A heavy man, on an enormous grey horse, had approached the Master, having edged his way through the hounds with ostentatious care. He was of a type sufficiently common among southern Irishmen, with thick, strong-growing, black hair, a large, black moustache, and heavy brows, over-shadowing eyes of precisely the same shade of blunted blue as his shaven chin.

"He's a credit to his breeding, Major!" said the heavy man, indicating Larry with a sandwich from which he had taken a bite of the size of one of his horse's hoofs; "I wish we had a few more lads coming on in the country like him!"

"What good are they going to do?" responded the Master, reverting to the pessimistic mood that was daily becoming more frequent with him; "what chance is there for a gentleman in this d.a.m.ned country? You might as well have a mill-stone round your neck as an Irish property these times! What do you suppose will be left to us after the next 'Revision of Rents,' as they call it?"

"Well, deuce a much indeed," returned Doctor Mangan, equably, "but it mightn't be so bad as that altogether! I have my little girl out for the first time to-day, Major. I wonder might I ask your man, that's looking after your young ladies, to have an eye to her, too?"

Doctor Mangan withdrew with the required permission, and with his daughter at his heels, proceeded through the a.s.sembling riders and carriages, distributing greetings as he went.

Doctor Francis Aloysius Mangan was one of the leading doctors in the district of which the towns of Cluhir and Riverstown each felt itself to fill the most important place. Ireland grows doctors and clergymen with almost equal success and profusion. There is in the national character a considerable share of the const.i.tuents that are valuable in both professions. Power of sympathy, good-nature, intuition, adroitness, discernment of character, and a gift for taking every man in his humour. Qualities that are perhaps beside the specialised requirements, but are equally indispensable.

In what degree these attributes were bestowed upon Doctor Mangan may gradually be ascertained by the patient reader, but in the case of Father David Hogan, P.P., of Riverstown, at this juncture in lively converse with the Misses Talbot-Lowry, the reader may be spared the exercise of that tiresome virtue, and may feel confident that Father Hogan failed in none of the qualities that have been enumerated.

Father David was, indeed, the most popular man in the country with all cla.s.ses and creeds; he was universally known as the Chaplain of the B.V.H., and was accounted one of the chiefest glories of the hunt.

Major Talbot-Lowry was accustomed to boast, in places where such as he congregate, that He, in His country, had the best priest in Ireland! A real good man. Kept the farmers civil and friendly. Managed a district for the Fowl Fund. And a topper to ride--always at the top of the hunt!

"Trust a priest to have a good horse!" is the rejoinder prescribed in such cases, and Major d.i.c.k's fellows seldom failed to comply with the ritual.

Father David, stout, jolly, and, like his namesake, of a ruddy countenance, mounted upon a black mare as stout and sporting-looking as himself, was, as Doctor Mangan drew near to the Misses Talbot-Lowry, beaming upon these two lambs from another fold, and having congratulated Miss Judith on the appearance of the grey mare that she was riding (reft from Lady Isabel and the victoria), was endearing himself to Miss Christian by tales of the brace of hound puppies that he was walking for the hunt.

The advantage of being the youngest member of a large family is one that takes a considerable time to mature. Christian was thirteen years old before what was left of one of the Hunt horses, after seven strenuous seasons of official work, was placed at her sole disposal.

This residue, battered though it was, and a roarer of remarkable power and volume, was incapable of falling, and with anything under eight stone on its piebald back (piebald from incessant and sedulously concealed saddle-galls) could always be trusted to keep within reasonable distance of hounds when they ran. It was fortunate for Christian that Judith, now sixteen, and far from a feather-weight, had renounced her share in "Harry," and had established a right in the grey mare. Judith was a buccaneer. Charles, the coachman, (in connection with the commandeering of the grey mare, which he resented) had said of her to his respected friend, Mr. Evans: "Ah, ah! That's the young lady that'll get her whack out of the world!"

And Mr. Evans' reaping-hook nose had sniffed a.s.sent.

Yet, though Judith was averted, the Christmas holidays always held the menace of brothers to be reckoned with as rival claimants for Harry.

"The boys, darling!" "Unselfishness, darling!" "After the holidays, my child!"

Lady Isabel was of the school that inculcated self-denial for its daughters, but never for its sons; (whether from a belief that such was inherent in the male s.e.x, or from a fear that the effort would be misplaced, it is difficult to say). Christian was ever quick to respond to the call for martyrdom, but that the Twins should both maltreat and despise the venerable Harry, added a poignancy to renunciation that placed it almost beyond attainment. On this day of festival, happily, renunciation was not exacted; other attractions had absorbed the Twins, and Christian's rights were unchallenged.

