Читать книгу The Scratch Pack - Dorothea Conyers - Страница 4

CHAPTER III

"There is three of them here inside, Miss," said Mary Casey, looking round. "Doatee, Beauty, an' Colleen. Colleen had three pups, but he has them reared this long ways' back, an' one is gone to Marty, me cousin, for the sheeps. Indeed, then, I am sure an' certain, Miss, that neyther Matt nor Jim would oppose any wish ye have for the dogs, an' I'd be glad to be out of feedin' them myself. Matt is in Bedford, Miss, and Jim in Aldershot presently, an' ye can be afther writin' to them both."

Gheena asked a little feebly for the other hounds.

Young Andrew Casey, aged twelve, issued from behind a curtain of shyness to observe that these three were the besht dogs in the lot. "Colleen can enthrap a cat as well as a hare," he said proudly. "And Beauty there, when he do catch a rot, 'd bring it in to his pups an' not ate it himself."

Mrs. Casey told her son not to be gabbin' before the genthry, so Andrew withdrew again behind the haystacks, a watchful eye on his favourites.

"There is two pairs at Danny's, Miss."

"And one is not a hound at all," chimed in the now irresistible Andrew, "but a torrier. He is Dandy's pup."

Dandy, busily engaged in chasing fleas, raised a yellow head when her name was mentioned.

"Hould ye're whisht, Andy, the child is demented for them dogs, Miss. He'd ax no bether than be afther them. An' don't be mindin' him, Miss Gheena, for the torrier Doatie's pup as well, with a gran' huntin' nose on him."

Doatie, a pied hound with bandy legs, wagged a pleased tail, and threw his tongue to show his breeding.

Gheena had not found Darby waiting for her, so had taken a short cut to the Caseys', found its apparently straight way barred a boggy trench, and had had to climb up a steep hill, where slates and small quagmires lived cheek by jowl in united friendship. To step squelchily from one and slip with a sharp slaty grate into another had proved tiring. Also, Gheena, inspired by Violet Weston's blue suede shoes, had put on a pair with bright buckles, which she looked at proudly until she missed her way, and then remembered remorsefully the slighted brogues in her room at Castle Freyne. The charm of comparing her feet with the widow's had now completely evaporated.

Marty Casey's, where two more pairs of the pack could be seen, was pointed out to her, a thin trail of smoke marking its chimney.

"The road to it does be leadin' around," said Mrs. Casey; "but across the hills it is not a mile only. Would ye say the dirty piece 'd be good walkin' to-day, Andy?"

"I would not," said Andrew, appearing suddenly, holding Beauty by her forelegs. "I went down a foot in it meself yestherday," he added briefly; "an' I light, not like yerself."

"There's sphots, even if ye go discreet, that is onaisy, but I do go that way meself."

Gheena chose the road with decision. She wrote down the regiments of Jim and Matt and sighed drearily.

Several hounds were billeted in small cottages in the neighbourhood, and she meant to try to see them all. But the conciliation of the Caseys being necessary before any others could be looked at, she shook hands and tramped away.

Andrew, trotting beside her, asked wistfully if she was sot on the dogs.

"Beauty do be sleepin' with me," he said shyly. "I lets him in anonst an' me Mama aslheep."

Gheena, seeing something glimmer behind bright eyelashes, promised Andy that if they hunted, she would lend him Ratty, her Welsh pony, for every meet. This was a small mouse-coloured animal, which attacked large banks as if they were a ladder, but always got to the other side without mishap, and which could go all day. Walls were not often seen, and timber he either went over or under, in both cases generally dislodging his rider. He had a mouth of iron and the self-will of Lucifer, coupled with complete determination to get after hounds, but he was absolutely safe and neither kicked nor bucked.

"Every nice day if we hunt, then, Andy," said Gheena. "And—and you wouldn't like to see all the foxes dead and none to go after when the poor huntsmen come back from the war."

The light of desire in Andy's eyes showed that he would now put up with even the loss of Beauty as a bedfellow. He knew Ratty well.

A doubt concerning a "ridin' throuser" being solved by the promise of a pair of his very own, Andy's eyes sparkled wildly, and to show his gratitude he offered guidance by the short cut, explaining that he had not even an eye sthuck to his feet when he crossed in it yestherday, the two dogs an' Dandy bein' close on a hare; so it might be right if crossed careful.

