[Illustration:  PAGE 693—­ How he kept his sate so long has puzzled me]

“But the best sport of all was, when they came to the Lazy Corner, just at Jack Gallagher’s flush,* where the water came out a good way acrass the road; being in such a flight, they either forgot or didn’t know how to turn the angle properly, and plash went above thirty of them, coming down right on the top of one another, souse in the pool.  By this time there was about a dozen of the best horsemen a good distance before the rest, cutting one another up for the bottle:  among these were the Dorans and Flanagans; but they, you see, wisely enough, dropped their women at the beginning, and only rode single.  I myself didn’t mind the bottle, but kept close to Mary, for fraid that among sich a divil’s pack of half-mad fellows, anything might happen her.  At any rate, I was next the first batch:  but where do you think the tailor was all this time?  Why away off like lightning, miles before them—­flying like a swallow:  and how he kept his sate so long has puzzled me from that day to this; but, any how, truth’s best—­there he was topping the hill ever so far before them.  After all, the unlucky crathur nearly missed the bottle; for when he turned to the bride’s house, instead of pulling up as he ought to do—­why, to show his horsemanship to the crowd that was out looking at them, he should begin to cut up the horse right and left, until he made him take the garden ditch in full flight, landing him among the cabbages.  About four yards or five from the spot where the horse lodged himself was a well, and a purty deep one, by my word; but not a sowl present could tell what become of the tailor, until Owen Smith chanced to look into the well, and saw his long spurs just above the water; so he was pulled up in a purty pickle, not worth the washing; but what did he care? although he had a small body, the sorra one of him but had a sowl big enough for Golias or Sampson the Great.

* Flush is a pool of water that spreads nearly across a road.  It is usually fed by a small mountain stream, and in consequence of rising and falling rapidly, it is called “Flash.”

“As soon as he got his eyes clear, right or wrong, he insisted on getting the bottle:  but he was late, poor fellow, for before he got out of the garden, two of them comes up—­Paddy Doran and Peter Flanagan—­cutting one another to pieces, and not the length of your nail between them.  Well, well, that was a terrible day, sure enough.  In the twinkling of an eye they were both off the horses, the blood streaming from their bare heads, struggling to take the bottle from my father, who didn’t know which of them to give it to.  He knew if he’d hand it to one, the other would take offince, and then he was in a great puzzle, striving to raison with them; but long Paddy Doran caught it while he was spaking to Flanagan, and the next instant Flanagan measured him with a heavy loaded whip, and