All on the Irish Shore Part 3

"I'll take my oath you did," observed Captain Spicer.

"--And as she didn't seem to want it, I came away," continued Mr.

Gunning imperturbably. "Be calm, Maudie; it takes two days and two nights to buy a horse in these parts; you'll be home in plenty of time to interfere, and here's the car. Don't waste the morning."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A SILENCE THAT WAS THE OUTCOME PARTLY OF STUPIDITY, PARTLY OF CAUTION, AND PARTLY OF LACK OF ENGLISH SPEECH."]

"I never know if you're speaking the truth or no," complained Mrs.

Spicer; nevertheless, she scrambled on to the car without delay. She and her brother had at least one point in common--the fanatic enthusiasm of the angler.

In the meantime, Miss f.a.n.n.y Fitzroy's negotiations were proceeding in the hotel yard. f.a.n.n.y herself was standing in a stable doorway, with her hands in the pockets of her bicycle skirt. She had no hat on, and the mild breeze blew her hair about; it was light brown, with a brightness in it; her eyes also were light brown, with gleams in them like the shallow places in a Connemara trout stream. At this moment they were scanning with approval, tempered by anxiety, the muddy legs of a lean and lengthy grey filly, who was fearfully returning her gaze from between the strands of a touzled forelock. The owner of the filly, a small man, with a face like a serious elderly monkey, stood at her head in a silence that was the outcome partly of stupidity, partly of caution, and partly of lack of English speech. The conduct of the matter was in the hands of a friend, a tall young man with a black beard, nimble of tongue and gesture, profuse in courtesies.

"Well, indeed, yes, your ladys.h.i.+p," he was saying glibly, "the breed of horses is greatly improving in these parts, and them hackney horses--"

"Oh," interrupted Miss Fitzroy hastily, "I won't have her if she's a hackney."

The eyes of the owner sought those of the friend in a gaze that clearly indicated the question.

"What'll ye say to her now?"

The position of the vendors was becoming a little complicated. They had come over through the mountains, from the borders of Mayo, to sell the filly to the hotel-keeper for posting, and were primed to the lips with the tale of her hackney lineage. The hotel-keeper had unconditionally refused to trade, and here, when a heaven-sent alternative was delivered into their hands, they found themselves hampered by the coils of a cast-off lie. No shade, however, of hesitancy appeared on the open countenance of the friend. He approached Miss Fitzroy with a mincing step, a deprecating wave of the hand, and a deeply respectful ogle. He was going to adopt the desperate resource of telling the truth, but to tell the truth profitably was a part that required rather more playing than any other.

"Well, your honour's ladys.h.i.+p," he began, with a glance at the hotel ostler, who was standing near cleaning a bit in industrious and sarcastic silence, "it is a fact, no doubt, that I mentioned here this morning that this young mare was of the Government hackney stock. But, according as I understand from this poor man that owns her, he bought her in a small fair over the Tuam side, and the man that sold her could take his oath she was by the Grey Dawn--sure you'd know it out of her colour."

"Why didn't you say so before?" asked Miss Fitzroy, bending her straight brows in righteous severity.

"Well, that's true indeed, your ladys.h.i.+p; but, after all--I declare a man couldn't hardly live without he'd tell a lie sometimes!"

f.a.n.n.y Fitz stooped, rather hurriedly, and entered upon a renewed examination of the filly's legs. Even Rupert Gunning, after his brief and unsympathetic survey, had said she had good legs; in fact, he had only been able to crab her for the length of her back, and he, as f.a.n.n.y Fitz reflected with a heat that took no heed of metaphor, was the greatest crabber that ever croaked.

"What are you asking for her?" she demanded with a sudden access of decision.

There was a pause. The owner of the filly and his friend withdrew a step or two and conferred together in Irish at lightning speed. The filly held up her head and regarded her surroundings with guileless wonderment. f.a.n.n.y Fitz made a mental dive into her bankbook, and arrived at the varied conclusions that she was 30 to the good, that on that sum she had to weather out the summer and autumn, besides pacifying various cormorants (thus she designated her long-suffering tradespeople), and that every one had told her that if she only kept her eyes open in Connemara she might be able to buy something cheap and make a pot of money on it.

"This poor honest man," said the friend, returning to the charge, "says he couldn't part her without he'd get twenty-eight pounds for her; and, thank G.o.d, it's little your ladys.h.i.+p would think of giving that!"

f.a.n.n.y Fitz's face fell.

"Twenty-eight pounds!" she echoed. "Oh, that's ridiculous!"

The friend turned to the owner, and, with a majestic wave of the hand, signalled to him to retire. The owner, without a change of expression, coiled up the rope halter and started slowly and implacably for the gate; the friend took off his hat with wounded dignity. Every gesture implied that the whole transaction was buried in an irrevocable past.

f.a.n.n.y Fitz's eyes followed the party as they silently left the yard, the filly stalking dutifully with a long and springy step beside her master.

It was a moment full of bitterness, and of a quite irrational indignation against Rupert Gunning.

"I beg your pardon, miss," said the ostler, at her elbow, "would ye be willing to give twenty pounds for the mare, and he to give back a pound luck-penny?"

