COUNTY TIPPERARY 299 



say on the subject of the peril he conceives he has over- 

 come, and from which he may or may not seek to deter 

 you, I hastened up after him as soon as I considered the 

 coast to be clear, trusting to Providence and a Tipperary 

 horse to take me on as well as my predecessor. But, 

 happening to be riding a vigorous jumper, I found myself 

 taken on all too quickly, and the next moment to be 

 swimming about in a deep pond, into which I had de- 

 scended plump upon my friend's hat. Heading for the 

 shore, I soon emerged in safety, while Mr. Phelan went 

 on without his head-covering. On the way home in the 

 evening he rode back to the spot to recover his damaged 

 beaver at the hands of an industrious countryman, who 

 was wet and mud-besmeared to the shoulders. " Sure the 

 next feller that come he just dhrove it to the bottom, and 

 I've been fishing for it with the spade this half-hour," 

 explained the countryman as he gratefully pocketed his 

 wage. But the faculty of jumping a big fence is by no 

 means the sole essential for riding well to hounds ; and I 

 must be allowed to render humble tribute to Mr. Phelan's 

 brilliant talent in this line. Possessing all the quickness 

 of a steeplechase jockey, he combines with it the readiness 

 of eye and of discrimination that mark a first-rate man to 

 hounds. 



CHAPTER XLIV 



COUNTY TIPPERARY — {continued) 



The rush of sport has made my notes as hurried as 

 they are voluminous. There is no sitting still in county 

 Tipperary. Besides the four daA's' fox-hunting which Mr. 

 Burke gives weekly, the loth Hussars are out twice with 

 their harriers. And if this be not enough, it is open to 

 you to join the farmers' pack, and to pursue the hare — or 

 occasionally a deer — from morn to eve each Sunday. Of 

 the last-named section of the county sport I am bound to 

 plead ignorance, excepting so far as noting that to every 

 second shanty in the neighbourhood is attached a non-' 

 descript hunting-dog — perhaps beagle, harrier, foxhound, 



