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couple of big fences, and we are on the edge of the region where Tim's first covey is said to lie a tillagefield, divided as usual between a grainstubble and a strip of swedes and potatoes; a rough pasture-field or two; an enclosure gone back altogether to heather and rushes; and beyond again the boundless stretch of the mountain. In the potatoes is their owner, the inevitable accompaniment to the Irish partridge-season, trying with his long-handled spade the first few rows. He is full of details, as usual, of the great pack which, under Tim's vigilant eye or perhaps from worthier motives, he has left severely alone. He has "riz 'em the night before," as he always has; and there are "fourteen birds in it, yer Honour, God bless 'em!" as there generally are. It would be easy enough in smoothshaven England to find a covey so definitely located. A few clean stubbles or pastures to walk, a field of turnips or clover to drive the birds into, and the thing is done. But it is astonishing what elusive powers the Irish partridge with his wide choice of refuge displays, and how often he will defy the search of the finest dogs handled by sportsmen who have the patience of a former generation and possess their almost lost art of hunting dogs scientifically where cover is plentiful and game both cunning and scarce.

"Yander's thim, Sorr!" sings out our agricultural friend as he points with his spade to where, over a heathery field abutting on the mountain, a covey of birds can be faintly seen skimming over the russet ground. They are grouse, of course; but in this wild country, a common haunt both of grouse and partridge, the mistake for a moment at such a distance is pardonable. Every inch of likely ground seems on this occasion to be hunted in vain. The patches of heather, the strips of rank, sedgy No. 433.-VOL. LXXIII.

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Mike

"Rose has 'em, Sorr!" in the field at any rate uses as few words as possible, but they are always to the point. And there, sure enough, at the far end of the somewhat bare common we drew as a forlorn hope, and thought we had drawn blank, the little red dog is creeping with stiff tail up to the gorsecovered bank that divides the far end of it from territory that had been pronounced outside the range of the birds. Up the bank she goes with deliberate cautiousness of movement, and over the top, and long before we can get up to her we know by instinct she is standing on the other side.

Does the most hard-bitten sportsman ever walk up to a distant point with quite that leisurely nonchalance recommended in books to the tyro? We think not. By the time we are on the fence-top our breathing, no doubt, is not quite regular; but there is Rose right under us, standing like a rock, with the covey no doubt under her nose in a patch of heather and rushes.

We are now confronted with a situation common enough in the pursuit of the Irish partridge; we have to jump for it, not a drop merely of six feet, but a ditch of at least that width as well. We often wonder how we shall manage these little affairs in say, ten years' time. There is no

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scrambling evasion possible, and we launch ourselves into space at the same instant. No covey could be expected to lie still under such a concussion, and the moment we strike the ground they rise, as we expected. It is sharp work, having to cock your gun and get in both barrels; but it is wonderful what practice and necessity will do, and we manage to stop three of Tim's fourteen birds before they break into two packs as Irish coveys so often do at the first flush.

Tim, who has mounted on the fence behind us, has one lot marked; Mike, whose lanky figure is outlined against the sky three hundred yards off, no doubt has the other. The potatodigger was left with strict injunctions to stand still. The excitement was too much for him, however, as it so often is with the rural spectator on these occasions, and creeping up close to the fence near the line of fire, he had got a pellet off a twig in his cheek. We will do Pat the justice to say he would not dream of making such an accident the basis of a financial consideration, like some of our friends nearer home. On the contrary, he apologises for being in the way while Tim picks the pellet out with a blunt knife and much friendly banter all round, for Pat is a staunch political supporter of Father Burke, and the situation is for a moment almost critical.

