed, white and dangerous, at his assailant. The son of liberty was no less ready for the fray, and what is known as Irelanders, the father and mother of a row, was imminent. Already, however, one of those unequalled judges of the moral temperature of the crowd, the sergeant of the RIC, had quietly interposed his bulky person between the combatants, and the coming trouble was averted. Elsewhere battle was raging. The race was over, and the committee-boat was hemmed in by the

rival crews, supplemented by craft of all kinds. The objection was being lodged, and in its turn objected to, and I can only liken the process to the screaming warfare of sea-gulls round a piece of carrion. The tumult was still at its height, when out of its very heart two four-award The boats broke forth, and a pistol-shot proclaimed that another race had begun, the public interest in which was specially keen, only to the fact that the rowers were stout country-girls, who made up in energy what they lacked in skill. It was a short race, once run the mark-boat only, and like a successful fuss it went with a roar from start to finish. Foul after foul, each followed by a healing interval of calm, during which the crews, who had all caught crabs,

were recovering themselves and their oars, marked its progress, and when the two boats, locked in an inextricable embrace, at last passed the winning flag, and the crew's oblivious of judges and public, fell to untrammeled personal abuse and to doing up their hair, I decided that I had seen the best of the fun, and prepared to go home. It was, as it happened, the last race of the day,

and nothing remained in the way of excitement, save the greased pole with the pig slung in a bag at the end of it. My final impression of the Lochlonenr regatta was of Callaghan's lithe figure sleek and dripping against the yellow sky, as he poised on the swaying pole with the broken gold of the water beneath him. Limited as was my experience of the south-west of Ireland, I was in no way surprised to hear on the following afternoon, from Peter Cadogan, that there had been Strokes the night before when the boys were going home from the regatta, and that the police were searching for one Jimmy Foley.

What do they want him for, I asked? Sure, it's a cardin as a man that was bringing a car of Bogwood was telling me, sir, answered Peter, pursuing his occupation of washing the dog-cart with unabated industry. They said Jimmy's wife went rar into the police, saying she could get no account of her husband. I suppose he's beaten some fellow and is hiding, I suggested. Well, that might be, sir, asserted Peter respectfully. He plied his mop vigorously, in intricate places about the springs, which would I now have never been explored save for my presence. It's what John Hennessy was saying, that he was hard said to get his horse past Cloughing Cross, the way the blood was thrown about the road, resumed Peter.

Surely they were fighting like wasps in it half the night? Who were fighting? I couldn't say, indeed, sir. Some of them low, rakish lads from the town, I suppose, replied Peter, with virtuous respectability. when Peter Cadogan was quietly and intelligently candid to pursue an inquiry was seldom of much avail. Next day in Skiborne I met Little Murray, the district inspector, very alert and smart in his rifle-green uniform,

going forth to collect evidence about the fight. He told me that the police were pretty certain that one of the sons of Liberty, named Foley, had been murdered, but as usual the difficulty was to get anyone to give information. All that was known was that he was gone, and that his wife had identified his cap, which had been found drenched with blood by the roadside. Murray gave it as his opinion that the whole business had arisen out of the row over the disputed race, and that there must have been a dozen people looking on when the murder was done,

but so far no evidence was forthcoming, and after a day and a night of search, the police had not been able to find the body. "'No,' said Flurry Knox, who had joined us. "'And if it was any of those mountainy men did away with him, "'you might scrape Ireland with a small tooth-courman. "'You'll not get him.' "'That evening I smoked an after-dinner cigarette, "'out of doors in the mild starlight,

"'strolling about the rudimentary paths of what would, I hoped, "'some day be Philippa's garden. "'The bats came stooping in at the red end of my cigarette, "'and from the covert behind the house "'I heard once or twice the delicate bark of a fox. "'Civilisation seemed a thousand miles, miles off, as far away as the falling star that had just drawn a line of pale fire half-way down the northern sky. I had been nearly a year at Shrelain House by myself now, and the

time seemed very long to me. It was slow work, putting by money, even under the austerities of Mrs. Godduggins' regime, and though I had warned Philippa I meant to marry her after Christmas, There were moments, and this was one of them, when it seemed an idle threat. "'Peter!' the strident voice of Mrs. Godaghan intruded upon my benitations. "'Go tell the Major his coffee's waiting on them.' I went gloomily into the house, and with a resignation born of adversity, swallowed the mixture of chickory and licorice, which my housekeeper possessed the secret of distilling from the best and most expensive coffee.

My theory about it was that it added to the illusion that I had dined, and, moreover, that it kept me awake, and I generally had a good deal of writing to do after dinner. Having swallowed it, I went downstairs, and out past the kitchen regions to my office, a hideous, whitewashed room, in which I interviewed policeman and took avidavits, and did most of my official writing. It had a door that opened into the yard, and a window that looked out in the other direction, among lanky laurels and scrubby hollies, where lay the cat's main thoroughfare from the scullery window to the rabbit-holes in the room.

the wood. I had a good deal of work to do, and a time passed quickly. It was Friday night, and from the kitchen at the end of the passage came the gabbling murmur in two alternate keys, that I had learnt to recognise as the recital of a litany by my housekeeper and her nephew Peter. This performance was followed by some of those dreary and heart-wrenching yawns that are, I think, peculiar to Irish kitchens. Then, such of the cats as had returned from the chase, were loudly shepherded into the back scullery, the kitchen doors shut with a slam, and my retainers retired to repose. It was nearly half an hour afterwards, when I finished the notes I had been making on an adjourned case of stroke-hauling salmon in the Lonen River. I leant back in my chair and lighted a cigarette, preparatory to turning in. My thoughts had again wandered on a sentimental journey across the Irish Channel,

when I heard a slight stir of some kind outside the open window. In the wilds of Ireland no one troubles themselves about burglars. More cats, I thought, I must shut the window before I go to bed. Almost immediately, though followed a faint tap on the window. And then a voice said in a hoarse and hurried whisper, "'Dem that wants him folly, "'Las some pluck in the river!' "'If I had kept my head, I should have sat still and encouraged

to further confidence. But unfortunately I acted on the impulse of the natural man, and was at the window in a jump, knocking down my chair, and making noise enough to scare a far less shy bird than an Irish informer. Of course there was no one there. I listened with every nerve as taught as a violin string. It was quite dark. There was just breezed enough to make a rustling in the evergreens, so that a man might brush through them without being heard. And while I debated on a plan of action, there came from beyond the shubbery, the jar and twang of a loose strand of wire in a paling by the wood. My informant, whoever he might be, had vanished into the darkness from which he had come,

as irrecoverably has had the falling star that had written its brief message across the sky, and gone out again into infinity. I got up very early the next morning, and drove into Skiborne to see Murray, and offer him my mysterious information, for what it was worth. personally i didn't think it worth much and was disposed to regard it as a red herring drawn across the trail murray however was not in the mood to despise anything that had a suggestion to make having been out till nine o'clock the night before without having been able to find any clues at the hiding-place of james foley the river's a good mile from the place where the fight was he said straddling his compasses over the ordnance survey map and there's no sort of rule they could have taken him along but a tip like this it's always worth trying i remember in the land-league time how a man came one saturday night to my window and told me there were holes drilled in the chapel door to shoot a boy-cutted man through while he was at mass the holes were there right enough and you may be quite sure the chap found excellent reasons for having family prayers at home next day i had sessions to attend on the extreme outskirts of my district and could not wait as murray suggested to see the thing out i did not get home till the following day and when i arrived i found a letter from murray awaiting me

your pal was right we found foley's body in the river knocking about against the posts of the weir the head was wrapped in his own green jersey and had been smashed in by a stone we suspect a fellow named bat callahan who has bolted but there were a lot of them in it possibly it was callahan himself who gave you the tip you can never tell how superstition is going to take them next the inquest will be held to-morrow the coroner's jury took a cautious view of the course of the catastrophe and brought in a verdict of death by misadventure and i presently found it to be my duty to call a magisterial inquiry to further investigate the matter a few days before this was to take place i was engaged in the delicate task of displaying to my landlord mr flurry knox the defects of the pantry sink when mrs cadogan advanced upon us with the information that the widow callahan from clouin would be thankful to speak to me and had brought me a present of a fine young goose is she coming over here looking for bat said flurry withdrawing his arm and the longest kitchen ladle from the pipe that he had been probing she knows you're handy at hiding your friends mary perhaps it's that that's stopping the drain mrs cadogan turned her large red face upon her late employer god knows i wish yourself was stuck in it master flurry the way in here peter cursing the full of the house when he's striving to wash these things in that unnatural little trough are you sure is peter does all the cursing retorted flurry i hear father scanlon has it in for you this long time for not go into confession and how can i walk two miles to the chapel with god's burden on my feet demanded mrs godaggan in purple indignation the blessed virgin and dr hickie knows well the hardship i get from them if it wasn't for a pair of the major's booty gave me and be had been said to trouble the house itself the contest might have been continued indefinitely had i not struck up the swords with a request that mrs callahan might be sent round to the hall door there we found a tall grey-haired countrywoman waiting for us at the foot of the steps

in the hooded blue cloak that is peculiar to the south of ireland from the fact that she clutched a pocket-handkerchief in her right hand i augured a stormy interview but nothing could have been more self-restrained and even imposing than the reverence with which she greeted flurry and me "'Good-morland to your honours,' she began, with a dignified and extremely imminent snuffle. "'I ask your pardon for troubling you, Major Yates, but I haven't a one in the country to give me advice, and I have no confidence only in your honour's experiments.' "'Experience,' she means,' prompted Flurry. "'Did you get advice enough out of Mr. Murray yesterday?' he went on aloud. "'I heard he was at Cloughan to see you.' "'And if he was itself, it's little advantage any one would get out of that list.

"'Little whipper-snapper of a snap-dragon,' responded Mrs. Callaghan, Tartley. "'He was with me for a half-hour, give me every big rock of English till I had a reel in my head. "'I declare to you, Mr. Floddy, after he'd gone out of the house, you wouldn't throw three fathens for me.' The pocket-handkerchief was here utilised, after which, with a heavy groan, "'Mrs. Callaghan again took up her parable. "'I told him first, and last, I'd lose my life if I had to go into the court, and if I did itself, sure, that Tornis would rip no more out of me than what he did himself. "'Did you tell him where was but?' inquired Flurry, casually.

At this, Mrs. Callaghan immediately dissolved into tears. "'Is it, Bart?' she howled. "'If the twelve apostles came down from heaven asking me where was bat, I could give them no satisfaction. The divil and no, I know what's happened to him. He came home with me sober and good-natured from the Rugata, and the next one he asked a fresh egg for his breakfast, and God forgive me I wouldn't break the score I was taken to the hotel.

And with that he slapped the cup of tea into the fire and went out the door, and I never got a word of him since, good nor bad. God knows till I got trouble with that poor boy, and he the only one I have to look to in the world.' I cut the matter short by asking her what she wanted me to do for her, and sifted out from among much extraneous detail, the fact that she relied upon my renowned wisdom and clemency to preserve her from being called as a witness at the coming inquiry.

The gift of the goose served its intended purpose of embarrassing my position, but in spite of it I broke to the widow Callaghan my inability to help her. She did not, of course, believe me, but she was too well-bred to say so. In Ireland one becomes accustomed to this attitude. As it turned out, however, Back Callaghan's mother had nothing to fear from the inquiry. She was by turns deaf, imbecile, garrulethly candid, and furiously abusive of Murray's principal witness, a frightened lad of seventeen, who had sworn to having seen Bat Callaghan and Jimmy Foley, shaping at one another to fight. At an hour when, according to Mrs. Callahan,

bat was lying, stretched on the bedine with a thick stomach, in consequence of the malignant character of the porter supplied by the last witness's father. It all ended, as such cases so often do in Ireland, in complete moral certainty, in the minds of all concerned as to the guilt of the accused, an entire impotence on the part of the law to prove it. A warrant was issued for the arrest of Bartholomew Callaghan, and the clans of Callahan and Foley fought rather more bloodily than usual, as occasion served, and at intervals during the next few months, Murray used to ask me if my friend the murderer had dropped in lately, to which I was wont to reply with condolences on the failure of the R.I.C. to find the widow Callaghan's only son for her, and that was about all that came of it. Events with which the present story has no concern

took me to England towards the end of the following March. It so happened that my old regiment, the fusiliers, was quartered at Wincastle, within a couple of hours by rail of Philip's home where I was staying, and since my wedding was now within measurable distance, my former brothers and arms invited me over to dine and sleep, and to receive a valedictory silver claret jug

that they were magnanimous enough to bestow upon a backslider. I enjoyed the dinner, as much as any man can enjoy his dinner when he knows he has to make a speech at the end of it. Through much and varied conversation I strove, like a nervous mother who cannot trust her offspring out of her sight, to keep before my mind's eye the opening sentences that I had composed in the train. I felt that if I could only get away satisfactorily, I might trust the Ayala, eighty-nine, to do the rest, and of that fount of inspiration there was no lack.

As it turned out I got away all right, though the sight of the double line of expectant faces and red mess-jackets nearly scattered those precious opening sentences, and I am afraid that so far as the various subsequent points went that I had intended to make, I stayed away. However, neither Demosthenes nor a nationalist member at a cork election could have been listened to with more gratifying attention, and I sat down, hot and happy, to be confronted with my own flushed visage, hideously reflected in the glittering paunch of the claret jug. Once safely over the presentation, the evening mellowed into frivolity, and it was pretty late before I found myself settled down to whist at six many points in the ancient familiar way, while most of the evening mellowed. the others fell to playing pool in the billiard-room next door. I have played whist from my youth up, with the preternatural seriousness of a subaltern, with the self-assurance of a senior captain, with the privileged irascibility of a major,

and my eighteen months of abstinence at Shirlane had only whetted my appetite for what I consider the best of games. After the long, lonely evenings there, with rats for company, and for relaxation a deck of that especially demoniacal American form of patients, known as Fouliane, it was wondrous agreeable to sit again amongst my fellows, and to lay the longs on a severely scientific rubber of wist, as though Mrs. Cadogan and the Skiborne bench of magistrates had never existed. We were in the first game of the second rubber, and I was holding a very nice playing hand. I had early in the game moved forth my trumps to battle, and I was now in the ineffable position

of scoring with the small cards of my long suit. The cards fell and fell in silence, and Ballantyne, my partner, raked in the tricks like a machine. The concentrated quiet of the game was suddenly arrested by a sharp, unmistakable sound from the barrack yard outside,

the snap of a Lee-Metford rifle. "'What was that?' exclaimed Moffat, the senior major. Before he had finished speaking, there was a second shot. "'By Jove, those were rifle shots.' "'Perhaps I'd better go and see what's up,' said Ballantine, who was captain of the week, throwing down his cards and making a bolt for the door.

He had hardly got out of the room, when the first long high note of the assembly sang out, sudden and clear. We all sprang to our feet, and as the bugle-call went shrilly on, the other men came pouring in from the billiard-room, and stampeded to their quarters to get their swords. At the same moment the mess-sargeant appeared at the outer door, with a face as white as his shirt-front. "'The sentry on the magazine-guard has been shot, sir,' he said excitedly to Moffat. "'They say he's dead.' We were all out in the barrack square and in an instant. It was clear moonlight, and the square was already alive with hurrying figures,

cramming on clothes and caps as they ran to fall in. I was a free agent these times, and I followed the mess-sargent across the square towards the distant corner where the magazine stands. As we doubled round the end of the men's quarters, we nearly ran into a small party of men who were advancing, slowly and heavily in our direction. "'Here he is, sir,' said the mess-sargent, stopping himself abruptly.

They were carrying the sentry to the hospital. His busby had fallen off. The moon shone mildly on his pale, convulsed face, and foam and strange inhuman sounds came from within his lips. His head was rolling from side to side on the arm of one of the men who was carrying him. As it turned towards me, I was struck by something disturbingly familiar in the face, and I wondered if he had been in my old company.

"'What's his name, Sergeant?' I said to the mess, sergeant. "'Private Harris, sir,' replied the sergeant. "'He's only lately come up from the depot, and this was his first time on sentry by himself.' I went back to the mess, and in the process of time the others straggled in, thirsting for whiskeys and soda, and full of such information as there was to give. "'Private Harris was not wounded. "'Both the shots had been fired by him, "'as was testified by the state of his rifle,

"'and the fact that two of the cartridges were missing "'from the packet in his pouch. "'I hear he was a queer, sulky sort of a chap, always,' "'said Tomkinson, the subaltern of the day. "'But if he was having a try at suicide, "'he made a bad fist of it.' "'He made as good a fist of it as you did "'on putting on your sword, Tommy,' remarked Ballantyne.

indicating a dangling white strap of webbing that hung down like a tail below Mr. Tompkinson's mess-jacket. Nerves, obviously, in both cases. The exquisite satisfaction, afforded by this discovery to Mr. Tompkinson's brother officers, found its natural outlet in a bear fight that threatened to become more or less general, and in the course of which I slid away, unostentatiously to bed in Ballantyne's quarters, and took the precaution of barricading my door. Next morning, when I got down to breakfast, I found Ballantine and two or three others in the mess-room, and my first inquiry was for Private Harris. "'Oh, the poor chap's dead,' said Valentine. "'It's a very queer business altogether. I think he must have been wrong in the top story.

The doctor was with him when he came to, out of the fit, or whatever it was, and O'Reilly, as the doctor you know, Irish, of course. "'By the way, poor Harris was an Irishman, too, "'says that he could only gibber at first. "'But then he got better, and he got out of him "'that when he had been on Centry-go for about half an hour, "'he happened to look up at the angle of the barrack wall "'near where it joins the magazine-tower, "'and saw a face looking at him over it.

"'He challenged, and got no answer, "'but the face just stuck there, staring at him. "'He challenged again. "'And then, as O'Reilly said, he, just up with his rifle and blazed at it. Valentine was not above the common English delusion that he could imitate an Irish brogue. Well, what happened then?

Well, according to the poor devil's own story, the face just kept looking at him, and he had another shot of it, and, my God Almighty, he said to O'Reilly, it was there always. While he was saying that to O'Reilly, he began to chuck another fit, and apparently went on chucking them till he died a couple of hours ago.

One result of it is, said another man, that they couldn't get a man to go on sentry there alone last night. I expect we shall have to double the sentries there every night as long as we are here. Silly asses, remarked Tomkinson, but he said it without conviction. After breakfast we went out to look at the wall by the magazine. It was about eleven feet high with the cope top, and they told me that there was a deep and wide dry ditch on the outside.

A ladder was brought, and we examined the angle of the wall at which Harris said the face had appeared. He had made a beautiful shot, one of his bullets having flicked a piece off the ridge of the coping exactly at the corner. "'It's not the kind of shot a man would make if he'd been drinking,' said Moffat, regretfully abandoning his first simple hypothesis. "'He must have been mad.' "'I wish I could find our who his people. "'Cla,' said Brownlow, the adjutant, who had joined us. "'They found in his box a letter to him from his mother,

"'but we can't make out the name of the place. "'By Joe Yates, you're an Irishman. Perhaps you can help us.' "'He handed me a letter in a dirty envelope. "'There was no address given. The contents were very short, "'and I may be forgiven if I transcribe them. "'My dear son, I hope you are well, as this leaves me at present. "'Thanks be to God for it. "'I am very much uneasy about the cow.

"'She was swelled up this morning. "'She ran in and was frauding, "'and I did not do but to run up for Tom Sweeney in the minute. "'We are thinking it is too much laurels or an ear-rub she took. "'I do not know what I will do with her. "'God help one that's alone with himself. "'I had not a day's luck then she went away. "'I am thinking them that once she is tired of looking for ye.

"'And so I remain. your fond mother. Well, you don't get much of a lead from the car, do you? And what the deuce is an ear-rub, said Brownlow. It's another way of spelling herb, I said, turning over the envelope abstractedly. The postmark was almost obliterated. But it struck me that it might be construed into the word skib-horn. Look here, I said suddenly.

Let me see, Harris. It's just possible I may not. know something about him? The sentry's body had been laid in the dead house near the hospital, and Brownlow fetched the key. It was a grim, little whitewashed building without windows, save a small one of lancet shape, high up on one gable, through which a streak of April sunlight fell sharp and slender on the whitewashed wall. The long figure of the century lay sheeted on a stone slab, and Brownlow was his cap in his hand,

gently uncovered the face. I leaned over and looked at it, at the heavy brows, the short nose, the small moustache lying black above the pale mouth, the deep-set eyes sealed in appalling peacefulness. There rose before me the wild, dark face of the young man

who had hung on my wheel and yelled encouragement to the winning coxswain at the Lochlonen regatta. I know him, I said. His name is Callahan. End of Chapter 4. This is a Librivox recording. All Libri Box recordings are in the public domain.

For further information, or to find out how you can volunteer, please go to Librevox.org. Recording by Andy Minter. Some experiences of an Irish RM. by Edith Enone Somerville and Martin Ross Chapter 5 Lichene Races Second Hand

It may or may not be agreeable to have attained the age of 38 But judging from old photographs, the privilege of being nineteen has also its drawbacks. I turned over page after page of an ancient book in which were enshrined portraits of the friends of my youth, singly, in David and Jonathan couples, and in groups in which I, as it seemed to my mature and possibly jawned this perception, always contrived to look the most immeasurable young bounder of the lot.

Our faces were fat, and yet I cannot remember ever having been considered fat in my life. We indulged in low-necked shirts, in Jemima ties with diagonal stripes. We wore coats that seemed three sizes too small, and trousers that were three sizes too big. We also wore small whiskers. I stopped at last at one of the David and Jonathan Memorial portraits. Yes, here was the object of my researches.

This stout and earnestly romantic youth was Lee Calway, and that fatuous and chubby young person seated on the arm of his chair was myself. Lee Kellway was a young man ardently believed in by a large circle of admirers, headed by himself, and seconded by me. And for some time after I had left more than for Sandhurst, I maintained a correspondence with him on large and abstract subjects. This phase of our friendship did not survive. I went soldiering to India, and Lee Kellway took honours and moved suitably on into politics, as is the duty of an earnest young radical, with useful family connections and an independent income. Since then, I had at intervals seen in the papers, the name of the Honourable Basil Lee Kellway mentioned,

as a speaker at elections, as a writer of thoughtful articles for the reviews. But we had never met, and nothing could have been less expected by me than the letter, written from Mrs. Rafferty's Hotel, Skiborne, in which he told me he was making a tour of Ireland with Lord Waterbury, to whom he was private secretary. Lord Waterbury was at present having a few days fishing near Killarney, and he himself, not being a fisherman, was collecting statistics for his chief, on various points connected with the liquor question in Ireland.

He had heard that I was in the neighbourhood, and was kind enough to add that it would give him much pleasure to meet me again. With a stir of the old enthusiasm, I wrote begging him to me my guest for as long as it suited him, and the following afternoon he arrived, arrived at Shre Lane. The stout young friend of my youth had changed considerably. His important nose, and slightly prominent teeth, remained, but his wavy hair had withdrawn intellectually from his temples. His eyes had acquired a statesman-like absence of expression,

and his neck had grown long and bird-like. It was his first visit to Ireland, as he lost no time in telling me, and he and his chief had already collected much valuable information on the subject to which they had dedicated Easter recess. He further informed me that he thought of popularising the subject in a novel, and therefore intended to, as he put it, Master the Brogue, before his return. During the next few days I did my best for Lee Gelway. I turned him loose on Father Scanlon. I showed him Mahona, our champion village, that boasts fifteen public houses out of twenty buildings of sorts and a railway station. I took him to hear the prosecution of a publican for selling drink on a Sunday,

which gave him an opportunity of studying perjury as a fine art, and of hearing a lady, on whom police suspicion justly rested, profoundly summed up by the sergeant as, "'A woman who had the appearance of having knocked at a back door!' The net result of these experiences has not yet been given to the world by Lee Kellway, for my own part i had at the end of three days arrived at the conclusion that his society when combined with a note-book and a thirst for statistics was not what i had used to find it at oxford i therefore welcomed a suggestion from mr flurry knox that we should accompany him to some typical country races got up by the farmers at a place called lishine some twelve miles away it was the worst road in the district the races of the most grossly unorthodox character in fact that was the worst road in the district the races of the most grossly unorthodox character in fact it was the very place for Lee Kellway to collect impressions of Irish life, and in any case it was a blessed opportunity of disposing of him for the day.

In my guest's attire next morning, I discerned an unbending from the role of Cabinet Minister towards that of sportsmen. The outlines of the notebook might be traced in his breast pocket, but traversing it was the strap of a pair of field-glasses, and his light grey suit was smart enough for Goodwood. Flurry was to drive us to the races at one o'clock, and we walked to Tory Cottage by the short cut over the hill in the sunny beauty of an April morning. Up to the present the weather had kept me in a more or less apologetic condition. Anyone who has entertained a guest in the country

knows the unjust weight of responsibility that rests on the shoulders of the host in the matter of climate, and Lee Kellway, after two drenchings, had become sarcastically resigned to what I felt he regarded as my mismanour. management. Flurry took us into the house for a drink and a biscuit, to keep us going, as he said, till— We lifted some luncheon out of the castle Knox people at the races, and it was while we were thus engaged that the first disaster of the day occurred. The dining-room door was open, so also was the window of the little staircase just outside it,

and through the window travelled sounds that told of the close proximity of the stable-yard, the clattering of hooves on cobblestones, and voices uplifted in loud conversation. Suddenly from this region there arose a screech of the laughter peculiar to kitchen flirtation, followed by the clank of a bucket, the plunging of a horse, and then an uproar of wheels and galloping hoofs. An instant afterwards flurries chestnut cob in a dog-cart dashed at full gallop into view, with the rain streaming behind him and two men in hot pursuit. Almost before I had time to realise what had happened, Flurry jumped through the half-opened

window of the dining-room like a clown at a pantomime, and joined in the chase. But the Cobb was resolved to make the most of his chance, and went away down the drive, and out of sight, at a pace that distanced everyone, save the kennel-terrier, who sped in shrieking ecstasy beside him. "'Oh, merciful! exclaimed a female voice behind me. lee kellway and i were by this time watching the progress of events from the gravel in company with the remainder of flurry's household the horse's destroyed was another queer start he took and all in the world i'd done was to slap a bucket of water and michael out of the wind here and twas himself got it in case of michael you'll never ate another bit bridget dunningon replied the cook with the exulting pessimism of her kind the master'll have your life both speakers shouted at the top of their voices

probably because, in spirit, they still followed afar the flight of the Cobb. Lee Kellway looked serious as we walked on down the drive. I almost dared to hope that a note on the degrading oppression of Irish retainers was shaping itself. Before we reached the bend of the drive, the rescue party was returning with the fugitive, all, with the exception of the kennel terrier, looking extremely gloomy. The Cobb had been confronted by a wooden gate, which he had unheeded. hesitatingly taken in his stride, landing on his head on the farther side of the gate, and the cart on top of him, and had arisen with a lame foreleg, a cut on his nose,

and several other minor wounds. "'You'd think the brute had been fighting the cats with all the scratches and scrapes he has on him,' said Flurry, casting a vengeful eye at Michael, and one shaft's broken, and so is the dashboard. "'I haven't another horse in the place, they're all out at grass. So there's an end of the races.' We all three stood blankly on the hall doorstep, and watched the wreck of the trap being trundled up the avenue. "'I'm very sorry you had done out of your spot,' said Flurry to Lee Kellway, in terms of deplorable sincerity. "'Perhaps there's nothing else to do. You'd like to see the hounds.' I felt for Flurry, but of the two I felt more for Lee Kellway, as he accepted this alleviation.

He disliked dogs, and held the newest views on sanitation, and I knew what Flurray's can. kennels could smell like. I was lighting a precautionary cigarette, when we caught sight of an old man riding up the drive. Flurry stopped short. "'Hold on a minute,' he said. "'Here's an old chap that often brings me hosses for the kennels. I must see what he wants.' The man dismounted, and approached Mr. Knox, hat in hand, towing after him a gaunt and ancient black mare with a big knee. "'Well, Barrett,' began Flurry, surveying the mare with his hands in his pockets. I'm not giving hounds meat this month, or only very little. Ah, Master Flurry, answered Barrett. It's you that's pleasant.

Is it give the like of this one for the dogs to eat? She's a valuable strong young mare, no more than sixteen years of age, and you'd sooner be looking at her again under a side-car than eating your dinner. There isn't as much meat on her as had fattened jacked-door, said Flurry, clinking the silver in his pockets as he searched for a match-box. What are you asking for her?' The old man drew cautiously up to him. "'Master Flurry,' he said solemnly,

"'I'll sell her to your honour for five pounds, and she'll be worth ten after you've given her a month's grass.' Flurry lit his cigarette. Then he said, imperturbably, "'I'll give you seven shillings for her.' Old Barrett put on his hat in silence, and in silence buttoned his coat, and took hold of the stirreberably.

of leather. Flurry remained immovable. "'Master Florry,' said old Barrett, suddenly, with tears in his voice. "'You must make it aid, sir.' "'Michael,' called out Flurry, with apparent irrelevance. "'Rone obty of fathers, and ask him, would he lend me alone of his side-car?' Half an hour later, we were, improbable, as it may seem, on our way to Lachine races. We were seated upon an outside car of immemorial age, whose joints seemed to open, and close again as it swung in and out of the ruts, whose tattered cushions stank of rats and mildew,

whose wheels staggered and rocked like the legs of a drunken man. Between the shafts jogged the latest addition to the kennel-larder, the eight-shilling mare. Flurry sat on one side, and kept her going at the rate of not less than four miles an hour. Lee Kellway and I held on to the other. "'She'll get us as far as lynches anyway,' said Flurry, abandoning his first contention that she could do the whole distance as he pulled her on to her legs after her fifteenth stumble and he'll lend some sort of horse if it was only a mule do you notice that these cushions are very damp said lee kellway to me in a hollow undertone smart blame to them if they are replied flurry i've no doubt they were out under the rain all day yesterday at mrs holly's funeral lee kellway made no reply but he took his note by the note-by were out under the rain all day yesterday at mrs holly's funeral lee kellway made no reply but he took his note-by out of his pocket and sat on it.

We arrived at Lynch's at a little past three, and were there confronted by the next disappointment of this disastrous day. The door of Lynch's farmhouse was locked, and nothing replied to our knocking except a puppy who barked hysterically from within. "'Oh, gone to the races,' said Flurry philosophically, picking his way round the manure heap. "'No matter. Here's a filly in the shade here.

I know he's had her under a car.' And agitating ten minutes ensued, during which Lee Kellway and I got the eight-hilling mare out of the shafts and the harness, and Flurry, with our inefficient help, crammed the young mare into them. As Flurry had stated that she had been driven before, I was bound to believe him, but the difficulty of getting the bit into her mouth was remarkable, and so also was the crab-like manner in which she sidled out of the yard, with Flurry and myself at her head, and Lee Kellway hanging on to the back of the car, to keep it from jamming in the gateway sit up on the car now said flurry when we got out on to the road i'll lead her on a bit she's been ploughed anyway one side of her mouth's as tut was a gad

lee kellway threw away the wisp of grass with which he had been cleaning his hands and mopped his intellectual forehead he was very silent we both mounted the car and flurry with the reins in his hand walked beside the filly who with her tail clasped in moved onward in a succession of short jerks. "'Oh, she's all right,' said Flurry, beginning to run and dragging the filly into a trot. "'Once she gets started. Here the filly spied a pig in the neighbouring field, and despite the fact that she had probably eaten out of the same trough with it, she gave a violent sidespring and broke into a gallop. "'Now we're off,' shouted Flurry, making a jump at the car and clambering on. "'If the traces hold, we'll do it.'