Therefore, it was that the youngest Miss Talbot-Lowry, perched on old Harry's broad back, and looking of about the same size in relation to it as the "Wran" to the holly-bush, was now blissfully discussing hound-puppies with her trusted friend, Father David, and was asking nothing more that life could offer.

Dr. Mangan, meantime, waited, with a permissive smile, for the moment to make his "little girl" known to the young ladies from Mount Music, and to their cousin, young Larry Coppinger. He was in no hurry, and he had often had occasion to agree with Milton (though he had been quite unaware of so doing) in thinking that they also serve who only stand and wait.

CHAPTER VIII

It may be permissible to introduce a meet of hounds at or about the end of a chapter, but I feel sure that the ensuing run must be given elbow-room. Alarming to many though this statement may be, yet it may be said that its foundations are laid in truth and equity, and in the necessities of this history may be found the justification of the chapter.

The Quarry Wood had not failed. Larry's fox had been in it. To Larry, seated on his stout, bay cob, with a heart banging against his ribs, and a soul absorbed into a single supplication, had come, suddenly and beautifully, the answer to prayer, the ineffable spectacle of a large and lovely fox, sliding quietly away, at the right place, at the right moment. Life could offer Larry no more; not then, at all events.

"_My_ coverts--_my_ fox!"

Not many boys of sixteen, enthusiasts, endowed with just that touch of the poetic temperament that can set the brain reeling, could know a more wondrous moment.

Then to see Cousin d.i.c.k, blazing and splendid, charging out of the wood, "like the man on the red horse in Revelation," as Christian said afterwards--(Christian had sneaked away from Charles, the coachman, and had followed Larry)--with the hounds flashing around and ahead of him, and Cottingham's rasping "Forrad! Forrad!" from the wood behind, like the blast of a bellows upon flames!

Larry had been past speech when that apocalyptic vision had materialised in response to his halloa. He had waved his hat and cheered the hounds to the line of the fox, but it had been unnecessary; they had not had an instant's uncertainty, and had taken hold on their own account without reference to anyone.

That the hold taken by the hounds was a firm and a.s.sured one was due, not only to their own virtues, but also to the fact that where the fox had broken, a tract of turf bog met the wood, and carried a scent of entire efficiency. What, however, it was incapable of carrying were the horses. The hounds, uttering their ecstasy in that gorgeous chorus of harmonious discordance called Full Cry, sped across the bog like a flock of seagulls; but for the riders, a narrow track between deep ditches left by the turf-cutters for their carts, was the sole hope, and a string of horses, galloping in single file, was soon following hard on the heels of the Master. Foremost of them all were Christian and Larry, filled with an elation beyond the power of words to convey.

The hounds were holding steadily right-handed across the bog, and were ever widening the distance between them and the riders, but it was enough for these two children to be able to keep their proud place, next after the Master, and to know that no one, not even Cottingham, could deprive them of it. It may gravely be questioned if Tommy, the stout bay cob, and Harry, the residue of a hunt horse, appreciated a position to which they were so little accustomed. Harry, whose heart, indisputably in the right place, was possibly the only sound item in his outfit, pounded gallantly on, roaring as he went, like a lion seeking after his prey; but Tommy, whose labours were, as a rule, limited to mild harness-work, was kept going mainly by stress of circ.u.mstances, in which category Larry's spurs took a prominent part.

The bog-track at length became merged in a rushy field, and then indeed did the pent waters of the hunt break forth. Major d.i.c.k's tall chestnut had gradually increased his lead, and by the time the track was clear of riders, he was two fields ahead, with Cottingham not far behind, and a few indignant young men riding like maniacs to overtake them. To have been held back by a schoolboy and a little girl is an indignity not easily to be borne. The Broadwater Vale field was a hard-going one, including a strengthening of young soldiers from the regiment quartered at Riverstown, and it was not long before Tommy and Harry were beginning to find themselves in a more familiar and less exigent position. Judith, on the grey mare, went by them like a flash; Doctor Mangan overtook them heavily, and heavily pa.s.sed them. Father David, riding a little wide of the crowd, waved a friendly hand to Christian, as the black mare, composed and discreet, as became a daughter of the Church, dwelt for an instant on the top of a wide bank, before she struck off into the next field. Worst indignity of all, Charles, the coachman, on the elderly carriage horse, drew alongside, and presumed to offer directions and admonitions. "As if,"

thought Christian, as she drove Harry at the bank in the wake of the black mare, "I cared a pin what he says!"

