“Well, good-bye. I must try and get on home, before I fall off;” and as he gave the limping brown his head, the pair moved painfully away.
It was many a day before Ulick Doran wanted his hat. He had had a bad fall—broken his arm, and two of his ribs; it was a miracle how he had ever mounted his hunter and ridden home. The doctors agreed that he was a boy of incredible fortitude and resolution, and as a man, he would be bound to go far.
Ulick explained to his family the scene of the accident, and how Foley’s little girl had come to his assistance.
“Only for her I suppose I might have lain there a week. She is a wonderful child, and has her head screwed on the right way. I daresay you know her?” he added, turning to his mother.
“Oh, yes, the little foxy thing,” she rejoined indifferently.
“She’s uncommonly plucky and handy,” urged her son.
“I hope you did not praise her to her face! She is spoiled enough as it is,” declared Mrs. Doran. “Being the only child Katty ever reared, they think the world does not hold her equal. Katty dresses her almost like a lady!—gets her shoes from Cork, and knits her long black stockings, just the same as the Rectory children wear. It’s a sin to be giving the brat a taste for dress. For my part I think she is just a flighty, impudent little monkey, and whenever I come across her I take right good care to give her a setting down.”
Little Mary often recalled the day of the hunt, and one event in her life. She had of course frequently related the incident to her mother and father, and even escorted them to the field, and shown them the very marks of the horse’s hoofs on the bank, and explained how he fell, and where Mr. Ulick lay, as if stone dead.
“Faix, if it had been the other,” muttered Pat to his wife, “he’d have been no great loss. But poor Mr. Ulick, thank God he was spared; he is the very spit of his father, the old Colonel.”
As soon as he was convalescent, Ulick Doran joined the regiment to which he had been gazetted, and was not seen again at Kilmoran for some years.