The scene is an Irish Point-to-Point meeting.
The course lies along a shallow valley, bounded on the north by a wall of
cloudy blue mountains.
At each jump stands a group of spectators; the difficulty or danger of an
obstacle may be measured by the number of spectators who stand about it,
recounting tales of past accidents and hoping cheerfully for the future.
Motor cars, side-cars, waggonettes, pony-traps and ass-carts are drawn up
anyhow round a clump of whitewashed farm buildings in the background.
Blanketed hunters are having their legs rubbed or being led up and down by
grooms. Comes a broken-winded tootle on a coach-horn and the black-and-
scarlet drag of the local garrison trundles into view. The unsophisticated
gun-horses in the lead shy violently at the flapping canvas of an
orange-stall and swerve to the left into a roulette-booth presided over by
a vociferous ancient in a tattered overcoat and blue spectacles. The
gamblers scatter like flushed partridges and the ancient bites the turf
beneath his upturned board amid a shower of silver coins. The leaders,
scared by the animated table, and the blood-curdling invocations and
wildly-waving arms and legs of the fallen croupier, shy violently in the
opposite direction and disappear into the refreshment-tent, whence issue
the crash of crockery and the shrieks of the attendant Hebes. (Lieut.-
Commander KENWORTHY should have some questions to pop about this at
Westminster when next the Irish Question comes up.)
The bookmakers are perched a-top of a grassy knoll which overlooks the
whole course, and around them surges the crowd.
* * * * *
_Scarecrow (in somebody's cast-off dinner-jacket and somebody else's
abandoned hunting breeches.)_ Kyard of the races! Kyard of the races!
_Farmer._ Here y' are. How much?
_Scarecrow._ Wan shillin'-an'-sixpence, Sorr.
_Farmer._ There's "Price wan shillin'" printed on ut, ye blagyard.
_Scarecrow._ The sixpence is for the Government's little Intertainmints
Tax, Sorr.
_Farmer._ Oh, go to the divil!
_Scarecrow._ Shure an' I will if yer honour'll give me a letther of
inthroduction. We'll call ut a shillin', thin, and I'll sthand the loss
mesilf.
[_Farmer parts with the price and the Scarecrow dodges swiftly into the
crowd. The Farmer peruses the card and frowns in a puzzled way; then the
date catches his eye and he curses and tears the list to pieces._
_Farmer._ Drat take the little scut; he's sold me last year's kyard!
_Cattle-Dealer (shouting)._ Hi, sthop him there!
_Farmer._ Whist, let him go. Let him trap some others first the way I'll
not be the only mug on the market this day.
_Trickster (setting up his table and jerking his cards about)._ I'm afther
losin' a pony to thim robbers beyant, but, as Pierpont Rockafeller said to
Jawn D. Morgan, "business is business, an' if ye don't speculate ye won't
accumulate." Spot the dame and my money's yours; spot the blank and yours
is mine. "The quickness of the hand deceives the eye, or vicy-versy," as
Lord Carnegie remarked to Andrew Rothschild. Walk up, walk up, my sporty
gintlemen and thry yer luck wid the owld firm.
_Farmer._ There go the harses down to the post. Who's that leadin' on the
black?
_Dealer._ Young Misther Darley, no less. 'Tis a great fella for all kinds
of divarsion he is, the same. I was beyant to Darleystown this week past
and found him fightin' a main o'cocks before the fire in his grandmother's
drawin'-room. Herself riz up off her bed and gave the two of us the father
and mother of a dhrubbin' wid her crutch, an' she desthroyed wid the gout
an' all.
_Farmer._ 'Tis herself has the great heart. Hey! that's never Clancy goin'
down on the owld foxey mare? Faith, it's sorra a ha'porth cud she course or
lep these fifteen years.
_Dealer._ Lep, is ut? Shure she'll spring out like a birrd an' fear no foe
by dint of the two bottles of potheen she has taken an' the couple o' lads
Clancy has stationed at ivvery jump to let a roar at her an' hearthen her
wid the sthroke of an ash-plant as she comes at ut.
_First Country Boy._ Arrah, they're off, they're away!
_Second Country Boy._ Thin let us down to the big double, avic, and be the
grace of God we'll see a corpse.
_Girl in Brown (hopping from one foot to the other)._ Can you see Freddy,
Uncle George? Is he in front? I'm sure he is. He hasn't fallen, has he? He
won't fall, will he? I'm sure he will. I do hope he'll win; I _know_ he
won't. The jumps look frightful, and I'm certain he'll break his darling
neck. Oh, where _is_ he, Uncle George?
_Uncle George._ Here, take my field-glasses.
_Girl in Brown._ I can't see, I can't see.
_Uncle George (drily)._ Try looking through them the other way round.
_Beshawled Crone (towing an aged beggar-man who wears a framed placard
reminding the public that "charity covers a multitude of sins," and
announcing that the bearer is not only "teetotally" deaf and dumb, but also
blind, barmy and partially paralysed)._ May God's blessin' and the
blessin's of all the howly Saints an' Martyrs be on ye, and would ye spare
a little copper for a poor owld sthricken crature an' I'll pray for ye this
night an' ivvery night of me life?
_Girl in Brown._ Give her a shilling, Uncle George, and tell her to pray
for Freddy _now_.
[Uncle George _does the needful_.
_Beggar-man (miraculously recovering his speech)._ Whist! Was that a
shillin' he gave ye? That makes ten ye have now, thin. Bun like a hare an'
put ut on Acrobat at the best ye can get.
_Farmer._ Clancy leads be a length.
_Dealer._ Thin 'tis a hardy rider will dare pass the owld foxey mare now,
for she'd reach out an' chew the leg off him, she's that jealous.
_Farmer._ Woof! Pat Maguire is into the wather head-first an' dhrinkin' a
bellyful, I'll warrant--which same will be a new sensation for him.
_Dealer._ It will indeed. 'Tis a wonder he wouldn't send a lad round the
course before him givin' the ditches a dash from a pocket-flask the way
he'd be in his iliment should he take a toss--the thirsty poor fella!
_Farmer._ The foxey mare is down on her nose an' Clancy throwing somersets
all down the course. Acrobat has ut.
_Dealer._ He has not. He is all bet up. He's rollin' like a Wexford
pig-boat. Beau Brocade has the legs of him.
_Girl in Brown (jumping up and down)._ Beau Brocade! Beau Brocade! Oh,
Freddy darling!
_Beggar-man (miraculously recovering his sight)._ Acrobat! Put the whip to
him, ye lazy varmint! Acrobat! Och, wirra, wirra!
_Dealer._ Beau Brocade has him cot. He is on his quarther. He is on his
shoulder. They are neck and neck. He has him bet. Huroosh!
_Farmer._ What are you hurooshin' for--you with five poun' on Acrobat?
_Dealer (crestfallen)._ Och, dang it, I was forgettin'.
_Girl in Brown (dancing and clapping her hands)._ Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!
_Beggar-man._ ***!!! ***!!!
[_Local brass band, throned in a dilapidated waggonette, explodes into the
opening strains of "Garryowen."_