140 MY FIEST AND LAST STEEPLE-CHASE 



talk the matter over ; and at length it was decided 

 that we should take a lodge at a small watering- 

 place, well known to both, on the south-west coast 

 of Ireland, and there abide until something better 

 turned up. 



I don't think, under the circumstances, we 

 could have made a much better choice. The 

 salmon and sea-fishing were excellent ; when the 

 shooting season came round, most of the moors 

 in the neighbourhood were free to us. The summer 

 had been unusually hot ; we were tired of town 

 life, and longing to divest ourselves of the " war 

 paint," " bury the hatchet," and get away to some 

 quiet bay by the Atlantic, where we could do what 

 seemed right in our own eyes, free from the eternal 

 pipeclay and conventionalities with which we had 

 been hampered. " Last, not least," at a ball given 

 before the regiment left Ireland, we had met two 

 girls, sisters, who usually spent the season there, 

 and, if the truth must be told, I believe they had 

 hit us so hard we were " crippled " from flying 

 very far. So, after an impartial distribution of the 

 regimental plate, and a rather severe night at mess, 

 to finish the remains of the cellar, we bade farewell 

 to our companions in arms, and found ourselves 

 once more in " dear old dirty Dublin," en route 

 for the south. 



