36 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil 



luck and success to ye all ! ' and he takes a drink, and no sooner had he 

 swallowed it than he became a Dullahan like the rest. It's truth I am tellin' 

 ye — me father would swear it, too, by all the books that niver war open or 

 shut — and he began dancin' like the rest, and aff went his head too, 

 a-spoortin' and jumpin' like trouts at a Mayfly. Ah ! sure it was Meg's 

 divarsion ; and the way he pitched his head about was a caution, and at last 

 he hove it up till it hit with a turrible crack agen the ugly nozzle of an ould 

 ornamental wather spout that stuck out just under the roof ; and the blow 

 was that sevare that fire flashed in his eyes, there was a noise in his ears, and 

 all became dark, and he minded nothing more. And in the mornin' there he 

 found himself, just inside the churchyard wall among the stones, cowld and 

 stiff, with the bottle empty by his side, and his horse croppin the grass on 

 the other side av the wall. People did say that he'd emptied the bottle, got 

 sevarely influenced, and tumbled over the wall; and me mother declared 

 it was at the Doolans, and not the Dulahans, he got influenced ; and, faix ! 

 it was whispered that it was Black Katy Doolan lost her head and more too 

 on that occasion ; but Shamus declared that was pure invintion, and showed 

 the big knock on his head which he got from the spout, and the dreadful 

 headache which he had the next day in proof of his advinture ; " and Terry 

 grinned as he finished his story. 



Half an hour's drive brought us to our destination, and here we found 

 Mike with a couple of boys whom he had picked up as beaters — ragged, 

 good humoured fellows, whose clothes neither brambles nor bogs would be 

 able to damage, 



A quarter of a mile walk across a bit of moor brought us to a singular 

 ravine about two or three hundred yards wide, well wooded with plenty of 

 undergrowth, a wealth of brambles, with patches of heather and fern, big 

 Itmaps of rock, and bits of bog. In places it was abominably steep, and 

 about as infernal walking as one could wish for. Now and then you would 

 come in the midst of high fern on a dangerous little precipice of forty or 

 fifty feet high, and, but for the careful tutelage of Mike, who beat down 

 below me, between myself and the Counsellor, I make little doubt that I 

 should more than once either have been bogged up to my waist or have 

 pitched down and broken my neck over one of those blind precipices. Yet 



