Thady Brallaghan and me hurrying to fetch the gaff, and I held it while we landed the beast on the gravel below the rocks."

It was getting unbearable! Blanche had started in such good spirits, full of life and hope, enjoying the air, the scenery, the exercise; but with every word that fell from her companion's lips the landscape faded, the skies turned grey, the very turf beneath her feet seemed to have lost its elasticity. Norah Macormac could not but perceive the change: attributing it, however, to fatigue, and blaming herself severely for thus tempting a helpless London girl into an expedition beyond her strength,-anticipating, at the same time, her mother's displeasure for that which good Lady Mary would consider a breach of the laws of hospitality,-"Sure ye're tired," said she, offering to carry the other's parasol, which might have weighed a pound. "It's myself I blame, to have brought you such a walk as this, and you not used to it, may be, like us that live up here amongst the hills."

But Blanche clung to her parasol, and repudiated the notion of fatigue. She had never enjoyed a walk so much. It was lovely scenery, and a magnificent waterfall. She had no idea there was anything so fine in Ireland. She would have gone twice the distance to see it. Tired! She wasn't a bit tired, and believed she might be quite as good a walker as Miss Macormac.

There were times when Miss Douglas felt her nickname not altogether undeserved. She became Satanella now to the core.

Luncheon was on the table when the young ladies got back to the castle, and although several of the guests had absented themselves, the General took his place with those who remained. St. Josephs was not in the best of humours for a solitary walk in a strange district which had failed in its object. He sat, as it would seem, purposely a long way from Miss Douglas, and the servants were already clearing away before he tried to catch her eye. What he saw, or how he gathered from an instantaneous glance that his company was more welcome now than it had been at breakfast, is one of those mysteries on which it seems useless to speculate; but he never left her side again during the afternoon.

The General was true to his colours, and seldom ventured on the slightest act of disloyalty. When he returned, as in the present instance, to his allegiance, he always found himself more under authority than ever for his weak attempt at insubordination.

CHAPTER XIII.

PUNCHESTOWN.

“I TELL ye, I bred her myself, and it's every hair in her skin I know, when I kept her on the farm till she was better than three year old. Will ye not step in here and take a dandy o' punch, Mr. Sullivan ?"

The invitation was promptly accepted, and its originator, none other than the breeder of Satanella, dressed in his best clothes, with an alarming waistcoat and an exceedingly tall hat, conducted his friend into a crowded canvas booth, on the outside of which heavy rain was beating, while its interior steamed with wet garments and hot whisky punch.

Mr. Sullivan was one of those gentlemen who are never met with but in places where there is money to be made, by the laying against, backing, buying, or selling of horses. From his exterior the uninitiated might have supposed him a land-steward, a watch-maker, or a schoolmaster in reduced circumstances; but to those versed in such matters there was something indisputably horsy about the tie of his neckcloth, the sit of his well-brushed hat, and the shape of his clean, weather-beaten hands. He looked like a man who could give you full particulars of the noble animal, tell you its price, its pedigree, its defects, its performances, and buy it for you on commission cheaper than you could yourself. While his friend drank in gulps that denoted considerable enjoyment, Mr. Sullivan seemed to absorb his punch insensibly and as a matter of course.

"There's been good beasts bred in Roscommon beside your black mare, Denis," observed this worthy; "and it's the pick of the world for harses comes into Kildare this day. Whisper now. Old Sir Giles offered four hundred pounds ready money for Shaneen in Dublin last night. I seen him meself!"

"Is it Shaneen ?" returned Denis, with another pull at the punch. "I'll not deny he's a nate little harse, and an illegant lepper, but he wouldn't be in such a race as this. He'll niver see it wan, Mr. Sullivan, no more nor a Quaker'll never see heaven! Mat should have taken the four hundred!"

"Mat knows what he's doing," said Mr. Sullivan; "the boy's been forty years and more running harses at the Curragh. Maybe they're keeping Shaneen to lead the Englishman over his leps; and why wouldn't he take the second money or run for a place annyways?" "An' where would the black mare be?" demanded her former

Owner. "Is it the likes of her ye'd see coming in at the tail of the hunt, and the Captain ridin' and all? I wonder to hear you then, Mr. Sullivan."

"In my opinion the race lies betwixt three," replied the great authority, looking wise and dropping his voice. "There's your own mare, Denis, that you sold he Captain; there's Leprauchan, the big chesnut they brought up here from Limerick; there's the English horse-St. George they call him—that's been trainin' all the time in Kilkenny. Wait till I tell ye. If he gets first over the big double, he'll take as much catching as a flea in an ould blanket; and when thim's all racing home together, why wouldn't little Shaneen come in and win on the post?"

Denis looked disconcerted, and finished his punch at a gulp. He had not before taken so comprehensive a view of the general contest as affecting the chance of his favourite. Pushing back the tall hat, he scratched his head and pondered. "I'd be thinkin' better of it, av' the Captain wouldn't have changed the mare's name," said he. "What ailed him at 'Molly Bawn' that he'd go an' call the likes of such a baste as that Satanella? Hurry now, Mr. Sullivan, take another taste of punch, and come out of this. You and me'll go and see them saddle, annyways.”

Leaving the booth, therefore, with many "God save ye's" and greetings from acquaintances crowding in, they emerged on the course close to the Grand Stand, at a spot that commanded an .excellent view of the finish, and afforded a panorama of such scenery as, in the sportsman's eye, is unequalled by any part of the world.

