266 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



reproached me with inaccuracy, but more or less held me 

 to account for the unexpected strain upon his Saxon nerves. 

 " My dear fellow, this is what they told me," was all I 

 could urge. " And you don't look half as much astonished 

 and frightened as I was, when first I set off to ride from 

 Ballylennan ! " 



The hard limestone road along which we lounged en 

 route for Front's Gorse was like nothing but a baking oven 

 at white heat. We watered our horses at a wayside 

 stream, and right thankfully we watered our own dusty 

 throats at a cottage as we passed. Then was brought an 

 alarm of a fox gone from a quaint ruined fort on the hilltop, 

 one of the many circular earthworks, marked yet by dyke 

 and blackthorn, that are still dotted about the country, 

 and that, white-iiecked with thorn blossom without, and 

 carpeted with primrose and violet within, are at this time 

 intensely picturesque. Well, a fox had gone, but long 

 gone ; so shortly we moved on again to Front's Furze — a 

 snug glen whose side was yellow with the luxuriant bloom 

 of the close-growing gorse. " Just like a mustard-plaster " 

 was the practical but grossly unpoetical comment at my 

 elbow. So it was, but perhaps the horrid remark was 

 meant more especially to apply to the prickly terrors 

 pertaining to the Irish furze — which in its early years 

 makes a covert almost impenetrable to foxhounds. How- 

 ever, Mr. Burke's hounds wriggled through inch by inch, 

 and at length disturbed and evicted a fox. With him we 

 went away at score, again down into the valley, close at 

 his brush, and of course a scent, though we crossed two 

 pieces of dustiest oat-ground. The banks were high, and the 

 hedges atop were woolly. If " woolly " is too soft a word 

 to apply to Irish blackthorn that cuts like a saw, take it as 

 applying only to the thick briar blind that still surmounts 

 many a bank. And it was through the medium of this 

 that it soon came to my lot to amplify my experience of 

 the country, and even to add to my acquaintance with its 

 language. A " boreen," my Saxon brethren, is what we 

 should, perhaps, define as a cart-lane, a road built for farm 

 purposes, and made solid with such rough stones as come 

 readiest to hand. I reached the crest of the bank over- 



