A HOME SEQUEL 2ii 



Soon afterwards another jolly friar entered the carriage. 

 He had his hand wrapped up, and alluded to his leg as 

 having been recently bruised. He averred he had been 

 riding all his life — "horse-bucking and all manner of 

 games " — but that he had never hurt himself till now. 

 '' How was this ? " I asked. " Did the horse fall ? " " He 

 did not," he explained. "I struck him with the spur, and 

 he got his mettle up. I thought I would stop him before 

 he got to the grove, but he pulled one way and I pulled 

 the other, and a tree came in between my leg and the 

 saddle. But, sure, it will be all right now," he added 

 cheerfully, exhibiting a fist as big and black and round as 

 a bullock's heart. Then he continued very pleasantly, 

 " Have you had some good hunting in this country ? The 

 hunting in England isn't as good as here. You haven't 

 any banks to the fences there ! " I humbly admitted this, 

 and he went on, " Galway, they tell me, is a terrible place 

 for hunting. The banks are all stones, and it's only a real 

 clever horse that can keep his legs on them." Then, alas, he 

 left the train, or who knows how much more I might have 

 gratefully learned from my hearty and agreeable fellow- 

 passenger ? 



CHAPTER XXIX 



A HOME SEQUEL 



Full forty-eight hours, so my experience points, does it 

 take the ordinary landsman to recuperate after a Channel 

 passage. In my case I had planned to secure at least 

 Sunday for restorative purposes, and am not ashamed to 

 confess that sixteen hours out of the next twenty-four 

 were spent in peaceful slumber, after the ordeal of a 

 sufficiently purgatorial gale to have expiated any year of 

 ordinary sin. 



Next day, Monday, January 29, 1893, I sought awaken- 

 ing by means of a hunt with the Grafton, who met at 

 Woodford. The cure was effectual enough, and, grati- 

 fying though it was that it took place in a good district, 

 with a grand pack, on a perfect day, it would have been 



