race can be. Their hearts were divided between Fanny Fitz and the cook,
the rest of them appertained to the Misses Harriet and Rachael Fitzroy,
whom they regarded with toleration tinged with boredom.

"I tell ye now, Masther Freddy, 'tis no good for us to be goin' on
sourin' the mare this way. 'Tis what the fince is too steep for her.
Maybe she never seen the like in that backwards counthry she came from.
We'll give her the bank below with the ditch in front of it. 'Tisn't
very big at all, and she'll be bound to lep with the sup of wather
that's in it."

Thus Johnny Connolly, wiping a very heated brow.

The bank below was a broad and solid structure well padded with grass
and bracken, and it had a sufficiently obvious ditch, of some three feet
wide, on the nearer side. The grand effort was duly prepared for. The
bank was solemnly exhibited to the filly; the dogs, who had with
unerring instinct seated themselves on its most jumpable portion, were
scattered with one threat of the whip to the horizon. Fanny tore away
the last bit of bracken that might prove a discouragement, and Johnny
issued his final order.

"Come inside me with the whip, sir, and give her one good belt at the
last."

No one knows exactly how it happened. There was a rush, a scramble, a
backward sliding, a great deal of shouting, and the Connemara filly was
couched in the narrow ditch at right angles to the fence, with the water
oozing up through the weeds round her, like a wild duck on its nest; and
at this moment Mr. Rupert Gunning appeared suddenly on the top of the