In Mr. Knox's CountrySomerville, E. Oe. (Edith Oenone)
General
In Mr. Knox's Country
Somerville, E. Oe. (Edith Oenone)
British -- Ireland -- Fiction; Ireland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Judges -- Fiction
Before the words had passed her lips someone in the group at the door
vociferated, "Look at him above! Look at him!"
I looked "above," but could see nothing. Not so the rest of the group.
"Now! look at him going west the rock! Now! He's passing the little
holly-tree--he's over the fence----"
I bore, as I have so often borne, the exasperation of, as it were,
hearing instead of seeing a cinematograph, but I saw no reason why I
should submit to the presence of Mr. M'Sweeny, who had sociably sprung
into the motor beside me in order to obtain a better view.
"Look at him over the wall!" howled the cinematograph. "Look at the
size he is! Isn't he the divil of a sheep!"
It was at this moment that I first caught sight of the fox, about fifty
yards on the farther side of Casey's assortment of live stock and their
guardian cur dogs, gliding over the wall like a cat, and slipping away
up the road. At this point Mr. M'Sweeny, finding the disadvantage of
his want of stature, bounded on to the seat beside me and uttered a
long yell.
"Hi! At him! Tiger, good dog! Hi! Rosy!"
I cannot now say whether I smote M'Sweeny in the legs before he jumped,
or if I merely accelerated the act; he appeared to be running before he
touched the ground, and he probably took it as a send-off, administered
in irrepressible fellow-feeling.
Tiger and Rosy were already laying themselves out down the road, and
their yelps streamed back from them like the sparks from an engine.
The party at the door was suddenly in full flight after them with a
swiftness and unanimity that again recalled the cinematograph. They
caught away with them Stephen Casey and his animals; and I had an
enlivening glimpse of the donkey at the top of the hunt, braying as it
went; of Goggin trying in vain to stem the companion flight of the
calves. The bend of the road hid them all from us; the thumping of
heavy feet, the sobbing bray of the donkey, passed rapidly into
remoteness, and Mrs. Knox and I were left with nothing remaining to us
of the situation save the well-defined footmarks of M'Sweeny on the
seat beside me (indelible, as I afterwards discovered).
"Get on, Major Yeates!" screamed Mrs. Knox, above the barking of the
woolly dog. "We must see it out!"
I started the car, and just before we in our turn rounded the corner I
looked back, and saw the leading hounds coming down the hill-side. I
slackened and saw them drop into the road and there remain, mystified,
no doubt, by the astonishing variety of scents, from goat to gombeen
man, that presented themselves. Of Flurry and his followers there was
no sign.
"Get on, get on," reiterated Mrs. Knox, divining, no doubt, my
feelings; "we shall do no more harm than the rest!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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