2 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



isn't to you, and I pondered much over it, even during 

 the hours of an uneasy ride across Channel. The maxims 

 of two such mentors have never since been absent from 

 my mind, even in moments of direst terror and fancied 

 peril. "Go slow, go slow!" I say to myself, till, like the 

 poor ignorant's wail of " O pilot ! 'tis an awful night," 

 it has become a kind of prayer to me when the banks 

 loom high and the deep chasms yawn. For, by all that 

 is holy, the ditches of Meath are very chasms. It is 

 difficult to conceive any period of Ireland's history when 

 labour was so cheap, and landowners so lavish of the 

 soil, that the populace were employed to dig the ground 

 everywhere into rampart and dyke, as if every field was 

 not only to be fenced but to be fortified — built and 

 separated each into a rich green Campus Martins. 



Without further preface let me bring you to the covert- 

 side of Philpotstown {town being, I take it, the adjunct 

 denominating in each case the habitat of some aboriginal 

 settler. If I am not right, may I not offend.). Well, here 

 were some twenty, or thirty riders all told, and at but a 

 little after three in the afternoon — a contrast, indeed, to 

 the merry Shires and their eager, too eager multitudes. 

 For, remember, Monday, October 19, 1891, was in the 

 season proper — as they calendar it in Meath, and as 

 betokened by the pink coats around (among them, by the 

 way, one bearing the Q.H. button, and inviting memory 

 back to Cream Gorse and the Coplow ; Mr. Beaumont 

 the wearer). A find — a scream — watches out — and away !: 

 Now to see what we shall see. Shiver and shake as 

 much as you please by the covertside. But who shall 

 tremble, who shall linger, when, like a rocket loosened, 

 the pack is seen shooting forth in the dark background,, 

 and a good horse is instantly quickening into life between 

 your knees ? When such a moment fails to stimulate 

 and to stir, may I, at least, be beneath the green turf 

 rather than above it ! 



Round and beyond the little wood-covert was the 

 inevitable shepherd, driving reynard across the river that 

 flows beneath it, (Saving the near neighbourhood of the 

 Boyne, it takes far less to make a " river " in Ireland than 



