THE Badminton JMaqazine JurAe 1897 A NINETEENTH-CENTURY MIRACLE BY E. (E. SOMERVILLE AND MARTIN EOSS Captain ' Pat ' Naylor, of the — th Dragoons, had the influenza. ^For three days he had lain prostrate, a sodden and aching victim (to the universal leveller, and an intolerable nuisance to his wife, ^his last is perhaps an over-statement ; Mrs. Naylor was in the labit of bearing other people's burdens with excellent fortitude, mt she felt justly annoyed that Captain Pat should knock up )efore they had fairly settled down in their new quarters, and ''hile yet three of the horses were out of sorts after the crossing rom England. Pilot, however, was quite fit, a very tranquillising fact, and )ne that Mrs. Pat felt was due to her own good sense in summer- ig him on her father's broad pastures in Meath, instead of lugging him to Aldershot with the rest of the string, as Pat [wanted to do,' as she explained to Major Booth. Major Booth shed a friendly grin upon his fallen comrade, who lay, a leplorable object, on the horrid velvet-covered sofa peculiar to idifferent lodgings, and said vaguely that one of his brutes was ight anyhow, and he was going to ride him at Carnfother the lext day. ' You'd better come too, Mrs. Pat,' he added ; ' and if you'll Irive me I'll send my chap on with the horses. It's too far to ide. It's fourteen Irish miles off, and fourteen Irish miles is just ibout the longest distance I know.' NO. XXIII. VOL. IV. . T T 632 THE BADMINTON MAGAZINE Carnfother is a village in a remote part of the Co. Cork ; it possesses a small hotel — in Ireland no hostelry, however abject, would demean itself by accepting the title of inn— a police barrack, a few minor public-houses, a good many dirty cottages, and an unrivalled collection of loafers. The stretch of salmon river that gleamed away to the distant heathery hills afforded the raison d'etre of both hotel and loafers, but the fishing season had not begun, and the attention of both was therefore undivi- dedly bestowed on Mrs. Naylor and Major Booth. The former's cigarette and the somewhat Paradisaic dimensions of her apron skirt would indeed at any time have rivalled in interest the landing of a 20-lb, fish, and as she strode into the hotel the bystanders' ejaculatory piety would have done credit to a revival meeting. ' Well, well, I'll say nothing for her but that she's quare ! ' said the old landlady, hurrying in from her hens to attend to these rarer birds whom fortune had sent to her net. Mrs. Pat's roan cob had attacked and defeated the fourteen Irish miles with superfluous zeal, and there were still several minutes before the hounds could be reasonably expected on the scene. The soda was bad, the whisky was worse. The sound of a fiddle came in with the sunshine through the open door, and our friends strolled out into the street to see what was going on. In the centre of a ring of onlookers an old man was playing, and was, moreover, dancing to his own music, and dancing with serious, incongruous elegance. Bound and round the circle he footed it, his long thin legs twinkhng in absolute accord with the complicated jig that his long thin fingers were ripping out of the cracked and raucous fiddle. A very plain, stout young woman, with a heavy red face and discordantly golden hair, shuffled round after him in a clumsy pretence of dancing, and as the couple faced Mrs. Pat she saw that the old man was blind. Steam was rising from his domed bald head, and his long black hair danced on his shoulders. His face was pale and strange and entirely self-absorbed. Had Mrs. Pat been in the habit of institut- ing romantic parallels between the past and the present she might have thought of the Priests of Baal who danced in probably just such measures round the cromlechs in the hills above Carnfother ; as she wasn't, she remarked merely that this was all very well, but that the old maniac would have to clear out of that b of ore they brought Pilot round, or there'd be trouble. There was trouble, but it did not arise from Pilot, but from the yellow-haired woman's pertinacious demands for money from T T 2 A NINETEENTH-CENTURY MIRACLE 635 Mrs. Naylor. She had the offensive fluency that comes of long practice in alternate wheedling and bullying, and although Major Booth had given her a shilling she continued to pester Mrs. Pat for a further largesse. But, as it happened, Mrs. Pat's purse was in her covert coat in the dog-cart, and Mrs. Pat's temper was ever within easy reach, and on being too closely pressed for the one she exhibited the other