Part 5

B'lieve me, William was promising God that time that if he come safe out of it he'd howld to the side-car and not ax to go huntin' agin! But indeed poor William had great courage all through, only for the wife.

"Whatever way it is," says I to Dan Donovan, and we wheeling round the brink o' the hill, "every horse that's in it will have his 'nough of grass ate before the dogs'll have them furze bushes rattled out, and, I'm tellin'ye, that'll quieten them."

"The divil a fox is there in it at all," says Dan.

"Well, now," says William, "there's a woman of the Sullivans' that has a little house beyond, is afther tellin' me a while ago himself and his pups has a nest in it some place. Last week she seen them walkin' in and out of it, like young pigs."

"Maybe she didn't tell ye what way her sons has them pairsecuted with greyhounds and bulldogs and all sorts!" says Dan.

Well, divil such screechin' ever ye heard as what the dogs comminced then down in the furze.

"That's Fiddler!" says Dan, "that's a great hound! Maybe it's a cat he have nooked in it!"

"Faith, well is he called Fiddler!" says I, "he roars most furious."

"Look over! Look over at Johnny Daly!" says William, "what bugling he have now! If it's a cat itself, what harm would it do them to ate her! It's little ateing there is in the like of her; them poor craytures of dogs does be starved with the hunger; and that's what has them yowling this way."

"Look at Johnny skelpin' round the bog!" says I, "mind ye, he's souple yet, and he as gross as a bullock, and a back on him as long as a double-ditch!"

"Whisht!" says Dan, "that's the Whip man screechin' to the dogs! They have a fox surely!"

"Ye lie!" says William, "that's Jeremi'h Drishcoll's screech, I seen him within in the furze. Hi cock! Jeremi'h! Bate him out of it boy!"

"Ah, that's a fine sober fox," says owld Dan, "he'll not lave his den for them. It's a pity now," says he, "that the Major wouldn't have a fox keeping in a stable, and on a holiday, or the like o' that, to put a halter on him and lead him out before the hounds. Begob, he'd give them a nice chase!"

With that all the lads on the hills around let a roar out o' them.

"Hulla! Hulla! Hulla!" says they. "Look at the cat! Look at he! Look at he! Down him! Land him!"

Every dog that was in it legged it to the roar.

Well, if ye seen Johnny Daly comin' down the hill that time ye'd think the fairies was afther him. He'd jump the house, he was that mad!

"Plase God he'll not come our way!" says I.

I declare to ye now, if you seen Jeremi'h Driscoll leppin' the furze bushes, and Johnny Daly afther him with the whip, ye'd as soon be lookin' at it as ateing your dinner. And as for Tim Hurley, you'd have to pity him, sthrivin' to go around every hound that was in it.

"The dogs have her ate! More power! They have the owld cat ate!" says Smartheen, that was sitting up on the wall behind us. "She was dam cute! I thought she'd besht them! The shkamer!"

'Twasn't long afther that till Tim Hurley had all the dogs gothered and counted, and 'tis he that got his own trouble with them! Them poor fellas of Whips catches great hardship. Johnny Daly faced away up the hill agin them, and the whole o' thim afther him.

"It's for Bludth he's making," says I, "and if that's to be the way, it's there ye'll see leppin!" says I. "Tighten yerself now Dan!" says I, "thim banks above in Bludth does be made up very crabby, and as for walls, it's not stones at all they has in them, but bog mould and slates!"

Well, for all, poor William Sheehan had great courage that day.

"Your sowl to the divil, Smartheen!" says he. "Knock a few o' thim stones, boy!"

With that he gives the yella pony a salamandher of a belt, and he coorsed him about three turns around the field the way he'd knock the wind out o' him, in regard of he being out on grass always, and when he thought he felt him jaded it's then he faced him in at the wall. But in spite of all he jumped it very sevare and very ugly. Them Shan Buies is very piggish that way.

Meself, I don't like them flippant leppers; I'd like a horse that will put his two forefeet into the butt o' the wall, and give ye time to say two Aves and a Father before he leps out.

"As for my mare," says I to Dan, the same time, "she boxed her knee a fortnight ago, and it's big with her yet, and faith she's avouring it always. And indeed that's a cross place in any case," says I. "God bless ye, Smartheen," says I, "throw down a couple more o' them stones!"

