Miss Letitia Mangan was a young woman
of dauntless courage, who, as has been said of the
sect spoken of by detractors as The Black Prozbytarians,
feared neither God nor divil. To this rule there
were, however, in Tishy’s case, two exceptions
admitted, and of these, one was her father, the other
Father Greer. If, therefore, during the days
that followed, when the streets of Cluhir were, as
it were, mined with congratulations that exploded
round her wherever and whenever she went abroad, any
shade of doubt, any tenuous memory of the foxy devil
back in Riverstown assailed her, she made haste to
banish such with the thoughts of Father Greer’s
pontifical approval, and of the warmth of the paternal
sunshine that now shone upon her and her fiance.
Cluhir said that it was a very nice
engagement, and a great match; there were not wanting
those who said also that it was wonderful promotion
for that Tishy Mangan. A tactless ex-charwoman
had even referred to young Mr. Coppinger as being
Miss Mangan’s “up-raiser,” and having
enquired, with incredulity, of Mrs. Mangan ("and this
before a crowd in Egan’s shop, if you please!”
as Mrs. Mangan reported) “Ma’am! are they
in bonds?” she had so fervently thanked God
on hearing that such was the case, that Mrs. Mangan
said she could never enter Egan’s again without
she’d feel they were all laughing at her!
Of the fiance and of his frame
of mind, what shall be said? He, at all events,
said as little to himself as was possible, but, in
the circumstances, it was no more than could be expected
that a lively fancy would not wholly be denied, and
that occasional vagrant visions would present themselves
uninvited. He pictured to himself a meeting with
Christian, all in the clouds, of course; he told himself
he had no wish to meet her, nor, if he did, was he
at all likely to discuss the matter with her; still
he thought that he would rather enjoy telling her
that he had acknowledged his engagement with Tishy,
to Tishy’s father, in the very same words in
which she, Christian, had broken hers with him.
They had somehow stuck in his head. He would
tell her that. He had certainly been rather screwed
(but that there would be no necessity to mention);
it was just a curious chance that he should have used
them. He dramatised the interview in his mind.
It would serve Christian right; it would be a rather
jolly instance of retributive justice only
he wished that the Christian whom he visualised was
not always that shadowed, ethereal Christian whom he
had painted, with, as Rossetti said, the wonder not
yet quite gone from that still look of hers.
Bother Rossetti, anyway! What did it matter what
he said? The main point was what Larry himself
had said, and the result was that he was engaged to
Tishy Mangan, solidly and seriously.
There was nothing fatiguingly ethereal
about Tishy anyhow; she was just about as good-looking
a girl as he had ever met in his life. He would
take her to Paris some day, and would see what his
pals would say to her. He thought there wouldn’t
be two opinions about her there. He and she would
travel about a bit. He didn’t feel as if
he would care about settling down at Coppinger’s
Court at once. Anyhow he would have to fix up
about Aunt Freddy. She hadn’t written him
much of a letter about his engagement; she seemed
to like it just about as well as she had liked his
excursion into politics.
“Of course Tishy’s a Papist!”
he thought, mockingly, accounting to himself for the
chill of the congratulations. “That’s
enough for Aunt Freddy! But, hang it all, so
am I! She ought to see how suitable it is!
I’d like to lay on Father Greer to talk to her!”
There is no need to attempt to record
in detail the comments of the wider circle of Larry’s
acquaintances, but it may be said that his friends
of all ranks had one point in common, a sincere admiration
for Dr. Mangan. Bill Kirby, who had supported
him politically, now fell away from him. Judith
had not refrained from admitting him to the secret
which she had extracted from her younger sister, and
Bill’s references to young Mr. Coppinger and
to Doctor, Mrs., and Miss Mangan, would have been
very helpful to those ladies, of whom there were many,
who took the matter to heart.