The English language is powerless to suggest the view her. with which Mr. Knox ended his speech, or to do more than indicate the rigid anxiety of Lee Kellway's face, as he regained his balance after the preliminary jerk and clutched the back rail. It must be said, for Lynch's filly, that she did not kick. She merely fled, like a dog with a kettle tied to its tail from the pursuing rattle and jingle behind her, with the shafts buffeting her dusty sides as the car swung to and fro. Whenever she showed any signs of slackening, Flurry loosed another yell at her that renewed her panic, and thus we precariously covered another two or three miles of our journey. Had it not been for a large stone lying on the

road, and had the filly not chosen to swerve so as to bring the wheel on top of it, I dare say we might have got to the races. But by an unfortunate coincidence, both these things occurred. And when we recovered from the consequent shock, the tyre of one of the wheels had come off, and was trundling with cumbrous gaiety into the ditch. Flurry stopped the filly, and began to laugh. Lee Kellway said something startlingly unparliamentary under his breath. "'Well, it might be worse,' Flurry said, consolingly, as he lifted the tire onto the car. "'We're not half a mile from a forge.' "'We walked that half-mile in funereal procession behind the car.

The glory had departed from the weather, and an ugly wall of cloud was rising up out of the the west to meet the sun. The hills had darkened and lost colour, and the white bog-cotton shivered in a cold wind that smelt of rain. By a miracle the Smith was not at the races, owing, as he explained, to his having the toothaches. The two facts combined, producing in him a morosity only equalled by that of Lee Calway. The smith's sole comment on the situation was to unharness the filly, and drag her into the forge, where he told him. her up. He then proceeded to whistle viciously on his fingers in the direction of a cottage, and to command, in tones of thunder, some unseen creature, to bring over a couple of baskets of turf.

The turf arrived in process of time on a woman's back, and was arranged in a circle in a yard at the back of the forge. The tyre was bedded in it, and the turf was with difficulty kindled at different points. "'You'll not get to the races this day,' said the smith. yielding to a sardonic satisfaction. "'The turf's wet, and I haven't one to do a hand's turn for me.' He laid the wheel on the ground, and lit his pipe. Lee Kellway looked pallidly about him,

over the spacious empty landscape of brown mountain slopes, patched with golden firs, and seamed with grey walls. I wondered if he were as hungry as I. We sat on stones opposite the smouldering ring of turf and smoked, and Flurry beguiled the Smith into grim and calumnius confidences about every horse in the country. After about an hour, during which the turf went out three times, and the weather became more and more threatening, a girl with a red petticoat over her head appeared at the gate of the yard,

and said to the smith, "'The horse has gone away from ye?' "'Where?' exclaimed Flurry, springing to his feet. "'I met him walking west the road there below, and when I thought to turn him, he commenced to gallop. Pulled her head out of the head-stall, said Flurry, after a rapid survey of the forge. She's near home by now.

It was at this moment that the rain began. The situation could scarcely have been better stage-managed. After reviewing the position, Flurry and I decided that the only thing to do was to walk to a public house a couple of miles further on, feed there, if possible, hire a car, and go home. It was an uphill walk,

with mild, generous raindrops, striking thicker and thicker on our faces. No one talked, and the grey clouds crowded up from behind the hills, like billows of steam. Lee Kellway bore it all with egregious resignation. I cannot pretend that I was at heart sympathetic, but by virtue of being his host,

I felt responsible for the breakdown, for his light suit, for everything, and divined his sentiment of horror at the first sight of the public house. It was a long, low cottage, with a line of dripping elm-trees overshadowing it. Empty cars and carts round its door, and a babel from within, made it evident that the race-goers were pursuing a gradual homeward route. The shop was crammed with steaming countrymen, whose loud, brawling voices, all talking together, roused my English friend at his first remark since we had left the

Forge. "'Surely, Yates, we are not going to go into that place,' he said severely. "'Those men are all drunk.' "'Ah, nothing to signify,' said Flurry, plunging in and driving his way through the throng like a plough. "'Here, Mary Kate!' he called to the girl behind the counter. "'Tell your mother, we want some tea and bread and butter in the room inside.' The smell of bad tobacco and spilt porter was choking.

We worked our way through it after him towards the end of the shop, intersecting at every hand discussions about the races tom was very nice he spared his horse all along and then he put into him well at gagin's corner the third horse was before the second but he was gone wake in himself i tell you the mayor had the hind leg flashed in the fore clancy was deppin in the saddle twas a damn nois race whatever we gained the inner room at last a cheerless apartment adorned with sacred pictures a sewing-machine, and an array of supplementary tumblers and wine-glasses, but at all events we had it so far to ourselves. At intervals during the next half-hour, Mary Kate burst in with cups and plates, cast them on the table, and disappeared, but of food there was no sign. After a further period of starvation, and of listening to the noise in the shop,

Flurry made a salty, and after lengthy and unknown adventures, reappeared, carrying a huge brown teapot, and driving before him, Mary Kate, with the remainder of the repast. The bread tasted of mice, the butter of turf-smoke, the tea of brown paper. But we had got past the critical stage. I had entered upon my third round of bread and butter, when the door was flung open, and my valued acquaintance, slipper, slightly advanced in liquor, presented himself to our gaze. His bandy leg sprawled consequentially.

His nose was redder than a coal of fire. His prominent eyes rolled crookedly upon us, and his left hand swept before him the attempt of Mary Kate to frustrate his entrance. "'Good evening to my venerable friend, Mr. Lurie Knox,' he began, in the voice of a town crier, "'and to the Honourable Major Yates and the English gentleman.' This impressive opening immediately attracted an audience from the shop, and the doorway filled with grinning faces, as Slepper advanced further into the room. "'Why won't she at the races, Mr. Flurry?' he went on, his roving eye, taking a grip of us all at the same time.

"'So the Miss Bennet's and all the ladies was asking, where are ye?' "'It'd take some time to tell them that,' said Flurry, with his mouthful. "'But what about the races, Slepper? Had she good sport?' "'Sport, is it? They were so pleasant an afternoon ever you've seen.' replied slipper he leant against a side table and all the glasses on it jingled does yer honour know old driscoe he went on irrelevantly sure you do he was in your honour's stable it's what we were all saying it's a great pity your honour was not there for the liking you had to driscoe that's true said a voice at the door there wasn't one in the barony but was gathered in it though and true continued Slipper, with a quelling glance at the interrupter. "'And there was tents for selling potter and whisky as pliable as new milk,

and boys going round the tents outside, feeling for heads with the big ends of their black thorns, and all kinds of recreations, and the sons of liberties, peffler and drum band from Sighbourne. Oh, faith, there was more of them running to look at their races than was playing in it, not to mention different occasions that the bandmaster was eating his lunch within in the whisky tent but what about driscoll said flurry sure it's about him i'm telling ye replied slipper with the practised orator's watchful eye on his growing audience "'Twas within, and the same whiskey tent myself was, with the bandmaster and a few of the lads, "'wee buying a heap of the crackers when I saw me brave Driscoll landing in the tent, "'and a pair of dim long boots on him. "'Him what hadn't a shoe nor stockin to his foot when your honour had him picking grass out of the stones behind in your yard?'

"'Well,' says I to myself, "'we'll knock some sports out of Driscoll.' "'Come here to me, Ocouchler,' said I, to him. I suppose it's some way weak in the legs, yeah, says I, and the doctor put them on you the way people wouldn't trample ye. May the devil chokie, says he, pleasant enough, but I knew by the blush he had he was vexed. Then I suppose tis a left-tenant, Culder, you are, says I. Your mother must be proud of you, says I, and maybe you'll lend her alone of them widers when she's ridd signor Bonin in the river, says I. "'There'll be work out of this,' says he,

"'looking to me, both soured and bitter. "'Well, indeed I was thinking you're a blue-moulded, "'for want of a baitin,' says I. "'He was for fighting us then, "'but after we had him pacificated, "'with about a quarter of a nugging the spirits, "'he told us he was going riding in the race. "'And what'll you ride?' says I.

"'Old Bocock's mare,' says he. "'Nipe,' says I, saying a great curse. "'Is it that little stagin' from the mountains?' "'Sure she's something about the one age with myself,' says I. "'Binny's the time James E. Geaggin, and myself used to be driving her to McCroom "'with pigs and all sort,' says I, "'and is it Lippin's turn, whores, you wanted to go now?' "'Faithers walls and every variety of obstacle in it,' says he.

"'It'll be the best of your place, oh,' says I. to lay it away home out of this an old rider so says he led the devil rider says i lee kellway who had been leaning back seemingly half asleep obeyed the hypnotism of slipper's gaze and opened his eyes that was now all the conversation that passed between himself and me self resumed slipper and there was no great delay after that till they said there was a race starting and the dickens of one at all was going to ride only two driscoll and one clancy with that then i seen mr kinnahean the petty sessions clach going round clearing the course and i gathered sure the neighbours and we walked the fields hither and over till we've seen the most of the obstacle "'Sand lazy now by the plantation,' says I. "'If they get to come as far as this, believe me, you'll see spot,' says I, "'and twill be a convenient spot to encourage the mayor if she's anywhere weak in herself,' "'says I, cutting something about five-fourth of an ash-sampling out of the plantation.

"'That's your sort,' says old bo-cock that was travelling the race-course, "'pegging a bit of paper down with a thorn in front of every lip, the way driscoll had no the handiest place to face her at it well i hadn't barely trimmed the ash plant have you any jam mary kate interrupted flurry whose meal had been in no way interfered with by either the story or the highly scented crowd who had come to listen to it we have no jam only thracel sir replied the invisible mary kate i hadn't the switch barely trimmed repeated slipper firmly When I heard the people screeching, and I seen Dreskell and Clancy coming on, lipping all before, there were old Bococks mare be loosing and powdering along, and me dad, whatever obstacle wouldn't throw her down, face she'd throw it down, and there's the traffic they had in it.

I declare to me so, says I, if they continue on this way, there's a great chance some one of them will win, says I. You lie, says the bandmaster, "'in a trifle fulsome after his luncheon. "'I do not,' says I, in regard to seeing how superl them two boys is. "'You might observe, says I, that if they have no convenient way to sit in the saddle, "'they'll ride the neck of the hearth till such time as they gets an occasion to leave it,' says I. "'Ah, shut your mouth,' says the bandmaster.

"'They're pocking out this way now, and may the devil admire me,' says his. "'But Clancy has the other bet out, and the devil's such a leatherin' and beltsome old Bo-cock's mare.' "'Have you seen what's in it?' says he. "'Well, when I seen them coming to me, "'and driscoll about the length of the plantation behind Clancy, "'I led a couple of balls. "'Skelper, your big brute,' says I. "'What's good in ye that you aren't able to scalp her?'

"'The yell and the histrionic flourish of his stick, "'with which Slipper delivered this incident, brought down the house. "'Lee Kellway was sufficiently moved to ask me in an undertone "'if scalp was a local term.' "'Well, Mr. Flurry and gentlemen,' recommenced Slipper, "'I declared to you, when old Bocock's mare heard them roar, "'she stretched out her neck like her gander, "'and when she passed me out she gave a couple of grunts

"'and looked at me as ugly as a Christian. "'Ha,' says I, "'given her a couple of drawers of the ash-plant "'across the butt of the tail the way I wouldn't blind her. "'I'll make ye grunt,' says I. "'I'll nourishy. "'I knew well she was very frightful of the Ashblant since the winter Tomine Sullivan had her under a sidecar, but now in place of having

any obligations to me, you'd be surprised if you heard the blasphemious expressions of the young boy that was riding her. And whether it was over-anxious he was, turning around the way I heard him cursing, or whether it was some slatherer or side came to old Bocock's mare, I don't know, but she was bet up again the last obstacle but two. Before you could say schnapes, she was standing on her two ears beyond in Totherfield. I declare to you, on the virtue of me all, she stood that way till she reconnoit at which side would Drisco fall, and she turned about then and rolled on him as cosy as if he was meadow-grass.

Slipper stopped short. The people in the doorway groaned appreciatively. Mary Kate murmured, "'The Lord save us!' "'The blood was drove out through his nose and ears,' continued Slipper, with a voice that indicated the cream of the narration. "'And you'll hear his bones cracking on the ground. You'd have petted the poor boy.' "'Good heavens!' said Lee Kelway, sitting up very straight in his chair.

"'But he heard Slipper,' asked Flurry casually. "'Hurt is it?' echoed Slipper in high scorn. "'Killed on the spot!' He paused to relish the effect of the denouement on Lee Kellway. oh divil so pleasant an afternoon ever you've seen and indeed mr florry it's what we were all saying it's a great pity your honour was not there for the liking you had for driscoll as he spoke the last word there was an outburst of singing and cheering from a carload of people who had just pulled up at the door flurry listened leant back in his chair and began to laugh it scarcely strikes one as a comic incident said lee kellway very coldly to me in fact it seems to me that the police ought to show me slipper bold a voice in the shop show me that dirty little underloper till i have his blood and i'd a race one only for him souring the mare on me what's that you say i tell you he did he left seven slaps on her with a handle of a hay rake There was in the room in which we were sitting, a second door, leading to the back yard,

a door consecrated to the unobtrusive visits of so-called Sunday travellers. Through it, Slipper faded away like a dream, and simultaneously a tall young man with a face like a red-hot potato tied up in a bandage, squeezed his way from the shop into the room. "'Well, Drisco,' said Flurry, "'since it wasn't the teeth of the rake he left on the mare, you needn't be talking.' lee kellway looked from one to the other with a wilder expression in his eye than i had thought it capable of i read in it a resolve to abandon ireland to her fate at eight o'clock we were still waiting for the car that we had been assured should be ours directly at return from the races at half-past eight we had adopted the only possible course that remained and had accepted the offers of lifts on the laden cars that were returning to skiborne

and I presently was gratified by the spectacle of my friend Lee Kellway, wedged between a roulette-table and its proprietor on one side of the car, with Driscoll and Slipper, mysteriously reconciled and excessively drunk, seated locked in each other's arms on the other. Flurry and I, somewhat similarly placed, followed on two other cars. I was scarcely surprised when I was informed that the melancholy white animal in the shafts of the leading car was old Bocococke, much-enduring steeple-chaser. The night was very dark and stormy, and it is almost superfluous to say that no one carried lamps. The rain poured upon us, and through wet and wind, old Bocock's mare, set the pace at a rate that showed she knew from bitter experience

what was expected from her by gentlemen who had spent the evening in the public house. Behind her, the other two tired horses followed closely, incited to emulation by shouting, singing, and a liberal allowance of whip. We were a good ten miles from Skiborne, and never had the road seemed so long, for mile after mile the half-seen low walls slid past us, with occasional plunges into caverns of darkness under trees. Sometimes, from a wayside cabin, a dog would dash out to bark at us as we rattled by.

Sometimes our cavalcade swung aside to pass, yells and counter- yells, crawling carts filled with other belated race-goers. I was nearly wept through, even though I received considerable shelter from a Skiborne publican who slept heavily and irrepressibly on my shoulder. Driscoll, on the leading car, had struck up an approximation to the wearing of the green, when a wavering star appeared on the road ahead of us. It grew momently larger. It came towards us a pace.

Flurry, on the car behind me, shouted suddenly, "'That's the mail-car, with one of the lamps out. Tell those fellas ahead to look out!' But the warning fell on deaf ears. "'Wend those can stop their blades of grass from growing as they grow!' howled five discordant voices, oblivious of the towering proximity of the star. A Bianconi mail-car is nearly three times the size of an ordinary outside car,

and when on a dark night it advances, cyclops-like, with but one eye. It is difficult for even a sober driver to calculate its bulk. Above the sounds of melody, there arose the thunder of heavy wheels, the splashing trample of three big horses, then a crash and a turmoil of shouts. Our cars pulled up just in time,

and I tore myself from the embrace of my publican to go to Lee Calway's assistance. The wing of the Bianconi had caught the wing of the small, a car, flinging old Bocock's mare on her side, and throwing her freight headlong on top of her, the heat being surmounted by the roulette table. The driver of the mail-car unshipped his solitary lamp and turned it upon the disaster. I saw that Flurry had already got hold of Lee Kelway by the heels, and was dragging him from under the others. He struggled up, hatless, muddy and gasping, with Driscoll hanging on by his neck, still singing the wearing of the green.

A voice from the mail-car said, incredulously, "'Lee Kellway!' A spectacled face glared down upon him from under the dripping spikes of an umbrella. It was the right honourable the Earl of Waterbury, Lee Kelway's chief, returning from his fishing expedition. Meanwhile, a slipper in the ditch, did not cease to announce that, "'Divil so pleasant a laughter, no, never ye seen as what was in it.

End of Chapter 5. This is a Librivox recording. All Libri-Box recordings are in the public domain. For further information, or to find out how you can volunteer, please go to Librivox.org. Recording by Andy Minter. Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. By Edith, Enoni Somerville and Martin Ross.

chapter six philippa's fox-hunt no one can accuse philippa and me of having married in haste as a matter of fact it was but little under five years from that autumn evening on the river when i had said what is called in ireland the hard word to the day in august when i was led to the altar by my best man and was subsequently led away from it by mrs sinclair yates about two years after the five had been spent by me at Shrelain in ceaseless warfare with drains, eaveshoots, chimneys, pumps, all those fundamentals, in short, that the ingenuous and improving tenant expects to find established as a basis from which to rise to higher things. As far as rising to higher things went, frequent ascents to the roof to search for leaks summed up my achievements. In fact, I suffered so general a shrinkage of my ideals that the triumph of making the whole doorbell ring blinded me to the fact that the rat-holes in the hall floor were nailed up with pieces of tin biscuit-boxes,

and that the casual visitor could, instead of leaving a card, have easily written his name in the damp on the walls. Philippa, however, proved adorably callous to these and similar shortcomings. She regarded Treelaine and its floundering, foundering menarch of incapables in the light of a gigantic picnic in a foreign land. She held long conversations daily with Mrs. Godin. in order, as she informed me, to acquire the language. Without any ulterior domestic intention, she engaged kitchen-maids because of the beauty of their eyes, and housemaids because they had such delightfully picturesque old mothers. And she declined to correct the phraseology of the parlour-maid, whose painful habit it was to whisper,

"'Do you choose cherry or clary?' when proffering the wine. Fast days, perhaps, afforded my wife her first insight into the sterner realities of of Irish housekeeping. Philippa had what are known as high church proclivities, and took the matter seriously. "'I don't know how we are to manage for the servants' dinner to-morrow, Sinclair,' she said, coming into my office one Thursday morning. Julia says she promised God this long time

that she wouldn't eat an egg on a fast day. And the kitchen-maid says she won't eat herrings without their fried with onions, and Mrs. Godogan says she will not go to them extremes for servants. i should let mrs cadogan settle the menu herself i suggested i asked her to do that replied philippa and she only said she thanked god she had no appetite the lady of the house here fell away into unseasonable laughter I made the demoralising suggestion that, as we were going away for a couple of nights, we might safely leave them to fight it out, and the problem was abandoned. Filippa had been much called on by the neighbourhood in all its shades and grades,

and daily she and her trousseau frocks presented themselves at hall-doors of varying dimensions in due acknowledgement of civilities. In Ireland, it may be noted, the process known in England as summering and wintering, a newcomer does not obtain. Sociability and curiosity alike forbid delay. The visit to which we owed our escape from the intricacies of the fast day was to the Knoxes of Castle Knox, relations in some remote and tribal way of my landlord, Mr. Flurry of that ilk.

It involved a short journey by train, and my wife's longest basket trunk. It also, which was more serious, involved by being lent a horse to go out of out-cubbing the following morning. At Castle Knox, we sank into an almost forgotten environment of draught-proof windows and doors, of deep carpets, of silent servants, instead of clattering belligerents.

Philip had told me afterwards that it had only been by an effort that she had restrained herself from snatching up the train of her wedding-gown as she paced across the wide hall on little Sir Valentine's arm. After three weeks at Shre Lane, she found it difficult to remember that the floor was neither damp nor dusty. I had the good fortune to be of the limited number of those who got on with Lady Knox, chiefly, I imagine, because I was as a worm before her,

and thankfully permitted her to do all the talking. "'Your wife is extremely pretty,' she pronounced autocratically, surveying Philippa between the candle-shades. "'Does she ride?' Lady Knox was a short, square lady, with a weather-beaten face, and an eye decisive from long habit of taking her own. own line across country and elsewhere. She would have made a very imposing little coachman, and would have caused her stable helpers to rue the day they had the presumption to be

born. It struck me that Sir Valentine sometimes did so. "'I'm glad you like her looks,' I replied, as I fear you will find her thoroughly despicable otherwise. For one thing she not only can't ride, but she believes that I can.' "'Oh, come, you're not as bad as all that,' my hostess was good enough to say. "'I'm going to put you up on sorcerer tomorrow, "'and we'll see you at the top of the hunt, if there is one. "'That young Knox hasn't a notion how to draw these woods.' "'Well, the best run we had last year out of this place

"'was with Flurry's hounds,' struck in Miss Sally, "'souled daughter of Sir Valentine's house and home, "'from her place halfway down the table. "'It was not difficult to see that she and her mother "'held different views on the subject of Mr. Flurry Knox.' "'I call it a criminal thing in any one's great-grandfather "'to rear up a preposterous troop of sons "'and plant them all out in his own country,'

"'lady Knox said to me, with apparent irrelevance. "'I detest collaterals. "'Bud may be thicker than water, "'but it is also a great deal nastier. "'In this country I find that Fifteenth cousins "'consider themselves near relations "'if they live within twenty miles of one.' "'Having before now taken in the position

"'with regard to Flurry-knock, I took care to accept these remarks as generalities, and turn the conversation to other themes. "'I see Mrs. Yates is doing wonders with Mr. Hamilton,' said Lady Knox presently, following the direction of my eyes, which had strayed away to where Philippa was beaming upon her left-hand neighbour, a mildewed-looking old clergyman, who was delivering a long dissertation, the purport of which we were happily unable to catch. "'She always had a gift for the church,' I said. "'Not curates,' said Lady Knox in her deep voice. "'I made haste to reply that it was the elders of the church who were venerated by my wife.

"'Well, she has her fancy an old Eustace Hamilton. "'He's elderly enough,' said Lady Knox. "'I wonder if she'd venerate him as much if she knew that he had fought with his sister-in-law, "'and they haven't spoken for thirty years. "'Though, for the matter of that,' she added, "'I think it shows his good sense. "'Mrs. Knox is rather a friend of mine,' I ventured. "'Is she?

"'Well, she's not one of mine,' replied my hostess, "'with her usual definiteness. "'I'll say one thing for her. "'I believe she's always been a sportswoman. "'She's very rich, you know, "'and they say she only married old badger-nox "'to save his hounds from being sold to pay his debts. "'And then she took the horn from him and hunted them herself.

"'Has she been rude to your wife?' yet? No? Well, she will. It's a mere question of time. She hates all English people. You know the story they tell of her. She was coming home from London, and when she was getting her ticket, the man asked if she had said a ticket for York. "'No, thank God, Cork,' said Mrs. Knox. "'Well, I rather agree with her,' said I. "'But why did she fight with Mr. Hamilton?' "'Oh, nobody knows. I don't believe they know themselves. "'whatever it was, the old lady drives five miles to Fort William every Sunday, "'rather than go to his church, just outside her own back gates.' "'Lady Knox said, with a laugh like a terrier's bark,

"'I wish I'd fought with him myself,' she said. "'He gives us forty minutes every Sunday.' "'As I struggled into my boots the following morning, "'I felt that Sir Valentine's acid confidences on cub-hunting "'b bestowed on me at midnight did credit to his judgment. A very moderate amusement, my dear Major, he had said in his little dry voice, you should stick to shooting. No one expects you to shoot before daybreak. It was six o'clock as I crept downstairs, and found Lady Knox and Miss Sally at breakfast,

with two lamps on the table, and a foggy daylight oozing in from under the half-raised blinds. Philippa was already in the hall, pumping up her bicycle, in a state of excitement at the prospect of her first experience of hunting that would have been more comprehensible to me than she'd been going to ride a strange horse as I was. As I bolted my food, I saw the horses being led past the windows, and a faint twang of a horn told me that Flurry Knox and his hounds were not far off. Miss Sally jumped up.

"'If I'm not on the cockatoo before the hounds come, I shall never get there,' she said, hobbling out of the room in the toils of her safety habit. Her small, alert face looked very childish under her riding-hat. The lamplight struck sparks out of her thick coil of golden-red hair. I wondered how I had ever thought her like her prim little father. She was already on her white cob when I got to the hall door, and Flourinnox was riding over the glistening wet grass with his hounds, while his whip, Dr. Jerome Hickey,

was having a stirring time with the young entry and the rabbit-holes. They moved on without stopping, upper back avenue, under tall and dripping trees, to a thick laurel covered, at some little distance from the house. Into this the hounds were thrown, and the usual period of fidgety in action set in for the riders, of whom all told there were about half a dozen. Lady Knox, square and solid on her big, confidential iron grey, was near me, and her eyes were on me and my mount. With her rubicund face and white collar she was more than ever like a little. a coachman. "'Saucer looks as if he suited you well,' she said, after a few minutes of silence, during which the hounds rustled and crackled steadily through the laurels. "'He's a little high on the leg, and so are you, you know, so you show each other off.'

Sorcerer was standing like a rock, with his good-looking head in the air, and his eyes fastened in the covert. His manners so far had been those of a perfect gentleman, and were in marked contrast to those of Miss Sally's Cobb, who was sidling, hopping, and snatching unapesably at his bit. Philippa had disappeared from view down the avenue ahead. The fog was melting, and the sun threw long blades of light through the trees. Everything was quiet, and in the distance the curtained windows of the house marked the warm repose of Sir Valentine, and those of the party who shared his opinion of Cubbing. Hark! Hark! Hark! to cry there! It was Flurry's voice. away at the other side of the covert. The rustling and brushing through the laurels became more vehement, and then passed out of hearing.

"'He never will leave his hounds alone,' said Mrs. Knox, disapprovingly. Miss Sally and the cockatoo moved away in a series of heraldic capers towards the end of the laurel plantation, and at the same moment I saw Philippa on her bicycle shoot into view on the drive ahead of us. "'I've seen a fox!' she screamed, white, with what I believe to have been personal terror, though she says it was excitement. It passed quite close to me. "'Which way did he go?' Bellowed a voice,

which I recognised as Dr. Hickies, somewhere in the deep of the laurels. "'Down the drive!' returned Philippa, with a peahen quality in her tones, with which I was quite unacquainted. An electrifying screech of, "'Gone away!' was projected from the laurels by Dr. Hickey.

Chanted Flurry's horn at the top of the covert. "'This is what he calls cubbing,' said Lady Knox, a mere farce. "'But nonetheless she loosed her sedate monster into a canter. "'Sourcerer got his hind-legs under him, and hardened his crest against the bit, "'and we all hustled along the drive after the flying figure of my wife. "'I knew very little about horses, but I realised that even with the hounds tumbling hysterically out of the covert, "'and the cockatoo kicking the gravel into his face, "'sourer comported himself with the manners of the best,

society. Up a side road I saw Flurry Knox, opening half of a gate, and cramming through it. In a moment we also had crammed through, and the turf of a pasture-field was under our feet. Dr. Hickey leant forward and took hold of his horse. I did likewise, with the trifling difference that my horse took hold of me, and I steered for Flurry Knox with single-hearted purpose. The hounds, already afield ahead, being merely an exciting and noisy accompaniment. of this endeavour. A heavy stone wall was the first occurrence of note. Flurry chose a place where the top was loose, and his clumsy-looking brown mare changed feet on the rattling stones like a fairy. Sorcerer came at it, tense, and collected as a bow at full stretch, and sailed steeply into the air. I saw the wall far beneath me,

with an unsuspected ditch on the far side, and I felt my hat following me at the full stretch of its guard as we swept over it. Then, with a long slant, we descended to earth some sixteen feet from where we had left it, and I was possessor of the gratifying fact that I had achieved a good-sized fly, and had not perceptibly moved in my saddle. Subsequent disillusioning experience has taught me that but few horses jump like sorcerer, so gallantly, so sympathetically, and with such supreme mastery of the subject. But, nonetheless, the enthusiasm that he imparted to me has never been extinguished, and that October morning ride revealed to me the unsuspecting intoxication of fox-hunting. Behind me I heard the scrabbling of the cockatoos little hoofs among the loose stones,

and Lady Knox, galloping on my left, jerked a maternal chin over her shoulder to mark her daughter's progress. For my part, had there been an entire circus behind me, I was far too much occupied with ramming on my hat and trying to hold sorcerer to have looked round. And all my spare faculties were devoted to steering for Flurry, who had taken a right-handed turn, and was at that moment surmounting a bank of uncertain and briary aspect. I surmounted it also, with the swiftness and simplicity for which the Quaker's methods of bank-jumping had not prepared me.

On two or three fields, traversed at the same steeplechase pace, brought us to a road and to an abrupt check. There suddenly were the hounds, scrambling in baffled silence down into the road from the opposite bank to look for the line they had overrun. And there, amazingly was Philippa, engaged in excited converse, with several men with spades over their shoulders. "'Did you see the foxboys?' shouted Flurry, addressing the group. "'We did, we did!' cried my wife and her friends in chorus. "'He ran at the road.'

"'We'd be badly off without Mrs. Yates,' said Flurry, as he whirled his mare round, and clattered up the road with a hustle of hounds after him. It occurred to me, as forcibly as any mere earthly thing, can occur to those who are rapt and the sublimities of a run, that for a young woman who had never before seen a fox out of a cage at the zoo, Philip was taking to hunting very kindly. Her cheeks were the most brilliant pink, her blue eyes shone. "'Oh, Sinclair!' she exclaimed.

"'They say he's going for Ursulus, and there's a road I can ride all the way. "'You can miss. Shaw we'll show you.' chorused her cortege. Her foot was on the pedal, ready to mount. Decidedly, my wife was in no need of assistance from me. Up the road a hound gave a yelp of discovery, and flung himself over a stile into the fields. The rest of the pack went squealing and jostling after him, and I followed Flurry over one of those infinitely varied directions, pleasantly termed gaps in Ireland. On this occasion the gap was made of three razor-edged slabs of slate, leaning against an iron bar, and sorcerer conveyed to me his thorough knowledge of the matter by a lift of his hindquarters that made me feel as if I was being skilfully kicked downstairs.

To what extent I looked it I cannot say, nor providentially can Philip her, as she had already started. I only know that undeserved good luck restored me to my stirrup before sorcerer got away with me in the next field. What followed was, I am told, a very fast fifteen minutes. For me, time was not. The empty fields rushed past uncounted. Fences came and went in a flash, while the wind sang in my ears, and the dazzle of the early sun was in my eyes. I saw the hounds occasionally, sometimes pouring over a green bank as the charging breaker lifts and flings itself, sometimes driving across a field as the white tongues of foam slice racing over the sand, and always ahead of me was Flurry Knox, going as a man.

goes who knows his country, who knows his horse, and whose heart is wholly and absolutely in the right place. Do what I would. Sorcerer's implacable stride carried me closer and closer to the brown mare, till as I thundered down the slope of a long-fielder, I was not twenty yards behind Flurry. Sourcerer had stiffened his neck to iron, and to slow him down was beyond me. But I fought his head away to the right, and found myself coming hard and steady at a stone-faced bank, with broken ground in front of it. Flurry bore away to the left, shouting something that I did not understand.

