“And why not?”
“Because the two front wheels is off the only brake there is in the town, and Patsy Devlin has them up at the forge fixing them, and he’s gone from us. That’s why.”
“And there isn’t another brake?”
“There is not.”
“There are five in the party,” said Mr. Goddard. “We’ll have to get two cars.”
“It’s a good eight miles to Rosivera,” said Jimmy, “and better than ten on from that to Pool-a-donagh. I wouldn’t say that there was a horse in the town fit to do the journey with four on the car, and there’ll have to be four on one of the cars, if there’s five in the party, that’ll be counting the drivers. My own mare was over at Ballymoy yesterday with Constable Moriarty and the doctor’s young lady. It’s a day’s rest she ought to have by rights, and not to be going off on the road again.”
“It can’t be helped,” said Mr. Goddard. “I must have the horses.”
“There isn’t another gentleman about the country,” said Jimmy, “that I’d do it for only yourself; but seeing that the party is friends of your own, I’ll let my mare go, and I’ll get Patsy Devlin’s grey pony that was promised to Mr. Byrne for the day to be carting home the turf, the same pony that the priest was thinking of buying. It’s little use Patsy’s widow will have for a pony now her husband’s gone from her, the creature. I don’t know another that you could put under a side car for a gentleman to sit behind, and it’s badly able for the road the grey pony will be this minute.”
“Give her a feed of oats between this and the time the train comes in,” said Mr. Goddard.
“I will; and I’ll see if I can’t get the loan of the priest’s cushions for the old car. The ones that are on it are terrible bad.”