Matilda Freyne asked Dearest George if he thought it would be wise to get up, and was then lifted to the saddle without making any effort to assist in the proceedings. Once there, she consulted Dearest George as to her straps and the adjustment of her reins, and was placidly happy on her quiet horse.Gheena had forgotten all wars as she endeavoured to persuade her brown mare not to buck. It was so good to be out with any kind of hounds again.George Freyne having taken his new hunting cap out of a hat-box and adjusted it with pride, shouted to Darby to wait for him, and grew irritable when Darby looked reproachfully at his watch."If you had a wife to get fixed up and the hang post late on account of the hang war! Hunting horn only just here in a box not even opened. Here you, Phil, are there straps for it and for the case?""They are, sir," said Phil briefly.Dearest George tore feverishly at the nailed box, injured one of his fingers, and having sucked it noisily, mounted his horse, ordering Phil to open the hang thing and fix it on.By this time the majority of the small field had collected by the Freynes' motor, feeling that George Freyne was to blame for keeping them waiting and looking at him reproachfully. Mr. O'Gorman remarked "Twenty past" just as the lid of the box cracked open."And you'd like it to be forty past if you were late yourself, O'Gorman," snapped Dearest George bitterly. "I'll move on without you often enough. How is a joint master to go out with nothing to play on, blow at—er—sound for his hounds, I should like to know?"Here Darby wanted patiently to know if Phil was digging trenches or only opening a box."I'd say it will not fit on aisy," said Phil dubiously, coming round. He held up a brightly new Klaxon and scratched his head with his free hand."I—Matilda!" yelled George Freyne hopelessly."Dearest George," said Matilda placidly."I—told you—a hunting horn—weeks ago! Years ago! There was a delay in sending it.""You said the very loudest one, Dearest George," said Matilda pleasantly. "All the stores were short owing to the war. I did wonder what you could fix it on to, but as you said a whistle too. Isn't there a whistle in the box, Phil?""Move on, Barty," said Darby with decision.CHAPTER VIIDarby Dillon left his fellow master glaring at the Klaxon horn and rode up to the hounds. There was no eager greeting to him of quick yaps and wagging sterns, but rather a distinctly critical surveillance, and liquid eyes looking for the men on foot whom the pack knew.Seen gathered together, the scratch pack were not prepossessing.Darby grinned softly at the varieties of hound types, at Greatness's crooked legs and Daisy's snub nose, and especially at the crop-tailed Grandjer, so nearly related to a terrier.A fringe of excited onlookers, previous followers of the foot dogs, gathered close, commenting eagerly."That is Spinsther, that ye reared, Marty. D'ye call to mind the day he took the trail down be Conellan's dykes, an' we all at the wrong side?"Marty rubbed his head and recalled the incident."An' when he had his pup, didn't he tear meself too," remarked Marty sourly. "A pair of trouser I had on but eighteen months near pulled off me. He is a savage soort of a dog that Spinsther, an' I to rear him an' all with lashin's of milk an' male.""An' Beauty, he has the nose. When the thrail was losht down anear the say, an' the other dogs on the back thrail, wasn't it Beauty thrun a yowl of his own?""Grandjer was the next," put in little Andy, "or maybe the firsht; but Papa had his mind med up he was only thrailin' old Mrs. Day's cat, Grandjer bein' but a puppy then.""They do be talkin' of the Hunt Club hounds, but we have one fox an' his pups," said the covert keeper. "Five of them no less, an' thank God ye are out to hunt them."Darby gathered the pack and waved his hand. The hounds looked up at the passage of the dog-skin glove through the air with mild curiosity. Darby waved it again; he uttered somewhat awkwardly a variety of hunting cries."Oh, give them a whack, you two, Barty," he said helplessly. "Thrash them in." Carty raised his whip, a motion immediately followed by a frantic bolt of the chestnut round the field."Me Dada 'd get up on the furry banks if he did hunt a covert on the sly," piped Andy; "make a lep in himself till all 'd be afther him. Onst they've a taste of the thrail ye can lave them."Greatness, Daisy and Home Ruler, an enormous tan bitch with one ear, were sneaking off to draw for themselves; the place might be alive with hares.Andy whipped two back, and Darby yelled at Carty to follow Home Ruler."Get round them, you—idiot!" he roared.Carty, soliloquizing feverishly that it was the world he would be round if the chestnut carried on them games, or maybe chargin' Germans before he knew what was what, endeavoured to steer his nervous steed in the direction of Home Ruler's tan hind-quarters.But it was Gheena who drove the prodigal back to fox-hunting.The Field having come out, expected, as fox-hunters will, that this motley collection were to be as well ordered and obedient as Tom Lindlay's pack. Observing the difficulties, they decided, very audibly that it was perhaps better to leave a country alone than to botch it in this fashion; and as it would evidently be of very little use to come out riding, better try on foot.Mr. O'Gorman, who had, almost forgotten what his feet looked like, said "Yes," briskly, "or in a motor-car.""You'll have to get off and go in, George," said Darby. "I can't go crippling and hobbling up that bank.""An' if meself comes along with ye," said Andy. "Blow a blasht on ye're bugle, yer honor, now to hearten them."George Freyne looked heatedly at the empty case, got down with a grunt, and pompously marched toward the bank.Violet Weston, brightly pretty in a light fawn coat and completely irregular soft tweed hat, pushed the tall bay through the crowd, watching critically. She was followed by Mr. Keefe, who also wore a hunting cap, quite considering that he was one of the Masters as he had helped with the consultations.George Freyne clambered on to the bank, calling lustily."You must go down within." Andy leapt up and disappeared into the gorse, followed by his three faithful hounds. "Ye must go within like me Dada.""Yerra, push him out! Hurreh in with ye! Gan out of that, Spinsther! Hurreh in along with ye! Nose him up!"The foot people arrived breathless and rushed to the rescue."It is the prickles they are afeard of. Nose him out, Daisy, ye schamer! Blow a blasht on ye're bugle, sir, and over with ye; they'll folly."George Freyne's new whistle rang shrilly clear, but he stayed on the bank."Get into it, Freyne. Here, I'll try my horn," said Keefe."If you've a hunting cap on you get in yourself," bellowed Dearest George irritably. "Come along and get in; if you can blow that—do!"Darby Dillon rocked on his horse as Keefe, stout and pink, outlined in a very tight pink coat, made importantly for the bank, and standing there, brought forth a husky wheeze of sound, followed by an impotent broken squeak."Whip them on to us now!" shouted Keefe. "Now! What is the 'Come in' note, Dillon?—which, this or that?""He is just like a pink puff-ball," gasped Gheena, wiping her eyes. "Just! Oh, Darby, what is the 'Come in' note?""If he expects me to blow in or out now, I can't," gulped Darby. "Blow away yourself, Keefe; you'll strike it in time.""If he stopped that poisonous row, they'd come to my whistle," shouted Dearest George, stuttering furiously."They have the thrail!" shrilled a small voice wildly.At that moment Beauty flung a long throaty yowl; Grandjer, dashing to her, echoed and confirmed it with his nondescript yelp. Beauty spoke again emphatically, and now Daisy threw her tongue.Every hound outside quivered to the sound."Hurreh! Hurreh! Hurreh! Folly on there! Nose him out! In with ye all! Get on to it, Parnellite! Schald to ye, Spinsther! Hurreh! Hurreh! Over! Over!"A mixed pack of hounds and followers dashed towards the cover. There was no hanging back now. Home Ruler's huge body caught Dearest George's legs; his footing was precarious. Spinster followed the charge. Leaping to get clear, George Freyne lost his balance, grabbed at Keefe, and the two went face foremost into the thick gorse, floundering there furiously."Well done! Success! Back him up, Colleen! Hurreh on!" shrieked a jealous onlooker."Andrew McCarty, if you knocked me in, I will kill you," said George. Freyne as he emerged, a new Venus, from the sea of prickles."I did not, but the dogs," returned Andrew contemptuously. "An' shouldn't ye be within? God save us! I'd say the inspector had a wakeness got; he is schriekin' terrible!" Keefe's face, convulsed, appeared above the gorse."Just above the boot," howled Keefe, struggling upwards. "A devil of a dog with a black face. I fell on him.""That was Spinsther," said Andrew McCarty. "It was only agitayted he is to catch the fox. He manes no harm. It was him tore me own trousers; but he had pups the same time.""To the bone," moaned Keefe, as he floundered to the bank. "An infernal hound, Dillon, has bitten me to the bone.""All that way," said Darby with interest. "Did he leave the tooth in, Keefe?""Lord, they're at him. Yoi! Yoi! Yoi there! Hurreh! Hurreh! Nose him out! Rout him out!" yelled the crowd. "Forrard on! There's tongues for ye."Ten couples of hounds, most of them throwing the long harrier yowl, Grandjer's shrill tongue audible above the rest. It was music in the still misty day. Hats were crammed down, reins tightened; the small Field surged to the edge of the gorse, peering in.Two cubs and an old fox doubled and twisted in the thick gorse, the music echoed and deepened."Watch them, Barty; see to the gap. I've no breath," said Darby. "Get on your horse, George. You took covert gallantly.""Ifit was that Andrew McCarty," said Dearest George murderously. "Am I all pricked, Matilda? Am I? Have you looked at my face?" exploded George mildly, removing a handkerchief dotted with blood."I was listening to the hounds and thinking how nicely you jumped in, Dearest George," said Matilda mildly. "But when you came out, of course I asked you why you did it. Oh, he's away! You are slightly pricked."The old fox leapt lightly into view, ran for a few yards, was headed by the rush of the crowd, and disappeared back into covert."Hi! You!" Darby swung round. "You set of spoilsports! Think I can't go for you because they're only harriers. If you don't keep away from that gap and stay where you're told, I'll go and hunt hares with 'em.""Think I didn't see you, O'Loughlin, away for a start! You set of——""It is not too bad at all for the sthart," murmured Barty approvingly. "Get over to this end, please, gentlemen," he roared himself. "Keep your eye on the gap, Mr. Keefe."Harold Keefe bound a blue-and-white check silk handkerchief round his leg and consulted Mrs. Weston as to hydrophobia. He was faintly sulky when she took no notice, her bright blue eyes fixed excitedly on the rustling gorse."He is away!" Darby darted along the edge of the gorse. "Away just outside the fence. Blow, sir, blow them out! God save us alive! look at that!"For at that moment Grandjer, with a stout cub firmly clamped between his jaws, leapt over the bank, and putting the limp little beast down, commenced to worry it."Didn't I tell ye Grandjer was the dog?" screamed Andy, flying out. "He is thrackin' that one now since the commincemint, an' never left him.""We'll have to break this one up, then, I suppose," said Darby. "We must do the right thing."Grandjer worried and growled and tore. He was screened from view by a big stone and a clump of brambles."He will ate it be himself," said Andy. "Do ye go afther the ould fox, sir; none'll know."Darby looked at Barty, and Barty grinned."Be the time someone is bit getting away the fox, the other one'll be at Durra," he whispered. "And why should we lose a hunt acclimatizing this lot to do right, when, with the help of God, the Kayser'll be dead and our own hounds out again next October?""But," said Darby, "well, then. Forrard on!""He won't ate it all," said Andy. "He'll tiren, an' unless Mr. Keefe bein' bit already wouldn't so much mind another, I'd say whoever went to take it'd get a quare nip.""Toot" went Darby's horn. "Shrr," George Freyne's whistle. A grating gurgle emanated from Keefe. Slowly hounds dribbled out, but surely, everyone hunting. When he got three couple together, Darby went away, wondering vaguely if he would ever see any of the other which was still conscientiously towling and yowling in covert.Home Ruler, distantly related to a deer-hound, could travel; she flung herself on the line, with Beauty close behind and Greatness yowling joyously.Grandjer, finding his fox high and tough, especially as there was no one to dispute it with him, picked up his kill and galloped in pursuit of the charge.The fox had been gone some time, and scent, the mysterious, was not too good. Home Ruler, dashing light-heartedly in front, threw up her big head suddenly. The remainder of the pack, all hunting zealously, towled into view, coming undisturbed through the horses. Grandjer dropped his cub and galloped down to his companions. It was his sharp yap which rang out as he passed Home Ruler and spoke on the line. Then "Yow-Ow," the long-drawn musical harrier notes, as at a fair pace they pressed on. The going was light on the top of the hill, the banks fair and sound. What matter if Dandy's pup was leading, his docked stump quivering! They were hunting. Slowly but surely they dipped into Durra, a big place in a hollow, and circled round it until it was evident that the unpressed fox had gone back to covert."We'll be a long time killing one this way," remarked Darby, watching the pack spread out as they checked."And if we do not kill, we are practically of no use." George Freyne would have been supremely happy if his face had not worried him. He knew the line of gaps coming across; he had ridden, as became a Master, in the van, and he was now wondering if blowing his whistle would be a good thing just to remind people of his position."The men up at the covert said they were looking for a kill, Darby.""And we might have had one," said