Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/83

Rh looking young Celt, dare-devil yet tender, rollicking or serious by turns, as circumstances determined; a typical Irish gentleman, with the most distinct though refined of brogues; who rode across country on the best bred of steeds, as though his wire fences were no more treacherous than the stone walls of Galloway. His boundary rider he would knock down "soon as look at him" if he were impudent, ride scores of miles for the doctor for a sick "hand," whom he would nurse and care for with the tenderness of a woman. Every one knew and loved Larry O'Lochlan, as all the country-side styled him. Though proud of his birth, he ever had a cheery greeting or a word of banter for all he met. He could pick off with rifle his wallaby or dingo at a thousand yards, as others with shot at a hundred. Larry was much interested in Courtenay's venture. He thought it a prime joke. Moreover, he declared his daughter Hilda "the one girl he had met out here who knew how to sit a horse without giving him a bad back." "A deuced fine-looking girl too. Knows how to talk. None of your Matriculation-Miss about her."

Larry had come to lunch, leading a young mare "that Miss Courtenay must ride. The creature had a mouth of velvet, action like a fighting cock, pace of a greyhound. She'd take you across one of those tents like a kitten over a cucumber."

"What a remarkable horse, Mr. O'Lochlan!" suggested Mrs. Courtenay; "she must be Irish, surely."

"Now, you are laughing at me, Mrs. Courtenay. You come too. Miss Maud, with your tandem-team, and see if she isn't an angel."

"Which—the lady or the pony?" asked Tom.

"Oh, you English are so matter-of-fact. I don't hesitate to say that Miss Hilda rides like an angel."