with a decision that contracted the ring of bystanders to hear the fun, and loosened the yellow-haired woman's language, till unfortunate Major Booth felt that if he could get her off the field of battle for a sovereign it would be cheap at the price. The old man continued to walk round and round, fingering a dumb tune on his fiddle that he did not bow, while the sunhght glistened hot and bright in his unwinking eyes ; there was a faint smile on his lips, he heard as little as he saw ; it was evident that he was away where ' beyond these voices there is peace,' in the fairy country that his forefathers called the Tir na'n Oge. At this juncture the note of the horn sounded very sweetly from across the shining ford of the river. Hounds and riders came splashing up into the village street, the old man and his daughter were hustled to one side, and Mrs. Pat's affability returned as she settled her extremely smart little person on Pilot's curvetting back, and was instantly aware that there was nothing present that could touch either of them in looks or quality. Carnfother was at the extreme verge of the D Hounds' country ; there were not more than about thirty riders out, and Mrs. Pat was not far wrong when she observed to Major Booth that there was not much class about them. Of the four or five women who were of the field, but one wore a habit with any pretensions to conformity with the sacred laws of fashion, and its colour was a blue that, taken in connection with a red, brass-buttoned waistcoat, reminded the severe critic from Boyal Meath of the head porter at the Shelburne Hotel. So she informed Major Booth in one of the rare intervals permitted to her by Pilot for conversation. 'All right,' responded that gentleman, 'you wait until you and that ramping brute of yours get up among the stone walls, and 'you'll be jolly glad if she'll call a cab for you and see you taken safe home. I tell you what — you won't be able to see the way she goes.' ' Kubbish ! ' said Mrs. Pat, and, whether from sympathy or from a petulant touch of her heel. Pilot at this moment involved himself in so intricate a series of plunges and bucks as to pre- clude further discussion. 636 THE BADMINTON MAGAZINE The first covert — a small wood on the flank of a hill — was blank, and the hounds moved on across country to the next draw. It was a land of pasture, and in every fence was a deep muddy passage, through which the field splashed in single file with the grave stolidity of the cows by whom the gaps had been made. Mrs, Pat was feeling horribly bored. Her escort had joined himself to two of the ladies of the hunt, and though it was gratifying to observe that one wore a paste brooch in her tie and the other had an imitation cavalry bit and bridle, with a leather tassel hanging from her pony's throat, these things lost their savour when she had no one with whom to make merry over them. She had left her sandwiches in the dog-cart, her servant had mistaken sherry for whisky when he was filling her flask ; the day had clouded over, and already one brief but furious shower had scourged the curl out of her dark fringe and made the reins slippery. At last, however, a nice-looking gorse covert was reached, and the hounds threw themselves into it with promising alacrity. Pilot steadied himself, and stood with pricked ears, giving an occasional snatch at his bit, and looking, as no one knew better than his rider, the very picture of a hunter, while he listened for the first note that should tell of a find. He had not long to wait. There came a thin little squeal from the middle of the covert, and a hound flung up out of the thicker gorse and began to run along a ridge of rock, with head down, and feathering stern. * They've got him, my lady,' said a young farmer on a rough three-year-old to Mrs. Pat, as he stuffed his pipe in his pocket. * That's Patience ; we'll have a hunt out o' this.' Then came another and longer squeal as Patience plunged out of sight again, and then, as the glowing chorus rose from the half- seen pack, a whip, posted on a hillside beyond the covert, raised his cap high in the air, and a wild screech that set Pilot dancing from leg to leg broke from a country boy who was driving a harrow in the next field : ' Ga — aane awa — ay ! ' Mrs. Pat forgot her annoyances. Her time had come. She would show that idiot Booth that Pilot was not to be insulted with impunity, and but here retrospect and intention became alike merged in the present, and in the single resolve to get ahead and stay there. Half a dozen of