CHAPTER V"How the dickens did your Dada call them up?" said Darby, eyeing the ten couple of fox-hounds' relations as they rushed joyously round his park, declining to come near anyone."He had a nise of his own," said Andy cautiously, "and his bugle. Maybe if ye sounded ye'res, yer honor."Heads were thrown up at the note, to go down again, apparently regarding the sound as something of no moment to them."Me Dada's bugle had a grating screech on it," said Andy. "Grandjer! Grandjer! Grandjer is after a rabbit. Beauty, ye spalpeen! Beauty agragh?"The crooked-legged old matron came to the call, wagging her long tan stern abjectly.Darby said cheerily that it was a good thing to have one obedient. He watched Gheena galloping her grey recklessly as she endeavoured to put hounds back to him."D'ye hear that! Isn't Grandjer terrible swhift?" Andy's admiring note was called for by the dying scream of the rabbit as Grandjer broke it up and ate it."What I intended to do," said Darby, lifting his hat to cool his head, "was to take these brutes round by Leshaun and back the mountain road. It is not a bit of use taking them out if they won't follow us anywhere. Good man, Phil!"An accurately aimed lash was driving Spinster and Doatie out of the woods.A little more noise and violent whip-work brought the whole of the pack into view; they sat down, greeted each other as complete friends, but looked with distrust at Darby on his black mare. Their master had always been on foot."If ye were to borry me Dada's bugle," said Andy hopefully. "It is hangin' up at home.""Chance the road, Phil," said Darby. "We must get to Cullane on Monday somehow."Darby's old house stood well back from the sea, a long, rambling house, which had been pulled down by someone who objected to its original hideousness, and rebuilt with gables and wide windows. A flagged terrace, guarded with stone railings and stone urns, which in summer overflowed with scarlet geraniums, had been laid out at one side; and the usual basement, where the kitchen blinked up behind a dark alley, was made darker still by another railing of cut stone. The inevitable fuchsia hedges guarded the flower-beds, a tangle now of withering dahlias and Michaelmas daisies.A fine old place, well kept up, and no one alive knew what battles the young owner had fought with himself there when he came back to it crippled. Battles fought for endurance, when the joys of being up again and able to shuffle in the sunshine had worn off. The very trees which he used to climb, the sunk fences which he jumped so lightly over, the ladders leading to the lofts, mocked Darby.To get down to the trout stream meant a long weary struggle, or the bitterness of sitting in his bath-chair drawn by old Ned the donkey.When hope of amending culminated in being able to ride, Darby knew that his days of swift life were done for ever. He snatched something from the wreck; he could shuffle on his crutch. He could shoot as straight as ever, fish from a boat or where the banks were flat.When he ceased to rebel, he knitted up as many ravelled strands as he could, and twisted and crippled, faced his lease of life.England called now; he could not go to her, not back to his old regiment which was fighting somewhere in France. Riding at Darby's right side, he looked straight and whole, a lean, good-looking man, with a kindly ravaged face. Coming to the other, one saw an arm tied up, a leg palpably cork, stiff and useless, an almost useless hand, and a scar, vanishing now, on the cheek-bone.He could ride still, and shuffle back to the saddle without much difficulty after a fall, easy things to meet with in the close country, with its trappy fences and its occasional big bog drains or awkward pieces of gaps fenced by stabs of bog dale.Black Maria sidled and snorted at the pack, which trolled along obediently enough now, believing they must really be going out hunting. Stafford said he would come to help and get them to know him. And Mr. Keefe could not come because they wanted him somewhere."They seem to want everyone somewhere now," said Gheena gloomily. "There are the Guinanes out fishing, and it's horribly rough."The Guinanes' boat was bobbing actively on the back of vicious leaden waves, bobbing down almost out of sight, and the two men had their backs in it as they pulled."Just by Shanockheela, where there's that nasty current—they can't catch anything to-day.""They have a new boat got for sailing," commented Andy. "An' me Mama does be thinkin' Mrs. Weston gave it to them, for they couldn't have the money nor half of it themselves.""It is McGreery's boat that he left an' he to list," put in Phil; "thirty pound they should pay. She is above at the Quay now.""They seem to be rowing out," said Darby, staring, "and there's a real big sea at the point. Oh, it's to meet that fishing-smack that's standing in."They stood watching the dipping and rising of the little boat, and the pitching of the red-sailed smack, which beat in against the wind, lurching past the rowing boat."They've had enough," said Gheena; "they're putting the lines in. Good gracious! they'll be swamped."The sea out there for a small boat was cruelly wild, but the men put up a rag of sail and ran down to the coast before the strong wind into the shelter of the harbour."There is some clather behind us," said Andy, pulling up Ratty just as Darby commented upon the bravery of fishermen. "A sight of horses, I'm thinkin'."There were four, all ridden at a break-neck trot, with Mrs. Weston's Commander-in-Chief, very fresh and jaunty, leading the procession.She wore a multitude of curls showing round the edge of her bowler hat, which curls, she confided to Gheena, she simply could not tuck away, and she looked fresh and young as she rode loose-reined, with the sea breeze blowing off her powder."For two miles," gasped George Freyne, "I've talked about tendons, and she went faster and faster.""But if I hadn't gone so very fast, I'd simply have had to go rather fast for longer," said Mrs. Weston equably. "You were so late coming for me.""The cutting of drains," said Basil gravely, "and the guarding of coasts. Freyne here is worn out at Home Defence, and even I had to take messages to-day right round to Clona Kratty.""I'll be giving you all orders soon," said Keefe, mopping his pink face. "As we're all friends here. They may come and invade us." This deep note of tragedy in his voice caused the two boys to say, "Laws Almighty, d'ye say so, the haythens!" and Gheena to clutch so nervously at the grey's mouth that he reared in astonishment."In Heaven's name, Keefe," said George Freyne, "when are we to go to sleep in safety?""That's what they'll tell you," breathed Mr. Keefe mysteriously. "When they come.""One would think you'd been talking to them," said Gheena suspiciously. "And as we have no guns and no troops, I don't see why they shouldn't.""If we drive to the very top of the hills," said Violet Weston, hopefully hysterical, "and built eyries there, they're dreadfully short-winded and might never bother to run up after us.""You wait until they shelled you," said Darby, "in your eyrie. Gheena looks as though she contemplated entrenching on the lawn.""Are they beyant in the little boat?" piped Andy dolorously. "Are they, Mr. Keefe, was thim Germins?""Who told you, Keefe?" George Freyne showed symptoms of acute strain. "Who—is it right? Are they coming? Are they?""Don't get so enated," said Keefe calmly, "I can't tell you now. When they come, you know. What are you talking about, Dillon? It won't be any use when you're crucified bodies! Don't be absurd!" Staring at a ring of white faces and hands dropped limply on their horses' necks, Mr. Keefe grew irritable. "When the orders come," he said sharply, "they'll be really nearly a reality.""To have lost all that fright for nothing," said Darby tersely. "Orders!""Then why in the name of Goodness did you say it was Germans?" blared Freyne furiously; "considering I have got a weak heart. You did say the Germans were coming. I say you did, sir.""As plainly as the hills," said Mrs. Weston reproachfully. "Oh, what a fright!""Unless they showed playing Wagner on the road, it could not have been plainer," said Gheena huffily, "making us all fuss like that, and trying to look as if we weren't, and Phil——""Phil appears to have gone home to tell your mother," said George Freyne, answering."She won't mind a bit until you come to advise her about it, so that doesn't matter," returned Gheena. "Yes, he's gone.""He said he was off to the Missus," said Andy, "an' ye none of ye heard him go.""Three times I repeated: When myorderscome!" wailed Keefe. "And I should not have said even that, but I was just trying to break it easily to you all that there will be orders as to invasion, if there is an invasion; and when they come...""If you say it again, Keefe, I shall set Grandjer at your horse," said Darby loftily.Mr. Freyne then got off his horse, and suggested learning the hounds' names, which they had come out for instead of talking nonsense. Andy knew them all. But, as in a kaleidoscope, tan and pied bodies and flapping ears and wistful eyes seemed to shift and melt before the would-be learner."That is Doatie, with the sphot above his tail. Call him. That is Sergeant ye called, an' his biggest sphot is on his eye.""Didn't you call the first one a he," said Freyne heatedly, "and that other—and both?""Well, he—Doatie—do have pups surely," said Andy patiently; "but he has a sphot on his tail annyways, an' that is Sergeant."Grandjer, yellow tan and tailless, was unmistakable. So was Sweetheart, who had lost an ear, and the enormous Home Ruler. The two small black hounds called respectively the Divil and the Tailor could only be mistaken for each other. They were, Andy told them, "Holy terrors to hunt, but apt to be yowlin' if a fence was very high, bein' baygles entirely."The pack sat or rolled, greatly interested in the increasing reiteration of its names.Beauty, being polite, thumped her tail without pause; it was really hardly worth while stopping. All the more obliging hounds shifted and oozed from side to side as they were called, and the lesson terminated at length by Darby suggesting that dinner-time would be upon them and they had better go on.It was too late to wander into the mountains. Darby took a road which wound up to a little group of houses, and then back again to the coast, with the pack lumbering along quite placidly and the four whippers-in all repeating names behind them.All save Gheena. Sundry visits to the meets of the foot dogs had made her familiar with most of the pack.The Commander-in-Chief, somewhat exhausted by his burst, was now forging noisily, clicking his flat feet together fiercely, and varying this by an occasional stumble."Did you really think Mr. Keefe meant the Germans were coming?" Gheena found Basil Stafford riding beside her."And if he had meant it," he said, with a thrill in his voice. "It's a big sea to guard, Miss Freyne. Lord, if he had meant it! Spiked helmets marching along this road—oh, with their owners, if you like it, and everything seized! Promise me if they ever do come you'll run away inland," he said. "They won't go off the railway lines.""How could they come?" Gheena looked out to sea. "You don't think they mean to try?""I know"—he checked himself—"I know—that it may be possible for them to try.""I shall ride away Whitebird and lead Redbird, and lead Bluebird, and take all the dogs," said Gheena firmly.Save for the chasing of a blameless cat, the pack got home in chastened mood, greatly depressed by an aimless promenade. George Freyne's car was at Darby's gate, and a suggestion of bed at Castle Freyne was well received."Keefe can lead Gheena's horse, he won't want to hurry, and Stafford can take mine, Darby, and we'll drive. Matilda may have been worried by Phil about Keefe's nonsense."A tyre bursting delayed the motor, and the horses could cross a short way through the park, so that as they drove up the avenue they saw Stafford appearing with Gheena's grey jogging amicably beside him."Hello, there! Hello, you! I say, Freyne!" he called out, amazed to see the motor swerve."Dearest, the sunk fence!" shrilled Gheena.For the car was suddenly left to itself as Dearest George cleared something from his face, and again, with light-hearted gaiety, the Sunbeam immediately dived off the gravel at the sunk fence."Hello, I say!" Gheena leaped from the car wildly."A bee," said Freyne, beating at the air hard, "a bee! Bees, my God!"He switched the power off and leaped for the shelter of the laurels."He's mad," said Gheena. "But it is bees! All the bees!" Her dive into the undergrowth was even swifter than her stepfather's. She was followed by Darby going with long bounds off his crutch, and then by the chauffeur. A swarm of furious insects buzzed outside."Bees!" George Freyne wiped his forehead. "The bees have risen. I am badly stung on my nose.""They've swarmed on the doorstep," suggested Gheena. "Look! they are in a cloud. I thought you were crazy at first, Dearest, but you're right. And the car has not gone over.""Bees," said Darby, "don't swarm in October.""The two hives is beyant on the steps," remarked Dayly the chauffeur, as he nursed a stung cheek drearily. "I sees them."Basil Stafford, skirting the sunk fence, believed that they had all gone away and called out loudly. His fevered imagination even sprung to the chance of Germans having really come and being in full occupation of Castle Freyne."Hello—what!" He struck an insect from his nose. The bees saw new worlds to conquer. He beat his ears. It is lamentable to add that young England's manhood sprang yelling from the saddle, leaped the sunk fence, and was into the laurels on to Dearest George's body."Bees!" howled Stafford. "Swarms!""In October," wailed Freyne, dabbing his swelling nose and nursing a trampled-on leg."And both the horses have gone off their heads," said Gheena. "They have simply flown away. You will go at once to catch them, Dayly.""I would be afeard, Miss," said the chauffeur simply. "They are terrible sot agin horses any times, them bays."At this point the dining-room window was opened very cautiously."The first of