212 STRAY-AWAYS 



rain " by those who allot to us our daily share of the 

 weather. 



Nevertheless, one speaks of the ford as one finds it, 

 and there still remain far-away places of Southern 

 Ireland where tranquillity broods, and friendliness 

 to all and sundry, and, above all, friendliness to 

 foxhunters and foxhounds, is firm and flourishing. 



Yet it may confidently be asserted of one such 

 place that a country less fitted by Providence for 

 foxhunting would be far to find. A landscape must 

 be pictured wherein little lakes and stretches of tawny 

 bog fill all the level places, and, where these are not, 

 the rest of the world is hillside, grey with rock, dark 

 with furze and heather. Squeezed in among the rocks 

 are the white cottages, with a crooked ash-tree, and 

 a willow or two, between them and the south-west 

 gales, each with its weedy patch of potatoes, and its 

 enforced portion of tillage, drawn up about its knees 

 like a brown blanket. 



It was at a harsh and hideous National School 

 (adjectives that are unhappily appropriate to most 

 Irish National Schools) that the long hack, fifteen 

 miles from Kennels, came to an end, and, as hounds 

 and huntsman halted under its whitewashed walls, 

 the war-time field, the few faithful women and farmers 

 who had followed the Hunt into the wilderness, might 

 have been justified in thinking that the " rising," 

 so often foretold, had at length taken place. 



Suddenly and incredibly the bare and quiet country 

 became alive. Not a ridge of hill but had its black 

 fringe of figures, hardly a fence but a lad or two was 

 slipping over it as lithely as a fox. The boys of two 

 parishes were afoot, and there Avas not a self-respect- 

 ing young man among them but had " risen " to join 

 the hunt. 



It was a mild and beaming day, with spring fluting 