Pilot's great reaching strides, and she was in the next field and over the low bank without putting an iron on it. The horse with the harrow, deserted by his driver, was following the hunt with the best of A NINETEENTH-CENTURY MIRACLE 6^7 them, and, combining business with pleasure, was, as he went, harrowing the field with absurd energy. The Paste Brooch and the Shelburne Porter — so Mrs. Pat mentally distinguished them — were sailing along with a good start, and Major Booth was close at their heels. The light soil of the tilled field flew in every direction as thirty or more horses raced across it, and the usual retinue of foot runners raised an ecstatic yell as Mrs. Pat forged ahead and sent her big horse over the fence at the end of the field in a style that happily combined swagger with knowledge. The hounds were streaking along over a succession of pasture fields, and the cattle gaps which were to be found in every fence vexed the proud soul of Mrs. Pat. She was too good a sports- man to school her horse over needless jumps when hounds were running, but it infuriated her to have to hustle with these out- siders for her place at a gap. So she complained to Major Booth, with a vehemence of adjective that, though it may be forgiven to her, need not be set down here. * Is all the wretched country like this ? ' she inquired indig- nantly, as the Shelburne Porter's pony splashed ahead of her through a muddy ford, just beyond which the hounds had momentarily checked ; * you told me to bring out a big- jumped horse, and I might have gone the whole hunt on a bicycle ! ' Major Booth's reply was to point to the hounds. They had cast back to the line that they had flashed over, and had begun to run again at right angles from the grassy valley down which they had come, up towards the heather-clad hills that lay back of Carnfother. ' Say your prayers, Mrs. Pat ! ' he said, in what Mrs. Pat felt to be a gratuitously offensive manner, ' and I'll ask the lady in the pretty blue habit to have an eye to you. This is a hill fox, and he's going to make you and Pilot sit up ! ' Mrs. Pat was not in a mood to be trifled with, and I again think it better to omit her response to this inconvenient jesting. What she did was to give Pilot his head, and she presently found herself as near the hounds as was necessary, galloping in a line with the huntsman straight for a three-foot wall, lightly built of round stones. That her horse could refuse to jump it was a possibility that did not so much as enter her head ; but that he did so was a fact whose stern logic could not be gainsaid. She had too firm a seat to be discomposed by the swinging plunge with which he turned from it, but her mental balance sustained a serious shake. That Pilot, at the head of the hunt, should refuse, was a thing that struck at the root of her dearest behefs. 638 THE BADMINTON MAGAZINE She stopped him and turned him at the wall again ; again he refused, and at the same instant Major Booth and the blue habit jumped it side by side. ' What did I tell you ! ' the former called back, with a laugh that grated on Mrs. Pat's ear with a truly fiendish rasp ; ' do you want a lead ? ' The incensed Mrs. Pat once more replied in forcible phraseology, as she drove her horse again at the wall. The average Meath horse likes stones just about as much as the average Co. Cork horse enjoys water, and the train of running men and boys were given the exquisite gratification of a contest between Pilot and his rider. ' Howld on, miss, till I knock a few shtones for ye ! ' volunteered one, trying to interpose between Pilot and the wall. ' Get out of the way ! ' was Mrs. Pat's response to this civility, as she crammed her steed at the jump again. The volunteer, amid roars of laughter from his friends, saved his life only by dint of undignified agility, as the big horse whirled round, rearing and plunging. ' Isn't he the divil painted ? ' exclaimed another in highest admiration ; ' wait till I give him a couple of slaps of my bawneen, miss ! ' He dragged off his white flannel coat and attacked Pilot in the rear with it, while another of the party flung clods of mud vaguely into the battle, and another persistently implored the maddened Mrs. Pat to get off and let him lead the horse over, * before she'd lose her life : ' a suggestion that has perhaps a more thoroughly exasperating effect than any other on occasions such as this. By the time that Pilot had pawed down half the wall and been induced to buck over, or into, what remained of it, Mrs. Pat's temper