that's just come into my head. My grandmother promised me a foal of
Trinket's the day I was one-and-twenty, and that's five years ago, and
deuce a one I've got from her yet. You never were at Aussolas? 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, rattling good colts, too, some
of them, but they might as well be donkeys for all the good they are to
me or any one. 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
lapdogs," ended Flurry with disgust.
"Well, what's your plan? Do you want me to make her a bid for one of the
lapdogs?"
"I was thinking," replied Flurry, with great deliberation, "that my
birthday's this week, and maybe I could work a four-year-old colt of
Trinket's she has out of her in honour 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 colt!" He
further told me that Mrs. Knox had been good enough to offer me, with
him, a day's snipe shooting on the celebrated Aussolas bogs, and he
proposed to drive me there the following Monday, if convenient, to
shoot the Aussolas snipe 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 portmanteaus, 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, filled 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
Aussolas clustered darkly round a glittering lake, and all but hid the
grey roofs and pointed gables of Aussolas Castle.
"There's a nice stretch of a demesne 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's said and done, goodness knows how she'll leave it!"
"It strikes me you were lucky to keep her up to her promise about the
colt," said I.
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 Aussolas shrieked on their hinges as they admitted
us, and shut with a clang behind us, in the faces of an old mare and a
couple of young horses, who, foiled in their break for the excitements
of the outer world, turned and galloped defiantly on either side of us.
Flurry's admirable cob 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 on the box with a basket full of stones to peg at
them. Talk of the dickens, here she is herself!"
A short, upright old woman was approaching, preceded by a white woolly
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 Yeates," she said, with an
old-fashioned precision of utterance; "your grandfather was a dancing
partner of mine in old days at the Castle, when he was a handsome young
aide-de-camp 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.
"There, 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 ould
lady!"
The famous Aussolas bogs were as full of snipe as usual, and a good 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 Aussolas 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 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 hobnailed 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'll 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, "I dare say you'll be glad enough to eat
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 round her to the ceiling; her evening dress was
accomplished by means of an additional white shawl, rather dirtier than
its congeners; as I took her in to 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; such cut glass as is not easy to find nowadays; sherry that, as
Flurry subsequently remarked, would burn the shell off an egg; and a
bottle of port, draped in immemorial cobwebs, wan 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 risked 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 no one but herself knew what she meant
by it." It seemed strange that she made no allusion to Trinket's colt 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 if 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 Aussolas 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 furze bush and came out into the moonlight,
swinging its arms like a cabman, and cursing audibly.
"Oh, murdher, oh, murdher, Misther Flurry! What kept ye at all? 'Twould
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, Yeates, 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 the River's 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 colt right enough, but if I
waited for her to send him over to me I'd never see a hair of his tail.
So I 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 fishiness 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 that it was no
trouble at all, quite the contrary, and that, since his grandmother had
given him the colt, 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 Shreelane with Michael this
minute, if I liked.
Of course, I yielded in the end. I told Flurry 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 Slipper
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 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 noise the better.
It's an open shed, and we'll just slip in and coax him out."
Slipper unwound from his waist a halter, and my colleagues glided like
spectres 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 grandmamma'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 us 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 on to 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 colt's hindquarters such chastisement as could be ventured
on.
I have no space to narrate in detail the atrocious difficulties and
disasters of the short cut. How the colt set to work to buck, and went
away across a field, dragging the faithful Slipper, literally
_ventre-a-terre_, after him, while I picked myself in ignominy 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 fulness 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 highroad 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 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 the way across the hills; I walked
fast, and it was barely twelve o'clock when I saw its pink walls and
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 the clash of
Magdalen bells, hard at work on May morning.
The path that I was following led downwards through a larch plantation
to Flurry's back gate. Hot wafts from some hideous cauldron at the other
side of a 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 oilcloth, and a voice, "Hurry, Bridgie,
hurry! There's quality at the door!"
Bridgie, holding a dirty cap on with one hand, presently arrived and
informed me that she believed that 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 furze in it, and
Flurry was standing near one of these with his hands in his pockets,
singularly 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 d----d peelers here
searching the whole place for 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 word 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 Shreelane 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. Ho! ho! 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 are
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 on to 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. No
one knows anything. It's only on spec' the old lady sent the Bobbies
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 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! Hide, hide, for your life!" He caught
me by the shoulder and shoved me down among the furze 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 furze
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 curby, long-backed brute? You promised him to me long ago,
but I wouldn't be bothered with him."
The old lady uttered a laugh of shrill derision. "Is it likely I'd
promise you my best colt? 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 you for 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 colt I wouldn't
believe you! I shall go straight to Major Yeates and ask his advice. I
believe him to be a gentleman, in spite of the company he keeps!"
I writhed deeper into the furze bushes, and thereby discovered a sandy
rabbit run, along which I crawled, with my cap well over my eyes, and
the furze needles stabbing me through my stockings. The ground shelved a
little, promising profounder concealment, but the bushes were very
thick, and I had 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 brake? For a 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 sandpit among the furze had been utilised as a grave; they had
filled him in up to his withers with sand, and a few furze bushes,
artistically disposed round the pit had done the rest. As the depth of
Flurry's guile was revealed, laughter came upon me like a flood; I
gurgled and shook 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 furze, and was now baying
the colt and me with mingled terror and indignation. I addressed him in
a whisper, 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 hind-quarters 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 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 my dog this instant,
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
effect the shock might have on her. I scrambled to my feet and
confronted her.
"Major Yeates!" 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 the unfortunate animal, recognising the
voice of his mistress, uttered a hoarse and lamentable whinny. 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 Yeates, I acquit you, though appearances are
against you. It's clear enough to me you've fallen among 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!"
The Wee Tea Table.
_From "Irish Pastorals."_
BY SHAN BULLOCK (1865--).
Somewhere near the hill-hedge, with their arms bare, skirts tucked up,
and faces peering from the depths of big sunbonnets, Anne Daly and Judy
Brady were gathering the hay into long, narrow rows; one raking this
side of a row, the other that, and both sweetening toil with laughter
and talk. Sometimes Anne leaned on her rake and chattered for a while;
now Judy said a word or two and ended with a titter; again, both bobbed
heads and broke into merriment. I came nearer to them, got ready my
rake, and began on a fresh row.
The talk was of a woman, of her and her absurdities.
"I've come to help you to laugh, Anne," said I. "What friend is this of
yours and Judy's that you're stripping of her character?"