them," quavered Phil's voice dramatically, "It was thruth. They are lurkin' in the bushes. I hears them."Gheena said, "Listen."Then there was a pause in conversation filled by prayer."It is the Masther's cyar," declaimed Anne the cook. "I'd know her in Heaven.""They took her off him," gulped Mary Kate, the kitchenmaid, who was in the throes of Ave Marias. "He is kilt, the craythur. See the empty sate.""An' there is some lurking outside," breathed Phil. "I can hear them in the shrubs. I tell ye wasn't it the great plan entirely to kape us safe? The poor ould Masther, the craythur."His master's head, veiled by a flapping laurel leaf, suddenly issued from the thicket, and the voice which issued from behind it did not seem to be discussing Germans."God above us, did they do ye a harrum, sir?" wailed Anne from the window, putting out her kindly face for a second. "An' ye too, Bayly? God be praised for ye're lives.""The two eyes out of me head," replied Dayly—Dearest was incoherent—"and the Masther's nose the size of two, an' Misther Stafford picked in the ear.""The haythens!" said the voice, now again behind the blind. "The Turks an' infidels. I hear Dayly. Could the polis——" She prayed loudly."Prayer won't mind ye, Mary Kate," counselled Phil, sobbing. "I hear Miss Gheena bawlin'."At this point Gheena grew hysterical. George Freyne's words became clear as he ordered Phil, as a something, something, something idiot, to get away the bees, to get help and take the dam brutes away.The angry bees were racing up and down the avenue between the laurels and safety."I carried them around," said Phil soberly, out of the window, "thinkin' they'd destroy the robbers if they comes up, so I up and clapped the two carriage rugs around them, an' they neshtin' within, an' I wouldn't say we can ever get them back till it is dark entirely, sir, they bein' a trifle irritated in themselves an' all out."The prospect of crouching in the laurels until after dark, or the alternative of squeezing through the barbed wire palings or of taking the open surrounded by a cloud of bees was now with the refugees.The remarks which sped from the bitter smelling shade of the laurels were venomous as the disturbed honey-makers."Someone is talkin'," said the sober voice behind the Venetian blind. "Howld ye're whist, Mary Anne, till we listen. Would ye dhraw the Germins on us? Do not stir the blind on ye're life or they'll be in. The bees Mary Anne, not the——"At this point Mrs. Freyne opened the hall door. It was dim behind her, and she was not perceived by the questing enemy."Matilda," wailed her husband, "get them away!""Oh, you, Dearest!" replied his wife placidly. "Dear me! I see the car nearly over the sunk fence, and I thought I heard George, but I cannot do anything until he comes—can I, Professor?—about the Germans."A deeper note grunted from the hall. Mrs. Freyne chased a bee from her face."Matilda," yelped George Freyne, "send someone!""There are no Germans, only bees," called Dayly loudly. "An' we are all picked and bit sorryful, Ma'am.""Bees!" Mrs. Freyne saw the hives. "Professor, someone has put two hives at the door, and Dearest George is in the bushes. Dearest, what am I to do?"George put forth a swollen face to deliver orders, to cry for men and bee dresses. To pray that veiled rescuers should be sent to them and gauze veils—anything to escape the bees.Mrs. Freyne, obliged to ask advice, hurried to the Professor. A stifled yell and a crash told that the enemy had gone inside, and the hall door was slammed, promises of aid being presently shrilled from the upper windows."We are getting transparent things, Dearest. You are sure there is no danger? My net skirt, do you think? Oh, dear!"The enraged bees sighted new worlds to conquer as they sped out at Violet Weston and Mr. Keefe, who were riding quietly across the lawn, the result being—four gaitered legs described some circles and curves, and two people dived wildly from their saddles and ran."If you ask Dearest George what to do," advised Mrs. Freyne from the upper window—"he is under the laurels—he'll tell you."Mrs. Weston crashed to covert with a shriek, followed by Mr. Keefe swearing fluently, and plucking bees from his collar; these he stamped on, but they had stung him first.A variety of advising onlookers began to collect cautiously on the avenue, all advising at the same time.Dayly suddenly put his coat over his head and sped blindly to comparative safety."An' I thinkin' it the grandest plan," said Phil, speaking now from the bushes at the other side of the drive. "Bullets they is used to, says I, an' they might resint; but innocent bees, they could blame none for, says I, an' the two maids bawlin' and prayin' within.""There is James runnin', afther they have him kilt," wailed the housemaid wildly. "Oh, the Turks! An' the Missus cool an' aisy at the windy above." Another wild shriek echoed despairingly, followed by sobs for mercy, and Mary Kate hid her face.Now just as James took flight, Mrs. De Burgho Keane's large car hummed to the gate, and was pulled sharply up to avoid Dayly.Mrs. De Burgho Keane was pinched and anxious looking. Phil had dropped word as he scurried for home.The sight of the flying figure, the murmurs from the bushes, upset her completely.Even as Dayly escaped, Smith, her own chauffeur, suddenly let the car slap into the bushes as he beat frantically at the air. Mrs. De Burgho Keane suggested "Mines!" at the pitch of her voice, reasoning out that some hidden force must have upset the discreet Englishman. Muffled figures rushed across the drive."If they would take five pounds and the ham to let me go," she pattered unevenly, searching in her purse. And she got half out of the car as Dearest George, his head muffled in an old net skirt of his wife's, came tearing blindly out of the laurels, flapping at a cloud of bees. They were in the net, entangled, these furious little beings of wrath tinged and buzzed in his ears. He struck the car, and with a sob clutched Smith the chauffeur, burrowing down under the wheel for covert."My God! they are after you!" said Mrs. Keane heavily. "They have hurt you! Oh, the horror—of reality!"The amazing spectacle of George Freyne veiled in net thrilled her with horror."Half killed me, the devils! Start the car, Smith; back her! Get her away! Get us out of this! Half killed me! One eye gone, my nose ruined! Start her, will you?"Smith jogged the self-starter, and put in the reverse with a yell. He had just been stung. Mrs. De Burgho Keane on the avenue leaped for safety as the maddened chauffeur passed her without heed."Put your long veil down," yelled George Freyne; "you'll be all right if you do."A variety of muffled figures now issued from the bushes. Gheena entirely covered by art-muslin curtains, Stafford with a butterfly net over his head and the handle wagging behind, the rescuers insecurely draped, and the gardener in a correct bee dress and armed with a syringe and a bell.Mrs. De Burgho Keane had sat down flat on the avenue, and she was quite close to a collapse. Stafford stopped to help her. She was clasping her floating lace veil across her face and she endeavoured to speak with a German accent. She leant back against nothing and nearly overbalanced.Darby Dillon had driven his car over and had pulled up to watch in rare amazement the flight of Dearest George; the spinning away of the Limousine from its rightful owner, and her subsequent collapse.Rocking helplessly at the wheel, he saw the Professor spin out Dervish-wise into the open, with a black ninon skirt roped round his neck and spreading out cape-wise over his shoulders."The party," said Stafford, from the butterfly net, "is now complete." He wagged the handle at Darby."You are not going to lift it!" muttered Mrs. Keane heavily. "Not going to look at me! I am really not so beautiful at all, Herr German. Mines! So quickly! They upset Smith—Schmidt, a name homelike to Boches. I—if five pounds, and a ham—it's all I've with me—to let me go."Stafford's laughter rent him for a time, then he said: "Oh, come along!" quite kindly, and poked sufficiently behind the lacy shoulders to lift her up."Mr. Stafford, how did you escape?" The stout lady got up and stood unsteadily."They won't follow us into the house, but hurry," said Stafford, choking. "Hurry, while the gardener bells them."For Carty, loftily secure in veil and gloves, commenced to peal the bell.Mrs. De Burgho Keane heard and gave up with a stifled cry of the Tocsin, then slid into Stafford's arm, her head on his shoulder, the Professor supporting her the other side. She was not quite unconscious, but absolutely dazed, submitting without realizing it to the support of the nearest wheelbarrow which was half full of weeds. Darby drove swiftly across the lawn to the yard gate, thus avoiding the bees.When they had all assembled in the drawing-room, picked off the remaining bees and stood uneasily, starting at every sound, Mrs. De Burgho Keane woke up. Someone had drenched her in toilet vinegar and left her to recover.Mrs. Freyne consulted Dearest George as to remedies for bee stings before, a little hurt at his reply, she fetched the blue-bags and onions, of which the room reeked healthily.George Freyne had apparently lost one eye; the other glared from the shelter of a swollen nose in an outraged frenzy of pain. Stafford rubbed his neck delicately and Gheena shook a finger regretfully.Old Naylour, quite unshaken, had brought in comforting tea."Do you think, Dearest George, that tea would upset Mrs. Keane?" asked Matilda Freyne thoughtfully. "She is opening her eyes." To which George Freyne remarked unsympathletically that anyone was damn lucky who had eyes to open, and Mrs. Keane sat up appalled by such callousness."They hurt you," she said faintly, "hurt you all. I succumbed. And they? They spared us. I said Schmidt to placate them.""They are nearly all in now," said Stafford, looking out. "The bell did it and the dark."Mrs. Keane muttered something incoherently; the words related to the Tocsin and the French."And the mines which upset Smith," she said. "Poor Smith! What an experience!"When the facts of the case and Phil's strategy were fully explained to her, Mrs. De Burgho Keane felt a sense of loss. If they were not Germans, then everyone had behaved as though they were—well, she sniffed up the scent of onions."Bees alone," she said awfully, "do not cause men to rush and scream and hurl themselves from dark corners and take my car, and my man Smith, and——""He got it on the cheek and the hand," said Stafford gloomily. "Some of your half-dead 'uns, Freyne, in your bridal veil.""The skirt which the cook did get me," said the Professor, "is torn sorely, but it kept out much pain."Mrs. Violet Weston, stung on the neck, said gruffly that it was all absurd. Mr. Keefe, whose cheeks were engaged in swallowing his snub nose, decided that he would not be able to do duty anywhere for a week or more.A chorus of voices sounded outside advising and declaiming. Presently Mrs. De Burgho Keane, shaken and offended, made her way to her car attended by her gloomy one-eyed host."And Phil"—she turned round—"what will you do to Phil, or what has been done to him?"George Freyne muttered the words, "Hang Phil!" viciously but indistinctly.To this day Mrs. De Burgho Keane believes that the truth was concealed from her, and that an invading army of Germans are either buried in the park or took sail again for Germany, finding Ireland useless to them."Bees!" she said haughtily to those whom she confided in, "the bees were a blind for other excesses."CHAPTER VI"Wasn't it all a great upset entirely, Miss Gheena," said Phil sympathetically. "Mary Kate isn't the bether of it yet, an' the Masther's lost eye blinks, an' all."Gheena remarked gravely that she thought the defence of Ireland ought to be entrusted to Phil."Bein' full sure themselves was comin'," continued Phil ruefully, "an' the Missus alone in the Great House with that Professor that's up to no good. Sure I thought it was the great thought, an' when I heard the nise in the bushes, I wasn't full sure they was come on us, an' I right entirely to brin' the bees out."Darby burst into sudden laughter, memory of those thronged moments reaching him."When Dearest went off backwards in the car, and she sat down," gulped Darby, "and the Professor danced out in the black tea-gown tied over his head.""If ye had it dhrawn out on one of thim twiddly picthers, wouldn't it be the great sight?" said Phil. "But when they were afther sayin' the Germans was comin', was I right to believe them, Mister Darby? Wouldn't it be the price of them haythens to be picked be honest bees? But the Masther is that peevish about it," ruminated Phil, "an' at me noon and night. If he was one of us afther a fair or a dance, he wouldn't be thinkin' long of a closed eye."Darby grinned again, and looked up to see Gheena cast off her coat and stand in close-fitting stockingette."It is much too cold for a bathe," he said paternally.Gheena kicked off her shoes, and remarked that cold water was always warmer when it wasn't really warm, as she poised for a dive.The sea poured in just there into a deep narrow pool, hedged over about twenty yards down by a narrow belt of rocks. Beyond that was another pool, a small one, and there the sea seemed to dive under a ledge, called the Bridge, where it gurgled and sucked and muttered restlessly, until it showed again in a basin of great depth, washed into at low tide by the waves and covered at high.Gheena poised, balanced, disappeared. The water surged and parted, throwing up protesting sprays and rippled as she shot up. Then she was gone again out of sight."Always she does be doin' that same," said Phil, "undther the rock no less, like a merrymaid."Darby ran to the Bridge. A shadow showed in the green depths swimming easily under water; next moment Gheena's merry face shot up."I call it my diving-bell." She trod water easily."It's hang dangerous going under like that; if there was a devil-fish down there.""Or a shark," suggested Gheena, holding on to the seaweed-hung ledge."There does be cobblers, anyways," put in Phil, "an' I seen a lobsther out of that hole onst.""I say I