“Ma’am, ma’am!” I heard, “ye’ll pull the tail off him!”

“Twisht the tink-an now, Bridgie!  Twisht it!”

“Holy Biddy! the masther’ll kill us!”

What the deuce were they at? and what was a “tink-an”?  I dragged the filly nearer, and discovered that a hound puppy was the central point of the tumult, and was being contended for, like the body of Moses, by Miss Trinder and Bridgie the parlour-maid.  Both were seated on the ground pulling at the puppy for all they were worth; Miss Trinder had him by the back of his neck and his tail, while Bridgie was dragging—­what was she dragging at?  Then I saw that the puppy’s head was jammed in a narrow-necked tin milk-can, and that, as things were going, he would wear it, like the Man in the Iron Mask, for the rest of his life.

The small, grim face of Robert’s aunt was scarlet with exertion; her black bonnet had slipped off her head, and the thin grey hair that was ordinarily wound round her little skull as tightly as cotton on a reel, was hanging in scanty wisps from its central knot; nevertheless, she was, metaphorically speaking, pulling Bridgie across the line every time.  I gave the filly to one of the audience, and took Bridgie’s place at the “tink-an”.  Miss Trinder and I put our backs into it, and suddenly I found myself flat on mine, with the “tink-an” grasped in both hands above my head.

A composite whoop of triumph rose from the spectators, and the filly rose with it.  She went straight up on her hind legs, and the next instant she was away across the drive and into the adjoining field, and, considering all things, I don’t blame her.  We all ran after her.  I led, and the various female retainers strung out after me like a flight of wild-duck, uttering cries of various encouragement and consternation.  Miss Trinder followed, silent and indomitable, at the heel of the hunt, and the released puppy, who had also harked in, could be heard throwing his tongue in the dusky shrubbery ahead of us.  It was all exasperatingly absurd, as things seem to have a habit of being in Ireland.  I never felt more like a fool in my life, and the bitterest part of it was that it was all I could do to keep ahead of Bridgie.  As for the filly, she waited till we got near her, and then she jumped a five-foot coped wall into the road, fell, picked herself up, and clattered away into darkness.  At this point I heard Robert’s horn, and sundry confused shouts and sounds informed me that the filly had run into the hounds.

She was found next day on the farm where she was bred, fifteen miles away.  The farmer brought her back to Lisangle.  She had injured three hounds, upset two old women and a donkey-cart, broken a gate, and finally, on arriving at the place of her birth, had, according to the farmer, “fired the divil’s pelt of a kick into her own mother’s stomach”.  Moreover, she “hadn’t as much sound skin on her as would bait a rat-trap”—­I here quote Mr. Trinder—­and she had fever in all her feet.