BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 19 



stable beyond all houses in the town — so the town 

 says. Then the hedgerows, and the white road 

 stretching westward into the unknown. Elder- 

 bushes, with their creamy discs ; dog-roses of every 

 shade of pink gazing at us with soft innumerable 

 faces ; honeysuckle in thickets ; perfumes lonely 

 and delicate, perfumes blended and intoxicating. 

 The thought of them takes the pen from the paper 

 in indolent remembrance of that first ride between 

 the Montgomery hedgerows, while yet the horse- 

 flies had not discovered us, and while the hold-alls 

 lay trim and deceptive in the straps that bound 

 them to the saddles. 



The mention of the hold-alls disperses like an 

 east wind all ideas of the indolent and the pictur- 

 esque. Briefly they may be described as was a 

 kitchen-maid in a Galway household by an en- 

 raged fellow-servant — " She's able to put any one 

 that'd be with her into a decay." We had spent 

 the morning in packing them, in repacking them, 

 in acrid argument as to whether Miss O'Flanni- 

 gan's painting-box (apparently made of lead and 



