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 dispa.r.s.e yiz."
Shan heard it all, but marched on. He could have killed Bob Mahony, who was turning his triumph into a farce, out 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 humourist.
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 anyone 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-terrier 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.
Shan turned at the sound, and his rage exploded.
"Who are yiz hittin"? cried Shan.
"I"m larnin" your dogs manners," replied Bob.
The huntsman surveyed the sweep, the cart, the soot bags, and the donkey.
"I beg your pardin"," said he, touchin his hat, "I didn"t see you at first for the sut."
Mr. Mahony took his short pipe from his mouth, put it back upside down, shoved his old hat further back on his head, rested his elbows on his knees, and contemplated Shan.
"But it"s glad I am," went on Shan, "you"ve come to the meet and brought a mimber of the family with you."
Fate was against Bob Mahony, for at that moment Norah, scenting another of her species in a field near by, curled her lip, stiffened her legs, projected her head, rolled her eyes, and "let a bray out of her" that almost drowned the howls of laughter from the exulting mob.
But Shan Finucane did not stir a muscle of his face, and Bob Mahony"s fixed sneer did not flicker or waver.
"Don"t mention it, mum," said Shan, taking off his old cap when the last awful, rasping, despairing note of the bray had died down into silence.
Another howl from the onlookers, which left Mr. Mahony unmoved.
"They get on well together," said he, addressing an imaginary acquaintance in the crowd.
"Whist and hould your nize, and let"s hear what else they have to say to wan another."
Suddenly, and before Shan Finucane could open his lips, a boy who had been looking over the rails into the park, yelled:
"Here"s the Mimber of Parlyment--here they come--Hurroo!"
"Now, then," said the huntsman, dropping repartee and seizing the sweep"s donkey by the bridle, "sweep yourselves off, and don"t be disgracin" the hunt wid your sut bags and your dirty faces--away wid yiz!"
"The hunt!" yelled Mahony, with a burst of terrible laughter. "Listen to him and his ould rat-tarriers callin" thim a hunt! Lave go of the dunkey!"
"Away wid yiz!"
"Lave go of the dunkey, or I"ll batter the head of you in wid me stick!
Lave go of the dunkey!"
Suddenly seizing the long flue brush beside him, and disengaging it from the bundle of sticks with which it was bound, he let fly with the bristle end of it at Shan, and Shan, catching his heel on a stone, went over flat on his back in the road.
In a second he was up, whip in hand; in a second Mr. Mahony was down, a bag half-filled with soot--a terrible weapon of a.s.sault--in his fist.
"Harns! harns!" yelled Mahony, mad with the spirit of battle, and unconsciously chanting the fighting cry of long-forgotten ancestors.
"Who says cruckeder than a ram"s harn!"
"Go it, Shan!" yelled the onlookers. "Give it him, Bob--sut him in the face--b.u.t.t-end the whip, y"idgit--Hurroo! Hurroo! Holy Mary! he nearly landed him then--Mind the dogs--"
Armed with the soot-bag swung like a club, and the old hunting-whip b.u.t.t-ended, the two combatants formed the centre of a circle of yelling admirers.
"Look!" said Miss Lestrange, as the party from the house came in view of the road. "Look at the crowd and the two men!"
"They"re fighting!" cried the general. "I believe the ruffians dared to have the impudence to start fighting!"
At this moment came the noise of wheels from behind, and the "tub,"
which had obtained permission to go to the meet, drew up, with Patsy driving the children.
"Let the children remain here," said the General. "You stay with them, Violet. Come along, Boxall, till we see what these ruffians mean."
So filled was his mind with the objects in view that he quite forgot d.i.c.ky Fanshawe.
"You have put on the short skirt," said d.i.c.ky, who at that moment would scarcely have turned his head twice or given a second thought had the battle of Austerlitz been in full blast beyond the park palings.
"And my thick boots," said Violet, pushing forward a delightful little boot to speak for itself.
The children were so engaged watching the proceedings on the road that they had no eyes or ears for their elders.
"Have you ever been beagling before?" asked d.i.c.ky.
"Never; but I"ve been paper-chasing."
"You can get through a hedge?"
"Rather!"
"That"ll do," said d.i.c.ky.
"Mr. Fanshawe," cried Lord Gawdor from the "tub," "look at the chaps in the road--aren"t they going for each other!"