“Well, the idea has just come to me that we may be able to arrange something of that sort for Mr Murphy. I only want a pulley and some rope—stay, I have it: you know the flagstaff on the roof?” “Yes, sir.” “Well, there must be twenty yards or so of signal-halyard line on it. You know what I mean—the rope they pull the flag up on.” “Yes, sir.” “Well, to-morrow you must get me that rope; it will do in the evening time after dinner. Is there anything I can fix a pulley to in the ceiling?” “Sure, there’s a big oak beam that’d hould an iliphant,” said Patsy, whose rabbit-snaring instincts told him something of the plan which had occurred to Mr Fanshawe. “That will do. Now cut off to bed, and mind you say nothing of this to any one. It isn’t every day one has the chance of trapping a burglar. The beagles meet to-morrow at ten, don’t they?” “Yes, sir, at the park gates,” replied Patsy. “Right!” said Mr Fanshawe. “Be sure and call me at eight.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XIX SHAN The Castle Knock beagles were a mixed pack of tall hare-hounds and tiny rabbit-beagles. Nearly every cottager boarded a dog; Mr French (a cousin of Mr O’Farrell, the Master of the Hounds) supplied most of the money requisite, and Shan Finucane was the huntsman. Shan had been after hares for thirty years or so. He was a cadaverous-looking person with solid leather lungs, a face the colour of mahogany (almost), an eye like a gimlet, and an old green coat with three brass buttons on it. A battered old hunting horn, and a whip with a leaden ball on the top of it completed Shan’s rig-out. Shan was great in the field, absolute master of all he surveyed; to see him, with the cry of the dogs answering his cry of “Forrard, forrard,” to see him with the tails of his old tattered coat flying in the air as he took bank and bramble hedge, mud-spattered, hallooing, exultant and glorious, was to see a sight you were not likely to forget in a hurry. Though the beagles were good sport, and their runs sometimes attended by the “quality,” a section of the sporting community of Castle Knock turned up its nose at them. Billy the Buck, for instance, would, so he declared, have sooner been found dead in a ditch than “runnin’ afther them baygles.” The little short runs that a hare afforded were no use to Billy: great stretches of country were the desire of his soul; besides, he was at mortal enmity with Shan.