the field of battle for a sovereign it would be
cheap at the price. The old man continued to walk round and round,
fingering a dumb tune on his fiddle that he did not bow, while the
sunlight glistened hot and bright in his unwinking eyes; there was a
faint smile on his lips, he heard as little as he saw; it was evident
that he was away where "beyond these voices there is peace," in the
fairy country that his forefathers called the Tir na'n Oge.

At this juncture the note of the horn sounded very sweetly from across
the shining ford of the river. Hounds and riders came splashing up into
the village street, the old man and his daughter were hustled to one
side, and Mrs. Pat's affability returned as she settled her extremely
smart little person on Pilot's curveting back, and was instantly aware
that there was nothing present that could touch either of them in looks
or quality. Carnfother was at the extreme verge of the D---- Hounds'
country; there were not more than about thirty riders out, and Mrs. Pat
was not far wrong when she observed to Major Booth that there was not
much class about them. Of the four or five women who were of the field,
but one wore a habit with any pretensions to conformity with the sacred
laws of fashion, and its colour was a blue that, taken in connection
with a red, brass-buttoned waistcoat, reminded the severe critic from
Royal Meath of the head porter at the Shelburne Hotel. So she informed
Major Booth in one of the rare intervals permitted to her by Pilot for
conversation.

"All right," responded that gentleman, "you wait until you and that
ramping brute of yours get up among the stone walls, and you'll be jolly
glad if she'll call a cab for you and see you taken safe home. I tell
you what--you won't be able to see the way she goes."

"Rubbish!" said Mrs. Pat, and, whether from sympathy or from a petulant
touch of her heel, Pilot at this moment involved himself in so intricate
a series of plunges and bucks as to preclude further discussion.

The first covert--a small wood on the flank of a hill--was blank, and
the hounds moved on across country to the next draw. It was a land of
pasture, and in every fence was a deep muddy passage, through which the
field splashed in single file with the grave stolidity of the cows by
whom the gaps had been made. Mrs. Pat was feeling horribly bored. Her
escort had joined himself to two of the ladies of the hunt, and though
it was gratifying to observe that