"It's little a quiet one suits him; faix, he'd soon tire of her if she
wasn't rearing or plunging like mad! He's an elegant rider, God bless
him. I've a black horse now that would mount him well; he's out of
'Divil-may-care,' Mooney's horse, and can take six foot of a wall
flying, with fourteen stone on his back; and barring the least taste of
a capped hock, you could not see speck nor spot about him wrong."

"He's in no great humour for buying just now," interposed the
O'Donoghue, with a voice to which some suddenly awakened recollection
imparted a tone of considerable depression.

"Sure we might make a swop with the mare," rejoined Lanty, determined
not to be foiled so easily; and then, as no answer was forthcoming,
after a long pause, he added, "and havn't I the elegant pony for Master
Herbert there; a crame colour--clean bred--with white mane and tail. If
he was the Prince of Wales he might ride her. She has racing speed--they
tell me, for I only have her a few days; and, faix, ye'd win all the
county stakes with her."

The youth looked up from his book, and listened with glistening eyes and
animated features to the description, which, to one reared as he was,
possessed no common attraction.

"Sure I'll send over for her to-morrow, and you can try her," said
Lanty, as if replying to the gaze with which the boy regarded him.

"Ye mauna do nae sich a thing," broke in M'Nab. "Keep your rogueries and
rascalities for the auld generation ye hae assisted to ruin; but
leave the young anes alane to mind ither matters than dicing and
horse-racing."

Either the O'Donoghue conceived the allusion one that bore hardly on
himself, or he felt vexed that the authority of a father over his son
should have been usurped by another, or both causes were in operation
together, but he turned an angry look on Sir Archy, and said--

"And why shouldn't the boy ride? was there ever one of his name or
family that didn't know how to cross a country? I don't intend him for a
highland pedlar."

"He might be waur," retorted M'Nab, solemnly, "he might be an Irish
beggar."

"By my soul, sir," broke in O'Donoghue; but fortunately an interruption
saved the speech from being concluded, for at the same moment the door
opened, and Mark O'Donoghue, travel-stained and weary-looking, entered
the room.

"Well, Mark," said the old man, as his eyes glistened at the appearance
of his favourite son--"what sport, boy?"

"Poor enough, sir; five brace