That sorcerer shortened his stride at the right moment was entirely due to his own judgment. Standing well away from the jump, he rose like a stag out of the Tussocky ground. And as he swung my twelve-stone-six into the air, the obstacle revealed itself to him and me, as consisting not of one bank, but of two, and between the two lay a deep, grassy lane,

half-choked with furs. I have often been asked to state the width of the Bahrain, and can only reply that, in my opinion, it was at least eighteen feet. Flurry Knox and Dr. Hickey, who did not jump it, say that it's not more than five. What sorcerer did with it, I cannot say. The sensation was of a towering flight with a kickback in it, a bigish drop, and a landing on sea-springs,

still on the downhill grade. That was how one of the best horses in Ireland, took one of Ireland's most ignorant riders over a very nasty place. A sombre line of fir-wood lay ahead, rimmed with a grey wall, and in another couple of minutes we had pulled up on the Orsalas Road, and were watching the hounds struggling over the wall into Orsalas Dimeen. "'No hurry now,' said Flurry, turning in his saddle, to watch the cockatoo jump into the road.

He's to ground in the big earth inside. "'Well, Major, it's well for you that that's a big jumped hoss.' I thought you were a dead man a while ago when you faced him at the Rohingen. I was disclaiming intention in the matter, when Lady Knox and the others joined us. "'I thought you told me your wife was no sportsman,' she said to me, critically scanning sorcerer's legs for cuts the while. But when I saw her a minute ago she had abandoned her bicycle and was running across country like—'

"'Look at her now!' interrupted Miss Sally. "'Oh! Oh!' In the interval between these exclamations, my incredulous eyes beheld my wife in mid-air, hand in hand with a couple of stalwart country boys, with whom she was leaping in unison from the top of her bank onto the road. Everyone, even the saturnine Dr. Hickey, began to laugh. I rode back to Philippa, who was exchanging compliments and congratulations with her escort. "'Oh, Sinclair!' she cried.

"'Wasn't it splendid! I saw you jumping and everything! Where are they going now?' my dear girl i said with marital disapproval you're killing yourself where's your bicycle oh it's punctured in a sort of lane back there it's all right and then they she breathlessly waved her hand at her attendants they showed me the way because you prove very good miss said a grinning cavalier faith she did said another polishing his shining brow with his white flannel coat-sleeve she leapt like a hearse "'And may I ask how you propose to go home?' said I. "'I don't know, and I don't care. I'm not going home,' she cast an entirely disobedient eye at me, "'and your eyeglasses hanging down your back, and your tie is bulging out over your waistcoat.' The little group of riders had begun to move away.

"'We're going into Arceles,' called out Flurry. "'Come on and make my grandmother give you some breakfast, Mrs. Yates. She always has it at eight o'clock.' the front gates were close at hand and we turned in under the tall beech-trees with the unswept leaves rustling round the horse's feet and the lovely blue of the october morning sky filling the spaces between smooth grey branches and golden leaves The woods rang with the voices of the hounds, enjoying an untrammeled rabbit-hunt, while the master and the whip, both on foot, strolled along unconcernedly, with their bridles over their arms, making themselves agreeable to my wife, an occasional touch of Flurried's horn, or a crack of Dr. Hickey's whip,

just indicating to the pack that the authorities still took a friendly interest in their doings. They aren't a grassy glade in the wood, A party of old Mrs. Knox's young horses suddenly swept into view, headed by an old mayor, who, with her tail over her back, stampeded ponderously past our cavalcade, shaking and swinging her handsome old head, while her youthful friends bucked and kicked and snapped at each other round her, with the ferocious humour of their kind. "'Here, Jerome, take the horn,' said Flurry to Dr. Hickey. "'I'm going to see Mrs. Yates up to the house.

"'Away these tom-fools won't gallop on top of her.' from this point it seemed to me that philippa's adventurers are more worthy of record than mine and as she has favoured me with a full account of them i venture to think my version may be relied on Mrs. Knox was already at breakfast when Philippa was led, quaking, into her formidable presence. My wife's acquaintance with Mrs. Knox was, so far, limited to a state visit on either side, and she found but little comfort in Flurry's assurances that his grandmother wouldn't mind if he brought all the hounds into breakfast, coupled with the statement that she would put her eyes on sticks for the major. Whatever the truth of this may have been, Mrs. Knox received her guest with an equanimity, quite unshaken by the fact that her boots were in the fender instead of on her feet,

and that a couple of shawls of varying dimensions and degrees of age did not conceal the inner presence of a magenta flannel dressing-jacket. She installed Philippa at the table, and plied her with food, oblivious to whether the needful implements with which to eat it were forthcoming or no. She told Flurry where a vixen had reared her family, and she watched him right away, with some biting comments on his mare's hocks, screamed after him from the window. The dining-room at Orsula's Castle is one of the many rooms in Ireland

in which Cromwell is said to have stabled his horse, and probably no one would have objected less than Mrs. Knox had she been consulted in the matter. Philippa questions if the room had ever been tidied up since, and she endorses Flurry's observation that, there wasn't a day in the year you wouldn't get a feeding for a hen and check-ins on the floor, opposite to Philippa on a Louis-Carr's chair. sat Mrs. Knox's woolly dog, its suspicious little eyes,

peering at her out of their setting of pink lids and dirty white wool. A couple of young horses outside the windows tore at the matted creepers on the walls, or thrust faces that were half shy, half impudent, into the room. Portly pigeons waddled to and fro on the broad window-sill, sometimes flying in to perch on the picture-frames, while they kept up incessantly a horse and pompous cooing.

Animals and children are, as a rule, a like destructive conversation. But Mrs. Knox, when she chose, bien-int-tand-du, could have made herself agreeable in a Noah's Ark, and Philippa has a gift of sympathetic attention that personal experience has taught me to regard with distrust, as well as respect, while it has often made me realise the worldly wisdom of Kingsley's injunction. Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever. Family prayers, declaimed by Mrs. Knox with alarming austerity, followed close on breakfast. Philippa and a vinegar-faced hench-woman forming the family. The prayers were long, and through the open window as they progressed, came distantly a hoop or two. The declamatory tones staggered a bit, and then continued at a distinctly higher rate of speed.

"'Mam! ma'am!' whispered a small voice at the window. Mrs Knox made a repressive gesture and held on her way. A sudden outcry of hounds followed, and the owner of the whisper, a small boy with a face freckled like a turkey's egg, darted from the window, and dragged a donkey and bath-chair into view. Philippa admits to having lost the thread of the discourse,

but she thinks that the Amen, that immediately ensued, can hardly have come in its usual place. Mrs. Knox shut the book abruptly, scrambled up from her knees, and said, "'They've found!' In a surprisingly short space of time, she had added to her attire her boots, a fair cape, and a garden hat,

and was in the bath-chair, the small boy stimulating the donkey, with the success peculiar to his class, while Philippa hung on behind. The woods of Orselace are hilly and extensive, and on that particular morning, it seemed that they held as many foxes as hounds. In vain was the horn blown,

and the whips cracked, small rejoicing parties of hounds, each were the fox of its own, scoured to and fro. Every labourer in the vicinity had left his work, and was sedulously heading every fox, with yells that would have befitted a tiger hunt, and sticks and stones when the occasion served.

"'Will I pull out as far as the big rosy dandrum, ma'am?' inquired the small boy. "'I seen three of the dogs go in it, and they're yowling.' "'You will?' said Mrs. Knox, thumping the donkey on. the back with her umbrella. "'Here, Jeremiah Regan, come down out of that with the pitchfork. Do you want to kill the fox, you fool?' "'I do not, Your Honor, ma'am,' responded Jeremy Regan, a tall young

countryman, emerging from a bramble-break. "'Did you see him?' said Mrs. Knox eagerly. "'I see himself in his ten pops drinking below at the lake air yesterday, your honour, ma'am, and he is as big as a chestnut horse,' said Jeremy. "'For yesterday,' snorted Mrs. Knox. Go on to the rhododendrons, Johnny. The party, reinforced by Jeremy and the pitchfork, progressed at a high rate of speed along the shrubbery path. Encountering en route, Lady Knox, stooping on her horse's neck under the sweeping branches of the laurels.

"'Your horse is too high for my coverts, Lady Knox,' said the Lady of the manor, with a malicious eye at Lady Knox's flushed face and dinged hat. I'm afraid you would be left behind like Absalom when the hounds go away. "'As they never do anything here, but hunt rabbits,' retorted her ladyship, "'I don't think that's likely.' Mrs. Knox gave her donkey another whack and passed on. "'Rabits, my dear,' she said scornful little Philippa, "'that's all she knows about it.

"'I declare it disgusts me to see a woman of that age, "'making such a duty of herself. "'Rabits, indeed!' "'Down in the thicket of rhododendron. "'Everything was very quiet, a time. Philippa strained her eyes in vain to see any of the riders. The horn blowing and the whip cracking passed on almost out of hearing. Once or twice a hound worked through the rhododendrons, glanced at the party, and hurried on, immersed in business. All at once, Johnny, the donkey-boy,

whispered excitedly, look at he! Look at he! And pointed to a boulder of grey rock that stood out among the dark evergreens. A big yellow cub was crouching on it. He instantly slipped into the shelter of the bushes, and the irrepressible Jeremiah, uttering a rending shriek, plunged into the thicket after him. Two or three hounds came rushing at the sound, and after this, Philippa says, she finds some difficulty in recalling the proper order of events. Chiefly, she confesses, because of the wholly ridiculous tears of excitement that blurred her eyes. We ran, she said, we simply tore, and the donkey galloped, and, as for that old Mrs. Knox, she was giving crows. She was giving cracked screams to the hounds all the time, and they were screaming too, and then somehow we were all out on the road.

What seems to have occurred was that three couple of hounds, Jeremiah Regan, and Mrs. Knox's equipage, amongst them somehow hustled the cub out of Orsela's demean, and up onto the hill on the farther side of the road. Jeremiah was sent back by his mistress to fetch Flurry, and the rest of the party pursued a thrilling course along the road, parallel with that of the hounds, who was a little of the hounds, were hunting slowly through the gorse on the hillside. "'Upon my honour and word, Mrs. Yates, my dear, we have the hunt to ourselves,' said Mrs. Knox, to the panting Philippa, as they pounded along the road.

"'Johnny, do you see the fox?' "'Ado, ma'am!' shrieked Johnny, who possessed the usual field-glass vision bestowed upon his kind. "'Look at him. Overright us on the hill above. "'Hey, the spotty-dog have him—' "'No, he's gone from him. "'Wand out of that.' This to the donkey, with blows that sounded like the beating of carpets, and produced rather more dust. They had left Orsela's some half a mile behind, when, from a strip of wood on their right,

the fox suddenly slipped over the bank onto the road just ahead of them, ran up it for a few yards, and whisked in at a small entrance gate, with the three couple of hounds yelling on a red-hot scent, not thirty yards behind. The bath-chair party whirled in at their heels. Philipa and the donkey considerably blown. Johnny, scarlet through his freckles, but as fresh as paint. The old lady, blind and deaf to all things save the chase. The hounds went raging through the shrubs beside the drive,

and away down a grassy slope, towards a shallow glen, in the bottom of which ran a little stream, and after them, over the grass, bumped the bath-chair. At the stream they turned sharply, and ran up the glen towards the avenue, which crossed it by means of a rough stone viaduct. "'Pon my consciences into the old culvert!' exclaimed Mrs. Knox. "'There was one of my hounds choked there once long ago.

"'Beat on the donkey, Johnny!' "'At this juncture, Philippa's narrative again becomes incoherent, not to say breathless. "'She is, however, positive, that it was somewhere about here "'that the upset of the bath-chair occurred. "'But she cannot be clear as to whether she picked up the donkey or Mrs. Knox, "'or whether she herself was picked up by Johnny, while Mrs Knox picked up the donkey. From my knowledge of Mrs. Knox,

I should say she picked up herself and no one else. At all events, the next salient point is the palpitating moment when Mrs. Knox, Johnny and Philippa, successively applying an eye to the opening of the culvert, by which the stream trickled under the viaduct, while five dripping hounds bayed and leapt around them, discovered by more senses than that of sight that the fox was in it, and furthermore that one of the first of the one of the one of the one of the one of the one of the one,

of the hounds was in it, too. "'There's a strong grating before him at the far end,' said Johnny, his head in at the mouth of the hole, his voice sounding as if he were talking into a jug. "'The two of them's fighting in it. They'll be choked, surely.' "'Then don't stand gabbling there, you little fool, but get in and pull the hound out,' exclaimed Mrs. Knox, who was balancing herself on a stone in the stream. "'I'll be in dread, ma'am,' whined Johnny. "'Baldadash!' said the implacable Mrs. Knox.

"'In with you!' "'I understand that Philippa assisted Johnny into the culvert, "'and presumed that it was in so doing "'that she acquired the two Robinson Crusoe bare footprints, "'which decorated her jacket when I next met her. "'Have you got hold of him yet, Johnny?' cried Mrs. Knox up the culvert. "'I have, ma'am, by the tail,' responded Johnny's voice, "'sipulchral in the depths.

"'Can you stir him, Johnny?' "'I cannot, ma'am, ma'am.' "'and the water is rising in it?' "'Well, please God, they'll not open the mill-dam,' remarked Mrs. Knox, philosophically to Philippa, as she caught hold of Johnny's dirty ankles. "'Hold on the tail, Johnny!' she hauled, with, as might be expected, no appreciable result.

"'Run, my dear, and look for somebody, and we'll have that fox yet.' Philippa ran, whither she knew not, pursued by fearful visions of bursting mill-dams and maddened foxes at bay. As she sped up the avenue She heard voices, robust male voices in a shrubbery, and made for them. Advancing along an embowered walk towards her

was what she took for one wild instant to be a funeral. A second glance showed her that it was a party of clergymen of all ages, walking by twos and threes in the dappled shade of the overarching trees. Obviously she had intruded her sacrilegious presence into a clerical meeting. She acknowledges that at this

awe-inspiring spectacle, she faltered. But the thought of Johnny, the hound and the fox, suffocating, possibly drowning together in the culvert, nerved her. She does not remember what she said, or how she said it, but I fancy she must have conveyed to them the impression that old Mrs. Knox was being drowned, as she immediately found herself heading a charge of the Irish church towards the scene of the disaster. Fate has not always used me well, but on this occasion it was and mercifully decreed that I and the other members of the hunt should be privileged to arrive in time to see my wife and her rescue party precipitating themselves down the glen. "'Holy biddy!' ejaculated Flurry. "'Is she running a paper-chase with all the Parsons?'

"'But look! For pity's sake! Will you look at my grandmother and my uncle Eustace?' Mrs. Knox and her sworn enemy, the old clergyman, whom I had met at dinner the night before, was standing, apparently in the stream, tugging at two bare legs that projected from a hole in the viaduct, and arguing at the top of their voices. The bath-chair lay on its side, with the donkey grazing beside it. On the bank a stout archdeacon was tendering advice, and the hounds danced and howled round the entire group. "'I tell you, Eliza, you had better let the archdeacon try,' thundered Mr. Hamilton. "'Did I tell you I will not?' resiverated Mrs. Knox, with a tug-and, at the end of the sentence, that elicited a subterranean lament from Johnny.

"'Now, who was right about that second-grating? I told you so, twenty years ago!' Exactly as Philippa and her rescue party arrived, the efforts of Mrs. Knox and her brother-in-law triumphed. The struggling, sopping form of Johnny was slowly drawn from the hole, drenched, speechless, but clinging to the stern of a hound, who in its turn had its jaws fast in the hind-quarters of a limp yellow cub. "'Oh, it's dead!' wailed Philippa. "'I did think I should have been in time to save it.' "'Well, if that doesn't be dull,' said Dr. Hickey.

"'End of Chapter 6. "'This is a Libri-Box recording. All Libri-Box recordings are in the public domain. For further information, or to find out how you can volunteer, here, please go to Librevox.org. Recording by Andy Minter Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. By Edith, Enone Somerville, and Martin Ross.

Chapter 7. A Miss Deal The wagonette slewed and slackened mysteriously on top of the long hill above Drumcurran. So many remarkable things had happened since we had entrusted ourselves to the guidance of Mr. Bernard Shute, that I rose in my place and possessed myself of the brake, and in so doing saw the horses with their heads hard in against their chests, and their quarters jammed crookedly against the splashboard, being apparently tied into knots by some inexplicable power. "'Someone's pulling the reins out of my hand!' exclaimed Mr. Shute.

The horses and pole were by this time making an acute angle with the wagonette, and the groom plunged from the box to their heads. Miss L'I Knox, who was sitting beside me, looked over the edge. "'Put on the brake! The reins are twisted round the axle!' she cried, and fell into a fit of laughter. "'We all, let is say, Philippa, Miss Shute, Miss Knox, and I, got out as speedily as might be, but I think without panic. Mr. Shoot alone stuck to the ship, with the horses struggling and rearing below him. The groom and I contrived to back them, and by so doing caused the reins to unwind themselves from the axle. "'It was my fault,' said Mr. Chute, hauling them in as fast as we could give them to him.

"'I broke the reins yesterday, and these are the phaeton once, and about six fathoms long at that, and I forgot and let the slack go overboard. It's all right. I won't do it again.' With this reassurance we confided ourselves once more to the Wagonet. As we neared the town of Drumcurran, the fact that we were on our way to a horse-fair became alarmingly apparent, It is impossible to imagine how we pursued an uninjured course through the companies of horsemen, the crowded carts, the squeaning cults, the irresponsible lead horses, and most immutable of all obstacles, the groups of countrywomen, with the hoods of their heavy blue cloaks over their heads. They looked like nuns of some obscure order.

They were deaf and blind as ramparts of sandbags, nothing less callous to human life than a Parisian cab-driver could have burst away through them. Many times during that drive I had cause to be thankful for the sterling qualities of Mr. Schute's brake. With its aid he dragged his overfed bays into a crawl, that finally, and not without injury to the varnish, took the wagonette to the Royal Hotel. Every available stall in the yard was by that time filled, and it was only by virtue of the fact that the kitchen-maid was nearly related to my cook that the indignant groom was permitted to stable the bays in a den known as the Carth-house.

that i should have lent myself to such an expedition was wholly due to my wife since philippa had taken up her residence in ireland she had discovered a taste for horses that was not to be extinguished even by an occasional afternoon on the quaker whose paces had become harder than rock in his many journeys to petty sessions She had also discovered the shoots, newcomers on the outer edge of our vast visiting district, and between them this party to drum-curran horse fare had been devised. Philippa proposed to buy herself a hunter. Bernard Schute wished to do the same, possibly two hunters, money being no difficulty with this fortunate young man. Miss Sally Knox was of the company, and I also had been kindly invited as to a missionary meeting to come and bring my cheque-book.

the only saving clause in the affair was the fact that mr flurry knox was to meet us at the scene of action the fair was held in a couple of large fields outside the town and on the farther bank of the curran hiltie river across a wide and glittering ford horses of all sizes and sorts were splashing and a long row of stepping-stones was hopped and staggered and scrambled over by a ceaseless variety of foot-passengers a man with a cart plied as a ferry-boat doing a heavy trade among the apple-women and vendors of Krobeens, alias pig's feet, a grizzly delicacy, peculiar to Irish open-air holiday-making, and the July sun blazed on a scene that even Miss Cecilia shoot found to be almost repayment enough for the alarms of the drive. "'As a rule, I'm so bored by driving that I find it reviving to be frightened,' she said to me, as we climbed to safety on a heathery ridge above the fields dedicated to galloping the horses. But when my brother scraped all those people off one side of that car, and ran the pole into the cart of lemonade bottles, I began to wish for courage to tell him I was going to get out and walk home.

Well, if you only knew it, said Bernard, who was spreading rugs over the low firs bushes, in the touching belief that the prickles would not come through. The time you came nearest to walking home was when the lash of the whip got twisted round Nancy's tail. Miss Knox, you're an authority on these things. Don't you think it would be a good scheme to have a light anchor in the trap? And when the horses began to play the fool, you'd heave the anchor over the fence, and bring them up all standing. They wouldn't stand for very long, remarked Miss Sally. Oh, that's all right, returned the inventor.

I'd have a dodge to catch them loose, with the pole and the splinter bar. You'd never see them again, responded Miss Knox de Murly. If you thought that mattered. it would be the brightest feature of the case said miss chute she was surveying miss sally through her pince-nay as she spoke and was i have reason to believe deciding that by the end of the day her brother would be well on in the first stages of his fifteenth love affair It has possibly been suspected that Mr. Bernard Shute was a sailor, had been a sailor rather, until within the last year, when he had tumbled into a fortune and a property, and out of the Navy, in the shortest time on record. His enthusiasm for horses had been nourished by the highlings of Malta, and other resorts of Her Majesty's ships, and his knowledge of them was,

so far bounded by the fact that it was more usual to come off over their heads than their tails. For the rest, he was a clean-shaved and personable youth, with a laugh, which I may, without offence of intention, define as possessing a what-chiriness special to his profession, and a habit engendered no doubt by long sojourns in the Antipodes, of getting his clothes in large hideous consignments from a naval outfitter. It was eleven o'clock, and the fare was in full swing. Its vortex was in the centre of the field below us, where a low bank of sods and earth had been erected as a trial jump, with a yelling crowd of men and boys at either end, acting instead of the usual wings to prevent a swerve. Strings of reluctant horses were scourged over the bank by dozens of willing hands,

while exhortation, cheers and criticism were freely showered upon each performance. give the knees to the saddle-boy and leave the heel slack that's a nice hoss he'd keep a jock on his back when another'd throw him ah well jump be gone she fled that fairly as an ungainly three-year-old flounced over the bank without putting a foe funnet then her owner unloosing his pride insimely after the manner of his race aha when she give a leapt man she's that free she's like a hair for it a giggling group of country girls elbowed their way past us out of the crowd of spectators, one of the number inciting her fellows to hurry on to the other field, until they'd seen the lads galloping the harses, to which another responding that she'd be skinned alive for the hasses. The party sped on their way. We, i.e., my wife, Miss Knox, Bernard Schutt, and myself, followed in their wake, a matter by no means as easy as it looked. Miss Schute had exhibited her

wanted intelligence by remaining on the hilltop with the spectator. She had not reached the happy point of possessing a mind ten years older than her age, and a face ten years younger, without also developing the gift of scenting boredom from afar. We squeezed past the noses and heels of fidgety horses, and circumnavigated their attendant groups of critics, while half-trained brutes in snaffles bolted to nowhere and back again, and whinnying foals ran to and fro in searchers, of their mothers. A moderate bank divided the upper from the lower fields, and as every feasible

spot in it was commanded by a refusing horse, the choice of a place and moment for crossing it, required judgment. I got Philippa across it in safety. Miss Knox, though as capable as any young woman in Ireland, of getting over a bank, either on horseback or on her own legs, had to submit to the assistance of Mr. Schute, and the laws of dynamics decreed that a force sufficient to raise a bower anchor, should hoist her seven-stone, odd, to the top of the bank with such speed that she landed half on her knees, and half in the arms of her pioneer. A group of portentously quiet men stood near, their eyes on the ground, their hands in their pockets. They were all dressed so much alike, that I did not at first notice that Flurry Knox

was among them. When I did, I perceived that his eyes, instead of being on the ground, were surveying Mr. Shute, with that measure of disapproval that he habitually bestowed upon strange men. "'Year later than I thought you'd be,' he said, "'I have a horse half-bought for Mrs. Yates. It's that old mare of Bobby Bennetts. She makes a little noise, but she's a good mare, and you couldn't throw her down if you tried. Bobby wants thirty pounds for her, but I think you might get her for less. She's in the hotel stables, and you can see her when you go into lunch.' We moved on towards the rushy bank of the river, and Philip.

and Sally Knox seated themselves on a low rock, looking in their white frocks as incongruous in that dingy preoccupied assemblage, as the dreamy meadow-sweet and purple spires of loose strife that thronged the river banks. Bernard Schute had been lost in the shifting maze of men and horses, who were, for the most part, galloping with the blind fury of charging bulls. But presently, among a party who seemed to be riding the finish of a race, we descried our friend, and a second or two later he should, called a brown mare to a standstill in front of us. The fellow's asking forty-five pounds for her, he said to Miss Sally. She's a nailer to gallop. I don't think it's too much. Her grandson was the mountain here, said the owner of the mayor, hurrying up to continue her family history. And he was the grandest horse and all the four baronies. He was forty-two years of age when he died.

And they waked him, the same as you'd wake a Christian. They had whiskey and pother and bread, and a piper in it?' "'Thim mountaineer, huts, "'he's no great things,' interrupted Mr. Schult's groom contemptuously. "'I seen a colt once that was one of his stock, "'and if there was forty men and their wives "'and they after him with sticks,

"'he wouldn't leap a sort of turf.' "'Leap is it?' "'Ejectulated the owner, in a voice shrill with outrage. "'You may lead that mare out through the country. "'There isn't a fence in it that she wouldn't go up to it, "'as independent as if she was going to her bed, "'and Your Honour's lady, "'Nship knows that damn well, Miss Knox.'

"'You want too much money for her, MacArthur,' "'returned Miss Sally, with her little air of preternatural wisdom.' "'God pardon you, Miss Knox! "'Sure a lady like you knows well that forty-five pounds is no money for that, mere.' "'Fourty-five pounds!' he laughed. "'It has be as good for me to make her a present to the gentleman all out, "'I'll take three farthings less for her. "'She is too grand entirely for a poor farmer like me.

and if it wasn't for the long week family i have i wouldn't part with her under twice the money three fine lumps of daughters in america paying his rent for him commented flurry in the background that's the long week family bernard dismounted and slapped the mayor's ribs approving me i haven't had such a gallop since i was at rio he said what do you think of her miss knox then without waiting for an answer i like her i think i may as well give him the forty-five and have done with it At these ingenuous words I saw a spasm of anguish cross the countenance of McCarthy, easily interpreted as the first pang of a lifelong regret that he had not asked twice the money. Flurry Knox put up an eyebrow and winked at me. Mr. Schute's groom turned away for very shame. Sally Knox laughed with the deplorable levity of nineteen. Thus, with a brevity absolutely scandalous in the eyes of all beholders, the bargain was concluded. Flurry strolled up to Philippa, observing an elaborate remoteness from Miss Sally and from Mr. Schute.

"'I believe I'm selling a horse here myself to-day,' he said. "'Would you like to have a look at him, Mrs. Yates?' "'Oh, are you selling nox?' struck in Bernard, to whose brain the glory of buying a horse had obviously mounted like new wine. "'I want another, and I know yours are the right sort.' "'Well, as you seem so fond of galloping,' said Flurry, sardonically, "'This one might suit you.' "'You don't mean the moonlighter,' said Miss Knox, looking fixedly at him. "'Supposing I did, have you anything to say against him?' replied Flurry.

Decidedly, he was in a very bad temper. Miss Sally shrugged her shoulders and gave a little shred of a laugh, but said no more. In a comparatively secluded corner of the field we came upon moonlighter, sidling and fussing with flickering ears, his tail tightly tucked in, and his strong-back humped in a manner that boded little good. Even to my untutored eye, he appeared to be an uncommonly good-looking animal, a well-bred grey, with shoulders that raked back as far as the eye could wish, the true Irish jumping hindquarters, and a showy head and neck.

It was obvious that nothing except Michael Hallerhane's adroit-chucks at his bridle kept him from displaying his jumping powers free of charge. Bernard stared at him in silence, not the pregnant and intimidating silence of the connoisseur, but the tong-tied muteness of helpless ignorance. His eye for horses had most probably been formed on circus posters, and the advertisements of a well-known embrication, and moonlighter approximated in colour and conduct to these models. "'I can see he's a ripping fine horse,' he said, at length.

"'I think I should like to try him.' Miss Knox changed countenance perceptibly, and gave a perturbed glance at Flurry. Flurry remained impenetrably unamiable. "'I don't pretend to be a judge of horses,' went on Mr. Chute. "'I dare say I needn't tell you that,' with a very engaging smile at Miss Sally. "'But I like this one awfully.' As even Philippa said afterwards, she would not have given herself away like that over buying a reel of cotton. "'Are you quite sure he's really the sort of horse you want?' said Miss Knox,

with rather more colour in her face than usual. "'He's only four years old, and he's hard.' "'Hudely a finished hunter.' The object of her philanthropy looked rather puzzled. "'What? Can't he jump?' he said. "'Is he jump?' exclaimed Michael Hallaghan, unable any longer to contain himself. "'Is it the horse that jumped five foot of a clothes-line in Heavenen's yard,

and not one on his back but himself, and didn't leave so much as a track of his hoof on the quilt that was hanging on it?' "'That's about good enough,' said Mr. Shute, with his large, friendly laugh. "'What's your price, Knox? "'I must have the horse that jumped the quilt. "'I'd like to try him, if you don't mind. "'There are some jolly-looking banks over there.'

"'My price is a hundred sovereigns,' said Flurry. "'You can try him if you like.' "'Oh, don't!' cried Sally impulsively, "'but Bernard's foot was already in the stirrup. "'I call it disgraceful,' I heard her say in a low voice to her kinsman. "'You know he can't rise.' The kinsman permitted himself a malign smile. "'That's his lookout,' he said.

"'Perhaps the unexpected docility, with which Moonlighter allowed himself to be manoeuvred through the crowd, was due to Bernard's thirteen stone. At all events his progress through a gate into the next field was unexceptional. Bernard, however, had no idea of encouraging this tranquility. He had come out to gallop, and without further ceremony he drove his heels into Moonlighter's sides, and took the consequences in the shape of a very fine and able buck. How he remained within even visiting distance of the saddle, it is impossible to explain. Perhaps his early experience in the rigging stood him in good stead in the matter of hanging on by his hands.

But, however preserved, he did remain, and went away down the field at what he himself subsequently described as the rate of knots. Flurry flung away his cigarette, and ran to a point of better observation. We all ran, including Michael Hallagane and various onlookers, and were in time to see Mr. Chute charging the least advantageous spot in a hollow-faced fursy bank. Nothing but the grey horse's extreme activity got the pair safely over, he jumped it on a slant, changed feet in the heart of a fursbush, and was lost to view. In what relative positions Bernard and his steed delighted was to us a matter of conjecture. When we caught sight of them again, Moonlighter was running away, with his rider still on his back, while the slope of the ground lent wings to

his flight. "'That young gentleman will be apt to be killed,' said Michael Hallehan, with composure, not to say enjoyment. "'He'll be into the long bog with him pretty soon,' said Flurry, his keen eye tracking the fugitive. "'Oh, I thought he was off that time!' exclaimed Miss Sally. with a gasp in which consternation and amusement were blended. "'There! He is into the bog!' It did not take us long to arrive at the scene of disaster, to which, as to a dog-fight, other foot-runners were already hurrying, and on our arrival we found things looking remarkably unpleasant

for Mr. Chute and Moonlighter. The latter was sunk to his withers in the sheet of black slime into which he had stampeded. The former submerged to the waist, three yards farther away in the bog, was trying to drag himself towards firm ground, by the aid of tussocks of wiry grass. "'Hit him!' shouted Flurry. "'Hit him! He'll sink if he stops there!' Mr. Chute turned on his adviser, a face streaming with black mud, out of which his brown eyes and white teeth gleamed with undaunted cheerfulness.

