Produced by Al Haines
SOME EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH R.M.
by
E. OE. SOMERVILLE
and
MARTIN ROSS
THOMAS NELSON & SONS LTD
LONDON EDINBURGH PARIS MELBOURNE
TORONTO AND NEW YORK
Reprinted by permission of Messrs. Longmans Green & Co., Ltd.
CONTENTS
I. GREAT-UNCLE MCCARTHY II. IN THE CURRANHILTY COUNTRY III. TRINKET'S COLT IV. THE WATERS OF STRIFE V. LISHEEN RACES, SECOND-HAND VI. PHILIPPA'S FOX-HUNT VII. A MISDEAL VIII. THE HOLY ISLAND IX. THE POLICY OF THE CLOSED DOOR X. THE HOUSE OF FAHY XI. OCCASIONAL LICENSES XII. "OH LOVE! OH FIRE!"
SOME EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH R.M.
I
GREAT-UNCLE McCARTHY
A Resident Magistracy in Ireland is not an easy thing to come bynowadays; neither is it a very attractive job; yet on the evening whenI first propounded the idea to the young lady who had recentlyconsented to become Mrs. Sinclair Yeates, it seemed glittering withpossibilities. There was, on that occasion, a sunset, and a stringband playing "The Gondoliers," and there was also an ingenuous beliefin the omnipotence of a godfather of Philippa's--(Philippa was theyoung lady)--who had once been a member of the Government.
I was then climbing the steep ascent of the Captains towards myMajority. I have no fault to find with Philippa's godfather; he didall and more than even Philippa had expected; nevertheless, I hadattained to the dignity of mud major, and had spent a good deal onpostage stamps, and on railway fares to interview people of influence,before I found myself in the hotel at Skebawn, opening long envelopesaddressed to "Major Yeates, R.M."
My most immediate concern, as any one who has spent nine weeks at Mrs.Raverty's hotel will readily believe, was to leave it at the earliestopportunity; but in those nine weeks I had learned, amongst otherpainful things, a little, a very little, of the methods of the artisanin the West of Ireland. Finding a house had been easy enough. I hadhad my choice of several, each with some hundreds of acres of shooting,thoroughly poached, and a considerable portion of the roof intact. Ihad selected one; the one that had the largest extent of roof inproportion to the shooting, and had been assured by my landlord that ina fortnight or so it would be fit for occupation.
"There's a few little odd things to be done," he said easily; "a lickof paint here and there, and a slap of plaster----"
I am short-sighted; I am also of Irish extraction; both facts that makefor toleration--but even I thought he was understating the case. Sodid the contractor.
At the end of three weeks the latter reported progress, which mainlyconsisted of the facts that the plumber had accused the carpenter ofstealing sixteen feet of his inch-pipe to run a bell wire through, andthat the carpenter had replied that he wished the divil might run theplumber through a wran's quill. The plumber having reflected upon thecarpenter's parentage, the work of renovation had merged in battle, andat the next Petty Sessions I was reluctantly compelled to allot to eachcombatant seven days, without the option of a fine.
These and kindred difficulties extended in an unbroken chain throughthe summer months, until a certain wet and windy day in October, when,with my baggage, I drove over to establish myself at Shreelane. It wasa tall, ugly house of three storeys high, its walls faced withweather-beaten slates, its windows staring, narrow, and vacant. Roundthe house ran an area, in which grew some laurustinus and holly bushesamong ash heaps, and nettles, and broken bottles. I stood on thesteps, waiting for the door to be opened, while the rain sluiced uponme from a broken eaveshoot that had, amongst many other things, escapedthe notice of my landlord. I thought of Philippa, and of her plan,broached in to-day's letter, of having the hall done up as asitting-room.
The door opened, and revealed the hall. It struck me that I hadperhaps overestimated its possibilities. Among them I had certainlynot included a flagged floor, sweating with damp, and a reek of cabbagefrom the adjacent kitchen stairs. A large elderly woman, with a redface, and a cap worn helmet-wise on her forehead, swept me amagnificent curtsey as I crossed the threshold.