call it my diving-bell," Gheena laughed. "I can get out to the Basin now, Darby. That took me ages. I used to go half way and get frightened. And I'm waiting to find a way into the pool of Cons Cave; there must be a passage, and it's close to this.""You go out to the Basin!" Darby stood on the rocks, his face white and drawn. He could hobble, he could ride, but if Gheena choked down there he could not dive in to help her. He was twisted, crippled, useless. She would drown before his eyes."I wish you wouldn't, Gheena. If you got cramp out here, if you hit the rocks...""It was girls at the Coliseum," said Gheena absently "they did things under water and I had to learn.""There is Mister Stafford now," said Phil.Stafford's face appeared above a ledge of rock; he clambered over and came towards the pool."You'll get to know these rocks," said Darby thoughtfully."All systems of drainage, even that of the tide, being interesting to me," Stafford laughed. "And, Miss Freyne, bathing in October!"Gheena merely replying it was better than in November, climbed out and dived skilfully; she came up to take a big breath, disappearing again."She will rise outside now," said Phil, fingering the rope which Matilda Freyne insisted on being carried by him.A minute, almost two, Darby scraped and shuffled along the rocks, his teeth set, Stafford slipping past him easily."Is it this pool, Phil?" Stafford peered down beyond the Bridge."It is," said Phil, gathering sea-grass placidly.Something alive had vanished under that wall of rock, down into the sucking cold depths, something at the mercy of the sea; the men bent over, both tense from fear."Phil, for God's sake! Does she do it often? Phil, come here!""She does so, sir, too often. I am gatherin' say-grass for the Misthress, sir, and won't she be plazed if there isn't enough.""Say-grass, you Phil?" The green water stirred. Cobbles scurried madly away. Gheena's face parted the water."Po-oh!" She drew a long breath. "Po-oh! I got on slowly to-day somehow." She ran back, swam up the long pool and hurried off to dress."That submarine business," said Darby gloomily, looking down into the still pool.Stafford looked up sharply."I don't like it," said Darby. "The slightest accident in that hole under the rock and——"His mouth twisted."She just takes her own way in everything," he went on. "Matilda will ask the angels' advice about her wings in Heaven; she never gave an order in her life, and Dearest George is so obsessed by his authority that the girl never takes any notice of him. She has no business to bathe at all in October, it's too cold; and what she meant by learning to hold her breath."Basil Stafford jumped lightly over the narrow pool landing with a slight slip and stagger."It's ... a fine thing to have one's limbs," said Darby gently. "A very fine thing, Stafford, to be fit and able to move as a man should."Stafford said nothing—it was the only thing to say. The unmarred side of Darby's face was turned towards him, lean, fine in its lines, with cleanly-cut features—the face of a man who had power to feel and to enjoy life."I'll be only one of many after this war," grunted Darby after a pause; "but, Lord, if I could have lost myself for my country, out there!"Basil Stafford sighed uneasily, flushing a little."We are going to have five-o'clock tea out here at four," announced Gheena, appearing suddenly. "Mama has got callers—the Bradys from the Rectory, with a right-minded cousin, and the O'Haras from Crom Rectory,—and they are all going to knit." She flicked out her own knitting as she spoke. "So Phil is making a fire. He always lets it go out."Phil was coughing patiently, his face hidden in a pungent reek of turf smoke."I am afther blowin' it up, Miss Gheena, till there isn't a puff in me two cheeks," he explained; "but someone was at our little cranny of turf, and this same is moist on us."To boil a kettle with bunches of heather requires constant scurryings to and fro, outbreaks of fiery flame being varied by smouldering ashes. Mocking songs from the kettle, followed by glum silences which it refused to break.Basil Stafford, his eyes full of tears, thought almost regretfully of the tea-party at Castle Freyne, and it was Darby at last who hauled a now stormily bubbling kettle from a roaring blaze, and was then heartily abused because he had forgotten to heat the tea-pot.Immediately the tea was made the turf glowed to a fiery red and the smoke was no more.Basil Stafford drank smoked strong tea in silence. His glasses lay beside him, and more than once he looked through them out at the silver-grey sea."Uncle Richard says they suspect bases here"—Gheena looked along the low cliffs—"for the submarines; people supplying them with petrol. No one would; they couldn't.""Money," said Stafford, "tempts some people greatly. The Germans pay well, I am told," he added a little hurriedly."Tom Knox got his commission yesterday." Gheena waved her tea-cup. "He is all khaki and importance. How anyone who could go can stay!" She looked fierily at Stafford."Some people cannot help themselves," he said apologetically.Gheena said icily that they could do something, drive a car, replace other men; then she stopped abruptly, seeing Darby's drawn face."The Professor," said Darby, "is making studies of rocks as usual. What amusement he can find hammering out little pieces of stones I cannot say.""And he do be lookin' at thim half the night through," put in Phil. "Ye can see his shaddy if he pulls down the blind—he forgets most times—pokin' an' peepin', with big books in front of himself."The Professor saw the group and waved a telegram."Your man was very busy, Stafford; he had forgotten some supplies, so I offered to bring this." He held it out, beaming softly.Basil opened it, reading with slow ease. Then he looked round at the distant wireless station and grunted sharply."Of course," he said to himself. "It does make it..."Gheena had snatched the wire, reading out a meaningless jumble of letters and short words."And the news?" she asked softly."Oh, the war news. Everything much as usual. Great hopes and little else," he answered coolly. "When they strew the papers with roses they seem to forget the thorns or the stems, Miss Freyne."Having been haughtily told he was a pessimist, Basil Stafford read his wire again to himself."Mrs. Weston offered to do post-boy, too," said the Professor. "I met her, but I wouldn't allow it. She was at your house borrowing note-paper. Hers was out. She has gone to see Mrs. Freyne now."Basil Stafford said "Oh!" very thoughtfully.The party at Castle Freyne was gathered in an airless room when they got back, heated by a large fire of wood and turf, the blend of tea and conversation strong in the close atmosphere. The women were knitting and the men discussing the mistakes of the war, humbly listened to by their spouses. The Bradys' right-minded cousin—her name was O'Toole—stabbed wool which grated harshly on the needles, and occasionally commented shrewdly.Gheena let a breath of soft fresh air into the room as she threw up a window, and the visitors shivered politely."Going to nurse, or motor drive, or release a man?" asked the right-minded cousin almost as she shook hands. "I'm on five committees in Dublin."Gheena said meekly that she was waiting to act as interpreter when the South Coast was invaded, and Mr. O'Hara carefully explained that nearly all Teutons spoke English fluently, so that that idea was absurd.Gheena snubbed, closed half the window, and sighed patiently."Are you joining?" said Miss O'Toole to Stafford.Mr. Stafford eyed her rancorously, merely remarking that his time was occupied by business.A fumble at Miss O'Toole's pocket revealed the probable presence of a box of white feathers."Dearest George thinks the Germans are making all kinds of mistakes," said Matilda Freyne placidly. "Losing such lots of men, you know, and making themselves so unpopular and digging so much. He thinks they will all get rheumatism and have to go to Harrogate."Darby suggested Marienbad and Homburg slyly. He thought the German army invalided might congest Harrogate. Matilda looked at Dearest George, feeling uncertain until she consulted him. George Freyne got up and shut the window sharply. Then he remarked to Stafford that he was glad the wireless station was now properly guarded. Anyone might have reached it before."When I saw you over there yesterday, Stafford, I said to you——"Gheena listened with such elaborate carelessness that it was impossible to avoid nothing what she was doing."And, by the way, how did you get in?" added George Freyne fussily."I had some business there. Hanly charged my battery for me, too. Yes, I knew the guard. I thought they'd put on men soon."Mrs. Weston, knitting rapidly, began to talk about the hunting in rapturous tones. It was actually going to commence next day, and she hoped her bay horse would be as good as he looked, the darling."If he only gets as far as his looks go," said Darby absently.Miss O'Toole was questioning Basil Stafford ruthlessly—as to his age, birthplace and nationality. These items she wrote down in a small note-book, where, she said pointedly, she kept a register of fit men. Then quite suddenly she asked a question in laboured German."Hanoverian or Platt?" asked Stafford amiably. "I should like to know which you'd understand best before I answer. When I was at Berlin I practised both."Then the mocking look died out of his face, which reddened slowly.Gheena escaped from the heat to the doorstep. It was one of those autumn nights which are as oppressive as June with none of its lightness. The air was murkily hot, and a fog was stealing into the hollows; through the grey haze one could hear the sea boom at the end of the park.Everyone began to put up their knitting. The O'Haras' wagonette, poised haughtily high over a dejected grey cob, came round to the door, the weary beast walking with the bitter certainty of seven miles to go and a feed of hay at its end.Miss O'Toole, trailing her ball of wool, came stealthily towards Gheena."I should ... watch him," she breathed fiercely. "Wireless here, and a coast for submarines, and—what is he doing?"Gheena said "Drains" a little faintly.Miss O'Toole compared drains to trenches with a sort of disdain."Young—strong—active. Blurts out he's been to Berlin and blushes over it. It's a place to watch," gulped Miss O'Toole dramatically.Several exclamations, coupled with seven stumbles, heralded the approach of Basil Stafford, who had spun a cocoon of wool about his legs, and was cursing volubly in discreet undertone. His endeavour to get unwound involving him more securely still, he demanded tartly why Miss O'Toole played Fair Rosamund on the doorsteps; and, of course, if she could take it off in a second he would not cut the stuff, but——Miss O'Toole, coursing round him agilely with dives and dashes at his gaiters, managed, as she loosed Stafford, to meet and involve the master of the house in the tangle.Basil Stafford said "Silkworms," and advised George to stand quite still."Under, over. That's his bit. I never saw anyone dive so neatly on dry land."A whistle sounded clearly on the cliffs, shrill and sweet. Basil suddenly used force, so that the wool fell from him in frayed pieces, and slipped to the door, followed by bitter reproaches from Miss O'Toole. In her opinion, at least two soldiers had been deprived of mittens.It was unkind of Dearest George to say huffily that they were jolly lucky, for the drawing-room door opened to show him standing, wondering with the agile danger swoop round him, and winding feverishly. Gheena was outside.The suspicious eyes of two blameless clergymen and their spouses fell heavily upon George Freyne, Mrs. Weston's cheerful voice wishing to know if it was a new game of "Now we go round the Mulberry Bush," or Kis...? and here her host's glance stopped her, and trying to help, she involved herself in the tangle."How you became so entangled," said Mrs. Brady icily, "in my niece's wool, Mr. Freyne?""It was Stafford," roared Dearest.The eight suspicious eyes looked round for Mr. Stafford and four noses sniffed simultaneously."Break the stuff!" foamed Freyne. "Get me a knife! No, the other leg, not the right, the left.""Take Dearest George's advice," counselled Matilda; "he is sure to know his own legs. There! you were wrong. Just lift that foot, George, and the other at the same time. And, dear me, George!" George's answer being curt."Not being a Zeppelin," said Darby thoughtfully. "Round his arm now, Miss O'Toole, and his neck. Put your arm round it, and you too, Mrs. Weston. It's the last strand."Mrs. O'Hara, who had listened for quite an hour on the previous day to accounts of the perfections of Miss O'Toole from Dublin, now decided in awful tones that the pony could not stand for another moment, and said "Good-bye" heavily."I am not evil-minded," said the clergyman's wife, "but I thought better of Mr. Freyne, and that painted Mrs. Weston.""Even if the girl were pretty!" said her husband. "Go on, James, home. One could understand." Here he coughed hoarsely.Gheena, who had run down from the sea, came back slowly; through the still mist she could hear voices on the water—men rowing back to the little village on the point.Crabbit barked suspiciously at something unseen on land, ran it to earth, and came back with Basil Stafford."What did you think? Who whistled to you?" said Gheena abruptly."War makes the world jumpy," he said coolly. "Might have been an advance patrol of Boches, y'know, coming up to supper."The day of the first meet of the scratch pack dawned in a grey mist, with the sea whimpering under a shroud of white. At seven, when everyone in Darby's yard was busy polishing and hissing, the mist cleared to a clammy greyness, hot and still. Little Andy, extremely resembling an active mosquito leaping from place to place, regretting as he reached each, that he was not at the other.He tore to the kennels, advising old Barty, calling on Beauty lovingly, prophesying that she would folly none but himself. Telling Grandjer not to be frettin' for his tail, because the front of him would soon show them what he was; pouring out tales of Daisy and Greatness