"'All jolly fine!' he called back. "'If I let go this grass, I'll sink, too!' A shout of laughter from the male portion of the spectators sympathetically greeted this announcement, and a dozen equally futile methods of escape were suggested. Among those who had joined this was, fortunately, one of the many boys who pervaded the fair, selling halters, and by means of several of these knotted together,

a line of communication was established. Moonlighter, who had fallen into the state of inane stupor in which horses in his plight so often indulge, was roused to activity by showers of stones and imprecations but faintly chastened by the presence of ladies bernard hanging on to his tail belaboured him with a cane and finally the reins proving good the task of towing the victims ashore was achieved he's mine knocks you know were mr chute's first words as he scrambled to his feet he's the best horse i ever got across worth twice the money faith he's it he pleased remarked a bystander. "'Oh, do go and borrow some dry clothes!' Interposed Philippa practically.

"'Surely there must be someone.' "'There's a shop in the town where he can strip a peg for thirteen and ninepence,' said Flurry grimly. "'I wouldn't care myself about the clothes you'd borrow here.' The morning sun shone jovially upon moonlight and his rider, caking momently the black bog-stuff with which both were coated, and as the group disintegrated, and we turned to go. back, every man present was pleasurably aware that the buttons of Mr. Schute's riding-bridges

had burst at the knee, causing a large triangular hiatus above his gaiter. "'Well,' said Flurry, conclusively to me, as we retraced our steps, "'I always thought the fellow was a fool, but I never thought he was such a damn fool.' It seemed an interminable time since breakfast, when our party, somewhat shattered by the stirring events of the morning, found itself gathered in an upstairs room at the Royal Hotel, waiting for a meal that had been ordained some two hours before. The air was charged with the mingled odours of boiling cabbage and frying mutton. We affected to speak of them with disgust, but our souls yearned to them.

Female minstrants, with rustling skirts and pounding feet, raced along the passages with trays that were never for us, and opening doors released roaring gusts of conversation, blended with the clatter of knives and forks, and still we starved. Even the ginger-coloured Czech suit, lately labelled the Sandringham, wonderful value, sixteen and ninepence, in the window of Drum Curran's leading mart, and now displayed on Mr. Schutz's all too lengthy limbs, had lost its power to charm. "'Oh, don't tear that bell quite out by the roots, Bernard,' said his sister, from the heart of. a lamentable yawn. "'I dare say it only amuses them when we ring, but it may remind them that we are still alive. Major Yates, do you or do you not regret the pig's feet?'

"'More than I can express,' I said, turning from the window, where I had been looking down at the endless succession of horses' backs and men's hats, moving in two opposing currents in the street below. I dare say, if we talk about them for a while, we shall feel ill, and that will be better than nothing. At this juncture, however, a heavy-laden tray thumped against the door, and our repast was borne into the room by a hot young woman in creaking boots, who hoarsely explained that what kept her was waiting on the potatoes,

and that the old pan that was in it was playing puck with the beef-steaks. "'Well,' said Miss Chute, as she began to try conclusions, between a blunt knife and a bullet-proof mutton chop, "'I have never lived in the country before, "'but I've always been given to understand that the village inn was one of its chief attractions.' "'She delicately moved the potato dish, "'so as to cover the traces of a bygone egg, "'and her glance lingered on the flies that dragged their way across a melting mound of salt butter.

"'I like local colour, but I don't care about it on the tablecloth.' "'Well, I'm feeling quite anxious about Irish country hotels now,' said Bernard. They're getting so civilised and respectable. After all, when you go back to England, no one cares a pen to hear that you've been done up to the knocker. That don't amuse them a bit. But all my friends were as pleased as anything when I tell them of the pothouse, when I slept in my clothes rather than face the sheets. Or how, when I complained to the landlady next day, she said,

cocky up, wasn't it his reverence the Dean of Kilko had them last? We smiled onely. What I chiefly felt was respect for any hungry, man who could jest in the presence of such a meal. "'All this time my hunter hasn't been bought,' said Philippa presently, leaning back in her chair and abandoning the unequal contest with her beefsteak. "'Who is Bobby Bennett? Will his horse carry a lady?' Sally Knox looked at me and began to laugh.

"'You should ask Major Yates about Bobby Bennett,' she said. "'Confound Miss Sally. It had never seemed worthwhile to tell Philippa all that. story about my doing up Miss Bobby Bennett's hair, and I sank my face in my tumbler of stagnant whisky and soda to conceal the colour that suddenly adorned it. Any intelligent man will understand that it was a situation calculated to amuse the ungodly, but without any real fun in it. I explained Miss Bennet as briefly as possible, and at all the more critical points, Miss Sally's hazel-green eyes roamed slowly and mercilessly towards me. You haven't told Mrs. Yates, that she's one of the greatest horse-copers in the country, she said, when I had got through somehow.

She can sell you a very good horse sometimes, and a very bad one, too, if she gets the chance. "'No one will ever explain to me,' said Miss Chute, scanning us all, with her dark, half-amused, and wholly sophisticated eyes. "'Why, horse-coping is more respectable than cheating at cards. I rather respect people who are able to cheat at cards. If everyone did, it would make wist so much. more cheerful, but there's no forgiveness for dealing yourself the right card, and there's no condemnation for dealing your neighbour a very wrong horse. Your neighbour is supposed to be able to take care of himself,' said Bernard. "'Well, why doesn't that apply to card-players?' returned his sister. "'Are they all in a state of helpless innocence?' "'I'm helplessly innocent,' announced Philippa.

"'So I hope Miss Bennet won't deal me a wrong horse.' "'Oh, her mare is one of the right ones.' said miss sally she's a lovely jumper and her manners are the very best the door opened and flurry knox put in his head bobby bennett's downstairs he said to me mysteriously i got up not without consciousness of miss sally's eye and prepared to follow him you'd better come too mrs yates to keep an eye on him don't let him give her more than thirty and if he gives that she should return him two sovereigns this last injunction was bestowed in a whisper as we descended the stairs miss benedge was in the crowded yard of the hotel looking handsome and overdressed and she greeted me with just that touch of old lang syne in her manner that i could best have dispensed with i turned to the business in hand without delay the brown mare was led forth from the stable and paraded for our benefit she was one of those inconspicuous meritorious animals about whom there seems nothing particular to say and I felt her legs and looked hard as her hocks, and was not much so wiser. "'It's no use by saying she doesn't make a noise,' said Miss Bobby,

"'because everyone in the country will tell you she does. "'You can have a vet, if you like, and that's the only fault he can find with her. "'But if Mrs. Yates hasn't hunted before now, "'I'll guarantee Croskeen is just the thing for her. "'She's really safe and confidential. "'My little brother Georgie has hunted her. "'You remember Georgie, Major Yates.' "'the night of the ball, you know, and he's only eleven.

"'Mr. Knox can tell you what sort she is.' "'Oh, she's a grand mare,' said Mr. Knox, thus appealed to. "'You'd hear her coming three fields off like a German band. "'And well for you, if you could keep within three fields of her,' retorted Miss Bennett. "'At all events, she's not like the hunter you sold uncle, "'that used to kick the stars as soon as I put my foot in the stirrup.' "'Twas the size of the foot frightened him,' said Flats. do you know how uncle cured him said miss bennet turning her back on her adversary he had him tied head and tail across the yard gate and every man that came in had to get over his back that's no bad one said flurry

philippa looked from one to the other in bewilderment while the badinage continued swift and unsmiling as became two hierarchs of horse-dealing it went on at intervals for the next ten minutes and at the end of that time i had bought the mare for three years for three years and at the end of that time i had bought the mare for thirty pounds, as Miss Bennet said nothing about giving me back two of them, I had not the nerve to suggest it. After this Flurry and Miss Bennet went away, and was swallowed up in the fair. We returned to our friends upstairs, and began to arrange about getting home. This, among other difficulties involved the tracking and capture of the chutes' groom, and took so long that it necessitated tea. Bernard and I had settled to ride our new purchases home, and the groom was to drive the a wagonette, an alteration ardently furthered by Miss Chute. The afternoon was well advanced when Bernard and I struggled through the turmoil of the

hotel yard in search of our horses, and the Hotel Osler being nowhere to be found. The Schutzman saddled our animals for us, and then withdrew to grapple single-handed with the bays in the calf-house. "'Good business for me that Knox is sending the grey horse home for me,' remarked Bernard, as his new mayor followed him tractably out of the store. all. He'd have been rather a handful in this whole of a place. He shoved his way out of the yard in front of me, seemingly quite comfortable, and at home upon the descendant of the mountain hair, and I followed as closely as drunken carmen and shafts of erratic carts would

permit. Groskeen evinced a decided tendency to turn to the right on leaving the yard, but she took my leftward tug in good part, and we moved on through the streets of Drumcaron, with a dignity that was only impaired by the irrepressible determination of Mr. Schute's new trousers to run up his leg. It was a trifle disappointing that Cruskeen should carry her nose in the air like a camel, but I set it down to my own bad hands, and to that cause I also imputed her frequent desire to stop, a desire that appeared to coincide with every fourth or fifth public house on the line of March. Indeed, at the last corner before we left the town, Miss Bennet's mayor and I had a series of, difference of opinion, in the course of which she mounted the pavement and remained planted

in front of a very disreputable public house, whose owner had been before me several times for various infringements of the licensing acts. Bernard and the Corderboys were of course much pleased. I inwardly resolved to let Miss Bennet know how her groom occupied his time in Drumcurran. We got out into the calm of the country roads without further incident, and I there discovered that Cruskeen was possessed of a dromedary swiftness in trotting, that the action was about as comfortable as the dromedaries, and that it was extremely difficult to moderate the pace. "'I say, this is something like going,' said Bernard,

cantering hard beside me with slack rain and every appearance of happiness. "'Do you mean to keep it up all the way?' "'You'd better ask this devil,' I replied, hauling on the futile ring-snaffle. "'Miss Bennett must have an arm like a pronged. prize-fighter. If this is what she calls confidential, I don't want her confidences. After another half-mile, during which I cursed Plurinox and registered a vow that Philippa should ride Cruskeen in a cavalry bit, we reached the crossroads, at which Bernard's

way parted from mine. Another difference of opinion between my wife's hunter and me here took place, this time on the subject of parting from our companion, and I experienced that peculiar a inward sinking that accompanies the birth of the conviction one has been stuck. There were still some eight miles between me and home, but I had at least the consolation of knowing that the brown mare could easily cover it in forty minutes. But in this also disappointment awaited me. Dropping her head to about the level of her knees, the mare subsided into a walk as slow as that of the slowest cow,

and very similar in general style. In this manner I progressed her for a further mile, breathing forth like st paul threatenings and slaughters against bobby bennet and all her confederates and then the idea occurred to me that many really first-class hunters were very poor hacks i consoled myself with this for a further period and presently an opportunity for testing it presented itself the road made a long loop round the flank of a hill and it was possible to save half a mile or so by getting into the fields it was a short cut i had often taken on the quaker and it involved nothing more serious than a couple of low stone gaps and an infantine bank i turned kruskeen at the first of these she was evidently surprised being in an excessively bad temper i beat her in a way that surprised her even more and she jumped the stones precipitately and with an ease that showed she knew quite well what she was about i vented some further emotion upon her by the convenient medium of my cane and galloped her across the field and over the bank which as they say in these parts she fled without putting an iron on it it was not the right way to jump it but it was inspiriting and when she had disposed of the next gap without hesitation my waning confidence in Miss Bennet began to revive.

I cantered over the ridge of the hill, and down it towards the cottage near which I was accustomed to get out onto the road again. As I neared my wanted opening in the fence, I saw that it had been filled by a stout pole, well fixed into the bank at each end, but not more than three feet high. Groskeen pricked her ears at it with intelligence.

I trotted her at it and gave her a whack. Ages afterwards, There was someone speaking on the blared edge of a dream that I was dreaming about nothing in particular. I went on dreaming, and was impressed by the shape of a fat jug, mottled white and blue that intruded itself painfully, and I again heard voices, very urgent and full of effort, but quite outside any concern of mine. I also made an effort of some kind. I was doing my very best to be good and polite, but I was dreaming in a place that word and was

engrossing, and daylight was cold and let in some unknown unpleasantness. For that time the dream got the better of daylight. And then, apropos of nothing, I was standing up in a house with someone's arm round me. The mottled jug was there, so was the unpleasantness, and I was talking with most careful old world's politeness. "'Sit down now, you're all right,' said Miss Bobby Bennett, who was mopping my face with a handkerchief dipped in the jug. I perceived that I was asking what had happened. She fell over the stick with you, said Miss Bennet, the dirty brute. With another great effort I hooked myself onto the march of events

as a truck is dragged out of a siding and hooked onto a train. Oh, the Lord Save us! said a grey-haired woman who held the jug. You destroyed entirely ashore! Oh, glory-beater the merciful will! Oh, God! My heart leapt across me sheikh when I seed him under the horse! "'Go out and see if the trap's coming,' said Miss Bennet. "'He should have found the doctor by this.'

She stared very closely at my face, and seemed to find it easier to talk in short sentences. "'We must get those cuts looking better before Mrs. Yates comes.' "'After an interval, during which unexpected places in my head ached from the cold water, the desire to be polite and coherent again came on me. "'I'm sure it was not your mare's fault,' I said. Miss Bennet laughed a very little. I was glad to see her laugh. It had struck me.

Her face was strangely haggard and frightened. Well, of course it wasn't poor Cruskeen's fault, she said. She's nearly home with Mr. Chute by now. That's why I came after you. Mr. Chute, I said, wasn't here at the fair that day? He was, answered Miss Bobby, looking at me with very compassionate eyes. You and he got on each other's horses by mistake at the hotel, and you got the worst of the exchange.

Oh, I said, without even trying to understand. He's here within, Your Honour's ladyship, Mrs. Yates, ma'am! shouted the grey-haired woman at the door. Don't be uneasy, of course. He's doing grand. Sure, I'm telling Miss Binet, if she was his wife itself she couldn't give him better care. The grey-haired woman laughed. End of Chapter 7. This is a Libri-Box recording.

All Libri-box recording. are in the public domain. For further information, or to find out how you can volunteer, please go to Librevox.org. Recording by Andy Minter Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. By Edith Enone Somerville and Martin Ross.

Chapter 8. The Holy Island For three days of November, a white fog stood motionless over the country. All day and all night smothered booms and bangs away to the south-west, told that the fast-net gun was hard at work, and the sirens of the American liners uplifted their monstrous female voices

as they felt their way along the coast of Cork. On the third afternoon, the wind began to whine about the windows of Sri Laine, and the barometer fell like a stone. At 11 p.m. the storm rushed upon us with the roar and the suddenness of a train the chimneys bellowed the tall old house quivered and the yelling wind drove against it as a man puts his shoulder against a door to burst it in we none of us got much sleep and if mrs godagin is to be believed which experience assures me she is not she spent the night in devotional exercises and administering to the panic-stricken kitchen-maid by the light of a blessed candle All that day the storm screamed on, dry-eyed. At nightfall the rain began, and next morning,

which happened to be a Sunday, every servant in the house was a messenger of Job, laden with tales of leakages, floods and fallen trees, and inflated with the ill-concealed glory of their kind in evil tidings. To Peter Cadogan, who had been to early Mass, was reserved the crowning satisfaction of reporting that a big vessel had gone on the rocks at Yocan Point the evening before, and was breaking up fast. It was rumoured that the crew had got ashore, but this feature, being favourable and uninteresting, was kept as much as possible in the background. Mrs. Cadogan, who had been to America in an ocean liner, became at once the latest authority on shipwrecks, and was of the opinion that, however would be drowned, it wouldn't be them lads

the sailors. Sure, wasn't there the greatest storm ever was in it the time myself was on the say? And what had them fellows do but to put us below entirely in the ship, and closed down the doors on us, the way themselves had leg it when we'd be drowned in? This view of the position was so startlingly novel, but Philippa withdrew suddenly from the task of ordering dinner, and fell up the kitchen stairs in unsuitable laughter. Philipa has not the most rudimentary capacity for keeping her countenance. that afternoon i was wrapped in the slumber barmeest and most profound that follows on a wet sunday luncheon when murray our d i of police drove up in uniform and came into the house on the top of a gust that set every door banging and every picture dancing on the walls He looked as if his eyes had been blown out of his head, and he wants it something to eat very badly. "'I've been down at the wreck since ten o'clock this morning,' he said,

"'waiting for her to break up, and once she does there'll be trouble. "'She's an American ship, and she's full up with rum and bacon and butter and all sorts. "'Bosenkett is there with his coast-guards, and there are five hundred country people on the strand at this moment, "'waiting for the fun to begin. "'I've got ten of my fellows there now, and I wish I had as many more. "'You'd better come back with me, Yeats. We may want the riot act before all's done.' The heavy rain had ceased, but it seemed as if it had fed the wind instead of calming it. And when Murray and I drove out of Freelaine, the whole dirty sky was moving, full sail in from the south-west,

and the telegraph wires were hanging in a loop below the post outside the gate. Nothing except a skiborne cart-horse would have faced the hooping charges of the wind that came at us across Coran Lake. stimulated mysteriously by whistles from the driver murray's yellow hireling pounded woodenly along against the blast till the smell of the torn seaweed was borne upon it and we saw the atlantic waves come towering into the bay of tralegoch the ship was or had been a three-masted bark two of her masts were gone and her boughs stood high out of water on the reef that forms one of the shark-like jaws of the bay the long strand was crowded with black groups of people, from the bank of heavy shingle that had been hurled over onto the road, down to the slope where the waves pitched themselves, and climbed and fought, and tore the gravel back with them, as though they had dug their fingers in. The people were nearly all men, dressed solemnly and hideously in their Sunday clothes.

Most of them had come straight from mass without any dinner, true to that Irish instinct that places its fun before its food. that the wreck was regarded as a spree of the largest kind was sufficiently obvious. Our car pulled up at a public house that stood a skew between the road and the shingle. It was humming with those whom Irish publicans are pleased to call a bonafides, and sundry of the same class were clustered round the door. Under the wall on the lee side was seated a bagpiper, droning out the Irish washerwoman, with nodding head and tapping heel,

and a young man was cutting a few steps of a jig for the delictation of a group of girls. So far, Murray's constabulary had done nothing but exhibit their imposing chest measurements and spotless uniforms to the Atlantic, and Bozumket's coast-guards had only salvaged some spars the debris of a boat and a dead sheep, but their time was coming. As we stumbled down over the shingle, battered by the wind and pelted by clots of foam, someone beside me shouted, She is gone! A hill of water had smothered the wreck,

and when it fell from her again, nothing was left but the boughs, with the bowsprit hanging from them in a tangle of rigging. The clouds bronzed by an unseen sunset hung low over her. In that greedy pack of waves, with the remorseless rocks above and below her, she seemed the most lonely and tormented of creatures.

About half an hour afterwards, the cargo began to come ashore, on the top of the rising tide. Barrows were plunging and diving in the trough of the waves, like a school of porpoises. They were pitched up the beach in waist-deep rushes of foam. They rolled down again and were swung up and shouldered by the next wave, playing a kind of Tom Tiddler's ground with the coast-guards. Some of the barrels were big and dangerous. Some were small and nimble, like young pigs, and the blue jackets were up to their middles as their prey dodged and ducked, and the police lined out along the beach to keep that the people.

Ten men of the RIC can do a great deal, but they cannot be in more than twenty or thirty places at the same instant. Therefore they could hardly cope with a scattered and extremely active mob of four or five hundred, many of whom had taken advantage of their privileges as a bona fide travellers, and all of whom were determined on getting at the rum. As the dusk fell, the thing got more and more out of hand. The people had found out that the big punchons held the rum, and had succeeded in capturing one. In the twinkling of an eye it was broached, and fifty backs were shoving round it like a football scrimmage.

I have heard many rouse in my time. I have seen two Irish regiments, one of them militia, at each other's throats in Fermoy barracks. I have heard Philippa's water-spaniel and two fox-terriers hunting a strange cat round the dairy. But never have I known such untrammeled bedlam as that which yet. round the rum casks on Trellagoch strand. For it was soon not a question of one brooch cask, or even of two. The barrels were coming in fast, so fast that it was impossible for the representatives of law and order to keep on any sort of terms with them.

The people shouting with laughter, stove in the cask, and drank the rum at thirty-four degrees above proof, out of their hands, out of their hats, out of their boots. Women came fluttering over the hillside through the twilight, carrying jugs, milk pails, anything that would hold the liquor. I saw one of them, roaring with laughter, tilled a filthy zinc bucket to an old man's lips. With the darkness came anarchy. The rising tide brought more and yet more booty.

Great spars came lunging in on the lap of the waves, mixed up with cabin furniture, seamen's chests, and the black and slippery barrels. And the country people continued to flock in, and the drinking became more and more unbridled. Murray sent for more men and a doctor, and we slaved on hopelessly in the dark, collaring half-drunken men, showing pig-headed casks up hills of shingle, hustling in among groups of roaring drinkers. We rescued, perhaps one barrel in half a dozen. I began to know that there were men there who were not drunk and were not idle. I was also aware, as the strenuous hours of darkness passed, of an occasional rumble of cartwheels on the road, it was evident that the casks which were broached were the least part of the looting, but even they were beyond our control.

The most that Bosungett Murray and I could do was to concentrate our forces on the casks that had been secured, and to organise charges upon the swilling crowds, in order to upset the casks that they had broached. Already men and boys were lying about, limp as leeches, motionless as the dead. "'They'll kill themselves before morning at this rate,' shouted Murray to me, they are drinking it by the quart here's another barrel come on we rallied our small forces and after a brief but furious struggle succeeded in capsizing it it poured away in a flood over the stones over the prostrate figures that sprawled on them and a howl of reproach followed

if you pour away any more of that major said a unctuous voice in my ear you'll intoxicate the stones and they'll be getting up and knocking us down i had been aware of a fat shoulder next to mine in the throng as we heaved the punchan over and i now recognised the ponderous wit and falstaffian figure of mr james canty a noted member of the skiborne board of guardians and the owner of a large farm near at hand i never saw worse work on this strand he went on i consider these debaucheries a disgrace to the country Mr. Canty was famous as an orator, and I presume it was from long practice among his fellow PLGs that he was able, without apparent exertion, to out-shout the storm. At this juncture the long-awaited reinforcements arrived, and along with them came Dr. Jerome Hickey, armed with a black bag. Having mentioned that the bag contained a pump, not one of the common or garden variety, and that no pump on board a foundering ship had more arduous lay. to perform, I prefer to pass to other themes. The wreck, which had at first appeared to be as inexhaustible and as variously stocked as that in the Swiss family Robinson, was beginning to fail in its supply. The crowd were by this time for the most part incapable from drink, and the fresh contingent of police tackled their work with some prospect of success by the light of a tar-barrel, contributed by the owner of the public house. At about the same time I began to be aware that I was aching with fatigue, that my clothes hung heavy and soaked upon me, that my face was stiff with the salt spray and the bitter wind, and that it was two hours past dinner-time.

The possibility of fried salt herrings and hot whiskey and water at the public house rose dazzlingly before my mind when Mr. Canty again crossed my path. "'In my opinion, you have the whole cargo under control now, Major,' he said, "'and the police and the sailors should be able to account for it all now by the help of the light. Wasn't I the finished fool that I didn't think to send up to my house for a tar-barrel before now? "'Ah, well, we're all foolish sometimes. But indeed it's time for us to give over, and that's what I'm after saying to the captain and Mr. Murray. You're exhausted now, the three of you. And if I might make so bold, I'd suggest that you come up to my little taste,

and have what had warm you up before you'd go home. It's only a few perches up the road. The tide had turned, the rain had begun again, and the tar-barrel illumined the fact that Dr. Hickey's dreadful duties alone were pressing. We held a council, and finally followed Mr. Cante, picking our way through wreckage of all kinds, including the human variety. Near the public house I stumbled over something that was soft and had a squeak in it. It was the piper, with his head and shoulders in an overturned rum-barrel,

and the bag-pipes still under his arm. I knew the outward appearance of Mr. Canty's house very well. It was a typical southern farmhouse, with dirty, whitewashed walls, a slated roof, and small hermetically sealed windows staring at the morass of manure which constituted the yard. We followed Mr Canty up the filthy lane that led to it, picked our way round vague and squelching spurs of the manure heap, and were finally led through the kitchen into a stifling best parlour. Mrs Cante, a vast and slatternly matron, had evidently made preparations for us. There was a newly lighted fire pouring flame up the chimney from layers of bogwood. There was whiskey and brandy on the table, and a plateful of biscuits, sugared in white and pink.

on our hostess was a black silk dress which indifferently concealed the fact that she was short of boot-laces and that the boots themselves had made many excursions to the yard and none to the blacking-bottle her manners however were admirable and whilst i live i shall not forget her potato cakes they came in hot and hot from a pot-oven they were speckled with caraway seeds they swam in salt butter and we ate them shamelessly and greasily and washed them down with hot whisky and warm I knew to a nicety how ill I should be the next day, and he did not. "'Well, gentlemen,' remarked Mr. Canty later on, in his best Board of Guardian's manner, "'I've seen many wrecks between this and the mizzen-head, but I never witnessed a scene of modest, graceful excess, than what was in it to-night.' "'Here, here,' murmured Boes-and-Ket, with unseemly levity. "'I should say,' went on Mr. Canty.

"'There was at one time to-night, upwards of one hundred men dead drunk on the strand, "'or anyway so drunk that if they'd attempted to spake, they'd foam at the mouth.' "'The cratures,' interjected Mrs. Canty sympathetically. "'But if they're drunk to-day,' mentioned our host, "'it's nothing at all to what they'll be to-morrow and after-to-morrow, and it won't be on the strand they'll be drinking it. Why, where will it be? said Bosengett, with his disconcerting English way of asking a point-blank question.

Mr. Canty passed his hand over his red cheeks. There'll be plenty asking that before all said and done, Captain, he said, with a compassionate smile, and there'll be plenty that could give the answer if they'd like. But by, damn, I don't think you'll be. be apt to get much out of the Johan boys. "'The Lord's savest would be better to keep out from the likes of them,' put in Mrs. Canty, sliding a fresh avalanche of potato cakes on the dish. Didn't they pull the clothes off the gaoler, and poor Pothine down his throat,

till he ran screeching through the streets of Skiborne?' James Cante chuckled. "'I remember there was a wreck here one time, and the underwriters put me in charge of the cargo. Brandy it was, cases of the best French brandy. The people had a song about it. What's this the first verse was, One night on the rocks of your hahn,

came the bark as a bell as o dandy, To pieces she went before dawn, Herself and her cargo of brandy, And all met a watery grave, "'excepting the vessels, carpenter, "'poor fellow too far from his home.' "'Mr. Cante chanted these touching lines, "'in a tuneful, if wheezy tenor.

"'Well, gentlemen, we're all friends here,' he continued, "'and it's no harm to mention "'that this man below at the public-house "'came asking me would I let him have some of it "'for a consideration. "'Salivan,' says I to him, "'if you run down gold in a cup, up in place of the brandy. I wouldn't give it to you. Of course, says I. I'm not saying,

but that if a bottle was to get a crack of a stick and to be broken, and a man to drink a glass out of it, that would be no more than an accident. That's no good to me, says he. But if I had twelve gallons without brandy at cork, says he, by the holy German, says he, saying an awful curse, I'd sell twenty-five out of it. Well, indeed, it was true. for him it was grand stuff as the saying is it would make a hoss out of a cow it appears to be a handy sort of place for keeping a pub said bosunket shut the door margaret said mr kanty with elaborate caution it had be a queer place that wouldn't be handy for sullivan a further tale of great length was in progress when dr hickie's mephistophelian nose was poked into the best parlour hello hickie pumped out eh said Murray. "'If I am, there's plenty more like me,' replied the doctor, enigmatically,

and some of them three times over, "'James, did these gentlemen leave you a drop of anything that you'd offer me?' "'Maybe you'd like a glass of rum, doctor,' said Mr. Canty, with a wink at his other guests. Dr. Hickey shuddered. "'I had next morning, precisely the kind of mouth that I had anticipated, and, it being my duty to spend the better part of the day administering justice in Skiborne, I received from Mr Flurry Knox, and other of my brother magistrates,

precisely the class of condolences on my Monday head that I found least amusing. It was unavailing to point out the resemblance between hot potato cakes and molten lead, or to dilate on their equal power of solidifying. The collective wisdom of the bench decided that I was suffering from contraband, rum, and rejoiced over me accordingly. During the next three weeks, Murray and Bozincet, put in a time only to be equalled by that of the heroes in detective romances. They began by acting on the hint offered by Mr. Canty, and were rewarded by finding eight

barrels of bacon and three casks of rum in the heart of Mr. Sullivan's turf-rick, placed there, so Mr. Sullivan explained with much detail, by enemies, with the object of getting his license taken away. They stabbed potato gardens with crowbars to find the buried barrels. They explored the chimneys. They raided the cowhouses. And in every possible and impossible place, they found some of the cargo of the late bark John D. Williams. And as the sympathetic Mr. Canty said, for as much as they found, they left five times as much after them. It was a wet, lingering autumn, but towards the end of November the rain dried up, the weather stiffened, and a week of light frosts and blue skies was offered as a tardy apology.

Philippa possesses, in common with many of her sex, an in appeasable passion for picnics, and her ingenuity in devising occasions for them is only equalled by her gift for enduring their rigours. I have seen her tackle a moist chicken pie, with a splinter of slate and my stylograph pen. I have known her to take the tea-basket to an auction, and make tea in a four-wheeled inside car, regardless of the fact that it was coming under the hammer in ten minutes, and that the kettle took twenty minutes to boil. It will therefore be readily understood that the rare occasions when I was free to go out with a gun were not allowed to pass, uncelebrated by the tea-basket. You'd much better shoot Corrin Lake to-morrow, my wife said to me one brilliant afternoon,

we could send the punt over, and I could meet you on Holy Island with—' The rest of the sentence, was concerned with ways, means, and the tea-basket, and need not be recorded. I had taken the shooting of a long snipe-bog, that trailed from Coran Lake, almost to the sea at Trela Goff, and it was my custom to begin to shoot it from the seaward end of it, and finally to work round the lake after duck. Tomorrow proved a heavenly morning, touched with frost, gilt with sun. I started early, and the mists were still smoking up from the calm or reflecting lake, as the Quaker stepped out along the level road, smashingly thin ice in its puddles with his big feet. Behind the calves of my legs sat Maria, Philippa's brown Irish water-spaniel,

assiduously licking the barrels of my gun, as was her custom when the ecstasy of going out shooting was hers. Maria had been given to Philippa as a wedding present, and since then it had been my wife's ambition that she should conform to the Beth Gillert standard of being a lamb at home, a lion in the chase. Maria did pretty well as a lion. She hunted all dogs, unmistakably smaller than herself, and whenever it was reasonably possible to do so, she devoured the spoils of the chase, notably jack-knife.

