“Do you mind trying, Miss Sarsfield?” demanded Mr. O’Neill.
“Whatever Willy likes,” I said.
“Oh, all right,” said Willy. “Fire away, but you’ll have to pay for the funeral, Nugent.”
We had now reached the foot of the hill, and we rode rapidly along the verge of the bog for a short distance till we came to where an old fence traversed it in a north-easterly direction.
“Here’s the place. If we can get along the top of this, we shall just hit off their line,” Mr. O’Neill said. He went first, and the horses picked their way along the top of the bank like cats, though the sides crumbled under their feet, and sometimes the whole structure tottered as if it were going to collapse into the deep dykes on either side. At last it broke sharp off, at a pool of black mire. Our guide dismounted and jumped down into the bog, pulling his horse after him, and we slowly dragged our way through the heavy ground to the farther side of the bog.
Here we were confronted by the most formidable obstacle we had yet come to. It consisted of a low, soft-looking bank, with an immense boggy ditch beyond it.
“We’ve got to try it, I suppose,” said Willy, “but it’s a thundering big jump, and there’s a deuced bad landing beyond the water.”
He and Mr. O’Neill remounted, and the former put his horse at the place. The bay’s hoofs sank deep in the bank, but he took a spring that landed him safely on the opposite side on comparatively firm ground. My turn came next.
“Whip him over it!” exclaimed Willy.
I did so as well as I was able, but the treacherous ground broke under Blackthorn’s feet, and he all but floundered back into the ditch as he landed.