96 THE IMAGE OF WAR 



Yeomanry Corps ; and Colonel de Eobeck ruled 

 in his stead. Goodall, too, was gone — not to the 

 Transvaal, but into business, and the huntsman was 

 a son of Bridger Champion's, Lord Zetland's well- 

 known huntsman. He was not with the Kildares 

 long, however, and in the following season the 

 Master took the horn himself. 



Some of the regular members of the Kildare field, 

 such as " The Judge," were still to the fore, but 

 "Earlie"^ and "Trivvy"^ were no more there to 

 raise a laugh at the covert side. One of the most 

 amusing half- hours I had ever passed was spent 

 with those two men in a blacksmith's forge during 

 a terrific downpour. It seems strange that a man, 

 such good company as " Trivvy," could only produce 

 so dull a hebdomadal record of the Irish chase. 



The ladies, too, were there. Not all the same 

 ones, by any means ; but any amount of them, as 

 usual in Kildare, and all equally ready to assert 

 the privilege of their sex at the only possible place 

 in the first fence, though about nine- tenths of them 

 must have been well aware that if hounds only ran 

 fast and straight, their share of the entertainment 

 would be but a limited one. No matter : " H — 1 

 to the man who wouldn't hunt both," as the old 

 Duhallow Hunt motto ran, — and the woman too, I 

 suppose, in modern days. 



The country even was changed. There was much 



more wire, and the place was traversed by some 



weird abominations known as " Board of Works 



.Drains," which were neither jumpable, swimable, nor 



fordable, and of which I have no previous recollection. 



I am writing at a disadvantage in being separated 



1 The late Earl of Clonmel. ^ The late Mr O'Connor Morris. 



