_Conn_.--Well, here's a purty thing, for a horse to run away wid a
man's characther like this! Oh, Wurra! may I never die in sin, but this
was the way of it. I was standin' by owld Foley's gate, whin I heard the
cry of the hounds coming across the tail of the bog, an' there they wor,
my dear, spread out like the tail of a paycock, an' the finest dog fox ye
ever seen a sailin' ahead of thim up the boreen, and right across the
churchyard. It was enough to raise the inhabitints out of the ground!
Well, as I looked, who should come and put her head over the gate besoide
me but the Squire's brown mare, small blame to her. Divil a word I said to
her, nor she to me, for the hounds had lost their scent, we knew by their
yelp and whine as they hunted among the gravestones. When, whist! the fox
went by us. I leapt upon the gate, an' gave a shriek of a view-halloo to
the whip; in a minute the pack caught the scent again, an' the whole field
came roaring past.

The mare lost her head entoirely and tore at the gate. "Stop," says I, "ye
divil!" an' I slipt a taste of a rope over her head an' into her mouth.
Now mind the cunnin' of the baste, she was quiet in a minute. "Come home,
now," ses I. "aisy!" an' I threw my leg across her.

Be jabbers! No sooner was I on her back than--Whoo! Holy Rocket! she was
over the gate, an' tearin' afther the hounds loike mad. "Yoicks!" ses I;
"Come back you thafe of the world, where you takin' me to?" as she carried
me through the huntin' field, an' landed me by the soide of the masther of
the hounds, Squire Foley himself.

He turned the color of his leather breeches.

"Mother o'Moses!" ses he, "Is that Conn, the Shaughraun, on my brown