"Your honour's welcome----" she began, and then every door in the houseslammed in obedience to the gust that drove through it. With somethingthat sounded like "Mend ye for a back door!" Mrs. Cadogan abandoned heropening speech and made for the kitchen stairs. (Improbable as it mayappear, my housekeeper was called Cadogan, a name made locally possibleby being pronounced Caydogawn.)
Only those who have been through a similar experience can know whatmanner of afternoon I spent. I am a martyr to colds in the head, and Ifelt one coming on. I made a laager in front of the dining-room fire,with a tattered leather screen and the dinner table, and gradually,with cigarettes and strong tea, baffled the smell of must and cats, andfervently trusted that the rain might avert a threatened visit from mylandlord. I was then but superficially acquainted with Mr. FlorenceMcCarthy Knox and his habits.
At about 4.30, when the room had warmed up, and my cold was yielding totreatment, Mrs. Cadogan entered and informed me that "Mr. Flurry" wasin the yard, and would be thankful if I'd go out to him, for hecouldn't come in. Many are the privileges of the female sex; had Ibeen a woman I should unhesitatingly have said that I had a cold in myhead. Being a man, I huddled on a mackintosh, and went out into theyard.
My landlord was there on horseback, and with him there was a manstanding at the head of a stout grey animal. I recognised with despairthat I was about to be compelled to buy a horse.
"Good afternoon, Major," said Mr. Knox in his slow, sing-song brogue;"it's rather soon to be paying you a visit, but I thought you might bein a hurry to see the horse I was telling you of."
I could have laughed. As if I were ever in a hurry to see a horse! Ithanked him, and suggested that it was rather wet for horse-dealing.
"Oh, it's nothing when you're used to it," replied Mr. Knox. Hisgloveless hands were red and wet, the rain ran down his nose, and hiscovert coat was soaked to a sodden brown. I thought that I did notwant to become used to it. My relations with horses have been of apurely military character, I have endured the Sandhurst riding-school,I have galloped for an impetuous general, I have been steward atregimental races, but none of these feats have altered my opinion thatthe horse, as a means of locomotion, is obsolete. Nevertheless, theman who accepts a resident magistracy in the south-west of Irelandvoluntarily retires into the prehistoric age; to institute a stablebecame inevitable.
"You ought to throw a leg over him," said Mr. Knox, "and you're welcometo take him over a fence or two if you like. He's a nice flippantjumper."
Even to my unexacting eye the grey horse did not seem to promiseflippancy, nor did I at all desire to find that quality in him. Iexplained that I wanted something to drive, and not to ride.
"Well, that's a fine raking horse in harness," said Mr. Knox, lookingat me with his serious grey eyes, "and you'd drive him with a sop ofhay in his mouth. Bring him up here, Michael."
Michael abandoned his efforts to kick the grey horse's forelegs into abecoming position, and led him up to me.
I regarded him from under my umbrella with a quite unreasonabledisfavour. He had the dreadful beauty of a horse in a toy-shop, aschubby, as wooden, and as conscientiously dappled, but it wasunreasonable to urge this as an objection, and I was incapable offinding any more technical drawback. Yielding to circumstance, I"threw my leg" over the brute, and after pacing gravely round thequadrangle that formed the yard, and jolting to my entrance gate andback, I decided that as he had neither fallen down nor kicked me off,it was worth paying twenty-five pounds for him, if only to get in outof the rain.
Mr. Knox accompanied m
e into the house and had a drink. He was a fair,spare young man, who looked like a stable boy among gentlemen, and agentleman among stable boys. He belonged to a clan that cropped up inevery grade of society in the county, from Sir Valentine Knox of CastleKnox down to the auctioneer Knox, who bore the attractive title ofLarry the Liar. So far as I could judge, Florence McCarthy of that ilkoccupied a shifting position about midway in the tribe. I had met himat dinner at Sir Valentine's, I had heard of him at an illicit auction,held by Larry the Liar, of brandy stolen from a wreck. They were"Black Protestants," all of them, in virtue of their descent from agodly soldier of Cromwell, and all were prepared at any moment of theday or night to sell a horse.
