Further Experiences of an Irish R.M.

by E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

  XII

  THE WHITEBOYS

  PART I

  It has been said by an excellent authority that children and dogs spoilconversation. I can confidently say that had Madame de Sevigne and Dr.Johnson joined me and my family on our wonted Sunday afternoon walk tothe kennels, they would have known what it was to be ignored. Thisreflection bears but remotely on the matter in hand, but is, I think,worthy of record. I pass on to a certain still and steamy afternoon inlate September, when my wife and I headed forth in the accustomed way,accompanied by, or (to be accurate), in pursuit of, my two sons, my twodogs, and a couple of hound puppies, to view that spectacle of notunmixed attractiveness, the feeding of the hounds.

  Flurry Knox and Michael were superintending the operation when wearrived, coldly observing the gobbling line at the trough, likereporters at a public dinner. It was while the last horrid remnants ofthe repast were being wolfed that my wife hesitatingly addressed Mr.Knox's First Whip and Kennel Huntsman.

  "Michael," she said, lowering her voice, "you know the children's olddonkey that I spoke to you about last week--I'm afraid you _had_better----"

  "Sure he's boiled, ma'am," said Michael with swift and awful brevity,"that's him in the throch now!"

  Philippa hastily withdrew from the vicinity of the trough, murmuringsomething incoherent about cannibals or parricides, I am not surewhich, and her eldest son burst into tears that were only assuaged bythe tactful intervention of the kennel-boy with the jawbone of a horse,used for propping open the window of the boiler-house.

  "Never mind, Mrs. Yeates," said Flurry consolingly, "the new houndsthat I'm getting won't be bothered with donkeys as long as there's asheep left in the country, if the half I hear of them is true!" Heturned to me. "Major, I didn't tell you I have three couple ofO'Reilly's old Irish hounds bought. They're the old white breedy'know, and they say they're terrors to hunt."

  "They'd steal a thing out of your eye," said Michael, evidentlyreverting to an interrupted discussion between himself and his master."There's a woman of the O'Reillys married back in the country here, andshe says they killed two cows last season."

  "If they kill any cows with me, I'll stop the price of them out of yourwages, Michael, my lad!" said Flurry to his henchman's back. "Lookhere, Major, come on with me to-morrow to bring them home!"

  It was, I believe, no more than fifty miles across country to themountain fastness of the O'Reillys, and a certain chord of romancethrilled at the thought of the old Irish breed of white hounds, withtheir truly national qualities of talent, rebelliousness, and love ofsport. Playboy was one of the same race--Playboy, over whoserecapture, it may be remembered, I had considerably distinguishedmyself during my term of office as M.F.H.

  I went. At one o'clock next day two lines of rail had done theiruttermost for us, and had ceded the task of conveying us to Fahoura tothe inevitable outside car. And still there remained a long flank ofmountain to be climbed; the good little slave in the shafts made nocomplaint, but save for the honour and glory of the thing we might aswell have walked; certainly of the seven Irish miles of road, thrownover the pass like a strap over a trunk, our consciences compelled usto tramp at least three. A stream, tawny and translucent as audit ale,foamed and slid among its brown boulders beside us at the side of theroad; as we crawled upwards the fields became smaller, and the lonelywhitewashed cottages ceased. The heather came down to the wheel marks,and a pack of grouse suddenly whizzed across the road like a shot firedacross our bows to warn us off.

  At the top of the pass we stood, and looked out over half a county tothe pale peaks of Killarney.

  "There's Fahoura now, gentlemen," said the carman, pointing downwardswith his whip to a group of whitewashed farm buildings, that hadgathered themselves incongruously about a square grey tower. "I'm toldold Mr. O'Reilly's sick this good while."

  "What ails him?" said Flurry.

  "You wouldn't know," said the carman, "sure he's very old, and that'fluenzy has the country destroyed; there's people dying now that neverdied before."

  "That's bad," said Flurry sympathetically, "I had a letter from him aweek ago, and he only said he was parting the hounds because hecouldn't run with them any more."

  "Ah, don't mind him!" said the carman, "it's what it is he'd soonersell them now, than to give the nephew the satisfaction of them, afterhimself'd be dead."

  "Is that the chap that's been hunting them for him?" said Flurry, whileI, for the hundredth time, longed for Flurry's incommunicable gift ofbeing talked to.

  "It is, sir; Lukey O'Reilly--" the carman gave a short laugh. "That'sthe lad! They say he often thried to go to America, but he never gotsouth of Mallow; he gets that drunk sayin' good-bye to his friends!"

  "Maybe the old fellow will live a while yet, just to spite him,"suggested Flurry.