and their prowess.Barty, his new leathers covered by overalls, observed bitterly that to be goin' out with such a pack was like what a man'd dhrame of afther he atin' too much."Like a dhrame when ye'd be at a hunt an' all off, an' the horse undher ye sthandin' sthock sthill," he ruminated sourly, "an' hounds leggin' it over the besht of ye're counthry, or maybe a check an' ye knowin' the line, an' the horn ye'd put to ye're mouth is a concertina, an' two strange masthers out laffin' at ye. Save us! I am terrible for dhramin'. Andy McInerny, terrible! The least taste extry at night and I'll be at it. One was the worst of all, that there was a great lawn meet at Dom Dhurres, an' I with the grey horse outside waitin', an the crowd an' all, an' not a ridin' trouser or a boot on me, and no way to git thim. Sometimes I'd see the sphur tacked to me bare heel, an' the shame of it'd be through me; but I never axed even for a horse's hood.""When I dhrames I dhrames plisint," remarked Andy simply. "I med believe onst I had Mr. Freyne's best horse whipt off, an' he himself dead in a ditch, cosy and quiet an away I bolted, an' Miss Gheena watchin'.""Plisint!" said Darby softly. He had come up behind the two."An' off I whipt before hounds an' all, till Misther Freyne run up, shouting and leppin', but I travelled on. Ye're not goin' to send them out empty, Misther Barty, are ye, the craythers?""In the name of God, youngster, would ye feed hounds on huntin' day, ye omadawn?""It was thinkin' of kapin' the payce mid us, me Dada 'd say," murmured little Andy. "What they kills, Mr. Darby can pay for aisy. They're apt to catch bins, an' they hungered. It was the widow Hefferty's turkeys onst an we never sent thim dogs out empty agin."At this stage Barty threatened reprisals if Andy did not instantly run away to mind his own bizness; so Andy hovered for a space, repeating that even the least taste of food would quieten the dogs, and then scampered back to the yards.Darby's active, well-bred bay was being polished until he shone as a horse-chestnut fresh from the husk. The sedate grey, which was Barty's mount, poked a lean head from his loose box, and knew it was hunting again. A liver chestnut, destined to carry Carty, the newly-broke-in second whip, was doing what his rider called rings around his box, induced by the sight of the whip which Carty had only just learnt to crack, and which, so far, had generally hit his horse by mistake.The chestnut preserved a too lively recollection of how often the thong had found him out in tender places."Have ye e'er a polish put on the Rat?" was what Andy demanded, as he seized a clean bridle, and zealously rubbed the bits in sand."Let ye put a polish on him yerself, ye pinkeen." Mike, the head groom, raised a heated face."He'd clout me with his hindmost legs," remarked Andy soberly, "unless I had a one to howld him.""Me gran' bits that was clane an' all." Mike left the bridle for Andy, looked at it, and hinted darkly that it was not the Rat but Andy who would have a polish put on his hide if he did not leave his bethers to themselves. Next moment, as Andy trailed tearfully back to the kennels, old Mike stumped growling to the Rat's stable, directing that the pony should be cleaned properly, so that Miss Gheena wouldn't be at them at the meet.The Rat was a long-tailed, powerful little beast, with the second thighs of a big horse, no shoulder, and a lean, vicious head. If he had been sixteen hands, he would have carried sixteen stone with ease.He bit and kicked in the stable and ran away out of it; but few more wonderful hunters had been foaled, and his inches made his evil efforts to hunt futile. They had tried him in harness, to the extreme detriment of two pony carts, and with additions to chips for lighting the fires. If they stopped him kicking, he lay down and slumbered stolidly, but Gheena would not part with him."The head of that child will open and let out his brains, the sthate he is in," said Mike, looking after Andy. "If he has flithered up to the kennels onst to-day he has done it twinty times, an' the eyes lightin' out of his head. Will ye have Colleen out second, sir?"This to Darby, who came limping and crippling across the yard."A second horse." Darby glared back at the kennels, and suggested that possibly half a horse might be sufficient with the pack which he had gathered together."For the huntin' they'll do it might be," said Mike, grinning; "but it is the huntin' ye'll do yerself afther them, Misther Darby, when, maybe, they'll make home on ye, and, sure enough, bein' used to Matt McInerny's bugle, they'll not come to yer own. An' the teasin' they may be afther givin' ye. Will I send Colleen to Drumeneer, sir, at one o'clock, an' Sportsman for Barty? That grey isn't half fit."Darby went to his breakfast and came out again before he was finished, disturbed by the pursuit of Grandjer and Daisy round the house. Grandjer was, in fact, hot on the line of the stable cat, which took cover just in time, crackling like a live wireless installation from the depths of a holly tree."If ye had to quieten them with a taste of mate," panted Andy, when he had entreated Grandjer to give over and come huntin'. "If Barty had to be said by me. 'Ware cats, ye thievin' rogue.""Where is Barty?" Darby inquired, limping out with his hunting whip."It is Greatness an' Doatie he is afther," observed Andy absently, "that got into the chicken yard. We have the resht secured in the coach-house. Would ye flick a clout at Daisy, sir, where he is nosin' in the bushes? There wasn't the thickness of a hair between Grandjer an the ould cat's tail when she treed," confided Andy proudly. "Grandjer is hard to bate, I tell ye. If he had to take afther Dandy, wouldn't he have been the grand terrier afther rots?" he finished regretfully.Grandjer, leaving the animated Marconi in the tree with sorrow, growled out that it was a pleasure deferred as he yielded to persuasion and trolled towards the yard."An' he'll trail a fox as good as a cat," said Andy still more proudly. "We should be off now to be in time."Barty climbed to the grey's back, age slipping from his withered monkey-like little form as his knees gripped the saddle. In a new pink coat, his little twisted face all aglow under its peaked cap, Darby awoke to a second youth. He could still ride. He was a huntsman once again, with the right to swear respectfully at his superiors and fluently at offending equals. His old hands took up the reins until the grey bent his neck proudly to the light touch, and slipped away with his strong halt exaggerated by his light-hearted pride.Carty landing with difficulty on to the suspicious chestnut, said "C'o-op thee" knowingly and cracked his whip.A certain number of hounds pattered out docilely, but Beauty, Grandjer and Daisy sat down and waited for little Andy.When the lash-stung chestnut had done two maddened circles round the yard and upset Carty on to a barrow full of sand, men on foot used blandishments and threats to induce the three to join the pack.A small eager face peeped rapturously round a half-open door, for the three were adepts at dodging blows and very few got home."They are looking for Andy," suggested Darby."Tell that shrimpeen Andy if he does not hurry along I'll tear the nose from his face," yelled Barty at length, his dignity as huntsman spent."Didn't ye tell me not to move on until ye were moved on yerself?" shrilled a reproachful voice. "An' I'll be late, says I, an' the price of ye, says you, an' now the gaither on me leg is not even hooked up yet."Discomfited Barty said several things to himself; aloud, he told Andy that if himself and his pony did not come on the minnit, they might remain inside, an' them three wastrels of dogs with them.This threat brought forth the Rat and Andy with a rush, the little wicked-eyed pony tearing along with his jaws set and only stopping when he saw hounds, the three renegades falling in happily."Didn't I say ye could not go without me?" said Andy. "And if anyone does go without me it will be the Rot," he added a little anxiously, as that animal reared abruptly and then dropped and kicked.Barty, distinctly raffled, started again, the body of the crooked-legged miscellaneous pack at his heels, with Andy and Carty behind, and behind them the three rebels, now strolling along placidly.Far off the sea could be seen, grey-blue under a grey-blue haze; before them the hills bumped and twisted, with the narrow-slated banks dividing the fields; here and there brown chasms from which turf had been cut, and the coppery gleam of a stream, and further off some fair pastures with the slates on the banks replaced by growth of gorse and fern. Something had to hold the crumbling treacherous soil together. It took an active horse and a quick jumper to slip over those banks without a fall or scramble, unless they adopted the safer plan of some of the heavy-weights, who stood on them until the fence crumbled into a brown mould of safety.Darby watched the final start with resignation and a grin. He foresaw complications before him, but at least they were trying to keep things together for the peppery brave little man who was out fighting for his country, and they were not trying to ruin a really good pack."We'll pull down a few foxes if we have to get lassoes," said Darby cheerily, going to put on his hunting cap.The good side of his face was reflected in the glass. He was young and strong despite his injuries; the cheer of a day's hunting was in his blood, and for a moment a flash of hope lit his lurid young eyes. A flash he so seldom saw, or allowed himself to see, that almost with a snarl he turned so that the scarred cheek was reflected and buried the gay hope almost as soon as it was born."You fool!" said Darby severely. "You rotten fool! To think!""Chicken or egg sandwich, sir?" the antiquated butler inquired in the hall."Egg; and provision the car with the chickens. I may appease the pack with them," said Darby grimly.What a fine old place it was as he looked out across the wide park, the big old trees flaunting in autumn glory, the sea just visible! He might have been running down those steps lightly, with hopes which had not to be smothered at birth and his heart. He might have loved the old place doubly, because he could offer it as a home to a girl whom he cared for; instead of—his hand touched his useless leg; he leant on his stick. "But, hang it, if it were so, I should have been in France and probably crippled for good," said Darby, trying to put care away.It was on mornings such as these, when he could enjoy part of life, that Care clung closer. He could ride, but must call whole men to open gates or catch his horse for him. He could feel the rush of the wind on his face and the horse between his knees, see hounds hunt, look for his turns and his luck as other men did; but at the finish, when men jumped from their tired horses, he must climb down laboriously, feel the glow dying as he limped to his car or into some house to have tea.He met the post-boy on the avenue and found a short letter from the Master."Keep it going if you can. We're having poor hunting here; but back the old country to kill its fox in the end, for all the croppers they'll take on the way."Darby drove fast along the narrow bumpy roads, drawing a distinct breath of relief when he saw Barty and the hounds demurely still upon a hill and quite a crowd of people waiting.There was a lack of smartness about the assemblage. Mrs. O'Gorman from the Bank had only half clipped her stout roan. She said that it seemed wrong to turn out a horse just the same as one would in peace times. There were no new habits and half the familiar faces were gone. Mr. Hefferty, the local dealer, who generally had a string out—at least four horses, shaven and tidied and gingered until their tails stood out as banners, and every semblance of a good point was emphasized—now had only one, a light whity grey with big feet, an animal which would have to be dyed if it ever went on active service.Someone who had seen a paper was immediately surrounded. How was it? What was the news? Good or bad?These were the days when people hoped that war could not go on, that it would end suddenly and dramatically because it was too huge to endure; when everyone forgot that its very hugeness would keep it going until money and men failed.Old Captain Moore, who was fiercely anxious to do something, was even explaining to people at what point our troops would enter Berlin. He had been there twice on a Cook's tour, and he meant to go for another directly there was peace. He had even written about his ticket. Mr. O'Gorman was concerned as to the choice of prisons for the Kaiser and personally blamed that excitable Emperor for the feverish price of oats."Spoiling even what's left to us over here!" he said. "Hope they'll give him black bread when they shut him up."A thousand places for victory were discussed and argued over. Everything was hopeful and nothing ominous of defeat or even of check. Antwerp, after all, was only part of unfortunate Belgium, and its fall made the air clearer.The communiqués were things to be hung over, relied on, and devoured. People believed then that every word from Berlin was an invention.Then the small field turned its thoughts from war and looked at the hounds."Any more adventures, Barty?" Darby asked softly."There is one thing, sir." Barty returned an indirect reply. "That hunt or no, they'll get a bit to ate another mornin'. We only tore them off the back of Carty's mother's pig, an' they had three chickens gone from me own aunt while you'll be clappin' an eyelid."
CHAPTER V
"How the dickens did your Dada call them up?" said Darby, eyeing the ten couple of fox-hounds' relations as they rushed joyously round his park, declining to come near anyone.
"He had a nise of his own," said Andy cautiously, "and his bugle. Maybe if ye sounded ye'res, yer honor."
Heads were thrown up at the note, to go down again, apparently regarding the sound as something of no moment to them.
"Me Dada's bugle had a grating screech on it," said Andy. "Grandjer! Grandjer! Grandjer is after a rabbit. Beauty, ye spalpeen! Beauty agragh?"