"You'll be apt to find this place a bit lonesome after the hotel,"remarked Mr. Flurry, sympathetically, as he placed his foot in itssteaming boot on the hob, "but it's a fine sound house anyway, and lotsof rooms in it, though indeed, to tell you the truth, I never wasthrough the whole of them since the time my great-uncle, DenisMcCarthy, died here. The dear knows I had enough of it that time." Hepaused, and lit a cigarette--one of my best, and quite thrown away uponhim. "Those top floors, now," he resumed, "I wouldn't make too freewith them. There's some of them would jump under you like a springbed. Many's the night I was in and out of those attics, following mypoor uncle when he had a bad turn on him--the horrors, y' know--therewere nights he never stopped walking through the house. Good Lord!will I ever forget the morning he said he saw the devil coming up theavenue! 'Look at the two horns on him,' says he, and he out with hisgun and shot him, and, begad, it was his own donkey!"
Mr. Knox gave a couple of short laughs. He seldom laughed, having inunusual perfection, the gravity of manner that is bred byhorse-dealing, probably from the habitual repression of all emotionsave disparagement.
The autumn evening, grey with rain, was darkening in the tall windows,and the wind was beginning to make bullying rushes among the shrubs inthe area; a shower of soot rattled down the chimney and fell on thehearthrug.
"More rain coming," said Mr. Knox, rising composedly; "you'll have toput a goose down these chimneys some day soon, it's the only way in theworld to clean them. Well, I'm for the road. You'll come out on thegrey next week, I hope; the hounds'll be meeting here. Give a roar athim coming in at his jumps." He threw his cigarette into the fire andextended a hand to me. "Good-bye, Major, you'll see plenty of me andmy hounds before you're done. There's a power of foxes in theplantations here."
This was scarcely reassuring for a man who hoped to shoot woodcock, andI hinted as much.
"Oh, is it the cock?" said Mr. Flurry; "b'leeve me, there never was awoodcock yet that minded hounds, now, no more than they'd mind rabbits!The best shoots ever I had here, the hounds were in it the day before."
When Mr. Knox had gone, I began to picture myself going across countryroaring, like a man on a fire-engine, while Philippa put the goose downthe chimney; but when I sat down to write to her I did not feel equalto being humorous about it. I dilated ponderously on my cold, my hardwork, and my loneliness, and eventually went to bed at ten o'clock fullof cold shivers and hot whisky-and-water.
After a couple of hours of feverish dozing, I began to understand whathad driven Great-Uncle McCarthy to perambulate the house by night.Mrs. Cadogan had assured me that the Pope of Rome hadn't a betther bedundher him than myself; wasn't I down on the new flog mattherass theold masther bought in Father Scanlan's auction? By the smell Irecognised that "flog" meant flock, otherwise I should have said mycouch was stuffed with old boots. I have seldom spent a more wretchednight. The rain drummed with soft fingers on my window panes; thehouse was full of noises. I seemed to see Great-Uncle McCarthy rangingthe passages with Flurry at his heels; several times I thought I heardhim. Whisperings seemed borne on the wind through my keyhole, boardscreaked in the room overhead, and once I could have sworn that a handpassed, groping, over the panels of my door. I am, I may admit, abeliever in ghosts; I even take in a paper that deals with theirculture, but I cannot pretend that on that night I looked forward to amanifestation of Great-Uncle McCarthy with any enthusiasm.
The morning broke stormily, and I woke to find Mrs. Cadogan'sunderstudy, a grimy nephew of about eighteen, standing by my bedside,with a black bottle in his hand.
"There's no bath in the house, sir," was his reply to my command; "butme A'nt said, would ye like a taggeen?"
This alternative proved to be a glass of raw whisky. I declined it.