The unpopularity of the engagement
was considerably aggravated by the extreme magnificence
of the furs, presented by the bridegroom elect to
his fiancee, and worn by her at a meet of the
hounds, which she attended in her father’s motor.
It might have been some consolation
to the neighbourhood had it known that those grey
furs had been of the nature of a peace-offering, after
a rather acute difference of opinion on that point
of settling down at Coppinger’s Court as opposed
to going abroad. Larry had shelved it for the
present, and had, as he told himself, made good by
the dint of the furs. That had come out all right,
but now, Larry, mounted on Joker, and led in chains
at Tishy’s motor-wheel, found that among his
former allies of the hunt things were not as they
once had been, and was not pleased. Singularly
enough, Judith alone was faithful found among the
faithless. She declared that Larry had been brutally
and idiotically treated, and that this engagement
was the result, and justified all that she had been
saying for many past ages. When Larry appeared
at the Meet, his scalp-lock prominent among Miss Mangan’s
furs, Judith alone of his former intimates met him
with cordiality, condoled with him over his election
defeat with sympathy, and congratulated him on his
engagement with decorum.
“I felt it was only decent,”
she said later, to the friend to whom she complacently
recounted her effort, “after he had been kicked
downstairs by Papa, and booted out of the house by
Christian, quite without justification. I congratulated
him warmly! I absolutely rode up to the gorgeous
Tishy and said civil things there too!”
“It was perfectly angelic of you!” said
the friend.
“Quite the reverse, my dear!”
said Judith, proudly. “But you see Bill
has the hounds, and anyhow, I like to prepare for all
contingencies!”
For the rest, a chilly neutrality
reigned at the Meet. Larry was finding his official
position of captive decidedly irksome. He wished
that Tishy would not call him by his name every time
she spoke to him; that she would not speak so loud;
that this eternal jog to the covert would end before
the Day of Judgment; finally, that he had stayed at
home. He saw the red-headed Cloherty, and, failing
more congenial society, joined him. But the red-headed
Cloherty was crosser than any of them, and what the
devil was it to him what Larry’s politics or
his matrimonial intentions were? Confound Cloherty,
anyway! He was a sufficiently common object of
the Cluhir scene and infernally common
at that. Hardly a day that you didn’t meet
him loafing about the town. Larry hadn’t
the smallest wish to talk to Cloherty. When, some
brief time before the Day of Judgment, they reached
the covert, it was drawn blank, and Bill Kirby took
quite a month to get the hounds out. Hunting
rabbits, of course. Larry never knew them so out
of hand. And then another rotten jog along the
road to the next draw. Why on earth couldn’t
Bill get into the country and let them have a school
at least, and get away from these damned motors?
He was hoarse from shouting replies to Tishy’s
airy nothings, all winged with his name, and all,
he felt, addressed as much to the public as to him.
She looked stunning, of course, and he was glad he
had given her those furs, but three miles trying to
keep a suspicious fool of a horse up to the elbow
of a car roaring along at half speed, was !
It matters not what Larry thought
it was, the point is that Tishy thought it wasn’t,
and, suddenly realising his views, turned in one of
those instantaneous furies of hers, to the cavalier
at the other elbow of the car, who happened to be
the red-headed Cloherty.
Larry, neglected, fell back, and presently
found himself beside an old friend, Father David Hogan,
the priest of Riverstown. It was nearly ten years
since the great days of Father David’s black
mare; she had passed into legend, and Father David,
something heavier than he was but no less keen, now
followed hounds in more leisurely fashion on the back
of the black mare’s son, a portly and careful
bay cob.
“I’m very pleased to see
you out, Mr. Coppinger,” Father David began,
the kindly little blue eyes twinkling deep in his red
face, confirming the assurance imparted by his extensive
smile, that his friendship was still unshaken, “You’ve
been missing some nice hunts.”
“I’ve been too hard worked
to get out, Father,” apologised Larry.
