The Boy, Some Horses and a Girl; A Tale of an Irish Trip ... (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 edition. Excerpt: ...with Lady Cahir never progressed very much further. CHAPTER VII HOW THE BOY BECAME A POACHER There was no doubt about it: the Boy had a taste for low company. Out hunting he spent much of his time joking with the Caseys or their compeers, and on off-days he took his bicycle--it was a much-enduring machine, and had to take the rough with the smooth--and penetrated into the country by himself. T ravers and Kane-Norton went to shoot with the local magnates; the Boy preferred to take his gun and search the wild bogs and hillsides. It was his nature to make friends; ere long he had made the acquaintance of a disreputable poacher, a squat, bandy-legged ruffian who went by the name of Mickey the Tramper. This worthy knew every corner of the county, every inch of squelchy bog and gorsy slope. One might almost have thought that the fairies came in the night to tell him where the brown snipe rested on their long, thin legs, where a stray cock was hiding in the hedges, or the flocks of plover rested. The Boy encountered Mickey one day when he had penetrated a tempting-looking bog, unaware of its ownership. Mickey was there, too, full of greater knowledge, but not the least disturbed by the fact that the land was the Doyles' and strictly preserved. From that hour arose a friendship which proved to be lasting. The poacher was always accompanied by a dog of equally disreputable appearance, a cross between a red setter and a water-spaniel, a most marvellously intelligent brute. From the advent of Mickey the expeditions became more frequent. The bicycle was left at some house, and Mickey and he would strike off across the fields, gray Irish skies overhead, soft winds in their faces, walking over the flat bogs where the deep-brown-hued pools glimmered...