e'll be late." It was in no
pleasant mood that we trotted again towards Tervoe. We were anxious to
interview our two kind friends. Then we arrived at the Meet to find that
it was a sell all right, and that the whole of the members of the Hunt
had been sold. We only had one satisfaction left, and that was that _we_
had been sold twice that morning instead of once.

I must leave dear old Ireland, pass over my stay in Cork; the glorious
days in Queenstown Harbour; how we dropped two fourteen-ton guns, the
first of their kind, which we were to mount at Carlisle Fort, into the
bottom of the sea and how we picked them out again; the late nights and
the early mornings at the Cork and Queenstown clubs; the beautiful girls
for whom Old Ireland is so much noted; the meetings of the South United
Hunt Club at Middleton, where the Murphys, Coppingers and other splendid
riders lived. And I must also pass over the six weeks of what in those
days appeared to me as the term of solitary confinement right away at
Greencastle Fort at the entrance to Lough Swilly. I went up there in the
winter. Greencastle village was a small summer resort for the people of
Londonderry. There was an hotel, which was open in the summer, and was
managed by a man and his sisters. In the winter it was shut up. A few
small cottages were also closed up. The population consisted of the
policeman and three or four fishermen.

There was nothing to do for the men at the fort, except a little
gun-drill. The nearest village was Moville, some four miles off. It was
too rough as a rule to go fishing with any degree of comfort, so it was
that I learnt how to play marbles. The old policeman, a couple of the
fishermen and the hotel-keeper, when he was sober--which was not
often--were quite experts, and taught me the game. They called it
Three-Hole. The idea was this: you had to make nine holes, and the one
who was last in doing so had to stand drinks, and, in addition, to put
his hand down on the ground, with the knuckles facing the others, each
one of whom had three shots at him with a good hard marble. This may be
of little interest, indeed, as far as the game is concerned, but it shows
one how different were the lives of us young officers then from what they
are nowadays.

After my stay at Greencastle I proceeded to take charge of our detachment
at Carlisle Fort, Queenstown Harbour. Have you ever been there? If not,
go when you get the opportunity. Certainly Carlisle F