It was as a lamb that she failed. Objectionable as I have no doubt a lamb would be as a domestic pet, it at least would not snatch the cold beef from the luncheon table, nor yet, if banished for its crimes, would it spend the night in scratching the paint off the hall door? Maria bit beggars, who valued their disgusting limbs at five shillings a square inch. She bullied the servants,

she concealed ducks' claws and fishes' backbones behind the sofa cushions, and yet, when she laid her brown snout upon my knee, and rolled her black-ard amber eyes upon me, and smoked me with her feathered paw, it was impossible to remember her iniquities against her. On shooting mornings, Marius ceased to be a buccaneer, a glutton and a hypocrite. From the moment when I put my gun together,

her breakfast stood untouched until it suffered the final degradation of being eaten by the cats, and now in the trap she was shivering with excitement and agonising in her soul, lest she should even yet be left behind. "'Slipper met me at the crossroads, from which I had sent back the trap. "'Slipper, redder in the nose that anything I have ever seen off the stage, "'very husky as to the voice, and going rather tender on both feet. "'He informed me that I should have a grand day's shooting, "'the-haired poacher of the locality,

"'having, in a most gentleman-like manner, "'refrained from exercising his sporting rights the day before "'on hearing that I was coming. "'I understood that this was to be considered, as a mark of high personal esteem, and I set to work at the bog with suitable gratitude. In spite of Mr. O'Driscoll's magnanimity, I had not a very good morning. The snipe were there, but in the perfect stillness of the weather it was impossible to get near them, and five times out of six they were out flickering and dodging before I was within shot. Maria became possessed of seven

devils, and broke away from heel the first time I let off my gun, ranging far and wide, and wide, in search of the bird I had missed, and putting up every live thing for half a mile round, as she went splashing and steeple-chasing through the bog. Slipper expressed his opinion of her behaviour, in language more appallingly picturesque and resourceful, than any I have heard, even in the Skiborne Courthouse. I admit that at the time I thought he spoke very suitably. Before she was recaptured, every remaining snipe within earshot was lifted out of it by slippers steam-engine whistles and my own infuriated bellows.

It was fortunate that the bog was spacious, and that there was still a long tract of it ahead, where beyond these voices there was peace. I worked my way on, jumping treacle-dark drains, floundering through the rustling yellow rushes, circumnavigating the bog-holes, and taking every possible and impossible chance of a shot.

By the time I reached Corran Lake, I had got two and a half brace. retrieved by Maria with a perfection that showed what her powers were when the sinuous adroitness of slipper's wood-bine stick was fresh in her mind. But with Maria it was always the unexpected that happened. By last snipe a jack fell in the lake, and Maria, bursting through the reeds with kangaroo bounds and cleaving the water like a torpedo boat, was a model of all the virtues of her kind. She picked up the bird with a snake-like dart of her head, "'clambered with it onto a tussock, "'and there, well out of reach of the arm of the law,

"'before our indignant eyes, crunched it twice, and bolted it. "'Well,' said Slipper complacently, some ten minutes afterwards, "'divil such a baiting ever I give a dog, "'s the day Prince killed old Mrs. Knox's Peacock. "'Prince was a lump of a brown terrier I had one time and fit. "'I kicked the toes out of my old boots on him "'before I had the old lady composed. "'However composing, Slipper's method,

may have been to Mrs. Knox, they had quite the contrary effect upon a family party of duck that had been lying in the reeds. With horrified outcries they broke into flight, and now were far away on the ethereal mirror of the lake, among strings of their fellows that were floating and quacking in preoccupied indifference to my presence. A promenade along the lakeshore demonstrated the fact that, without a boat, there was no more shooting for me. I looked across to the island, where, some time ago, I had seen Philippa and her punt arrive. The boat was tied to an overhanging tree, but my wife was nowhere to be seen. I was opening my mouth to give a hail, when I saw her emerge precipitately from among the trees, and jump into the boat.

Philippa had not, in vain, spent many summers on the Thames. She was underway in a twinkling, sculled a score of strokes at the rate of a finish, and then stopped and stared at the peaceful island. I called to her, and in a minute or two the punt had crackled through the reeds, and shoved its blunt nose ashore at the spot where I was standing. "'Sinclair!' said Philippa, in awestruck tones. "'There's something on the island.' "'I hope there's something to eat there,' said I. "'I tell you, there is something there alive,' said my wife,

with her eyes as large as saucers. "'It's making an awful sound like snoring.' "'That's the fairies, ma'am,' said Slipper. with complete certainty. Sure, I've known them there that's seen fairies in that island as thick as the grass, and every one of them with little caps on them.' Philip's wide gaze wandered to slip as hideous pug-face and back to me. "'It was not a human being, Sinclair,' she said combatively,

though I had not uttered a word. Maria had already, after the manner of dogs, leapt dripping into the boat, I prepared to follow her example. "'Major,' said Slipper in a tragic whisper. "'There was a man that was a knight on that island one time watching duck, "'and dim people caught him and dragged him through hell and through death, "'and threw him in the tide—' "'Shove off the boat,' I said, too hungry for argument.

"'Slipper obeyed, throwing his knee over the gunwale as he did so, "'and tumbling into the bow. "'We could have done without him very comfortably, "'but his devotion was touching. Holy Island was perhaps a hundred yards long and about half as many broad. It was covered with trees and a dense growth of rhododendrons. Somewhere in the jungle was a ruined fragment of a chapel, smothered in ivy and briars,

and in a little glade in the heart of the island there was a holy well. We landed, and it was obviously a sore humiliation to Philippa that not a sound was to be heard in the spellbound silence of the island, save the cough of a heron on a treetop. "'It was there,' she said, "'with an unconvinced glance at the surrounding thickets. "'Sure, I'll give a trial through the island, ma'am,' "'volunteered slipper with unexpected gallantry,

"'and if it's the devil himself in it, I'll rattle him into the lake.' He went swaggering on his search, shouting, "'high, cock, and whacking the rhododendrons with his stick, "'and after an interval, returned and assured us that the island was uninhabited, Being provided with refreshments, he again withdrew, and Philippa and Barrier and I, fed variously and at great length, and washed the plates with water from the holy well. I was smoking a cigarette, when we heard Slipper, addressing the solitudes at the farther end of the island, and ending, with one of his whisky-throated crows of laughter. He presently came lurching towards us through

the bushes, and a glance sufficed to show even Philippa, who was as incompetent a judge of such matters of many of her sex, that he was undeniably screwed. "'Major Yeats,' he began, "'and Mrs. Major Yates, with respects to you, I am basically drunk. My head is light, hence the fluency, and the doctor told me I should carry a little bottle-lene of spirits.' "'Look here,' I said to Philippa, "'I'll take him across and bring the boat back for you.' "'Sinclair,' responded my wife, with concentrated

emotion, I would rather die than stay on this island alone. Slepper was getting drunk at every moment, but I managed to stow him on his back in the bows of the punt, in which position he at once began to uplift husky and wandering strains of melody. To this accompaniment, we, as Tennyson says, moved from the brink like some full-breasted swan, that fluting a wild carol ere her death, ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood, with swarthy web. Slipper would certainly have been none the worst for taking the flood, and as the burden of Lannigan's ball strengthened and spread along the tranquil lake,

and the duck once more fled in justifiable consternation, I felt much inclined to make him do so. We made for the end of the lake that was nearest Trillane, and as we rounded the point of the island, another boat presented itself to our view. It contained my late entertainer, Missingham, "'seated bulkily in the stern, "'while a small boy bowed himself

"'between the two heavy oars. "'It's her lovely evening, Major Yates,' she called out. "'I am just going to the island "'to get some water from the holy well, "'for me, daughter, that has an impression on her chest. "'Indade I thought to as yourself "'was singing a song for Mrs. Yates "'When I heard you coming,

"'but sure Slipper is a great warrant himself for singing. "'May the devil crack two legs under ye!' bald slipper in acknowledgment of the compliment mrs canty laughed genially and her boat lumbered away i shoved slipper ashore at the nearest point philippa and i paddled to the end of the lake and abandoning the duck as a bad business walked home a few days afterwards it happened that it was incumbent upon me to attend the funeral of the roman catholic bishop of the dioces it was what is called in france a belle with inky flocks of tall-hatted priests and countless yards of white scarves and a repast of monumental solidity at the bishop's residence the actual interment was to take place in cork and we moved in long and imposing procession to the railway station where a special train awaited the cortege My friend Mr. James Cante was among the mourners, an important and active personage, exchanging condolence with the priests, giving directions to porters, and blowing his nose with a trumpeting mournfulness that penetrated all the other noises of the platform.

He was condescending enough to notice my presence, and found time to tell me that he had given Mr. Murray a sure word, with regard to some of the wreckage. This, with deep significance, and a wink of an inflamed and tuesday. tearful eye. I saw him depart in a first-glass carriage, and the odour of sanctity, seeing that he was accompanied by seven priests, and that both windows were shut, the latter must have been considerable. Afterwards, in the town I met Murray, looking more pleased with himself than I had seen him, since he took up the unprofitable task of smuggler-hunting.

"'Come along and have some lunch,' he said. "'I've got a real good thing on this time. That chap canty came to me late last night and told me that he knew for a fact that the island on corin lake was just stiff with barrels of bacon and rum and that i had better send every man i could spare to-day to get them into the town i sent the men out at eight o'clock this morning i think i've gone one better than bosunget this time i began to realise that philippa was going to score heavily on the subject to the fairies that she had heard snoring on the island and i imparted to murray the leading features of our picnic there "'Oh, Slipper's been up to his chin and that run from the first,' said Murray. "'I'd like to know who his sleeping-partner was.' "'It was beginning to get dark before the loaded carts of the salvage party came lumbering past Murray's window and into the yard of the police barrack. We followed them, and in so doing picked up Flurry Knox, who was sauntering in the same direction.

It was a good hall, five big casks of rum, and at least a dozen smaller barrels of baits of bacon and butter, and Murray and his chief constable smiled seraphically on one another, as the spoil was unloaded and stowed in a shed. "'Wouldn't it be as well to see how the butter is keeping?' remarked Flurry, who had been looking on silently with, as I had noticed, a still and amused eye. The rear of that small keg there looks as if it had been shifted lately. The sergeant looked hard at Flurry. He knew as well as most people that a hint from Mr. Knox was usually worth taking. He turned to Murray. "'Will I open it, sir?' "'Oh, open it if Mr. Knox's wishes,' said Murray,

who was not famous for appreciating other people's suggestions. The keg was opened. "'Money butter,' said Flurry. The sergeant said nothing. The keg was full of black bog-mould. Another was opened, and another, all with the same result. "'Darnation!' said Murray, suddenly losing his temper. "'What's the use of going on with those? "'Try one of the rum-casks.' A few moments passed in total silence,

while a tap and a spigot were sent for, and applied to the barrel. The sergeant drew off a mugful, and put his nose to it with the deliberation of a connoisseur. "'Water,' he pronounced, "'dirty water, with a small indication of spirits. A junior constable tittered explosively, met the light-blue glare of Murray's eye, and withered away. "'And perhaps it's holy water,' said I, with a wavering voice. Murray's glance pinned me like an assegai, and I also faded into the background.

"'Well,' said Flurry in dulcet tones, "'if you want to know where the stuff is that was in those barrels, I can tell you, for I was told it myself half an hour ago. "'He's gone to cork with the bishop by special train.' "'Mr. Cante was undoubtedly a man of resource. "'Mrs. Canty had mistakenly credited me with an intelligence equal to her own, "'and on receiving from Slipper a highly coloured account of how audibly Mr. Canty had slept off his petations, "'had regarded the secret of Holy Island as having been given away.

"'That night, and the two succeeding ones were spent in the transfer of the rum to bottles, and the bottles and the butter to fish-boxes. These were, by means of a slight lubrication of the railway underlings, loaded into a truck as fresh fish, urgent, and attached to the Bishop's funeral train, while the police, decoyed far from the scene of the action, were breaking their backs over barrels of bog-water. "'I suppose,' continued Flurry pleasantly,

"'you don't know the pub that Canty's brother has in cock. "'Well, I do. "'I'm going to buy some rum there next week, cheap.' "'I shall proceed against Canty,' said Murray, with fateful calm. "'You won't proceed far,' said Flurry. "'You'll not get as much evidence out of the whole country as a dang a cat.' "'Who was your informant?' demanded Murray. Flurry laughed.

"'Well, by the time the train was in Cock, "'yourself and the Major were the only two men in the town who weren't talking about it.' "'Eend of Chapter 8. This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For further information, or to find out how you can volunteer, please go to Librevox.org. Recording by Andy Minter

Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. By Edith, Inoni Somerville and Martin Ross. The Policy of the Closed Door The disasters and humiliation that befell me at Drumcurran Fair may yet be remembered. They certainly have not been forgotten in the regions about Skiborne, where the tale of how Bernard's chute and I stole each other's horses has passed into history. The granddaughter of the mountain hare, bought my Mr. Chute with such light-hearted enthusiasm,

was restored to that position between the shafts of a cart, though she was so well fitted to grace. Moonlighter, his other purchase, spent the two months following on the fair in favouring a leg with a strained sinew, and in receiving visits from the local vet, who, however, uncertain in his diagnosis of Moonlighter's leg, had accurately estimated the length of Bernard's foot.

Miss Bennet's mayor, Cruskeen, alone of the trio, was immediately and thoroughly successful. She went in harness like a hero, she carried Philippa like an elder sister. She was never sick or sorry. As Peter Cadogan summed her up, "'That one had lived when another'd die.' In her safekeeping, Philippa made her debut with hounds at an uneventful morning's cubbing, with no particular result, except that Philippa returned home so stiff that she had to go to bed for a day, and arose more determined than ever to be a fox-hunter. The opening meet of Mr. Knox's

foxhound was on November 1st, and on that morning, Philippa, on Groskeen, accompanied by me on the Quaker, set out for Ardmean Cross, the time-honoured fixture for All Saints' day. The weather was grey and quiet, and full of all the moist sweetness of an Irish autumn. There had been a great deal of rain during the past month. It had turned a bracken to a purple-brown, and had filled the hollows with shining splashes of water. The dead leaves were slippery underfoot, and the branches above were thinly decked with yellow, where the pallid survivors of summer still clung to their posts. As Philippa and I sedately approached the meat,

the red coats of Flurri Knox and his whip Dr. Jerome Hickey were to be seen on the road at the top of the hill. Kraskeen put her head in the air, and stared at them with eyes that understood all they pretended. "'Sinclair,' said my wife hurriedly, as a straggling hound flogged in by Dr. Hickey, uttered a grievous and melodious howl. "'Remember, if they find,

"'it's no use to talk to me, "'for I shan't be able to speak!' "'I was sufficiently acquainted with Philippa "'in moments of enthusiasm "'to exhibit silently the corner "'of a clean-bocket-handkerchief. "'I have seen her cry "'when a police-cunstable won a bicycle race in Ski-Born.

"'She has wept at hearing Sir Valentine's Knox's health-drunk "'with musical honours at a tenant's dinner. "'It is an amiable custom, but, as she herself admits, it is unbecoming. An imposing throng, in point of numbers, was gathered at the crossroads. The riders being almost swamped in the crowd of traps, outside cars, bicyclists, and people on foot. The field was an eminently representative one. The Clan Knox was, as usual, there in force.

It's more aristocratic members, dangerly respectable in black coats and tall hats, that went impartially to weddings, funerals and hunts. and like a horse that is past mark of mouth, were no longer to be identified with any special epoch. There was a humbler squirene element in tweeds and black-brimmed pot hats, and a good muster of farmers, men of the spare, black-muscled west of Ireland type, on horses that ranged from the carp-mare, clipped trace high, to shaggy and leggy three-year-olds, none of them hunters, but all of them able to hunt. "'Philippa and I worked our way to the heart of things,

"'where was Flurry, seated on his brown mare, "'in what appeared to be a somewhat moody silence. "'As we exchanged greetings, "'I was aware that his eye was resting with extreme disfavour "'upon two approaching figures. "'I put up my eyeglass, "'and perceived that one of them was Miss Sally Knox "'on a tall grey horse.

"'The other was Mr. Bernard Schutt, "'in all the flawless beauty of his first pink coat, "'mounted on stockbroker. a well-known hard-mouthed big jumping bay recently purchased from dr hickie during the languors of a damp autumn the neighbourhood had been much nourished and sustained by the privilege of observing and diagnosing the progress of mr chute's flirtation with miss sally knox what made it all the more enjoyable for the lookers-on or most of them was that although bernard's courtship was of the nature of a proclamation from the housetops miss knox's attitude left everything to her. to the imagination. To Flurry Knox, the romantic but despicable position of slighted rival was comfortably allotted. His sole sympathisers were Philippa and old Mrs. Knox of Orselas, but no one knew if he needed sympathisers. Flurry was a man of mystery.

Mr. Shute and Miss Knox approached us rapidly, the latter's mount, pulling hard. "'Flurry,' I said, "'isn't that grey the horse that Shute bought from you last you love?' at the fair?' Flurry did not answer me. His face was as black as thunder. He turned his horse round, cursing two country-boys who got in his way, with low and concentrated venom, and began to move forward, followed by the hounds. If his wish was to avoid speaking to Miss Sally, it was not to be gratified. "'Good morning, Flurry!' she began, sitting close down to moonlighter's ramping jog, as she rode up beside her cousin. "'What a hurry you're in, we part. "'mast no end of people on the road who won't be here for another ten minutes.'

"'No more will I,' was Mr. Knox's cryptic reply, "'as he spurred the brown mare into a trot. "'Moonlighter made a vigorous but frustrated effort to buck, "'and indemnified himself by a successful kick at a hound. "'Bother you, Flurry! Can't you walk for a minute?' exclaimed Miss Sally, "'who looked about as large in relation to her horse "'as the conventional tomped it on a round of beef. "'You might have more sense than to crack your whip under this horse's nose.

I don't believe you know what horse it is even.' I was not near enough to catch Flurry's reply. "'Well, if you didn't want him to be lent to me, you shouldn't have sold him to Mr. Shoot,' retorted Miss Knox, in her clear, provoking little voice. "'I suppose he's afraid to ride him himself,' said Flurry, turning his horse in at a gate. "'Get ahead there, Jerome, can't you? It's better to put them in at this end than to have everyone riding on top of them. Miss Sally's cheeks were still very pink when I came up and began to talk to her, and her grey-green eyes had a look in them like those of an angry kitten. The riders moved slowly down a rough pasture-field, and took up their position along the brow

of odd mean covert, into which the hounds had already hurled themselves, with their customary contempt for the convenances. Flurry's hounds, true to their nationality, were in the habit of doing the right thing in the wrong way. Untouched by autumn, the firs, bushes of Ardmean covert were darkly green, save for a golden fleck of blossom here and there, and the glistening grey cobwebs that stretched from spike to spike.

The look of the ordinary gorse-covert is familiar to most people as a tidy enclosure of an acre or so, filled with low plants of well-educated gorse. Not so many will be found who have experience of it as a rocky, sedgy, "'half a mile square, garrisoned with brigades of furs bushes, "'some of them higher than a horse's head,

"'lean, strong and cunning, like the foxes that breed in them, "'impenetrable with their bristling spikes, as a hedge of bayonets. "'By dint of infinite leisure and obstinate greed, "'the cattle had made paths for themselves through the bushes "'to the patches of grass that they hemmed in. "'Their hoofprints were guides to the explorer, "'down muddy staircases of rock and across black intervals, of unplumbed bog.

The whole coverts slanted gradually down to a small river that raced round three sides of it, and beyond the stream, in agreeable contrast, lay a clean and wholesome country of grass fields and banks. The hounds drew slowly along and down the hill towards the river, and the riders hung about outside the coverts and tried, I can answer for at least one of them, to decide which was the least odious of the ways through it,

in the event of the fox breaking at the far side. Miss Sally took up a position, not very far from me, and it was easy to see that she had her hands full with her borrowed mount, on whose temper the delay and suspense were visibly telling. His iron-gray neck was white from the chafing of the reins. Had the ground under his feet been red-hot, he could hardly have sidled and hot more uncontrollably. Nothing but the most impassioned conjugation of the verb to condemn

could have supplied any human equivalent for the manner in which he tore holes in the sedgy grass with a furious forefoot. Those who were even superficial judges of character gave his heels a liberal allowance of sea-room, and Mr. Chute, who could not be numbered among such, and had, as usual, taken up a position as near to Miss Sally as possible, was rewarded by a double knock on his horse's ribs that was a cause of heartless mirth to the lady of his affections. not a hound had as yet spoken but they were forcing their way through the gorse forest and shoving each other jealously aside with growing excitement and flurry could be seen at intervals moving forward in the direction they were indicating it was at this juncture that the ubiquitous slipper presented himself at my horse's shoulder tis for the river he's meakin major he said with an upward roll of his squinting eyes that nearly made me seasick he's a cat o'-nox fox that came in in this morning, and you should get a head down to the fort. A tip from Slipper was not to be neglected,

and Philip her and I began a cautious progress through the gorse, followed by Miss Knox as quietly as moonlight as nerves would permit. Wishful has it, she exclaimed, as a hound came into view, uttered a sharp yelp and drove forward. "'Hark! Hark!' roared Flurry, but at least three hours reverberating in each hark. At the same instant came a hello. from the farther side of the river, and Dr. Hickey's renowned and blood-curdling screech

was uplifted at the bottom of the covert. Then Babel broke forth, as the hounds, converging from every quarter, flung themselves shrieking on the line. Moonlighter went straight up on his hind legs, and dropped again with a bound that sent him crushing past Philippa and Kruskeen. He did it a second time, and was almost on to the tale of the Quaker, whose bulky person was not to be hurried in any emergency. "'Get on if you can, Major E. Eates,' called out Sally, steadying the grey as well as she could in the narrow pathway between the great gorse bushes. Other horses were thundering behind us. Men were shouting to each other in similar passages, right and left of us. The cry of the

hounds filled the air with a kind of delirium. A low wall with a stick laid along it, barred the passage in front of me, and the Quaker firmly and immediately decided. not to have it, until someone else had dislodged the pole. "'Go ahead!' I shouted, squeezing to one side, with heroic disregard of the firs bushes and my new tops. The words were hardly out of my mouth when moonlighter, mad with thwarted excitement, shot by me, hurtled over the obstacle with extravagant fury, landed twelve feet beyond it on clattering slippery rock,

saved himself from falling with an eel-like forward buck onto sedgy ground, and bolted at full speed down the muddy cattle track. There are corners, rocky, most of them, in that cattle track, that Sally has told me she will remember to her dying day, boggy holes of any depth ranging between two feet and halfway to Australia, that she says she does not fail to mention in the general Thanksgiving. But at the time they occupied mere fractions of the strenuous seconds in which it was hopeless for her to do anything but try to steer,

trust to luck, sit down hard into the saddle, and try to stay there. For my part, I would as soon try to adhere to the horns of a charging bull as to the crutches of a side-saddle, but happily the necessity is not likely to arise. I saw Flurry Knox a little ahead of her on the same track, jamming his mare into the firs bushes to get out of her way. He shouted something after her about the ford, and started to gallop for it himself by a breakneck short cut. The hounds were already across the river, and it was obvious that, Ford or no Ford,

Moonlighter's intentions might be simply expressed in the formula, Be with them, I will. It was all downhill to the river, and among the firs, bushes and rocks there was neither time nor place to turn him. He rushed at it with a shattering slip upon a streak of rock, with a heavy plunge in the deep ground by the brink. It was as bad a take-off for twenty feet of water as could well be found. The grey horse rose out of the the boggy stuff, with all the impetus that pace and temper could give, but it was not enough. For one instant the twisting, sliding current was under, Salley. The next a veil of water sprang up all around her, and moonlighter was rolling and lurching in the desperate effort to find

foothold in the rocky bed of the stream. I was following at the best pace I could kick out of the Quaker, and saw the water swirl into her lap as her horse rolled to the near side. She caught the main to save herself, but he struggled onto his legs again, and came floundering broadside on to the farther bank. In three seconds she had got out of the saddle and flung herself at the bank, grasping the rushes and trying, in spite of the sodden weight of her habit,

to drag herself out of the water. At the same instant I saw Flurry, and the brown mare dashing through the ford twenty yards higher up, he was off his horse and beside her, with that uncanny quickness that Flurry reserved for moments of emergency, and catching her by the arms, swung her onto the bank as easily as if she had been the kennel terrier. "'Catch the horse!' she called out, scrambling to her feet.

"'Dam the hars!' returned Flurry, in the rage that is so often reaction from a bad scare. I turned along the bank, and made for the ford. By this time it was full of hustling, splashing riders, through whom Bernard Schute, furiously picking a bad start, drove a devastating way. He tried to turn his horse down the bank towards Miss Knox, but the hounds were running hard, and to my intense amusement, stockbroker, refused to abandon the chase, and swept his rider away in the wake of his stable companion, Dr. Hickey's young chestnut. By this time, two country boys had as usual in such cases risen from the earth, and fished moonlighter out of the stream. Miss Sally wound up an acrimonious argument with her cousin

by observing that she didn't care what he said, and placing her water-log boot in his obviously unwilling hand in a second was again in the saddle, gathering up the wet reins with the trembling, clumsy fingers of a person who is thoroughly chilled and in a violent hurry. She set Moonlighter going, and was away in a moment, galloping him at the first fence, at a pace that suited his steeple-chasing ideas.

"'Mr. Knox,' panted Philippa, who had by this time joined us, "'Make her go home!' "'She can go where she likes as far as I'm concerned,' responded Mr. Knox, pitching himself on his mare's back and digging in the spurs. Moonlighter had already glided over the bank in front of us, with a perfunctory flick at it with his heels. Flurry's mare and Cruskeen jumped it side by side with equal precision. It was a bank of some five feet high.

The Quaker charged it enthusiastically, refused it abruptly, and according to his infuriating custom at such moments, proceeded to tear hurried mouthfuls of grass. "'Will I give him a couple of belts, Your Honor!' shouted one of the running accompaniment of country boys. "'You will!' said I, with some further remarks to the Quaker, that I need not commit to paper. "'Swish! whack! The sound was music in my ears, as the good, remorseless ash-sapling bend round the the Quaker's dappled hind-quarters. At the third stripe he launched both his heels in the operator's face. At the fourth he reared undecidedly. At the fifth he bundled over the bank in a manner purged of hesitation. "'Ha!' yelled my assistance. "'That'll put a fear o God in him!' As the Quaker fled, headlong after the hunt, "'he'll be the better o that while he lives.'

"'Without going quite as far as this, I must admit, for the next half-hour he was astonishingly the better of it. The Castle-Docks-Fox Fox was making a very pretty line of it over the seven miles that separated him from his home. He headed through a grassy country of Ireland's mild and brilliant green, fenced with sound and buxom banks, enlivened by stone walls, uncompromised by the presence of gates, and yet comfortably laced with lanes,

for the furtherance of those who had laid to heart, Woolsey's valuable advice. Fling away ambition, by that sin, fell the angels. The flotsam and jetsam of the hunt pervaded the landscape. Standing on one long bank, three dismounted farmers flogged away at the refusing steeds below them, like anglers, trying to rise the sulky fish. Half a dozen hats bobbing in a string showed where the road-riders followed the delusive windings of a bochereen. It was obvious that in the matter of ambition they would not have caused Cardinal Woolsey a moment's uneasiness,

whether angels or otherwise, they were not going to run any risk of falling. Flurry's red coat was like a beacon two fields ahead of me, with Philippa following in his tracks. It was the first run worthy of the name that Philippa had ridden, and I blessed Miss Bobby Bennett as I saw Cruskeen's undefeated fencing. An encouraging twang of the doctor's horn notified that the hounds were giving us a chance, Even the Quaker pricked his blunt ears And swerved in his stride to the sound

A stone wall, a rough patch of heather A boggy field dinted deep and black with hoof-marks And the stern chase was at an end The hounds had checked on the outskirts of a small wood And the field thinned down to a panting dozen or so Viewed us with the disfavour shown by the first flight Towards those who unexpectedly add to their select number In the depths of the wood, Dr. Hickey might be heard uttering those singular little yelps of encouragement

that to the irreverent suggests a milkman in his dotage. Bernard Schute, who neither knew nor cared what the hounds were doing, was expiating at great length to an uninterested squirene upon the virtues and perfections of his new mount. "'I did all I knew to come and help you at the river,' he said, riding up to the splashed but still dripping Sally, but Stockbroker wouldn't hear of it. I pulled his ugly head round till his nose was in my boot, but he galloped away just the same.

He was quite right, said Miss Sally. I didn't want you in the least. As Miss Sally's red-gold coil of hair was turned towards me during this speech, I could only infer the glance with which it was delivered, from the fact that Mr. Schute responded to it with one of those firm gazes of adoration, in which the neighbourhood took such an interest,

and crumbled away, to incoherency. A shout from the top of a hill interrupted the aminesces of the cheque. Flurry was out of the wood in half a dozen seconds, blowing shattering blasts upon his horn, and the hounds rushed to him, knowing the gone away note that was never blown in vain.

The brown mare came out through the trees and the undergrowth, like a woodcock down the wind, and jumped across a stream onto a more than questionable bank. The hounds splashed and struggled after him, and as they landed the first. ecstatic whimpers broke forth. In a moment it was full cry, discordant, beautiful, and soul-stirring, as the pack spread and sped and settled to the line. I saw the absurd dazzle of tears in Philippa's eyes, and found time for the insulting proffer of the clean pocket-handkerchief, as we all galloped

hard to get away on good terms with the hounds. It was one of those elect moments in fox-hunting when the fittest alone have survived. Even the quix-a-one have survived. Even the question of the a sluggish blood was stirred by good company, and possibly by the remembrance of the singing ash-bland, and he lumbered up tall stone-faced banks, and down heavy drops, and across wide ditches, in astounding adherence to the line cut out by Flurry. Kraskeen went like a book, a story for girls, very pleasant and safe, but rather slow. Moonlighter was pulling Miss Sally onto the sterns of the hounds, flying his banks, rocketing like a pheasant over three-foot walls, committing, in fact, all the crimes induced by youth

and over-feeding. He would have done very comfortably with another six or seven stone on his back. Why Bernard Shute did not come off at every fence, and generally die a thousand deaths I cannot explain. Occasionally I rather wished he would, as from my secure position in the rear. I saw him charging his fences at whatever pace and place seemed good to the thoroughly demoralised stockbroker, and in so doing cannon heavily against Dr. Hickey on landing over a rotten ditch, jump a wall with his spur

rowling Charlie Knox's boot, and cut in at top speed in front of Flurry, who was scientifically cramming his mare up a very awkward scramble. Insofar as I could think of anything beyond Philippa and myself and the next fence, I thought there would be trouble for Mr. Shoot,

in consequence of this last feat. It was a hard hour long to be remembered, in spite of the quakers ponderous and unalterable gallop, in spite of the thump with which he came down off his banks, in spite of the confiding manner, in which he hung upon my hand. We were nearing Castle Knox, and the riders began to edge away from the hounds towards a gate that broke the long barrier of the demean wall. Steaming horses and purple-faced riders clattered and crushed in at the gate. There was a moment of pulling up and listening, in which quivering tails and pumping sides told their own story.