Gheena chose the road. She had often jogged up it out hunting; now it seemed to wind interminably, and the surface to grate away under each step she took.

High banks, with blackberry vines and honeysuckle sprawling over them, kept away the wind. Gheena toiled up a steep glen and thought out what she would say to Darby. In the glen the clinging friendship of the blackberry and honeysuckle gave way to bare red banks spangled with slabs of drab slate, which caught and gave back the heat of the sun, little oozing trickles of moisture being quite insufficient to cool them.

The glen ended at cross roads. Gheena stood still there. She was extremely hot, her feet ached in the buckled shoes, and she eyed the winding brown ribbon of road turning towards the left towards Marty Casey's house with bitter dislike.

It was a road advancing without apparent method, turning up to the right, then finding that scenery dull, and running off to the left again, climbing steep hills which it apparently might have avoided, and avoiding others which would have shortened its way by miles, its surface, two ruts and gravelly stones, and its edges inhospitable ditches of boggy water.

It was only the prospect of telling Darby of his slackness which made Gheena draw a long breath and look toward the road with gloomy determination. Perhaps Marty Casey had a trap or a cart which he could drive her back to the town in.

The tuff-tuff of a motor made her look round hopefully; a long grey nose glided round the sharp corner where the roads branched to the right, and Basil Stafford put down his foot-brake with a jar.

"I was out at Cloony Point, and I thought that I might find you and Dillon seeing the hounds," he said.

Gheena greeted him ill-humouredly. His grey tweed suit was so completely unlike khaki, and she was in the mood to be jarred.

She wished to know irrelevantly, "Why roads could not go straight to places? Up and down, and round about," said Gheena, with a note of hysterical over-fatigue in her voice, "and everywhere, as if they were playing 'Round the Mulberry Bush' instead of going to Marty Casey's. You make drains. Why don't they go straight?"

Stafford thought apologetically that perhaps it was because there were several places to go to. In the still soft air little trails of blue-brown smoke showed where houses stood.

When Gheena merely snorted, unconvinced, he also explained that in places road-builders found boggy spots or solid rock, and it was more expedient to go round these obstacles to avoid expense.

"People with sense," said Gheena witheringly, "make flat roads. I only thought you might have known. Of course, drains are so simple."

Here Mr. Stafford very humbly offered her a lift, and asked about the hounds.

"Crooked-legged, splay-footed beagles," said Gheena "and Dandys and sheep-dogs. But we could ride after them," she said, brightening up; "they would hunt."

"A Dandy Dinmont," said Stafford absently, "wouldn't hunt far."

Gheena replied icily that she had never mentioned Dandy Dinmonts. Even the Dunkillen people did not hunt over Scotch terriers, and there was no wit in being absurd.

"I—you mentioned Dandies." Stafford's cheeks were a little red. "Shall I drive you on?"

"I can walk," said Gheena coldly. To drive with Basil Stafford would be to tacitly condone his shortcomings.

"Oh, very well. I'm sorry." A sly start sent the grey car throbbing into life; she began to back for the turn home.

Gheena was very tired; she grew white, and the stately hills seemed to gain in size; before her stretched the interminable badly laid-out mountain road.

"And you'd much better drive," said Stafford, humbly again. "It's quite a long way—if you want to see those hounds. It's important."

Gheena got in slowly.

"Or—er—see Dandies," he added as he put in the clutch.

"Dandy was the mother," said Gheena impatiently, "Dandy the terrier. And the pup is some kind of hound one side. I said Dandy, not Dandies."

Stafford stopped the car suddenly. He was sorry to disturb her, but he had forgotten to put in petrol.

Far below them lay the sea, dimpling and flashing in the sunlight, greeny dark by the cliffs, grey blue in the long neck of the harbour, a great carpet of diamond points outside. Leeshane rose its long grey hump from the flash; Innisfail was vaguely purple. Here and there on the great splashing water-way a red sail glinted, or a smudge of smoke hung darkly as some steamer thrashed its uneasy way to harbour.

Gheena sat on the step of the car, looking out. Just behind these hills and across the harbour they hunted. It was hilly and boggy; there were woods and lakes, but patches of grass gave them short glimpses of gallops, and when one got used to it there was joy in the scramble: in hounds hunting over the heathery hills and the ever-constant fear of losing them when they vanished into a glen, or one of the thick little pine woods which were set as dark emeralds in the grey hill-sides. Joy in the perfection of those bursts over grass fields with low banks to jump. And quite far inland, if their fox was kind enough to avoid a chain of lakes and a big bog, there was quite a stretch of good country. It was fox-hunting with its hopes and fears, its joys and sorrows, its mystery of uncertainty. The little field down there was as keen watching hounds run as though they rode in far-famed Leicestershire, and crossed the fox-hunting paradise in Limerick.

