The General was true to his colours, and seldom ventured on the slightest act of disloyalty. When he returned, as in the present instance, to his allegiance, he always found himself under more authority than ever for his weak attempt at insubordination.
PUNCHESTOWN
"I tell ye, I bred her myself, and it's every hair in her skin I know, when I kept her on the farm till she was better than three year old. Will ye not step in here, and take a dandy o' punch, Mr. Sullivan?"
The invitation was promptly accepted, and its originator, none other than the breeder of Satanella, dressed in his best clothes, with an alarming waistcoat, and an exceedingly tall hat, conducted his friend into a crowded canvas booth, on the outside of which heavy rain was beating, while its interior steamed with wet garments and hot whisky punch.
Mr. Sullivan was one of those gentlemen who are never met with but in places where there is money to be made, by the laying against, backing, buying, or selling of horses. From his exterior the uninitiated might have supposed him a land-steward, a watch-maker, or a schoolmaster in reduced circumstances; but to those versed in such matters there was something indisputably horsey about the tie of his neck-cloth, the sit of his well-brushed hat, and the shape of his clean, weather-beaten hands. He looked like a man who could give you full particulars of the noble animal, tell you its price, its pedigree, its defects, its performances, and buy it for you on commission cheaper than you could yourself. While his friend drank in gulps that denoted considerable enjoyment, Mr. Sullivan seemed to absorb his punch insensibly and as a matter of course.
"There's been good beasts bred in Roscommon beside your black mare, Denis," observed this worthy; "and it's the pick of the world for harses comes into Kildare this day. Whisper now. Old Sir Giles offered four hundred pounds, ready money, for Shaneen in Dublin last night. I seen him meself!"
"Is it Shaneen?" returned Denis, with another pull at the punch. "I'll not deny he's a nate little harse, and an illegant lepper, but he wouldn't be in such a race as this. He'll niver see it wan, Mr. Sullivan, no more nor a Quaker'll never see glory! Mat should have taken the four hundred!"