THE 13TH HUSSARS' HOUNDS, CORK 155 



the sea. The remainder of the pack bayed in kennel to 

 the sound of the horn, to which a few veterans at liberty 

 responded by climbing the slope, and the whole scene 

 suggested contemplation and a quiet cigar. 



But there were cubs in the gorse, and cubs that, once 

 roused, must go somewhere. It took some time to rouse 

 them, the interval broken by the whip taking a harmless 

 fall over the big bank that bounds the covert, and that lay 

 in wait also for the Master (not, unfortunately, without 

 mishap to his horse). 



Well, eventually a cub introduced us — introduced me, 

 I should say, for I at least was (if you are not) utterly 

 strange to stone-faced banks, such as are the speciality of 

 Cork county. The cub gave us some twenty-five minutes' 

 hunting, and fully twenty-five of these curious banks. 

 Speaking personally — i.e. adopting the pronoun I, to which 

 I am bound to attach myself in these wanderings after 

 novelty — I was, in plain, unsophisticated English, as right 

 as the bank. For had not Mr. T. Donovan, of Leicester 

 fame, empowered me to ride his own two-season hunter — 

 known only as " Donovan's brown ? " And in a strange 

 country I trust entirely to my pack animal — leaving it to 

 him, with my trust in his owner, to pull me through. 

 And so far he has seldom failed me. Thus, under the 

 guidance of Mr. Tremayne and his assistant Mr. Wise, I 

 soon knew more about stone-faced banks than I had 

 acquired throughout some decades of hearsay. 



I couldn't make them out at all, to begin with. For 

 the life of me I did not see how, without chance of a foot- 

 hold half-way, horses were to arrive on the summit of five- 

 feet banks, thence to drop down a similar declivity. It 

 seemed no trouble to them — even to a pony four-year-old. 

 (But the latter was fitly described by her rider as having a 

 " heart as big as a bucket.") 



On the other hand, these grass-topped banks have 

 nothing upon or near them that could suggest the epithet 

 " blind," which in the month of October belongs insepar- 

 ably to our Anglo-Saxon fences, and even to some of the 

 chasms of Meath. They are as plain sailing now as in the 

 winter, that, to put it after the way of the country, never 



