The younger Miss Burke, thus appealed to, replied with a genteel simper, “Reely, Mimi, I’m quite ashamed of the way you and the captain go on. Don’t ask me to interfere with your nonsense. We hope, Miss Sarsfield”—turning a face that was a pale dull replica of her sister’s towards me—“to have the pleasure of calling upon you very soon. But oh, my gracious! there are the dogs and Mr. Dennehy coming! And look at us keeping you delaying here! Good-bye, Miss Sarsfield. I hope you’ll obtain a fox.”
At the cross-roads we found the master of the Moycullen hunt, a big, wild-looking man with a long reddish-grey beard and moustache, seated on an ugly yellow horse with a black stripe, like a donkey’s, down his back.
“How do you do, Mr. Dennehy?” said Willy, as we rode up. “Nice day. This is my cousin, Miss Sarsfield. I hope you’ll show her some sport. Morning, Nugent. How are you, Miss Connie? Do you see the new mount I have?” and Willy forgot his duties as my chaperon, in a lively conversation with Miss O’Neill.
Mr. Dennehy, with what was, I believe, unwonted condescension, began to speak to me.
“I’m delighted to see you out, Miss Sarsfield,” he said in a slow, solemn brogue. “I hope we’ll have a good day for you, and if there’s a fox in Clashmore at all, these little hounds of mine will have him out.”
I did not know much about hounds, but even to inexperienced eyes these appeared to be a very motley collection. Mr. Dennehy saw me look with interest at two strange little animals, somewhat resembling long-legged black-and-tan terriers.
“Well, Miss Sarsfield, those are the two best hounds I have, though they’re ugly creatures enough. And there’s a good hound. Loo, Solomon, good hound! That’s a hound will only spake to game.”
Here Mr. Dennehy produced a battered little horn, and with two or three bleats upon it to collect his hounds, he put the yellow horse at a yawning black ditch that divided the road from a narrow strip of rough ground, perpendicularly from which rose a steep hill covered with laurels. The yellow horse took the ditch and the low stone wall on its farther side with unassuming skill, and he and Mr. Dennehy were presently lost to sight in the wood.
Willy now came up to me with Miss O’Neill and her brother, and I was introduced to the former, a small, fair-haired girl in a smart habit, with brown eyes and rather a high colour. She nodded to me with cheery indifference, and continued her conversation with Willy, leaving me to talk to her brother.
This I found to be a somewhat difficult task. His manner was exceedingly polite, but he appeared to be engrossed in watching the covert, and we finally relapsed into silence. At intervals Mr. Dennehy’s red coat showed between the low close-growing trees as he led his horse through the covert, and we could hear his original method of encouraging his hounds.