Peace hung over the land; the withering heather gave tinge of purple still; the sun caught the slate beds on the hills, making them gleam dull red and brown, and below there was the wonder of the sea.

"One cannot realize it—here," almost whispered Gheena. "Dust and the pound of feet, and the rattle of guns, and men out to kill each other in this quiet world."

"France was as quiet as this—two months ago," Basil said quietly. "Rows of poplars, long white roads, sluggish rivers, great patches of yellowing corn, grapes growing purple. I've been at a big camp," he said, "and seen and heard the rattle and the tramp and the men's faces come out of the cloud of yellow dust—kindly, merry faces, all so keen for war—and now all fighting...."

"For us," said Gheena very deliberately—"fighting."

"For—us," he said after a pause, looking straight at her. It was Gheena who flushed; except when speared on by patriotism, she was naturally polite and averse to hurting people's feelings.

Something in the flash in Stafford's eye made her look away for quite a long time at the nearest smudge of smoke.

An answering flash hidden from him rose in her own eyes. One could serve one's country by other ways than the knitting of stockings. When she turned, she had smoothed accusation from her expression and even smiled.

"It is almost impossible to realize," she said dreamily, and with a clarified innocence of having meant anything by that emphasized "is."

Basil Stafford eyed her suspiciously, until a sudden smile made him quite good-looking. He took out a pair of glasses.

"That's a liner," he said. "See the far-off steamer, and those are two tramps with food for us. What if the Germans fulfil the threat they are whispering of already and cut off our supplies? It would be reality then, Miss Freyne, over here."

"We could burn turf and eat chickens," said Gheena briefly, "and catch fish. We need never starve here. And is that petrol in yet? I told Darby Malachi's public house, and I waited there and left a message."

"You said McInerny's," said Stafford, screwing down the tank. "Not Malachi's."

"McInerny's—no. Ask Darby."

Gheena found people who contradicted her extremely tiresome. She flashed an awe-inspiring glance at her pilot and repeated "Malachi's" angrily. Lancelot never dared to contradict her; he might disagree vaguely, but he only did it in his mind and not aloud; or to his mother afterwards, who would say, sighing, that heiresses were always wrong-minded; but that, after all, once there was money nothing mattered, and that it was only in small houses with one sitting-room that quarrelling was really objectionable. Lancelot had been duly instructed that he was to marry his cousin Gheena.

"Well, if I said McInerny's I meant Malachi's, and Darby might know the other would be quite out of my way, unless I went to fetch the letters, and it was too early for that," said Gheena, unruffled. "Is—there—any news to-day?"

Basil stopped the car to pull out a telegram, one crisply short.

"We are retreating. They are close to Paris," he said quietly. "The roses in the papers are red roses out yonder, Miss Freyne. No break in our line. Retreating in perfect order. Kaiser's time-table wrong. Germans fed on beet. The nonsense of it all absorbed with boiled eggs at breakfast. Eggs put up by the war too."

"This car," said Gheena, offended at the mating of war news and boiled eggs, "came up Lishna Hill quite quickly. Did she do it on second?"

"Well, no—on top," said Stafford apologetically. "No load, you see."

"She must be a very powerful car," said Gheena suspiciously. "A twenty, is she?"

"Well, yes," said Stafford meekly, suppressing the extra twenty-five. "Yes, I—was given her, you see, by the——"

He stopped short at the word to swing in a narrow gate, while Gheena, leaning back, wondered darkly why a humble inspector or overseer of drainage works should own so powerful a two-seater. Her active mind was so full of conjectures that she awoke with a start to their stoppage in a small field fenced by banks topped with slates, and was greeted by a small woman with ill-tempered eyes.

The prospects of getting rid of four useless hounds appeared to appeal to her instantly.

"There bein' no one to hunt afther them now, an' blow Jim's bugle, and yellow male up to the height of Hiven."

The four hounds, now produced, lounged out for inspection from happy slumber on roasting slates, stretching themselves and yawning.

