Mount Music. Ross Martin

circumstances, in which category Larry's spurs took a prominent part. The bog-track at length became merged in a rushy field, and then indeed did the pent waters of the hunt break forth. Major Dick's tall chestnut had gradually increased his lead, and by the time the track was clear of riders, he was two fields ahead, with Cottingham not far behind, and a few indignant young men riding like maniacs to overtake them. To have been held back by a schoolboy and a little girl is an indignity not easily to be borne. The Broadwater Vale field was a hard-going one, including a strengthening of young soldiers from the regiment quartered at Riverstown, and it was not long before Tommy and Harry were beginning to find themselves in a more familiar and less exigent position. Judith, on the grey mare, went by them like a flash; Doctor Mangan overtook them heavily, and heavily passed them. Father David, riding a little wide of the crowd, waved a friendly hand to Christian, as the black mare, composed and discreet, as became a daughter of the Church, dwelt for an instant on the top of a wide bank, before she struck off into the next field. Worst indignity of all, Charles, the coachman, on the elderly carriage horse, drew alongside, and presumed to offer directions and admonitions. "As if," thought Christian, as she drove Harry at the bank in the wake of the black mare, "I cared a pin what he says!"

      Gone for poor Charles were the days when Miss Christian had revered him above all other created things; days such as the one on which, after a ride round the yard on an unharnessed carriage horse, Christian, in gratitude too great for words, had attempted to kiss him. Charles had repelled the embrace, saying tactfully: "No pleasures in Lent, Miss!" and Christian had accepted the excuse. Then Miss Christian had been three years old, now she was thirteen, and Charles had, in the interval, married a cook, and lost his figure, and with it, had departed his nerve, and the reverance of Miss Christian, and he knew it.

      Close behind Charles came Dr. Mangan's "little girl," who had been confided with a lubricating half-crown, to his care. Miss Letitia Mangan was far from considering herself a little girl. She was sixteen and a half, and conceived herself to be of combatant rank, even though her thick, dark hair banged on her back in a ponderous pigtail, and her education at the Cluhir Convent School was still uncompleted. The fat, piebald pony that she was riding would have a sore back before she got home. Christian, perched wren-like on her ancient steed (but a wren placed with mathematical accuracy of directness with relation to the steed's ears), noted with disfavour the crooked seat, the heavy hand on the curb. Larry, hot and pink, with hat hanging by its guard, his fair hair looking like storm-tossed corn-stooks, noted nothing, being wholly engrossed in bitter conflict with Tommy. The art of keeping a good start with hounds is not given to many, and least of all to the young and inexperienced. From having been first of the first, it had fallen to Larry and Christian to find themselves last, and last in the despised company of Charles and "the Mangan girl."

      The unexacting position of being at the heel of the hunt may have a charm for the philosophic or unambitious, but so black a continuation of so great a start was a trial quite beyond the endurance of a young gentleman possessed of the artistic temperament. And then the abominable Mangan girl came into play, and joined in the circling performance at the big bank. Always, when Larry felt that this time the cob was going to "have it," that cow-like red and white beast would jam itself in the way, so he thought, raging. In this matter of hunting, Dr. Mangan had not been well advised in his scheme for his little girl's social advantage.

      In the meantime the hounds had run their fox into Drumkeen Wood, and the riders, arriving in small and breathless companies, thanked God for a check, and tightened their girths and took courage. The latter would undoubtedly be needed if the run continued; Drumkeen Wood was hung like a cloak upon the side of a steep hill, and was the invariable prelude to the worst going within the bounds of the hunt.

      "If he's into the big earth here, I'm afraid it's good-bye to him!" said Dr. Mangan, taking courage in a liquid form. "It was a sweet gallop while it lasted! Sweet and short, like this toothful of cherry brandy I'm after drinking!"

