Alexander decided that it was better for the present to leave the
_personnel_ of the Craffroe Hunt to their own devices.

It was but three days before these occurrences that Mr. Freddy Alexander
had stood on the platform of the Craffroe Station, with a throbbing
heart, and a very dirty paper in his hand containing a list of eighteen
names, that ranged alphabetically from "Batchellor" to "Warior." At his
elbow stood a small man with a large moustache, and the thinnest legs
that were ever buttoned into gaiters, who was assuring him that to no
other man in Ireland would he have sold those hounds at such a price; a
statement that was probably unimpeachable.

"The only reason I'm parting them is I'm giving up me drag, and selling
me stock, and going into partnership with a veterinary surgeon in Rugby.
You've some of the best blood in Ireland in those hounds."

"Is it blood?" chimed in an old man who was standing, slightly drunk, at
Mr. Alexander's other elbow. "The most of them hounds is by the Kerry
Rapparee, and he was the last of the old Moynalty Baygles. Black dogs
they were, with red eyes! Every one o' them as big as a yearling calf,
and they'd hunt anything that'd roar before them!" He steadied himself
on the new Master's arm. "I have them gethered in the ladies'
waiting-room, sir, the way ye'll have no throuble. 'Twould be as good
for ye to lave the muzzles on them till ye'll be through the town."

Freddy Alexander cannot to this hour decide what was the worst incident
of that homeward journey; on the whole, perhaps, the most serious was
the escape of Governess, who subsequently ravaged the country for two
days, and was at length captured in the act of killing Mrs. Alexander's
white Leghorn cock. For a young gentleman whose experience of hounds