"We'll have time to run through the Rhododendron Wood before lunch," he said, looking at his watch. "Here! John Kane!" He put two fingers in his mouth and projected a whistle that cleft my head like a scimitar.
John Kane emerged, nymph-like, from a laurel bush in our immediate vicinity.
"'Tis only lost time to be beating them rosydandhrums, Master Flurry," he said volubly, "there wasn't a bird in that bit o' wood this winter. Not a week passes but I'm in it, making up the bounds fence against the cattle, and I never seen a one!"
"You might be more apt to be looking out for a rabbit than a cock, John," said Flurry expressionlessly, "but isn't it down in the lower paddocks you have the cattle and the young horses this hard weather?"
"Oh it is, sir, it is, of course, but indeed it's hard for me to know where they are, with the Misthress telling this one and that one to put them in their choice place. Sure she dhrives me to and fro in my mind till I do have a headache from her!"
A dull rumble came to us across the marsh, and, as if Mrs. Knox had been summoned by her henchman's accusation, there laboured into view on the road that skirted the marsh a long and dilapidated equipage, silhouetted, with its solitary occupant, against the dull shine of the frozen lake.
"Tally-ho! Here comes the curry for you, Major! You'll have to eat it I tell you!" He paused, "I'm dashed if she hasn't got Sullivan's pony! Well, she'd steal the horns off a cow!"
"I'M DASHED IF SHE HASN'T GOT SULLIVAN'S PONY"