A Day With the Meath Hounds 261 



the next struggle brought her out. While Tipj)erary had a 

 few moments in which to recover herself, the companion, with 

 hands full of grass, rubbed oft" the thickest of the muck from the 

 wTiter's clothes with the remark, "I could do a better job with 

 a shovel and a hoe." 



Never in the writer's life was he more supremely thank- 

 ful than when he saw the noble beast making headway and 

 likely to come out in safety. 



As a rule, horses in a predicament of any nature make one 

 or two struggles and quit, but there is no such word as "quit" 

 in the vocabulary of an Irish hunter, for his breeding will pull 

 him through where most others fail, and so it did in this case. 

 Only one other gentleman saw tliis unfortunate affair; he alone, 

 followed the writer's foohsh lead. He was just far enough 

 behind to pull hard to the left and get past the bog on fairly 

 good footing. The other riders were lost to view by an inter- 

 vening growth of bushes. 



One can hardly imagine what the writer looked like; hat- 

 less, his face scratched, his stock all blood, and his clothes, at 

 least the front half, as black and greasy as the treacherous 

 muck could make them. 



Fortunately, there was a dry seat for the saddle and we 

 mounted ; one of us a sadder, a wiser, but above all, the most 

 thankful man in Ireland. 



A few questions and ansAvers showed that neither Iiis com- 

 panion nor the writer knew his way, but we finally came into an 

 open field, next to a "Tater" patch, where a man, whom we 

 first mistook for a scarecrow, shouted something at us. At 

 this we inquired, "Have you seen anything of the hounds?" 

 "Is it the dogs that ye mane, faith and I did, there were hun- 

 dreds of thim and them's a-roaring." 



"Which way have they gone ?" First our informant pointed 

 in one direction, then in the opposite. This we took to mean 

 that the hounds had turned back in the direction we came from. 



