"Your Honour's welcome, Major Yeates," she said with a curtsey. A door banged at the back of the cottage. "That was a poor man from across the water that came apologisin' to me for dhrawin' me name down in a little disagreement that he had about a settin' o' goose eggs."
I suppose that it was contrition that caused the apologist to stumble heavily as he came round the corner of the house, and departed at a tangent through an opening in the fuchsia hedge. Feeling that comment on the incident was too delicate a matter for my capacities, I introduced Maxwell and his aspirations to the lady of the house. Any qualms that I might have had as to how to dispose of him while I was shooting were set at rest by Mrs. Brickley's instant grasp of the situation. I regret to say that I can neither transcribe nor translate the rolling periods in which my brother-in-law addressed himself to her. I have reason to believe that he apostrophised her as "O worthy woman of cows!" invoking upon her and her household a comprehensive and classic blessing, dating from the time of Cuchulain.
Mrs. Brickley received it without a perceptible stagger, and in the course of the next few minutes, Miss Bridget Brickley (who, it may be remembered, had but recently renounced the office of kitchenmaid in my house) emerged, beautifully dressed, from the cottage, and was despatched, at full speed, to summon Shemus Ruadth, the poet, as well as one or two of "the neighbours" reputed to speak Irish of the purest kind. If to make a guest feel himself to be the one person in the world whose welfare is of any importance is the aim of hostesses, they can study the art in its perfection under the smoky rafters of Irish cabins. If it is insincere, it is equally to be respected; it is often amiable to be insincere.
My own share of the day's enjoyment opened plausibly enough, though not, possibly, as cloudlessly as Maxwell's. Attended by Maria, Peter Cadogan, and the Widower, and by a smell of whisky that floated to me on the chill breeze when the Widower was to windward, I set forth, having—as I fatuously imagined—disposed of Minx and of her intention to join the shooting-party, by tying a stout piece of cord to her collar, and placing its other end in my brother-in-law's hand. I had, by Flurry's advice, postponed the shooting of the lake till the last thing before leaving the island, and turning my back upon it, I tramped inland along half-thawed marshes in search of snipe, and crept behind walls after plover, whose elusive whistling was always two fields ahead. After an unfruitful hour or so the entertainment began to drag, and another plan of campaign seemed advisable: I made a cache of my retinue behind a rock, one of the many rocks that stood like fossilised mammoths upon the ragged hill slopes, and, with Maria at my heels, accomplished a long and laborious detour. At length, through the crannies of a wall, I perceived just within shot a stand of plover, hopping, gobbling, squealing, quite unaware of my proximity. I cautiously laid my gun on the top of the wall. As I cocked it, a white form appeared on a fence behind the birds, poised itself for an instant with elf-like ears spread wide, then, volleying barks, the intolerable Minx burst like a firework into the heart of the plover. In lightning response to her comrade's tally-ho Maria rocketted over the wall; the plover rose as one man, and, as I missed with both barrels, swirled out of range and sight. By way, I suppose, of rounding off the jest effectively, Maria rushed in scientific zigzags through the field, in search of the bird that she well knew I had not shot, deaf as the dead to words of command, while Minx, stark mad with excitement, circled and shrieked round Maria. To take off Maria's collar and thrash her heavily with the buckle end of it was futile, except as a personal gratification, but I did it. To thrash Minx was not only absurd but impossible; one might as well have tried to thrash a grasshopper.
I whistled for Peter and the Widower without avail, and finally, in just indignation, went back to look for them. They were gone. Not a soul was in sight. I concluded that they had gone on towards the lake, and having sacrificed a sandwich to the capture of Minx I coupled her to Maria by means of the cord that still trailed from her collar, and again set forth. The island was a large one, three or four miles long by nearly as many wide; I had opened my campaign along its western shores, where heather struggled with bog, and stones, big and little, bestrewed any patch sound enough to carry them. Here and there were places where turf had been cut for fuel, leaving a drop like a sunk fence with black water at its foot, a matter requiring a hearty jump on to what might or might not be sound landing. When two maniacs are unequally yoked together by their necks, heartiness and activity are of less importance than unanimity, and it was in unanimity that Maria and Minx chiefly failed. At such moments, profoundly as I detested Minx, my sympathies reluctantly were hers. Conscious, as are all little dogs, of her superior astuteness, she yet had to submit to Maria's choice of pace, to Maria's professional quarterings and questings of obviously barren tracts of bogland. In bursts of squealing fury she hung from Maria's ear, she tore mouthfuls of brown wool from her neck, she jibbed with all her claws stuck into the ground; none the less she was swept across the ditches, and lugged over the walls, in seeming oneness of purpose, in total and preposterous absurdity. At one juncture a snipe, who must, I think, have been deaf, remained long enough within their sphere of action for me to shoot him. The couple, unanimous for once, charged down upon the remains; the corpse was secured by Maria, but was torn piecemeal from her jaws by Minx. They then galloped emulously back to me for applause, still bitterly contesting every inch of the snipe, and, having grudgingly relinquished the fragments, waited wild-eyed and panting, with tongues hanging like aprons to their knees.
It was towards the close of the incident that I was aware of a sibilant whispering near me, and found that I was being observed from the rear with almost passionate interest, by two little girls and a pair of goats. I addressed the party with an enquiry as to whether they had seen Jer Keohane.
The biggest little girl said that she had not seen him, but, in a non sequitur full of intelligence, added that she had seen Peter Cadogan a while ago, sitting down under a wall, himself and Pidge.
"What's Pidge?" said I cautiously. "Is it a dog?"
"Oh Christians!" said the smaller child, swiftly covering her mouth with her pinafore.
The elder, with an untrammelled grin, explained that "Pidge" was the name by which my late kitchenmaid was known in the home circle.