I'm tellin' ye Smartheen was a decent civil boy always.

We follied on the bohireens afther that, ye'd think 'twas a wedding with all that was in it! Throttin' and steppin' their horses, and the hounds and the ladies and gentlemen and all out before us.

"Faith," says I, "they'd get as nice a shweat this way as what they'd get in any quadhreel whatever in Dublin Castle," says I, "and as for jogglin' and jowltin'," says I, "any one'd be the better o' this in his health while he'll live," says I.

Indeed, all that was in it was teeming down with the heat before we were up into Bludth at all.

Comin' up out o' the bohireen there was a stick left across in the end of it, keepin' in calves; a middlin' heavy pole, and the two ends fasht. If it was in the Cork Park races ye wouldn't see as much fun as what we knocked out of it with young Tom Dennehy! Sure he was ridin' the Docthor's grey mare, an' he dhressed out, and grand yalla gaiters on him, and he in dhread of his life!

"Dennehy took great use out o' the bohireens all through!" says one of the lads "'tis time for him to throw a lep for us now!"

It's well the Docthor wasn't looking at them that time, and they weltin' the mare with switches and stones, and Dennehy howlding her back from the lep when she'd be gethered for it.--Begob! he fell heavy when the crayture jumped in the spite of him! And there's where the fun was!

Ye wouldn't blame him to be afraid if it wasn't for the dirty little boasting he has always. But indeed 'twould stun any one to hear the talk of the Dennehys.

"Mind yourself now, William," says Dan, afther the three of us had a place made out above on the hill for ourselves to stand aisy. "The hill tops is lakes afther the rain," says he, "though be Jingo!" says he, "that little horse went over the hill very knacky!"

"Look at Smartheen comin' down the bohireen over!" says I, "what have he in the bag? Ye'd say it was a side o' bacon with all the dogs that's snortin' afther it."

"Be dom!" says William, "but it's a fox! Look at Johnny Daly that has all his own dogs dhrove in under the wall. B'lieve me, them two has it settled out! We'll see sport now," says he, "afther Smartheen'll throw down the owld bag and give the fox a couple of kicks for to rise his heart for him!"

Well, what it was vexed Johnny Daly I dunno, but he was mad altogether! He lepped out the wall before him, and he as wicked with the passion as that he didn't roar, nor say a word, till he had Smartheen cot by the coat and the whip ruz to him to sthrike him! Ye wouldn't know what was the two o' thim sayin', but Smartheen thought to run, and 'twas then Johnny cot the bag secondly to take it from him. Every lad that was in it comminced to cheer and to bawl when they seen the two o' thim in howlts. I believe meself let a few screeches, but as for William, if it was his father that he seen took by the polis, an' he dhrunk, he wouldn't have more nature for him than what he showed to that boy.

"_Hon-a-maun-dhiaoul_! He'll have him dhragged off the horse!" says Dan.

"He will! He will!" says I, "he's dam stubborn!"

Maybe if it wasn't for the way Johnny crooked the owld horse with the spur, sthrivin' to squeeze the leg around him, he'd have held his howlt, but a Turk couldn't stand it with the hoist that owld Monaloo let out of him.

"He's down!" says Dan. "He's dead! 'Tis on his head he's fallen!"

"Ye're a liar!" says William, "it's on the fox he fell! The big mastheen of a tyrant!"

'Twasn't long then till the whole of us was gathered lookin' at Johnny, and he ravin' like a cat in the measles, and every bit that was on him desthroyed with the gutther, and says he to Smartheen, givin' a bitter big curse:

"It's all I wish," says he, "that ye were a football before me! Ye wouldn't last me three kicks!" says he.

'Twould dhrive a chill through your stomach to be leshnin' to the talk he had. And sure the fox was as flat as the palm o' yer hand within in the bag!

"Oh, fie, fie!" says Dan, "our fox is gone from us!"

Indeed, ye wouldn't like to be lookin' at the crayture. Johnny Daly's a very weighty man, and sure it's the last sthraw, as they say, put the hump on the camel. But in any case Smartheen battled it out well, and all that was in it was givin' him applauses.