  "Well, maybe he would, faith!" agreed the carman, "didn't the docthorsay to meself that maybe it's walking the road I'd be, and I to falldown dead!" he continued complacently, "but sure them docthors, whenthey wouldn't know what was in it, they should be saying something!"

  We here turned into the lane that led to Mr. O'Reilly's house.

  We pulled up at the gate of a wide farmyard, with outcrops of the brownmountain rock in it, and were assailed in the inevitable way by theinevitable mongrel collies. Blent with their vulgar abuse was themellow baying of hounds, coming, seemingly, from the sky. The carmanpointed to the tower which filled an angle of the yard, and I saw,about twenty feet from the ground, an arrow-slit, through whichprotruded white muzzles, uttering loud and tuneful threats.

  "The kitchen door's the handiest way," said Flurry, "but I suppose forgrandeur we'd better go to the front of the house."

  He opened a side gate, and I followed him through a wind-sweptenclosure that by virtue of two ragged rose-bushes, and a walk edgedwith white stones, probably took rank as a garden. At the front doorwe knocked; a long pause ensued, and finally bare feet thudded down apassage, a crack of the door was opened, and an eye glistened for amoment in the crack. It was slammed again, and after a further delayit was reopened, this time by a large elderly woman with crinkled blackand grey hair and one long and commanding tooth in the front of hermouth.

  "Why then I wasn't looking to see ye till to-morrow, Mr. Knox!" shebegan, beaming upon Flurry, "but sure ye're welcome any day and allday, and the gentleman too!"

  The gentleman was introduced, and felt himself being summed up in asingle glance of Miss O'Reilly's nimble brown eyes. With manyapologies, she asked us if we would come and see her brother in thekitchen, as he did not feel well enough to walk out to the parlour, andshe couldn't keep him in the bed at all.

  The kitchen differed more in size than in degree from that of theaverage cabin. There was the same hummocky earthen floor, the samesallow whitewashed walls, the same all-pervading turf smoke--thedifference was in the master of the house. He was seated by the firein an angular armchair, with an old horse-blanket over his knees, and astick in his hand, and beside him lay an ancient white hound, whoscarcely lifted her head at our entrance. The old man laboured to hisfeet, and, bent as he was, he towered over Flurry as he took his hand.

  "Your father's son is welcome, Mr. Florence Knox, and your friend--"He was short of breath, and he lowered his great frame into his chairagain. "Sit down, gentlemen, sit down!" he commanded. "Joanna! Thesegentlemen are after having a long drive----"

  The clink of glasses told that the same fact had occurred to MissO'Reilly, and a bottle of port, and another of what looked like water,but was in effect old potheen, were immediately upon the table.

  "How well ye wouldn't put down a glass for me!" thundered old O'Reilly,"I suppose it's saving it for my wake you are!"

  "Or her own wedding, maybe!" said Flurry, shamelessly ogling MissO'Reilly, "we'll see that before the wake, I'm thinking!"

  "Well, well, isn't he the dead spit of his father!" said Miss O'Reillyto the rafters.

  "Here, woman, give me the kettle," said her brother, "I'
ll drink myglass of punch with Mr. Florence Knox, the way I did with his fatherbefore him! The doctor says I might carry out six months, and I thinkmyself I won't carry out the week, but what the divil do I care! I'mgoing to give Mr. Knox his pick of my hounds this day, and that's whatno other man in Ireland would get, and be dam we'll wet our bargain!"

  "Well, well," said Miss O'Reilly, remonstratingly, bringing the kettle,"and you that was that weak last night that if you got Ireland's crownyou couldn't lift the bedclothes off your arms!"

  "Them hounds are in my family, seed and breed, this hundred years andmore," continued old O'Reilly, silencing his sister with one blackglance from under his thick grey brows, "and if I had e'er a one thatwas fit to come after me they'd never leave it!" He took a gulp of thehot punch. "Did ye ever hear of my brother Phil that was huntsman tothe Charlevilles long ago, Mr. Knox? Your father knew him well.Many's the good hunt they rode together. He wasn't up to forty yearswhen he was killed, broke his neck jumping a hurl, and when they wentto bury him it's straight in over the churchyard wall they took him!They said he never was one to go round looking for a gate!"

  "THEM HOUNDS ARE IN MY FAMILY, SEED AND BREED, THISHUNDRED YEARS."]

  "May the Lord have mercy on him!" murmured Miss O'Reilly in thebackground.