"I would!" said the impulsive f.a.n.n.y Fitz, after the manner of her nation.

When the fis.h.i.+ng party returned that afternoon Miss Fitzroy met them at the hall door.

"Well, my dear," she said airily to Mrs. Spicer, "what sort of sport have you had? I've enjoyed myself immensely. I've bought a horse!"

Mrs. Spicer sat, paralysed, on the seat of the outside car, disregarding her brother's outstretched hands.

"f.a.n.n.y!" she exclaimed, in tones fraught with knowledge of her friend's resources and liabilities.

"Yes, I have!" went on f.a.n.n.y Fitz, undaunted. "Mr. Gunning saw her. He said she was a long-backed brute. Didn't you, Mr. Gunning?"

Rupert Gunning lifted his small sister bodily off the car. He was a tall sallow man, with a big nose and a small, much-bitten, fair moustache.

"Yes, I believe I did," he said shortly.

Mrs. Spicer's blue eyes grew round with consternation.

"Then you really have bought the thing!" she cried. "Oh, f.a.n.n.y, you idiot! And what on earth are you going to do with it?"

"It can sleep on the foot of my bed to-night," returned f.a.n.n.y Fitz, "and I'll ride it into Galway to-morrow! Mr. Gunning, you can ride half-way if you like!"

But Mr. Gunning had already gone into the hotel with his rod and fis.h.i.+ng basket. He had a gift, that he rarely lost a chance of exercising, of provoking f.a.n.n.y Fitz to wrath, and the fact that he now declined her challenge may or may not be accounted for by the gloom consequent upon an empty fis.h.i.+ng basket.

Next morning the various hangers-on in the hotel yard were provided with occupation and entertainment of the most satiating description. f.a.n.n.y Fitz's new purchase was being despatched to the nearest railway station, some fourteen miles off. It had been arranged that the ostler was to drive her there in one of the hotel cars, which should then return with a horse that was coming from Galway for the hotel owner; nothing could have fitted in better. Unfortunately the only part of the arrangement that refused to fit in was the filly. Even while f.a.n.n.y Fitz was finis.h.i.+ng her toilet, high-pitched howls of objurgation were rising, alarmingly, from the stable-yard, and on reaching the scene of action she was confronted by the spectacle of the ostler being hurtled across the yard by the filly, to whose head he was clinging, while two helpers upheld the shafts of the outside car from which she had fled. All were shouting directions and warnings at the tops of their voices, the hotel dog was barking, the filly alone was silent, but her opinions were unmistakable.

A waiter in s.h.i.+rt-sleeves was leaning comfortably out of a window, watching the fray and offering airy suggestion and comment.

"It's what I'm telling them, miss," he said easily, including f.a.n.n.y Fitz in the conversation; "if they get that one into Recess to-night it'll not be under a side-car."

"But the man I bought her from," said f.a.n.n.y Fitz, lamentably addressing the company, "told me that he drove his mother to chapel with her last Sunday."

"Musha then, may the divil sweep h.e.l.l with him and burn the broom afther!" panted the ostler in bitter wrath, as he slewed the filly to a standstill. "I wish himself and his mother was behind her when I went putting the crupper on her! B'leeve me, they'd drop their chat!"

"Sure I knew that young Geogheghan back in Westport," remarked the waiter, "and all the good there is about him was a little handy talk.

Take the harness off her, Mick, and throw a saddle on her. It's little I'd think meself of canthering her into Recess!"

"How handy ye are yerself with your talk!" retorted the ostler; "it's canthering round the table ye'll be doing, and it's what'll suit ye betther!"

f.a.n.n.y Fitz began to laugh. "He might ride the saddle of mutton!" she said, with a levity that, under the circ.u.mstances, did her credit.

"You'd better take the harness off, and you'll have to get her to Recess for me somehow."

The ostler took no notice of this suggestion; he was repeating to himself: "Ride the saddle o' mutton! By dam, I never heard the like o'

that! Ride the saddle o' mutton--!" He suddenly gave a yell of laughing, and in the next moment the startled filly dragged the reins from his hand with a tremendous plunge, and in half a dozen bounds was out of the yard gate and clattering down the road.

There was an instant of petrifaction. "Diddlety--iddlety--idlety!"

chanted the waiter with far-away sweetness.

f.a.n.n.y Fitz and the ostler were outside the gate simultaneously: the filly was already rounding the first turn of the road; two strides more, and she was gone as though she had never been, and "Oh, my nineteen pounds!" thought poor f.a.n.n.y Fitz.

As the ostler was wont to say in subsequent repet.i.tions of the story: "Thanks be to G.o.d, the reins was rotten!" But for this it is highly probable that Miss Fitzroy's speculation would have collapsed abruptly with broken knees, possibly with a broken neck. Having galloped into them in the course of the first hundred yards, they fell from her as the green withes fell from Samson, one long streamer alone remaining to lash her flanks as she fled. Some five miles from the hotel she met a wedding, and therewith leaped the bog-drain by the side of the road and "took to the mountains," as the bridegroom poetically described it to f.a.n.n.y Fitz, who, with the ostler, was pursuing the fugitive on an outside car.