as
lead, but we held on.

The Saints were wid us; in half-an-hour we had him as wet as an eel, and
broke the bottle of ody-koloney over his back.

He was clane mad. "God save us all when he gets that chain off him!" I
says. "God save us it is!" says Mikeen, looking around for a tree to shin.

Just at the minut we heard a great screechin' o' dogs, and through the
fence comes the harrier pack that the Reserve orficers kept in the camp
beyond. ("Harriers" they called them, but, begob! there wasn't anythin'
they wouldn't hunt from a fox to a turkey, those ones.)

"What are they afther chasin'?" says Mikeen.

"'Tis a stag to-day, be the newspapers," I says, "but the dear knows
they'll not cotch him this month, he must be gone by this half-hour, and
the breath is from them, their tongues is hangin' out a yard," I says.

'Twas at that moment the Blessed Saints gave me wisdom.

"Mikeen," I says, "drag the mascot out before them; we'll see sport this
day."

"Herself--" he begins.

"Hoult your whisht," says I, "and come on." With that we dragged me bowld
goat out before the dogs and let go the chain.

The dogs sniffed up the strong blast of ody-koloney and let a yowl out of
them like all the banshees in the nation of Ireland, and the billy legged
it for his life--small blame to him!

Meself and Mikeen climbed a double to see the sport.

"They have him," says Mikeen. "They have not," says I; "the crature howlds
them by two lengths."

"He has doubled on them," says Mikeen; "he is as sly as a Jew."

"He is forninst the rabbit holes now," I says. "I thank the howly Saints he
cannot burrow."

"He has tripped up--they have him bayed," says Mikeen.

And that was the mortal truth, the dogs had him.

Oh, but it was a bowld billy! He went in among those hounds like a lad to a
fair, you could hear his horns lambastin' their ribs a mile away. But they
were too many for him and bit the grand silky hair off him by the mouthful.
The way it flew you'd think it was a snowstorm.

"They have him desthroyed," says Mikeen.

"They have," says I, "God be praised!"

At the moment the huntsman leps his harse up on the double beside us; he
was phlastered with muck from his hair to his boots.

"What have they out there?" says he, blinkin' through the mud and not
knowin' rightly what his hounds were coursin' out before him, whether it
would be a stag or a Bengal tiger.

"'Tis her ladyship's Rile Imperial Mascot Goat," says I; "an'