Daisy, Bridgie, Grandjer and Greatness were of much the same breed as the four first seen. Daisy was a dog hound, names being irrelevant, with some strain of foxhound in him; the others were not particular as to ancestry, but they could all hunt. Grandjer was black and tan, with a docked tail, because, old Casey explained, Jim thought from the colour of him that he was likely to be a torrier.

This was clearly young Dandy.

This Mrs. Casey proffered tea. It was laid in the best parlour, a room of leaden atmosphere, with a great deal of fancy-work about. The grate, instead of cascades of sooty paper, was genteelly hidden by a painted fire-screen, covered with crimson daffodils with purple leaves, and a stork, greatly disturbed at his surroundings, flapping over them. This, they were informed, was the work of Anastasia Casey above at the convent.

Tea was welcome, but oppressed by fashion; appearing on a japanned tray, with slices of baker's bread cut neatly, and pats of butter to apply to it.

Gheena yearned for soda cake, hot—she had seen one in the kitchen—but ate the crumbling papery-crusted slices with resignation, while Mrs. Casey hoped it wasn't too stale entirely, and discussed the war as something one saw in the papers.

"There was talk of Tom Guinane's goin'," she said, pouring out more tea. "Would ye have a neg with it, Miss Gheena, or a taste of jam? The appetite's lavin' ye—but he said he couldn't lave the boat. I would not thrust them Guinanes, anyways," added Mrs. Casey. "There's too much politics in them, spachin' an' chattin' instead of working steady, an' then laying the blame on the King if there isn't the price of a pint in ye're pocket; that's the soort them Guinanes are, Miss."

Gheena nodded. Tom Guinane was a Sinn Feiner, blackly opposed, it would sometimes appear, to everything except all land for nothing, taxes paid by England, free carriage of all fish. These, when he was really brought to bay, were the limits he advanced.

"They are a bad lot out there on Lishannon," said Gheena thoughtfully.

"And in a bad place for a bad lot," put in Basil, "On the point."

Darby Dillon's crutch banged open the door, and he came in, wanting to know why he was left for several hours—in fact, until he drove up and saw Gheena's mother—waiting, in the wrong place.

"If I said McInerny's I meant Malachi's," repeated Gheena impenitently. "And you must have known, Darby, I wasn't likely to want to walk across the shingle to McInerny's in these shoes."

"Not having been there to put them on," said Darby placidly, and avoiding Basil's eye; "but, of course, I might have known, after the fair Violet's yesterday. I'll have hot cake, Mary; I saw some outside."

"If I hadn't been afraid of offending her," said Gheena, thinking regretfully of two dry slices swallowed languidly.

"You were talking of Lishannon and the lot there," said Darby. "There was a chap round last year lodging there, and I'd say a lot of someone's money stayed behind him. There's queer talk down there in the dusk, I tell you."

"What could them foreigners do here an' they not havin' the English to back them?" said Mrs. Casey contemptuously. "Father Dan gave out from the althar that there was no fear of any Germans here, and he should know, for he was at a mission in China for three years."

"So he'd know all about heathens," said Darby gravely.

"He does so," said Mrs. Casey.

"I hears that young widdy below does be takin' Tom Guinane an' looking for mackerels," she said, "an' payin' him five shillin' a day, and none to tell her the robbery. That Tom is the broth of a rogue. Will I lave in the dogs to the back of yere stheam carriage, Misther Darby?"

"You will not," said Darby firmly, "unless Miss Gheena comes to hold them in."

"They might all be aisy but Grandjer. An' a cat couldn't show its whiskers on the road but he'd lep out an' up as if it 'twas an air balloon," Mrs. Casey said thoughtfully. "Bether to throttle them up and let one of the boys carry them to the great house."

Basil Stafford hastily interfered to say that they did not want the hounds dead, and was told sharply by Darby that throttlin' was merely an expression signifying roping up.

"If Mrs. De Burgho Keane wasn't coming to tea to-morrow," said Gheena, walking stiffly, with footsore feet, "I'd go to look at the kennels, Darby. There are about ten other things called hounds about, and they could be collected late when they heard from the Master."

"If he vetoes it," said Darby, "thinking we'll spoil his foxes by making them run too slow, we'll hunt something, Gheena, if it's only a herring. Crabbit is outside thinking of fighting with Grandjer."

Crabbit was disputing the entrance to a rat-hole, every hair on his red body bristling, with Grandjer unabashed, gurgling out defiance beside him.