The rain had cleared off. White fleecy clouds, drifting across the sky before a soft west wind, threw alternate lights and shadows over a wild expanse of country that stretched to the horizon, in range on range of undulating pastures, broken only by scattered copses, square patches of gorse, and an occasional gully, marking the course of some shallow stream from the distant uplands, coyly unveiling, as the mist that rested on their brows, rolled heavily away. Far as sight could reach, the landscape was intersected by thick irregular lines, denoting those formidable fences, of which the nature was to be ascertained by inspecting the leaps that crossed the steeple-chase course. These were of a size to require great power and courage in the competing animals, while the width of the ditches from which the banks were thrown up necessitated that repetition of his effort by which the Irish hunter gets safely over these difficulties much as a retriever jumps a gate. A very gallant horse might indeed fly the

first two or three such obstacles in his stride, but the tax on his muscles would be too exhaustive for continuance, and not to "change," as it is called, on the top of the bank, when there is a ditch on each side, would be a certain downfall. With thirty such leaps and more, with a sufficient brook and a high stone wall, with four Irish miles of galloping before the judge's stand can be passed, with the running forced from end to end by some thorough-bred flyer not intended to win, and with the best steeple-chase horses in Great Britain to encounter, a conqueror at Punchestown may be said to win his laurels nobly-laurels in which, as in the wreath of many a two-legged hero, the shamrock is profusely intertwined.

"The boys have got about the big double as thick as payse," observed Mr. Sullivan, shading his eyes under his hat-brim while he scanned the course. "It's there the Englishman will renage, likely, an' if there's wan drops in there'll be forty of them tumblin' one above the other, like Brian O'Rafferty's pigs. Will the Captain keep steady now, and niver loose her off till she marks with her eye the very sod she's after kickin' with her fut ?"

"The Captain he'll draw

"I'll go bail he will!" answered Denis. her back smooth an' easy on the snaffle, and when on'st he lets her drive-whooroo ! begorra! it's not the police barracks nor yet the county gaol would hould her, av' she gets a fair offer! I tell ye that black mare- Whisht — will ye now? Here's the quality comin' into the stand. There's clane-bred ones, Mr. Sullivan, shape an' action, an' the ould blood at the back of it all."

An Irishman is no bad judge of good looks in man or beast. While the Roscommon farmer made this observation, Miss Douglas was leaving Lady Mary Macormac's carriage for the stand. Her peculiar style of beauty, her perfect self-possession, the mingled grace and pride of her bearing, were appreciated and admired by the bystanders, as with all her triumphs they had never been on her own side of the Channel.

The crowd were already somewhat hoarse with shouting. Their Lord Lieutenant, with the princely politeness of punctuality, had arrived half an hour ago. Being a hard-working Viceroy, whose relaxation chiefly consisted in riding perfectly straight over his adopted country, he was already at the back of the course, disporting himself amongst the fences to his own great content and the unbounded gratification of "The Boys." Leaping a five-foot wall, over which his aide-de-camp fell neck and crop, they set up a shout that could be heard at Naas. The Irish jump to conclusions, like women, and are as often right. That a statesman should be wise and good

because he is a bold rider, seems a position hardly to be reasoned out; yet these wild untutored spirits acknowledged instinctively that qualities by which men govern well are kept the fresher and stronger for a kindly heart to sympathise with sport as with sorrow, for a manly courage that, in work or play, trouble or danger, loves always to be in front.

So the "more powers" to his Excellency were not only loud but hearty, while for her Excellency it need hardly be said of these impulsive, chivalrous, and susceptible natures, they simply went out of their senses, and yelled in a frenzy of admiration and delight.

Nevertheless, the applause was by no means exhausted, and Miss Douglas, taking her place in the Ladies' Stand, could not repress a thrill of triumph at the remark of a strapping Tipperary boy in the crowd, made quite loud enough to be overheard.

"See now, Larry, av' ye was goin' coortin', wouldn't ye fling down your caubeen, and bid her step on to't? I'll engage there's flowers growin' wherever she lays her fut.”

To which Larry replied, with a wink, "Divil a haporth I'd go on for the coortin'-but just stay where I am!"

Our party from Cormacstown formed no unimportant addition to the company that thronged the stand. Amongst these, neither Norah Macormac nor Mrs. Lushington could complain they had less than their share of admiration, while St. Josephs observed, with mingled sentiments of triumph and apprehension, that a hundred male eyes were bent on Satanella, and as many female voices whispered, "But who is that tall girl with black hair?-so handsome, and in such a peculiar style?"

A proud man, though, doubtless, was the General, walking after his young lady with her shawls, her glasses, and her parasol, choosing for her an advantageous position to view the races, obtaining for her a card of the running horses, and trying to look as if he studied it with the vaguest notion of what was likely to win.

A match had just come off between Mr. McDermott's "Comether" and Captain Conolly's "Molly Maguire," of little interest to the general public, but creating no small excitement amongst friends and partisans of the respective owners. "Molly Maguire" had been bred at Naas-within a stone's-throw, as it were. "Comether" was the pride of that well-known western hunt, once so celebrated as "The Blazers." Each animal was ridden by a good sportsman and popular representative of its particular district. The little Galway horse made all the running, took his leaps like a deer, finished like a game-cock, but was beaten by the mare's superior stride in the last struggle home, through a storm of voices, by a length.