I look back to that first week of housekeeping at Shreelane as to acomedy excessively badly staged, and striped with lurid melodrama.Towards its close I was positively home-sick for Mrs. Raverty's, and Ihad not a single clean pair of boots. I am not one of those who holdthe convention that in Ireland the rain never ceases, day or night, butI must say that my first November at Shreelane was composed of weatherof which my friend Flurry Knox remarked that you wouldn't meet aChristian out of doors, unless it was a snipe or a dispensary doctor.To this lamentable category might be added a resident magistrate.Daily, shrouded in mackintosh, I set forth for the Petty SessionsCourts of my wide district; daily, in the inevitable atmosphere of wetfrieze and perjury, I listened to indictments of old women who pluckedgeese alive, of publicans whose hospitality to their friends brokeforth uncontrollably on Sunday afternoons, of "parties" who, in thelanguage of the police sergeant, were subtly defined as "not to saydhrunk, but in good fighting thrim."
I got used to it all in time--I suppose one can get used to anything--Ieven became callous to the surprises of Mrs. Cadogan's cooking. As theweather hardened and the woodcock came in, and one by one I discoveredand nailed up the rat holes, I began to find life endurable, and evento feel some remote sensation of home-coming when the grey horse turnedin at the gate of Shreelane.
The one feature of my establishment to which I could not become inuredwas the pervading sub-presence of some thing or things which, for myown convenience, I summarised as Great-Uncle McCarthy. There werenights on which I was certain that I heard the inebriate shuffle of hisfoot overhead, the touch of his fumbling hand against the walls. Therewere dark times before the dawn when sounds went to and fro, the movingof weights, the creaking of doors, a far-away rapping in which was aworkmanlike suggestion of the undertaker, a rumble of wheels on theavenue. Once I was impelled to the perhaps imprudent measure ofcross-examining Mrs. Cadogan. Mrs. Cadogan, taking the preliminaryprecaution of crossing herself, asked me fatefully what day of the weekit was.
"Friday!" she repeated after me. "Friday! The Lord save us! 'Twas aFriday the old masther was buried!"
At this point a saucepan opportunely boiled over, and Mrs. Cadogan fledwith it to the scullery, and was seen no more.
In the process of time I brought Great-Uncle McCarthy down to a finepoint. On Friday nights he made coffins and drove hearses; during therest of the week he rarely did more than patter and shuffle in theattics over my head.
One night, about the middle of December, I awoke, suddenly aware thatsome noise had fallen like a heavy stone into my dreams. As I felt forthe matches it came again, the long, grudging groan and theuncompromising bang of the cross door at the head of the kitchenstairs. I told myself that it was a draught that had done it, but itwas a perfectly still night. Even as I listened, a sound of wheels onthe avenue shook the stillness. The thing was getting past a joke. Ina few minutes I was stealthily groping my way down my own staircase,with a box of matches in my hand, enforced by scientific curiosity, butnone the less armed with a stick. I stood in the dark at the top ofthe back stairs and listened; the snores of Mrs. Cadogan and her nephewPeter rose tranquilly from their respective lairs. I descended to thekitchen and lit a candle; there was nothing unusual there, except agreat portion of the Cadogan wearing apparel, which was arranged at thefire, and was being serenaded by two crickets. Whatever had opened thedoor, my household was blameless. The kitchen was not attractive, yetI felt indisposed to leave it. None the less, it appeared to be myduty to inspect the yard. I pu
t the candle on the table and went forthinto the outer darkness. Not a sound was to be heard. The night wasvery cold, and so dark, that I could scarcely distinguish the roofs ofthe stables against the sky; the house loomed tall and oppressive aboveme; I was conscious of how lonely it stood in the dumb and barrencountry. Spirits were certainly futile creatures, childish in theirmanifestations, stupidly content with the old machinery of raps andrumbles. I thought how fine a scene might be played on a stage likethis; if I were a ghost, how bluely I would glimmer at the windows, howwhimperingly chatter in the wind. Something whirled out of thedarkness above me, and fell with a flop on the ground, just at my feet.I jumped backwards, in point of fact I made for the kitchen door, and,with my hand on the latch, stood still and waited. Nothing furtherhappened; the thing that lay there did not stir. I struck a match.The moment of tension turned to bathos as the light flickered onnothing more fateful than a dead crow.
