Wherever in South Munster two or three boys were gathered together, that song was being sung, and Major Talbot-Lowry and his staff had already met so many of such companies on their way to the Meet, that their horses’ indignation at finding a further collection of nightmares at Coppinger’s Court was excusable.

On the high flight of hall-door steps, stood Larry and Miss Coppinger, the former pale with excitement, the latter doggedly resigned to the convention that compelled her to offer intoxicating drinks to people who, as she said, had but just swallowed their breakfasts.  Larry had learned many things since that day of abysmal ignorance when he had spoken of Amazon as a “nice dog.”  Among his many enthusiasms he now included a passion for the chase, and all that appertains to its elaborate cult, that complied with Christian’s, and even Cottingham’s, sense of what was becoming, and, having dedicated a shelf in the library to books on hunting, he had read them all, with the same ardour that, four years earlier, he had brought to bear on The Spirit of the Nation and Irish history.

Major Talbot-Lowry looked down, from the top of his tall, white-faced chestnut, on his young cousin, and accepted the glass of port that Larry reverently offered to him, with a pleased appreciation of the reverence.  Cousin Dick was not invariably pleased with his young cousin.  He had gathered, hazily, from his wife, such of the tenets of the Companions of Finn as she, instructed by Miss Weyman, had been able to impart, and had not approved of them, nor of Larry’s part in introducing them to his young; also it was annoying (especially when he remembered the brown breeches, etc.) to think of a young cub of a boy having more money than he knew what to do with; and, finally, and all the time, there was that almost unconscious, inbred distrust of Larry’s religion.

Nevertheless, it has been said that “wise men live in the present, for its bounties suffice them,” and Dick, if not very wise, was very good-natured, and was wise enough to realise that the fine weather, and the good horse under him, and even Larry’s homage, were bounties sufficient unto the day.

“Got a fox for me, Larry?  That’s right.  Good boy.  Where d’ye think we’ll find him?”

“He’s using the Quarry Wood earth, Cousin Dick,” said Larry, breathlessly, with the anxiety of the owner of the coverts alight in his eyes.  “I’m certain he’s there.  I went round with Sullivan myself last night, and we stopped the whole place.  I bet he’ll not get in anywhere!”

“Good!  I’ll draw the Quarry Wood first,” said Cousin Dick, with royal benignity.  “You get away outside at the western end, and keep a look-out for him.”

A heavy man, on an enormous grey horse, had approached the Master, having edged his way through the hounds with ostentatious care.  He was of a type sufficiently common among southern Irishmen, with thick, strong-growing, black hair, a large, black moustache, and heavy brows, over-shadowing eyes of precisely the same shade of blunted blue as his shaven chin.