      "Ah, that's poor stuff, Doctor," said Mr. Hallinan, proprietor of Hallinan's Hotel, a prosperous hostelry, much patronised by salmon-fishers. "Give me a sup of good old John Jameson in its purity!"

      "'Twas for Tishy I brought this out," replied the Doctor, apologetically; "but I lost sight of her. She's back somewhere with little Christian Lowry and young Coppinger."

      "What sort of a lad is that?" asked Mr. Hallinan. "Is he as big a pup as them young Lowrys?"

      "Ah, they're not so bad altogether," said Dr. Mangan, indulgently. "Young sprigs like them are none the worse for a little tashpy, as the people say!" The Doctor's heavy voice relaxed a little over the world tashpy (which, it should perhaps be explained, is Irish, and implies a blend of impudence and high spirits). He was quite aware that his friend Hallinan and he regarded the Talbot-Lowrys from a different standpoint.

      "I was having a bit of lunch there the other day," he went on, "and I thought they were nice boys enough."

      "I hope you got enough to eat!" said Mr. Hallinan, disagreeably; "I'm told that their butcher's sick and tired trying to get what he's owed, out of them! There should be drink enough, anyway! I'm just after sending in a case of whisky there. God knows when I'll be ped for it!"

      At this moment the two gentlemen, whose horses were nibbling the grass of the bank that surrounded the wood, were shaken by the sudden appearance of the white nose of the Master's chestnut on the other side of the bank.

      "I'd be obliged if there was less noise!" said the Master's voice, with threatening in it.

      Mr. Hallinan's jaw dropped unaffectedly.

      "Merciful God!" he murmured; "did he hear me, d'ye think?"

      "Ah, no fear, man!" whispered the Doctor, encouragingly. "And if he did itself, maybe you'd get your cheque a bit quicker!"

      In the silence that followed, a whimpering whistle from a hound, invisible, yet near at hand, sent a thrill through the waiting riders. There followed the rustling rush of hounds through the undergrowth, as they gathered to enquire into the whimper. Then another whimper, merging into a squeal, and Cottingham's voice:

      "Hark to Dulcet! Forrad to Dulcet!"

      "Begad, they have him again," said Dr. Mangan, without enthusiasm. "I wonder where is Tishy gone to? I suppose they'll run these blasted hills now——"

      The big grey horse, and his seventeen stone rider, moved off in the opposite direction to the tread of the hunt, which was slowly and steadily pushing upwards through the wood. Dr. Mangan was one of the select company of followers of hounds who know when they have had enough.

      A narrow, stony passage, more resembling a drain than a lane, ran round the wood; the riders hustled along it, like a train in a cutting, too tightly packed for the most vindictive kicker to injure his neighbour, too hampered by impeding rocks to make more speed than can be accomplished by a jog. The drain ended at a V-shaped fissure between two slants of rock, and, by the time the last horse had clattered and scrambled up it, the hounds were away again, steering up, across heathery fields, enclosed by fences and stone walls of all sorts and sizes, for a great double-headed hill on the sky-line, three or more miles away.

      "Carrigaholt as usual!" said Major Dick, over his shoulder, to the Hon. Sec., young Kirby of Castle Ire. "If you get a chance, try and head him off the western rocks—and Bill! Tell those infernal children of mine they're to keep with Charles and look out for bogs!"

      His conscience as a parent thus appeased, the Master applied himself to the no small task of keeping his hounds in sight, and of evading the equal difficulties presented by rocks and bog holes. The offspring in question were now, with Larry, in comparative and undesired safety beneath the fluttering wing of Charles, and Bill Kirby, having faithfully delivered his message, found himself immediately adopted as an alternative protector, and repented him of his fidelity.

      The hounds stormed on through the hills, running hard across the frequent boggy tracts, more slowly, and with searchings, over the intervening humps of rock and furze. The fox was making a well-known point, and running a well-known line, but the fences in their infinite variety, defied the staling force of custom, and the difficulties of the going were intensified by the pace.