Dead it certainly was. I could have told that without looking at it;but why should it, at some considerable period after its death, fallfrom the clouds at my feet. But did it fall from the clouds? I struckanother match, and stared up at the impenetrable face of the house.There was no hint of solution in the dark windows, but I determined togo up and search the rooms that gave upon the yard.
How cold it was! I can feel now the frozen musty air of those attics,with their rat-eaten floors and wall-papers furred with damp. I wentsoftly from one to another, feeling like a burglar in my own house, andfound nothing in elucidation of the mystery. The windows werehermetically shut, and sealed with cobwebs. There was no furniture,except in the end room, where a wardrobe without doors stood in acorner, empty save for the solemn presence of a monstrous tall hat. Iwent back to bed, cursing those powers of darkness that had got me outof it, and heard no more.
My landlord had not failed of his promise to visit my coverts with hishounds; in fact, he fulfilled it rather more conscientiously thanseemed to me quite wholesome for the cock-shooting. I maintained asilence which I felt to be magnanimous on the part of a man who carednothing for hunting and a great deal for shooting, and wished thehounds more success in the slaughter of my foxes than seemed to begranted to them. I met them all, one red frosty evening, as I drovedown the long hill to my demesne gates, Flurry at their head, in hisshabby pink coat and dingy breeches, the hounds trailing dejectedlybehind him and his half-dozen companions.
"What luck?" I called out, drawing rein as I met them.
"None," said Mr. Flurry briefly. He did not stop, neither did heremove his pipe from the down-twisted corner of his mouth; his eye atme was cold and sour. The other members of the hunt passed me withequal hauteur; I thought they took their ill luck very badly.
On foot, among the last of the straggling hounds, cracking a carman'swhip, and swearing comprehensively at them all, slouched my friendSlipper. Our friendship had begun in Court, the relative positions ofthe dock and the judgment-seat forming no obstacle to its progress, andhad been cemented during several days' tramping after snipe. He was,as usual, a little drunk, and he hailed me as though I were a ship.
"Ahoy, Major Yeates!" he shouted, bringing himself up with a lurchagainst my cart; "it's hunting you should be, in place of sending poordivils to gaol!"
"But I hear you had no hunting," I said.
"Ye heard that, did ye?" Slipper rolled upon me an eye like that of aprofligate pug. "Well, begor, ye heard no more than the thruth."
"But where are all the foxes?" said I.
"Begor, I don't know no more than your honour. And Shreelane--thatthere used to be as many foxes in it as there's crosses in a yard ofcheck! Well, well, I'll say nothin' for it, only that it's quare!Here, Vaynus! Naygress!" Slipper uttered a yell, hoarse with whisky,in adjuration of two elderly ladies of the pack who had profited by ourconversation to stray away into an adjacent cottage. "Well,good-night, Major. Mr. Flurry's as cross as briars, and he'll have meate!"
He set off at a surprisingly steady run, cracking his whip, andwhooping like a madman. I hope that when I also am fifty I shall beable to run like Slipper.
That frosty evening was followed by three others like unto it, and aflight of woodcock came in. I calculated that I could do with fiveguns, and I despatched invitations to shoot and dine on the followingday to four of the local sportsmen, among whom was, of course, mylandlord. I remember that in my letter to the latter I expressed afacetious hope that my bag of cock would be more successful than his offoxes had been.
The answers to my invitations were not what I expected. All, withoutso much as a conventional regret, declined my invitation; Mr. Knoxadded that he hoped the bag of cock would be to my liking, and that Ineed not be "affraid" that the hounds would trouble my coverts anymore. Here was war! I gazed in stupefaction at the crooked scrawl inwhich my landlord had declared it. It was wholly and entirelyinexplicable, and instead of going to sleep comfortably over the fireand my newspaper as a gentleman should, I spent the evening inirritated ponderings over this bewildering and exasperating change offront on the part of my friendly squireens.
