ainst the flight
of steps, I heard through the open door a loud and piercing yell;
following on it came the thunder of many feet, and the next instant a
hound bolted down the steps with a large plucked turkey in its mouth.
Close in its wake fled a brace of puppies, and behind them, variously
armed, pursued what appeared to be the staff of Lisangle House. They
went past me in full cry, leaving a general impression of dirty aprons,
flying hair, and onions, and I feel sure that there were bare feet
somewhere in it. My carman leaped from his perch and joined in the
chase, and the whole party swept from my astonished gaze round or into a
clump of bushes. At this juncture I was not sorry to hear Robert
Trinder's voice greeting me as if nothing unusual were occurring.

[Illustration: ROBERT'S AUNT]

"Upon me honour, it's the Captain! You're welcome, sir, you're welcome!
Come in, come in, don't mind the horse at all; he'll eat the grass there
as he's done many a time before! When the gerr'ls have old Amazon cot
they'll bring in your things."

(Perhaps I ought to mention at once that Mr. Trinder belongs to the
class who are known in Ireland as "Half-sirs". You couldn't say he was a
gentleman, and he himself wouldn't have tried to say so. But, as a
matter of fact, I have seen worse imitations.)

Robert was delighted to see me, and I had had a whisky-and-soda and been
shown two or three more hound puppies before it occurred to him to
introduce me to his aunt. I had not expected an aunt, as Robert is well
on the heavenward side of sixty; but there she was: she made me think of
a badly preserved Egyptian mummy with a brogue. I am always a little
afraid of my hostess, but there was something about Robert's aunt that
made me know I was a worm. She came down to dinner in a bonnet and black
kid gloves--a circumstance that alone was awe-inspiring. She sat
entrenched at the head of the table behind an enormous dish of thickly
jacketed potatoes, and, though she scorned to speak to Robert or me, she
kept up a sort of whispered wrangle with the parlour-maid all the time.
The latter's red hair hung down over her shoulders--and at intervals
over mine also--in horrible luxuriance, and recalled the leading figure
in the pursuit of Amazon; there was, moreover, something about the heavy
boots in which she tramped round the table that suggested that Amazon
had sought sanctuary in the cow-house. I have done some roughing it in
my time, and I am