Darby, "if we'd tackled that cub." He looked guiltily at his companions and Barty coughed."Beauty has it! Listen to her now! Hurreh on, Beauty! All to Beauty!" yelled little Andy.The child had lost his cap, his hands were bleeding. The Rat had gone exactly as he chose, but Andy had in these crowded minutes tasted nectar.That ecstatic jump on to the high bounds bank, the crawl along the top, all but swept off by a branch, the blissful leap straight off the road over a coped wall, with everyone else going in at the gate, the bumping rush through the crowd at the beginning—all these things had gone as wine to young Andy's head.Might the war go on for ever if it meant his having the Rat to ride on.Violet Weston, a little ruffled, a brickish red forge showing through the powder on her cheeks, rode up close to Keefe."This horse makes a very curious sound when going up a hill," she said a little coldly, "and he seems to find it hard also to do so; also, he stumbled at the banks.""You—er—rode him at a very high place," said Keefe a little nervously. "That bounds fence is full of rabbit-holes.""Well, he is very nice to look out, but I say——" Violet Weston turned to beam at Stafford."I was just saying this horse makes such a funny gurgle running up hill," she said, "and I shall be disappointed if he is not really a good hunting animal. After paying sixty pounds, too, for the thing. What is that noise, Mr. Stafford?""Intake or out-take?" said Stafford, his eyes glued to the persevering Beauty, who was feathering on to the line, with Grandjer dashing wildly about close to her."Oh, intake, certain," said Mrs. Weston grimly; and she added rapidly: "What does that mean? It's a shrill noise.""He was a whistler, an' he a colt," remarked a voice close by. "An' if you do not aise him up the hills, miss, he will tangle in the banks an' his breath gone from him.""I told you—there was a slight 'if,'" said Keefe, adjusting his hunting cap peevishly. "I said so not enough to stop him. You can't get sound horses this year for small sums.""They wouldn't pass him for th' army," murmured the same voice in the background. "Twenty pound Tom Talty said, but it was his ankles, an' not the wind.""They have got it. Forrard on!" yelled Mr. Keefe enthusiastically. "Forrard away!"Beauty and Grandjer rushed to the cheer which was followed by the thunderous advance of Darby and a heated request to the third Master to let hounds alone when they were puzzling matters out for themselves."One of them threw his tongue," said Keefe snappishly."He did when Annette Freyne's mare kicked him. So would you," returned Darby dryly."If you're anxious to hunt this for yourself," he went on, his voice raised, "do it. You're all over the place. Get the Field up, somebody. Get them back to the clump of trees."George Freyne, blowing his whistle, rode backwards and forwards busily, right over the line."If the Master was not in France he would be dead with the rage an' he here to-day, annyways," said old Barty bitterly. "His breath 'd never see him out with what's doin' here this hour past.""Will I carry on Beauty or Grandjer?" whispered Andy, "beyant anear the sunk fence where he must have gone over? They won't folly himself or yerself," added Andy wisely.Beauty's nose went down when she was clear of the crowd. With a long-drawn ecstatic yowl she declared that their fox had gone that way. Grandjer dashed over and spoke to it beyond, the whole pack coming towling melodiously to do their part.They were patient. It often took three or four hours to wear down a hare. There was very seldom anyone to hurry or help them when they checked, and they were used to their own leisurely ways and their own melodious fashion of puzzling things out. They settled down to it again now, stringing out, every hound hunting without faith or reliance on the one in front, Home Ruler bringing up the rear, her great bulk wearing her out speedily.Mrs. Weston kicked her spurred heels into the tall bay and put him at his scratchy gallop at the sunk fence, which he rose at gallantly some three feet too soon, and then blundered on his head at the far side."She can ride," thought Darby approvingly, as he watched the widow pick the horse up, digging her heels in again to reward him for his blunder with a savage thump of her whip.Hounds carried on across the road and swung left into some low-lying land cut across by small deep ditches. The little Rat, his wicked head either high in the air or stretched out almost touching the earth, hung among the tail hounds, young Andy quite incapable of anything except sticking limpet-like to the low shoulders in front of him. Their fox had evidently been headed on the road, and not being hurried, had loped off to try a gullet in the bog. Finding this stopped, he turned up again for the covert. The ground was squelchy and holding; the edges of the small dykes were of crumbling peaty earth. Horses bucked and scrambled across, labouring in the deep going.Several wise people were proceeding leisurely along the high ground to the covert, riding an easy line of gaps."We will be apt to meet the Croompaun this course," said Barty to Darby, "an' it will be ugly with all the grass above on it."The Croompaun was a blend of bog drain and stone-faced bank, fencing the end of the bog. It was a nasty jump coming down from the gorse, when a horse could get fairly easily on to the bank, and what Barty called, settle himself before he made his effort to shoot out over the wide bog drain; but going up it took a really bold horse to get on to the bank far enough to avoid an ugly scramble or an extremely probable topple back."We are for it and it's half a mile round," said Darby philosophically."That bye Andy will be apt to be kilt at it," observed Barty, "on that skelp of a pony."Splash! The leading hounds sent up sprays of amber-hued water, and then scrambled up the stony, treacherous bank, now overgrown with long, coarse tufts of grass and trails of bramble.Darby held his breath as the Rat altered the position of his lean, pointed head, putting it straight up, and cocked his lop ears with complete determination. Next moment he hurled his powerful little body high in the air, landed seemingly on a mere tussock, and with the scratch of steel on stone, was safe on the top."Good Begonnes!" said old Barty. "Have a care of that Home Ruler, Misther Darby; she is undther your feet."Darby pulled his horse together in the deep churning ground. A fall to him was an ugly thing, but he had no thought of it as he faced the Croompaun.His active little horse rose with a grunt of effort, landing safely with his hind legs well under him, just as Barty rolled actively from the grey's back; that animal, relieved of weight, managed to get up somehow. The chestnut settled matters by refusing honestly, ridden, it must be owned, rather half-heartedly by Carty.The two other black caps pulled up immediately, considerately remembering that Hunt servants must be attended to."Hold him at it and I'll whip him for you," said Dearest George, unloosing his thong.At the sound of the swish the chestnut swerved with the swiftness of an acrobat, and declined to be straightened again."It will be quicker, maybe, to go around than to be swhervin' for half an hour," said Carty nervously. "Aisy, sir, he is in dread of a whip."Gheena and Stafford got over side by side, and the tall bay, completely blown, simply slipped in to cool himself, Violet Weston shooting off with a shriek of wrath."I never saw a woman leather a horse so hard," said George Freyne afterwards. "She clouted him up to the place you can land, and never asked a soul to help her."The few who had got over galloped on over light land, galloped and sometimes trotted, for scent was none too good, and the scratch pack did not mean to hurry themselves."Take us a long time to kill a fox at this rate, Barty," said Darby. "Eh?""They'll eat him in covert if he has no wish to break out again," said Barty; "an' that same will be no good thing this hour of the year.""They have the thrail losht," said Andy as the rat stopped.They had, just where Grandjer had dropped the limp remains of the cub. He recognized his prey now pouncing at it with a growl. Darby looked at the Field, which had short-cutted, and were just coming into view three fields away. Gheena and Stafford, stopped by wire, were some way behind. And the avoiders of the Croompaun were only looping the hill.Spurs went in and bridles were shaken as Darby sent a blood-curdling yell of triumph echoing across the still day. It seemed mixed up with "Have it, Grandjer! Have it!" And this was followed by Barty's trained screech and a still "Who-whoop!" from Andy.The new pack, the foot dogs, had run into their fox handsomely in the open."Yoi-i, there! Who-whoop!" Barty was dexterously removing brush marks and pads before he held the carcass above his head in the midst of the slightly interested hounds, Grandjer alone showing what he thought of the matter by snapping at Barty's legs and growling savagely."Well done! Bravo! Just what's wanted! How they must have bustled him!""Yoi-i, there! Worry! worry! worry! You would never make dacent fox-hounds of thim," said Barty disgustedly, "so what the odds!""Me Dada schnaps the hares if he is up quick enough," said Andy thoughtfully; "an' whin he is not, there is no one to be nisin', so they are not acclimatized to what ye are bawlin' out.""The finest thing that could happen. We may congratulate ourselves," gasped Freyne. "Tally ho! Tear him and eat him! Tally ho!""Hi, puss, puss! Hurreh! Hurreh!" chorused the arriving foot contingent. "Yerra ate him! Hi, puss!""There is one fox pasht in half an hour back," added the covert keeper. "Had ye two in front of ye, sir? Ar'n't they wondthers for what they look like, thim dogs!""Dearest George, I took your advice and came across high ground," remarked Mrs. Freyne, ambling up. "We all saw you riding away from the Croompaun. I should have been afraid you had fallen in, but I saw your hunting cap going round so plainly and so sensibly."George Freyne said nothing rather expressively. It was a little hard on a man who had just been telling his cousin Annette the dangers which she had escaped in the bog, and how hounds had flown down there."And, by the way, Annette, I thank you to buy tuppenceworth of red ribbon for that mare's tail," put in Darby. "Home Ruler is quite lame where you kicked her. She was last all the way.""She is always lasht afther she is first for ten minutes," murmured Andy. "Me Dada says it is the weight of him, and that some of his fambly was mastiffs an' them yally saintly dogs."The next covert was three miles off, and hounds, now learning something of their new work, pattered in fair order along a stony road. There was a faint diversion occasioned by Grandjer almost chopping a cat, one which Andy explained he was near to get offin befour, she having dragged her claws down his face onst an' got away from him.The next covert was a straggling place, a long wood of fir and young larch with a few dubiously rideable paths in it. It was the last place to come to with the new pack, which enjoyed itself completely in its own way: Some hunting rabbits; four couple solemnly towling after a hare, and the rest disappearing in different directions. Barty viewed a fox away, but all their looking and whistling could only produce a dribble of hounds.The foot people had been left behind; there was no one to drive the pack out in time to do anything. But Greatness presently elected to get on the line of a fox and gather some friends with her, which fox they solemnly hunted round and round, stolidly and carefully, until Beauty marked him in a rabbit burrow and watched Grandjer try to dig him out.With the aid of the terrier he was bolted and killed.The thick mist of the morning had crept up again, grey and clammy. It hung with a stillness through which voices echoed hollowly, and great drops began to collect on the branches.Harold Keefe shivered in the chill, proffering apologies to Mrs. Weston for any fancied shortcomings in the bay horse; Mrs. Weston, with her legs very damp and her boots full of water, receiving them quite graciously."Oh, I'm sure you meant him to be a dear horse!" she said good-humouredly. "And perhaps when he's hunted more he'll have more breath and less waist. I couldn't keep the girths tight. What a day for Germans to land!" she added with a shiver, peering into the mist. "What's that, Mr. Stafford? There would be nothing to stop them if they did. You've got the wireless to call for help.""I fancy—that before they landed that the wireless would be arranged about," he said thoughtfully, tapping his boot. "It wouldn't do to have the power of summoning any of the fleet, would it?"Gheena Freyne stopped listening to the hounds and edged her horse closer."A few men in their pay could account for the small guard on the station. And if the transports once got in the men could do a lot of harm before they went out again or were caught." He had got off his horse and was holding one hand to his side as if something hurt him."They'll be all so horribly beaten by Christmas there won't be anyone to come," declared Violet Weston optimistically. "You don't think the old Professor is taking notes of the coast, do you, Mr. Stafford?""Not that I——" Stafford stopped. "They're coming past this way again," he said. "I don't envy Darby all this time."The fog came down so thickly that Darby gathered the pack and decided to go home. He had at least vindicated his start by killing two foxes and having some fun.It was more to Andy's shrill pipe than the horn which brought hounds out, a great many of them suspiciously red about the mouth."They enjoy a place like that," said Andy happily, "with rabbits galore.""When they get into it, Barty," said Darby as they jogged homewards, "and keep together and get on a little faster, they might show us some fun, after all.""They'll show ye what noses can do," said Barty grimly. "But harriers with a taste of tarrier an' God knows what they was whelped, and harriers with a taste of tarrier they'll die. Wasn't that Grandjer digging the fox out, no less?"They would