“Ah, otherwise engaged, maybe?”
said Father David, with a facetious stress on the
word engaged. “I was greatly put out over
the election,” he continued. “Tell
me now, why didn’t the Unionists support you?
I noticed that our worthy M.F.H. came to record his
vote, but your cousin, the late M.F.H., was, as they
say, conspicuous by his absence.”
“He’s quite an invalid now,” said
Larry shortly.
“Indeed? Indeed? And
is that the case? I’m grieved to hear it!”
Father David pressed the stout cob nearer to Joker,
and murmured very confidentially. “I’ve
known you since your boyhood I may say, Mr. Coppinger,
and you will not consider me impertinent speaking to
you. But could you tell me is it a fact what
I’m ’hearing about the good Major you,
no doubt, have prior information
“I think that’s very unlikely,”
said Larry, sulkily, flushing as he spoke.
Father David eyed Larry cautiously,
and began to wonder if something he had been told
not long since were true.
In Ireland, it may confidently be
said, all things are known to the poor people, and
a brief consideration of this position will show,
that this being so, there is but little that is unknown
to the Church.
“Well, Mr. Coppinger,”
Father Hogan resumed, “I’m told only
told, mind you that the Major had Mount
Music and the demesne advertised on the English papers
“Good God!” exclaimed
Larry, startled out of his sulk; “to sell?”
Father David, like other gentlemen
of his age and cloth, had the Baboo’s predilection
for a well-worn quotation. “As to that I
cannot say,” he said portentously. “’’Tis
whispered in Heaven, ’tis muttered in Hell’
that the encumbrances are very heavy mortgages
and debts . The good Major had a long
family, Mr. Coppinger; fine, dashing young min they
are too, but we all know that expenses do not tend
to diminish as families grow up! Children may
be a heritage that comes from the Lord, but unless
other heritages accompany them !” Father
David put his head on one side, and, beaming at Larry,
laid his little professional joke, so to speak, at
his feet.
“Well, well,” he resumed,
“‘What business is it of yours?’
says you!”
“Not at all, Father,”
said Larry, still shaken by what he had heard.
“Thank you for speaking to me it’s
the first I’ve heard of it.”
The procession of the hunt halted,
the hounds left the road by the direct method of a
high stone “gap,” and Father David and
the bay cob melted away to betake themselves to those
secret equivalent routes known to those who have come
to years of discretion in the hunting-field.
The second draw seemed at first as
if it were to be no more fortunate than its predecessor.
The covert was a patch of scrubby woodland at a little
distance below the road, at the head of one of the
long deep glens that were the terrors of the Broadwater
country. The wind blew from the west, across
the wide cleft of Gloun Kieraun, and the hounds were
thrown into the wood in which the upper end of the
glen was masked, and were encouraged to work downwards.
An unaccustomed wave of misanthropy had assailed Larry,
and instead of following with the crowd the course
of the hounds, he moved onwards along the road, scarcely
considering where he was going. He was thinking
with consternation of what Father Hogan had told him.
Larry was not of those who nurse their wrath to keep
it warm, and the thought of Dick’s misfortunes
swept away the recollection of his insults. Joker
had, of his own initiative, soon turned aside from
the high road into a grassy lane, and he moved along
it in the relentless manner in which many horses will
decline to stand still while Larry, deep in thought,
allowed the reins to lie on the horse’s neck
while he lit a cigarette and tried to fix in his memory
Father David’s exact words. He thought
he would talk to Dr. Mangan about it. Things might
be better than the old priest thought. From the
thought of the doctor his mind passed on to that of
his wedding. Was it possible that he was to be
married next week? A distinct physical drop of
the heart accompanied the realisation. “Nerves!”
he told himself, and hurried on to reflect upon his
bride. She certainly looked stunning in those
grey furs; he was glad he had given them to her; she
knocked spots off any other girl in the country.
