Miss Janey O'Dea was a buxom damsel, who rode in a bright blue habit topped by a tie which she ironed, but too plainly did not wash save on occasions, and a bowler hat which, as Andy put it, just perched above on her nesht of hair.
"But I got around him lasht evenin' that if it was Jamesey Rourke's chat an' I could bate his horse aisy, he'd have the word for me with Janey, an' before Shrove so that we'd settle."
Rourke was a long, lean youth, with shifty eyes and a battered complexion; he was loose of joint and given to wearing the long coats and over-baggy breeches of the horse-coper. His friends said that he was one that knew daylight when he saw it, and his enemies that there was no roguery that he had not a masthery of, exceptin' maybe the little he'd forgotten. He drank and was not attractive.
"Make Rourke do the dacent, Mr. Dillon, to make up for the way ye thrated me, an' I'll say no more."
Darby rubbed his nose thoughtfully; this long, lean youth could do a great deal to spoil fox hunting; there were two coverts on his land, and several others on those of his relations and friends.
"We'll ride over to Rourke's," said Darby to Andy. "I'll see what I can do, Rooney."
Darby crippled down the steps, swinging out more easily on the gravel with his crutch under his arm. The twisted leg was growing so strong that the crutch would soon be discarded for a stick, and Darby was looking forward with a child's zest to throwing it away. They were making him a new boot which would support the foot and help him greatly.
Yet the very flush of partial strength, the brightness of the cool winter's day, brought a sigh quickly on the heels of elation. It was hard to be able to feel young, and yet have all youth's possessions placed well out of reach. He was a mere piece of flotsam cast up on Life's beach, riddled and battered, never to float lightly on the grey-blue salt waters.
Darby clambered on to the back of his pet chestnut. Once in the saddle he was upright, sitting easily, a cripple no longer. Riper plunged lightly and came down to the firm, light touch on the bits and the pressure of a heel. Andy scrambled on to his second mount, a stumpy and dogged roan cob, rejoicing in the stable name of Go Aisy—because "go aisy" he would except under stress of the sharpest spurs—though he had been christened Dobbin.
Rourke's house lay inland, snug in a hollow. There were signs of good farming over the carefully kept fences, the fields free of weeds, the heaps of manure out ready for top-dressing; the house was substantial and the yard clean.