TheCompleteMemoirsOfGeorgeSherston

ant, and the "unimaginable touch of time" had
completed the mellowing process.

Toward the end of my second week the frost a::d
snow changed to soft and rainy weather. One after-
noon I walked out to Adare and saw for the first time
the Ireland which I had imagined before I went there.
Quite unexpectedly I came in sight of a wide shallow
river, washing and hastening past the hied stones of
a ruined castle among some ancient trees. The even-
ing light touched it all into romance, and I indulged
in ruminations appropriate to the scene. But this was
not enough, and I soon began to make enquiries
about the meets of the Limerick Hounds.

No distance, I felt, would be too great to go if only
I could get hold of a decent hireling. Nobody in the
barracks could tell me where to look for one. The
genial majors permanent at the Depot were fond of a
bit of shooting and fishing, but they had no ambition
to be surmounting stone walls and big green banks
with double ditches. Before long, however, I had dis-
covered a talkative dealer out at Croome, and I
returned from my first day's hunting feeling that I'd
had more than my money's worth. The whole thing
had been most exhilarating. Everyone rode as if there
wasn't a worry in the world except hounds worrying
foxes. Never had I galloped over such richly verdant
fields or seen such depth of blue in distant hills. It was
difficult to believe that such a thing as "trouble"
existed in Ireland, or that our majors were talking in
apprehensive undertones about being sent out with
mobile columns—the mere idea of our mdlow majors
going out with mobile columns seemed slightly ludi-
crous.

But there it was. The Irish were being troublesome
—extremely troublesome—and no one knew much

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