A Day With the Meath Hounds 257 



direct way of reaching hounds. She said, as plainly as lan- 

 guage could speak, "Please yourself, sir, but brush, or no brush, 

 I am going." 



If the first jump into the thicket scratched the writer's 

 eyes out, the next one scratched them in again. His white hunt- 

 ing breeches were green from bumping against moss-covered 

 saplings, his hat came off, the hat cord parted company with 

 it, his face was scratched and bleeding from a dozen wounds. 

 On went Tipperary through the brush to the river bank, where 

 the water was only knee deep, and she cantered straight 

 through it, but it sobered her some before she gained the 

 opposite bank, at least, her uncontrollable effervescence had 

 found a vent, like steam from a safety valve, and had reduced 

 the pressure to the safety point, and we arrived at the first 

 check on the best of terms. 



"Look as if you had been fighting with cats," said the 

 Captain when we came together. "Where is your hat?" "I 

 don't know, and that's not all, wherever it is, there it may 

 stay. That Tipperary didn't jump out of her skin at such 

 a racket shows she is hide bound. She jumped me out of a 

 good portion of mine, as you see by my face and you will find 

 it hanging on some blackthorn bushes on the other side of 

 the river near my hat. Go find my hat and miss this run? — 

 not for a hundred such hats ; besides it is where the bushes are 

 so thick a bird could not fly through them. Don't ask me how 

 I came to be in there, I'll tell all about it when we get home." 



We were soon off again, and the Captain kept the writer 

 in sight for the next few fields, where he finally cut loose for 

 himself. The run seemed to be a succession of short dashes 

 and checks, dismounting only to mount again and be off, 

 which reminds us of the Irishman, who was taken to task for 

 making too long a report of a railway wreck. If brevity is 

 really the soul of wit, here it is in his next report — "No. Eight 

 off again ; on again ; gone again. Finnegan." 



