214 SPORTING REMINISCENCES 



The going was deep, the little hireling was tired 

 when he started. He died away across the deep 

 holding fields and almost gave out up the hill 

 into Dohora, though only two miles. Leaving 

 this he gathered pace again down the first hiU, 

 sufiicient to bump heavily into a man whose horse 

 was dwelling on a bank, and the result was both 

 horses and one man in the ditch. 



The young soldier, quite blissfully unaware of 

 cause of offence was up in a second, pulled out 

 his horse, saw the other still in the ditch with an 

 angry man with an eyeglass dancing on the bank, 

 and fled on, glad to get away from the heated 

 language. 



The hireling now flew, caught up hounds, 

 breasted the ascent to Liskennit, and was full of 

 running as they hunted slowly back towards Groom 

 Gorse. 



But what worried the soldier was a very beauti- 

 ful woman on a brown horse, who stared at him 

 and at a check came up to ask in flurried tones 

 " How on earth he had got her husband's horse ? " 



The soldier said that he had hired it, and hounds 

 went on. He was surprised to find that the 

 whiskered little man whom he had interviewed 

 in the back streets of Limerick could possess such 

 a wife, but then he was new to Ireland. 



Hounds checked again. The lady, now irate, 

 rode up to remark furiously that he had got her 

 husband's horse. And the young soldier said that 



