"'Tis her ladyship's Rile Imperial Mascot Goat," says I; "an' God save your honour, for she'll have your blood in a bottle for this day's worrk." The huntsman lets a curse out of his stummick and rides afther them, flat on his saddle, both spurs tearin'. In the wink of an eye he is down among the dogs, larrupin' them with his whip and drawin' down curses on them that would wither ye to hear him--he had great eddication, that orficer. "Come now," says I to Mikeen, the poor lad, "let you and me bear the cowld corpse of the diseased back to Herself, mebbe she'll have a shillin' handy in her hand, the way she'd reward us for saving the body from the dogs," says I. But was me bowld mascot dead? He was not. He was alive and well, the thickness of his wool had saved him. For all that he had not a hair of it left to him, and when he stood up before you, you wouldn't know him; he was that ordinary without his fleece, he was no more than a common poor man's goat, he was no more to look at than a skinned rabbit, and that's the truth. He walked home with meself and Mikeen as meek as a young gerrl. Herself came runnin' out, all fluttery, to look at him. "Ah, but that's not my mascot," she says. "It is, Marm," says I; and I swore to it by the whole Calendar--Mikeen too. "Bah! how disgustin'. Take it to the cowhouse," says she, and stepped indoors without another word. We led the billy away, him hangin' his head for shame at his nakedness. "Ye'll do no more mascotin' avic," says I to him. "Sorra luck you would bring to a blind beggar-man the way you are now--you'll never step along again with the drums and tambourines." And that was the true word, for though Herself had Mikeen rubbing him daily with bear's grease and hair lotion he never grew the same grand fleece again, and he'd stand about in the backfield, brooding for hours together, the divilment clane gone out of his system; and if, mebbe, you'd draw the stroke of an ash-plant across his ribs to hearten him, he'd only just look at you, sad-like and pass no remarks. XIX WAR VEGETATION 'Tis her ladyship up at the Castle that has the War at heart; 'tis no laughin' matter wid her. She came back from England wid the grandest modern notions for conductin' the war in the home that ever ye'd see, an' a foreign domestic maid she had hired in London. "'Tis a poor Belgium refuge she is, Delaney," says Herself to meself. "In the home she is afther lavin' there is nothing left standin' but the wine-cellar, an' that full o' German Huns--she is wet wid weepin' yet," says Herself; "so be kind to her, for we must help our brave Allies."