pass close to Castle Freyne. The cars came up looking for them, and Gheena asked everyone to tea."I'll drive you, Gheena," Darby said, his voice muffled in the mist.He climbed down slowly. On his horse he had been upright and good to look at; now he limped and shuffled towards the car, catching at it to support him."And you, Stafford?" he said. "Cantillon there would take your horse back for you.""Mr. Stafford will probably want to get back to his work as he's been out all day," suggested Gheena frostily.Basil Stafford observed mildly that it was undoubtedly a nice light evening to direct drainage works on, but he thought that he would wait until next day."Gheena"—Darby climbed into his car—"Gheena, the Croompaun was a very big leap for you to-day on that new mare of yours.""You saw her do it?" she asked."I generally see you do things," he answered slowly, a rasp of pain in his voice.Matilda Freyne had ambled homewards some two hours before. She was watching old Naylour pack up the Klaxon when they got in, and explaining how disappointed Mr. Freyne had been."If one could have an attachment to a saddle for that, Naylour," she said, "it would make a far better noise than he ever will with his mouth, wouldn't it? And a whistle is so undignified, is it not? And there you all are! And you are very tired, Dearest. And will you have your bath before your poached eggs, Dearest George, because both are ready?"Darby said he thought that possibly the bath might be the easier to keep hot if it was still in the taps. He was then waylaid by Gheena at the dining-room door, Crabbit gyrating at her feet, worrying her muddy boots, and twisting himself into equine knots in his joy."Darby, I couldn't ask you. How did they kill that fox in the open like that? Was he sitting down in the fence?""He was," said Darby briefly."An' he was a cub. An old fox went away."The corners of Darby's mouth relaxed visibly."Well, Grandjer snapped a cub in the morning," he said softly, "and must have carried it along; and when we met it, what Barty said was: 'If we lights down and who-whoops him, sorra the sowl 'll be the wiser, but all well playzed. Thim livin' round the covert extry so. An' Andy 'll kape a sthill tongue.' And Andy said his own Mama wouldn't twist it out of him in purgathory, and it didn't seem to matter what one does with that pack; so—well, it was a great beginning.""Oh, Darby!" said Gheena faintly."I doubt if the best English packs would care for me as a Master; that is, if we write an account of it to theField," whispered Darby. "Will you send one, Gheena?""I would not disgrace the County," said Gheena hysterically. "Dearest is telling them all now how he accounted for that fox."CHAPTER VIIIGheena Freyne knitted with unskilful rapidity and stared disconsolately at a blurred and bitter afternoon. The sea whined and moaned in the harbour, a liquid carpet of warship tint broken by peevish flakes of white. Gheena could hear it because she had the window wide open, cooling the hot air of the long, rather shabby room, before her stepfather came stamping in to shut it emphatically and mutter ill-humouredly as to violent chills.There was a constant jar as of ill-fitting machinery in motion between Gheena and George Freyne. His fussy love of authority frothed at Gheena to roll back spent and broken into angry fume, her mother's complete and somewhat elusive submission making it even more difficult to bear.It was elusive because Mrs. Freyne having duly received Dearest George's advice and commands, perhaps as to dinner, would amble down to the kitchen and then take Anne's advice there to save trouble, causing such faint shocks as pheasants for dinner, which George had ordered to be hung for another week, or beefsteak when the economy of mutton had been heavily counselled."Well, you see, we did send for mutton, Dearest, and Mullcahy—what did he say, Naylour?""That the teeth in ye're head 'd be left is all he had in the shop, Ma'am, it was that fresh.""Exactly, Dearest. And I thought that really at a penny a pound the dentist would soon equalize; so this is only off the sirloin we bought, George dearest."In the same way Matilda took the latest advice from grooms and chauffeur. Still, it was better than Gheena, who took none at all, but listened with her grey-green eyes glinting, preserved complete silence, and did exactly as she thought best."Shut that window, Gheena—storms of rain and wind and a gale blowing in!" Bang went the sash."I've admitted some oxygen," said Gheena equably. "You'd better unwind yourself gently, Dearest; you got three strands round your ankles making that rush.""And the fire roaring up the chimney with coals at their present price. Well, if it is turf and wood, there won't be wood always.""Take one step backwards—now turn round," said Gheena. "Thank you. Don't break it; think of the soldiers in France."The unbroken gloom of the day had irritated her. She looked at the grate and remembered—Gheena was too generous to recall it often—that it was her father's money which paid for everything, and that in a few years' time the house would be her own."And your insensate habit of sleeping in a gale," grumbled George Freyne, "smashed the Chippendale table at your window last night. I met Maria carrying it down with a leg gone. It is a valuable table.""Was," suggested Gheena, her needles flashing. "Tom Malone put a deal leg on."Her stepfather eyed her a little anxiously. The question of Gheena's future worried him. The thought of the Dower House in winter was almost intolerable. When Gheena married, Castle Freyne would belong to her absolutely, and if she chose an unpliable husband, it would certainly mean turning out. The war and its burdens curtailed the savings which Dearest George was amassing and—he had been out to the yard and found two new and unneeded men there, taken by Gheena because they had been dismissed, one by an economizer and one whose master had been killed in the war."Instead of economizing, you and your mother are always reckless," he burst out. "Two old men taken on, Dillon and O'Leary, useless old dodderers, eating in the kitchen, with tea and sugar and flour at their present prices. And oats—I have ordered nothing but black oats for the future, Gheena, for the horses, and I sent away a man who brought white.""I ordered that," said Gheena, getting up, "and my horses shall not cat black oats, Dearest, even if the heat has upset you.""The heat?" said George Freyne, glaring at the blurred atmosphere outside."And I'm going down to see Hennessy. He is sure to be at tea with Anne," said Gheena, going out. "He got that oats for me."The hoot of a motor-horn roused Dearest George from sombre chewing of bitter mental cud.Darby Dillon took his car round to the shelter of the archway and then let himself in.He came lumping across the polished hall and into the hot drawing-room.George Freyne stared at him and grunted before he burst into the song of his grievances, which were tea, sugar, oats, and two women without mental balance."We had to come home from the meet," said Darby, having duly listened without comment. "Too wild to keep hounds out and no one there but ourselves.—I'm not listening! But I was, George. But a man may do what he likes with his own, mayn't he? And Gheena is an heiress. It will all be hers.""Except a thousand a year and a cave," burst out George Freyne—"a sea cave on the shore.""Don't make short cuts to it, then," said Darby gravely.Gheena, her colour still high, returned, Crabbit at her heels."I've sent the car to ask Mrs. Weston to tea," she said. "Dillon can drive, and it will mean Mr. Keefe also, no doubt.""And Stafford," said Darby. "He's the latest."Gheena sniffed haughtily."Why he stays on here," she burst out—"as if drains mattered. A nice thing if the Germans found them ready just to make their potato grounds good for them."Darby held his hands to the blaze, as he said quietly that all men knew their own affairs best."The man may have something wrong with him," he said. "Heart disease or heaven knows what!""A man who rides and shoots," said Gheena contemptuously. "I have my eye——" Then she stopped abruptly.Dearest George, feeling himself neglected, remarked that he would not have the car sent on futile errands. It was a dear car, and just because it was a wet day, and to send it with a man who might be able to drive, or might be in the bay by noon under water, car and all. He appealed to his wife, who came in unperturbed by bad weather, her curiously fresh comeliness outlined in girlish blue."Of course, Dearest George, it will get wet as it is wet," said Matilda Freyne sympathetically, "the tyres especially; but it is so very wet that it won't be bad, and as old Dillon is there, it may amuse him to wash it, and Gheena said she wanted company.""I'll buy a small car now I've Dillon," said Gheena shortly, "one for myself. They are back now; the wetting's over.""These two men were going to have tea with me," giggled Violet Weston as she came in, "so I brought them along. We were just getting the Professor to play Bridge, so I brought him too.""The last time I came there were the bees," said the Professor amicably, "and the poor lady so much alarmed.""Any news?" Darby looked at Stafford."The usual deadlock in mud and ice." Stafford pulled out a telegram. "I get weary of wires nowadays. Christmas is so near, and some of us dreamt of them having Christmas at home, and some of Christmas in Berlin, and here we are."Violet Weston, somewhat flauntily dressed in mauve, with expensive white furs and shoes with diamond buckles, peeped at the wire anxiously."Why do you have the things in Greek?" she asked."One word does for three, you see," he said smiling, as he dropped the flimsy paper into the fire."They are talking now of a great submarine blockade," said Darby, "cutting off all our supplies.""And they say there are supply bases along this very coast," puffed Dearest George. "Matilda, why is tea late?""Perhaps if we asked Naylour?" Mrs. Freyne was not disposed to reply to a direct question. "What do you think, Dearest? Perhaps that new bad coal——""I beg your pardon," said Naylour at the door, "but there is two coastguards here to have speech with the Masther."The importance of his country's defence wiped the thoughts of tea from Dearest George's mind; he rushed to the door and Gheena opened the window widely."I have to perish you all to change the atmosphere," she said apologetically. "What is it, Professor?""It is my handkerchief a silken," said the Professor anxiously. "I had him out in the hall and with a cold in the nose——" He ambled out."Gheena," said Violet Weston, "I've something to say to you."Gheena trailed her wool across the carpet to the far end of the long room."Some one said—they saw submarines about," whispered Violet; "one of the coastguards told me—a periscope just outside the bay. And also that they're all on the watch for supplies going out from here—and that they are afraid of people signalling. Gheena—whatis that Stafford man doing here—idling?""He is not a German," said Gheena stoutly."Go on knitting, he's watching us. If a German is brought up altogether in England he has no accent—nothing. He goes out late at night. How do I know? I went into the garden one night to look for a cat I heard mewing there, and he went down the next steps; they do for the Professor's home and mine, you know. I heard him crunching off across the beach beyond the pier.""We'll watch him," said Gheena through clenched teeth. "I have been watching him myself. Now you can too, and Crabbit and I will find out where the petrol is stored.""I've spoke to you three times," said Darby to Stafford, "and you've never answered. Now you come out of the catalepsy with a lep.""Why was tea late, Naylour?" Mrs. Freyne asked. "Oh, dear, here is Mrs. Keane!""Naylour," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane, flapping into the room, "was never in time. He used to commence to clean his silver at four o'clock, and when it was half-past the tea-pot would be all pink paste.""Asking your pardon, Ma'am, but that same was only on days when I had jobs given me," said Naylour firmly, "all the coats to brush and all throusers to press.""Naylour!" said Mrs. Keane haughtily."An' tay is not afther bein' late, Ma'am, but the Masther's watch is on. He sot it on this mornin', thinkin' he'd be huntin', so as to get all out, an' he forgot to sot it back.""Four kinds of cake!" groaned Mrs. Keane. "I allowance them to a spoon of sugar to each cup now in the kitchen and four cups of tea a day.""I remember noticing the cake for the concert tea wasn't sweet," said Gheena absently. "We made five pounds, and we'll have another for the Red Cross—with the recruiting song.""So dreadfully immodest!" said Mrs. Keane. "Just think how the soldiers would hate it, too, if everyone who had sung that song ran to kiss them on platforms on their return. I should insist on its being altered to greet.""Darby said that wouldn't do for Scotch regiments, because 'greet' was Gaelic for 'cry.'""I found him," said the Professor, returning, "but so also had Crabbit."He held up a large bandanna rent across by sharp teeth. Stafford stared at the pocket-handkerchief thoughtfully, and Crabbit wagged his tail pleasantly."War is a dreadful thing!" said Dearest George, rushing back. "Too many complications. Confound it, Gheena, it's your wool again!" His plunge into space was checked by the Professor's plump shoulder. "Several suspicious characters hanging round the wireless. Two cars puncturing on the road just outside and taking an unreasonable time to repair. Oh, yes, they took their numbers quite cleverly. And people asking the way, and they've seen a submarine outside the bay. English or German? Oh, German, of course, Matilda! What foolish questions you do ask! And they are afraid——""Here—my friend, was all this for publication?" said the Professor softly—"all?""There's nothing private in a sighted submarine," snapped George Freyne peevishly; "the fishermen saw her from the point. The Guinanes say they did not, although they were out at the time, but they never like to agree with anyone. Mary Talty did and Con Talty.""What I came to tell you," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane, raising her voice and looking importantly, "was that——""You've dropped your hot bun," said Mrs. Freyne absently, "the butterest bit. Please, Crabbit.""