“Faith,” said Mr Mahony, “I thought there was somethin’ up, for, by the look of Shan as he passed me house this mornin’, I thought he’d swallowed the Lord Liftinant, Crown jewels and all. Hulloo! hulloo! hulloo! make way for me carridge! Who are you crowdin’? Don’t you know the Earl of Leinsther when y’ see him? Out of the way, or I’ll call me futman to disparse yiz.”
Shan heard it all, but marched on. He could have killed Bob Mahony, who was turning his triumph into a farce, but he contented himself with letting fly with his whip amongst the dogs, and blowing a note on his horn.
“What’s that nize?” enquired Mr Mahony, with a wink at the delighted crowd tramping beside the donkey-cart.
“Shan’s blowin’ his harn,” yelled the rabble.
“Faith, I thought it was Widdy Finnegan’s rooster he was carryin’ in the tail pockit of his coat,” said the humorist.
The crowd roared at this conceit, which was much more pungent and pointed as delivered in words by Mr Mahony; but Shan, to all appearances, was deaf.
The road opposite the park gates was broad and shadowed by huge elm trees, which gave the spot in summer the darkness and coolness of a cave. Here Shan halted, the crowd halted, and the donkey-cart drew up.
Mr Mahony tapped the dottle out of his pipe carefully on the rail of his cart, filled the pipe, replaced the dottle on the top of the tobacco, and drew a whiff.
The clock of Glen Druid House struck ten, and the notes came floating over park and trees; not that any one heard them, for the yelping of the dogs and the noise of the crowd filled the quiet country road with the hubbub of a fair.
“What’s that you were axing me?” cried Mr Mahony to a supposed interrogator in the crowd. “Is the Prince o’ Wales comin’? No, he ain’t. I had a tellygrum from him this mornin’ sendin’ his excuzes. Will some gintleman poke that rat-tarrier out that’s got under the wheels of me carridge—out, you baste!” He leaned over and hit a rabbit-beagle that had strayed under the donkey-cart a tip with his stick. The dog, though not hurt, for Bob Mahony was much too good a sportsman to hurt an animal, gave a yelp.