Faith, it isn't all the bravery that's at the Front," says I.
"That's the true wurrd," says he, rubbin' the lumps on his shins, the poor
boy.
"Oh, Delaney," says the domestic gerrl, drawin' a bottle from her apron
pocket, "Herself says will ye plaze be so obligin' to sprinkle the mascot
wid a dropeen of this ody-koloney scent--mebbe it will quench his
powerfulness, she says."
I put the bottle in me pocket. We tripped up me brave goat with the rope,
got the bull's collar and chain, and dragged him away towards the pond, him
buckin' and ragin' between us like a Tyrone Street lady in the arms of the
poliss. To hear the roars he let out of him would turn your hearts cowld 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.
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