OINEY AT HOME. 59 



"the b'ys," as they were called, never dropped a word 

 on the subject, possibly because they were under 

 the British flag and were still afraid of spies, or there 

 may have been nothing in it. 



A galloping horse was the pride of Oiney O'Shea's 

 heart, and if he would "lep," as he termed it, so much 

 the better. Oiney was the smallest of the four broth- 

 ers and could, at the time I first met him, ride under 

 eight stone. His face was thin and peaked, you might 

 say on the hatchet order, while his unusual length of 

 limb gave him the same grip on a horse as that which 

 made Fred Archer famous. On the ground, Oiney cut 

 a very sorry figure, as he was narrow-chested and had a 

 long, thin neck, in which the cords stood out like ropes 

 on the rigging of a ship, while his hair, at one time red, 

 was sprinkled with gray and worn rather long. 

 When he threw his leg over a horse you would not 

 have known him. His seat was that natural, easy, 

 jaunty style which comes to a man who is born for the 

 saddle, and when in motion he and the horse moved 

 as one. When at home there was nothing Oiney de- 

 lighted in more than skipping across country. When 

 out on one of those "larks," as he called them, Oiney 

 was never known to open a gate or lower the bars. 

 With him it was "up and over it, my boy," and then 

 off for a scurry down a lane or up the road. Between 

 two of the O'Shea farms there was a wide lane that 

 ran from one concession to another. This made it 

 one mile. On this lane Oiney trained their race 

 horses. The other brothers worked in the fields doing 

 Oiney's work as well as their own whenever he was 

 busy with the "ponies," and you can depend upon it 

 they were never short of work. 



