“And what have you for me?” said the Knight; “for I scarcely know any of my old friends here.”
“There's the mouse-colored cob——”
“No, no,” said the Knight, laughing; “I want to keep my place, Bob. You must give me something better than that.”
“Faith, an' your honor might have worse; but if it's for riding you are, take Black Peter, and you 'll never find the fence too big, or the ground too heavy for him. I was going to give him to the English lord; I suppose, after all, he 'll be better pleased with the cob.”
“Well, then, Peter for me. And now let's see what Mr. Lionel has to ride.”
“There she is, and a beauty!” said Bob, as, with a dexterous jerk, he chucked a sheet off her haunches, and displayed the shining flanks and splendid proportions of a thoroughbred mare. “That's Cushleen,” said he, as he fixed his eyes on the Knight's face to enjoy the reflection of his own delight. “That's the darlin' can do it!—a child can hould her, but it takes a man to sit on her back—racing speed over a flat, and a jump!—'t is more like the bound of a football than anything else.”
“She has the eye of a hot one, Bob.”
“And why would n't she? But she knows when to be so. Let her take her place at the head of the whole field, with a light finger to guide and a stout heart to direct her, and she's a kitten; but the divil a tiger was ever as fierce if another passes her, or a cowardly hand would try to hold her back. And there 's a nate tool, that black horse,—that 's for another of the English gentlemen. Master Lionel calls him Sir Harry. They tell me he 's a fine rider, and has a pack of hounds himself in his own place, and I am mistaken if he has the baste in his stable will give him a betther day's sport. The chestnut here is for Miss Helen, for she's coming to see them throw off, and it'll be a fine sight; we 'll be thirty-six out of your honor's stables, Mr. Conolly is bringing nine more, and all the Martins, and the Lynches, and Dalys, and Mr. Hickman O'Reilly and his son,—though, to be sure, they won't do much for the honor of ould Ireland.”
The Knight turned away laughing, and re-entered the house.
Early as it yet was, the inmates of the abbey were stirring, and a great breakfast, laid for above thirty, was prepared in the library, for the supper-tables occupied the dining-rooms, and the débris of the magnificent entertainment of the night before still lingered there. Two cheerful fires blazed on the ample hearths, and threw a mellow lustre over that spacious room, where old Tate now busied himself in those little harmless duties he fancied indispensable to the Knight's comfort, for the poor fellow, on hearing of his master's return, had once more resumed his office.