'll do now," said the blind man. "Take him on to Carnfother; but
ye'll want to get five stitches in that to make a good job of it."

"But--I don't understand--" stammered Mrs. Pat, shaken for once out of
her self-possession by this sudden extension of her spiritual horizon.
"What have you done? Won't it begin again?" She turned to the woman in
her bewilderment: "Is--is he mad?"

"For as mad as he is, it's him you may thank for yer horse," answered
the yellow-haired woman. "Why, Holy Mother! did ye never hear of Kane
the Blood-Healer?"

[Illustration: THE BLOOD-HEALER.]

The road round them was suddenly thronged with hounds, snuffing at
Pilot, and pushing between Mrs. Pat and the fence. The cheerful
familiar sound of the huntsman's voice rating them made her feel her
feet on solid ground again. In a moment Major Booth was there, the
Master had dismounted, the habits, loud with sympathy and excitement,
had gathered round; a Whip was examining the cut, while he spoke to the
yellow-haired woman.

Mrs. Pat tie-less, her face splashed with mud, her bare hands stained
with blood, told her story. It is, I think, a point in her favour that
for a moment she forgot what her appearance must be.

"The horse would have bled to death before the lady got to Carnfother,
sir," said the Whip to the Master; "it isn't the first time I seen life
saved by that one. Sure, didn't I see him heal a man that got his leg in
a mowing machine, and he half-dead, with the blood spouting out of him
like two rainbows!"

This is not a fairy story. Neither need it be set lightly down as a
curious coincidence. I know the charm that the old man said. I cannot
give it here. It will only work successfully if taught by man to woman
or by woman to man; nor do I pretend to say that it will work for every
one. I believe it to be a personal and wholly incomprehensible gift, but
that such a gift has been bestowed, and in more parts of Ireland than
one, is a bewildering and indisputable fact.

HIGH TEA AT McKEOWN'S

"Papa!" said the youngest Miss Purcell, aged eleven, entering the
drawing-room at Mount Purcell in a high state of indignation and a
flannel dressing-gown that had descended to her in unbroken line of
succession from her eldest sister, "isn't it my turn for the foxy mare
to-morrow? Nora had her at Kilmacabee, and it's a rotten shame--"

The youngest Miss Purcell here showed signs of the imminence of tears,
and rooted in the torn pocket