Crabbit, removing himself with reluctance, got into the long, low two-seater and brooded in the wrongs of life. Gheena limped to Darby's car.

"I saw Mrs. Weston with Keefe out on the coast road," said Basil, "and the Ford appeared to be stuck. They were at her for half an hour."

"And—you never helped her?" Gheena swung round.

"Oh, well, I saw them from Dunleep Hill, you see," he said apologetically. "I was just looking down at the road, and saw. One watches the sea these days," he added, hesitating a little.

"What she sees in that pink peony, Keefe?" said Darby. "A smart little woman."

Basil said "Taking" absently. "I'm dining there to-night," he went on, "to hold cards. Not to play Bridge, because only two of us know how, and if we get against the other two, they upset us so much we invariably lose, and if we cut them they upset us still more, and I get to bed with my brain very like a piano in a damp climate. The old Professor makes the fourth."

"To-night, then, I make a fifth," said Gheena. "Crabbit and I are walking over at nine. What! It's not safe out so late alone, Mr. Stafford? Do crabs and jelly-fish attack one, or coastguards looking out for nothing on earth?"

Darby's small car bounced down the hill with the energy, over ruts, due to her short wheel base. She took hills with a grunt of effort, and was unpleasantly opposed to the gliding of Stafford's two-seater.

Mrs. Weston, seated on a bench outside her cottage, with very brilliant orange suede shoes liberally displayed, ran across to stop them, and to inquire eagerly about the hounds. She had already written about a saddle, and that kindly Mr. Keefe was looking out for a horse for her. Darby said mildly that it would be well if she looked out herself, and smiled softly. Harold Keefe had already gone in for some horse-coping.

In the matter of horses, it was evident that Violet Weston was distressingly feminine. She chattered about light-weights and the easiness of finding hunters for a lady as if Queen Victoria still reigned.

"Mr. Keefe advises a side-saddle," she said, "as he's afraid Mrs. De Burgho Keane doesn't like innovations. But neither do I, so I am going to risk riding my own way."

There was something very taking in Violet Weston's bright eyes and slightly squeaky voice.

Darby said so as they drove on.

"Only they seem to be a decade behind the times in Australia," he said, as he swung in the wide iron gates where two stone animals snarled indefinitely at either side.

Darby found George Freyne on the steps, examining the butcher's book by the failing light, and raving at the cost of war. Matilda, his wife, was sitting down—she never stood up for long—and blandly suggesting that it did not matter, as one could eat chickens and game, and herrings would be coming in, that is. Didn't Dearest George think so?

"And lobsters, if Gheena would get Phil to set out the baskets." Dearest produced a pencil, with which he commenced to write down suggestions for economies.

Less cakes for tea; there were baskets of eggs used up every week; less bacon for breakfast; a rigid allowance in the kitchen.

"Didn't you sell your bullocks for more than you expected?" Darby asked, as he put a warm cloak over the Darracq's bonnet. "And if Reedy pays you more, you must pay Reedy more, mustn't you?"

This philosophy proving distasteful, Darby took out nis crutch and shuffled nimbly up the steps.

Gheena had stopped to talk to a fair-haired boy who, when you looked closer, appeared to have been a man for years.

The young man, Phil said, was coughing slightly.

"But she'd ate all before her," said Phil cheerily. "What's that, Ma'am? I'm to set out lobster pots, mate bein' up."

"Them Guinanes do be goin' on at me when I sets out the pots," he whispered to Gheena. "Bitther as horse-chestnuts. But if ye give me a couple of shillin's, Miss Gheena, I'll buy two lobsters from them, an' no one wiser."

This part of the régime of war economy having been disposed of satisfactorily, the news was talked of, picture papers, their illustrations almost aquiver with contempt for Germany, looked at, and the situation discussed heatedly.

"Some people, or people who know, tell me that there is a regular nest of spies all along the coast, ready for months," said Darby, as he ate portions of the sirloin of beef which his host carved with manifest care. "Bases for submarines, with oil for them, and even wireless installations. Those little houses out there on the cliff could use those nicely, couldn't they?"

Gheena was very thoughtful when she set out to Seaview, the intensely obvious name of so many seaside lodges. She was going across the beach, so Darby did not offer to go with her. He stood leaning on his crutch, watching her disappear into the shadows, and his sigh as he turned to go in and play picquet was tinged with impatience. It is hard to stand still in life while others walk easily.

