When his honour the Colonel took the owld rigiment to France, Herself came home bringin' the rigimental mascot with her. A big white long-haired billy-goat he was, the same.  
"I'll not be afther lavin' him at the daypo," says Herself; "'tis no place for a domestic animal at all, the language them little drummer-boys uses, the dear knows," says she.
 
So me bowld mascot he stops up at the Castle and makes free with the flower-beds and the hall and the drawin'-room and the domestic maids the way he'd be the Lord-Lieutenant o' the land, and not jist a plain human Angory goat. A proud arrygent crature it is, be the powers! Steppin' about as disdainy as a Dublin gerrl in Ballydehob, and if, mebbe, you'd address him for to get off your flower-beds with the colour of anger in your mouth he'd let a roar out of him like a Sligo piper with poteen taken, and fetch you a skelp with his horns that would lay you out for dead.
 
And sorra the use is it of complainin' to Herself.
 
"Ah, Delaney, 'tis the marshal sperit widin him," she'd say; "we must be patient with him for the sake of the owld rigiment"; and with that she'd start hand-feedin' him with warmed-up sponge cake and playin' with his long silky hair.
 
"Far be it from me," I says to Mikeen, the herd, "to question the workings o' Providence, but were I the Colonel of a rigiment, which I am not, and had to have a mascot, it's not a raparee billy I'd be afther havin', but a nanny, or mebbe a cow, that would step along dacently with the rigiment and bring ye luck, and mebbe a dropeen o' milk for the orficers' tea as well. If it's such cratures that bring ye fortune may I die a peaceful death in a poor-house," says I.
 
"I'm wid ye," says Mikeen, groanin', he bein' spotted like a leopard with bruises by rason of him havin' to comb the mascot's silky hair twice daily, and the quick temper of the baste at the tangles.
 
The long of a summer the billy stops up at the Castle, archin' his neck at the wurrld and growin' prouder and prouder by dint of the standin' he had with the owld rigiment and the high feedin' he had from Herself. Faith, 'tis a great delight we servints had of him I'm tellin' ye! It was as much as your life's blood was worth to cross his path in the garden, and if the domestic maids would be meetin' him in the house they'd let him eat the dresses off them before they dare say a word.
 
In the autumn me bowld mascot gets a wee trifle powerful by dint o' the high feedin' and the natural nature of the crature. Herself, wid her iligant lady's nose, is afther noticin' it, and she sends wan o' the gerrls to tell meself and Mikeen to wash the baste.
 
"There will be murdher done this day," says I to the lad, "but 'tis the orders. Go get the cart rope and the chain off the bulldog, and we'll do it. Faith, it isn't all the bravery that's at the Front," says I.
 
"That's the true wurrd," says he, rubbin' the lumps on his shins, the poor boy.
 
"Oh, Delaney," says the domestic gerrl, drawin' a bottle from her apron pocket. "Herself says will ye plaze be so obligin' as to sprinkle the mascot wid a dropeen of this ody-koloney scent—mebbe it will quench his powerfulness, she says."
 
I put the bottle in me pocket. We tripped up me brave goat with the rope, got the bull's collar and chain, and dragged him away towards the pond, him buckin' and ragin' between us like a Tyrone Street lady in the arms of the poliss. To hear the roars he let out of him would turn your hearts cowld as lead, but we held on.
 
The Saints were wid us; in half an hour we had him as wet as an eel, and broke the bottle of ody-koloney over his back.
 
He was clane mad. "God save us all when he gets that chain off him!" I says. "God save us it is!" says Mikeen, looking around for a tree to shin.
 
Just at the minut we heard a great screechin' o' dogs, and through the fence comes the harrier pack that the Reserve orficers kept in the camp beyond. ("Harriers" they called them, but, begob! there wasn't anythin' they wouldn't hunt from a fox to a turkey, those ones.)
 
"What are they afther chasin'?" says Mikeen.
 
"'Tis a stag to-day, be the newspaper............