--Pat was the
huntsman--"outside the low wall there, down towards the river." This
was Sam O'Grady, the master of the Duhallow hounds, the god of Owen's
idolatry. No better fellow ever lived, and no master of hounds, so
good; such at least was the opinion common among Duhallow sportsmen.

"Yes, yer honer,--he did skirt round there, I knows that; but he's
been among them laurels at the bottom, and he'll be about the place
and outhouses somewhere. There's a drain here that I knows on, and he
knows on. But Mr. Owen, he knows on it too; and there aint a chance
for him." So argued Pat, the Duhallow huntsman, the experienced craft
of whose aged mind enabled him to run counter to the cutest dodges
of the cutest fox in that and any of the three neighbouring baronies.

And now the sweep before the door was crowded with red coats; and
Owen, looking from his dining-room window, felt that he must take
some step. As an ordinary rule, had the hunt thus drifted near his
homestead, he would have been off his horse and down among his
bottles, sending up sherry and cherry-brandy; and there would have
been comfortable drink in plenty, and cold meat, perhaps, not in
plenty; and every one would have been welcome in and out of the
house. But now there was that at his heart which forbade him to mix
with the men who knew him so well, and among whom he was customarily
so loudly joyous. Dressed as he was, he could not go among them
without explaining why he had remained at home; and as to that, he
felt that he was not able to give any explanation at the present
moment.

"What's the matter with Owen?" said one fellow to Captain Donnellan.

"Upon my word I hardly know. Two chaps came to him this morning,
before he was up; about business, they said. He nearly murdered one
of them out of hand; and I believe that he's locked up somewhere with
the other this minute."

But in the meantime a servant came up to Mr. O'Grady, and, touching
his hat, asked the master of the hunt to go into the house for a
moment; and then Mr. O'Grady, dismounting, entered in through the
front door. He was only there two minutes, for his mind was still
outside, among the laurels, with the fox; but as he put his foot
again into the stirrup, he said to those around him that they
must hurry away, and not disturb Owen Fitzgerald that day. It may,
therefore, easily be imagined that the mystery would spread quickly
through that portion of the county of Cork.

They must hurr