Groskeen's breathing suggested a cross between a grampus and a gramophone. Philippa's hair had come down, and she had a stitch in her side. Moonlighter, fresher than ever, stamped and dragged at his bit, I thought little Miss Sally looked very white. The bewildering clamour of the hounds was all through the wide laurel plantations. At a word from Flurry, Dr. Hickey shoved his horse ahead. and turned down a ride, followed by most of the field. "'Philippa,' I said severely,

"'you've had enough, and you know it.' "'Do go up to the house and make them give you something to eat,' struck in Miss Sally, twisting moonlight around to keep his mind occupied. "'And as for you, Miss Sally,' I went on, in the manner of Mr. Fairchild, "'the sooner you get off that horse and out of those wet things the better.' Flurry, who was just in front of us, said nothing, but gave a short and most disagreeable laugh. Philippa accepted my suggestion with the meekness of exhaustion,

but under the circumstances it did not surprise me that Miss Sally did not follow her example. Then ensued an hour of woodland hunting at its worst and most bewildering. I galloped after Flurry and Miss Sally, up and down long, glittering lanes of Laurel, at every other moment burying my face in the Quaker's coarse white mane to avoid the slash of the branches, and receiving down the back of my neck,

showers of drops, stored up from the rain of the day before, playing an endless game of hide and seek with the hounds, and never getting any nearer to them, as they turned and doubled through the thickets of evergreens. Even to my limited understanding of the situation, it became clear at length that two foxes were on foot. Most of the hounds were hard at work a quarter of a mile away,

but flurry, with a grim face and a faithful three-couple, stuck to the failing line of the hunted fox. There came a moment when Miss Sally and I, who through many vicissitudes had clung to each other, found ourselves at a spot where two rides crossed. Flurry was waiting there, and a little way up one of the rides, a couple of hounds were hustling to and fro,

with the thwarted wimpers half-breaking from them. He held up his hand to stop us, and at that identical moment Bernard shoot, like a bolt from the blue, burst upon our vision, It need scarcely be mentioned That he was going at a full gallop I have rarely seen him ride at any other pace And as he bore down upon Flurry and the hounds

Ducking and dodging to avoid the branches He shouted something about a fox Having gone away at the other side of the covert Hold hard! Roared Flurried Don't you see the hounds, you fool? Mr. Shoot, to do him justice Held hard with all the strength of his body But it was of no avail

The bay horse had got his head down and his tail up, there was a piercing yell from a hound as it was ridden over, and Flurry's brown mare will not soon forget the moment, when Stockbroker's shoulder took her on the point of the hip, and sent her staggering into the laurel bushes. As she swung round, Flurry's whip went up, and with a swift back-hander, the cane and the looped thong caught Bernard across his broad shoulders. "'Oh, Mr. Shoot!' shrieked Miss Sally, as I stared dumbfounded. "'Did that branch hurt you?' "'All right, nothing to signify,' he called out as he bucketed past, tugging at his horse's head, thought someone had hit me at first.

Come on, we'll catch him up this way.' He swung perilously into the main ride, and was gone, totally unaware of the position that Miss Sally's quickness had saved. Flurry rode straight up to his cousin, with a pale, dangerous face. "'I suppose you think I'm to stand being ridden over, and having my hounds killed to please you,' he said, "'But you're mistaken. "'You were very smart,

"'and you may think you've saved him his licking, "'but you needn't think he won't get it. "'He'll have it in spite of you, "'before he goes to bed this night.' "'A man who loses his temper badly, "'because he is badly in love, "'is inevitably ridiculous, "'far though he may be from thinking himself so.

"'He is also a highly unpleasant person to argue with, "'and Miss Sally and I held our peace respectfully. "'He turned his horse and rode away. "'Almost instantly the three couple of hounds opened in the underwood near us with a deafening crash, "'and not twenty yards ahead the hunted fox, dark with wet and mud, slunk across the ride. "'The hounds were almost on his brush. "'Moonlighter reared and chafed, the din was redoubled, passed away to a little distance, "'and suddenly became stationary in the middle of the laurels.

"'Could he have got into the old ice-house?' exclaimed Miss Sally, with reviving excitement. She pushed ahead, and turned down the narrowest of all the rides that had that day been my portion. At the end of the green tunnel, there was a comparatively open space. Flurry's mare was standing in it riderless, and Flurry himself was hammering with a stone at the padlock of a door that seemed to lead into the heart of a laurel-clump. The hounds were baying furiously, somewhere back of the entrance, among the laurel stems. "'He's got in by the old ice-drain,' said Flurry, addressing himself,

sulkily to me and ignoring Miss Sally. He had not the least idea of how absurd was his scowling face, draped by the luxuriant heart's tongues that overhung the doorway. The padlock yielded, and the opening door revealed a low, dark passage, into which Flurry disappeared, lugging a couple of hounds with him by the scruff of the neck. The remaining two-couple bade implacably at the mouth of the drain. The croak of a rusty bolt told of a second door at the inner end of the passage. Look out for the steps, Flurry. They're all broken, called out Miss Sally in tones of honey. There was no answer. Miss Sally looked at me. Her face was serious, but her mischievous eyes made a confederate of me. He's in an awful rage, she said. I'm afraid there will certainly be a row.

A row there certainly was, but it was in the cavern of the ice-house, where the fox had evidently been discovered. Miss Sally suddenly flung moonlight as rains to me and slipped off his back. Hold him, she said, and dived into the doorway under the overhanging branches. Things happened after that, with astonishing simultaneousness. There was a shrill exclamation from Miss Sally. The inner door was slammed and bolted, and at one and the same moment the fox darted from the entry and was away into the wood before one could wink. "'What's happened?' I called out. playing the refractory moonlighter like a salmon.

Miss Sally appeared at the doorway, looking half scared and half delighted. "'I've bolted him in, and I won't let him out until he promises to be good. I was only just in time to slam the door after the forks bolted out. "'Great Scott,' I said, helplessly. Miss Sally vanished again into the passage,

and the imprisoned hounds continued to express their emotions in the echoing vault of the ice-house. Their master remained mute. as the dead, and I trembled. "'Flurry,' I heard Miss Sally say, "'flurry, I've locked you in.' This self-evident piece of information met with no response.

"'Shall I tell you why?' A keener note seemed to indicate that a hound had been kicked. "'I don't care whether you answer me or not, I'm going to tell you.' There was a pause, apparently telling him was not as simple as had been expected. "'I won't let you out until you promise me something. "'Ah, Flurry, don't be so cross. "'What do you say? "'Oh, that's a ridiculous thing to say you know quite well

"'it's not on his account.' "'There was another considerable pause. "'Flurry,' said Miss Sally again, "'in tones that would have wild a badger from his earth. "'Dear Flurry! "'At this point I hurriedly flung Moonlighter's bridle "'over a branch and withdrew. My own subsequent adventures are quite immaterial, until the moment when I encountered Miss Sally on the steps of the hall door at Castle Knox.

"'I am just going in to take off these wet things,' she said airily. "'This was no way to treat a confederate.' "'Well,' I said, barring her progress, "'oh, he—he promised, it's all right,' she replied, rather breathlessly. There was no one about. I waited resolutely, for first. information. It did not come. Did he try to make his own terms, said I, looking hard at her? Yes, he did, she tried to pass me. And what did you do? I refused them, she said, with a sudden stagger of a sob in her voice as she escaped into the house. Now what on earth was Sally

Knox crying about? End of Chapter 9. This is a Librivox recording. All Librebox recordings are in the public domain. For further information, or to find out how you can volunteer, please go to Librevox.org. Recording by Andy Minter Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. By Edith Inoni Somerville and Martin Ross. Chapter 10. House of Fahy. Nothing could shake the conviction of Maria that she was by nature and by practice

a house-dog. Every one of Sri Laine's many doors had at one time or another slammed upon her expulsion, and each one of them had seen her stealthy, irrepressible return to the sphere that she felt herself so eminently qualified to grace. For her, the bone, thriftily interred by Tim Conner's terrier, was a mere diversion. Even the fruitage of the ash-bit had little charm for an accomplished habituay of the kitchen. She knew to a nicety which of the doors could be burst open by assault, at which it would be necessary to whine sycophantically,

and the clinical thermometer alone could furnish a parallel for her perception of mood in those in authority. In the case of Mrs. Cadogan, she knew that there were seasons when instant and complete self-effacement was the only course to pursue. Therefore, when, on a certain morning in July, on my way through the downstairs regions to my office, I saw her approach the kitchen door with her usual circumspection,

and on hearing her name enunciated indignantly by my cork, withdraw swiftly to a city of refuge at the back of the hay-rick, I drew my own conclusions. Had she remained, as I did, she would have heard the disclosure of a crime that lay more heavily on her digestion than her conscience. "'I can't put a thing out of my hand, but he's watching me to whip it away,' declaimed Mrs. Cadogan, with all the disregard of her kind for the accident of sex in the brute creation.

"'Twas only last night I was back in the scullery when I heard Bridget let out a screech, "'and there was my brave dog up on the table eating the roast beef that was after coming out "'from the dinner.' "'Brewt,' interjected Philippa, with what I well knew to be simulated wrath. "'And I had planned that bit of beef for the luncheon,' continued me, Mrs. Godaggan, an impassioned lamentation, the way we wouldn't have to intrude on the cold turkey. Sure, he has it that dragged.

That all we can do with it now is to run it through the mincing machine for the major sandwiches.' At this appetising suggestion I thought fit to intervene in the deliberations. "'One thing,' I said to Philippa afterwards, as I wrapped up a bottle of Yanitas in a cardigan jacket and rammed it into an already apoplectic cladston bag, that I do draw the line at is taking that dog with us. The whole business is black enough as it is.

Dear, said my wife, looking at me with almost clairvoyant abstraction, I could manage a second evening dress if you didn't mind putting my tea-jacket in your portmanteau. Little, thank heaven, as I know about yachting, I knew enough to make pertinent remarks and the incongruity of an ancient sixty-ton hiling and a fleet of a fleet of a of smart evening dresses. But, nonetheless, I left a pair of indispensable boots behind, and the tea-jacket went into my portmanteau. It is doing no more than the barest justice to the officers of the Royal Navy, to say that, so far as I know them, they cherish no

mistake and enthusiasm for a home on the rolling deep when a home anywhere else presents itself. Bernard Shute had unfortunately proved an exception to this rule. During the winter, the invitation to go for a cruise in the yacht that was in process of building for him hung over me like a cloud. A timely strike in the builder's yard brought a respite, and in fact placed the completion of the yacht at so safer distance that I was betrayed into specious regrets, echoed with atrocious sincerity by Philippa. Into a life pastorally compounded of petty sessions and lawn tennis parties, retribution fell when it was least expected.

Bernard Shute hired a yacht in Queenstown, and one short week afterwards the worst had happened, and we were packing our things for a cruise in her. The only alleviation being the knowledge that, whether by sea or land, I was bound to return to my work in four days. We left Shrelawn at twelve o'clock, especially depressing hour for a start, when breakfast has died in you and lunch is still remote. My last act before mounting the dog-cart was to put her collar and shrewd, Shane on Maria, and immure her in the potato house.

Whence, as we drove down the avenue, her wails rent the heart of Philippa, and rejoiced mine. It was a very hot day, with a cloudless sky. The dust lay thick on the white road, and on us also, as during two baking hours we drove up and down the long hills, and remembered things that had been left behind, and grew hungry enough to eat sandwiches that tasted suspiciously of roast beef. The yacht was moored in Clountess Harbour. We drove through the village street, a narrow and unlovely thoroughfare,

studied with public houses, swarming with children and poultry, down through an ever-growing smell of fish to the key. Thence we first viewed our fate, a dingy-looking schooner, and the hope I had secretly been nourishing that there was not wind enough for her to start was dispelled by the sight of her topsaw going up.

More than ever at that radiant moment, as the reflection of the white sail quivered on the tranquil blue, and the still water flattered all it reproduced, like a fashionable photographer. Did I agree with George Herbert's advice, praise the sea, but stay on shore? We must hail her, I suppose, I said drearily. I assailed the Eileen Oog, such being her inappropriate name,

with desolate cries, but achieved no immediate result beyond the assembling of some village children round us and our luggage. Mr. Schulton, the two ladies was after screeching here for the vote a while ago, volunteered a horrid little girl,

whom I had already twice frustrated in the attempt to seat an infant relative on our bundle of rugs. Timsy Hallaghan says it would be as good for them to stay ashore, for there isn't as much wind outside as out a candle. With this encouraging statement, the little girl devoted herself

to the alternate consumption of gooseberries and cockles. all things come to those who wait and to us arrived at length the gig of the eileen ogre and such by this time were the temperatures and the smells of the key that i actually welcomed the moment that found us leaving it for the yacht now sinclair aren't you glad you came remarked philippa as the clear green water deepened under us and a light briny air came coolly round us with the motion of the boat as she spoke there was an outburst of screams from from the children on the key, followed by a heavy splash. "'Oh, stop!' cried Philippa in agony. "'One of them's fallen in. I can see its poor little brown head.' "'Tis a dog, ma'am,' said briefly the man who was rowing stroke. "'One might have wished it had been that little girl,' said I,

as I steered to the best of my ability for the yacht. We had traversed another twenty yards or so, when Philippa, in a voice in which horror and triumph was strangely blended, exclaimed. She's following us. Who? The little girl? I asked, callously.

No, returned Philippa. Worse. I looked round, not without a prevision of what I was about to see. And behold, the faithful Maria swimming steadily after us,

with her brown muzzle thrust out in front of her, ripping through the reflections like a plough. Go home! I roared, standing up, gesticulating in fury that I well knew to be impotent.

"'Go home, you brute!' Maria redoubled her efforts, and Philippa murmured uncontrollably, "'Well, she is a dear. Had I had a sword in my hand, I should undoubtedly have slain, Philippa, but before I could express my sentiments in any way, a violent shock flung me endways on top of the man who was pulling stroke. Thanks to Maria, we had reached our destination all unawares. men, respectfully awaiting my instructions, had rode on with disciplined steadiness, and as a result

we had rammed the Eileen Ogue amid ships, with a vigour that brought Mr. Chute, tumbling up the companion to see what had happened. "'Oh, it's you, is it?' he said, with his mouthful, "'Come in, don't knock. Delighted to see you, Mrs. Yates. Don't apologise. There's nothing like a hired ship, after all. It's quite jolly to see the splinters fly, shows you're getting your money's worth.' "'Hello? Who's the This was Maria, feigning exhaustion and noisily treading water at the boat's side. "'What, poor old Maria wanted to send her ashore, did he? Heartless Ruffian!' Thus was Maria installed on board the Eileen Ogue, and the element of fatality had already begun to work.

There was just enough wind to take us out of Clantis Harbour, and with the last of the out-running tide we crept away to the west. The party on board consisted of our host's sister, Miss Cecilia Shoot, Miss Sally Knox, and ourselves. We sat about in conventional attitudes in deck-chairs and on adamantine deck-bosses, and I talked to Miss Schute with feverish brilliancy, and wished the patience-cards were not in the cabin. I knew the supreme importance of keeping one's mind occupied, but I dare not fazed the cabin. There was a long, almost imperceptible swell. little queer sea-birds that I have never seen before, and trust I shall never see again, dotted about on its glassy slopes. The coastline looked low and grey and dull, as I think coast-lines always

do when viewed from the deep. The breeze that Bernard had promised us we should find outside was barely enough to keep us moving. The burning sun of four o'clock focused its heat on the deck. Bernard stood up among us, engaged in what he was pleased to call, handling the stick, and beamed almost as offensively as the sun. "'Oh, we're slipping along,' he said, his odiously healthy face, glowing like copper against the blazing blue sky. "'You're going a great deal faster than you think, and the men say we'll pick up a breeze once we're round the mizzen.'

I made no reply. I was not feeling ill, merely thoroughly disinclined for conversation. Miss Sally smiled wanly, and closing her eyes, laid her head on Philippa's knee. Instructed by a dread free masonry, I knew that for her the moment had come when she could no longer bear to see the rail rise slowly above the horizon, and with an equal rhythmic slowness, sink below it. Maria moved restlessly to and fro, panting and yawning, and occasionally rearing herself on her hind legs against the side, and staring forth with wild, eyes at the headachey sliding of the swell. Perhaps she was meditating suicide. If so, I sympathise with her, and since she was obviously going to be sick,

I trusted that she would bring off the suicide with as little delay as possible. Philippa and Miss Chute sat in unaffected serenity, in deck-chairs, and stitched at white things, tea-cloths for the Eileen Ogue, I believe, things in themselves are mockery, and talked untiringly, with that singular indifference to their marine surroundings that I have often observed in ladies who are not seasick. It always stirs me afresh to wonder why they have not remained ashore. Nevertheless, I prefer their tranquil and total lack of interest in seafaring matters to the blatant Vikingism of the average male who is similarly placed.

Somehow, I know not how, we crawled onwards, and by about five o'clock we had rounded the mizzen, a gaunt spike of a headland that starts up like a boar's tusk above the ragged lip of the Irish coast, and the Eileen Ogg was beginning to swing and wallop in the long, sluggish rollers that the American liners know and despise. I was very far from despising them. Down in the west, resting on the sea's rim, a purple bank of clouds lay awaiting the descent of the sun, as seductively and as malevolently as the damp bed at a hotel awaits a traveller.

the end so far as i was concerned came at tea-time the meal had been prepared in the saloon and thither it became incumbent upon me to accompany my hostess and my wife miss sally long past speech opened at the suggestion of tea one eye and disclosed a look of horror as i tottered down the companion i respected her good sense the irene oge had been built early in the sixties and the headroom was not her strong point neither apparently was ventilation i began by dashing my forehead against the frame of the cabin door and then shattered morally and physically entered into the atmosphere of the pit after which things and the sight of a plate of rich cake i retired in good order to my cabin and began upon the janitas i pass over some painful intermediate details and resume at the moment when bernard shute woke me from a drugged slumber to announce that dinner was over. It's been raining pretty hard, he said, swaying easily with the swing of the yacht. But we've got a clinking breeze, and we ought to make L'Riga harbour tonight. There's a good anchorage there, the men say. They're rather a lot of swabs, but they know this coast, and I don't. I took them over with the ship, all standing.

"'Where are we now?' I asked, somewhat heartened by the blessed word, anchorage. "'You're running up sheepskin bay. It's a thundering big bay. L'Origa's up at far end of it, and the night's as black as the inside of a cow. Dig out and get something to eat, and come on deck. What, no dinner? I had spoken morosely, with closed eyes. Oh, Rot, you're on an even keel now. I promised Mrs. Yates I'd make you dig out.

You're as bad as a soldier officer that we were ferrying to Malta one time in the old Tamar. He got one leg out of his berth when we were going down the channel, and he was too sick to pull it it again till we got to jib. I compromised on a drink and some biscuits. The ship was certainly steadier, and I felt sufficiently restored to climb weakly on deck. It was by this time past ten o'clock,

and heavy clouds blotted out the last of the afterglow, and smothered the stars at their berth. A wet, warm wind was lashing the Eileen Ogue up a wide estuary. The waves were haunting her, hissing under her stern, racing up to her, crested with the white glow of phosphorus as she fled before them. I dimly discerned in the greyness, the more solid greyness of the shore. The mainsail loomed out into the darkness, nearly at right angles to the yacht,

with the boom creaking as the following wind gave us an additional shove. I know nothing of yacht sailing, but I can appreciate the grand fact that in running before a wind the boom is removed from its usual sphere of devastation. I sat down beside a bundle of rugs that I had discovered to be my wife, and thought of my white-wash office at Sri Lane, and its bare but stationary floor, with a yearning that was little short of passion. Miss Sally had long since succumbed, Miss Chute was tired, and had turned in soon after dinner. "'I suppose she's overdone by the delirious gaiety of the afternoon,' said I, acridly, in reply to this information. "'Philippa cautiously poked forth her head from the rugs, like a tortoise from under its shell, to see that Bernard, who was standing near the steersman, was out of hearing.

"'In all your life, Sinclair,' she said impressively, "'you never knew such a time as Cecilia and I have had down there. "'We've had to wash everything in the cabins, and remake the beds and hurl the sheets away. "'They were covered with black finger-marks. "'And while we were doing that, in came the creature that called, calls himself the steward, to ask if he might get something of his that he had left in Miss Schute's birthplace, and he rooted out from under Cecilia's mattress, a pair of socks, and half a loaf of bread.

Consolation to Miss Chute, know her birth has been well aired, I said, with the nearest approach to enjoyment that I had known since I came on board. And has Sally made any equally interesting discoveries? She said she didn't care what her bed was like. She just dropped into it. "'I must say I'm sorry for her,' went on, Philippa. "'She hated coming. Her mother made her accept.' "'I wonder if Lady Knox will make her accept him,' I said.

"'How often has Sally refused him? Does anyone know?' "'Oh, about once a week,' replied Philippa. "'Just the way I kept on refusing you, you know.' Something cold and wet was thrust into my hand, and the aroma of damp dog arose on the night air. Maria had issued from some lair at the sound of our voices, and was now with palsied tremblings, slowly trying to drag herself onto my lap. "'Poor thing, she's been so dreadfully ill,' said Philippa.

"'Don't send her away, Sinclair. Mr. Schute found her lying in his birth not able to move, didn't you, Mr. Schute?' "'She found out that she was able to move,' said Bernard, who had crossed to our side of the deck. "'It was somehow borne in upon her when I got at her with a boot. tree. I wouldn't advise you to keep her in your lap, Yates. She stole half a ham after dinner, and she might take a notion to make the only reparation in her power. I stood up and stretched myself stiffly. The wind was freshening, and though the growing smoothness of the water told that we were making shelter of some kind, for all that I could see of land, we might as well

have been in mid-ocean. The heaving lift of the deck under my feet, and the lurching swing when a stronger gust filled the ghostly sails, were more disquieting to me in suggestion than in reality. And to my surprise, I found something almost enjoyable in rushing through darkness at the pace at which we were going. "'We're a small bit short of the mouth of L'Origa harbour yet, sir,' said the man, who was staring, in reply to a question from Bernard. "'I can see the shore well enough. Sure, I know every yard of water in the bay.' As he spoke, he sat down abruptly and violently. So did Bernard. So did I.

eye. The bundle that contained Philippa collapsed upon Maria. "'Main sheet!' bellowed Bernard on his feet in an instant, as the boom swung in and out again with the terrific jerk. We're ashore! In response to this order, three men in succession fell over me while I was still struggling on the deck, and something that was either Philippa's elbow, or the acutest angle of Maria's skull hit me in the face. As I found my feet, the cabin's skylight was suddenly illumined by a wavering glare. I got across the slanting deck somehow, through the confusion of shouting men and the flapping thunder of the sails, and saw through the skylight a gush of flame, rising from a pool of fire around an overturned lamp on the swing table.

I avalanche down the companion, and was squandered like an avalanche on the floor at the foot of it. Even as I fell, McCarthy, the steward, dragged the strip of carpet from the cabin floor, and threw it on the blaze. I found myself in some unexplained. way, snatching a railway rug from his chute, and applying it to the same purpose, and in half a dozen seconds we had smothered the flame, and were left in total darkness. The most striking feature of the situation was the immovability of the yacht. "'Great Ned,' said McCarthy, invoking I know not what, heathen deity. "'It is on the bottom of the say we are. Well, whether or no, thank God we have the fire quenched.' We were not, so far, at the bottom.

of the sea. But during the next ten minutes the chances seemed in favour of our getting there. The yacht had run her bows on a sunken ridge of rock, and after a period of feminine indecision, as to whether she was going to slide off again or roll over into deep water, she elected to stay where she was, and the gig was lowered with all speed, in order to tow her off before the tide left her. My recollection of this interval is but hazy, but I can certify that in ten minutes I had swept together an assortment of necessaries and knotted them into my counterbane, had broken the string of my eyeglass,

and lost my silver match-box, had found Philippa's curling-tongs and put them in my pocket, had carted all the luggage on deck, had then applied myself to the manly duty of reassuring the ladies, and had found Miss Chute merely bored, Philippa enthusiastically anxious

to be allowed to help pull the gig, and Miss Sally radiantly restored to health and spirits by the cessation of movement, and the probability of an early escape from the yacht. The rain had, with its usual opportuneness, begun again. We stood in it under umbrellas, and watched the gig, jumping on its tow-rope, like a dog on a string, as the crew plied the labouring awe in futile endeavour to move the Eileen Og.

We had run on the rock at half-tide, and the increasing slant of the deck as the tide fell, brought home to us the pleasing probability, that at low water is about 2 a.m., we should roll off the rock and go to the bottom. Had Bernard Chute wished to show himself in the most advantageous light to Miss Sally, he could scarcely have bettered the situation. I looked on in helpless respect, while he whom I had known as the scourge of the hunting-field, the terror of the shooting party, rose to the top of a difficult position and kept there,

and my respect was, if possible, increased by the presence of mind, with which he availed himself of all critical moments to place a protecting arm round Miss Knox. By about 1am, the two gaffs, with which Bernard had contrived to shore up the slowly healing yacht, began to show signs of yielding, and in approved shipwreck fashion we took to the boats. The yachts grew in the gig, remaining in attendance, on what seemed like there to be the last moments of the Eileen Ogue, while we, in the dinghy, sought for the harbour. to the tilt of the yacht's deck and the roughness of the broken water round her. Getting into the boat was no mean feat of gymnastics. Miss Sally did it like a bird, alighting in the inevitable arms for Bernard. Miss Chute followed very badly, but by innate force of character, successfully. Philippa, who was enjoying every moment of her shipwreck, came last, launching herself into the dinghy with my silver shoehorn clutched in one hand and in the other the tea-basket. I heard the hollow clank,

its tin cups as she sprang, and appreciated the heroism with which Bernard received one of its quarters in his waist. How or when Maria left the yacht, I know not, but when I applied myself to the bow-aw, I led off with three crabs, owing to the devotion with which she thrust her head into my lap. I am no judge of these matters, but in my opinion we ought to have been swamped several "'All times during that row. "'There was nothing but the phosphorus of breaking waves "'to tell us where the rocks were, "'and nothing to show where the harbour was,

"'except a solitary light, a masthead-light, as we supposed. "'The skipper had assured us that we could not go wrong "'if we kept a westerly course with a little northing in it, "'but it seemed simpler to steer for the light, and we did so. "'The dinghy climbed along over the waves, "'with an agility that was safer than it felt. the rain fell without haste and without rest the oars were as inflexible as crowbars and somewhat resembled them in shape and weight nevertheless it was elysium when compared with the afternoon leisure of the deck of the eileen at last we came unexplainably into smooth water and it was about this time that we were first aware that the darkness was less dense than it had been and that the rain had ceased by imperceptible degrees

The greyness touched the back of the waves, more a dreariness than a dawn, but more welcome than thousands of gold and silver. I looked over my shoulder, and discerned vaguely bulky things ahead. As I did so, my awe was suddenly wrapped in seaweed. We crept on. Maria stood up with her paws on the gunwale, and whined in high agitation. The dark objects ahead resolved themselves into rocks, and without more ado, Maria pitched herself into the wall. water. In half a minute we heard her shaking herself on shore. We slid on. The water swelled under the dinghy, and lifted her keel onto grating gravel. We couldn't have done it better if we'd been the hydrographer royal, said Bernard, wading knee-deep in a light-wash of foam with the painter in his hand. But all the same, that mast-head light is someone's bedroom candle. We landed, hauled up the boat,

and then feebly sat down on our belongings to review the situation, and Maria came and shook herself over each of us in turn. We had run into a little cove, guided by the philanthropic beam of a candle in the upper window of a house about a hundred yards away. The candle still burned on, and the anemic daylight exhibited to us our surroundings, and we debated as to whether we could, at two forty-five a.m., present ourselves as objects of compassion to the owner of the can-es. and he'd hardly say that it was the ladies who decided on making the attempt having like most of their sex a courage incomparably superior to ours in such matters bernard and i had not a grain of genuine compunction in our souls but we failed in nerve

we trailed up from the cove laden with emigrants bundles stumbling on wet rocks in the half-light and succeeded in making our way to the house it was a small two-storied building of that hideous breed of architecture, usually dedicated to the rectories of the Irish church. We felt that there was something friendly in the presence of a pair of carpet slippers in the porch, but there was a hint of exclusiveness in the fact that there was no knocker, and that the bell was broken.

The light still burned in the upper window, and with a faltering hand I flung gravel at the glass. This summons was appallingly responded to by a shriek, there was a flutter of white at the panes, and the candle was extinguished. "'Come away!' exclaimed Miss Chute. "'It's a lunatic asylum!' We stood our ground, however,

and presently heard a footstep within. A blind was poked aside in another window, and we were inspected by an unseen inmate. Then someone came downstairs, and the hall door was opened by a small man with a bald head and a long sandy beard. He was attired in a brief dressing-gown, and on his shoulder sat like an angry ghost,

a large white cockatoo. Its crest was up on end. Its beak was a good two inches long, and curved like a Malay-Cris. Its claws gripped the little man's shoulder. Maria uttered in the background a low and thunderous growl. "'Don't take any notice of the bird, please,' said the little man, nervously, seeing our united gaze fixed on this apparition.

"'He's extremely fierce, if annoyed.' the majority of our party here melted away to either side of the hall door and i was left to do the explaining the tale of our misfortunes had its due effect and we were ushered into a small drawing-room our host holding open the door for us like a nightmare footman with bare shins, a gnome-like bald head, and an unclean spirit swaying on his shoulder. He opened the shutters, and we sat decorously round the room, as at an afternoon party, while the situation was further expounded on both sides. Our entertainer, indeed, favoured us with the leading items of his family history, among them the fact that he was a Dr. Fahy from Cork,

who had taken somebody's rectory for the summer, and had been prevailed on by some of his patients to permit them to join him as paying guests. "'I said it was a lunatic asylum,' murmured Missute to me. "'In point of fact,' went on our host, "'there isn't an empty room in the house, "'which is why I can only offer your party the use of this room and the kitchen-fire, "'which I make a point of keeping burning all night.' "'He leant back complacently in his chair and crossed his legs,

and then, obviously remembering his costume, sat bolt upright again. We owed the guiding beams of the candle, to the owner of the cockatoo, an old Mrs. Buck, who was, we gathered, the most paying of all the patients, and also obviously the one most feared and cherished by Dr. Farhi. She has a candle burning all night for the bird, and her door opened to let him walk about the house when he likes, said Dr. Farhi.