My shoot the next day was scarcely a success. I shot the woods incompany with my gamekeeper, Tim Connor, a gentleman whose duties mainlyconsisted in limiting the poaching privileges to his personal friends,and whatever my offence might have been, Mr. Knox could have wished meno bitterer punishment than hearing the unavailing shouts of "Markcock!" and seeing my birds winging their way from the coverts, far outof shot. Tim Connor and I got ten couple between us; it might havebeen thirty if my neighbours had not boycotted me, for what I couldonly suppose was the slackness of their hounds.
I was dog-tired that night, having walked enough for three men, and Islept the deep, insatiable sleep that I had earned. It was somewhereabout 3 A.M. that I was gradually awakened by a continuous knocking,interspersed with muffled calls. Great-Uncle McCarthy had never beforegiven tongue, and I freed one ear from blankets to listen. Then Iremembered that Peter had told me the sweep had promised to arrive thatmorning, and to arrive early. Blind with sleep and fury I went to thepassage window, and thence desired the sweep to go to the devil. Itavailed me little. For the remainder of the night I could hear himpacing round the house, trying the windows, banging at the doors, andcalling upon Peter Cadogan as the priests of Baal called upon theirgod. At six o'clock I had fallen into a troubled doze, when Mrs.Cadogan knocked at my door and imparted the information that the sweephad arrived. My answer need not be recorded, but in spite of it thedoor opened, and my housekeeper, in a weird _deshabille_, effectivelylighted by the orange beams of her candle, entered my room.
"God forgive me, I never seen one I'd hate as much as that sweep!" shebegan; "he's these three hours--arrah, what, three hours!--no, but allnight, raising tallywack and tandem round the house to get at thechimbleys."
"Well, for Heaven's sake let him get at the chimneys and let me go tosleep," I answered, goaded to desperation, "and you may tell him fromme that if I hear his voice again I'll shoot him!"
Mrs. Cadogan silently left my bedside, and as she closed the door shesaid to herself, "The Lord save us!"
Subsequent events may be briefly summarised. At 7.30 I was awakenedanew by a thunderous sound in the chimney, and a brick crashed into thefireplace, followed at a short interval by two dead jackdaws and theirnests. At eight, I was informed by Peter that there was no hot water,and that he wished the divil would roast the same sweep. At 9.30, whenI came down to breakfast, there was no fire anywhere, and my coffee,made in the coachhouse, tasted of soot. I put on an overcoat andopened my letters. About fourth or fifth in the uninteresting heapcame one in an egregiously disguised hand.
"Sir," it began, "this is to inform you your unsportsmanlike conducthas been discovered. You have been suspected this good while ofshooting the Shreelane foxes, it is known now you do worse. Partieshave seen your gamekeeper going regular to meet the Saturday earlytrain at Salters Hill Station, with your grey horse under a cart, andyour labels on the boxes, and
we know as well as _your agent in Cork_what it is you have in those boxes. Be warned in time.--YourWellwisher."
I read this through twice before its drift became apparent, and Irealised that I was accused of improving my shooting and my finances bythe simple expedient of selling my foxes. That is to say, I was in aworse position than if I had stolen a horse, or murdered Mrs. Cadogan,or got drunk three times a week in Skebawn.
For a few moments I fell into wild laughter, and then, aware that itwas rather a bad business to let a lie of this kind get a start, I satdown to demolish the preposterous charge in a letter to Flurry Knox.Somehow, as I selected my sentences, it was borne in upon me that, ifthe letter spoke the truth, circumstantial evidence was rather againstme. Mere lofty repudiation would be unavailing, and by my infernalfacetiousness about the woodcock I had effectively filled in the caseagainst myself. At all events, the first thing to do was to establisha basis, and have it out with Tim Connor. I rang the bell.
"Peter, is Tim Connor about the place?"
"He is not, sir. I heard him say he was going west the hill to mendthe bounds fence." Peter's face was covered with soot, his eyes werered, and he coughed ostentatiously. "The sweep's after breaking one ofhis brushes within in yer bedroom chimney, sir," he went on, with allthe satisfaction of his class in announcing domestic calamity; "he'sabove on the roof now, and he'd be thankful to you to go up to him."
