And yet when Pat slapped the animal on the flank and spoke a word or two to it the horse whinnied and pricked up its ears and looked intelligently out of its only seeing eye, and I judged that it would not be cruelty to animals to take it.
But when I saw the harness, which was eked out by strings and ropes, when I saw that the cart was literally a dirt cart and that we would have to sit in hay, I decided that we would use the horse only to get us down there
“Th’ ould Scut.”
and that I would then hire a livery team to bring Cherry up and would pay Pat to go back in it and get his horse.
“You’re sure the horse will be able to pull us down?” said I to Pat.
“Hell, yes,” said he, genially, looking at Ethel as he spoke. “Sure ’tis gentle as a kitten. Ther’ wife there’d make a pet of um if she had him. Not afred of the trolley caars. Egorry when he was a colt there was not wan finer annywhere. He’d be a hell of a fine harse now, sorr, on’y fer a shlight weakness in his back. He’s the bye’ll carry you down on time. Don’t be afraid of the whip, on’y let him see it before you use it an’ thin he’ll know what to expect.”
All the time he was talking he was harnessing the “scut,” as he chose to designate it, and I, to save time, ran the cart out.
“Don’t you want to go back, Ethel?”
“No, it’ll be loads of fun to go down this way,” laughed Ethel, and immediately Pat gave her an encouraging nod of the head and said, “Me leddy, take life as it comes. It’s a dam site betther’n flndin’ fault.”