Indeed, they may see her passion for him. him amounts to dementia. He is very fond of me, and Mrs. Fahey is always telling me that I should be thankful, as whatever he did we'd be bound to put up with him.' Dr. Fahey evidently had a turn for conversation that was unaffected by circumstance. The first beams of the early sun were lighting up the rep chair-covers before the door closed upon his brown dressing-gown and upon the stately white back of the cockatoo, and the demonic possession of laughter that had wrought in us during the interview burst forth unchecked. It was most painful and exhausting, as such laughter always is,

but by far the most serious part of it was that Miss Sally, who was sitting in the window, somehow drove her elbow through a pane of glass, and Bernard, in pulling down the blind to conceal the damage, tore it off the roller. Though followed on this catastrophe, a period during which reason tottered, and Maria barked furiously. "'Philippa was the first to pull herself together "'and to suggest an adjournment to the kitchen fire "'that in honour of the paying guest was never quenched,

"'and respecting the repose of the household, "'we proceeded thither with a stealth that convinced Maria "'that we were engaged in a rat-hunt. "'The boots of paying guests littered the floor. "'The debris of their last repast covered the table. "'A cat, in some unforeseen fastness, "'cruned a war-song to Maria, "'who feigned unconsciousness,

and fell to scientific research in the scullery. We roasted our boots at the range, and Bernard, with all the sailors' gift for exploration and theft, prowled in noisome purlieus, and emerged with a jug of milk and a lump of salt butter. No one who has not been a burglar can at all realise what it was to roam through Dr Farhi's basement story, with the rookery of paying guests asleep above,

and to feel that, so far, we had repaid his confidence by breaking a pane of glass and a blind, and putting the scullery tap out of order. I have always maintained that there was something wrong with it before I touched it, but the fact remains that when I had filled Philippa's kettle no human power could prevail upon it to stop flowing. For all I know to the contrary, it is running still. It was in the course of our furtive return to the drawing-room

that we were again confronted by Mrs. Buck's cockatoo. It was standing in malign meditation on the table. the stairs, and on seeing us it rose without a word of warning upon the wing, and with a long screech flung itself at Miss Sally's golden-red head, which a ray of sunlight had chanced to illumine. There was a moment of stampede as the selected victim, pursued by the cockatoo, fled into the drawing-room. Two chairs were upset, one, I think, broken. Miss Sally enveloped herself in a window-curtain, Philippa and Miss Chute effaced themselves beneath the table. The cockatoo, foiled of its prey, skimmed, still screeching round the ceiling. It was Bernard, who, with a well-directed

sofa cushion, drove the enemy from the room. There was only a chink of the door open, but the cockatoo turned on his side as he flew, and swung through it like a woodcock. We slammed the door behind him, and at the same instant there came a thumping on the floor overhead, muffled, yet perontory. "'That's Mrs. Buck,' said Miss Schute, crawling from under the table. the room over this is the one that had the candle in it. We sat for a time in awful stillness, but nothing further happened, save a distant shriek overhead

that told the cockatoo had sought and found sanctuary in his owner's room. We had tea Soto Voce, and then, one by one, despite the amazing discomfort of the drawing-room chairs, we dozed off to sleep. It was about five o'clock that I woke, with a stiff-neck, and an uneasy remembrance that I had last seen Maria in the kitchen. The others, looking each of them about twenty years older than their age, slept in various attitudes of exhaustion.

Bernard opened his eyes as I strode forth to look for Maria, but none of the ladies awoke. I went down the evil-smelling passage that led to the kitchen stairs, and there, on a mat, regarding me with intelligent affection, was Maria. But what was the white thing that lay between the kitchen, her forepaws. The situation was too serious to be coped with alone. I fled

noiselessly back to the drawing-room, and put my head in. Bernard's eyes, blessed by the light sleep of sailors, opened again, and there was that in mind that summoned him forth, blessed also with the light step of sailors. We took the corpse from Maria, withholding perforce the language and the

slaughtering that our hearts ached to bestow. For a minute or two, our eyes communed, "'I'll get the kitchen shovel,' breathed Bernard. "'You open the hall door.' "'A minute later, we passed like spirits into the open air, and on into a little garden at the end of the house. Maria followed us, licking her lips.

There were beds of nasturtiums, and of purple stocks, and of marigolds. We chose a bed of stocks, a plump bed that looked like easy digging. The windows were all tightly shut and shuttered, and I took the cockatoo from under my coat and hid it temporarily behind a box border. Bernard had brought a shovel and a coal-scoop. We dug like badgers. At 18 inches, we got down into shale and stones,

and the coal-scoop struck work. Never mind, said Bernard. We'll plant the stocks on top of him. It was a lovely morning, with a newborn blue sky and a light northerly breeze. As we returned to the house, we looked across the wavelets of the little cove and saw above the rocky point,

round which we had groped last night, a triangular white patch moving slowly along. The tides lifted her, said Bernard, standing stock still. He looked at Mrs. Buck's window, and at me. Yeats, he whispered, Let's quit. It was now barely six o'clock, and not a soul was stirring.

We woke the ladies, and convinced, them of the high importance of catching the tide. Bernard left a note in the hall-table for Dr. Fahey, a beautiful note of leave-taking and gratitude, and apologies for the broken window, for which he begged to enclose half a crown. No allusion was made to the other casualties. As we neared the strand, he found occasion to say to me, I put in a postscript that I thought it best to mention that I had seen the cockatoo in the garden, and hoped it would get back all right. That's quite true, but look here whatever you do you must keep it all dark from the ladies at this juncture maria overtook us with the cockatoo in her mouth end of chapter ten this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for further information or to find out how you can volunteer please go to librivox dot org

recording by andy minta some experiences of an irish r m by edith enoni somerville and martin ross chapter eleven occasional licences it's out of the question i said looking forbiddingly at mrs maloney through the spokes of the bicycle that i was pumping up outside the grocer's in skiborne "'Well, indeed, Major Yates,' said Mrs. Maloney, advancing excitedly, and placing on the nickel-plating a hand that I had good and recent cause to know was warm. "'Sure, I know well that if the angel Gabriel came down from heaven looking for a licence for the races, your honour wouldn't give it to him without a character. But as for Michael, sure the world knows what Michael is.' "'I had been waiting for Philippa for already nearly half an hour, and my temper was not of the best. "'Carracter, or no character, Mrs. Maloney,' said I with asperity. "'The magistrates have settled to give no occasional licences, and if Michael were as sober as—'

"'Is it sober? God help us!' exclaimed Mrs. Maloney, with an upward rolling of her eyes to the recording angel. "'I'll tell your honour the truth. "'I'm his wife now, fifteen years, and I never seen the sign of drink on Michael only once.' And that was when he went out of good nature helping Timsy Ryan to whitewash his house. Timsy and himself had a couple of pots of Arthur, and, look, he was as little used to it, as his head got light, and he walked away out to drive in the cows at no more than eleven o'clock in the day. And the cows equate was as much surprise going hither and over the four corners of the road from him, faith you'd have to laugh michael says i to him you're drunk i am says he and the tears rained from his eyes i turned the cows from him go home i says and lie down on willie tom's bed

at this affecting point my wife came out of the grocer's with a large parcel to be strapped to my handle-bar and the history of mr maloney's solitary lapse from sobriety got no further than willie tom's bed "'You see,' I said to Philippa, as we bicycled quietly home through the hot June afternoon, "'we've settled we'll give no licences for the sports. "'Why, even young Shee, who owns three pubs in Skiborne, came to me, "'and said he hoped the magistrates would be firm about it, "'as these one-day licences were quite unnecessary, "'and only led to drunkenness and fighting, "'and every man on the bench has joined him promising not to grant any.'

"'How nice, dear,' said Philippa, absent, "'Do you know Mrs. Macdonald can only let me have three dozen cups and saucers? "'I wonder if that will be enough.' "'Do you mean to say you expect three dozen people?' said I. "'Oh, well, it's always well to be prepared,' replied my wife, evasively. "'During the next few days I realised the true inwardness of what it was to be prepared for an entertainment of this kind. Games were not at a high level in my district, football, of a wild gorilla, species was waged intermittently, blended in some inextricable way with home rule and a brass band.

And on Sundays, gatherings of young men rolled a heavy round stone along the roads, a rudimentary form of sport, whose fascination lay primarily in the fact that it was illegal, and in lesser degree in betting on the length of each roll. I had had a period of enthusiasm during which I thought I was going to be the apostle of cricket in the neighbourhood, but my mission dwinds. to single wicket with Peter Godaggan, who was indulgent but bored, and I swiped the ball through the dining-room window, and someone took one of the stumps to poke the laundry fire. Once a year, however, on that festival of the Roman Catholic Church, which is familiarly known as Peter and Pals Day, the district was wont to make a spasmodic effort at athletic sports,

which were duly patronised by the gentry, and promoted by the publicans, and this year, the honour of a steward's green rosette was conferred upon me. Philippa's genius for hospitality here saw its chance, and broke forth into unbridled tea-party, in connection with the sports, even involving me in the hire of a tent, the conveyances of chairs and tables, and other large operations. It chanced that Flurry Knox had, on this occasion, lent the fields for the sports, with the proviso that horse races and tug-of-war were to be added to the usual.

programme. Flurry's participation in events of this kind seldom failed to be of an inflaming character. As he and I planted larch spars for the high-jump, and stuck firs bushes into hurdles, locally known as Hurdles, and skirmished hourly with people who wanted to sell drink on the course, I thought that my next summer leaf would singularly coincide with the festival consecrated to St Peter and St. Paul. we made a grandstand of quite four feet high out of old fish-boxes which smelt worse and worse as the day wore on but was none the less as sought after by those for whom it was not intended as is the royal enclosure at we broke gaps in all the fences to allow carriages on to the ground we armed a gang of the worst blackguards in skiborn with cart-whips to keep the course and felt that organisation could go no further momentous day of Peter and Paul opened badly, with heavy clouds and every indication of rain. But after a few thunder showers, things brightened, and it seemed within the bounds of possibility

that the weather might hold up. When I got down to the course on the day of the sports, the first thing I saw was a tent of that peculiar filthy grey that usually enshrines the sale of porter, with an array of barrels in a crate beside it. I bore down upon it, in all the indignant majesty of the law, and in so doing came upon Flurry Knox, who was engaged in flogging boys off the grandstand. "'She-he's gone one better than you,' he said, without taking any trouble to conceal the fact that he was amused.

"'She-he,' I said, why, she-he was the man who went to every magistrate in the country to ask them to refuse a licence for the sports. Yes, he took some trouble to prevent anyone else having a look. "'Look in,' replied Flurry. "'He asked every magistrate but one, "'and that was the one that gave him the licence. "'You don't mean to say that it was you?' "'I demanded, in high wrath and suspicion,

"'remembering that she-he bred horses, "'and that my friend Mr. Knox "'was a person of infinite resource, "'in the matter of a deal.' "'Well, well,' said Flurry, "'rearranging a disordered fish-box, "'and me that's a church-warden "'srained my ankle a month ago

"'with running downstairs at my grandmother to be in time for prayers. Where's the use of a good character in this country? Not much when you keep it eating its head off for want of exercise, I retorted, but if it wasn't you, who was it? Do you remember old Maurerite out at Castellaya? I remembered him extremely well as one of those representatives of the people, with whom a paternal government had leavened the effete ranks of the Irish magistracy.

Well, resumed Flurry. That licence was a... as good as a five-pound note in his pocket. I permitted myself a comment on Mr. Moriarty, suitable to the occasion. "'Oh, that's nothing,' said Flurry easily. He told me one day when he was half-screwed that his commission of the piece was worth a hundred and fifty a year to him in turkeys and whiskey,

and he was telling the truth for once. At this point, Flurry's eye wandered, and following its direction, I saw Lady Knox's smart bus, Cleaving its way through the throng of country people, lurching over the ups and downs of the fields like a ship in a sea. I was too blind to make out the component parts of the white froth that crowned it on top, and seethed forth from it when it had taken up a position near the tent in which Philippa

was even now propping the legs of the tea-table. But from the fact that Flurry addressed himself to the door, I argued that Miss Sally had gone inside. Lady Knox's manner had something more than its usual bleakness, She had brought, as she promised, a large contingent, but from the way that the strangers within her gates melted impalpably, and left me to deal with her single-handed, I drew the further deduction that all was not well.

"'Did you ever in your life see such a gang of women as I have brought with me?' She began with her wonted directness, as I piloted her to the grandstand, and placed her on the stoutest looking of the fish-boxes. "'I have no patience with men who yachts, "'Bernard-chute has gone off to the Clyde, "'and I had counted on his being a man at my dance next week. "'I suppose you'll tell me that you're going away, too,'

"'I assured Lady Knox that I would be a man to the best of my ability. "'This is the last dance I shall give,' went on her ladyship, unappeased. "'The men in this country consist of children and cats.' "'I admitted that we were a poor lot, "'but I said Miss Sally told me, "'Sally's a fool,' said Lady Knox. said Lady Knox, with a falcon eye at her daughter, who happened to be talking to her distant kinsman, Mr. Flurry, of that ilk. The races had by this time begun with a competition known as the Hop, Step and Lep. This, judging by the yells, was a highly interesting display. But as it was conducted between two impervious rows of onlookers, the aristocracy on the fish-boxes saw nothing save the occasional purple face of a competitor starting into view.

above the wall of backs like a jack-in-the-box. For me, however, the odorous sanctuary of the fish-boxes was not to be. I left it guarded by slipper, with a cart-whip of flail-like dimensions, as disreputable an object as could be seen out of low comedy, with someone's old white cords on his bandy legs, butcher-boots three sizes too big for him, and a black eye. The small boys fled before him. In the glory of his office he would have flailed his own mother off the fish-boxes,

I had an afternoon of decidedly mixed enjoyment. My stewardship blossomed forth like Aaron's rod, and added to itself the duties of starter, handicapper, general referee, and chucker out, besides which I from time to time strove with emissaries who came from Philippa, with messages about water and kettles. Flurry and I had to deal single-handed with the foot-races, our brothers in office being otherwise engaged at Mr. Sheehe's. a task of many difficulties chiefest being that the spectators all swept forward at the word go and ran the race with the competitors yelling curses blessings and advice upon them taking short cuts over anything and everybody and mingling inextricably with the finish by fervent applications of the whips the course was to some extent purged for the quarter-mile and it would i believe have been a triumph of handicapping had not an unforeseen disaster overtaken the favourite old mrs knox's bath-chair boy

whether as was alleged his braces had or had not been tampered with by a rival was a matter that the referee had subsequently to deal with in the thick of a free fight but the painful fact remained that in the cause of the cause of the matter that the referee had subsequently to deal with in the thick of a free fight but the painful fact remained that in the cause of the first lap, what were described as his gallowsies, abruptly severed their connection with the garments for whose safety they were responsible, and the favourite was obliged to seek seclusion in the crowd. The tug-of-war followed, close upon this contretemps, and had the excellent effect of drawing away, like a blister, the inflammation set up by the grievances of the bath-chair boy. I cannot at this moment remember of how many men each team consisted, my sole aim was to keep the numbers even, and to baffle the volunteers, who, in an ecstasy of sympathy, attached themselves to the tail of the rope at moments when their champions weakened.

The rival forces dug their heels in, and tugged in an uproar that drew forth the innermost line of customers from Mr. Shehey's porter-tent, and even attracted the quality, from the haven of the fish-boxes. Slipper, in the capacity of the squire of dames, pioneering Lady Knox through the crowd, with the cartwhip, and with language whose nature was providentially veiled, for the most part, by the din. The tug-of-war continued unabated. One team was getting the worst of it, but hung doggedly on, sinking lower and lower till they gradually sat down. Nothing short of the trump of judgment could have conveyed to them that they were breaking rules, and both teams settled down by slow degrees

onto their sides, with the rope under them, and their heels still planted in the ground, bringing about complete deadlock. I do not know the record duration for a tug of war, but I can certify that the Cullin'ar and Nocranny teams lay on the ground at full tension for half an hour, like men in apoplectic fits, each man with his respective adherents, howling over him, blessing him, and adjuring him to continue. With my own nauseated eyes, I saw a bearded countryman, obviously one of Mr. Shee, his best customers, fling himself on his knees beside one of the competence, and kiss his crimson and streaming face in a rapture of encouragement. As he shoved unsteadily passed me on his return journey to Mr. Sheehe's, I heard him

informing a friend that, he cried a handful of a Danny Malloy when he'd seen the poor brave boy so stubborn, and indeed he couldn't say why he cried. For good nature you'd cry, suggested the friend. Well, just that, I suppose, returned Danny Malloy's admirer resignedly. indeed if it was only two cocks you had seen fightin on the road your heart had take part with one of them i had begun to realise that i might as well abandon the tug-of-war and occupy myself elsewhere when my wife's much harris messenger brought me the portentous tidings that mrs yates wanted me in the tent at once when i arrived i found the tent literally bulging with philippa's guests lady knox seated on a hamper was taking off her glove and loudly announcing her desire for tea. And Philippa, with a flushed face and a crooked hat,

breathed into my ear the awful news that both the cream and the milk had been forgotten. "'But Flurry Knox says he can get me some,' she went on. "'He's gone to send people to milk a cow that lives near here. Go out and see if he's coming.' I went out and found, in the first instance, Mrs. Cadogan, who greeted me with the prayer that the devil might roast Julia McCarthy, who legged it away to the races like a wild goose, and left the cream after her on the servant's hall table.

"'Sure, Mr. Flurry's gone looking for a cow, and what cow would there be in a backwards place like this?' "'And look at me striving to keep the kettle simpering on the fire, and not as much coals under it as had reddened the pipe.' "'Where's Mr. Knox?' I asked. "'Himself in slippers galloping the country like the deer. I believe it's to the house above they went, sir.' I followed up a rocky hill to the house above, and there found Flurry and Slipper, engaged in the patriarchal task of driving two brace of coupled and spancled goats into a shed. "'It's the best we can do,' said Flurry briefly. "'There isn't a cow to be found, and the people are all down at the spots. "'Be damn to you, Slipper. Don't let them go from you,' as the goats charged and doubled like football players.

"'But goat's milk,' I said, paralysed by horrible memories. of what tea used to taste like at jib. "'Eh, never know it,' said Flurry, "'cornering a venerable nanny. "'Here, hold this devil, and hold her tight.' "'I have no time to dwell upon the pastoral scene that followed. Suffice it to say that at the end of ten minutes of scorching profanity from Slipper,

an incessant warfare with the goats, the latter had reluctantly yielded two small jugfuls, and the dairy-maids had exhibited a nerve and skill in their trade that won my lasting respect. "'I knew I could trust you, Mr. Knox,' said Philippa, with shining eye as we presented her with the two foaming beakers. I suppose a man is never a hero to his wife, but if she could have realised the bruises on my legs, I think she would have reserved a blessing for me also.

What was thought of the goat's milk I gathered symptomatically from a certain fixity of expression that accompanied the first sip of. of the tea, and from observing that comparatively few ventured on second cups. I also noted that after a brief conversation with Flurry, Miss Sally poured hers secretly onto the grass. Lady Knox had throughout the day preserved an aspect so threatening that no change was perceptible in her demeanour. In the throng of hungry guests I did not for some time notice that Mr. Knox had withdrawn until something in Miss Sally's eye summoned me to her, and she told me she had a message from him for me.

Couldn't we come outside, she said. Outside the tent, within less than six yards of her mother, Miss Sally confided to me a scheme that made my hair stand on end. Summarised, it amounted to this, that first she was in the primary stage of a deal with Shehey for a four-year-old chestnut colt, for which Sheehe was asking double its value, on the assumption that it had no rival in the country, that secondly, they had just heard it was going to run in the first race, and thirdly, and lastly, that as there was no other horse available, Flurry was going to take old Salton out of the bus and ride him in the race, and that Mrs. Yates had promised to keep Mama safe in the tent while the race was going on, and, "'You know, Major Yates, it would be delightful to beat Shee here, after he's getting the better of you all about that licence.'

With this base appeal to my professional feelings, Miss Knox pawed. and looked at me insinuatingly. Her eyes were greeny-gray, and very beguiling. "'Come on,' she said, "'they want you to start them.' Pursued by visions of the just wrath of Lady Knox, I weakly followed Miss Sally to the farther end of the second field, from which point the race was to start. The course was not a serious one, two or three natural banks, a stone wall, and a couple of hurls. There were but four riders, including Flurry, who was seated composedly on Sultan smoking a cigarette, and talking confidentially to slipper. Sultan, although somewhat stricken in years and touched in the wind, was a brown horse who in his day had been a hunter of no mean repute.

Even now he occasionally carried Lady Knox, in a sedate and gentlemanly manner, but it struck me that it was trying him rather high to take him from the pole of the bus, after twelve miles on a hilly road, and hustle him over a country against a four-year-old. My acutest anxiety, however, was to start the race as quickly as possible, and to get back to the tent in time to establish an alibi. Therefore, I repressed my private sentiments, and tying my handkerchief to a stick, determined that no time should be fashionably frittered away in false starts. They got away somehow.

I believe she-he's colt was facing the wrong way at the moment when I dropped the flag, but a friend turned him with a stick, and with a cordial and timely whack, speeding him on his way on sufficiently level terms. And then, somehow, instead of returning to the tent, I found myself with Miss Sally on top of a tall, narrow bank, in a precarious line of other spectators, with whom we toppled and swayed, and in moments of acuter emotion held on to each other in unaffected comradeship. Flurry started well, and from our commanding position we could see him methodically, riding at the first fence at a smart hunting canter, closely attended by James Canty's brother on a young black mare, and by an unknown youth on a big white horse. The hope of Shehey's stable, a legy chestnut, written by a cadet of the house of Sheehe, went away from the

friend's stick like a rocket, and had already refused the first bank twice, before old Salton decorously changed feet on it, and dropped down into the next field with tranquil precision. The White Horse scrambled over it on his stomach, but landed safely, despite the fact that his rider clasped him round the neck during the process. The Black Mirror and the Chestnut shouldered one another over at the hole the White Horse had left, and the whole party went away in a bunch and jumped the ensuing hurdle without disaster. Flurry continued to ride at the same steady hunting pace, accompanied respectfully by the White Horse, and by Jerry Canty on the Black Mayor. she his cold had clearly the legs of the party and did some showy galloping between the jumps but as he refused to face the banks without a lead the end of the first round found the field still a sociable party personally conducted by mr knox

that's a damn nice horse said one of my hangers on looking approvingly at sultan as he passed us at the beginning of the second round making a good deal of noise but apparently going at his ease you might depend your life on him and he have the crabbedest jock in the globe of ireland on him this minute cant his mare's very sour said another look at her now balking the bank she's as cross as a bag of weasels big gob i wouldn't say but she's a little sign lame resumed the first she was going light on one leg on the road a while ago i tell you what it is said miss sally very seriously in my ear that chestnut of she-his is settling down I'm afraid he'll gallop away from Sultan at the finish, and the wall won't stop him. Flurry can't get another inch out of Sultan. He's riding him well, she ended, in a critical voice, which was yet not quite like her own. Perhaps I should not have noticed it, but for the fact that the hand that held my arm was trembling. As for me, I thought of Lady Narks, and trembled too.

There now remained but one bank, the trampled remnant of the furze-hurst. and the stone wall. The pace was beginning to improve, and the other horses drew away from Sultan. They charged the bank at full gallop, the black mare and the chestnut, flying it perilously, with a windmill flourish of legs and arms from their riders.

The white horse racing up to it, with a gallantry that deserted him at the critical moment, with the result that his rider turned a somersault over his head, and landed amidst the roars of the onlookers, sitting on the fence facing his horse's nose. With creditable presence of mind, he remained on the bank, towed the horse over,

scrambled onto his back again, and started afresh. Sultan, thirty yards to the bat, pounded doggedly on, and Flurries cane and heels remained idle. The old horse, obviously blown, slowed cautiously, coming in at the jump.

Sally's grip tightened on my arm, and the crowd yelled, as Sultan, answering to a hint from the spurs, and a touch at his mouth heaved himself onto the bank. Nothing but sheer riding on Flurry's part got him safe off it, and saved him from the consequences of a bad peck on landing. Nonetheless, he pulled himself together, and went away down the hill for the stone wall as stoutly as ever. The high-road skirted the last two fields, and there was a gate in the roadside fence, beside the place where the stone wall met it at right angles. I had noticed this gate, because

during the first round, Slipper had been sitting on it, demonstrating with his usual fervour. She his cult was leading, with his nose in the air, his rider's hands going like a circular saw, and his temper, as a bystander remarked, up unend—'The black mare, half mad from spurring, was going hard at his heels, completely out of hand. The white horse was steering steadily for the wrong side of the flag, and flurry, by dint of cutting corners, and of saving ends. every yard of ground was close enough to keep his antagonist's heads over their shoulders, while their right arms rose and fell in unceasing flagellation. "'There'll be a smash when they come to the wall. If one falls, they'll all go,'

banted Sally. "'Oh, now, Flurry! Flurry!' What had happened was that the chestnut colts had suddenly perceived that the gate at right angles to the wall was standing wide open, and swinging away from the jump he'd bolted headlong out onto the road, and along it at top speed for his home. After him fled Canty's black mare, and with her, carried away by the spirit of Stampede, went the white horse. Flurry stood up in his stirrups, and gave a view hello as he cantered down to the wall. Sultan came at it with the send of the hill behind him, and jumped it with a skill that intensified, if that were possible, the volume of laughter and yells around us. By the time the black mare and the white

horse had returned, and ignominiously bundled over the wall to finish as best they might. Flurry was leading Sultan towards us. "'That blackguard-slipper,' he said, grinning, "'every one'll say I told him to open the gate. But look here, I'm afraid we're in for trouble. Sultan's given himself a bad overreach. You could never drive him home to-night, and I've just seen Norris lying blind drunk under a wall.' Now Norris, Norris was Lady Knox's coachman.

we stood aghast at this horror on horror's head the blood trickled down sultan's heel and the lather lay in flecks on his dripping heaving sides in irrefutable witness to the iniquity of lady knox's only daughter then flurry said thank the lord here's the rain at the moment i admit that i failed to see any calls for gratitude in this occurrence but later on i appreciated flurray's grasp of circumstances That appreciation was, I think, at its highest development about half an hour afterwards, when I, an unwilling conspirator, a part with which my acquaintance with Mr. Knox had rendered me but too familiar, unfurled Mrs. Godaghan's umbrella over Lady Knox's head, and hurried her through the rain from the tent to the bus, keeping it and my own person well between her and the horses. I got her in, with the rest of her bedraggled and exhausted party, and slammed the door. "'Remember Major Yates?' she said through the window.

"'You are the only person here in whom I have any confidence. I don't wish any one else to touch the reins.' This, with a glance towards Flurry, who was standing near. "'I am afraid I am only a moderate whip,' I said. "'My dear man,' replied Lady Knox testily, "'those horses could drive themselves.' I slunk round to the front of the bus. "'Two horses, carefully rugged were in it, with the inevitable slipper at their heads.'

"'Slipper's gone with you,' whispered Flurry, stepping up to me. "'She won't have me at any price. "'He'll throw the rugs over them when you get to the house, "'and if you hold the umbrella well over her, she'll never see. "'I'll manage to get Salton over somehow when Norris is sober. "'That'll be all right.' "'I climbed to the box, without answering, "'my soul being bitter within me,

as is the soul of a man who has been persuaded by womankind against his judgment. Never again, I said to myself, picking up the reins. Let her marry him, or Bernard shoot, or both of them if she likes, but I won't be roped into this kind of business again. Slipper drew the rugs from the horses, revealing on the near side Lady Knox's majestic carriage-horse, and on the off, a thick-set brown mare of about fifteen hands. "'What brute is this?' said I to Slipper as he swarmed up beside me. "'I don't frankly know where Master Flurry got her,' said Slipper,

with one of his hiccup in crows of laughter. "'Give her the whip, Major.' And here he broke into song. "'Howl to the steel, howl the man lull, she'll run like an eel.' "'If you don't shut your mouth,' said I, with pent-up ferocity, "'I'll chuck you off the bus.' a slipper was but slightly drunk and taking this delicate rebuke in good part he relapsed into silence wherever the brown mare came from i can certify that it was not out of double harness though humble and anxious to oblige she pulled away from the poles as if it were red-hot and at critical moments had a tendency to sit down however we squeezed without misadventure among the donkey-carts and between the groups of people and bumped at length in safety out on to the high road

here i thought it no harm to take slippers advice and i applied the whip to the brown mare who seemed inclined to turn round she immediately fell into an uncertain can that no effort of mine could frustrate. I could only hope that Miss Sally would foster conversation inside the bus, and create a distraction. But, judging from my last view of the party, and of Lady Knox in particular, I thought she was not likely to be successful. Fortunately, the rain was heavy and thick, and a rising west wind gave every promise of its continuance. I had little doubt, but I should catch cold, but I took it to my bosom with gratitude, as I reflected how it was drumming on the roof of the bus and blurring the windows. We had reached the foot of a hill, about a quarter of a mile from the race-course.

The castle Knox horse addressed himself to it with dignified determination, but the mare showed a sudden and alarming tendency to jib. "'Beltar-major,' vociferated slipper, as she hung back from the pole-chain, with the collar halfway up her ewe neck, and give it to the horse, too, he'll drag her. i was in the act of belting when a squealing whinny struck upon my ear accompanied by a light pattering gallop on the road behind us there was an answering roar from the brown mare a roar as i realised with a sudden drop of the heart of outraged maternal feeling and in another instant a pale yellow foal sprinted up beside us with shrill wickerings of joy had there at this moment been a boggues whole handy, I should have turned the bus into it without hesitation. As there was no accommodation of the kind, I laid the whip severely into everything I could

reach, including the foal. The result was that we topped the hill at a gallop, three abreast, like a Russian troika. It was like my usual luck, that this identical moment we should meet the police patrol, who saluted respectfully. "'That a divil may blister Michael Maloney!' ejaculated slipper, holding on to the rail, then I give him the folene and halter on him to keep him. I'd hold you a point as the wife let him go, for she being vexed about the licence. Sure, that one's a march-fold, and he'll run from here to cork.

There was no sign from my inside passengers, and I held on at a round pace, the mother and child galloping absurdly, the carriage-horse, pulling hard, but behaving like a gentleman. I wildly revolved plans of how I would make slipper turn the foal in at the first gate we can, to. Of what I should say to Lady Knox, supposing the worst happened, and the foal accompanied

us to her hall-door, and of how I would have Flurry's blood at the earliest possible opportunity. And here the fateful sound of galloping behind us was again heard. "'It's impossible,' I said to myself. "'She can't have twins.' The galloping came nearer, and Slipper looked back. "'Murder alive!' he said, and a stage whisper. Tom Shehey's after us on the butcher's pony. "'What's that to me?' I said, dragging my team aside to let him pass.

"'I suppose he's drunk like everyone else.' Then the voice of Tom Sheehe made itself heard. "'Stop thief! Stop thief!' he was bawling. "'Give up my mare! How will I get me part or home?' "'That was the closest shave I have ever had, and nothing could have saved the position but the torrential nature of the rail. and the fact that Lady Knox had on a new bonnet. I explained to her, at the door of the bus, that Shehey was drunk,

which was the one unassailable feature of the case, and had come after his foal, which, with the fatuity of its kind, had escaped from a field and followed us. I did not mention to Lady Knox that when Mr. Sheehe retreated apologetically, dragging the foal after him in a halter belonging to one of her own carriage-horses, he had a sovereign of mine in his pocket, and during the narration I avoided Miss Sally's eye as careful as she avoided mine. The only comments on the day's events that are worthy of record were that Philip had

said to me that she had not been able to understand what the curious taste in the tea had been till Sally told her it was turf-smoke, and that Mrs. Cadogan said to Philippa that night that the major was that drenched that if he had a shirt between his skisker and himself he could have rung it, and that Lady Knox said to a mutual friend that, though Major Yates had been an extremely kind and obliging, even uncommonly bad win. End of Chapter 11. This is a Librivox recording. All Libri-Box recordings are in the public domain.

For further information, or to find out how you can volunteer, please go to libravox.org. recording by Andy Minter Some Experiences of an Irish R. M. By Edith Enone Somerville and Martin Ross. Chapter 12. Oh, Love, O Fire. It was on one of the hottest days of a hot August, that I walked over to Tory Lodge to inform Mr. Flurry Knox, MFF, that the limits of human endurance had been reached, and that either Venus and her family, or I and mine, must quit Shri Lane.