—Was that Lancelot Freyne is wounded," concluded Mrs. Keane irately. "I met his mother and Annette both in tears because the wire did not say how much though it mentioned a foot.""Just think of Lancelot wounded! Somehow one never realized that he had really gone out," said Mrs. Freyne."He was at the base looking after embarkations," said Gheena. "He must have got run over. They did not send him up, I know, because his letters were all Boulogne, and how cleverly he could talk French.""Still, he's wounded," said Mrs. Keane. "And you might think more of your cousin, Gheena. He will probably come home to recuperate.""If General French can spare him," said Gheena sweetly. "You see, someone who might be of use will have to replace him now at the base."Dearest George broke in hotly to remark that Gheena was very heartless talking in that fashion about a gallant boy who had gone to fight for his country, and decided that he would drive over to Cahercalla to find out the news. He thought it over as a fresh blast of rain drove against the window and a boom of wind shook the trees outside.Stafford, seated in a dark corner, was absently breaking up pieces of plum cake and feeding Crabbit with them. He seemed lost in thought."The extravagance—in war-time!" said Mrs. Keane, seeing him. "I am astonished! with plums in it too!""To say nothing of its making him sick," said George Freyne. "I think all dogs should be got rid of with food so dear."Gheena's cheeks lost some of their colour. Her stepfather could do nasty things when he was put out."If anything were to happen to Crabbit I'd get married next day to replace him," she said, a note of cold warning in her voice. "To anyone! You might take me, Professor."The old Professor spilt his fourth cup of tea as the remark reached him; then recovering, he observed that the marriage of a maid to her grandfather was forbidden in the prayer-books, and asked for more tea placidly."Well, someone," said Gheena. "Darby, how many wild things did the pack do to-day in the rain?""They just clung to the horses' heels," said Darby gruffly, his voice sounding hoarse and strained; "that was all, Gheena. By the time the war is over they will be a model pack. If one could breed a fox-hound with Grandjer's nose!""They were two hours and a half hunting that fox on Tuesday," said Gheena, "but they caught him in the end. He looked absolutely blighted with astonishment going up the last field, considering how many times he'd left them behind. Oh, dear! what a Christmas it's going to be—all wool and war!""Your chauffeur sent in to say, Ma'am, that if the wind arises any more, he'll scarcely get the big car across the long hill beyant the bache," announced Naylour respectfully, "an' will he come arround before it does?""How you can allow Ma'am, Matilda," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane coldly. "I had trained him into Madam so completely."It was unfortunate that Naylour's "She had so, Madam," remarked completely to himself, should have been audible to Gheena and Darby, who burst into the insane giggles induced by attempts at suppression of open laughter."His silver wants cleaning," also said Mrs. Keane. "You should make him do at least what he can do.""An' what he could not," came murmuring from the open door."If you can't get across the hill, come back," said Matilda Freyne, ignoring the comments placidly. "There are plenty of spare rooms and a turkey as well. That's for dinner, of course. Gheena, what is amusing you and Darby?""Retrospection," said Darby solemnly; "nothing else."The bad day gave its wildness to the night, which stormed and raged through a wind-tormented darkness, to grow ashamed before a murky dawn and threatening to hide in the caves of storm, leaving a still world and pallid, washed-out sky, with an apologetic sun wintering in its cloudless expanse. Far out on the point the spray was lashing up silver bright; caught in the sheltered bay the caged waves heaved sullenly.Gheena came down to breakfast in reflective mood. She was completely at her mother's mercy as to money until she married or came of age, and her mother's money meant Dearest George's. Vexed by the falling off of his savings, George Freyne had spent a long evening carping at his stepdaughter, and forbidden a fire in her own small sitting-room when she wanted to go there to play cards.George Freyne objected to Gheena's keeping her three horses, although there was no real hunting. He objected to a three-year-old bay brought in to train. He was, in fact, in the humour to object to everything, and he talked gloomily, of putting down the motor and taking again to the outside car, which languished in the coach-house."As that young horse has been brought in, he could be trained to harness," he said unpleasantly; "and Bluebird was bought for a cart; she would do."Gheena's blue roan mare was a precious possession. Miss Freyne eyed the breakfast table with unalloyed gloom, and helped herself to eggs simply as an everyday duty and not because she wanted one."Dearest George said we were to have them poached or plain boiled in future," remarked Mrs. Freyne, coming in. "He said it would save the frying butter, you know."Gheena rapped a brown shell and remarked she wished that it was in futurity."As it's our money——" she began."But you could not hint that to a sensitive man, Gheena dear, and an egg is just the same—isn't it, dear? There is always the yolk and the other part, isn't there, Darby?"Darby had stayed the night."And the shell," said Gheena, talking again. "I'll have ham, I'm not hungry, and they're quite hard. I've battered all round without a dinge coming."She ate ham more cheerily. Dearest was extremely particular as to boiled eggs. At one time he had hung lovingly on a patent boiler, his watch in his hand. But the boiler had the determination of all such affairs, namely, to hand out the egg either quite hard or glutinously raw, and to decline to say which until the shell was cracked, when it would chuckle softly over its blue flame of spirit. It could even spoil two put in at the same time, relying on a current of air to one side the flame to help in this.Matilda Freyne, after a weary week of being told it was all her fault for not taking the time, took to being late for breakfast, and Mr. Freyne boiled eggs for himself until incidentally the lamp blew up and singed off his moustache. So Anne the cook now endeavoured to plaze th' ould grumbler, as she tersely put it.Gheena tapped two other egg-shells with complete dissatisfaction, and went to the window to see Mr. Keefe in uniform, trotting up the drive."He's rising to the trot," impatiently said Gheena. "Is it the invasion? Crabbit has gone out and nearly upset him, and now he can't open the swing gate. Here is Dearest.""Hard again," announced George Freyne tragically, rapping pathetically. "Why the simple matter of three minutes in boiling water cannot be attended to! Gheena, you must pay for that white oats out of your quarter's allowance, as you ordered it against my wishes."Gheena flushed painfully. Her quarter's allowance was represented by the unpleasant little line which denotes minus—she had given it all away to various war funds, and the man was coming to be paid for the oats.Harold Keefe, pink and fussy, marched in in his dark uniform, and agreed to a second breakfast; he had had his first one at seven.He came with orders which roused them all. In case of invasion, horses were to be removed; motors destroyed or taken away; hay burnt. He read out the notice sonorously and with effect."There's really a chance of their landing." George Freyne touched the silver tea-pot anxiously. "We could hide all this in the cellar and cover it with slack, but there's the question of the horses again. How can we possibly get them all away if anything does happen? It makes it quite clear, Gheena, that one of your old ones and the youngster must be got rid of at once. Bluebird would make a charger.""To be frozen and ill-used and shot at, with his bad leg and his delicate skin!" shot out Gheena peevishly.But though they laughed at the little man in uniform eating ham with appetite, the orders which he had brought made something real of that terrible war across the seas. Germans might come to Ireland—grey-green uniforms, spiked helmets, fierce dull faces might be seen on the edge of the low cliffs. What scurry and flutter there would be if it ever came to pass!This little man, never quite at his ease, represented the struggle of a mighty nation, pouring out blood and gold for the cause of freedom.Gheena recovered from depression to see a vision of the flight of the family, with her mother packing carefully, and a string of horses being led off inland."I should certainly destroy all the jam," observed Mrs. Freyne, also waking up; "they are so fond of sweets.""Our navy," said Mr. Freyne pettishly, "is paid to see to things of this class. They will never reach us. But, of course, one must be prepared—and, talking of it, can your cook boil eggs, Keefe?" he asked gloomily.Mr. Keefe, starting at the change of subject, thought that anyone could—just water and a saucepan."And bullets," said Dearest George. "Talking of invasion made me remember the eggs. Bullets—with a delicate digestion."Keefe picked up an egg and said absently that he liked them hard, because they slipped into a pocket so handily, and with bread and butter one was never at a loss. But when you get a kind of squashy thing— "Oh, thank you, Mrs. Freyne! I'd love to take these two, I've miles to go!"The master of the house murmured "Savouries" into his empty tea-cup; the desire to economize was strong upon him just then."I shall go out to warn all the men," he said, "and just show them that we are at war."He strode into the yard, followed by his womenkind. Dillon, a very old man, was polishing the brasses on the car and crooning "Kathleen Mavourneen" as he did so. He had looked the possibility of the Union in the face a day or two before."Mr. Keefe has just called to say there is a possibility, a probability of a German invasion," said Dearest George loudly, "and I must give orders accordingly.""They'll niver swhim the say," observed Dillon without emotion. "Have ye another tin of Brasso handy, Phil? This is out.""Phil—Hennessy, you are to be ready at a moment's notice to fire the hay and be off inland with all the horses, and——"Phil scratched his head dubiously."An' if they calls in an' ye out, sir, would we do the same?" he inquired cautiously, "or wait to ax the Germin officers?""John Guinane says if they come here they'll come paycable," remarked Hennessy, as he laboured at a broken oats crusher. "With no waypons, but frindly. An' he says, too, there'll be no more money to go to the Government. We'll be let off paymint for our land.""God bless and save us! Is the haythens comin' here?" remarked Anne the fat cook nervously. "An' the coffee near out, Ma'am—but a pound in the house."Darby leant upon his crutch, laughing silently, and Dearest George tried to take off the hat he had not put on, missed it, and wiped his forehead."Nothing would make them realize anything," he stormed, as he sat down on a box—"nothing.""Father Pat says the ships is patrollin' the say and they'll niver let them over," said Anne more happily. "An' what is it, Phil?""It is the box we put a lick of paint on yestherday; makin' it sweet to hold the crushed oats. He won't be best plazed if it isn't dry," whispered Phil. "An' not much drying in yestherday, aither."Mr. Freyne got up, removing a film of brown paint with him, and without noticing it, continued his oration.He was interrupted this time by Matilda, asking him if he'd remembered to write for the salt for the dairy, and left hurriedly, saying more to himself than it was seemly to utter aloud."His throuser bein' brown, ye could not see," said Phil anxiously. "God save us! look at the print of himself on it, an' there'll be pure murther whin he claps an eye on his throuser. Hurry in to Naylour, Anne, and tell him to rub on turps whin the Masther changes his clothes.""Dearest George will be angry," said Gheena thoughtfully; "it is quite sticky."Mr. Freyne was sorely puzzled later on to find smudges of brown paint on the red leather library chair, and another smudge on the drawing-room sofa, where he had sat down to ruminate over the crass stupidity of the Irish.When both the housemaids took "their Bible oath" that they were innocent of using fresh paint, there was nothing for it but to harangue his wife and Gheena. When Gheena offered a sporting bet that he had done it himself, he got really angry, and unwisely accused her of impertinence to her elders.Phil knocked at the library door."I'm carrying the horses to the forge, sir, to be looked after against they take the road," he said pleasantly. "An' James is up to know who'll lead the prize bull, for he'll go with no one but himself, an'hecan't walk five mile. An' where will he go to? he says."When the locality mentioned by Mr. Freyne was a very hot one, Phil said "Yes, sir," and returned, murmuring that the Germans made the Masther terrible peevish."I am going on to Cahercalla, Gheena; you would probably like to come."Gheena said "No" absently. She was watching a distant figure on the edge of the cliff. It looked like the Professor.
Matilda Freyne asked Dearest George if he thought it would be wise to get up, and was then lifted to the saddle without making any effort to assist in the proceedings. Once there, she consulted Dearest George as to her straps and the adjustment of her reins, and was placidly happy on her quiet horse.
Gheena had forgotten all wars as she endeavoured to persuade her brown mare not to buck. It was so good to be out with any kind of hounds again.
George Freyne having taken his new hunting cap out of a hat-box and adjusted it with pride, shouted to Darby to wait for him, and grew irritable when Darby looked reproachfully at his watch.