The crooked-legged old matron came to the call, wagging her long tan stern abjectly.
Darby said cheerily that it was a good thing to have one obedient. He watched Gheena galloping her grey recklessly as she endeavoured to put hounds back to him.
"D'ye hear that! Isn't Grandjer terrible swhift?" Andy's admiring note was called for by the dying scream of the rabbit as Grandjer broke it up and ate it.
"What I intended to do," said Darby, lifting his hat to cool his head, "was to take these brutes round by Leshaun and back the mountain road. It is not a bit of use taking them out if they won't follow us anywhere. Good man, Phil!"
An accurately aimed lash was driving Spinster and Doatie out of the woods.
A little more noise and violent whip-work brought the whole of the pack into view; they sat down, greeted each other as complete friends, but looked with distrust at Darby on his black mare. Their master had always been on foot.
"If ye were to borry me Dada's bugle," said Andy hopefully. "It is hangin' up at home."
"Chance the road, Phil," said Darby. "We must get to Cullane on Monday somehow."
Darby's old house stood well back from the sea, a long, rambling house, which had been pulled down by someone who objected to its original hideousness, and rebuilt with gables and wide windows. A flagged terrace, guarded with stone railings and stone urns, which in summer overflowed with scarlet geraniums, had been laid out at one side; and the usual basement, where the kitchen blinked up behind a dark alley, was made darker still by another railing of cut stone. The inevitable fuchsia hedges guarded the flower-beds, a tangle now of withering dahlias and Michaelmas daisies.
A fine old place, well kept up, and no one alive knew what battles the young owner had fought with himself there when he came back to it crippled. Battles fought for endurance, when the joys of being up again and able to shuffle in the sunshine had worn off. The very trees which he used to climb, the sunk fences which he jumped so lightly over, the ladders leading to the lofts, mocked Darby.
To get down to the trout stream meant a long weary struggle, or the bitterness of sitting in his bath-chair drawn by old Ned the donkey.
When hope of amending culminated in being able to ride, Darby knew that his days of swift life were done for ever. He snatched something from the wreck; he could shuffle on his crutch. He could shoot as straight as ever, fish from a boat or where the banks were flat.
When he ceased to rebel, he knitted up as many ravelled strands as he could, and twisted and crippled, faced his lease of life.
England called now; he could not go to her, not back to his old regiment which was fighting somewhere in France. Riding at Darby's right side, he looked straight and whole, a lean, good-looking man, with a kindly ravaged face. Coming to the other, one saw an arm tied up, a leg palpably cork, stiff and useless, an almost useless hand, and a scar, vanishing now, on the cheek-bone.
He could ride still, and shuffle back to the saddle without much difficulty after a fall, easy things to meet with in the close country, with its trappy fences and its occasional big bog drains or awkward pieces of gaps fenced by stabs of bog dale.
Black Maria sidled and snorted at the pack, which trolled along obediently enough now, believing they must really be going out hunting. Stafford said he would come to help and get them to know him. And Mr. Keefe could not come because they wanted him somewhere.
"They seem to want everyone somewhere now," said Gheena gloomily. "There are the Guinanes out fishing, and it's horribly rough."
The Guinanes' boat was bobbing actively on the back of vicious leaden waves, bobbing down almost out of sight, and the two men had their backs in it as they pulled.
"Just by Shanockheela, where there's that nasty current—they can't catch anything to-day."
"They have a new boat got for sailing," commented Andy. "An' me Mama does be thinkin' Mrs. Weston gave it to them, for they couldn't have the money nor half of it themselves."
"It is McGreery's boat that he left an' he to list," put in Phil; "thirty pound they should pay. She is above at the Quay now."
"They seem to be rowing out," said Darby, staring, "and there's a real big sea at the point. Oh, it's to meet that fishing-smack that's standing in."
They stood watching the dipping and rising of the little boat, and the pitching of the red-sailed smack, which beat in against the wind, lurching past the rowing boat.
"They've had enough," said Gheena; "they're putting the lines in. Good gracious! they'll be swamped."
The sea out there for a small boat was cruelly wild, but the men put up a rag of sail and ran down to the coast before the strong wind into the shelter of the harbour.
"There is some clather behind us," said Andy, pulling up Ratty just as Darby commented upon the bravery of fishermen. "A sight of horses, I'm thinkin'."
There were four, all ridden at a break-neck trot, with Mrs. Weston's Commander-in-Chief, very fresh and jaunty, leading the procession.
She wore a multitude of curls showing round the edge of her bowler hat, which curls, she confided to Gheena, she simply could not tuck away, and she looked fresh and young as she rode loose-reined, with the sea breeze blowing off her powder.
"For two miles," gasped George Freyne, "I've talked about tendons, and she went faster and faster."
"But if I hadn't gone so very fast, I'd simply have had to go rather fast for longer," said Mrs. Weston equably. "You were so late coming for me."
"The cutting of drains," said Basil gravely, "and the guarding of coasts. Freyne here is worn out at Home Defence, and even I had to take messages to-day right round to Clona Kratty."
"I'll be giving you all orders soon," said Keefe, mopping his pink face. "As we're all friends here. They may come and invade us." This deep note of tragedy in his voice caused the two boys to say, "Laws Almighty, d'ye say so, the haythens!" and Gheena to clutch so nervously at the grey's mouth that he reared in astonishment.
"In Heaven's name, Keefe," said George Freyne, "when are we to go to sleep in safety?"
"That's what they'll tell you," breathed Mr. Keefe mysteriously. "When they come."
"One would think you'd been talking to them," said Gheena suspiciously. "And as we have no guns and no troops, I don't see why they shouldn't."
"If we drive to the very top of the hills," said Violet Weston, hopefully hysterical, "and built eyries there, they're dreadfully short-winded and might never bother to run up after us."
"You wait until they shelled you," said Darby, "in your eyrie. Gheena looks as though she contemplated entrenching on the lawn."
"Are they beyant in the little boat?" piped Andy dolorously. "Are they, Mr. Keefe, was thim Germins?"
"Who told you, Keefe?" George Freyne showed symptoms of acute strain. "Who—is it right? Are they coming? Are they?"
"Don't get so enated," said Keefe calmly, "I can't tell you now. When they come, you know. What are you talking about, Dillon? It won't be any use when you're crucified bodies! Don't be absurd!" Staring at a ring of white faces and hands dropped limply on their horses' necks, Mr. Keefe grew irritable. "When the orders come," he said sharply, "they'll be really nearly a reality."
"To have lost all that fright for nothing," said Darby tersely. "Orders!"
"Then why in the name of Goodness did you say it was Germans?" blared Freyne furiously; "considering I have got a weak heart. You did say the Germans were coming. I say you did, sir."
"As plainly as the hills," said Mrs. Weston reproachfully. "Oh, what a fright!"
"Unless they showed playing Wagner on the road, it could not have been plainer," said Gheena huffily, "making us all fuss like that, and trying to look as if we weren't, and Phil——"
"Phil appears to have gone home to tell your mother," said George Freyne, answering.
"She won't mind a bit until you come to advise her about it, so that doesn't matter," returned Gheena. "Yes, he's gone."
"He said he was off to the Missus," said Andy, "an' ye none of ye heard him go."
"Three times I repeated: When myorderscome!" wailed Keefe. "And I should not have said even that, but I was just trying to break it easily to you all that there will be orders as to invasion, if there is an invasion; and when they come..."
"If you say it again, Keefe, I shall set Grandjer at your horse," said Darby loftily.
Mr. Freyne then got off his horse, and suggested learning the hounds' names, which they had come out for instead of talking nonsense. Andy knew them all. But, as in a kaleidoscope, tan and pied bodies and flapping ears and wistful eyes seemed to shift and melt before the would-be learner.
"That is Doatie, with the sphot above his tail. Call him. That is Sergeant ye called, an' his biggest sphot is on his eye."
"Didn't you call the first one a he," said Freyne heatedly, "and that other—and both?"
"Well, he—Doatie—do have pups surely," said Andy patiently; "but he has a sphot on his tail annyways, an' that is Sergeant."
Grandjer, yellow tan and tailless, was unmistakable. So was Sweetheart, who had lost an ear, and the enormous Home Ruler. The two small black hounds called respectively the Divil and the Tailor could only be mistaken for each other. They were, Andy told them, "Holy terrors to hunt, but apt to be yowlin' if a fence was very high, bein' baygles entirely."
The pack sat or rolled, greatly interested in the increasing reiteration of its names.
Beauty, being polite, thumped her tail without pause; it was really hardly worth while stopping. All the more obliging hounds shifted and oozed from side to side as they were called, and the lesson terminated at length by Darby suggesting that dinner-time would be upon them and they had better go on.
It was too late to wander into the mountains. Darby took a road which wound up to a little group of houses, and then back again to the coast, with the pack lumbering along quite placidly and the four whippers-in all repeating names behind them.
All save Gheena. Sundry visits to the meets of the foot dogs had made her familiar with most of the pack.
The Commander-in-Chief, somewhat exhausted by his burst, was now forging noisily, clicking his flat feet together fiercely, and varying this by an occasional stumble.
"Did you really think Mr. Keefe meant the Germans were coming?" Gheena found Basil Stafford riding beside her.
"And if he had meant it," he said, with a thrill in his voice. "It's a big sea to guard, Miss Freyne. Lord, if he had meant it! Spiked helmets marching along this road—oh, with their owners, if you like it, and everything seized! Promise me if they ever do come you'll run away inland," he said. "They won't go off the railway lines."
"How could they come?" Gheena looked out to sea. "You don't think they mean to try?"
"I know"—he checked himself—"I know—that it may be possible for them to try."
"I shall ride away Whitebird and lead Redbird, and lead Bluebird, and take all the dogs," said Gheena firmly.
Save for the chasing of a blameless cat, the pack got home in chastened mood, greatly depressed by an aimless promenade. George Freyne's car was at Darby's gate, and a suggestion of bed at Castle Freyne was well received.
"Keefe can lead Gheena's horse, he won't want to hurry, and Stafford can take mine, Darby, and we'll drive. Matilda may have been worried by Phil about Keefe's nonsense."
A tyre bursting delayed the motor, and the horses could cross a short way through the park, so that as they drove up the avenue they saw Stafford appearing with Gheena's grey jogging amicably beside him.
"Hello, there! Hello, you! I say, Freyne!" he called out, amazed to see the motor swerve.
"Dearest, the sunk fence!" shrilled Gheena.
For the car was suddenly left to itself as Dearest George cleared something from his face, and again, with light-hearted gaiety, the Sunbeam immediately dived off the gravel at the sunk fence.
"Hello, I say!" Gheena leaped from the car wildly.
"A bee," said Freyne, beating at the air hard, "a bee! Bees, my God!"
He switched the power off and leaped for the shelter of the laurels.
"He's mad," said Gheena. "But it is bees! All the bees!" Her dive into the undergrowth was even swifter than her stepfather's. She was followed by Darby going with long bounds off his crutch, and then by the chauffeur. A swarm of furious insects buzzed outside.
"Bees!" George Freyne wiped his forehead. "The bees have risen. I am badly stung on my nose."
"They've swarmed on the doorstep," suggested Gheena. "Look! they are in a cloud. I thought you were crazy at first, Dearest, but you're right. And the car has not gone over."
"Bees," said Darby, "don't swarm in October."
"The two hives is beyant on the steps," remarked Dayly the chauffeur, as he nursed a stung cheek drearily. "I sees them."
Basil Stafford, skirting the sunk fence, believed that they had all gone away and called out loudly. His fevered imagination even sprung to the chance of Germans having really come and being in full occupation of Castle Freyne.
"Hello—what!" He struck an insect from his nose. The bees saw new worlds to conquer. He beat his ears. It is lamentable to add that young England's manhood sprang yelling from the saddle, leaped the sunk fence, and was into the laurels on to Dearest George's body.
"Bees!" howled Stafford. "Swarms!"
"In October," wailed Freyne, dabbing his swelling nose and nursing a trampled-on leg.
"And both the horses have gone off their heads," said Gheena. "They have simply flown away. You will go at once to catch them, Dayly."
"I would be afeard, Miss," said the chauffeur simply. "They are terrible sot agin horses any times, them bays."
At this point the dining-room window was opened very cautiously.
"The first of them," quavered Phil's voice dramatically, "It was thruth. They are lurkin' in the bushes. I hears them."
Gheena said, "Listen."
Then there was a pause in conversation filled by prayer.
"It is the Masther's cyar," declaimed Anne the cook. "I'd know her in Heaven."