Yerself knows Bludth, that there's as many hooks and pooks in it as that a person'd be moidthered before he'd have them gone around, let alone dogs, and horses.

"B'lieve me," says Dan, "'tis as good for them to give over; sure we're sick and tired waitin' on them. The fox that keeps this hill has a sthrong dungeon, and sorra fear of him to lave it for to be sporting for them. What a fool he is!"

"Yerrah shut yer mouth, Dan!" says I, "thim lads on the paikeen south is screechin' like as if they seen somethin'! What have ye over there?" says I, lettin' a roar.

"Yerrah, what are they sayin' at all?" says William, "it's like pigs talkin'! Sure I can't understand them no more than if I was a fool!"

With that the dogs comminced to gallop, and away with the whole of us. Well, William had great courage always.

"'Tis down the gully we should go, and we'll be before them whatever side they'll turn," says he.

"Musha, the divil go from ye!" says I, "maybe it's down the chimbly ye'd have us go! Sure a man itself couldn't stand in it, it's that steep!"

"No, nor ten men couldn't!" says Dan.

"If it was the ugliest place in life, ye'll be hard set to find a betther," says William.

Well, afther all, we went down in it, as well as another, and you may say there was scroogin' and scramblin', and thim that was afther us was bet down on us like a load o' hay, and thim that was before us cursin' black and blue for the way ourselves was squeezin' them.

"Faith! We're as throng as three in a bed!" says Dan, "the dogs could run away in their choice place and divil a one of us would know what side they went!"

"He's gone north agin!" says a lad above on the hill, and every one that was in it turned about in the gully and up with them up it agin.

"Maybe if it was himself was down in it he wouldn't have so much chat about goin' north!" says I, "and we twistin' in it like ye'd be dancin' a reel."

But as for William's little horse, if it was the roof of the chapel he was on he'd run in it like a bird, rocks or slates or any other thing, he wouldn't give a dang for them.

The sight'd lave your eyes if ye were lookin' at us afther that, comin' down out of Bludth, with slidin' and slippin', and buck leps and all sorts, and the dogs yowlin' away through the counthry from us. Great banks there was below in the fields. Every one o' them that we come into my mare would crouch like a hen before it, and she'd let a screech, and over with her, and wouldn't lave an iron on it. That was her routheen always, only when she soured by the dint of the Shan Bui, that was baulking with William out before her. When I'd have to dhrive her over before me she'd be waitin' on me the far side of the fence, ateing grass, till I'd come afther her. She is a grand mare indeed, and high ginthry does be jumpin' mad to buy her foals.

'Twasn't long till we come up to the dogs, where they were searchin' and snuffin' round the four corners of the field, and divil a smell could they get. We seen a lad then standing up on a rock, waving.

"He's gone wesht up the road!" says he.

"Did ye see him?" says Johnny Daly.

"Faith I did so!" says me lad, "and he was the most courageous thief of a fox ever ye seen!"

I went up to the lad.

"Where did ye get the two coats, ye're afther throwing behind the wall?" says I.

"'Tis aiqual to you where I got them," says me lad, "ax no questions and ye'll be told no lies!"

"Faith, there's no occasion," says I, "sure it's you is good-natured to be carryin' the two coats that was on my two sons this morning," says I, "and you bloated with running," says I.

Divil a word he said, but away with him.

"Thim two young lads o' mine will be apt to get a bating before night!" says I to meself, "and they're in the want of it!"

"Forrad! Forrad!" says Johnny to the dogs, that was whining most peevish round and about, and you'd think if he never had a nose on him he'd get the smell o' the paraffin oil, it was that parsevarin'.

Two mile we legged it then, and the biggest walls in the counthry was in it, and God help them that had to be building them afther us! Comin' up Milleenavillen, William and a few more of us turned about round the butt o' the hill, for fear we'd be bet out entirely, and it wasn't long till we met with a great mountaineer of a big bank down in the widow Brinckley's land. Meself dhrew out back a couple o' fields, and knocked a few sticks that was in a gap, but me brave William didn't do but to let a roar to the Shan Bui, and to land him two clouts in the jaw comin' into the bank. The Shan Bui lepped up on to it, as loose as a hare, with the fright, but what'd be before him only posts that the widow Brinckley had dhrove in the far side o' the bank, and ropes on them, and clothes hangin' out on them. He put a hump on himself like a ferret when he seen them, but if all the polis in Ireland was below mindin' the clothes, he'd have to change his feet and lep out on to them, with the gallop he had on him, and he cot the two hind legs in the ropes, and himself and William and the clothes was threwn down in the field.