"If you had a wife to get fixed up and the hang post late on account of the hang war! Hunting horn only just here in a box not even opened. Here you, Phil, are there straps for it and for the case?"
"They are, sir," said Phil briefly.
Dearest George tore feverishly at the nailed box, injured one of his fingers, and having sucked it noisily, mounted his horse, ordering Phil to open the hang thing and fix it on.
By this time the majority of the small field had collected by the Freynes' motor, feeling that George Freyne was to blame for keeping them waiting and looking at him reproachfully. Mr. O'Gorman remarked "Twenty past" just as the lid of the box cracked open.
"And you'd like it to be forty past if you were late yourself, O'Gorman," snapped Dearest George bitterly. "I'll move on without you often enough. How is a joint master to go out with nothing to play on, blow at—er—sound for his hounds, I should like to know?"
Here Darby wanted patiently to know if Phil was digging trenches or only opening a box.
"I'd say it will not fit on aisy," said Phil dubiously, coming round. He held up a brightly new Klaxon and scratched his head with his free hand.
"I—Matilda!" yelled George Freyne hopelessly.
"Dearest George," said Matilda placidly.
"I—told you—a hunting horn—weeks ago! Years ago! There was a delay in sending it."
"You said the very loudest one, Dearest George," said Matilda pleasantly. "All the stores were short owing to the war. I did wonder what you could fix it on to, but as you said a whistle too. Isn't there a whistle in the box, Phil?"
"Move on, Barty," said Darby with decision.
CHAPTER VII
Darby Dillon left his fellow master glaring at the Klaxon horn and rode up to the hounds. There was no eager greeting to him of quick yaps and wagging sterns, but rather a distinctly critical surveillance, and liquid eyes looking for the men on foot whom the pack knew.
Seen gathered together, the scratch pack were not prepossessing.
Darby grinned softly at the varieties of hound types, at Greatness's crooked legs and Daisy's snub nose, and especially at the crop-tailed Grandjer, so nearly related to a terrier.
A fringe of excited onlookers, previous followers of the foot dogs, gathered close, commenting eagerly.
"That is Spinsther, that ye reared, Marty. D'ye call to mind the day he took the trail down be Conellan's dykes, an' we all at the wrong side?"
Marty rubbed his head and recalled the incident.
"An' when he had his pup, didn't he tear meself too," remarked Marty sourly. "A pair of trouser I had on but eighteen months near pulled off me. He is a savage soort of a dog that Spinsther, an' I to rear him an' all with lashin's of milk an' male."
"An' Beauty, he has the nose. When the thrail was losht down anear the say, an' the other dogs on the back thrail, wasn't it Beauty thrun a yowl of his own?"
"Grandjer was the next," put in little Andy, "or maybe the firsht; but Papa had his mind med up he was only thrailin' old Mrs. Day's cat, Grandjer bein' but a puppy then."
"They do be talkin' of the Hunt Club hounds, but we have one fox an' his pups," said the covert keeper. "Five of them no less, an' thank God ye are out to hunt them."
Darby gathered the pack and waved his hand. The hounds looked up at the passage of the dog-skin glove through the air with mild curiosity. Darby waved it again; he uttered somewhat awkwardly a variety of hunting cries.
"Oh, give them a whack, you two, Barty," he said helplessly. "Thrash them in." Carty raised his whip, a motion immediately followed by a frantic bolt of the chestnut round the field.
"Me Dada 'd get up on the furry banks if he did hunt a covert on the sly," piped Andy; "make a lep in himself till all 'd be afther him. Onst they've a taste of the thrail ye can lave them."
Greatness, Daisy and Home Ruler, an enormous tan bitch with one ear, were sneaking off to draw for themselves; the place might be alive with hares.
Andy whipped two back, and Darby yelled at Carty to follow Home Ruler.
"Get round them, you—idiot!" he roared.
Carty, soliloquizing feverishly that it was the world he would be round if the chestnut carried on them games, or maybe chargin' Germans before he knew what was what, endeavoured to steer his nervous steed in the direction of Home Ruler's tan hind-quarters.
But it was Gheena who drove the prodigal back to fox-hunting.
The Field having come out, expected, as fox-hunters will, that this motley collection were to be as well ordered and obedient as Tom Lindlay's pack. Observing the difficulties, they decided, very audibly that it was perhaps better to leave a country alone than to botch it in this fashion; and as it would evidently be of very little use to come out riding, better try on foot.
Mr. O'Gorman, who had, almost forgotten what his feet looked like, said "Yes," briskly, "or in a motor-car."
"You'll have to get off and go in, George," said Darby. "I can't go crippling and hobbling up that bank."
"An' if meself comes along with ye," said Andy. "Blow a blasht on ye're bugle, yer honor, now to hearten them."
George Freyne looked heatedly at the empty case, got down with a grunt, and pompously marched toward the bank.
Violet Weston, brightly pretty in a light fawn coat and completely irregular soft tweed hat, pushed the tall bay through the crowd, watching critically. She was followed by Mr. Keefe, who also wore a hunting cap, quite considering that he was one of the Masters as he had helped with the consultations.
George Freyne clambered on to the bank, calling lustily.
"You must go down within." Andy leapt up and disappeared into the gorse, followed by his three faithful hounds. "Ye must go within like me Dada."
"Yerra, push him out! Hurreh in with ye! Gan out of that, Spinsther! Hurreh in along with ye! Nose him up!"
The foot people arrived breathless and rushed to the rescue.
"It is the prickles they are afeard of. Nose him out, Daisy, ye schamer! Blow a blasht on ye're bugle, sir, and over with ye; they'll folly."
George Freyne's new whistle rang shrilly clear, but he stayed on the bank.
"Get into it, Freyne. Here, I'll try my horn," said Keefe.
"If you've a hunting cap on you get in yourself," bellowed Dearest George irritably. "Come along and get in; if you can blow that—do!"
Darby Dillon rocked on his horse as Keefe, stout and pink, outlined in a very tight pink coat, made importantly for the bank, and standing there, brought forth a husky wheeze of sound, followed by an impotent broken squeak.
"Whip them on to us now!" shouted Keefe. "Now! What is the 'Come in' note, Dillon?—which, this or that?"
"He is just like a pink puff-ball," gasped Gheena, wiping her eyes. "Just! Oh, Darby, what is the 'Come in' note?"
"If he expects me to blow in or out now, I can't," gulped Darby. "Blow away yourself, Keefe; you'll strike it in time."
"If he stopped that poisonous row, they'd come to my whistle," shouted Dearest George, stuttering furiously.
"They have the thrail!" shrilled a small voice wildly.
At that moment Beauty flung a long throaty yowl; Grandjer, dashing to her, echoed and confirmed it with his nondescript yelp. Beauty spoke again emphatically, and now Daisy threw her tongue.
Every hound outside quivered to the sound.
"Hurreh! Hurreh! Hurreh! Folly on there! Nose him out! In with ye all! Get on to it, Parnellite! Schald to ye, Spinsther! Hurreh! Hurreh! Over! Over!"
A mixed pack of hounds and followers dashed towards the cover. There was no hanging back now. Home Ruler's huge body caught Dearest George's legs; his footing was precarious. Spinster followed the charge. Leaping to get clear, George Freyne lost his balance, grabbed at Keefe, and the two went face foremost into the thick gorse, floundering there furiously.
"Well done! Success! Back him up, Colleen! Hurreh on!" shrieked a jealous onlooker.
"Andrew McCarty, if you knocked me in, I will kill you," said George. Freyne as he emerged, a new Venus, from the sea of prickles.
"I did not, but the dogs," returned Andrew contemptuously. "An' shouldn't ye be within? God save us! I'd say the inspector had a wakeness got; he is schriekin' terrible!" Keefe's face, convulsed, appeared above the gorse.
"Just above the boot," howled Keefe, struggling upwards. "A devil of a dog with a black face. I fell on him."
"That was Spinsther," said Andrew McCarty. "It was only agitayted he is to catch the fox. He manes no harm. It was him tore me own trousers; but he had pups the same time."
"To the bone," moaned Keefe, as he floundered to the bank. "An infernal hound, Dillon, has bitten me to the bone."
"All that way," said Darby with interest. "Did he leave the tooth in, Keefe?"
"Lord, they're at him. Yoi! Yoi! Yoi there! Hurreh! Hurreh! Nose him out! Rout him out!" yelled the crowd. "Forrard on! There's tongues for ye."
Ten couples of hounds, most of them throwing the long harrier yowl, Grandjer's shrill tongue audible above the rest. It was music in the still misty day. Hats were crammed down, reins tightened; the small Field surged to the edge of the gorse, peering in.
Two cubs and an old fox doubled and twisted in the thick gorse, the music echoed and deepened.
"Watch them, Barty; see to the gap. I've no breath," said Darby. "Get on your horse, George. You took covert gallantly."
"Ifit was that Andrew McCarty," said Dearest George murderously. "Am I all pricked, Matilda? Am I? Have you looked at my face?" exploded George mildly, removing a handkerchief dotted with blood.
"I was listening to the hounds and thinking how nicely you jumped in, Dearest George," said Matilda mildly. "But when you came out, of course I asked you why you did it. Oh, he's away! You are slightly pricked."
The old fox leapt lightly into view, ran for a few yards, was headed by the rush of the crowd, and disappeared back into covert.
"Hi! You!" Darby swung round. "You set of spoilsports! Think I can't go for you because they're only harriers. If you don't keep away from that gap and stay where you're told, I'll go and hunt hares with 'em."
"Think I didn't see you, O'Loughlin, away for a start! You set of——"
"It is not too bad at all for the sthart," murmured Barty approvingly. "Get over to this end, please, gentlemen," he roared himself. "Keep your eye on the gap, Mr. Keefe."
Harold Keefe bound a blue-and-white check silk handkerchief round his leg and consulted Mrs. Weston as to hydrophobia. He was faintly sulky when she took no notice, her bright blue eyes fixed excitedly on the rustling gorse.
"He is away!" Darby darted along the edge of the gorse. "Away just outside the fence. Blow, sir, blow them out! God save us alive! look at that!"
For at that moment Grandjer, with a stout cub firmly clamped between his jaws, leapt over the bank, and putting the limp little beast down, commenced to worry it.
"Didn't I tell ye Grandjer was the dog?" screamed Andy, flying out. "He is thrackin' that one now since the commincemint, an' never left him."
"We'll have to break this one up, then, I suppose," said Darby. "We must do the right thing."
Grandjer worried and growled and tore. He was screened from view by a big stone and a clump of brambles.
"He will ate it be himself," said Andy. "Do ye go afther the ould fox, sir; none'll know."
Darby looked at Barty, and Barty grinned.
"Be the time someone is bit getting away the fox, the other one'll be at Durra," he whispered. "And why should we lose a hunt acclimatizing this lot to do right, when, with the help of God, the Kayser'll be dead and our own hounds out again next October?"
"But," said Darby, "well, then. Forrard on!"
"He won't ate it all," said Andy. "He'll tiren, an' unless Mr. Keefe bein' bit already wouldn't so much mind another, I'd say whoever went to take it'd get a quare nip."
"Toot" went Darby's horn. "Shrr," George Freyne's whistle. A grating gurgle emanated from Keefe. Slowly hounds dribbled out, but surely, everyone hunting. When he got three couple together, Darby went away, wondering vaguely if he would ever see any of the other which was still conscientiously towling and yowling in covert.
Home Ruler, distantly related to a deer-hound, could travel; she flung herself on the line, with Beauty close behind and Greatness yowling joyously.
Grandjer, finding his fox high and tough, especially as there was no one to dispute it with him, picked up his kill and galloped in pursuit of the charge.
The fox had been gone some time, and scent, the mysterious, was not too good. Home Ruler, dashing light-heartedly in front, threw up her big head suddenly. The remainder of the pack, all hunting zealously, towled into view, coming undisturbed through the horses. Grandjer dropped his cub and galloped down to his companions. It was his sharp yap which rang out as he passed Home Ruler and spoke on the line. Then "Yow-Ow," the long-drawn musical harrier notes, as at a fair pace they pressed on. The going was light on the top of the hill, the banks fair and sound. What matter if Dandy's pup was leading, his docked stump quivering! They were hunting. Slowly but surely they dipped into Durra, a big place in a hollow, and circled round it until it was evident that the unpressed fox had gone back to covert.
"We'll be a long time killing one this way," remarked Darby, watching the pack spread out as they checked.
