said Larry. "Then isn't the Derrylugga gorse somewhere
hereabouts? I see he's casting them ahead."

"It's burnt down," said Christian, hurriedly. Something in her face
checked Larry's exclamation. In Ireland people learn to be silent on a
very imperceptible hint.

The farmers moved away. Said Michael Donovan in a low voice to John
Kearney:

"Will she go back, d'ye think?"

"I d'no. Har'ly, I think!"

"It'd be a pity anything'd happen her. She's a lovely girl to ride!"

"You may say that, Michael! The father gave her the sate, but it was
the Lord Almighty gave her the hands!" said old Kearney, devoutly.

"Maybe He'll mind her, so!" responded Michael Donovan, without
irreverence.

The shifting of responsibility brought some ease of mind.

"God grant it!" said John Kearney.

Christian was ordinarily possessed of an innate reasonableness that
responded to reason, but fear was not in her, and an appeal to reason
was least potent with her when she was in the saddle. The veiled hints
of danger, by which from, Evans onwards, she had been beset, only woke
the spirit of revolt that slept in her but little less lightly than it
had slept in her childhood, and were as fuel on the flame the run had
kindled.

"Larry," she said, with a light in her eyes, and a flush in her
cheeks, "do _you_ think I ought to go back?"

"Go back? Why should you?"

Larry, having received a hasty sketch of the position, gave his advice
with all the assurance of complete ignorance. "Your father has the
sporting rights--anyhow, I don't believe they'll stop you. Irishmen
are--"

Dissertation as to what Irishmen were or were not, attractive though
it was to a young man who knew nothing of the subject, was checked by
the success of Bill Kirby's cast ahead. Half way across the big field,
the hounds, who had been industriously spreading themselves, and
examining blades of grass and fronds of bracken with the intentness of
botanists, came, with a sudden rush, to a deep note from old Bellman,
and, as suddenly, broke into full-cry, with the unanimity of an
orchestra when the baton comes down. They headed for "Carmody's
bounds," and were over that solid barrier, and running hard across the
succeeding field, before most of the riders had realised what had
happened. The bounds fence was an honest jump--big, but safe. Nancy,
at the heels of the bay horse, came up on to it with a perfection that
banished all other thoughts from Christian's mind. On th