"He's dead!" says I. "'Twould kill him if he was a bull!"

"'Twould, or if he was an ass," says young Tom Dennehy, that was on the eastern side o' the fence.

Well afther all, not a bit in the world was on him, only a tooth he had was stirrin' always in his head afther it. But I'm tellin' ye, the widow Brinckley faced him the same as Jeffrey faced his cat, as they say, in regard of some sort of a petticoat the Shan Bui had dhraggin' afther him.

Out with the whole of us then from her into the road and left her afther us, and she dhrawing down saints and divils and the price o' the petticoat on us.

"It couldn't be," says I, "that it's into William's land the dogs is facin' now! Look at the line they're going beyond over the hill!"

"Begob, it is!" says Dan.

"If that be so it'd be betther for William to go under the sod!" says I.

Faith, I believe the divil was always busy with the Shan Bui! The very minute he got the smell o' the road under his feet, he comminced firin' and lashin', and when he had William loosened, it's then he legged it.

"He's diddled now entirely!" says I, "that horse won't stand or stay till he lands him within his own yard. The Lord look down in pity on William this day! Herself'll ate the face off him!"

Begob, the Shan Bui kept the one gallop always, the same as a thrain, and we battherin' the road afther him, and the dogs and all screechin' down the hill before us. Your heart'd rise if ye were listenin' to them!

"He'll run to the say with him!" says Dan, "the two o' them'll be cliffted!"

"Sorra fear of him!" says I, "what a fool he is! Look at him now, tightening himself comin' down to the gate!"

Begannies! The villyan wheeled into the yard as nate as a bicycle, and every hound in the pack was in it before him!

* * * * *

Twas the week afther, and I goin' to owld Dick Courtney's funeral (the Lord have mercy on him) and who would I meet only Anne Roche!

Well now I declare to ye, divil such an ateing ever I got from any woman! The dogs wouldn't pick me bones afther her! Sure she pitched all that was within and without to the Seventeen Divils.

And sure there was no blame on me at all, only she seen them two young whipsthers o' mine when they thrown the owld bag they had with the ferret's bed back into her hen-house, and they near dead with thralling it out through the counthry.

A half a gallon of paraffin they had soaked in it. If it was herself and not meself had one and eightpence lost by it she might be talkin'.

I'm told she gave William the Seven Shows of Cork on the head of it, but indeed poor William had great courage the same day.

*ALSATIA*

No doubt the fact that it was forbidden, or mainly forbidden, lent it a considerable charm. The prohibitory edict was a semi-obsolete Statute of--say--the reign of Edward VI. Authorities, when driven to their last trench, fell back on it, declaring that no respectable children were allowed in stable-yards, or ever had been. We never argued the point. At an early age we had learned the folly of hardening fluid prohibition into adamant by argument; but we did not cease from visiting the yard.

As I look back I see a procession advancing from the dimmest and most ancient places of memory, a procession as varied as that which in Maclise's picture slowly winds away from the Ark. Heading it are two figures who, in their prime, ranked equally as the over-lords of the stable-yard, Old Michael, and the copper-coloured turkey cock. When one has attained an altitude of some considerable number of inches over five feet, it is hard to estimate the terror that a robust turkey cock can inspire in a person, however charged with valiant intention, of little more than forty-eight inches over all. The copper-coloured turkey cock was subtle as he was vicious; he appreciated as well as any Boer General the moral effect of a surprise. To face him, to go forth with intent to battle, was possible, even enjoyable, but at this moment I can feel the panic, blinding and disintegrating, of being taken in the rear; I remember the sound of the striding claws on the gravel behind me, the rustle of the stiff wings; were I but four feet high, and still wore short socks, I am convinced that I would run as hard if similarly attacked.

