We had stopped to discuss the point at the spot whence I had seen Moll emerge, and now walked on past the untidy old flower-garden to the yard.
It was a large square, of which three sides were formed by stables and cowhouses, the house itself being the fourth, and was only redeemed from absolute ugliness by a row of four great horse-chestnut trees, which grew out of a grassy mound in the middle. We arrived in time to surprise the two little fox terriers, Pat and Jinny, in the clandestine enjoyment of a meal with the pig, whose trough was conveniently placed by the scullery door. On seeing us, they at once endeavoured to dissemble their guilty confusion by an unworthy attack on their late entertainer. This histrionic display did not, however, deceive Willy in the least. The dogs were ignominiously called off, and the pig was left master of the situation.
I wondered, as I looked round, if all Irish yards were like this one. Certainly I had never before seen anything like the mixture of prosperity and dilapidation in these solid stone buildings, with their ricketty doors and broken windows. Through the open coach-house door I saw an unusual amount of carriages, foremost among them the landau in which I had driven from Moycullen, with a bucket placed on its coach-box in order to catch a drip from the roof. A donkey and a couple of calves were roaming placidly about, and, though there was evidently no lack of stable-helpers and hangers-on, everything was inconceivably dirty and untidy.
The horses were, however, well housed and cared for. My future mount, “Blackthorn,” was the first to be displayed. He was a big black horse, with an arched back and an ugly head; but he had a look of power and intelligence which provided me with materials for a sufficiently laudatory criticism. In the next box, the bay mare Willy had bought in Cork was pushing her nose through the bars over the door to attract our attention.
“That’s the one kept me from going to meet you at Queenstown,” said Willy, opening the door, and catching the mare by the head. “She’s a nice little thing, but I’ll know better another time than to throw you over for her. Stand, mare!”—as that animal made a vigorous remonstrance at being deprived of her sheet.
“She looks as if she knows how to go,” I said. “What are you going to call her?”
“Don’t you think you might christen her for me?” Willy answered, with an insinuating glance at me from under his black eyelashes. “Just to show you don’t bear malice for my leaving you to cross Cork all alone.”
Notwithstanding the access of brogue with which this was said, there was something in the look which accompanied it at which, to my extreme annoyance, I felt my colour rise.
“Of course I don’t bear malice. I never even expected you to meet me,” I said, turning to stroke the mare’s shoulder. “If you really want a name for her, suppose you call her ‘Alaska.’ That was the steamer I came over in, and they say she’s the fastest on the line.”
Willy received this moderate suggestion with enthusiasm. “If she turns out half as good as she looks,” he said, as we walked out of the yard, “you shall have her for yourself to ride.”