CHAPTER XVII. A MASTER AND MAN
Who owns the smart tandem that trips along so flippantly over the slightly frosted road from the Bagni towards Lucca? What genius, cunning in horseflesh, put that spicy pair together, perfect matches as they are in all but color, for the wheeler is a blood chestnut, and the leader a bright gray, with bone and substance enough for hunters? They have a sort of lithe and wiry action that reminds one of the Hungarian breed, and so, indeed, a certain jaunty carriage of the head, and half wild-looking expression of eye, bespeak them. The high dog-cart, however, is unmistakably English, as well as the harness, with its massive mountings and broad straps. What an air of mingled elegance and solidity pervades the entire! It is, as it were, all that such an equipage can pretend to compass,—lightness, speed, and a dash of sporting significance being its chief characteristics.
It is not necessary to present you to the portly gentleman who holds the ribbons, all encased as he is in box-coats and railway wrappers; you can still distinguish Mr. O'Shea, and as unmistakably recognize his man Joe beside him. The morning is sharp, clear, and frosty, but so perfectly still that the blue smoke of Mr. O'Shea's cigar hangs floating in the air behind him, as the nimble nags spin along at something slightly above thirteen miles an hour. Joe, too, solaces himself with the bland weed, but in more primitive fashion, from a short “dudeen” of native origin: his hat is pressed down firmly over his brows, and his hands, even to the wrists, deeply encased in his pockets, for Joe, be it owned, is less amply supplied with woollen comforts than his master, and feels the morning sharp.
“Now, I call this a very neat turn-out; the sort of thing a man might not be ashamed to tool along through any town in Europe,” said O'Shea.
“You might show it in Sackville Street!” said Joe, proudly.
“Sackville Street?” rejoined O'Shea, in an accent of contemptuous derision. “Is there any use, I wonder, in bringing you all over the world?”
“There is not,” said the other, in his most dogged manner.
“If there was,” continued O'Shea, “you'd know that Dublin had no place amongst the great cities of Europe,—that nobody went there,—none so much as spoke of it. I 'd just as soon talk of Macroom in good society.”
“And why would n't you talk of Macroom? What's the shame in it?” asked the inexorable Joe.