Mrs. O’K. (embracing him). Oh, Conn, what have you been afther? The polis were in my cabin to-day about ye. They say you stole Squire Foley’s horse.
Conn. Stole his horse! Sure the baste is safe and sound in his paddock this minute.
Mrs. O’K. But he says you stole it for the day to go huntin’.
“JUST THEN WE TOOK A STONE WALL AND A DOUBLE DITCH TOGETHER.”
Conn. Well, here’s a purty thing, for a horse to run away with a man’s characther like this! Oh, wurra! may I never die in sin, but this was the way of it. I was standing by ould Foley’s gate, when I heard the cry of the hounds comin’ across the tail end of the bog, and there they wor, my dear, spread out like the tail of a paycock, an’ the finest dog fox you’d ever seen sailing ahead of them up the boreen, and right across the churchyard. It was enough to raise the inhabitants. Well, as I looked, who should come up and put his head over the gate beside me but the Squire’s brown mare, small blame to her. Divil a thing I said to her, nor she to me, for the hounds had lost their scent, we knew by their yelp and whine as they hunted among the grave-stones, when, whish! the fox went by us. I leapt on the gate, an’ gave a shriek of a view holloo to the whip; in a minute the pack caught the scent again, an’ the whole field came roarin’ past. The mare lost her head, an’ tore at the gate. “Stop,” ses I, “ye divil!” and I slipped the taste of a rope over her head an’ into her mouth. Now mind the cunnin’ of the baste, she was quiet in a minute. “Come home now,” ses I, “asy!” and I threw my leg across her. Be jabers! no sooner was I on her bare back than whoo! holy rocket! she was over the gate, an’ tearin’ like mad afther the hounds. “Yoicks!” ses I; “come back, you thief of the world, where are you takin’ me to?” as she went through the huntin’ field an’ laid me beside the masther of the hounds, Squire Foley himself. He turned the colour of his leather breeches. “Mother of Moses!” ses he, “is that Conn the Shaughraun on my brown mare?” “Bad luck to me!” ses I, “it’s no one else!” “You sthole my horse,” ses the Squire. “That’s a lie!” ses I, “for it was your horse sthole me!”
Moya. An’ what did he say to that?
Conn. I couldn’t sthop to hear, for just then we took a stone wall and a double ditch together, and he stopped behind to keep an engagement he had in the ditch.
Mrs. O’K. You’ll get a month in gaol for this.
Conn. Well, it was worth it.