All on the Irish Shore | Page 7

nine couple on a very
flippant polo pony; and the four farmers, who had wisely adhered to the
road, reached the covert sufficiently in advance of the hunt to frustrate
Lily's project of running sheep in a neighbouring field.
The covert was a large, circular enclosure, crammed to the very top of
its girdling bank with furze-bushes, bracken, low hazel, and stunted
Scotch firs. Its primary idea was woodcock, its second rabbits; beaters
were in the habit of getting through it somehow, but a ride feasible for
fox hunters had never so much as occurred to it. Into this, with practical
assistance from the country boys, the deeply reluctant hounds were
pitched and flogged; Freddy very nervously uplifted his voice in
falsetto encouragement, feeling much as if he were starting the solo of

an anthem; and Mr. Taylour and Patsey, the latter having made it up
with the black mare, galloped away with professional ardour to watch
different sides of the covert. This, during the next hour, they had ample
opportunities for doing. After the first outburst of joy from the hounds
on discovering that there were rabbits in the covert, and after the
retirement of the rabbits to their burrows on the companion discovery
that there were hounds in it, a silence, broken only by the far-away
prattle of the lady bicyclists on the road, fell round Freddy Alexander.
He bore it as long as he could, cheering with faltering whoops the
invisible and unresponsive pack, and wondering what on earth
huntsmen were expected to do on such occasions; then, filled with that
horrid conviction which assails the lonely watcher, that the hounds
have slipped away at the far side, he put spurs to Mayboy, and cantered
down the long flank of the covert to find some one or something.
Nothing had happened on the north side, at all events, for there was the
faithful Taylour, pirouetting on his hill-top in the eye of the wind. Two
fields more (in one of which he caught his first sight of any of the
hounds, in the shape of Ruby, carefully rolling on a dead crow), and
then, under the lee of a high bank, he came upon Patsey Crimmeen, the
farmers, and the country boys, absorbed in the contemplation of a fight
between Tiger, the butcher's brindled cur, and Watty, the kennel terrier.
The manner in which Mr. Alexander dispersed this entertainment
showed that he was already equipped with one important qualification
of a Master of Hounds--a temper laid on like gas, ready to blaze at a
moment's notice. He pitched himself off his horse and scrambled over
the bank into the covert in search of his hounds. He pushed his way
through briars and furze-bushes, and suddenly, near the middle of the
wood, he caught sight of them. They were in a small group, they were
very quiet and very busy. As a matter of fact they were engaged in
eating a dead sheep.
After this episode, there ensued a long and disconsolate period of
wandering from one bleak hillside to another, at the bidding of various
informants, in search of apocryphal foxes, slaughterers of flocks of
equally apocryphal geese and turkeys--such a day as is discreetly
ignored in all hunting annals, and, like the easterly wind that is its

parent, is neither good for man nor beast.
By half-past three hope had died, even in the sanguine bosoms of the
Master and Mr. Taylour. Two of the farmers had disappeared, and the
lady bicyclists, with faces lavender blue from waiting at various windy
cross roads, had long since fled away to lunch. Two of the hounds were
limping; all, judging by their expressions, were on the verge of tears.
Patsey's black mare had lost two shoes; Mr. Taylour's pony had ceased
to pull, and was too dispirited even to try to kick the hounds, and the
country boys had dwindled to four. There had come a time when Mr.
Taylour had sunk so low as to suggest that a drag should be run with
the assistance of the ferret's bag, a scheme only frustrated by the
regrettable fact that the ferret and its owner had gone home.
"Well we had a nice bit of schooling, anyhow, and, it's been a real
educational day for the hounds," said Freddy, turning in his saddle to
look at the fires of the frosty sunset. "I'm glad they had it. I think we're
in for a go of hard weather. I don't know what I should have done only
for you, old chap. Patsey's gone all to pieces: it's my belief he's been on
the drink this whole week, and where he gets it--"
"Hullo! Hold hard!" interrupted Mr. Taylour. "What's Governor after?"
They were riding along a grass-grown farm road outside the Craffroe