He impressed this thought on his mind. And she
had sung jolly well last night, and had accompanied
him quite decently. They would get on all right
once they were married. She had been a bit edgey
these last few days, but some under-self
warned him off the pursuit of this topic. He
began to formulate excuses for her that inculpated
himself. Larry “came of a gentle kind,”
and had the generous temper that finds it easier to
bear than to ascribe blame.
A note of the horn was wafted sweetly
across the glen, and he came to the surface of his
thoughts. By Jove! Where had Joker got him
to? The lane they had wandered down ran parallel
with Gloun Kieraun, and a gap in the fence on his
left made him aware that he was now moving abreast
with the hunt, but was divided from his fellows by
the chasm of the glen.
A second touch of the horn came; Larry
checked his horse; Bill Kirby had seen him and was
shouting to him.
“Head him back if he breaks
your side! I want him his way!”
All jolly fine for old Bill, but where
did young Mr. Coppinger come in? He held up his
hand to show he had heard, and stood still.
One hound spoke, sharply, in the depths
of the woody glen. Another and another joined
in. In a moment, the echoing glen was full of
voices; it was impossible to tell what was happening.
A couple and a half emerged on the farther side in
the heather above the trees, working a line upwards,
and speaking to it as they went. Larry saw the
Master force his horse down near them, and heard him
cheering them and doubling his horn. Another
couple joined them, and Larry swore heartily.
Here he was on the wrong side, and the fox away to
the east! The cry redoubled; it sounded as if
twice the pack were engaged, yet the two and a half
couple were not being reinforced. By some chance
Larry withdrew his eyes from them, and just then, about
a hundred yards further on, on his side of the glen,
something like a brown feather floated up into view.
“A second fox, by the living
Jingo!” whispered Larry, thrilling to that sight
that never fails to thrill.
He held up his hat. Bill saw
the signal, and acknowledged it by redoubled efforts
to get the hounds away with the fox that had broken
to the east. The chorus of sound grew and grew,
and as Joker and his rider, tense with an equal excitement,
listened, it became plain that the cry was drawing
nearer to them. Joker’s sensitive ears were
twitching, his heart thumped; the storm of sound was
just below them now, and then, hound by hound, Larry
counted them as they came, fourteen couples struggled
up over the lip of the glen where that brown feather
had so lightly lifted into view, and drove ahead, on
the way it had gone, with a rush and a cry that Larry
could no more have checked than he could have stemmed
and driven back the wild stream in the glen below.
It may be said at once that he made
no such futile effort. With a single glance at
the frenzied party on the farther side, already galloping
distractedly for a possible pass lower down the glen,
Larry released his feelings in a maniac howl to the
fleeting pack, and let Joker who had already
stood up on his hind legs twice, in legitimate protest follow
them.
The fox, having begun by running west,
away from the glen, had then turned right-handed,
and was heading north over the mountain whose lower
slopes were cleft by Gloun Kieraun. The scent
served well; the gurgling music with now and then
a sharper note, like a fife among flutes and ’cellos,
flowed on, and Larry and Joker, two happy creatures,
the world forgetting (though by no means by their world
forgot) galloped and rejoiced.
The little mountain sheep with their
black, speckled faces sprang before them, quick as
rabbits; green plover flopped up from the grassy places,
wheeling and squealing; a woodcock whirred out of a
furze bush so near Larry that he could have struck
it down with his crop. Long-legged mountain hares
fled right and left of the driving pack, unheeded.
Great spaces of the mountain were bare of fences, but
in those tracts where the grass had mastered the heather,
it was “striped” with broad banks, sound,
and springy, and bound, as with wire, by the heather
roots. To feel Joker quicken his big stride and
leap at the banks out of his gallop, to realise the
perfect precision of his method, as he changed feet
and flicked off into the next field, to race him at
the walls of smooth round stones, weathered in the
long centuries, and grey with lichen, and to know
that if they were three times their height Joker would
have sailed over them with the same ease whatever
might have been Larry’s burden of care, it would
have fallen from him, forgotten, in the pure glory
of that ride.
