“And why not?  A bet is the only way to decide these things.”

“Partly because I’m sure I shouldn’t hit a bird,” said Phineas, “and partly because I haven’t got any money to lose.”

“I hate bets,” said Mr. Kennedy to him afterwards.  “I was annoyed when Bonteen offered the wager.  I felt sure, however, you would not accept it.”

“I suppose such bets are very common.”

“I don’t think men ought to propose them unless they are quite sure of their company.  Maybe I’m wrong, and I often feel that I am strait-laced about such things.  It is so odd to me that men cannot amuse themselves without pitting themselves against each other.  When a man tells me that he can shoot better than I, I tell him that my keeper can shoot better than he.”

“All the same, it’s a good thing to excel,” said Phineas.

“I’m not so sure of that,” said Mr. Kennedy.  “A man who can kill more salmon than anybody else, can rarely do anything else.  Are you going on with your match?”

“No; I’m going to make my way to Loughlinter.”

“Not alone?”

“Yes, alone.”

“It’s over nine miles.  You can’t walk it.”

Phineas looked at his watch, and found that it was now two o’clock.  It was a broiling day in August, and the way back to Loughlinter, for six or seven out of the nine miles, would be along a high road.  “I must do it all the same,” said he, preparing for a start.  “I have an engagement with Lady Laura Standish; and as this is the last day that I shall see her, I certainly do not mean to break it.”

“An engagement with Lady Laura,” said Mr. Kennedy.  “Why did you not tell me, that I might have a pony ready?  But come along.  Donald Bean has a pony.  He’s not much bigger than a dog, but he’ll carry you to Loughlinter.”

“I can walk it, Mr. Kennedy.”

“Yes; and think of the state in which you’d reach Loughlinter!  Come along with me.”

“But I can’t take you off the mountain,” said Phineas.

“Then you must allow me to take you off.”

So Mr. Kennedy led the way down to Donald Bean’s cottage, and before three o’clock Phineas found himself mounted on a shaggy steed, which, in sober truth, was not much bigger than a large dog.  “If Mr. Kennedy is really my rival,” said Phineas to himself, as he trotted along, “I almost think that I am doing an unhandsome thing in taking the pony.”

At five o’clock he was under the portico before the front door, and there he found Lady Laura waiting for him,—­waiting for him, or at least ready for him.  She had on her hat and gloves and light shawl, and her parasol was in her hand.  He thought that he had never seen her look so young, so pretty, and so fit to receive a lover’s vows.  But at the same moment it occurred to him that she was Lady Laura Standish, the daughter of an Earl, the descendant of a line of Earls,—­and that he was the son of a simple country doctor in Ireland.