"And if we do not kill, we are practically of no use." George Freyne would have been supremely happy if his face had not worried him. He knew the line of gaps coming across; he had ridden, as became a Master, in the van, and he was now wondering if blowing his whistle would be a good thing just to remind people of his position.
"The men up at the covert said they were looking for a kill, Darby."
"And we might have had one," said Darby, "if we'd tackled that cub." He looked guiltily at his companions and Barty coughed.
"Beauty has it! Listen to her now! Hurreh on, Beauty! All to Beauty!" yelled little Andy.
The child had lost his cap, his hands were bleeding. The Rat had gone exactly as he chose, but Andy had in these crowded minutes tasted nectar.
That ecstatic jump on to the high bounds bank, the crawl along the top, all but swept off by a branch, the blissful leap straight off the road over a coped wall, with everyone else going in at the gate, the bumping rush through the crowd at the beginning—all these things had gone as wine to young Andy's head.
Might the war go on for ever if it meant his having the Rat to ride on.
Violet Weston, a little ruffled, a brickish red forge showing through the powder on her cheeks, rode up close to Keefe.
"This horse makes a very curious sound when going up a hill," she said a little coldly, "and he seems to find it hard also to do so; also, he stumbled at the banks."
"You—er—rode him at a very high place," said Keefe a little nervously. "That bounds fence is full of rabbit-holes."
"Well, he is very nice to look out, but I say——" Violet Weston turned to beam at Stafford.
"I was just saying this horse makes such a funny gurgle running up hill," she said, "and I shall be disappointed if he is not really a good hunting animal. After paying sixty pounds, too, for the thing. What is that noise, Mr. Stafford?"
"Intake or out-take?" said Stafford, his eyes glued to the persevering Beauty, who was feathering on to the line, with Grandjer dashing wildly about close to her.
"Oh, intake, certain," said Mrs. Weston grimly; and she added rapidly: "What does that mean? It's a shrill noise."
"He was a whistler, an' he a colt," remarked a voice close by. "An' if you do not aise him up the hills, miss, he will tangle in the banks an' his breath gone from him."
"I told you—there was a slight 'if,'" said Keefe, adjusting his hunting cap peevishly. "I said so not enough to stop him. You can't get sound horses this year for small sums."
"They wouldn't pass him for th' army," murmured the same voice in the background. "Twenty pound Tom Talty said, but it was his ankles, an' not the wind."
"They have got it. Forrard on!" yelled Mr. Keefe enthusiastically. "Forrard away!"
Beauty and Grandjer rushed to the cheer which was followed by the thunderous advance of Darby and a heated request to the third Master to let hounds alone when they were puzzling matters out for themselves.
"One of them threw his tongue," said Keefe snappishly.
"He did when Annette Freyne's mare kicked him. So would you," returned Darby dryly.
"If you're anxious to hunt this for yourself," he went on, his voice raised, "do it. You're all over the place. Get the Field up, somebody. Get them back to the clump of trees."
George Freyne, blowing his whistle, rode backwards and forwards busily, right over the line.
"If the Master was not in France he would be dead with the rage an' he here to-day, annyways," said old Barty bitterly. "His breath 'd never see him out with what's doin' here this hour past."
"Will I carry on Beauty or Grandjer?" whispered Andy, "beyant anear the sunk fence where he must have gone over? They won't folly himself or yerself," added Andy wisely.
Beauty's nose went down when she was clear of the crowd. With a long-drawn ecstatic yowl she declared that their fox had gone that way. Grandjer dashed over and spoke to it beyond, the whole pack coming towling melodiously to do their part.
They were patient. It often took three or four hours to wear down a hare. There was very seldom anyone to hurry or help them when they checked, and they were used to their own leisurely ways and their own melodious fashion of puzzling things out. They settled down to it again now, stringing out, every hound hunting without faith or reliance on the one in front, Home Ruler bringing up the rear, her great bulk wearing her out speedily.
Mrs. Weston kicked her spurred heels into the tall bay and put him at his scratchy gallop at the sunk fence, which he rose at gallantly some three feet too soon, and then blundered on his head at the far side.
"She can ride," thought Darby approvingly, as he watched the widow pick the horse up, digging her heels in again to reward him for his blunder with a savage thump of her whip.
Hounds carried on across the road and swung left into some low-lying land cut across by small deep ditches. The little Rat, his wicked head either high in the air or stretched out almost touching the earth, hung among the tail hounds, young Andy quite incapable of anything except sticking limpet-like to the low shoulders in front of him. Their fox had evidently been headed on the road, and not being hurried, had loped off to try a gullet in the bog. Finding this stopped, he turned up again for the covert. The ground was squelchy and holding; the edges of the small dykes were of crumbling peaty earth. Horses bucked and scrambled across, labouring in the deep going.
Several wise people were proceeding leisurely along the high ground to the covert, riding an easy line of gaps.
"We will be apt to meet the Croompaun this course," said Barty to Darby, "an' it will be ugly with all the grass above on it."
The Croompaun was a blend of bog drain and stone-faced bank, fencing the end of the bog. It was a nasty jump coming down from the gorse, when a horse could get fairly easily on to the bank, and what Barty called, settle himself before he made his effort to shoot out over the wide bog drain; but going up it took a really bold horse to get on to the bank far enough to avoid an ugly scramble or an extremely probable topple back.
"We are for it and it's half a mile round," said Darby philosophically.
"That bye Andy will be apt to be kilt at it," observed Barty, "on that skelp of a pony."
Splash! The leading hounds sent up sprays of amber-hued water, and then scrambled up the stony, treacherous bank, now overgrown with long, coarse tufts of grass and trails of bramble.
Darby held his breath as the Rat altered the position of his lean, pointed head, putting it straight up, and cocked his lop ears with complete determination. Next moment he hurled his powerful little body high in the air, landed seemingly on a mere tussock, and with the scratch of steel on stone, was safe on the top.
"Good Begonnes!" said old Barty. "Have a care of that Home Ruler, Misther Darby; she is undther your feet."
Darby pulled his horse together in the deep churning ground. A fall to him was an ugly thing, but he had no thought of it as he faced the Croompaun.
His active little horse rose with a grunt of effort, landing safely with his hind legs well under him, just as Barty rolled actively from the grey's back; that animal, relieved of weight, managed to get up somehow. The chestnut settled matters by refusing honestly, ridden, it must be owned, rather half-heartedly by Carty.
The two other black caps pulled up immediately, considerately remembering that Hunt servants must be attended to.
"Hold him at it and I'll whip him for you," said Dearest George, unloosing his thong.
At the sound of the swish the chestnut swerved with the swiftness of an acrobat, and declined to be straightened again.
"It will be quicker, maybe, to go around than to be swhervin' for half an hour," said Carty nervously. "Aisy, sir, he is in dread of a whip."
Gheena and Stafford got over side by side, and the tall bay, completely blown, simply slipped in to cool himself, Violet Weston shooting off with a shriek of wrath.
"I never saw a woman leather a horse so hard," said George Freyne afterwards. "She clouted him up to the place you can land, and never asked a soul to help her."
The few who had got over galloped on over light land, galloped and sometimes trotted, for scent was none too good, and the scratch pack did not mean to hurry themselves.
"Take us a long time to kill a fox at this rate, Barty," said Darby. "Eh?"
"They'll eat him in covert if he has no wish to break out again," said Barty; "an' that same will be no good thing this hour of the year."
"They have the thrail losht," said Andy as the rat stopped.
They had, just where Grandjer had dropped the limp remains of the cub. He recognized his prey now pouncing at it with a growl. Darby looked at the Field, which had short-cutted, and were just coming into view three fields away. Gheena and Stafford, stopped by wire, were some way behind. And the avoiders of the Croompaun were only looping the hill.
Spurs went in and bridles were shaken as Darby sent a blood-curdling yell of triumph echoing across the still day. It seemed mixed up with "Have it, Grandjer! Have it!" And this was followed by Barty's trained screech and a still "Who-whoop!" from Andy.
The new pack, the foot dogs, had run into their fox handsomely in the open.
"Yoi-i, there! Who-whoop!" Barty was dexterously removing brush marks and pads before he held the carcass above his head in the midst of the slightly interested hounds, Grandjer alone showing what he thought of the matter by snapping at Barty's legs and growling savagely.
"Well done! Bravo! Just what's wanted! How they must have bustled him!"
"Yoi-i, there! Worry! worry! worry! You would never make dacent fox-hounds of thim," said Barty disgustedly, "so what the odds!"
"Me Dada schnaps the hares if he is up quick enough," said Andy thoughtfully; "an' whin he is not, there is no one to be nisin', so they are not acclimatized to what ye are bawlin' out."
"The finest thing that could happen. We may congratulate ourselves," gasped Freyne. "Tally ho! Tear him and eat him! Tally ho!"
"Hi, puss, puss! Hurreh! Hurreh!" chorused the arriving foot contingent. "Yerra ate him! Hi, puss!"
"There is one fox pasht in half an hour back," added the covert keeper. "Had ye two in front of ye, sir? Ar'n't they wondthers for what they look like, thim dogs!"
"Dearest George, I took your advice and came across high ground," remarked Mrs. Freyne, ambling up. "We all saw you riding away from the Croompaun. I should have been afraid you had fallen in, but I saw your hunting cap going round so plainly and so sensibly."
George Freyne said nothing rather expressively. It was a little hard on a man who had just been telling his cousin Annette the dangers which she had escaped in the bog, and how hounds had flown down there.
"And, by the way, Annette, I thank you to buy tuppenceworth of red ribbon for that mare's tail," put in Darby. "Home Ruler is quite lame where you kicked her. She was last all the way."
"She is always lasht afther she is first for ten minutes," murmured Andy. "Me Dada says it is the weight of him, and that some of his fambly was mastiffs an' them yally saintly dogs."
The next covert was three miles off, and hounds, now learning something of their new work, pattered in fair order along a stony road. There was a faint diversion occasioned by Grandjer almost chopping a cat, one which Andy explained he was near to get offin befour, she having dragged her claws down his face onst an' got away from him.
The next covert was a straggling place, a long wood of fir and young larch with a few dubiously rideable paths in it. It was the last place to come to with the new pack, which enjoyed itself completely in its own way: Some hunting rabbits; four couple solemnly towling after a hare, and the rest disappearing in different directions. Barty viewed a fox away, but all their looking and whistling could only produce a dribble of hounds.
The foot people had been left behind; there was no one to drive the pack out in time to do anything. But Greatness presently elected to get on the line of a fox and gather some friends with her, which fox they solemnly hunted round and round, stolidly and carefully, until Beauty marked him in a rabbit burrow and watched Grandjer try to dig him out.
With the aid of the terrier he was bolted and killed.
The thick mist of the morning had crept up again, grey and clammy. It hung with a stillness through which voices echoed hollowly, and great drops began to collect on the branches.
Harold Keefe shivered in the chill, proffering apologies to Mrs. Weston for any fancied shortcomings in the bay horse; Mrs. Weston, with her legs very damp and her boots full of water, receiving them quite graciously.
"Oh, I'm sure you meant him to be a dear horse!" she said good-humouredly. "And perhaps when he's hunted more he'll have more breath and less waist. I couldn't keep the girths tight. What a day for Germans to land!" she added with a shiver, peering into the mist. "What's that, Mr. Stafford? There would be nothing to stop them if they did. You've got the wireless to call for help."
"I fancy—that before they landed that the wireless would be arranged about," he said thoughtfully, tapping his boot. "It wouldn't do to have the power of summoning any of the fleet, would it?"
Gheena Freyne stopped listening to the hounds and edged her horse closer.
"A few men in their pay could account for the small guard on the station. And if the transports once got in the men could do a lot of harm before they went out again or were caught." He had got off his horse and was holding one hand to his side as if something hurt him.
"They'll be all so horribly beaten by Christmas there won't be anyone to come," declared Violet Weston optimistically. "You don't think the old Professor is taking notes of the coast, do you, Mr. Stafford?"
"Not that I——" Stafford stopped. "They're coming past this way again," he said. "I don't envy Darby all this time."
The fog came down so thickly that Darby gathered the pack and decided to go home. He had at least vindicated his start by killing two foxes and having some fun.
It was more to Andy's shrill pipe than the horn which brought hounds out, a great many of them suspiciously red about the mouth.
