human
Have all the helpers gone?
gpt
I haven't asked them to stay; but unless they have stayed of their own accord I have just shaken hands with them. It's all that one gentleman can do to another when he meets him.
human
Mr. Daly is talking of selling the hounds,
gpt
Not quite yet, Tom, said Mr. Persse.
human
You mustn't do anything in a hurry.
gpt
They'll have to starve if they remain here,
human
I have come over here to say a word about them. I don't suppose this kind of thing will last for ever, you know.
gpt
Can you see any end to it?
human
Not as yet I can't, except that troubles when they come generally do have an end. We always think that evils will last for ever,--and blessings too. When two-year-old ewes went up to three pound ten at Ballinasloe, we thought that we were to get that price for ever, but they were soon down to two seventeen six; and when we had had two years of the potato famine, we thought that there would never be another potato in County Galway. For the last five years we've had them as fine at Doneraile as ever I saw them. Nobody is ever quite ruined, or quite has his fortune made.
gpt
I am very near the ruin,
human
I would struggle to hold on a little longer yet, said the other.
gpt
How many horses have you got here and at Ahaseragh?
human
There are something over a dozen, said Tom.
gpt
There may be fifteen in all. I was thinking of sending a draught over to Tattersall's next week. There are some of them would not be worth a five-and-twenty-pound note when you got them there!
human
Well, now I'll tell you what I propose. You shall send over four or five to be summered at Doneraile. There is grass enough there, and though I can't pay my debts, my credit is good at the corn-chandler's. Black Tom, as he heard this, sat still looking blacker than ever. He was a man who hated to have a favour offered to him. But he could bear the insult better from Persse of Doneraile than from anyone else in the county.
gpt
I've talked the matter over with Lynch--
human
D---- Lynch,
gpt
You needn't d---- anybody; but just listen to me. Sir Jasper says that he will take three, and Nicholas Bodkin will do the same.
human
They are both baronets, said Daly.
gpt
I hate a man with a handle to his name; he always seems to me to be stuck-up, as though he demanded something more than other people. There is that Lord Ardrahan--
human
A very good fellow too. Don't you be an ass. Lord Ardrahan has offered to take three more.
gpt
I knew it,
human
It's not as though any favour were offered or received. Though the horses are your own property, they are kept for the services of the hunt. We all understand very well how things are circumstanced at present.
gpt
How do you think I am to feed my hounds if you take away the horses which they would eat? said Daly, with an attempt at a grim joke. But after the joke Tom became sad again, almost to tears, and he allowed his friend to make almost what arrangements he pleased for distributing both hounds and horses among the gentry of the hunt.
human
And when they are gone, said he,
gpt
I am to sit here alone with nothing on earth to do. What on earth is to become of me when I have not a hound left to give a dose of physic to?
human
We'll not leave you in such a sad strait as that,
gpt
It will be sad enough. If you had had a pack of hounds to look after for thirty summers, you wouldn't like to get rid of them in a hurry. I'm like an old nurse who is sending her babies out, or some mother, rather, who is putting her children into the workhouse because she cannot feed them herself. It is sad, though you don't see it in that light.
human
Is trade so plentiful? asked Frank,
gpt
We can't afford to do with it, said the butcher,
human
FROM THE FULL HEART THE MOUTH SPEAKS.
gpt
Please, miss, it's from the Captain, and he says I'm not to stir out of this till I come back with an answer.
human
If he's to write to one of us it should be to Ada, she said to herself, laughing. Then she opened the envelope, which enclosed a large square stout letter. It contained a card and a written note, and on the card was an invitation, as follows:
gpt
The Colonel and Officers of the West Bromwich Regiment request the pleasure of the company of Mr. Jones, the Misses Jones, and Mr. Francis Jones to a dance at the Galway Barracks, on the 20th of May, 1881. Dancing to commence at ten o'clock.
human
My dear Miss Jones,