Mr Mahony, the sweep, was also an anti-beagleite. His donkey-cart was never seen at a meet of “thim tarriers,” as he called them. The fact of the matter being that Mr Mahony hated to be outshone. He was the sporting oracle of the village. Two years ago he had backed “Ballybrack” at the Tullagh races. No one else had spotted the horse as a winner; it had started at thirty to one, and Mr Mahony had scooped thirty pounds, and been wheeled home under a pig-net in a wheel-barrow. Though he had backed several losers since then, his word was still law on all matters concerning sport, and the airs put on by Shan when he was hunting with his “tarriers” vexed the soul of Mr Mahony. At nine o’clock of this bright, grey winter’s morning, coming along the broad high-road from Kilgobbin through air delicious with the scent of turf smoke from the cottages and the smell of the good brown earth, you might have seen Shan Finucane in all his glory, half a dozen couples of dogs at his heels, and his old whip under his arm. When he reached the entrance to the village of Castle Knock he blew a note on his horn. The effect was magical. Heads popped out of doors, children ran into the street, pigs stopped grubbing in the road and cocked their eyes over their shoulders in the direction of the sound; the Castle Knock inn vomited its customers from the bar parlour into the roadway, and from a cottage door here and there shot a dog, a beagle-boarder who joined the pack that was half following, half surrounding the huntsman. From backyards you could hear shouts of “Who’s blowin’ the horn?” and answering shouts, “It’s Shan and the dogs.” Down the street, all besprinkled with people, every one gave the huntsman good-day, jocularly or otherwise. “Good-mornin’ to you, Shan,” “Top of the mornin’ to you, Shan,” “Yiv lost a button from your coat, Shan,” “Shan, you’re bustin’ at the elbows,”—through all of which marched the huntsman supremely indifferent, till he reached the inn front, where he drew up, nodded to the landlord, and surveyed his dogs. It was now after nine, the meet took place at ten, at the gates of Glen Druid House; that is to say the nominal meet—this was the real one. “Where are you goin’ to try first, Shan?” asked a burly farmer. Shan, without replying, shoved his old cap back from his forehead and re-surveyed his dogs. “There’s wan short,” said he, “ould Rafter, that boards at Finnegan’s. Run, Bob Murphy, and don’t stop to pick yourself up if y’ tumble down, and give me respects to the Widdy Finnegan. Ax her to loose the dog; she has him shut in the ould pig-sty, most like. She hasn’t tumbled to the chune of the horn, for she’s as deaf as a coffin, and half moidhered in her mind. What was you axing me, Mr O’Rourke?” The farmer repeated his question.