Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE SILENT DOG. The minit I clapped eyes on the baste I knowed there was an unlucky look about him. But if there was bad luck wi' him sure the most av it fell his own road. It was this way I come across him. Wan afthernoon I was workin' about the yard, whin who should come intil it but wee Mr. Anthony, the solicitor, an' Mr. Harrington av the Bank. " Good evenin' to yez both," sez I; " what has sthrayed ye out av Ballygullion the day, gintle- men?" " Pat," sez Mr. Anthony, " are ye on for a night's sport? " " That'll depend," sez I. I wasn't goin' to let on what I'd do till I knowed what they were afther. For if it's shootin', sez I to meself, I'm otherwise engaged. Mr. Anthony's as dacint a wee man as iver stepped,—divil recave the betther; but a bigger ould dundherhead niver wint out wi' a gun in his fist. Between his short sight, an' his ram-stam way av runnin' at things, it was the danger av your life to go within a mile av him. Didn't he blow in the end windy av the Presbyterian meetin'- house wan prayer-meetin' night in the month av May, thryin' to shoot a crow off ould Major Dennison's tombstone in the buryin' ground outside; an' wanst he thralled me two miles to Bally- breen bog afther a flock av wild geese he said he seen, an' before I could stop him he 'tilled ould Mrs. Murphy's gandher that lives in Drumcrow, an' had to pay her a cowld pound, forbye a new gandher he bought her. So whin he sez " Are ye on for a night? ? thinks I I'll know what yez are afther first. " Well, Pat," sez he, " Mr. Barrington an' me has planned to have a night's rabbit-nettin' up at Mr. Hastings's at The Warren—" "Is it mad yez are?" sez I. "Sure ye'll be right foment the house, an' the ould gintleman'H hear the first bark; an' doesn't the whole coun...