One side showed scant trace of injury, the other so twisted and crippled. The doctor who had patched him together had told him that in time the crushed limbs might grow stronger, a broader hope of activity came to him. But the leg dragged heavily now as he hobbled up the shallow steps.

Gheena begged Crabbit to let rabbits sleep, and swung down on to the beach; she could see the lights of a ship at the quay, one which came in a few times a year with supplies for the villagers. Someone was pushing a boat off; she heard the scrape on the shingle.

Crabbit resented the intrusion on his foreshore, and a man's voice, sounding uneasily, told him to go home. A stone whizzed, its impact changing the red dog's note to one of such swift anger that Gheena could see someone leaping for sanctuary into the boat.

"It is Miss Gheena. Call him off, Miss; he'll ate us."

The moon chose this moment to illuminate the shore, and to show one man just scuffling over the side of the boat, and a second ensconcing himself behind some barrels.

"If you hadn't thrown rocks at him, Tom Guinane," said Gheena angrily, "he wouldn't get cross."

Tom Guinane, visibly nervous, swore by the God above him that it was but a handful of shingle that wouldn't crush a sherrimp, an' only thrun funnin', he not bein' sure whose dog it was.

Crabbit came to heel, master of the situation, with one white tooth bared for inspection, and Gheena watched the loading of the boat.

"Bits of flour an' things," Guinane told her, "for the shop outside, an' cruel dear now, Miss, thanks to the war. Not havin' much time in the light since I went to Mrs. Weston, I must do me work be night."

He spoke ill-humouredly, with a perpetual note of being wronged by life.

The boat was pushed off, passing from inertness to life as she swam in the shallow water. Gheena could see an array of barrels standing on a rock, waiting to be loaded. She climbed the cliff path to Seaview with the ease of good wind and practice, to find the three waiting for her at the card-table, and Mrs. Weston's old Swiss nurse just going out to meet her.

"We thought the gate to the sea path might have been locked," said Violet Weston. "Old Berthe loves keys and safety. She entreats me unceasingly to go to Switzerland as the only safe and proper place during the war."

Berthe, who wore ample skirts and rather represented a feminine barrel crowned with a black cap, came in with syphons and decanters. She returned with sandwiches clumsily cut, bade them Bon nuit in a villainously Swiss accent, and hobbled out.

"Mrs. De Burgho Keane wanted to know if she could be a German in disguise," giggled Violet, "because the old thing of course talks both languages. And Berthe has no sympathy with fighting. Poor old soul! she has some relations hard at it in France—two, I think."

Mr. Harold Keefe was mildly in love—sufficiently so as to occasionally forget to make declarations as he stared at Mrs. Weston, but not sufficiently to forget common-sense and to try to obtain all suitable information concerning Paul Weston, deceased, his circumstances in life, and his last testament. Gheena knitted when she was dummy, and talked incessantly of the Bobbery pack without.

Horses must now be made fit, no one had bothered so far. Mumsie's saddle was not even newly stuffed, and Dearest's two horses were on hay and bran.

Mrs. Weston decided to put hers on straw and looked surprised because Stafford and Gheena laughed immoderately, and Keefe choked politely.

"With all this talk of horses," said the Professor patiently, "I wait to play."

When it was decided that he had not gone three diamonds over Basil's three clubs, because when pressed he offered to show that of diamonds he had but one, the game proceeded, some umbrage being taken to Gheena the Professor's partner, leading the ace of diamonds and then another.

"But she might have, in any case," said Violet Weston easily. "Mr. Keefe, what shade is my new horse?"

Keefe, who was standing out, said: "Bay, blood bay, with black points."

"Then it's Casey's with the foreleg, I suppose. We're down two," said Basil.

"It is not," said Keefe, with deepening complexion.

"Slattery's, then. It had such a cold, the remount man wouldn't look at it. They're are the only two bays."

"I will double them," said the Professor viciously, and was almost put out, holding five spades, to find that he had not heard correctly.

Basil Stafford offered to see Gheena home.

It was nearly full-tide; the harbour gleamed under the moonlight, with the shadows black as ink.

The ceaseless voices of the sea whispered through the calm—the distant creak of a boat at anchor, the lap and suck of the tide, the cry of sleepless birds.

Oars plashed, leaving a trail of phosphorescent light, low voices echoed.

"The Guinanes come back for a second load," said Gheena. "Good night. I'll go up from the bathing pool."

