40 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil. 



beating down and pulling up the dry bracken which they piled up so as to 

 make four comfortable dry seats ; and here we sat down and talked over the 

 sport as we discussed our sandwiches, moistened with potheen and cold 

 spring water, whUe Mike spread out the bag, which made a brave show — 

 nineteen couple of cocks and fourteen or fifteen bunnies, with the two 

 herons and an old blue crow which The O'C. managed to turn over to Mike's 

 great satisfaction, as they be wary fellows, not often amenable to powder and 

 shot ; but he happened to come swooping across the ravine at a moment 

 when things were pretty quiet, and thus fell a victim to his confiding 

 nature. Mike and his assistant worried some cold bacon, and washed it 

 down with about half a pint each of raw spirits. 



We did not waste much time over lunch, as we had still a long stretch to 

 beat before dark, and the days were short; so, after our pipe and a legendary 

 tale from The O'C. of two giants, " the owld O'Callaghans " of com-se, 

 in Brian Boru's time, who must have been by the bones disinterred 

 "just above on the brow yonder," about eleven feet high, though no 

 one knew what had become of these bones, which seemed to be as 

 legendary as the tale, we once more took to the hillsides, and went on with 

 a renewed series of plunging, stumbling, and shooting. "We came here upon 

 many of the cocks we had flushed above, and they seemed very thick, " as 

 thick as fleas in a dog's back, for the place was crawlin' wid 'em," as Mike 

 said ; but, whether their disturbance had made them wary or no, we did not 

 get on quite so well with them. They mostly went up the sides of the 

 ravine, and wheeled back behind us towards their old quarters, and they 

 were remarkably quiet and quick in whipping up the brow ; and, finding this 

 to be so, at last I climbed higher up, nearly to the brink ; where the wood was 

 tliinner and the walking much easier, and I plugged several cock thus, which 

 were making tracks back again, and seemed very surprised and disgusted 

 to find a gun there. After this we got on better, and towards the end of 

 the ravine, as we were working towards home, the cocks seemed to get 

 more and more plentiful. Most of them, of course, had been driven, and the 

 wind-up was particularly brilliant, the cocks bowing to our superior skill in 

 all directions ; and when we struggled up the ravine to the little plateau 

 where the castle stood, and turned out the bag on the lawn, while we smoked 



