It was, as it happened, the last race of the day, and nothing remained in the way of excitement save the greased pole with the pig slung in a bag at the end of it. My final impression of the Lough Lonen Regatta was of Callaghan's lithe figure, sleek and dripping, against the yellow sky, as he poised on the swaying pole with the broken gold of the water beneath him.
Limited as was my experience of the Southwest of Ireland, I was in no way surprised to hear on the following afternoon from Peter Cadogan that there had been "sthrokes" the night before, when the boys were going home from the regatta, and that the police were searching for one Jimmy Foley.
"What do they want him for?" I asked.
"Sure it's according as a man that was bringing a car of bogwood was tellin' me, sir," answered Peter, pursuing his occupation of washing the dogcart with unabated industry; "they say Jimmy's wife went roaring to the police, saying she could get no account of her husband."
"I suppose he's beaten some fellow and is hiding," I suggested.
"Well, that might be, sir," asserted Peter respectfully. He plied his mop vigorously in intricate places about the springs, which would, I knew, have never been explored save for my presence.
"It's what John Hennessy was saying, that he was hard set to get his horse past Cluin Cross, the way the blood was sthrewn about the road," resumed Peter; "sure they were fighting like wasps in it half the night."
"Who were fighting?"
"I couldn't say, indeed, sir. Some o' thim low rakish lads from the town, I suppose," replied Peter with virtuous respectability.
When Peter Cadogan was quietly and intelligently candid, to pursue an inquiry was seldom of much avail.