IT was nearly four o’clock before we got out of the Ballinahinch avenue on to the Clifden road. A young horse had got loose in the yard just as Sibbie was having her toilet made for the start, and the clattering of hoofs and cracking of whips that ensued had so upset her old-maidish sensibilities, that she refused to leave the stable, till finally, by a noble inspiration on our part, she was backed out of it. She had started from the yard in a state of mingled resentment and terror; even still her ears were fluttering like the wings of a butterfly, and she showed a desire to canter that seemed to us unhealthy. The shrunken oat bag lay at our feet; decidedly she had had more luncheon than was good for her while we were walking ourselves off our legs in the woods of Ballinahinch. The broad lake lay on our left, showing coldly and mysteriously through the changing swathes of mist, and above us, on our left, the long slopes of bog and heather stretched upwards till they steepened into the dignity of actual mountains.
“If I thought the weather could not hear me,” observed my second cousin, “I should say it was going to clear up. It looks almost as if there were sunlight on those children’s petticoats ahead of us.” An enchanting group was advancing to meet us; half-a-dozen or so of children, boys and girls petticoated alike in mellow varieties of the dull red or creamy white Galway flannel, a few cattle wandered in front of them, and in their midst a long-suffering donkey was being ridden by three of them and beaten by the remainder. We were so absorbed in sitting with our heads on one side to better appreciate the artistic unity of the picture that we took no heed of the dangerous forward slant of Sibbie’s ears. No one could have supposed that in her short intimacy with “the quality” she could have already developed a fine-ladyish affectation of horror at the sight of an estimable poor relation; yet so it was. Casting one wild look at the appalling spectacle, she sprang sideways across the road, whirled the trap round, only avoiding the black bog-ditch by a hair’s breadth, and fled at full speed in the direction from which she had just come.
My cousin and I were for the moment paralysed by surprise, and by the sudden horrid proximity of the bog-ditch, which was hospitably prepared to take us all in and do for us, and think nothing of it. Sibbie’s strong little brown back was hooped with venomous speed, and her head was out of sight between her forelegs. The telegraph posts were blended into a black streak, the lakes swam past us like thoughts in a dream, it seemed useless to get out to go to her head; obviously, Sibbie was running away. The governess cart quite entered into the spirit of the thing, and leaped and bounded along in a way that—considering its age and profession—we thought very unbecoming. It is perhaps a façon de parler to say that I was driving. To put it more accurately, I
“HANGING ON EACH TO OUR REIN.”
had been driving, and now I was trying very hard to do the opposite. However, after laying the seeds of two blisters in vain, I was ignominiously compelled to hand one rein to my cousin. Hanging on each to our rein, we lay back in the trap, getting a good leverage for our pull over the ridge of the luncheon basket. I shudder to think of the result had those reins broken. Two human Catherine wheels would have been seen revolving rapidly over the stern of the governess-cart, and as for Sibbie—— But the reins were staunch, and though at first a want of unanimity caused us to swing from side to side of the road in a series of vandykes, the combined weight of the expedition slowly told, and Sibbie’s ears were hauled into sight. Back and up they came till they were laid along her back, and her long nose pointed skywards in a fury of helpless protest, while her gallop grudgingly slackened.
Of course my hat had blown off early in the proceedings, but nothing else had happened. I handed my rein to my cousin without a word, and got out of the trap.