Young men among us seldom go quite straight in their course, unless they are, at any rate occasionally, brought under the influence of tea and small talk.
There was no tea and small talk at Hap House, but there were hunting-dinners.

Owen Fitzgerald was soon known for his horses and his riding.

He lived in the very centre of the Duhallow hunt; and before he had been six months owner of his property had built additional stables, with half a dozen loose boxes for his friends' nags.

He had an eye, too, for a pretty girl--not always in the way that is approved of by mothers with marriageable daughters; but in the way of which they so decidedly disapprove.
And thus old ladies began to say bad things.

Those pleasant hunting-dinners were spoken of as the Hap House orgies.