"They enjoy a place like that," said Andy happily, "with rabbits galore."
"When they get into it, Barty," said Darby as they jogged homewards, "and keep together and get on a little faster, they might show us some fun, after all."
"They'll show ye what noses can do," said Barty grimly. "But harriers with a taste of tarrier an' God knows what they was whelped, and harriers with a taste of tarrier they'll die. Wasn't that Grandjer digging the fox out, no less?"
They would pass close to Castle Freyne. The cars came up looking for them, and Gheena asked everyone to tea.
"I'll drive you, Gheena," Darby said, his voice muffled in the mist.
He climbed down slowly. On his horse he had been upright and good to look at; now he limped and shuffled towards the car, catching at it to support him.
"And you, Stafford?" he said. "Cantillon there would take your horse back for you."
"Mr. Stafford will probably want to get back to his work as he's been out all day," suggested Gheena frostily.
Basil Stafford observed mildly that it was undoubtedly a nice light evening to direct drainage works on, but he thought that he would wait until next day.
"Gheena"—Darby climbed into his car—"Gheena, the Croompaun was a very big leap for you to-day on that new mare of yours."
"You saw her do it?" she asked.
"I generally see you do things," he answered slowly, a rasp of pain in his voice.
Matilda Freyne had ambled homewards some two hours before. She was watching old Naylour pack up the Klaxon when they got in, and explaining how disappointed Mr. Freyne had been.
"If one could have an attachment to a saddle for that, Naylour," she said, "it would make a far better noise than he ever will with his mouth, wouldn't it? And a whistle is so undignified, is it not? And there you all are! And you are very tired, Dearest. And will you have your bath before your poached eggs, Dearest George, because both are ready?"
Darby said he thought that possibly the bath might be the easier to keep hot if it was still in the taps. He was then waylaid by Gheena at the dining-room door, Crabbit gyrating at her feet, worrying her muddy boots, and twisting himself into equine knots in his joy.
"Darby, I couldn't ask you. How did they kill that fox in the open like that? Was he sitting down in the fence?"
"He was," said Darby briefly.
"An' he was a cub. An old fox went away."
The corners of Darby's mouth relaxed visibly.
"Well, Grandjer snapped a cub in the morning," he said softly, "and must have carried it along; and when we met it, what Barty said was: 'If we lights down and who-whoops him, sorra the sowl 'll be the wiser, but all well playzed. Thim livin' round the covert extry so. An' Andy 'll kape a sthill tongue.' And Andy said his own Mama wouldn't twist it out of him in purgathory, and it didn't seem to matter what one does with that pack; so—well, it was a great beginning."
"Oh, Darby!" said Gheena faintly.
"I doubt if the best English packs would care for me as a Master; that is, if we write an account of it to theField," whispered Darby. "Will you send one, Gheena?"
"I would not disgrace the County," said Gheena hysterically. "Dearest is telling them all now how he accounted for that fox."
CHAPTER VIII
Gheena Freyne knitted with unskilful rapidity and stared disconsolately at a blurred and bitter afternoon. The sea whined and moaned in the harbour, a liquid carpet of warship tint broken by peevish flakes of white. Gheena could hear it because she had the window wide open, cooling the hot air of the long, rather shabby room, before her stepfather came stamping in to shut it emphatically and mutter ill-humouredly as to violent chills.
There was a constant jar as of ill-fitting machinery in motion between Gheena and George Freyne. His fussy love of authority frothed at Gheena to roll back spent and broken into angry fume, her mother's complete and somewhat elusive submission making it even more difficult to bear.
It was elusive because Mrs. Freyne having duly received Dearest George's advice and commands, perhaps as to dinner, would amble down to the kitchen and then take Anne's advice there to save trouble, causing such faint shocks as pheasants for dinner, which George had ordered to be hung for another week, or beefsteak when the economy of mutton had been heavily counselled.
"Well, you see, we did send for mutton, Dearest, and Mullcahy—what did he say, Naylour?"
"That the teeth in ye're head 'd be left is all he had in the shop, Ma'am, it was that fresh."
"Exactly, Dearest. And I thought that really at a penny a pound the dentist would soon equalize; so this is only off the sirloin we bought, George dearest."
In the same way Matilda took the latest advice from grooms and chauffeur. Still, it was better than Gheena, who took none at all, but listened with her grey-green eyes glinting, preserved complete silence, and did exactly as she thought best.
"Shut that window, Gheena—storms of rain and wind and a gale blowing in!" Bang went the sash.
"I've admitted some oxygen," said Gheena equably. "You'd better unwind yourself gently, Dearest; you got three strands round your ankles making that rush."
"And the fire roaring up the chimney with coals at their present price. Well, if it is turf and wood, there won't be wood always."
"Take one step backwards—now turn round," said Gheena. "Thank you. Don't break it; think of the soldiers in France."
The unbroken gloom of the day had irritated her. She looked at the grate and remembered—Gheena was too generous to recall it often—that it was her father's money which paid for everything, and that in a few years' time the house would be her own.
"And your insensate habit of sleeping in a gale," grumbled George Freyne, "smashed the Chippendale table at your window last night. I met Maria carrying it down with a leg gone. It is a valuable table."
"Was," suggested Gheena, her needles flashing. "Tom Malone put a deal leg on."
Her stepfather eyed her a little anxiously. The question of Gheena's future worried him. The thought of the Dower House in winter was almost intolerable. When Gheena married, Castle Freyne would belong to her absolutely, and if she chose an unpliable husband, it would certainly mean turning out. The war and its burdens curtailed the savings which Dearest George was amassing and—he had been out to the yard and found two new and unneeded men there, taken by Gheena because they had been dismissed, one by an economizer and one whose master had been killed in the war.
"Instead of economizing, you and your mother are always reckless," he burst out. "Two old men taken on, Dillon and O'Leary, useless old dodderers, eating in the kitchen, with tea and sugar and flour at their present prices. And oats—I have ordered nothing but black oats for the future, Gheena, for the horses, and I sent away a man who brought white."
"I ordered that," said Gheena, getting up, "and my horses shall not cat black oats, Dearest, even if the heat has upset you."
"The heat?" said George Freyne, glaring at the blurred atmosphere outside.
"And I'm going down to see Hennessy. He is sure to be at tea with Anne," said Gheena, going out. "He got that oats for me."
The hoot of a motor-horn roused Dearest George from sombre chewing of bitter mental cud.
Darby Dillon took his car round to the shelter of the archway and then let himself in.
He came lumping across the polished hall and into the hot drawing-room.
George Freyne stared at him and grunted before he burst into the song of his grievances, which were tea, sugar, oats, and two women without mental balance.
"We had to come home from the meet," said Darby, having duly listened without comment. "Too wild to keep hounds out and no one there but ourselves.—I'm not listening! But I was, George. But a man may do what he likes with his own, mayn't he? And Gheena is an heiress. It will all be hers."
"Except a thousand a year and a cave," burst out George Freyne—"a sea cave on the shore."
"Don't make short cuts to it, then," said Darby gravely.
Gheena, her colour still high, returned, Crabbit at her heels.
"I've sent the car to ask Mrs. Weston to tea," she said. "Dillon can drive, and it will mean Mr. Keefe also, no doubt."
"And Stafford," said Darby. "He's the latest."
Gheena sniffed haughtily.
"Why he stays on here," she burst out—"as if drains mattered. A nice thing if the Germans found them ready just to make their potato grounds good for them."
Darby held his hands to the blaze, as he said quietly that all men knew their own affairs best.
"The man may have something wrong with him," he said. "Heart disease or heaven knows what!"
"A man who rides and shoots," said Gheena contemptuously. "I have my eye——" Then she stopped abruptly.
Dearest George, feeling himself neglected, remarked that he would not have the car sent on futile errands. It was a dear car, and just because it was a wet day, and to send it with a man who might be able to drive, or might be in the bay by noon under water, car and all. He appealed to his wife, who came in unperturbed by bad weather, her curiously fresh comeliness outlined in girlish blue.
"Of course, Dearest George, it will get wet as it is wet," said Matilda Freyne sympathetically, "the tyres especially; but it is so very wet that it won't be bad, and as old Dillon is there, it may amuse him to wash it, and Gheena said she wanted company."
"I'll buy a small car now I've Dillon," said Gheena shortly, "one for myself. They are back now; the wetting's over."
"These two men were going to have tea with me," giggled Violet Weston as she came in, "so I brought them along. We were just getting the Professor to play Bridge, so I brought him too."
"The last time I came there were the bees," said the Professor amicably, "and the poor lady so much alarmed."
"Any news?" Darby looked at Stafford.
"The usual deadlock in mud and ice." Stafford pulled out a telegram. "I get weary of wires nowadays. Christmas is so near, and some of us dreamt of them having Christmas at home, and some of Christmas in Berlin, and here we are."
Violet Weston, somewhat flauntily dressed in mauve, with expensive white furs and shoes with diamond buckles, peeped at the wire anxiously.
"Why do you have the things in Greek?" she asked.
"One word does for three, you see," he said smiling, as he dropped the flimsy paper into the fire.
"They are talking now of a great submarine blockade," said Darby, "cutting off all our supplies."
"And they say there are supply bases along this very coast," puffed Dearest George. "Matilda, why is tea late?"
"Perhaps if we asked Naylour?" Mrs. Freyne was not disposed to reply to a direct question. "What do you think, Dearest? Perhaps that new bad coal——"
"I beg your pardon," said Naylour at the door, "but there is two coastguards here to have speech with the Masther."
The importance of his country's defence wiped the thoughts of tea from Dearest George's mind; he rushed to the door and Gheena opened the window widely.
"I have to perish you all to change the atmosphere," she said apologetically. "What is it, Professor?"
"It is my handkerchief a silken," said the Professor anxiously. "I had him out in the hall and with a cold in the nose——" He ambled out.
"Gheena," said Violet Weston, "I've something to say to you."
Gheena trailed her wool across the carpet to the far end of the long room.
"Some one said—they saw submarines about," whispered Violet; "one of the coastguards told me—a periscope just outside the bay. And also that they're all on the watch for supplies going out from here—and that they are afraid of people signalling. Gheena—whatis that Stafford man doing here—idling?"
"He is not a German," said Gheena stoutly.
"Go on knitting, he's watching us. If a German is brought up altogether in England he has no accent—nothing. He goes out late at night. How do I know? I went into the garden one night to look for a cat I heard mewing there, and he went down the next steps; they do for the Professor's home and mine, you know. I heard him crunching off across the beach beyond the pier."
"We'll watch him," said Gheena through clenched teeth. "I have been watching him myself. Now you can too, and Crabbit and I will find out where the petrol is stored."
"I've spoke to you three times," said Darby to Stafford, "and you've never answered. Now you come out of the catalepsy with a lep."
"Why was tea late, Naylour?" Mrs. Freyne asked. "Oh, dear, here is Mrs. Keane!"
"Naylour," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane, flapping into the room, "was never in time. He used to commence to clean his silver at four o'clock, and when it was half-past the tea-pot would be all pink paste."
"Asking your pardon, Ma'am, but that same was only on days when I had jobs given me," said Naylour firmly, "all the coats to brush and all throusers to press."
"Naylour!" said Mrs. Keane haughtily.
"An' tay is not afther bein' late, Ma'am, but the Masther's watch is on. He sot it on this mornin', thinkin' he'd be huntin', so as to get all out, an' he forgot to sot it back."
"Four kinds of cake!" groaned Mrs. Keane. "I allowance them to a spoon of sugar to each cup now in the kitchen and four cups of tea a day."
"I remember noticing the cake for the concert tea wasn't sweet," said Gheena absently. "We made five pounds, and we'll have another for the Red Cross—with the recruiting song."
"So dreadfully immodest!" said Mrs. Keane. "Just think how the soldiers would hate it, too, if everyone who had sung that song ran to kiss them on platforms on their return. I should insist on its being altered to greet."
"Darby said that wouldn't do for Scotch regiments, because 'greet' was Gaelic for 'cry.'"
"I found him," said the Professor, returning, "but so also had Crabbit."
He held up a large bandanna rent across by sharp teeth. Stafford stared at the pocket-handkerchief thoughtfully, and Crabbit wagged his tail pleasantly.
