“That's my boy. Sure I knew you didn't forget me;” and he stooped over and patted the poor beast upon the head.
“The top of the morning to you, Mister Lawler,” cried out a voice straight over his head—and at the same instant a strange-looking face was protruded from a little one-paned window of a hay loft—“'tis early you are to-day.”
“Ah, Kerry, how are you, my man? I was taking a look at Rory here.”
“Faix, he's a poor sight now,” responded the other with a sigh; “but he wasn't so once. I mind the time he could lead the pack over Cubber-na-creena mountain, and not a dog but himself catch the scent, after a hard frost and a north wind. I never knew him wrong. His tongue was as true as the priest's—sorra he in it.”
A low whine from the poor old beast seemed to acknowledge the praise bestowed upon him; and Kerry continued—
“It's truth I'm telling; and if it wasn't, it's just himself would contradict me.—Tallyho! Rory—tallyho! my ould boy;” and both man and dog joined in a deep-toned cry together.
The old walls sent back the echoes, and for some seconds the sounds floated through the still air of the morning.
Lanty listened with animated features and lit-up eyes to notes which so often had stirred the strongest cords of his heart, and then suddenly, as if recalling his thoughts to their former channel, cried out—
“Come down, Kerry, my man—come down here, and unlock the door of the stable. I must be early on the road this morning.”
Kerry O'Leary—for so was he called, to distinguish him from those of the name in the adjoining county—soon made his appearance in the court-yard beneath. His toilet was a hasty one, consisting merely of a pair of worn corduroy small clothes and an old blue frock, with faded scarlet collar and cuffs, which, for convenience, he wore on the present occasion buttoned at the neck, and without inserting his arms in the sleeves, leaving these appendages to float loosely at his side. His legs and feet were bare, as was his head, save what covering it derived from a thick fell of strong black hair that hung down on every side like an ill-made thatch.