One great advantage of shooting over dogs is that, in comparison with other styles, it is eminently sociable. Your dogs do the entire work of finding the game, subject of course to that supervision which to an experienced sportsman in a familiar country is a natural instinct. In the long intervals that may elapse between disposing of one covey and finding another you have not to walk fifty yards apart, in silence, with an eye to the dressing of the line, and your finger, so

to speak, upon the trigger. We do not mean to suggest that a good day's partridge-shooting is dearly purchased by such obvious and necessary precautions, due to short stubbles and machinery; but they are neutral accomplishments that call for neither individuality, nor skill, nor any quality on the part of the rank and file, at any rate, of the squad, except to keep awake and shoot straight. Now when following a brace of free-ranging and trustworthy dogs in Ireland, and some other countries much further off that we wot of, there is not only the satisfaction of watching their performances, but the sociability of an ordinary country ramble is at the same time possible. The sustained tension inseparable from walking up birds is removed; the business of the day is done in clearly defined, brief periods of excitement ; the intervals are spent with a mind comparatively at ease. In the course of such a day as this one hears indeed the whole news of the countryside. While we are hunting for the covey that is known to inhabit the forty Irish acres occupied by Mr. Cornelius O'Flaherty, that gentleman himself puts in an appearance as a matter of course; he has much to say about many and various things, and says it in a fashion sometimes so wholly humorous that it would be almost worth while going to pay him a visit without the motive of his partridges. As we leave him to finish setting up his barley-stooks, and his birds, after a vain quest perhaps, for another day, Tim has comments and criticisms to make upon this same Cornelius that, whether just or not, will be entirely delightful to listen to. And as we

cross the ridge and drop down into the hollow where, in a thatched and whitewashed farm-house surrounded by a cluster of small pasture and tillage fields, dwells Mr. Daniell O'Sulli

van, that worthy also is waiting for us. He owes Heaven knows how many years' rent, but has been offered a clear receipt for the payment of one. Eloquence is his misfortune, and he thinks (though, we have heard, erroneously,) that it will bring him better terms. He begins upon the covey that he has watched with the eye of a father from the day it was hatched out, about which Tim, however, has always been anxious, and invents another one of eleven birds, at which the custodian of the chase chuckles with a brutal frankness almost worthy of a Saxon. We then have a recapitulation of the year's disasters. This does not in the least affect our progress from a sporting point of view, any more than a band at a regimental mess prevents you paying attention to your dinner. And Dan, who is perfectly well known to have the money ready, has just declared his intention of coming down next court-day to exchange it for a general absolution, when Rose comes to a dead stand in the potatoes and Grouse backs her like a statue.

Sometimes, however, we are on the open mountain for half the day, for in fine weather the birds from the cultivated fringe at its foot will wander far up into grouse-land, where the coveys in the rank heather scatter beautifully, and point after point is made, and bird after bird is killed, under conditions that would seem to belong entirely to grouse-shooting.

The outlook from these high latitudes is magnificent at any time, but beneath the shadows and sunshine, the brilliant gleams, the scudding storms of an Irish autumn, it is inexpressibly lovely. It is much more. than that. It is teeming with human interest and that indescribable pathos that distinguishes nearly all Irish landscape. It is not a view, like some of those in remoter and tourist

haunted Ireland, that has little or nothing behind its physical beauties but impossible legends of devils and saints and mythical kings, adapted to the eloquence of the car-driver and the intelligence, no doubt, of many of his passengers. It is a far cry

from Tipperary to the Irish Sea, but there on the one hand, piled up like great gray clouds upon the horizon, the Galtee mountains mark the site of the turbulent and famous town; while here upon the opposing limit of vision, the soft and billowy outlines of romantic Wicklow are scarcely less distinct. Far to the north, somewhere in Roscommon or Westmeath, a large lake sparkles for a moment only like a mirror flashed in the sun, while upon the southern sky-line the lonely mass of Slievenaman springs high above those pastoral regions through which the strenuous Suir works his way towards the sea. They are no question of a painter's canvas, these vast illimitable sweeps of vision. They seem to us, if it is not presumptuous to say so, to strike a deeper note than anything art alone can sound, and awake feelings of a kind that are only in a secondary sense æsthetic. One's emotions are, after all, but the play of a capricious fancy, the outcome of influences in which literature of some sort or other probably plays ably plays a leading part. If, for instance, one has wandered off the ordinary track so far as to have two or three centuries of Irish history fairly well imprinted on one's brain, there is something in Irish landscape that harmonises to an extraordinary degree with the melancholy fascination of the tale. The very chaos and turbulence of the whole thing give a strange sort of charm, for instance, to yonder fragment of ruin beneath us that looks out over the four or five miles of darkling bog. It is comparatively modern, yet no one, save a few