"War is a dreadful thing!" said Dearest George, rushing back. "Too many complications. Confound it, Gheena, it's your wool again!" His plunge into space was checked by the Professor's plump shoulder. "Several suspicious characters hanging round the wireless. Two cars puncturing on the road just outside and taking an unreasonable time to repair. Oh, yes, they took their numbers quite cleverly. And people asking the way, and they've seen a submarine outside the bay. English or German? Oh, German, of course, Matilda! What foolish questions you do ask! And they are afraid——"
"Here—my friend, was all this for publication?" said the Professor softly—"all?"
"There's nothing private in a sighted submarine," snapped George Freyne peevishly; "the fishermen saw her from the point. The Guinanes say they did not, although they were out at the time, but they never like to agree with anyone. Mary Talty did and Con Talty."
"What I came to tell you," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane, raising her voice and looking importantly, "was that——"
"You've dropped your hot bun," said Mrs. Freyne absently, "the butterest bit. Please, Crabbit."
"—Was that Lancelot Freyne is wounded," concluded Mrs. Keane irately. "I met his mother and Annette both in tears because the wire did not say how much though it mentioned a foot."
"Just think of Lancelot wounded! Somehow one never realized that he had really gone out," said Mrs. Freyne.
"He was at the base looking after embarkations," said Gheena. "He must have got run over. They did not send him up, I know, because his letters were all Boulogne, and how cleverly he could talk French."
"Still, he's wounded," said Mrs. Keane. "And you might think more of your cousin, Gheena. He will probably come home to recuperate."
"If General French can spare him," said Gheena sweetly. "You see, someone who might be of use will have to replace him now at the base."
Dearest George broke in hotly to remark that Gheena was very heartless talking in that fashion about a gallant boy who had gone to fight for his country, and decided that he would drive over to Cahercalla to find out the news. He thought it over as a fresh blast of rain drove against the window and a boom of wind shook the trees outside.
Stafford, seated in a dark corner, was absently breaking up pieces of plum cake and feeding Crabbit with them. He seemed lost in thought.
"The extravagance—in war-time!" said Mrs. Keane, seeing him. "I am astonished! with plums in it too!"
"To say nothing of its making him sick," said George Freyne. "I think all dogs should be got rid of with food so dear."
Gheena's cheeks lost some of their colour. Her stepfather could do nasty things when he was put out.
"If anything were to happen to Crabbit I'd get married next day to replace him," she said, a note of cold warning in her voice. "To anyone! You might take me, Professor."
The old Professor spilt his fourth cup of tea as the remark reached him; then recovering, he observed that the marriage of a maid to her grandfather was forbidden in the prayer-books, and asked for more tea placidly.
"Well, someone," said Gheena. "Darby, how many wild things did the pack do to-day in the rain?"
"They just clung to the horses' heels," said Darby gruffly, his voice sounding hoarse and strained; "that was all, Gheena. By the time the war is over they will be a model pack. If one could breed a fox-hound with Grandjer's nose!"
"They were two hours and a half hunting that fox on Tuesday," said Gheena, "but they caught him in the end. He looked absolutely blighted with astonishment going up the last field, considering how many times he'd left them behind. Oh, dear! what a Christmas it's going to be—all wool and war!"
"Your chauffeur sent in to say, Ma'am, that if the wind arises any more, he'll scarcely get the big car across the long hill beyant the bache," announced Naylour respectfully, "an' will he come arround before it does?"
"How you can allow Ma'am, Matilda," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane coldly. "I had trained him into Madam so completely."
It was unfortunate that Naylour's "She had so, Madam," remarked completely to himself, should have been audible to Gheena and Darby, who burst into the insane giggles induced by attempts at suppression of open laughter.
"His silver wants cleaning," also said Mrs. Keane. "You should make him do at least what he can do."
"An' what he could not," came murmuring from the open door.
"If you can't get across the hill, come back," said Matilda Freyne, ignoring the comments placidly. "There are plenty of spare rooms and a turkey as well. That's for dinner, of course. Gheena, what is amusing you and Darby?"
"Retrospection," said Darby solemnly; "nothing else."
The bad day gave its wildness to the night, which stormed and raged through a wind-tormented darkness, to grow ashamed before a murky dawn and threatening to hide in the caves of storm, leaving a still world and pallid, washed-out sky, with an apologetic sun wintering in its cloudless expanse. Far out on the point the spray was lashing up silver bright; caught in the sheltered bay the caged waves heaved sullenly.
Gheena came down to breakfast in reflective mood. She was completely at her mother's mercy as to money until she married or came of age, and her mother's money meant Dearest George's. Vexed by the falling off of his savings, George Freyne had spent a long evening carping at his stepdaughter, and forbidden a fire in her own small sitting-room when she wanted to go there to play cards.
George Freyne objected to Gheena's keeping her three horses, although there was no real hunting. He objected to a three-year-old bay brought in to train. He was, in fact, in the humour to object to everything, and he talked gloomily, of putting down the motor and taking again to the outside car, which languished in the coach-house.
"As that young horse has been brought in, he could be trained to harness," he said unpleasantly; "and Bluebird was bought for a cart; she would do."
Gheena's blue roan mare was a precious possession. Miss Freyne eyed the breakfast table with unalloyed gloom, and helped herself to eggs simply as an everyday duty and not because she wanted one.
"Dearest George said we were to have them poached or plain boiled in future," remarked Mrs. Freyne, coming in. "He said it would save the frying butter, you know."
Gheena rapped a brown shell and remarked she wished that it was in futurity.
"As it's our money——" she began.
"But you could not hint that to a sensitive man, Gheena dear, and an egg is just the same—isn't it, dear? There is always the yolk and the other part, isn't there, Darby?"
Darby had stayed the night.
"And the shell," said Gheena, talking again. "I'll have ham, I'm not hungry, and they're quite hard. I've battered all round without a dinge coming."
She ate ham more cheerily. Dearest was extremely particular as to boiled eggs. At one time he had hung lovingly on a patent boiler, his watch in his hand. But the boiler had the determination of all such affairs, namely, to hand out the egg either quite hard or glutinously raw, and to decline to say which until the shell was cracked, when it would chuckle softly over its blue flame of spirit. It could even spoil two put in at the same time, relying on a current of air to one side the flame to help in this.
Matilda Freyne, after a weary week of being told it was all her fault for not taking the time, took to being late for breakfast, and Mr. Freyne boiled eggs for himself until incidentally the lamp blew up and singed off his moustache. So Anne the cook now endeavoured to plaze th' ould grumbler, as she tersely put it.
Gheena tapped two other egg-shells with complete dissatisfaction, and went to the window to see Mr. Keefe in uniform, trotting up the drive.
"He's rising to the trot," impatiently said Gheena. "Is it the invasion? Crabbit has gone out and nearly upset him, and now he can't open the swing gate. Here is Dearest."
"Hard again," announced George Freyne tragically, rapping pathetically. "Why the simple matter of three minutes in boiling water cannot be attended to! Gheena, you must pay for that white oats out of your quarter's allowance, as you ordered it against my wishes."
Gheena flushed painfully. Her quarter's allowance was represented by the unpleasant little line which denotes minus—she had given it all away to various war funds, and the man was coming to be paid for the oats.
Harold Keefe, pink and fussy, marched in in his dark uniform, and agreed to a second breakfast; he had had his first one at seven.
He came with orders which roused them all. In case of invasion, horses were to be removed; motors destroyed or taken away; hay burnt. He read out the notice sonorously and with effect.
"There's really a chance of their landing." George Freyne touched the silver tea-pot anxiously. "We could hide all this in the cellar and cover it with slack, but there's the question of the horses again. How can we possibly get them all away if anything does happen? It makes it quite clear, Gheena, that one of your old ones and the youngster must be got rid of at once. Bluebird would make a charger."
"To be frozen and ill-used and shot at, with his bad leg and his delicate skin!" shot out Gheena peevishly.
But though they laughed at the little man in uniform eating ham with appetite, the orders which he had brought made something real of that terrible war across the seas. Germans might come to Ireland—grey-green uniforms, spiked helmets, fierce dull faces might be seen on the edge of the low cliffs. What scurry and flutter there would be if it ever came to pass!
This little man, never quite at his ease, represented the struggle of a mighty nation, pouring out blood and gold for the cause of freedom.
Gheena recovered from depression to see a vision of the flight of the family, with her mother packing carefully, and a string of horses being led off inland.
"I should certainly destroy all the jam," observed Mrs. Freyne, also waking up; "they are so fond of sweets."
"Our navy," said Mr. Freyne pettishly, "is paid to see to things of this class. They will never reach us. But, of course, one must be prepared—and, talking of it, can your cook boil eggs, Keefe?" he asked gloomily.
Mr. Keefe, starting at the change of subject, thought that anyone could—just water and a saucepan.
"And bullets," said Dearest George. "Talking of invasion made me remember the eggs. Bullets—with a delicate digestion."
Keefe picked up an egg and said absently that he liked them hard, because they slipped into a pocket so handily, and with bread and butter one was never at a loss. But when you get a kind of squashy thing— "Oh, thank you, Mrs. Freyne! I'd love to take these two, I've miles to go!"
The master of the house murmured "Savouries" into his empty tea-cup; the desire to economize was strong upon him just then.
"I shall go out to warn all the men," he said, "and just show them that we are at war."
He strode into the yard, followed by his womenkind. Dillon, a very old man, was polishing the brasses on the car and crooning "Kathleen Mavourneen" as he did so. He had looked the possibility of the Union in the face a day or two before.
"Mr. Keefe has just called to say there is a possibility, a probability of a German invasion," said Dearest George loudly, "and I must give orders accordingly."
"They'll niver swhim the say," observed Dillon without emotion. "Have ye another tin of Brasso handy, Phil? This is out."
"Phil—Hennessy, you are to be ready at a moment's notice to fire the hay and be off inland with all the horses, and——"
Phil scratched his head dubiously.
"An' if they calls in an' ye out, sir, would we do the same?" he inquired cautiously, "or wait to ax the Germin officers?"
"John Guinane says if they come here they'll come paycable," remarked Hennessy, as he laboured at a broken oats crusher. "With no waypons, but frindly. An' he says, too, there'll be no more money to go to the Government. We'll be let off paymint for our land."
"God bless and save us! Is the haythens comin' here?" remarked Anne the fat cook nervously. "An' the coffee near out, Ma'am—but a pound in the house."
Darby leant upon his crutch, laughing silently, and Dearest George tried to take off the hat he had not put on, missed it, and wiped his forehead.
"Nothing would make them realize anything," he stormed, as he sat down on a box—"nothing."
"Father Pat says the ships is patrollin' the say and they'll niver let them over," said Anne more happily. "An' what is it, Phil?"
"It is the box we put a lick of paint on yestherday; makin' it sweet to hold the crushed oats. He won't be best plazed if it isn't dry," whispered Phil. "An' not much drying in yestherday, aither."
Mr. Freyne got up, removing a film of brown paint with him, and without noticing it, continued his oration.
He was interrupted this time by Matilda, asking him if he'd remembered to write for the salt for the dairy, and left hurriedly, saying more to himself than it was seemly to utter aloud.
"His throuser bein' brown, ye could not see," said Phil anxiously. "God save us! look at the print of himself on it, an' there'll be pure murther whin he claps an eye on his throuser. Hurry in to Naylour, Anne, and tell him to rub on turps whin the Masther changes his clothes."
"Dearest George will be angry," said Gheena thoughtfully; "it is quite sticky."
Mr. Freyne was sorely puzzled later on to find smudges of brown paint on the red leather library chair, and another smudge on the drawing-room sofa, where he had sat down to ruminate over the crass stupidity of the Irish.
When both the housemaids took "their Bible oath" that they were innocent of using fresh paint, there was nothing for it but to harangue his wife and Gheena. When Gheena offered a sporting bet that he had done it himself, he got really angry, and unwisely accused her of impertinence to her elders.
Phil knocked at the library door.
"I'm carrying the horses to the forge, sir, to be looked after against they take the road," he said pleasantly. "An' James is up to know who'll lead the prize bull, for he'll go with no one but himself, an'hecan't walk five mile. An' where will he go to? he says."
When the locality mentioned by Mr. Freyne was a very hot one, Phil said "Yes, sir," and returned, murmuring that the Germans made the Masther terrible peevish.
"I am going on to Cahercalla, Gheena; you would probably like to come."
Gheena said "No" absently. She was watching a distant figure on the edge of the cliff. It looked like the Professor.