She replied by a further paroxysm, and asked me what size I took in stays—she supposed about forty inches.
Dusk was now an accomplished fact: thickened with fog and rain, it was even turning to darkness as we descended the long hill. But, humanly speaking, the end was in sight. There was, I knew, a public-house a couple of miles farther on, where a car might be hired, and there I proposed to bid a long farewell to Miss Larkie McRory, and to send her home by herself, to have rheumatic fever, as I assured her.
We moved on and on, at a careful foot-pace: we were out in the wind again, and it was very cold. It was also quite dark. Silence fell upon us, and, after a time, the sustained pressure of Miss McRory's hat-brim against my shoulder suggested that it was the silence of exhaustion, if not of sleep. I thought of her with compassion. I believe I formulated her to myself as a poor little girl, and found myself asserting with defiance to imaginary detractors that no one could say she hadn't pluck, and that, in spite of her family, she really had a soul to be saved.
Again we found ourselves in shelter, and a greater darkness in the darkness told that we were in the lee of a wooded hill. I knew where I was now, and I said to Miss McRory that the pub was just round the corner, and she replied at once that that was where they always were, in Dublin anyway. She also said she thought she heard horses' hoofs coming up behind us. I pushed on.
We turned the corner, and were immediately struck blind by the twin glare of the lamps of a motor, that lay motionless, as in ambush, at the side of the road. Even the equanimity of Daniel was shattered; he swung to one side, he drifted like a blown leaf, and Miss McRory clung to me like a knapsack. As we curveted in the full glare of the limelight, I was aware of a figure in a pot-hat and a vast fur coat standing near the motor. Even as I recognised Lady Knox three or four muddy hounds trailed wearily into the glare, and a voice behind me shouted, "'Ware horse!"
Flurry came on into the light: there was just room in me for a sub-conscious recognition of the fact that he was riding the missing grey cob, and that this was a typical thing, and one that might have been expected.
At the hunt dinner that took place soon afterwards some one sang a song, one that I have ceased to find amusing. The first verse runs as follows:
"Throttin' to the Fair,
Me and Moll Moloney,
Sittin', I declare,
On a single pony——"
By a singular coincidence, the faces of all those present turned towards me.