fered
irrefutable testimony that this was indeed the Feast of Stephen.
These, a ragged and tawdry little cluster of mummers, shabby survivors
of mediaeval mysteries, were gathered round their ensign holly-bush in
front of the hall-door steps. From the holly-bush swung the corpse of
the wren, and from the throats of the Wran-Boys came the song that
recounts the wicked wren's pursuit and slaughter:

"The Wran, the Wran, the King of all birds,
On Stephenses' Day was cot in the furze,
And though he is little, his family is great,
Rise up, good gentlemen, and give us a thrate--Huzzay!"

Wherever in South Munster two or three boys were gathered together,
that song was being sung, and Major Talbot-Lowry and his staff had
already met so many of such companies on their way to the Meet, that
their horses' indignation at finding a further collection of
nightmares at Coppinger's Court was excusable.

On the high flight of hall-door steps, stood Larry and Miss Coppinger,
the former pale with excitement, the latter doggedly resigned to the
convention that compelled her to offer intoxicating drinks to people
who, as she said, had but just swallowed their breakfasts. Larry had
learned many things since that day of abysmal ignorance when he had
spoken of Amazon as a "nice dog." Among his many enthusiasms he now
included a passion for the chase, and all that appertains to its
elaborate cult, that complied with Christian's, and even Cottingham's,
sense of what was becoming, and, having dedicated a shelf in the
library to books on hunting, he had read them all, with the same
ardour that, four years earlier, he had brought to bear on The Spirit
of the Nation and Irish history.

Major Talbot-Lowry looked down, from the top of his tall, white-faced
chestnut, on his young cousin, and accepted the glass of port that
Larry reverently offered to him, with a pleased appreciation of the
reverence. Cousin Dick was not invariably pleased with his young
cousin. He had gathered, hazily, from his wife, such of the tenets of
the Companions of Finn as she, instructed by Miss Weyman, had been
able to impart, and had not approved of them, nor of Larry's part in
introducing them to his young; also it was annoying (especially when
he remembered the brown breeches, etc.) to think of a young cub of a
boy having more money than he knew what to do with; and, finally, and
all the time, there was that almost unconscious, inbred distrust of
Larry's rel