The snow had been lying for several days, when I woke one morning and found my windows covered with the delicate tracery of hoar-frost. 'What a day for snipe-shooting!' I said, and jumping out of bed, sent a message to Hughie M'Nulty to come up at once, that I wanted him for a day's sport.
Hughie was a professional angler, who gained a good living during the summer months by acting as guide and assistant to rich English salmon-fishers, and hibernated for the rest of the year by the help of any odd jobs he could pick up. He was my constant companion on my vagrant shooting excursions, and a livelier, more talkative, or more interesting companion could not be wished for. He arrived, buttoning up his coat, before I had finished my breakfast; and after he had cut some sandwiches and filled my flask with whisky, we set out together.
'Now, Hughie,' said I, before getting clear of the town, for I knew of old his little weakness for cheating the revenue, 'have you got a game license yet this year?'
'Troth, Misther Harry, ain't I own keeper to Misther Donovan ov the Castle, an' d'ye think the likes ov him wud begrudge me a dhirty license?'
'I doubt you're too emphatic, Hughie, to be quite truthful. If you like to confess while there's time, I'll get you one. But, remember, if you get caught by the gauger without one, I'll not be responsible, and you'll have to clear yourself as best you may without my assistance.'
'God sees that, if it's not the truth that I'm tellin',' said Hughie, and we turned off the road into the fields.
Presently my companion remembered he owed something to his dignity, and began: 'I tell ye, surr, ye were lucky to git me the mornin' at ahl, at ahl; ivery wan was fur havin' me ahl to wanst. There was Misther Donovan sint down for me, jist afther I got yer message, wantin' me to go and shoot cock with him on the island in the lough; and there was Misther Fitzgerald, an' Dennison, an' Kilpathrick, an' Dawson, an' Gorman—they was ahl jist ravenin' for me; but I wudn't disappint yer ahner for one av thim, an' I jist ups an' towld thim so.'
'You've made a bad shot this time, Hughie; you should name some one that I don't know. I was playing cards last night with all those gentlemen, and I know that not one of them can go out shooting to-day. Mr. Donovan has gone up to Dublin this morning; Mr. Dennison is going to the fair at Enniskillen; Mr. Fitzgerald is on duty; Mr. Kilpatrick has a case coming on at the Court-house; and the other two can't leave the Bank on a market day. You should really be a little more careful of your ground, Hughie.'
'Ah, kape wide, can't ye, an' houl' yer whist. Ye'll be havin' the burds as wild as hawks, an' we won't git inside of an ass's roar ov thim the day. Ye might as well have brought thim dogs ye wanted, scuttherin' through the snow, if this is the road yer goin' to kape jabberin'. There, what did I tell ye? Auch! Begob, I thought he was clane away,' and Hughie ran forward to pick up our first snipe.
'Now, I'll take ye to a place that's jist swarmin' wi' them this weather. D'ye know the ould bog of Tubbernavaicha—the well in the bog, that manes—foreninst the face of the hill beyant? No?—well, that's the place ye'll fin' them.'