"They took her off him," gulped Mary Kate, the kitchenmaid, who was in the throes of Ave Marias. "He is kilt, the craythur. See the empty sate."
"An' there is some lurking outside," breathed Phil. "I can hear them in the shrubs. I tell ye wasn't it the great plan entirely to kape us safe? The poor ould Masther, the craythur."
His master's head, veiled by a flapping laurel leaf, suddenly issued from the thicket, and the voice which issued from behind it did not seem to be discussing Germans.
"God above us, did they do ye a harrum, sir?" wailed Anne from the window, putting out her kindly face for a second. "An' ye too, Bayly? God be praised for ye're lives."
"The two eyes out of me head," replied Dayly—Dearest was incoherent—"and the Masther's nose the size of two, an' Misther Stafford picked in the ear."
"The haythens!" said the voice, now again behind the blind. "The Turks an' infidels. I hear Dayly. Could the polis——" She prayed loudly.
"Prayer won't mind ye, Mary Kate," counselled Phil, sobbing. "I hear Miss Gheena bawlin'."
At this point Gheena grew hysterical. George Freyne's words became clear as he ordered Phil, as a something, something, something idiot, to get away the bees, to get help and take the dam brutes away.
The angry bees were racing up and down the avenue between the laurels and safety.
"I carried them around," said Phil soberly, out of the window, "thinkin' they'd destroy the robbers if they comes up, so I up and clapped the two carriage rugs around them, an' they neshtin' within, an' I wouldn't say we can ever get them back till it is dark entirely, sir, they bein' a trifle irritated in themselves an' all out."
The prospect of crouching in the laurels until after dark, or the alternative of squeezing through the barbed wire palings or of taking the open surrounded by a cloud of bees was now with the refugees.
The remarks which sped from the bitter smelling shade of the laurels were venomous as the disturbed honey-makers.
"Someone is talkin'," said the sober voice behind the Venetian blind. "Howld ye're whist, Mary Anne, till we listen. Would ye dhraw the Germins on us? Do not stir the blind on ye're life or they'll be in. The bees Mary Anne, not the——"
At this point Mrs. Freyne opened the hall door. It was dim behind her, and she was not perceived by the questing enemy.
"Matilda," wailed her husband, "get them away!"
"Oh, you, Dearest!" replied his wife placidly. "Dear me! I see the car nearly over the sunk fence, and I thought I heard George, but I cannot do anything until he comes—can I, Professor?—about the Germans."
A deeper note grunted from the hall. Mrs. Freyne chased a bee from her face.
"Matilda," yelped George Freyne, "send someone!"
"There are no Germans, only bees," called Dayly loudly. "An' we are all picked and bit sorryful, Ma'am."
"Bees!" Mrs. Freyne saw the hives. "Professor, someone has put two hives at the door, and Dearest George is in the bushes. Dearest, what am I to do?"
George put forth a swollen face to deliver orders, to cry for men and bee dresses. To pray that veiled rescuers should be sent to them and gauze veils—anything to escape the bees.
Mrs. Freyne, obliged to ask advice, hurried to the Professor. A stifled yell and a crash told that the enemy had gone inside, and the hall door was slammed, promises of aid being presently shrilled from the upper windows.
"We are getting transparent things, Dearest. You are sure there is no danger? My net skirt, do you think? Oh, dear!"
The enraged bees sighted new worlds to conquer as they sped out at Violet Weston and Mr. Keefe, who were riding quietly across the lawn, the result being—four gaitered legs described some circles and curves, and two people dived wildly from their saddles and ran.
"If you ask Dearest George what to do," advised Mrs. Freyne from the upper window—"he is under the laurels—he'll tell you."
Mrs. Weston crashed to covert with a shriek, followed by Mr. Keefe swearing fluently, and plucking bees from his collar; these he stamped on, but they had stung him first.
A variety of advising onlookers began to collect cautiously on the avenue, all advising at the same time.
Dayly suddenly put his coat over his head and sped blindly to comparative safety.
"An' I thinkin' it the grandest plan," said Phil, speaking now from the bushes at the other side of the drive. "Bullets they is used to, says I, an' they might resint; but innocent bees, they could blame none for, says I, an' the two maids bawlin' and prayin' within."
"There is James runnin', afther they have him kilt," wailed the housemaid wildly. "Oh, the Turks! An' the Missus cool an' aisy at the windy above." Another wild shriek echoed despairingly, followed by sobs for mercy, and Mary Kate hid her face.
Now just as James took flight, Mrs. De Burgho Keane's large car hummed to the gate, and was pulled sharply up to avoid Dayly.
Mrs. De Burgho Keane was pinched and anxious looking. Phil had dropped word as he scurried for home.
The sight of the flying figure, the murmurs from the bushes, upset her completely.
Even as Dayly escaped, Smith, her own chauffeur, suddenly let the car slap into the bushes as he beat frantically at the air. Mrs. De Burgho Keane suggested "Mines!" at the pitch of her voice, reasoning out that some hidden force must have upset the discreet Englishman. Muffled figures rushed across the drive.
"If they would take five pounds and the ham to let me go," she pattered unevenly, searching in her purse. And she got half out of the car as Dearest George, his head muffled in an old net skirt of his wife's, came tearing blindly out of the laurels, flapping at a cloud of bees. They were in the net, entangled, these furious little beings of wrath tinged and buzzed in his ears. He struck the car, and with a sob clutched Smith the chauffeur, burrowing down under the wheel for covert.
"My God! they are after you!" said Mrs. Keane heavily. "They have hurt you! Oh, the horror—of reality!"
The amazing spectacle of George Freyne veiled in net thrilled her with horror.
"Half killed me, the devils! Start the car, Smith; back her! Get her away! Get us out of this! Half killed me! One eye gone, my nose ruined! Start her, will you?"
Smith jogged the self-starter, and put in the reverse with a yell. He had just been stung. Mrs. De Burgho Keane on the avenue leaped for safety as the maddened chauffeur passed her without heed.
"Put your long veil down," yelled George Freyne; "you'll be all right if you do."
A variety of muffled figures now issued from the bushes. Gheena entirely covered by art-muslin curtains, Stafford with a butterfly net over his head and the handle wagging behind, the rescuers insecurely draped, and the gardener in a correct bee dress and armed with a syringe and a bell.
Mrs. De Burgho Keane had sat down flat on the avenue, and she was quite close to a collapse. Stafford stopped to help her. She was clasping her floating lace veil across her face and she endeavoured to speak with a German accent. She leant back against nothing and nearly overbalanced.
Darby Dillon had driven his car over and had pulled up to watch in rare amazement the flight of Dearest George; the spinning away of the Limousine from its rightful owner, and her subsequent collapse.
Rocking helplessly at the wheel, he saw the Professor spin out Dervish-wise into the open, with a black ninon skirt roped round his neck and spreading out cape-wise over his shoulders.
"The party," said Stafford, from the butterfly net, "is now complete." He wagged the handle at Darby.
"You are not going to lift it!" muttered Mrs. Keane heavily. "Not going to look at me! I am really not so beautiful at all, Herr German. Mines! So quickly! They upset Smith—Schmidt, a name homelike to Boches. I—if five pounds, and a ham—it's all I've with me—to let me go."
Stafford's laughter rent him for a time, then he said: "Oh, come along!" quite kindly, and poked sufficiently behind the lacy shoulders to lift her up.
"Mr. Stafford, how did you escape?" The stout lady got up and stood unsteadily.
"They won't follow us into the house, but hurry," said Stafford, choking. "Hurry, while the gardener bells them."
For Carty, loftily secure in veil and gloves, commenced to peal the bell.
Mrs. De Burgho Keane heard and gave up with a stifled cry of the Tocsin, then slid into Stafford's arm, her head on his shoulder, the Professor supporting her the other side. She was not quite unconscious, but absolutely dazed, submitting without realizing it to the support of the nearest wheelbarrow which was half full of weeds. Darby drove swiftly across the lawn to the yard gate, thus avoiding the bees.
When they had all assembled in the drawing-room, picked off the remaining bees and stood uneasily, starting at every sound, Mrs. De Burgho Keane woke up. Someone had drenched her in toilet vinegar and left her to recover.
Mrs. Freyne consulted Dearest George as to remedies for bee stings before, a little hurt at his reply, she fetched the blue-bags and onions, of which the room reeked healthily.
George Freyne had apparently lost one eye; the other glared from the shelter of a swollen nose in an outraged frenzy of pain. Stafford rubbed his neck delicately and Gheena shook a finger regretfully.
Old Naylour, quite unshaken, had brought in comforting tea.
"Do you think, Dearest George, that tea would upset Mrs. Keane?" asked Matilda Freyne thoughtfully. "She is opening her eyes." To which George Freyne remarked unsympathletically that anyone was damn lucky who had eyes to open, and Mrs. Keane sat up appalled by such callousness.
"They hurt you," she said faintly, "hurt you all. I succumbed. And they? They spared us. I said Schmidt to placate them."
"They are nearly all in now," said Stafford, looking out. "The bell did it and the dark."
Mrs. Keane muttered something incoherently; the words related to the Tocsin and the French.
"And the mines which upset Smith," she said. "Poor Smith! What an experience!"
When the facts of the case and Phil's strategy were fully explained to her, Mrs. De Burgho Keane felt a sense of loss. If they were not Germans, then everyone had behaved as though they were—well, she sniffed up the scent of onions.
"Bees alone," she said awfully, "do not cause men to rush and scream and hurl themselves from dark corners and take my car, and my man Smith, and——"
"He got it on the cheek and the hand," said Stafford gloomily. "Some of your half-dead 'uns, Freyne, in your bridal veil."
"The skirt which the cook did get me," said the Professor, "is torn sorely, but it kept out much pain."
Mrs. Violet Weston, stung on the neck, said gruffly that it was all absurd. Mr. Keefe, whose cheeks were engaged in swallowing his snub nose, decided that he would not be able to do duty anywhere for a week or more.
A chorus of voices sounded outside advising and declaiming. Presently Mrs. De Burgho Keane, shaken and offended, made her way to her car attended by her gloomy one-eyed host.
"And Phil"—she turned round—"what will you do to Phil, or what has been done to him?"
George Freyne muttered the words, "Hang Phil!" viciously but indistinctly.
To this day Mrs. De Burgho Keane believes that the truth was concealed from her, and that an invading army of Germans are either buried in the park or took sail again for Germany, finding Ireland useless to them.
"Bees!" she said haughtily to those whom she confided in, "the bees were a blind for other excesses."
CHAPTER VI
"Wasn't it all a great upset entirely, Miss Gheena," said Phil sympathetically. "Mary Kate isn't the bether of it yet, an' the Masther's lost eye blinks, an' all."
Gheena remarked gravely that she thought the defence of Ireland ought to be entrusted to Phil.
"Bein' full sure themselves was comin'," continued Phil ruefully, "an' the Missus alone in the Great House with that Professor that's up to no good. Sure I thought it was the great thought, an' when I heard the nise in the bushes, I wasn't full sure they was come on us, an' I right entirely to brin' the bees out."
Darby burst into sudden laughter, memory of those thronged moments reaching him.
"When Dearest went off backwards in the car, and she sat down," gulped Darby, "and the Professor danced out in the black tea-gown tied over his head."
"If ye had it dhrawn out on one of thim twiddly picthers, wouldn't it be the great sight?" said Phil. "But when they were afther sayin' the Germans was comin', was I right to believe them, Mister Darby? Wouldn't it be the price of them haythens to be picked be honest bees? But the Masther is that peevish about it," ruminated Phil, "an' at me noon and night. If he was one of us afther a fair or a dance, he wouldn't be thinkin' long of a closed eye."
Darby grinned again, and looked up to see Gheena cast off her coat and stand in close-fitting stockingette.
"It is much too cold for a bathe," he said paternally.
Gheena kicked off her shoes, and remarked that cold water was always warmer when it wasn't really warm, as she poised for a dive.
The sea poured in just there into a deep narrow pool, hedged over about twenty yards down by a narrow belt of rocks. Beyond that was another pool, a small one, and there the sea seemed to dive under a ledge, called the Bridge, where it gurgled and sucked and muttered restlessly, until it showed again in a basin of great depth, washed into at low tide by the waves and covered at high.
Gheena poised, balanced, disappeared. The water surged and parted, throwing up protesting sprays and rippled as she shot up. Then she was gone again out of sight.
"Always she does be doin' that same," said Phil, "undther the rock no less, like a merrymaid."
Darby ran to the Bridge. A shadow showed in the green depths swimming easily under water; next moment Gheena's merry face shot up.
