"It's fairing fast enough," exclaimed the cheerful old man. "We call that a bright sky in Ireland, and why not? Annyhow it's a great light to shoot a match at the pigeons; and if ye'd like to wet a line in the Dabble there, I'll engage ye'll raise a ten-pound fish before ye'd say 'Paddy Snap.'"
"I'll go bail ye will!" assented a Mr. Murphy, called by his familiars, "Mick," who made a point of agreeing with his host. "I seen them rising yesterday afternoon as thick as payse, an' me riding by without so much as a lash-whip in me hand."
Two of the party, confirmed anglers, proposed to start forthwith.
"There's a colt by Lord George I'd like ye to look at, General," continued Macormac, who would have each amuse himself in his own way. "We're training him for the hunt next season, and a finer leaper wasn't bred in Kildare. D'ye see that sunk fence now parting the flower garden from the demesne? It's not two years old he was when he broke loose from the paddock, and dashed out over it like a wild deer. There's five-and-twenty feet, bank and ditch, ye can measure it for yourself!"
"Thirty! if there's wan!" assented Mr. Murphy. "An' him flyin' over it in his stride, an' niver laid an iron to the sod!"
The General, however, declined an inspection of this promising animal, on the plea that he was not much of a walker, and had letters to write.
"The post's gone out this hour and more," said his host. "But ye'd like to ride now. Of course ye would! See, Mick! Sullivan's harriers will be at the kennel as usual. Wait till I tell ye. Why, wouldn't the boys get a fallow deer off the old park, and we'll raise a hunt for ye in less than an hour?"
"I'll engage they can be laid on in twenty minutes from this time," declared Mick. "Say the word, an' I'll run round to the stable, and bid Larry saddle up every beast that can stand."
"The General might ride Whiteboy," said his host, pondering, "and Norah's got her own horse, and I'll try young Orville, and ye shall take the colt yerself, Mick. We'll get a hunt, annyways!"
Mr. Murphy looked as if he would have preferred an older, or as he termed it, "a more accomplished hunter;" but he never dreamed of disputing the master's word, and was leaving the room in haste to further all necessary arrangements, when St. Josephs stopped him on the threshold.