was irretrievably gone, and she was at the heel instead of the head of the hunt. Thanks to this position there was be- stowed on her the abhorred, but not to be declined, advantage of availing herself of the gaps made in the next couple of jumps by the other riders ; but the stones that they had kicked down were almost as agitating to Pilot's ruffled nerves as those that still remained in position. She found it the last straw that she should have to wait for the obsequious runners to tear these out of her way, while the galloping backs in front of her grew smaller and smaller, and the adulatory condolences of her assistants became more and more hard to endure. She literally hurled the shilling at them as she set off once more to try to recover her lost ground, and by sheer force of passion hustled Pilot over the next broken- A NINETEENTH-CENTURY MIRACLE 639 down wall without a refusal. For she had now got into that stony- country whereof Major Booth had spoken. Eough heathery fields, ribbed with rocks and sown with grey boulders, were all round. The broad salmon river swept sleekly through the valley below, among the bland green fields which were as far away for all practical purposes as the plains of Paradise. No one who has not ridden a stern chase over rough ground on a well-bred horse with his temper a bit out of hand will be able at all fitly to sympathise with the trials of Mrs. Naylor. The hunt and all that appertained to it had sunk out of sight over a rugged hill- side, and she had nothing by which to steer her course save the f^f^ Mrs. Pat's Temper was irretrievably gone hoof marks in the occasional black and boggy intervals between the heathery knolls. No one had ever accused her of being short of pluck, and she pressed on her difficult way with the utmost gallantry ; but short of temper she certainly was, and at each suc- ceeding obstacle there ensued a more bitter battle between her and her horse. Every here and there a band of crisp upland meadow would give the latter a chance, but each such advantage would be squandered in the war dance that he indulged in at every wall. At last the summit of the interminable series of hills was gained, and Mrs. Pat scanned the solitudes that surrounded her with wrathful eyes. The hounds were lost, as completely swal- 640 THE BADMINTON MAGAZINE lowed up as ever were Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Not the most despised of the habits or the feeblest of the three-year-olds had been left behind to give a hint of their course ; but the hoof-marks showed black on a marshy down-grade of grass, and with an angry clout of her crop on Pilot's unaccustomed ribs, she set off again. A narrow road cut across the hills at the end of the field. The latter was divided from it by a low, thin wall of sharp slaty stones, and on the farther side there was a wide and boggy drain. It was not a nice place, and Pilot thundered down towards it at a pace that suited his rider's temper better than her judgment. It was evident, at all events, that he did not mean to refuse. Nor did he ; he rose out of the heavy ground at the wall like a rocket- ing pheasant, and cleared it by more than twice its height ; but though he jumped high he did not jump wide, and he landed half in and half out of the drain, with his forefeet clawing at its greasy edge, and his hind legs deep in the black mud. Mrs. Pat scrambled out of the saddle with the speed of light, and after a few momentous seconds, during which it seemed horribly likely that the horse would relapse bodily into the drain, his and Mrs. Pat's efforts prevailed, and he was standing, trembling and dripping, on the narrow road. She led him on for a few steps ; he went sound, and for one delusive instant she thought he had escaped damage ; then, through the black slime on his hind legs the red blood began to flow. It came from high up inside the off hind leg, above the hock, and it welled ever faster and faster, a plaited crimson stream that made his owner's heart sink. She dipped her handkerchief in the ditch and cleaned the cut. It was deep in the fleshy part of the leg, a gaping wound, inflicted by one of those razor slates that hide like sentient enemies in such boggy places. It was large enough for her to put her hand in ; she held the edges together, and the bleeding ceased for an instant ; then, as she released them, it began again worse than ever. Her handkerchief was as inadequate for any practical purpose as ladies' handkerchiefs generally are, but an inspiration came to her. She tore off