"I call it my diving-bell." She trod water easily.
"It's hang dangerous going under like that; if there was a devil-fish down there."
"Or a shark," suggested Gheena, holding on to the seaweed-hung ledge.
"There does be cobblers, anyways," put in Phil, "an' I seen a lobsther out of that hole onst."
"I say I call it my diving-bell," Gheena laughed. "I can get out to the Basin now, Darby. That took me ages. I used to go half way and get frightened. And I'm waiting to find a way into the pool of Cons Cave; there must be a passage, and it's close to this."
"You go out to the Basin!" Darby stood on the rocks, his face white and drawn. He could hobble, he could ride, but if Gheena choked down there he could not dive in to help her. He was twisted, crippled, useless. She would drown before his eyes.
"I wish you wouldn't, Gheena. If you got cramp out here, if you hit the rocks..."
"It was girls at the Coliseum," said Gheena absently "they did things under water and I had to learn."
"There is Mister Stafford now," said Phil.
Stafford's face appeared above a ledge of rock; he clambered over and came towards the pool.
"You'll get to know these rocks," said Darby thoughtfully.
"All systems of drainage, even that of the tide, being interesting to me," Stafford laughed. "And, Miss Freyne, bathing in October!"
Gheena merely replying it was better than in November, climbed out and dived skilfully; she came up to take a big breath, disappearing again.
"She will rise outside now," said Phil, fingering the rope which Matilda Freyne insisted on being carried by him.
A minute, almost two, Darby scraped and shuffled along the rocks, his teeth set, Stafford slipping past him easily.
"Is it this pool, Phil?" Stafford peered down beyond the Bridge.
"It is," said Phil, gathering sea-grass placidly.
Something alive had vanished under that wall of rock, down into the sucking cold depths, something at the mercy of the sea; the men bent over, both tense from fear.
"Phil, for God's sake! Does she do it often? Phil, come here!"
"She does so, sir, too often. I am gatherin' say-grass for the Misthress, sir, and won't she be plazed if there isn't enough."
"Say-grass, you Phil?" The green water stirred. Cobbles scurried madly away. Gheena's face parted the water.
"Po-oh!" She drew a long breath. "Po-oh! I got on slowly to-day somehow." She ran back, swam up the long pool and hurried off to dress.
"That submarine business," said Darby gloomily, looking down into the still pool.
Stafford looked up sharply.
"I don't like it," said Darby. "The slightest accident in that hole under the rock and——"
His mouth twisted.
"She just takes her own way in everything," he went on. "Matilda will ask the angels' advice about her wings in Heaven; she never gave an order in her life, and Dearest George is so obsessed by his authority that the girl never takes any notice of him. She has no business to bathe at all in October, it's too cold; and what she meant by learning to hold her breath."
Basil Stafford jumped lightly over the narrow pool landing with a slight slip and stagger.
"It's ... a fine thing to have one's limbs," said Darby gently. "A very fine thing, Stafford, to be fit and able to move as a man should."
Stafford said nothing—it was the only thing to say. The unmarred side of Darby's face was turned towards him, lean, fine in its lines, with cleanly-cut features—the face of a man who had power to feel and to enjoy life.
"I'll be only one of many after this war," grunted Darby after a pause; "but, Lord, if I could have lost myself for my country, out there!"
Basil Stafford sighed uneasily, flushing a little.
"We are going to have five-o'clock tea out here at four," announced Gheena, appearing suddenly. "Mama has got callers—the Bradys from the Rectory, with a right-minded cousin, and the O'Haras from Crom Rectory,—and they are all going to knit." She flicked out her own knitting as she spoke. "So Phil is making a fire. He always lets it go out."
Phil was coughing patiently, his face hidden in a pungent reek of turf smoke.
"I am afther blowin' it up, Miss Gheena, till there isn't a puff in me two cheeks," he explained; "but someone was at our little cranny of turf, and this same is moist on us."
To boil a kettle with bunches of heather requires constant scurryings to and fro, outbreaks of fiery flame being varied by smouldering ashes. Mocking songs from the kettle, followed by glum silences which it refused to break.
Basil Stafford, his eyes full of tears, thought almost regretfully of the tea-party at Castle Freyne, and it was Darby at last who hauled a now stormily bubbling kettle from a roaring blaze, and was then heartily abused because he had forgotten to heat the tea-pot.
Immediately the tea was made the turf glowed to a fiery red and the smoke was no more.
Basil Stafford drank smoked strong tea in silence. His glasses lay beside him, and more than once he looked through them out at the silver-grey sea.
"Uncle Richard says they suspect bases here"—Gheena looked along the low cliffs—"for the submarines; people supplying them with petrol. No one would; they couldn't."
"Money," said Stafford, "tempts some people greatly. The Germans pay well, I am told," he added a little hurriedly.
"Tom Knox got his commission yesterday." Gheena waved her tea-cup. "He is all khaki and importance. How anyone who could go can stay!" She looked fierily at Stafford.
"Some people cannot help themselves," he said apologetically.
Gheena said icily that they could do something, drive a car, replace other men; then she stopped abruptly, seeing Darby's drawn face.
"The Professor," said Darby, "is making studies of rocks as usual. What amusement he can find hammering out little pieces of stones I cannot say."
"And he do be lookin' at thim half the night through," put in Phil. "Ye can see his shaddy if he pulls down the blind—he forgets most times—pokin' an' peepin', with big books in front of himself."
The Professor saw the group and waved a telegram.
"Your man was very busy, Stafford; he had forgotten some supplies, so I offered to bring this." He held it out, beaming softly.
Basil opened it, reading with slow ease. Then he looked round at the distant wireless station and grunted sharply.
"Of course," he said to himself. "It does make it..."
Gheena had snatched the wire, reading out a meaningless jumble of letters and short words.
"And the news?" she asked softly.
"Oh, the war news. Everything much as usual. Great hopes and little else," he answered coolly. "When they strew the papers with roses they seem to forget the thorns or the stems, Miss Freyne."
Having been haughtily told he was a pessimist, Basil Stafford read his wire again to himself.
"Mrs. Weston offered to do post-boy, too," said the Professor. "I met her, but I wouldn't allow it. She was at your house borrowing note-paper. Hers was out. She has gone to see Mrs. Freyne now."
Basil Stafford said "Oh!" very thoughtfully.
The party at Castle Freyne was gathered in an airless room when they got back, heated by a large fire of wood and turf, the blend of tea and conversation strong in the close atmosphere. The women were knitting and the men discussing the mistakes of the war, humbly listened to by their spouses. The Bradys' right-minded cousin—her name was O'Toole—stabbed wool which grated harshly on the needles, and occasionally commented shrewdly.
Gheena let a breath of soft fresh air into the room as she threw up a window, and the visitors shivered politely.
"Going to nurse, or motor drive, or release a man?" asked the right-minded cousin almost as she shook hands. "I'm on five committees in Dublin."
Gheena said meekly that she was waiting to act as interpreter when the South Coast was invaded, and Mr. O'Hara carefully explained that nearly all Teutons spoke English fluently, so that that idea was absurd.
Gheena snubbed, closed half the window, and sighed patiently.
"Are you joining?" said Miss O'Toole to Stafford.
Mr. Stafford eyed her rancorously, merely remarking that his time was occupied by business.
A fumble at Miss O'Toole's pocket revealed the probable presence of a box of white feathers.
"Dearest George thinks the Germans are making all kinds of mistakes," said Matilda Freyne placidly. "Losing such lots of men, you know, and making themselves so unpopular and digging so much. He thinks they will all get rheumatism and have to go to Harrogate."
Darby suggested Marienbad and Homburg slyly. He thought the German army invalided might congest Harrogate. Matilda looked at Dearest George, feeling uncertain until she consulted him. George Freyne got up and shut the window sharply. Then he remarked to Stafford that he was glad the wireless station was now properly guarded. Anyone might have reached it before.
"When I saw you over there yesterday, Stafford, I said to you——"
Gheena listened with such elaborate carelessness that it was impossible to avoid nothing what she was doing.
"And, by the way, how did you get in?" added George Freyne fussily.
"I had some business there. Hanly charged my battery for me, too. Yes, I knew the guard. I thought they'd put on men soon."
Mrs. Weston, knitting rapidly, began to talk about the hunting in rapturous tones. It was actually going to commence next day, and she hoped her bay horse would be as good as he looked, the darling.
"If he only gets as far as his looks go," said Darby absently.
Miss O'Toole was questioning Basil Stafford ruthlessly—as to his age, birthplace and nationality. These items she wrote down in a small note-book, where, she said pointedly, she kept a register of fit men. Then quite suddenly she asked a question in laboured German.
"Hanoverian or Platt?" asked Stafford amiably. "I should like to know which you'd understand best before I answer. When I was at Berlin I practised both."
Then the mocking look died out of his face, which reddened slowly.
Gheena escaped from the heat to the doorstep. It was one of those autumn nights which are as oppressive as June with none of its lightness. The air was murkily hot, and a fog was stealing into the hollows; through the grey haze one could hear the sea boom at the end of the park.
Everyone began to put up their knitting. The O'Haras' wagonette, poised haughtily high over a dejected grey cob, came round to the door, the weary beast walking with the bitter certainty of seven miles to go and a feed of hay at its end.
Miss O'Toole, trailing her ball of wool, came stealthily towards Gheena.
"I should ... watch him," she breathed fiercely. "Wireless here, and a coast for submarines, and—what is he doing?"
Gheena said "Drains" a little faintly.
Miss O'Toole compared drains to trenches with a sort of disdain.
"Young—strong—active. Blurts out he's been to Berlin and blushes over it. It's a place to watch," gulped Miss O'Toole dramatically.
Several exclamations, coupled with seven stumbles, heralded the approach of Basil Stafford, who had spun a cocoon of wool about his legs, and was cursing volubly in discreet undertone. His endeavour to get unwound involving him more securely still, he demanded tartly why Miss O'Toole played Fair Rosamund on the doorsteps; and, of course, if she could take it off in a second he would not cut the stuff, but——
Miss O'Toole, coursing round him agilely with dives and dashes at his gaiters, managed, as she loosed Stafford, to meet and involve the master of the house in the tangle.
Basil Stafford said "Silkworms," and advised George to stand quite still.
"Under, over. That's his bit. I never saw anyone dive so neatly on dry land."
A whistle sounded clearly on the cliffs, shrill and sweet. Basil suddenly used force, so that the wool fell from him in frayed pieces, and slipped to the door, followed by bitter reproaches from Miss O'Toole. In her opinion, at least two soldiers had been deprived of mittens.
It was unkind of Dearest George to say huffily that they were jolly lucky, for the drawing-room door opened to show him standing, wondering with the agile danger swoop round him, and winding feverishly. Gheena was outside.
The suspicious eyes of two blameless clergymen and their spouses fell heavily upon George Freyne, Mrs. Weston's cheerful voice wishing to know if it was a new game of "Now we go round the Mulberry Bush," or Kis...? and here her host's glance stopped her, and trying to help, she involved herself in the tangle.
"How you became so entangled," said Mrs. Brady icily, "in my niece's wool, Mr. Freyne?"
"It was Stafford," roared Dearest.
The eight suspicious eyes looked round for Mr. Stafford and four noses sniffed simultaneously.
"Break the stuff!" foamed Freyne. "Get me a knife! No, the other leg, not the right, the left."
"Take Dearest George's advice," counselled Matilda; "he is sure to know his own legs. There! you were wrong. Just lift that foot, George, and the other at the same time. And, dear me, George!" George's answer being curt.
"Not being a Zeppelin," said Darby thoughtfully. "Round his arm now, Miss O'Toole, and his neck. Put your arm round it, and you too, Mrs. Weston. It's the last strand."
Mrs. O'Hara, who had listened for quite an hour on the previous day to accounts of the perfections of Miss O'Toole from Dublin, now decided in awful tones that the pony could not stand for another moment, and said "Good-bye" heavily.
"I am not evil-minded," said the clergyman's wife, "but I thought better of Mr. Freyne, and that painted Mrs. Weston."
"Even if the girl were pretty!" said her husband. "Go on, James, home. One could understand." Here he coughed hoarsely.
Gheena, who had run down from the sea, came back slowly; through the still mist she could hear voices on the water—men rowing back to the little village on the point.
Crabbit barked suspiciously at something unseen on land, ran it to earth, and came back with Basil Stafford.
"What did you think? Who whistled to you?" said Gheena abruptly.