Gone for poor Charles were the days when Miss Christian had revered him above all other created things; days such as the one on which, after a ride round the yard on an unharnessed carriage horse, Christian, in grat.i.tude too great for words, had attempted to kiss him. Charles had repelled the embrace, saying tactfully: "No pleasures in Lent, Miss!" and Christian had accepted the excuse. Then Miss Christian had been three years old, now she was thirteen, and Charles had, in the interval, married a cook, and lost his figure, and with it, had departed his nerve, and the reverance of Miss Christian, and he knew it.

Close behind Charles came Dr. Mangan's "little girl," who had been confided with a lubricating half-crown, to his care. Miss Let.i.tia Mangan was far from considering herself a little girl. She was sixteen and a half, and conceived herself to be of combatant rank, even though her thick, dark hair banged on her back in a ponderous pigtail, and her education at the Cluhir Convent School was still uncompleted. The fat, piebald pony that she was riding would have a sore back before she got home. Christian, perched wren-like on her ancient steed (but a wren placed with mathematical accuracy of directness with relation to the steed's ears), noted with disfavour the crooked seat, the heavy hand on the curb. Larry, hot and pink, with hat hanging by its guard, his fair hair looking like storm-tossed corn-stooks, noted nothing, being wholly engrossed in bitter conflict with Tommy. The art of keeping a good start with hounds is not given to many, and least of all to the young and inexperienced. From having been first of the first, it had fallen to Larry and Christian to find themselves last, and last in the despised company of Charles and "the Mangan girl."

The unexacting position of being at the heel of the hunt may have a charm for the philosophic or unambitious, but so black a continuation of so great a start was a trial quite beyond the endurance of a young gentleman possessed of the artistic temperament. And then the abominable Mangan girl came into play, and joined in the circling performance at the big bank. Always, when Larry felt that this time the cob was going to "have it," that cow-like red and white beast would jam itself in the way, so he thought, raging. In this matter of hunting, Dr. Mangan had not been well advised in his scheme for his little girl's social advantage.

In the meantime the hounds had run their fox into Drumkeen Wood, and the riders, arriving in small and breathless companies, thanked G.o.d for a check, and tightened their girths and took courage. The latter would undoubtedly be needed if the run continued; Drumkeen Wood was hung like a cloak upon the side of a steep hill, and was the invariable prelude to the worst going within the bounds of the hunt.

"If he's into the big earth here, I'm afraid it's good-bye to him!"

said Dr. Mangan, taking courage in a liquid form. "It was a sweet gallop while it lasted! Sweet and short, like this toothful of cherry brandy I'm after drinking!"

"Ah, that's poor stuff, Doctor," said Mr. Hallinan, proprietor of Hallinan's Hotel, a prosperous hostelry, much patronised by salmon-fishers. "Give me a sup of good old John Jameson in its purity!"

"'Twas for Tishy I brought this out," replied the Doctor, apologetically; "but I lost sight of her. She's back somewhere with little Christian Lowry and young Coppinger."

"What sort of a lad is that?" asked Mr. Hallinan. "Is he as big a pup as them young Lowrys?"

"Ah, they're not so bad altogether," said Dr. Mangan, indulgently.

"Young sprigs like them are none the worse for a little _tashpy_, as the people say!" The Doctor's heavy voice relaxed a little over the world _tashpy_ (which, it should perhaps be explained, is Irish, and implies a blend of impudence and high spirits). He was quite aware that his friend Hallinan and he regarded the Talbot-Lowrys from a different standpoint.

"I was having a bit of lunch there the other day," he went on, "and I thought they were nice boys enough."

"I hope you got enough to eat!" said Mr. Hallinan, disagreeably; "I'm told that their butcher's sick and tired trying to get what he's owed, out of them! There should be drink enough, anyway! I'm just after sending in a case of whisky there. G.o.d knows when I'll be ped for it!"

At this moment the two gentlemen, whose horses were nibbling the gra.s.s of the bank that surrounded the wood, were shaken by the sudden appearance of the white nose of the Master's chestnut on the other side of the bank.

"I'd be obliged if there was less noise!" said the Master's voice, with threatening in it.

Mr. Hallinan's jaw dropped unaffectedly.

"Merciful G.o.d!" he murmured; "did he hear me, d'ye think?"

"Ah, no fear, man!" whispered the Doctor, encouragingly. "And if he did itself, maybe you'd get your cheque a bit quicker!"

In the silence that followed, a whimpering whistle from a hound, invisible, yet near at hand, sent a thrill through the waiting riders.

There followed the rustling rush of hounds through the undergrowth, as they gathered to enquire into the whimper. Then another whimper, merging into a squeal, and Cottingham's voice:

"Hark to Dulcet! Forrad to Dulcet!"

"Begad, they have him again," said Dr. Mangan, without enthusiasm. "I wonder where is Tishy gone to? I suppose they'll run these blasted hills now--"