All on the Irish Shore | Page 6

whip to me, you know"--(as a matter of fact, the Whip was a
year older than the Master)--"is beginning to drink a bit. When I came
down here before breakfast this mornin'"--when Freddy was feeling
more acutely than usual his position as an M.F.H., he cut his g's and
talked slightly through his nose, even, on occasion, going so far as to
omit the aspirate in talking of his hounds--"there wasn't a sign of
him--kennel door not open or anything. I let the poor brutes out into the
run. I tell you, what with the paraffin and the carbolic and everything
the kennel was pretty high--"
"It's pretty thick now," said his friend, lighting a cigarette.
"Well, I went into the boiler-house," continued Freddy impressively,
"and there he was, asleep on the floor, with his beastly head on my
kennel coat, and one leg in the feeding trough!"
Mr. Taylour made a suitable ejaculation.

"I jolly soon kicked him on to his legs," went on Freddy, "not that they
were much use to him--he must have been on the booze all night. After
that I went on to the stable yard, and if you'll believe me, the two chaps
there had never turned up at all--at half-past eight, mind you!--and
there was Fennessy doing up the horses. He said he believed that
there'd been a wake down at Enniscar last night. I thought it was rather
decent of him doing their work for them."
"You'll sack 'em, I suppose?" remarked Mr. Taylour, with martial
severity.
"Oh well, I don't know," said Mr. Alexander evasively, "I'll see.
Anyhow, don't say anything to my mother about it; a drunken man is
like a red rag to a bull to her."
Taking this peculiarity of Mrs. Alexander into consideration, it was
perhaps as well that she left Craffroe a few days afterwards to stay with
her brother. The evening before she left both the Fairy Pig and the
Ghost Woman were seen again on the avenue, this time by the
coachman, who came into the kitchen considerably the worse for liquor
and announced the fact, and that night the household duties were
performed by the maids in pairs, and even, when possible, in trios.
As Mrs. Alexander said at dinner to Sir George, on the evening of her
arrival, she was thankful to have abandoned the office of Ghostly
Comforter to her domestics. Only for Barnet she couldn't have left poor
Freddy to the mercy of that pack of fools; in fact, even with Barnet to
look after them, it was impossible to tell what imbecility they were not
capable of.
"Well, if you like," said Sir George, "I might run you over there on the
motor car some day to see how they're all getting on. If Freddy is going
to hunt on Friday, we might go on to Craffroe after seeing the fun."
The topic of Barnet was here shelved in favour of automobiles. Mrs.
Alexander's brother was also a person of enthusiasms.
But what were these enthusiasms compared to the deep-seated ecstasy

of Freddy Alexander as in his new pink coat he rode down the main
street of Enniscar, Patsey in equal splendour bringing up the rear,
unspeakably conscious of the jibes of his relatives and friends. There
was a select field, consisting of Mr. Taylour, four farmers, some young
ladies on bicycles, and about two dozen young men and boys on foot,
who, in order to be prepared for all contingencies, had provided
themselves with five dogs, two horns, and a ferret. It is, after all,
impossible to please everybody, and from the cyclists' and foot people's
point of view the weather left nothing to be desired. The sun shone like
a glistering shield in the light blue November sky, the roads were like
iron, the wind, what there was of it, like steel. There was a line of white
on the northerly side of the fences, that yielded grudgingly and inch by
inch before the march of the pale sunshine: the new pack could hardly
have had a more unfavourable day for their _début_.
The new Master was, however, wholly undaunted by such crumples in
the rose-leaf. He was riding Mayboy, a big trustworthy horse, whose
love of jumping had survived a month of incessant and arbitrary
schooling, and he left the road as soon as was decently possible, and
made a line across country for the covert that involved as much
jumping as could reasonably be hoped for in half a mile. At the second
fence Patsey Crimmeen's black mare put her nose in the air and swung
round; Patsey's hands seemed to be at their worst this morning, and
what their worst felt like the black mare alone knew. Mr. Taylour, as
Deputy Whip, waltzed erratically round the