The hounds ran hard for nearly a half
hour before they checked, and Larry bethought him
of those unfortunates between whom and himself that
great gulf had been fixed. Apparently they had
not found, any more than the rich man in the parable,
a means of crossing it. He was high above the
valley; the splendid landscape lay in broad undulating
ribbons of brown and green and amethyst and blue, with
the Broadwater dividing it a silver belt,
with a band of green on its either side; but within
the great circle that was spread beneath his eyes were
none of those toiling specks that tell of a Hunt in
labour. The check was brief; the hurrying hounds,
busy as ants, cast themselves right and left forward,
combining in fussy groups, that would suddenly disintegrate
as if by an access of centrifugal force; crowding each
other jealously along the top of a bank, flopping into
the patches of bog, snuffing greedily at the orange
stems of the bracken. Soon, reiterated squeals
from a leading lady told that the clue was found again,
and they began to run, hard as before, but downwards
this time, as though the fox despaired of finding
refuge among the high places of heather and rock.
Larry had lost his bearings; his eyes on the hounds,
his thoughts on his horse, he had not even tried to
place himself. But as the hounds ran on, south
and west, he began to recognise familiar features.
Away there to the south, surely were the trees of
Coppinger’s Court; could it be the Mount Music
earths for which the fox was heading? The hounds
were running now down hill, through crisp, upland
meadows. Farmhouses began to reappear, thatched
and whitewashed, tucked snugly in among low bunches
of trees; fences were changing in character; the amber
streams ran less fiercely, and found time to loiter
in pools and quiet reaches. The hounds had begun
to hunt more slowly, and Larry looked at his watch.
“Forty-five minutes since they
left the glen! Bill’s just about mad enough
for the asylum by this time!” he thought “If
we could only catch this lad!”
But this particular “lad”
was not to gratify young Mr. Coppinger by dying, classically,
in the open, “on the top of the ground.”
Five minutes after Larry had taken the time he took
it again, this time at the mouth of one of many holes
in a sandpit, wherein, as was announced by a country
boy, “the lad” had saved himself, with
“the dogs snapping at his tail.”
“He earned it well,” said
Larry, ungrudgingly, even though the mask that was
to have hung so carelessly from his saddle was panting
deep and safe in the sandpit, listening warily for
a possible eviction notice from the hunt-terrier (left,
alas hunting rabbits in the heart of Gloun Kieraun)
thanking its own wits for the recollection of the
city of refuge.
“Ye’re on the lands of
Finnahy now,” said the boy. “Folly
on that way down, and ye’ll meet the road.
That’s the near way.”
“Come on, you, and show it to me,” said
Larry.
Amazing were the ramifications of
the near way. The bed of a stream had a share,
and a well-trodden path along the wide top of a bank;
a brace of wheels had to be trundled out of one gap,
a toothless harrow dragged from another. Then
they were on heather again.
“Carry on now,” said the guide, “and
ye’ll meet a pat
Larry needed no more leading; he was
on the hill above Mount Music, Cnocan an Ceoil Sidhe,
and the “pat” that was to meet him was
the narrow track that led by the Druid Stone and the
Well of the Fairies.
The December afternoon was darkening
to its close; the sun had made its farewell appearance,
coming forth for a moment, a half-circle of clear
flame, above the long grey cloud that barred the head
of the valley. Larry rode past the great grey
stone, and hardly turned his eyes toward it.
The hounds, trooping meekly round his horse, went
aside to the well, and drank long and thirstily.
He did not wait for them. He put from his mind
the memory of the last time he had seen from that
hill-side the sun go down. Rather he set his thoughts,
resolutely, on that other last time, in the library
of Mount Music. And he called up Tishy’s
brilliant face, framed in the furs that he had given
her, that it might help him to drive away other memories.
He was very fond of Tishy, he told himself; anyway,
he was booked to marry her next week.