VERY EARLY HUNTING DAYS 15 



in Limerick with hounds one day, and took the 

 deer across the Shannon, in Clare, just beyond 

 the town. 



A great scare in that wild solitary youth of 

 mine was that of mad dogs. The country was 

 full of them. People, sheep, pigs, were constantly 

 bitten and a strange dog was a terror, for the 

 death was a hideous one. 



Some people at Kilrush had a cure. It was, I 

 believe, a Red Indian cure for snake bite, but it 

 never failed. A Clare neighbour of ours, a Mr. 

 Studdert, procured it (one had to say that it was 

 for a human being) and tried it with two pigs. One 

 which took the stuff was absolutely well, the other 

 died. Kennedy, the huntsman's children, were 

 bitten, took it and recovered. 



It was a terrible scare which small as I was I 

 could understand — and I was in the yard one day 

 when a mad brute came racing through and 

 tumbled over Venom, my brother's terrier. Of 

 course he rushed into the fray and got bitten ; he 

 cauterized the wound, but he got the cure and 

 gave it to the dog, and she was going mad at the 

 time. She had begun to tear the carpet, to see 

 imaginary objects and she refused drink. He 

 put the stuff down her throat, and she hved to 

 fourteen — a venerable and snappish matron. The 

 secret died with the owner ; perhaps he had not 

 much of the powder, for it seemed a strange thing 

 to allow to be buried in oblivion, 



