IN COUNTY TIPPERARY 265 



might seem. These apparently poverty-stricken folk — who 

 lavish little of their hard earnings upon clothing and 

 dwelling, and are, it is pleasing to learn, often far better 

 circumstanced than they appear — are not only madly fond 

 of hunting, but would gladly see its following greatly 

 multiplied, that their own market might be more directly 

 accessible, and their provender more in demand, than 

 through the medium of the local dealers. 



But have I not some little sport to narrate — even of 

 Friday, when the heat was of August, and when even Irish 

 turf could scarce retain its freshness ? At this remote fixture, 

 and with the forthcoming Hunt Races at Fethard requiring 

 all available horses for next week, no wonder our meet 

 was but sparsely attended. When I have mentioned the 

 names of Captain MacNaughten (a late Master), the Misses 

 Langley (nieces of another former Master), and Miss 

 Hulme, I .am at a loss to enumerate further from my 

 slender knowledge. Ballintaggert was, I learned, the 

 denomination of the long straggling wood we first drew — 

 a covert that, if I am right in so putting it, seems to link 

 the lower, hedge-grown, and widely-dyked plain towards 

 Kilkenny territory with the more smoothly-fenced undu- 

 lations of inner Tipperary. It was into the former, the 

 valley, that we started now, with one of the two foxes from 

 Ballintaggert Wood, and, running round the right of the 

 demesne of Harley, had what to my mind constituted a 

 series of sturdy doubles and watercourses, and what not, 

 till our fox twisted us out of scent in the hot sunshine. 

 For the day in question, I found myself acting in the 

 aspiring position of cicerone to another, and yet more 

 untutored, Englishman. I had duly passed on to him the 

 rather varied definitions and injunctions I had myself 

 received previous to entry into Tipperary, leaving him to 

 verify and apply them for himself. I had even conveyed 

 to him the widely accepted impression that Tipperary is 

 guileless of what we term "ditches" and Irishmen call 

 " dykes." No wonder, then, that after some forty minutes' 

 quiet career in the vicinity of Harley — during which he 

 several times found himself on a high bank with a deep-cut 

 stream running on both sides beneath him — he not only 