In a moment of impulse, I had accepted her and her numerous progeny as guests in my stable-yard, since when Mrs. Cadogan had given warning once or twice a week, and Maria, lawful autocrat of the Ashbyt, had had, I quote the kitchen-maid, "'Tin battles for every mail she'd ate!' The walk over the hills was not of a nature to lower the temperature, moral or otherwise. The grassy path was as slippery as glass, the rocks radiated heat, the bracken radiated horseflies. There was no need to nurse my wrath to keep it warm. I found Flurry, seated in the kennel yard, in a long and unclean white linen coat,

engaged in clipping hieroglyphics on the ears of a young outgoing draft, an occupation in itself unfavourable to argument. The young draft had already monopolised all possible forms of remonstrifice, from snarling in the obscurity behind the meal-sack in the boiler-house to hysterical yelling as they were dragged forth by the tail. But through these alarms and excursions I denounced Venus and all her works, from slaughtered wyandots to broken dishes. Even as I did so, I was conscious of something chastened in Mr. Knox's demeanour, some touch of remoteness and melancholy, with which I was quite unfamiliar.

my indictment weakened, and my grievances became trivial when laid before this grave, and almost religiously gentle young man. "'I'm sorry you and Mrs. Yeats should be vexed by her. Send her back when you like. I'll keep her. Maybe it'll not be for so long after all.' When pressed to expound this dark saying, Flurry smiled wanly, and snipped a second line in the hair of the puppy that was pinned between his legs. I was almost relieved when a hard try to bite on the part of the puppy imparted to Flurry's language a transient warmth, but the reaction was only temporary. It had be as good for me to make a present of this Latour-Welby as to take the prices offering me.

He went on as he got up and took off his highly-scented kennel-coat. But I couldn't be bothered fighting him. Come on in and have something. I drink tea myself at this hour. "'If he had said toast and water, "'it would have seen no more than was suitable to such a frame of mind. "'As I followed him to the house, "'I thought that when the day came that Flurry Knox

"'could not be bothered with fighting old Welby, "'things were becoming serious. "'But I kept this opinion to myself, "'and merely offered an admiring comment "'on the roses that were blooming on the front of the house. "'I put up every stick at our trellis myself with my own hands,' said Flurry, still gloomily. The roses were chaded all over the face, for the want of it.

But you'd like to have a look at the garden where they're getting tea. I settled it up a bit since you saw it last. I acceded to this almost alarmingly ladylike suggestion, marvelling greatly. Flurry certainly was a changed man, and his garden was a changed garden. It was a very old garden, with unexpected harbours, madly overgrown with flowering. climbers, and a flight of grey steps leading to a terrace, where a moss-grown sundial,

and ancient herbaceous plants strove with nettles and briars. But I chiefly remembered it as a place where washing was wont to hang on black-current bushes, and the kennel-terrier matured his bones and hunted chickens. There was now rabbit-wire on the gate, the walks were cleaned, the beds weeded. There was even a bed of Mignonette, a row of sweet pea, and a blazing party of sunflowers, and Michael, once second in command in many a filibustering expedition, was now on his knees, ingloriously tying carnations to little pieces of cane. We walked up the steps to the terrace. Down below us the rich and southern blue of the sea filled the gaps between scattered fir-trees.

The hillside above was purple with heather. A bay mare and her foal were moving lazily through the bracken, with the sun glistening on it and them. I looked back at the house nestling in the hollow of the hill. I smelt the smell of the mignonette in the air. I regarded Michael's labouring back among the carnations. And without any connection of ideas, I seemed to see Miss Sally Knox, with her golden red hair and slight figure

standing on the terrace beside her ginsman. "'Vichel, do you know where's Mr. Flurry?' squalled a voice from the garden gate, the untrammeled voice of the female domestic, at large among her fellows. "'That hay is wet, and there's a man over with a message for Arceles. "'He was telling me the old hero, Biant, is given out invitations.' "'A stricken silence fell, induced no doubt by hasty danger signals from Michael.

"'Who's the old hero Biant?' I asked, as we turned towards the house. "'My grandmother,' said Flurry, permitting himself a smile that had about as much sociability in it as skim milk. She's given a tenets dance at Orsela's. She gave one about five years ago, and I declare you might as well get the influenza into the country, more omission at the chapel. There won't be a servant in the place

who'll be able to answer their name for a week after it, what with toothache and headache and bladding in the kitchen. We had tea in the drawing-room. A solemnity which I could not but be aware was due to the presence of a new carpet, a new wallpaper, and a new piano. flurry made no comment on these things but something told me that i was expected to do so and i did i'd sell you the lot to-morrow for half what i gave for them said my host eyeing them with morose respect as he poured out his third cup of tea i have all my life been handicapped by not having the courage of my curiosity those who have the nerve to ask direct questions on matters that do not concern them seldom fail to extract direct answers but in my lack of this enviable gift i went home in the dark as to what had befallen my landlord

and fully aware of how my wife would despise me for my shortcomings philippa always says that she never asks questions but she seems none the less to get a lot of answers On my own avenue I met Miss Sally Knox, riding away from the house on her white cob. She had found no one at home, and she would not turn back with me, but she did not seem to be in any hurry to ride away. I told her that I had just been over to see her relative, Mr. Knox, who had informed me that he meant to give up the hounds, a fact in which she seemed only conventionally interested. She looked pale, and her eyelids were slightly pink.

I checked myself on her. the verge of asking her if she had hay fever, and inquired instead if she had heard of the tenants' dance at Osselas. She did not answer at first, but rubbed her cane up and down the cobs, clipped toothbrush of a mane. Then she said, "'Major Yeats, look here, there's a most awful row at home.' I expressed incoherent regret, and wished to my heart that Philippa had been there to cope with the situation. It began when Mama, found out about Flurry's racing Sultan, and then came our dance. Miss Sally stopped.

I nodded, remembering certain episodes of Lady Knox's dance, and Mama says, she says, I waited respectfully to hear what Mama had said. The cob fidgeted under the attentions of the horse-flies, and nearly trod on my toe. Well, the end of it is, she said, with the gulp. she said such things to flurry that he can't come near the house again and i'm to go over to england to aunt dora next week will you tell philippa that i came to say good-bye to her i don't think i can get over here again miss sally was a sufficiently old friend of mine for me to take her hand and press it in the fatherly manner but for the life of me i could not think of anything to say unless i expressed my sympathy with her mother's point of view about detrimental's which was obviously to her mother's point of view about detrimental's which was obviously to be a very much of her mother's

not the thing to do. Philippa recorded to my news the rare tribute of speechless attention, and then was despicable enough to say that she had foreseen the whole affair from the beginning. From the day that she refused him in the ice-house, I suppose, said I sarcastically. That was the beginning, replied Philippa. Well, I went on judiciously. Whenever it began, it was high time for it to end, "'She can do a good deal better than Flurry.'

"'Philippa became rather red in the face. "'I call that a thoroughly commonplace thing to say,' she said. "'I dare say he has not many ideas beyond horses, "'but no more has she, and he really does come and borrow books from me.' "'Wittaker's Almanac?' I murmured. "'Well, I don't care. "'I like him very much, and I know what you're going to say, "'and you're wrong, and I'll tell you why.'

"'Here Mrs. Cadogan came in. to the room, her cap had rather more than its usual warlike angle over her scarlet forehead, and in her hand the kitchen plate, on which a note was ceremoniously laid forth. "'But this is for you, Mrs. Cadogan,' said Philippa, as she looked at it. "'Ma'am,' returned Mrs. Cadogan, with immense dignity, "'I have no learning, and from what a young man's aist are telling me that brought it over from Orsela's, I'd rather yourself read it for me than dim girls.' My wife opened the envelope, and drew forth a gilt-edged sheet of pink paper.

Miss Margaret Nolan presents her compliments to Mrs. Godaghan, she read, "'and I have the pleasure of telling you that the servants of Orselaise is inviting you and Mr. Peter Godagin, Miss Marourney and Miss Gallagher,' Philippa's voice quavered perilously, to a dance on next Wednesday, dancing to begin at seven o'clock, and to go on till five. "'Yours affectionately. Maggie Nolan.' "'How affectionate she is!' snorted Mrs. Cadogan. "'Names doubly manners, I dare say.' "'A P.S., continued Philippa.

"'Steward, Mr. Dennis O'Hlochlin. "'Stewardess, Mrs. Mahoney.' "'Thoughtful provision,' I remarked. "'I suppose Mrs. Mahoney's duties will begin after supper.' "'Well, Mrs. Cadogan,' said Philippa, "'quelling me with a glance, "'I suppose you'd all like to go.' "'As for dancing,' said Mrs. Cadogan,

"'with her eyes fixed on a level with the curtain-pole, "'I thank God I'm a widow, "'and the only dance in I'll do is to dance to my grave.' "'Well, perhaps Julia and Annie and Peter,' "'suggested Philippa, considerably overawed. "'I'm not one of them that holds with loud mockery and harangues,' "'continued Mrs. Cadogan, "'But if I had any wish for drawing down talk,

"'I could tell you, ma'am, "'that the like of them has their shares and dances "'without going to Ossolus. "'Wasn't it only last Sunday "'that I went following the turkey "'that's laying out in the plantation, "'and the whole of them "'heisted their sails and back with them

"'to their lovers at the gate-house, "'and the kitchen-maid having a Jew-harth to be playing for them. "'That was very wrong,' said the truckling, "'filipper. "'I hope you spoke to the kitchen-maid about it. "'Is it spake to him.' rejoined Mrs. Cadogan. "'No, but what I'd done was to drag the kitchen made round the passages by the hair of the head.'

"'Well, after that, I think you might let her go to Orsela's,' said I, venturously. The end of it was that everyone in and about the house went to Orselaise on the following Wednesday, including Mrs. Cadogan. Philippa had gone over to stay at the chutes, ostensibly, to arrange about a jumble-sale. the real object being, as a matter of history, to inspect the Scotch, young lady, before whom Bernard Schute had dumped his affections in his customary manner. Being alone, with every prospect of a bad dinner, I accepted with gratitude an invitation to dine and sleep at Orselas, and to see the dance.

It is only on very special occasions that I have the heart to remind Philippa that she had neither part nor lot in what occurred. It is too serious a matter for trivial glory. "'Mrs. Knox had asked me to dine at six o'clock, which meant that I arrived in blazing sunlight and evening clothes, punctually at that hour, and that at seven o'clock I was still sitting in the library, reading heavily-bound classics, while my hostess held loud conversations down staircases with Dennis O'Lothlin, the red-bearded Robinson Crusoe,

who combined in himself the offices of coachman, butler, and, to the best of my belief, ballot to the lady of the house. The door opened at last, and Dennis, looking as furtive as his prototype, after he had sighted the footprint, put in his head, and beckoned to me. "'The mistress says, will you go to dinner without her?' He said, very confidentially.

"'Sure, she's greatly vexed she should be with, "'Nah, twas the kitchen chimney got fire, "'and first she's after giving Biddy Mahoney the sack on the head of it. "'No, indeed, it's little we'd regard a chimney, on fire here in the other day. Mrs. Knox's woolly dog was the sole occupant of the dining-room when I entered it. He was sitting on his mistress's chair, with all the air of outrage, peculiar to a small and self-important dog, when routine has been interfered with.

It was difficult to discover what had caused the delay, the meal, not accepting the soup, being a cold collation. It was heavily flavoured with soot, and was hurled onto the table by Crusoe in spanisho, in spasmodic bursts, contemporaneous, no doubt, with Biddy Mahoney's fits of hysterics in the kitchen. Its most memorable feature was a noble lake trout, which appeared in two jagged pieces, a matter lightly alluded to by Dennis as the result of a little argument between himself and Biddy as to the dish on which it was to be served. Further conversation elicited the interesting fact that the combatants had pulled the trout in two

before the matter was settled. A brief glance at my attendant's hands decided me to let the woolly dog justify his existence by consuming my portion for me when Crusoe left the room. Old Mrs. Knox remained invisible till the end of dinner, when she appeared in the purple velvet bonnet

that she was reputed to have worn since the famine, and a dun-coloured woolen shawl, fastened by a splendid diamond brooch that flashed rainbow fire against the last shafts of sun. There was a fire in the old lady's eyes, too, the light that I had sometimes seen in flurries in moments of crisis. "'I have no apologies to offer that are worth hearing,' she said.

"'But I have come to drink a glass of port wine with you, if you will so far honour me, and then we must go out and see the ball. My grandson is late as usual?' She crumbled a biscuit with a brown and preoccupied hand. Her claw-like fingers carried a crowded sparkle of diamonds upwards as she raised her glass to her lips. The twilight was falling when we left the room and made our way downstairs. I followed the little figure in the purple bonnet

through dark regions of passages and doorways where strange lumber lay about. There was a rusty suit of armour, an upturned punt, mouldering pictures, and finally, by a door that opened into the yard, a lady's bicycle. white with the dust of travel. I supposed this latter to have been imported from Dublin by the fashionable Miss Maggie Nolan, but on the other hand it was well within the bounds of possibility that it belonged to old Mrs. Knox.

The coach-house at Ursulus was on a par with the rest of the establishment, being vast, dilapidated, and of unknown age. Its three double doors were wide open, and the guests overflowed through them into the cobblestone yard. Above their heads the tin reflectors of paraffin lamps glared at us from among the Christmas decorations of holly and ivies that festooned the walls. The voices of a fiddle and a concertina combined were uttering a polka with a shrill and hideous fluency, to which the scraping and stamping of hobnailed boots made a ponderous bass accompaniment. Mrs. Knox's donkey chair had been placed in a commanding position at the top of the room,

and she made her way slowly to it, shaking his hand. hands with all varieties of tenants, and saying right things, without showing any symptom of that flustered boredom that I have myself exhibited when I went round the men's messes on Christmas day. She took her seat in the donkey-chair, with the white dog on her lap, and looked with her hawk's eyes round the array of faces that hemmed in the space where the dancers were solemnly bobbing and hopping. "'Will you tell me who that Tom Fool is, Dennis?' she said, pointing to a young lady. in a ball-dress, who was circling in conscious magnificence and somewhat painful incongruity

in the arms of Mr. Peter Godaghan. "'That's the lady's maid from Castle Knox, Your Honor,' replied Dennis, with something remarkably like a wink at Mrs. Knox. "'When did the Castle Knox, servants come?' asked the old lady, very sharply. "'The same time your Honour left the table, and—' "'Hill you, what's this?' there was a clatter of galloping hooves in the courtyard as of a troop of cavalry and out of the heart of it flurry's voice shouting to denis to drive out the colts and shut the gates before they had the people killed i noticed that the colour had risen to mrs knox's face and i put it down to anxiety about her young horses i may admit that when i heard flurry's voice and saw him collaring his grandmother's guests and pushing them out of the way as he came into the coach-house i rather feared that he was in the condition so often defined to me at petty sessions as not drunk but having drink taken his face was white his eyes glittered there was a general air of exultation about him that suggested the solace of the pangs of love according to the most ancient convention

"'Hello,' he said, swaggering up to the orchestra. "'What's this humbugging thing they're playing? "'A polka, is it? "'Drop that John Casey and play a jig.' "'John Casey ceased, objectively. "'What they play, Master Flory?' "'What the devil do I care? "'Here, Yates, put a name on it.

"'You're a sort of music under yourself.' "'I know the names of three or four Irish jigs, "'but on this occasion my memory clung exclusively to one, I suppose, because it was the one I felt to be particularly inappropriate. Oh, well, haste to the wedding, I said, looking away. Flurry gave a shout of laughter. That's it, he exclaimed. Play it up, John. Give us haste to the wedding. That's mediates his fancy.

Decidedly, Flurry was drunk. What's wrong with you all that you aren't dancing? he continued, striding up the middle of the room. "'Maybe you don't know how. Here, I'll soon get one that'll show you.' He advanced upon his grandmother, snatched her out of the donkey-chair, and amid roars of applause led her out, while the fiddle squealed its way through the inimitable twists of the tune, and the concertina surged and panted after it. Whatever Mrs. Knox may have thought of her grandson's behaviour, she was evidently going to make the best of it. She took her station opposite to him in the purple bonnet, the dun-coloured shaw,

and the diamonds. She picked up her skirt at each side, affording a view of narrow feet in elastic-sided cloth boots, and for three repeats of the tune she stood up to her grandson and footed it on the coach-house floor. What the cloth boots did I could not exactly follow. They were, as well as I could see, extremely scientific, while there was hardly so much as a nod from the plumes of the bonnet. Flurry was also scientific, but his dancing did not alter my opinion that he was drunk. In fact, I thought he was making rather an exhibition of himself. They say that that jig was twenty pounds in Mrs. Knox's pocket at the next rent day. But though this statement is open to doubt, I believe that if she and Flurry had taken the

hat round there and then, she would have got in the best part of her arrears. After this, the company settled down to business. The dances lasted a sweltering half-hour, old women and young, dancing with equal and tireless zest. At the end of each the gentlemen abandoned their partners without ceremony or comment, and went out to smoke, while the ladies retired to the laundry, where families of teapotts stewed on the long bars of the fire, and Mrs. Mahoney cut up mighty barn-bracks, and the tea-drinking was illimitable. At ten o'clock Mrs. Knox withdrew from the revel.

She said that she was tired, but I have seldom seen anyone look more wide awake. I thought that I might unobtrusively follow her example, but I was intercepted by Flurry. "'Yates,' he said seriously, "'I'll take it as a kindness if she'll see this thing out with me. We must keep them pretty sober and get them out of this by daylight. I... I have to get home early.'

I at once took back my opinion that Flurry was drunk. I almost wished he had been, as I could then have deserted him without a pang. as it was I addressed myself heavily to the night's enjoyment, one with heat but conscientiously cheerful, I danced with Miss Maggie Nolan, with the Castle Knox ladies-maid, with my own kitchen-maid, who fell into wild giggles of terror whenever I spoke to her, with Mrs. Cadogan, who had apparently postponed the interesting feat of dancing on her grave, and did what she could to dance me into mine. I am bound to admit that though an ex-soldier and a major, and therefore,

for equipped with a ready-made character for gallantry, Mrs. Cadogan was the only one of my partners with whom I conversed with any comfort. At intervals I smoked cigarettes in the yard, seated on the old mounting-block by the gate, and overheard such conversation about the price of pigs in Skiborne. At intervals I plunged again into the coach-house, and led forth a perspiring wall-flower into the scrimmage of a polka, all shuffled meaninglessly opposite to her, in the long, line of dancers who were engaged with serious faces in executing a jig or a reel i neither knew nor cared which flurry remained as undefeated as ever i could only suppose it was his method of showing that his broken heart had mended

it's time to be making the punchmatter flurry said dennis as the harness-room clock struck twelve sure the night's warm and the men are all gaping for at the creatures "'What'll we make it in?' said Flurry, "'as we followed him into the laundry.' "'The boiler to be sure,' said Crusoe, taking up a stone of sugar and preparing to shoot it into the laundry copper. "'Stop, you fool! It's full of cockroaches!' shouted Flurry, amid sympathetic squalls from the throng of countrymen.

"'Go get a bath!' "'Shall yourself knows there's but one bath in it,' retorted Dennis, "'and that's within the Major's room.' "'Fa' the tinker got his own share yesterday with the same bath, "'triving to quench the holes, and there's thick in it as the stars in the sky, "'and tis weeping still after all he'd done. "'Well, then, here goes for the cockroaches,' said Flurry. "'What doesn't sicken will fatten.

"'Give me the kettle, and come on, you Kitty Collins, and be skimming them off.' "'There were no complaints of the punch when the brew was completed, "'and the dance thundered on with a heavier stamp and a louder hilarity than before. The night wore on. I squeezed through the unyielding pack of freeze-coats and shawls in the doorway, and with feet that momentary swelled in my pumps, I limped over the cobblestones to smoke my eighth cigarette on the mounting-block.

It was a dark, hot night. The old castle loomed above me and piled up roofs and gables, and high up in it somewhere, a window sent a shaft of light into the sleeping leaves of a walnut-tree that overhung the gateway. At the bars of the gate, two young horses peered in at the medley of noise and people. Away in an outhouse a cock-crew hoarsely. The gaiety in the coach-house increased momently,

till, amid shrieks and bursts of laughter, Miss Maggie Nolan fled coquettishly from it, with a long yell, like a train coming out of a tunnel, pursued by the fascinating Peter Cadogan, brandishing a twig of mountain ash, in imitation of mistletoe. the young horses stampeded in horror and immediately a voice proceeded from the lighted window above mrs knox's voice demanding what the noise was and announcing that if she heard any more of it she would have the place cleared

an awful silence fell to which the young horse's fleeing hoofs lent the final touch of consternation then i heard the irrepressible maggie nolan say oh god merry comes which i take to be a reflection on the mutability of all earthly happiness mrs knox remained for a moment at the window and it struck me as remarkable but at two thirty a m she should still have on her bonnet i thought i heard her speak to someone in the room, and there followed a laugh. A laugh that was not a servant's, and was puzzlingly familiar. I gave it up, and presently dropped into a cheerless doze. With the dawn there came a period when even Flurry showed signs of failing. He came and sat down beside me with a yawn. It struck me that there was more impatience and nervousness than fatigue in the yawn. I think I'll turn them all out after this next dance is over. "'He said.

"'I have a lot to do, and I can't stay here.' I grunted in drowsy approval. "'It must have been a few minutes later, "'but I felt Flurry gripped my shoulder. "'Yates,' he said, "'look up at the roof. "'Do you see anything up there by the kitchen chimney?' "'He was pointing at a heavy stack of chimney

"'in a tower that stood up against the grey and pink of the morning sky. "'At the angle where one of them joined the roof, smoke was oozing busily out, and as I stared a little wisp of flame stole through. The next thing that I distinctly remember is being in the van of a rush through the kitchen passages, everyone shouting, water, water! And not knowing where to find it. Then up several flights of the narrowest and darkest stairs it has ever been my fate to ascend, with a bucket of water that I snatched from a woman spilling as I ran. At the top of the stairs came a ladder, leading to a trap.

door, and up in the dark loft above was the roar and the wavering glare of flames. "'My God, that's a strong fire!' shouted Dennis, tumbling down the ladder with the brace of empty buckets. We'll never save it. The lake won't quench it. The flames were squirting out through the bricks of the chimney, through the timbers, and through the slates. It was barely possible to get through the trap-door, and the booming and crackling strengthened every instant. "'A chain to the lake!' gasped Flurry. coughing in the stifling heat as he slashed the water at the blazing rafters. "'Now hell's no good. Go on, Yeats!'

The organising of a double chain out of the mob that thronged and shouted and jammed in the passages and the yard was no mean feat of generalship, but it got done somehow. Mrs. Cadogan and Biddy Mahoney rose magnificently to the occasion. Cursing, thumping, shoving, and stable buckets, coal buckets, milk-pails and kettles were unearthed, and sent swinging down the grass slope to the lake that lay in glittering unconcern in the morning sunshine men women and children worked in a way that only irish people can work on an emergency all their cleverness all their good-heartedness and all their love of a ruction came to the front the screaming and the exhortations were incessant but so were also the buckets that flew from hand to hand up to the loft i hardly know how long we were at it but there came a time when i looked up from the yard and saw that the billows of reddened smoke from the top of the tower were dying down, and I bethought me of old Mrs. Knox.

I found her, at the door of her room, engaged in tying up a bundle of old clothes in a sheet. She looked as white as a corpse, but she was not in any way quelled by the situation. I'd be obliged to you all the same, Major Yates, to throw this over the balusters, she said, as I advanced with the news that the fire had been got under. "'Pon my honour, I don't know when I've been as vexed as I've been this night, what with one thing and another? "'To some monstrous thing to use a guest as we've used you.

"'But what could we do? "'I threw all the silver out of the dining-room window myself, "'and the poor peahen that had her nest there was hurt by an entree-dish, "'and half her eggs were—' "'There was a curious sound, not unlike a titter in Mrs. Knox's room. "'However, we can't make omelets without breaking eggs, as they say.' She went on, rather hurriedly, "'I declare I don't know what I'm saying.

My old head is confused.' Here Mrs. Knox went abruptly into her room and shut the door. Obviously there was nothing further to do for my hostess, and I fought my way up the dripping-back staircase to the loft. The flames had ceased, the supply of buckets had been stopped, and Flurry, standing on a ponderous crossbeam, was poking his head and shoulders out into the sunlight through the hole that had been burned in the roof.

Dennis and others were pouring water over charred beams. The atmosphere was still stifling. Everything was black. Everything dripped with inky water. Flurry descended from his beam, and stretched himself, looking like a drowned chimney-sweep. "'We've made a night of it he hates, haven't we?' he said.

But we bested it anyhow. We were done for only for you. There was more emotion about him, than the occasion seemed to warrant, and his eyes had a christy minstrel brightness, not wholly to be attributed by the dirt on his face. "'What's the time? I must get home.' The time, incredible as it seemed, was half-past six. I could almost have sworn that Flurry changed colour when I said so.

"'I must be off,' he said. "'I'd no idea it was so late.' "'Why, what's the hurry?' I asked. He stared at me, laughed foolishly, and fell to giving direct. directions to Dennis. Five minutes afterwards he drove out of the yard and away at a canter down the long stretch of avenue that skirted the lake, with a troop of young horses flying on either hand. He whirled his whip round his head and shouted at them, and was lost to sight in the clump of trees. It is a vision of him that remains with me, and it always carried with it the bitter smell of wet, charred wood. Reaction had begun to set in among the volunteers. The The chain took to sitting in the kitchen. Cups of tea began mysteriously to circulate, and personal narratives of the fire were already foreshadowing the amazing legends that have since gathered round the night's adventure.

I left to Dennis the task of clearing the house, and went up to change my wet clothes, with a feeling that I had not been to bed for a year. The ghost of a waiter, who had drowned himself in a bog-hole, would have presented a cheerier aspect than I, as I surveyed myself in the prehistoric mirror in my room, with the sunshine falling on my unshorn face and begrimed shirt-front. I made my toilet at considerable length,

and it being now nearly eight o'clock, went downstairs to look for something to eat. I had left the house humming with people. I found it, silent as Pompeii. The sheeted bundles containing Mrs. Knox's wardrobe were lying about the hall. A couple of ancestors who, in the first alarm, had been dragged from the walls, were leaning drunkenly against the bundles. Last night's dessert was still on the dining-room table. I went out onto the hall-door steps, and saw the entree dishes in a glittering heap in a nasturtian bed, and realised that there was no breakfast for me this side of lunch at Sri Lane.

There was a sound of wheels on the avenue, and a broom came into view, driving fast upon the long open stretch by the lake. It was the Castle Knox broom, driven by Norris, whom I had last seen drunk at the athletic sports, and as it drew up at the door, I saw Lady Knox inside. "'It's all right, the fire's out,' I said, advancing genially, and full of reassurance. "'What fire?' said Lady Knox, regarding me with an iron countenance. I explained. "'Well, as the house isn't burnt down,' said Lady No. Knox, cutting short my details, perhaps you would kindly find out if I could see Mrs. Knox.' Lady Knox's face was many shades redder than usual. I began to understand that something

awful had happened, or would happen, and I wished myself safe at Shrelane with the bed-clothes over my head. "'If it is for the maestro, you are looking, my lady,' said Dennis's voice behind me, in terms of the utmost respect. She went out to the kitchen-guard, a while ago to get a blush to the fresh air after the night. Perhaps your ladyship would sit inside in the library, did I call her?' Lady Knox eyed Crusoe suspiciously. "'Thank you. I'll fetch her myself,' she said. "'Oh, sure, that's too trouble,' began Dennis.

"'Stay where you are,' said Lady Knox, in a voice like the slam of a door. "'Bedad I'm best pleased she went,' whispered Dennis. as Lady Knox set forth alone down the shrubbery walk. "'But is Mrs. Knox in the garden?' said I. "'The Lord, preserve your innocence, sir,' replied Dennis, with seeming irrelevance. At this moment I became aware of the incredible fact that Sally Knox was silently descending the stairs. She stopped short as she got into the hall, and looked almost wildly at me and Dennis. "'Was I looking at her wraith?

There was again a sound of wheels on the gravel. She went to the hall door, outside which was now drawn up Mrs. Knox's donkey-carriage, as well as Lady Knox's broom, and as if overcome by this imposing spectacle, she turned back and put her hands over her face. "'She's gone round to the garden ashore,' said Dennis and a horse whisper. "'Go in the donkey-carriage. It'll be all right.' He seized her by the arm, pushed her down the steps, and into the little carriage, pulled up the hood over her to its furthest stretch,

snatched the whip out of the hand of the broadly grinning Morris, and with terrific objurgations lashed the donkey into a gallop. The donkey-boy grasped the position, whatever it might be. He took up the running on the other side, and the donkey carriage swung away down the avenue, with all its incongruous air of hooded and rowdy invalidism. I have never disguised the fact that I am a coward, and therefore, when, at this dynamitical moment,

I caught a glimpse of Lady Knox's hat over a Lauris-Dinus. As she returned at high speed from the garden, I slunk into the house, and faded away round the dining-room door. This minute I see the mistress going down through the plantation beyond, said the voice of Crusoe outside the window, and I'm after sending Jolly Reagan to her with a little carriage, not to put any more delay on your ladyship. Chaw, you can see him make an all haste he can.

"'Maybe you'd sit inside in the library till she comes.' Silence followed. I peered cautiously round the window-curtain. Lady Knox was looking defiantly at the donkey-carriage as it reeled at top speed into the shades of the plantation strenuously pursued by the woolly dog. Norris was regarding his horse's ears in expressionless respectability. Dennis was picking up the entree dishes with decorous solicitude.

Lady Knox turned and came into the house. She passed the dining-room door with an ominous step, and went on into the library. It seemed to me that now or never was the moment to retire quietly to my room, put my things into my portmanteau, and Dennis rushed into the room with the entree dishes, piled up to his chin. She diddled, he whispered, crashing them down on the table. He came at me with his hand.

hand out. "'Three chairs for Master Flurry and Miss Sally!' he hissed, ringing my hand up and down, "'and twas yourself called for haste in the wedding last night long life to you. The Lord save us! There's the mistress going into the library!' Through the half-open door I saw old Mrs. Knox approach the library from the staircase, with a dignified slowness. She had on a wedding garment, a long white burness, in which she might easily have been mistaken for a small, stout clergyman. She waved back, cruiser, the door closed upon her, and the battle of giants was entered upon. I sat down, it was all I was able for, and remained for a full minute in stupefied contemplation

of the entree dishes. Perhaps, of all conclusions to a situation so portentous, that which occurred was the least possible. Twenty minutes after Mrs. Knox met her antagonist, I was summoned from strapping my portmanteau to face the appalling duty of escorting the combatants, in Lady Knox's broom, to the church outside the back gate, to which Miss Sally had preceded them in the donkey carriage. I pulled myself together, went downstairs, and found that the millennium had suddenly set in. it had apparently dawned with the news that orselas and all things therein were bequeathed to flurry by his grandmother and had established itself finally upon the considerations that the marriage was past praying for and that the diamonds were intended for miss sally we fetched the bride and the bridegroom from the church we fetched old eustace hamilton who married them we dug out the champagne from the cellar we even found rice and threw it the hired carriage that had been ordered to take the runaways across country to a distant station was driven by slipper he was shaved he wore an old livery coat and a new pot hat he was wondrous sober

on the following morning he was found asleep on a heap of stones ten miles away somewhere in the neighbourhood one of the horses was grazing in a field with a certain amount of harness hanging about it the carriage and the remaining horse were discovered in a roadside ditch two miles farther on. One of the carriage doors had been torn off, and in the interior the hens of the vicinity were conducting an exhaustive search after the rice that lurked in the cushions. End of Chapter 12. An end of Some Experiences of an Irish R. M. By Edith Inonis Somerville and Martin Ross.