archæologists perhaps in Dublin, knows its history; but we dare swear it is a grim enough one, and witnessed deeds at which even a contemporary Englishman's blood would have turned cold. Tom cares for none of these things, though his remote forbears were militant patriots and mustered strong enough as the war cry of Butler aboo! sounded over the green ridges which separate Kilkenny from the central shires, and which are plainly visible from the pinnacle on which we are

now standing. He is helping to make history in an honest, practical, conscientious fashion, and so perhaps is Tim, though upon other lines. And we are not doing even that, but dreaming on a hill-top about what is long since past and done with; while Mike has gone in search of some spring-water, that with the help of our own flasks we may celebrate what Tim calls a "great day" before starting on our long homeward march.

CHAPTER I.

A BRIDE ELECT.

DEAR GODMAMMA DORCAS,-You promised Dad when I was a child,-before I could run alone, I believe-that you would come to my wedding, and we are going now to claim fulfilment, so you must pack up your boxes forthwith. I am to be married in a fortnight, very quietly, in the church at home. It has all been fixed in a great hurry; Dick wanted to wait till the spring, but I said no. I was not going to stand another winter in Ditchborough if I could help it. I told him he could take me or leave me, so he is going to take me, -of course. It is to be as quiet as possible, indeed nobody has been told in the neighbourhood but the village people are so inquisitive and the servants will talk, so I am afraid it is not as secret as I should wish. Not a soul is to be asked but Dick's father and mother, and one of his married sisters and yourself. Janie will be my only bridesmaid; and there will be nobody to pair with her, as Dick is not having a best man. It is all nonsense about best men; they are no good for anything. Mother says I must have a white dress and a veil, and she is getting her way; but for my own part I would like better to wear a garden hat and an ulster, and go off from the churchdoor. Dick would not care. Besides if a girl is ever to have her own way, it should be when she is married; for that only happens once as a rule,-like being born, or dying at the end of everything when one is old. Mother sends her love to you, and hopes you will come on Wednesday week. She is going to write to you tomorrow to give the invitation properly,not necessary I tell her, as you will take it from me. Besides you know you promised, twenty years ago.

There is

nothing to stand in the way, as you are giving up your old women and dirty children and close courts.-What a place the East End must be, with nothing but docks and warehouses and people out of work! How you have stood it for five years I can't imagine, and never a

holiday to come and see us, or go anywhere else!

Your affectionate god-daughter, and
cousin once removed,

BARBARA ALLEYNE.

I took off my spectacles, and laid down the letter. I had not needed them indeed, for the writing was big and black, and took up so much space it ought to have been plain, even to more failing eyes than mine. There was not a great deal in the letter, and yet it had managed to sprawl over three sheets of note-paper, and the dashing signature did not come till quite at the bottom of the last page. I was conscious of a certain sense of discomfort with the writer, of disappointment evenwhich did not sit upon me easily. I had to take myself to task with a reminder that I was behind my age, and had little in common with the new generation so fast growing up; but it seemed strange that a girl should write so flippantly of the most solemn event in her life,-strange she should be the one to press for immediate marriage when the bridegroom proposed delay,-strange she should have no regrets to express over quitting the safe shelter of home, the

father and mother who idolised her if ever a child yet had been idolised by doting parents. It was not like the Barbara Alleyne I remembered,--the long-legged, fresh-hearted hoyden with whom I had been much in sympathy; a Barbara of many scrapes and quick affections, hardly at all sobered but much encumbered by the womanly length of skirt with which she had

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