I followed him upstairs in that state of simmering patience that anyemployer of Irish labour must know and sympathise with. I climbed therickety ladder and squeezed through the dirty trapdoor involved in theascent to the roof, and was confronted by the hideous face of thesweep, black against the frosty blue sky. He had encamped with all hisparaphernalia on the flat top of the roof, and was good enough to riseand put his pipe in his pocket on my arrival.
"Good morning, Major. That's a grand view you have up here," said thesweep. He was evidently far too well bred to talk shop. "I thravelledevery roof in this counthry, and there isn't one where you'd get ashandsome a prospect!"
Theoretically he was right, but I had not come up to the roof todiscuss scenery, and demanded brutally why he had sent for me. Theexplanation involved a recital of the special genius required to sweepthe Shreelane chimneys; of the fact that the sweep had in infancy beensent up and down every one of them by Great-Uncle McCarthy; of thethree ass-loads of soot that by his peculiar skill he had this morningtaken from the kitchen chimney; of its present purity, the draughtbeing such that it would "dhraw up a young cat with it."Finally--realising that I could endure no more--he explained that mybedroom chimney had got what he called "a wynd" in it, and he proposedto climb down a little way in the stack to try "would he get to come atthe brush." The sweep was very small, the chimney very large. Istipulated that he should have a rope round his waist, and despite theillegality, I let him go. He went down like a monkey, digging his toesand fingers into the niches made for the purpose in the old chimney;Peter held the rope. I lit a cigarette and waited.
Certainly the view from the roof was worth coming up to look at. Itwas rough, heathery country on one side, with a string of little bluelakes running like a turquoise necklet round the base of a firry hill,and patches of pale green pasture were set amidst the rocks andheather. A silvery flash behind the undulations of the hills toldwhere the Atlantic lay in immense plains of sunlight. I turned tosurvey with an owner's eye my own grey woods and straggling plantationsof larch, and espied a man coming out of the western wood. He hadsomething on his back, and he was walking very fast; a rabbit poacherno doubt. As he passed out of sight into the back avenue he wasbeginning to run. At the same instant I saw on the hill beyond mywestern boundaries half-a-dozen horsemen scrambling by zigzag ways downtowards the wood. There was one red coat among them; it came first atthe gap in the fence that Tim Connor had gone out to mend, and with theothers was lost to sight in the covert, from which, in another instant,came clearly through the frosty air a shout of "Gone to ground!"Tremendous horn blowings followed, then, all in the same moment, I sawthe hounds break in full cry from the wood, and come stringing over thegrass and up the back avenue towards the yard gate. Were they runninga fresh fox into the stables?
I do not profess to be a hunting-man, but I am an Irishman, and so, itis perhaps superfluous to state, is Peter. We forgot the sweep as ifhe had never existed, and precipitated ourselves down the ladder, downthe stairs, and out into the yard. One side of the yard is formed bythe coach-house and a long stable, with a range of lofts above them,planned on the heroic scale in such matters that obtained in Irelandformerly. These join the house at the corner by the back door. A longflight of stone steps leads to the lofts, and up these, as Peter and Iemerged from the back door, the hounds were struggling helter-skelter.Almost simultaneously there was a confused clatter of hoofs in the backavenue, and Flurry Knox came stooping at a gallop under the archwayfollowed by three or four other riders. They flung themselves fromtheir horses and made for the steps of the loft; more hounds pressed,yelling, on their heels, the din was indescribable, and justified Mrs.Cadogan's subsequent remark that "when she heard the noise she thought'twas the end of the world and the divil collecting his own!"
I jostled in the wake of the party, and found myself in the loft,wading in hay, and nearly deafened by the clamour that was bandiedabout the high roof and walls. At the farther end of the loft thehounds were raging in the hay, encouraged thereto by the whoops andscreeches of Flurry and his friends. High up in the gable of the loft,where it joined the main wall of the house, there was a small door, andI noted with a transient surprise that there was a long ladder leadingup to it. Even as it caught my eye a hound fought his way out of adrift of hay and began to jump at the ladder, throwing his tonguevociferously, and even clambering up a few rungs in his excitement.