her gloves, and in a few seconds the long linen hunting-scarf that had been pinned and tied with such skilled labour in the morning was being used as a bandage for the wound. But though Mrs. Pat could tie a tie with any man in the regiment, she failed badly as a bandager of a less ornamental character. The hateful stream continued to pump forth from the cut, incarnadining the muddy road, and in despair she took Pilot by the head and began to lead him down the hill towards the valley. A NINETEENTH-CENTURY MIRACLE 641 Another gusty shower flung itself at her. It struck her bare white neck with whips of ice, and though she turned up the collar of her coat, the rain ran down under the neckband of her shirt and chilled her through and through. It was evident that an artery had been cut in Pilot's leg ; the flow from the wound never ceased ; the hunting-scarf, drenched with blood, had slipped down to the hock. It seemed to Mrs. Pat that her horse must bleed to death, and, tough and unemotional though she was, Mrs. Pat scrambled out of the Saddle Pilot was very near her heart ; tears gathered in her eyes as she led him slowly on through the rain and the loneliness, in the forlorn hope of finding help. She progressed in this lamentable manner for perhaps half a mile ; the rain ceased, and she stopped to try once more to readjust the scarf, when in the stillness that had followed the cessation of the rain, she heard a faint and distant sound of music. It drew nearer, a thinj shrill twittering, and as Mrs. Pat turned quickly frorh her task to see what this could portend, she heard a woman's voice say harshly : 642 THE BADMINTON MAGAZINE * Ah, have done with that thrash of music ; sure, it'll be darli night itself before we're in to Lismore.' There was something familiar in the coarse tones. The weirdness fell from the wail of the music as Mrs. Pat remembered the woman who had bothered her for money that morning in Carnfother. She and the blind old man were tramping slowly up the road, seemingly as useless a couple to anyone in Mrs. Pat's plight as could well be imagined. * How far am I from Carnfother ? ' she asked, as they drew near to her. * Is there any house near here ? ' * There is not,' said the yellow-haired woman ; ' and ye 're four miles from Carnfother yet.' * I'll pay you well if you will take a message there for me ' began Mrs. Pat. ' Are ye sure have ye yer purse in yer pocket ? ' interrupted the yellow-haired woman with a laugh that succeeded in being as nasty as she wished ; ' or will I go dancin' down to Carn- fother ' * Have done, Joanna ! ' said the old man suddenly ; ' what trouble is on the lady ? What lamed the horse ? ' He turned his bright blind eyes full on Mrs. Pat. They were of the curious green blue that is sometimes seen in the eyes of a grey collie, and with all Mrs. Pat's dislike and suspicion of the couple, she knew that he was blind. ' He was cut in a ditch,' she said shortly. The old man had placed his fiddle in his daughter's hands ; his own hands were twitching and trembling. ' I feel the blood flowing,' he said in a very low voice, and he walked up to Pilot. His hands went unguided to the wound, from which the steady flow of blood had never ceased. With one he closed the lips of the cut, while with the other he crossed himself three times. His daughter watched him stolidly; Mrs. Pat, with a certain alarm, having, after the manner of her kind, explained to herself the incomprehensible with the all-embracing formula of madness. Yes, she thought, he was undoubtedly mad, and as soon as the paroxysm was past she would have another try at bribing the woman. The old man was muttering to himself, still holding the wound in one hand. Mrs. Pat could distinguish no words, but it seemed to her that he repeated three times what he was saying. Then he straightened himself and stroked Pilot's quarter with a light, pitying hand. Mrs. Pat stared. The bleeding had ceased. His Hands went unguided to the Wound A NINETEENTH-CENTURY MIRACLE 645 The hunting-scarf lay on the road at the horse's empurpled hoof. There was nothing to explain the mystery, but the fact remained. * He'll do now,' said the blind man. ' Take him on to Carn- fother ; 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 ? ' 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 in a low voice 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 the moment she forgot what her appear- ance 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 everyone. 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. ^M