He spoke as if he were quite accustomed to unearthing young couples out of trees. His voice had a sort of “I quite understand how it is” tone, and he spoke cheerfully.
“Good-day, Misther Hugh! Where’s your horses? Have you had a fall?”
“Fall! No!” snapped Hugh, whose temper was gradually rising as the absurdity of the situation dawned on him. “We haven’t had a fall. We ran the tracks of a lot of our sheep from the big paddock, and here they are now. I’d like to know what this means?”
“Is thim your sheep?” said the bland Mick, surprised. “I wuz wondherin’ whose sheep they wuz, comin’ up the flat. I knew they wuzn’t travellin’ sheep, ’cause of gettin’ no notice, an me bein’ laid up in the house this two days—”
“Oh, that’s all very fine, Mick Donohoe?” said the young man angrily. “Your own dogs have brought them here.”
Red Mick laughed gaily. “Ah, thim dogs is always yardin’ up things. They never see a mob of sheep, but they’ll start to dhrive ’em some place. When I was travellin’ down the Darlin’, goin’ through Dunloe Station, in one paddock I missed th’ old slut, and when I see her again, she had gethered fifteen thousand sheep, and was bringin’ ’em after me. But, Lord bless your heart, Mr. Hugh,” he added with a comforting smile, “she wouldn’t hurt a hair of a sheep’s head, nor the young dog ayther. Them sheep’ll be all right. Sorra sheep ever she bit in her life. I wonder where they gethered them?”
“I’ll tell you where they gathered them,” said Hugh. “The fence of our paddock was dug up, and the sheep were run out, and then the fence was put up again. That’s how they gathered them.”
“The fence wuz dug up! Ah, look at that now. Terrible, ain’t it. An’ who done it, do ye think? Some of them carriers, I expect, puttin’ their horses in unbeknownst to you. I’ll bet ’twas them done it. Or, perhaps,” he added, with an evident desire to assist in solving the difficulty, “perhaps the wind blew it down.”
“What!” said Hugh scornfully. “Wind blow down a fence! What next!”
“Well it does blow terrible hard sometimes in these parts,” said Red Mick, shaking his head dolefully; “look at me crop of onions I planted—the wind blew ’em out of the ground, and hung ’em on the fence. But wait now, till we have a look at these sheep.”