  "Amen!" growled the old man, taking another pull at his steamingtumbler, as if he were drinking his brother's health. "And look at mehere," he went on, reddening slowly through the white stubble on hischeeks, "dying as soft as any owld cow in a boghole, and all they'll besaying afther me is asking would they get their bellyful of whisky atmy wake! I tell you this--and let you be listening to me,Joanna!--what hounds Mr. Knox doesn't take, I'll not leave them aftherme to be disgraced in the counthry, running rabbits on Sundayafternoons with them poaching blackguards up out of the town! No! Butthey'll have a stone round their neck and to be thrown below in thelough!"

  I thought of the nephew Luke, whose friends had so frequently failed tosee him off, and I felt very sorry for old O'Reilly.

  "They will, they will, to be sure!" said Miss O'Reilly soothingly, "andlook at you now, the way you are! Didn't I know well you had no callto be drinking punch, you that was coughing all night. On the face ofGod's earth, Mr. Knox, I never heard such a cough! 'Tis like a sheep'scough! I declare it's like the sound of the beating of the drum!"

  "Well, Mr. O'Reilly," said Flurry, ignoring these remarkable symptoms,but none the less playing to her lead, "I suppose we might have a lookat the hounds now."

  "Go, tell Tom to open the tower door," said old O'Reilly to his sister,after a moment's silence. He handed her a key. "And shut the gateyou."

  As soon as she had gone he got on to his feet. "Mr. Knox, sir," hesaid, "might I put as much trouble on you as to move out this chair tothe door? I'll sit there the way I can see them. Maybe the othergentleman would reach me down the horn that's up on the wall. He'snear as tall as meself."

  Flurry did as he asked, and helped him across the room.

  "Close out the half door if you please, Mr. Knox, and give me the oldrug that's there, my feet is destroyed with the rheumatics."

  He dropped groaningly into his chair, and I handed him the horn, an oldbrass one, bent and dinted.

  Already the clamour of the hounds in the tower had broken out likebells in a steeple, as they heard the footsteps of their jailor on thestone steps of their prison.

  Then Tom's voice, shouting at them in Irish to stand back, and thenthrough the narrow door of the tower the hounds themselves, a strivingtorrent of white flecked with pale yellow, like one of their ownmountain streams. There were about seven couples of them, and in amoment they overran the yard like spilt quicksilver.

  "Look at them now, Mr. Knox!" said their owner, "they'd take a lineover the hob of hell this minute!"

  Pending this feat they took a very good line into what was apparentlythe hen-house, judging by the hysterics that proceeded from within.Almost immediately one of them reappeared with an egg in his mouth.Old O'Reilly gave a laugh and an attempt at a holloa. "Ah ha! That'sWhiteboy! The rogue!" he said, and putting the horn to his lips heblew a thin and broken note, that was cut short by a cough.Speechlessly he handed the horn to Flurry, but no further summons wasneeded; the hounds had heard him. They converged upon the doorway witha rush, and Flurry and I were put to it to keep them from jumping inover the half-door.

  I had never seen hounds like them before. One or two were pure white,but most had some touch of faded yellow or pale grey about them; theywere something smaller than the average foxhound, and were stronglybuilt, and active as terriers. Their heads were broad, their earsunrounded, and their legs and feet were far from complying with theprescribed bedpost standard; but wherein, to the un-professional eye,they chiefly differed from the established pattern, was in the humanlawlessness of their expression. The old hound by the fire hadstruggled up at the note of the horn, and stood staring in perplexityat her master, and growling, with all the arrogance of the favourite,at her descendants, who yelped, and clawed, and strove, and thrusttheir muzzles over the half-door.

  Flurry regarded them in silence.

  "There's not a straight one among them," he whispered in my ear throughthe din.

  "There they are for you now, Mr. Knox," said old O'Reilly, stillpanting after his fit of coughing. "There isn't another man in Irelandwould get them but yourself, and you've got them, as I might say, apresent!"

  Flurry and I went out into the yard, and the door was closed behind us.

  The examination--I may say the cross-examination--of the hounds thatfollowed, was conducted by Flurry and Michael to the accompaniment of asaga from Tom, setting forth their miraculous merits and achievements,to which, at suitable points, the carman shouted "Selah," or words tothat effect, through the bars of the gate. At the end of half-an-hourFlurry had sorted out six of them; these were then coupled, and by dintof the exertions of all present, were bestowed in a cart with sideslike a crate, in which pigs went to the fair.

  We did not see our host again. His sister told us that he had gone tobed and wasn't fit to see any one, but he wished Mr. Knox luck with hisbargain, and he sent him this for a luck-penny. She handed Flurry thedinted horn.

  "I'm thinking it's fretting after the hounds he is," she said, turningher head away to hide the tears in her brown eyes. I have never untilthen known Flurry completely at a loss for an answer.