“Two mornings later he turned up, dragging something in an oat-sack.

“I have it here that’ll course out before the houn’s like a shootin’-star,’ says he.

“‘What is it?’ says I.

“The rogue put his hand in the sack and drew out a yellow mongrel dog.

“‘Where did ye get that?’ says I.

“‘Shure didn’t I borry it?’ says he.

“‘And who did ye borrow it from?’ says I.

“‘From Misther Flynn, no less,’ says he. ‘’Tis his little foxey pet dog.’

“‘Does Mr. Flynn know you borrowed it from him?’ says I.

“‘Begob that he does not,’ says he.  ’Mr. Flynn is beyond in Youghal and I borryed it in the dark dead of night over the yard wall.  Faith, he’ll run home like a flick of lightning, he’s that scared, the same dog.’

“‘Ye did well,’ said I; ‘but will the hounds chase him?’

“’That they will, Sor.  What with foxes one day, stags the next and hares the next, there’s sorra a born thing they wouldn’t hunt given there’s smell enough in it,’ says the lad.  ’Have ye the laste little trace of aniseed in the house that you could drench the crature with the way the houn’s would folly him?’

“Divil a drop of aniseed or anything else had I on the place, and I stood there scratching my ear with my crop wondering what to do, when suddenly I remembered that relic of my courting days, ‘Florazora.’  ‘I have it,’ I said; ‘I’ve got something that’ll fix that hare all right.’

“I fetched the bottle and rubbed a handful or so of the stuff well into Mr. Flynn’s pet dog and let him go with a flip of my whip lash to help him on his way.  He lit out for home as though the devil had kicked him, yelling blue murder and laying a trail of flowers and honey across the country so thick you could pretty nigh eat it.  I gave him a fair start, then laid the hounds on and we had a five-mile point, going like a steeplechase all the way.  Flynn lives in a lonely house about half a mile out of Ballinknock, and the ‘bag-man’ got home to it and through the wee dog-hole into the yard with just six inches to spare.

“Patsey went over the wall and borrowed the dog three times after that.  It was no trouble at all.  Flynn was still away in Youghal, and his housekeeper was that deaf Gabriel would have to announce the Crack of Doom to her on his fingers.  But it was too good to last.  On the fourth day we were nearing Flynn’s house, the dog leading the pack by not fifty yards, when I saw him cut across a field to the left, while the hounds tumbled into a little boreen that runs up from the railway-station and went streaking down it singing out as if they were on a breast-high scent and in view.

“‘Begob,’ says I to Patsey, ’they’ve changed; they’re running a hare, I believe.’

“‘Tis a hare in a frock-coat then, Sor,’ says he, pointing with his whip.