Coincident with the time that the turkey cock held sway, one of us had somehow acquired a dog, a meek, female creature, always engaged either prospectively or retrospectively in family affairs, and loaded with a spirit broken by long beatings from the back-door. She was white, with very sore eyes and a long tail; one of her relatives professed to be a bull-terrier, a fact much dwelt on by her proprietor; but beyond the soreness of her eyes there was but little to substantiate it.

"Those village dogs had better look out," said the proprietor. "May-fly'll most likely kill them if she meets them."

She had come to us in May, and the name held for us the glamour of a hundred springs. Among the village dogs was one, contemptible beyond its fellows, known to us as Boiled Rice (a food specially abhorred by us, which her coat and complexion were supposed to resemble). Boiled Rice was generally on hand at or about the lodge gates, and one day Mayfly was formally led forth to slaughter her. Boiled Rice was a small and disgusting creature, very old, and nearly toothless, and without reputation as a fighter. None the less, when located by our scouts she did not refuse battle. On the contrary, she bustled up to May-fly, and, rising upon the shortest pair of hind legs ever put under any four-legged creature save a lizard, laid her paws upon her shoulders and yapped harshly in her face. Then, if ever, the blood of the bull terrier relation should have come into action; for some unfortunate reason that was the precise moment at which it ebbed. Our champion gave a squeak of resentful alarm, and, disengaging herself from the enemy, fled unpretentiously, unhesitatingly, without a hint of reprisal. For our parts we stoned and hunted Boiled Rice more mercilessly than ever after this overthrow. An unexpected aspect in the character of May-fly was that she, who fled from every living thing, remained unmoved by the ferocities of the copper turkey cock. At a word from us, and it was a word often spoken, she would take him by his scarlet and bulbous beard and gallop him off into remote places, from whence, long afterwards, he might be seen gloomily returning, a discredited and bedraggled despot. It was her sole achievement, and one greatly valued by us, but, unfortunately, it found no favour with the authorities, and one night she and the then puppy--she always had a puppy or so in her lair behind the potato house--were swept.

Neck and neck with the copper turkey cock came Old Michael, equal in malignity, but less active. He was nominally a stable helper, and was also a self-constituted spy in the service of the government--or rather of the governess--and a more implacable tale-bearer never truckled to authorities.

"The two o' them is round back o' the cow-house, Miss. It's now this minute I seen them climbing out over the garden gate!"

Thus we, prone on the slant of the cow-house roof, under the drooping laurel branches, with our pockets crammed with green, young apples, have listened, panting, to our betrayal. Any other man on the place would have lied in our cause with chapter and verse.

There was a tradition about Old Michael that he had once been bitten by a mad dog, and had thereupon, as a recognised antidote, killed the dog and eaten its liver. There was something luridly attractive about the transaction, and we often discussed the possibility as to whether the liver had thoroughly played its part, and whether it might not be that he suffered from slight chronic hydrophobia, and that, at any moment, he might turn snarling and foaming upon us. His ordinary manner lent itself to the fancy, his rages were so explosive, his yells at the horses under his charge so ungoverned, so screeching. One of these was a white pony that might have walked straight out of a fairy tale, in which he would have been exclusively employed as palfrey to the principal Princess. He had been bought through, or from, we never quite knew which, an old farmer, one Jer Sullivan, who lived at the head of a long and lonely Atlantic cove, and was as much fisherman as farmer, and more beggar than either. His main source of income was a petition in which was feelingly narrated the manner of death that befell his only horse.

"She was clifted one night by dogs hunting her, and drowned in the tide, and I have no one now to trust to, only the Lord."

Thus sorrowed the petition, Christmas by Christmas, getting a little browner as time went by, but no less insatiable. One windy Christmas Eve Jer Sullivan and the petition had appeared as usual, together with the horde of old women who, by long-established custom, received a dole on that day.

In the twilight of the December morning they came by twos and threes, fluttering up the avenue, looking, with their long dark cloaks and thin red legs and feet, like the choughs that used to breed in the neighbouring cliffs. Upon the wet grass on the way round to the stable yard they squatted in a gabbling row, waiting for the coming forth of the master, and chaffing Jer Sullivan for having joined the ranks of ancient widowhood and spinsterdom, with the unquenchable spirit that lurks in the oldest and most forlorn Irish peasant woman. On this occasion, Jer, having exhausted his stock of repartee, planted himself on the hall-door steps.