"There's the way he's gone!" roared Flurry, striving through hounds andhay towards the ladder, "Trumpeter has him! What's up there, back ofthe door, Major? I don't remember it at all."
My crimes had evidently been forgotten in the supremacy of the moment.While I was futilely asserting that had the fox gone up the ladder hecould not possibly have opened the door and shut it after him, even ifthe door led anywhere, which, to the best of my belief, it did not, thedoor in question opened, and to my amazement the sweep appeared at it.He gesticulated violently, and over the tumult was heard to asseveratethat there was nothing above there, only a way into the flue, and anyone would be destroyed with the soot----
"Ah, go to blazes with your soot!" interrupted Flurry, already half-wayup the ladder.
I followed him, the other men pressing up behind me. That Trumpeterhad made no mistake was instantly brought home to our noses by the reekof fox that met us at the door. Instead of a chimney, we foundourselves in a dilapidated bedroom full of people. Tim Connor wasthere, the sweep was there, and a squalid elderly man and woman on whomI had never set eyes before. There was a large open fireplace, blackwith the soot the sweep had brought down with him, and on the tablestood a bottle of my own special Scotch whisky. In one corner of theroom was a pile of broken packing-cases, and beside these on the floorlay a bag in which something kicked.
Flurry, looking more uncomfortable and nonplussed than I could havebelieved possible, listened in silence to the ceaseless harangue of theelderly woman. The hounds were yelling like lost spirits in the loftbelow, but her voice pierced the uproar like a bagpipe. It was anunspeakably vulgar voice, yet it was not the voice of a countrywoman,and there were frowzy remnants of respectability about her generalaspect.
"And is it you, Flurry Knox, that's calling me a disgrace! Disgrace,indeed, am I? Me that was your poor mother's own uncle's daughter, andas good a McCarthy as ever stood in Shreelane!"
What followed I could not comprehend, owing to the fact that the sweepkept up a perpetual undercurrent of explanation to me as to how he hadgot down the wrong chimney. I noticed that his breath stank ofwhisky--Scotch, not the native variety.
* * * * *
Never, as long as Flurry Knox lives to blow a horn, will he hear thelast of the day that he ran his mother's first cousin to ground in theattic. Never, while Mrs. Cadogan can hold a basting spoon, will shecease to recount how, on the same occasion, she plucked and roasted tencouple of woodcock in one torrid hour to provide luncheon for the hunt.In the glory of this achievement her confederacy with the stowaways inthe attic is wholly slurred over, in much the same manner as thestartling outburst of summons for trespass, brought by Tim Connorduring the remainder of the shooting season, obscured the unfortunateepisode of the bagged fox. It was, of course, zeal for my shootingthat induced him to assist Mr. Knox's disreputable relations in thedeportation of my foxes; and I have allowed it to remain at that.
In fact, the only things not allowed to remain were Mr. and Mrs.McCarthy Gannon. They, as my landlord informed me, in the midst ofvast apologies, had been permitted to squat at Shreelane until mytenancy began, and having then ostentatiously and abusively left thehouse, they had, with the connivance of the Cadogans, secretly returnedto roost in the corner attic, to sell foxes under the aegis of my name,and to make inroads on my belongings. They retained connection withthe outer world by means of the ladder and the loft, and with the housein general, and my whisky in particular, by a door into the otherattics--a door concealed by the wardrobe in which reposed Great-UncleMcCarthy's tall hat.
It is with the greatest regret that I relinquish the prospect ofwriting a monograph on Great-Uncle McCarthy for a SpiritualisticJournal, but with the departure of his relations he ceased to manifesthimself, and neither the nailing up of packing-cases, nor the rumble ofthe cart that took them to the station, disturbed my sleep for thefuture.
I understand that the task of clearing out the McCarthy Gannon'seffects was of a nature that necessitated two glasses of whisky perman; and if the remnants of rabbit and jackdaw disinterred in theprocess were anything like the crow that was thrown out of the windowat my feet, I do not grudge the restorative.
As Mrs. Cadogan remarked to the sweep, "A Turk couldn't stand it."
Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. Page 1