"War makes the world jumpy," he said coolly. "Might have been an advance patrol of Boches, y'know, coming up to supper."
The day of the first meet of the scratch pack dawned in a grey mist, with the sea whimpering under a shroud of white. At seven, when everyone in Darby's yard was busy polishing and hissing, the mist cleared to a clammy greyness, hot and still. Little Andy, extremely resembling an active mosquito leaping from place to place, regretting as he reached each, that he was not at the other.
He tore to the kennels, advising old Barty, calling on Beauty lovingly, prophesying that she would folly none but himself. Telling Grandjer not to be frettin' for his tail, because the front of him would soon show them what he was; pouring out tales of Daisy and Greatness and their prowess.
Barty, his new leathers covered by overalls, observed bitterly that to be goin' out with such a pack was like what a man'd dhrame of afther he atin' too much.
"Like a dhrame when ye'd be at a hunt an' all off, an' the horse undher ye sthandin' sthock sthill," he ruminated sourly, "an' hounds leggin' it over the besht of ye're counthry, or maybe a check an' ye knowin' the line, an' the horn ye'd put to ye're mouth is a concertina, an' two strange masthers out laffin' at ye. Save us! I am terrible for dhramin'. Andy McInerny, terrible! The least taste extry at night and I'll be at it. One was the worst of all, that there was a great lawn meet at Dom Dhurres, an' I with the grey horse outside waitin', an the crowd an' all, an' not a ridin' trouser or a boot on me, and no way to git thim. Sometimes I'd see the sphur tacked to me bare heel, an' the shame of it'd be through me; but I never axed even for a horse's hood."
"When I dhrames I dhrames plisint," remarked Andy simply. "I med believe onst I had Mr. Freyne's best horse whipt off, an' he himself dead in a ditch, cosy and quiet an away I bolted, an' Miss Gheena watchin'."
"Plisint!" said Darby softly. He had come up behind the two.
"An' off I whipt before hounds an' all, till Misther Freyne run up, shouting and leppin', but I travelled on. Ye're not goin' to send them out empty, Misther Barty, are ye, the craythers?"
"In the name of God, youngster, would ye feed hounds on huntin' day, ye omadawn?"
"It was thinkin' of kapin' the payce mid us, me Dada 'd say," murmured little Andy. "What they kills, Mr. Darby can pay for aisy. They're apt to catch bins, an' they hungered. It was the widow Hefferty's turkeys onst an we never sent thim dogs out empty agin."
At this stage Barty threatened reprisals if Andy did not instantly run away to mind his own bizness; so Andy hovered for a space, repeating that even the least taste of food would quieten the dogs, and then scampered back to the yards.
Darby's active, well-bred bay was being polished until he shone as a horse-chestnut fresh from the husk. The sedate grey, which was Barty's mount, poked a lean head from his loose box, and knew it was hunting again. A liver chestnut, destined to carry Carty, the newly-broke-in second whip, was doing what his rider called rings around his box, induced by the sight of the whip which Carty had only just learnt to crack, and which, so far, had generally hit his horse by mistake.
The chestnut preserved a too lively recollection of how often the thong had found him out in tender places.
"Have ye e'er a polish put on the Rat?" was what Andy demanded, as he seized a clean bridle, and zealously rubbed the bits in sand.
"Let ye put a polish on him yerself, ye pinkeen." Mike, the head groom, raised a heated face.
"He'd clout me with his hindmost legs," remarked Andy soberly, "unless I had a one to howld him."
"Me gran' bits that was clane an' all." Mike left the bridle for Andy, looked at it, and hinted darkly that it was not the Rat but Andy who would have a polish put on his hide if he did not leave his bethers to themselves. Next moment, as Andy trailed tearfully back to the kennels, old Mike stumped growling to the Rat's stable, directing that the pony should be cleaned properly, so that Miss Gheena wouldn't be at them at the meet.
The Rat was a long-tailed, powerful little beast, with the second thighs of a big horse, no shoulder, and a lean, vicious head. If he had been sixteen hands, he would have carried sixteen stone with ease.
He bit and kicked in the stable and ran away out of it; but few more wonderful hunters had been foaled, and his inches made his evil efforts to hunt futile. They had tried him in harness, to the extreme detriment of two pony carts, and with additions to chips for lighting the fires. If they stopped him kicking, he lay down and slumbered stolidly, but Gheena would not part with him.
"The head of that child will open and let out his brains, the sthate he is in," said Mike, looking after Andy. "If he has flithered up to the kennels onst to-day he has done it twinty times, an' the eyes lightin' out of his head. Will ye have Colleen out second, sir?"
This to Darby, who came limping and crippling across the yard.
"A second horse." Darby glared back at the kennels, and suggested that possibly half a horse might be sufficient with the pack which he had gathered together.
"For the huntin' they'll do it might be," said Mike, grinning; "but it is the huntin' ye'll do yerself afther them, Misther Darby, when, maybe, they'll make home on ye, and, sure enough, bein' used to Matt McInerny's bugle, they'll not come to yer own. An' the teasin' they may be afther givin' ye. Will I send Colleen to Drumeneer, sir, at one o'clock, an' Sportsman for Barty? That grey isn't half fit."
Darby went to his breakfast and came out again before he was finished, disturbed by the pursuit of Grandjer and Daisy round the house. Grandjer was, in fact, hot on the line of the stable cat, which took cover just in time, crackling like a live wireless installation from the depths of a holly tree.
"If ye had to quieten them with a taste of mate," panted Andy, when he had entreated Grandjer to give over and come huntin'. "If Barty had to be said by me. 'Ware cats, ye thievin' rogue."
"Where is Barty?" Darby inquired, limping out with his hunting whip.
"It is Greatness an' Doatie he is afther," observed Andy absently, "that got into the chicken yard. We have the resht secured in the coach-house. Would ye flick a clout at Daisy, sir, where he is nosin' in the bushes? There wasn't the thickness of a hair between Grandjer an the ould cat's tail when she treed," confided Andy proudly. "Grandjer is hard to bate, I tell ye. If he had to take afther Dandy, wouldn't he have been the grand terrier afther rots?" he finished regretfully.
Grandjer, leaving the animated Marconi in the tree with sorrow, growled out that it was a pleasure deferred as he yielded to persuasion and trolled towards the yard.
"An' he'll trail a fox as good as a cat," said Andy still more proudly. "We should be off now to be in time."
Barty climbed to the grey's back, age slipping from his withered monkey-like little form as his knees gripped the saddle. In a new pink coat, his little twisted face all aglow under its peaked cap, Darby awoke to a second youth. He could still ride. He was a huntsman once again, with the right to swear respectfully at his superiors and fluently at offending equals. His old hands took up the reins until the grey bent his neck proudly to the light touch, and slipped away with his strong halt exaggerated by his light-hearted pride.
Carty landing with difficulty on to the suspicious chestnut, said "C'o-op thee" knowingly and cracked his whip.
A certain number of hounds pattered out docilely, but Beauty, Grandjer and Daisy sat down and waited for little Andy.
When the lash-stung chestnut had done two maddened circles round the yard and upset Carty on to a barrow full of sand, men on foot used blandishments and threats to induce the three to join the pack.
A small eager face peeped rapturously round a half-open door, for the three were adepts at dodging blows and very few got home.
"They are looking for Andy," suggested Darby.
"Tell that shrimpeen Andy if he does not hurry along I'll tear the nose from his face," yelled Barty at length, his dignity as huntsman spent.
"Didn't ye tell me not to move on until ye were moved on yerself?" shrilled a reproachful voice. "An' I'll be late, says I, an' the price of ye, says you, an' now the gaither on me leg is not even hooked up yet."
Discomfited Barty said several things to himself; aloud, he told Andy that if himself and his pony did not come on the minnit, they might remain inside, an' them three wastrels of dogs with them.
This threat brought forth the Rat and Andy with a rush, the little wicked-eyed pony tearing along with his jaws set and only stopping when he saw hounds, the three renegades falling in happily.
"Didn't I say ye could not go without me?" said Andy. "And if anyone does go without me it will be the Rot," he added a little anxiously, as that animal reared abruptly and then dropped and kicked.
Barty, distinctly raffled, started again, the body of the crooked-legged miscellaneous pack at his heels, with Andy and Carty behind, and behind them the three rebels, now strolling along placidly.
Far off the sea could be seen, grey-blue under a grey-blue haze; before them the hills bumped and twisted, with the narrow-slated banks dividing the fields; here and there brown chasms from which turf had been cut, and the coppery gleam of a stream, and further off some fair pastures with the slates on the banks replaced by growth of gorse and fern. Something had to hold the crumbling treacherous soil together. It took an active horse and a quick jumper to slip over those banks without a fall or scramble, unless they adopted the safer plan of some of the heavy-weights, who stood on them until the fence crumbled into a brown mould of safety.
Darby watched the final start with resignation and a grin. He foresaw complications before him, but at least they were trying to keep things together for the peppery brave little man who was out fighting for his country, and they were not trying to ruin a really good pack.
"We'll pull down a few foxes if we have to get lassoes," said Darby cheerily, going to put on his hunting cap.
The good side of his face was reflected in the glass. He was young and strong despite his injuries; the cheer of a day's hunting was in his blood, and for a moment a flash of hope lit his lurid young eyes. A flash he so seldom saw, or allowed himself to see, that almost with a snarl he turned so that the scarred cheek was reflected and buried the gay hope almost as soon as it was born.
"You fool!" said Darby severely. "You rotten fool! To think!"
"Chicken or egg sandwich, sir?" the antiquated butler inquired in the hall.
"Egg; and provision the car with the chickens. I may appease the pack with them," said Darby grimly.
What a fine old place it was as he looked out across the wide park, the big old trees flaunting in autumn glory, the sea just visible! He might have been running down those steps lightly, with hopes which had not to be smothered at birth and his heart. He might have loved the old place doubly, because he could offer it as a home to a girl whom he cared for; instead of—his hand touched his useless leg; he leant on his stick. "But, hang it, if it were so, I should have been in France and probably crippled for good," said Darby, trying to put care away.
It was on mornings such as these, when he could enjoy part of life, that Care clung closer. He could ride, but must call whole men to open gates or catch his horse for him. He could feel the rush of the wind on his face and the horse between his knees, see hounds hunt, look for his turns and his luck as other men did; but at the finish, when men jumped from their tired horses, he must climb down laboriously, feel the glow dying as he limped to his car or into some house to have tea.
He met the post-boy on the avenue and found a short letter from the Master.
"Keep it going if you can. We're having poor hunting here; but back the old country to kill its fox in the end, for all the croppers they'll take on the way."
Darby drove fast along the narrow bumpy roads, drawing a distinct breath of relief when he saw Barty and the hounds demurely still upon a hill and quite a crowd of people waiting.
There was a lack of smartness about the assemblage. Mrs. O'Gorman from the Bank had only half clipped her stout roan. She said that it seemed wrong to turn out a horse just the same as one would in peace times. There were no new habits and half the familiar faces were gone. Mr. Hefferty, the local dealer, who generally had a string out—at least four horses, shaven and tidied and gingered until their tails stood out as banners, and every semblance of a good point was emphasized—now had only one, a light whity grey with big feet, an animal which would have to be dyed if it ever went on active service.
Someone who had seen a paper was immediately surrounded. How was it? What was the news? Good or bad?
These were the days when people hoped that war could not go on, that it would end suddenly and dramatically because it was too huge to endure; when everyone forgot that its very hugeness would keep it going until money and men failed.
Old Captain Moore, who was fiercely anxious to do something, was even explaining to people at what point our troops would enter Berlin. He had been there twice on a Cook's tour, and he meant to go for another directly there was peace. He had even written about his ticket. Mr. O'Gorman was concerned as to the choice of prisons for the Kaiser and personally blamed that excitable Emperor for the feverish price of oats.
"Spoiling even what's left to us over here!" he said. "Hope they'll give him black bread when they shut him up."
A thousand places for victory were discussed and argued over. Everything was hopeful and nothing ominous of defeat or even of check. Antwerp, after all, was only part of unfortunate Belgium, and its fall made the air clearer.
The communiqués were things to be hung over, relied on, and devoured. People believed then that every word from Berlin was an invention.
Then the small field turned its thoughts from war and looked at the hounds.
"Any more adventures, Barty?" Darby asked softly.
"There is one thing, sir." Barty returned an indirect reply. "That hunt or no, they'll get a bit to ate another mornin'. We only tore them off the back of Carty's mother's pig, an' they had three chickens gone from me own aunt while you'll be clappin' an eyelid."