She heard his footsteps as he went away, not back to the village, but down along the beach. She saw him light a cigarette for a moment, and then disappear into the black shadows of the cliff.

The hall door at Castle Freyne was still open, a yellow gash of light in the darkened house. Darby Dillon leant on his crutch, waiting for her.

Gheena grew hilarious as she discussed the Bridge and the two bays and the Professor's still too well-preserved German accent.

"Stafford saw you home?"

"Yes—he—he has gone off along the cliffs," said Gheena. "Darby, what kind of a man do you think Basil Stafford is?"

"A decent kind of young fellow—with straight limbs," said Darby slowly.

CHAPTER IV

When Captain Lindlay had written from the front in pencil, to say he didn't mind how they killed foxes as long as they kept the people in good humour and the committee agreed, and that they could take lessons from old Barty as to blowing the horn, a committee of four, with a feminine president, formed itself, to get to work as soon as possible.

George Freyne saw financial difficulties, because covert keepers would desire to be paid for a find by Grandjer just as if the Dunkillen hounds had all thrown their tongues in unison; but the absent Master had foreseen and anticipated this, so that Darby was able to talk quite firmly of finance.

"Unless one of those terriers gets into a flock of sheep," he said thoughtfully. "They are coming over to-morrow, Gheena, and old Barty is to teach a man how to boil for them; and I am quite sure that Andy Casey will stay to help." Here he winked at Andy who had come down to get orders.

"We'll hunt with ten couple of fox-hounds' relations and I can toot the 'Gone away.'" Here Mr. Keefe, taking out a hunting-horn, made note hideous and forlorn, but still a sound, and unclasped his pink cheeks from the mouth-piece with a gasp of triumph.

Darby remarked he looked rather like one of the Mons angels when he was at it, and he hoped the pack wouldn't think it was anyone dead in the parish; but, after all, one must learn. Here he brayed out "Gone away" shrilly and clearly, and tried to blow them out with minor success.

Mr. Keefe then commenced to practise again until Mrs. Freyne came in mildly, to ask Dearest George if it was possible that a German band had been wrecked in the harbour; and George Freyne, having shrieked, fingers in ears, for silence, surreptitiously picked up one of the hunting-horns and tried himself.

When Gheena took Darby's she smiled, for old Barty had taught her long ago, and she rang out notes worthy of the absent Master.

"I shall carry one myself," said Gheena proudly. "Dearest, Crabbit will howl if you make that noise again."

To which Dearest retorted hotly that he supposed she had made queer noises herself on the beastly trumpet when she began to learn.

"Four of 'em, with copper wanted for shells, too," said Darby thoughtfully. "Will you be the first whip, then, Gheena? and I'll be the second; any number you like. And George can be Master and Keefe the other."

"If I do it in public, I'll make it a whistle," said Freyne hurriedly. "And Keefe had better, too, judging by the wheezes he made."

"We could raise the horns up and blow the whistles inside them," said Keefe thoughtfully. "But, then, if these two blow horns, how are the dogs to know any order at all?"

"They never did know it," said Darby mildly. "Little Andy will beat them with a whip when they run sheep or pigs, and they have forgotten more about hunting than we ever knew."

"But to take them out of covert," said Keefe, "when it's blank."

"I suppose they'll come when they know it is," said Darby thoughtfully. "You see, they never drew any of ours. What's that, Andy? They often did unbeknownt. I daresay. And as to getting them out—what do you say?"

"If there was a fox inside or any of his pups, they'd root them out," said Andy firmly. "Beauty 'd make 'em lep, I'm tellin' you, an' if the foxes got to the din, me Dada 'd go in with a few rocks; we'd gother an' hunt the dogs away back to us outside."

Darby considered the advisability of the Master, even of a bobbery pack, collecting donations of rocks from his field, and thought it was better to wait until occasion arose to think about it.

George Freyne had got the Stores' list open, and was longing dubiously at lists of whistles. Incidentally, he wondered if Lindlay was one of those jealous fellows who would object to another Master in his absence; and added, after a pause, that he'd heard once of some chap who had his neck broken in a hunting cap. Some Lord Something, so perhaps Darby had better be Master.

He was too much occupied by whistles to hear Darby say that ropes appeared equally dangerous at times, as he directed Mrs. Freyne, who had just oozed in and wondered if it was late, to write to the Stores for the loudest whistle they had.

"With two Masters," said Darby, "I wonder whom the hounds will obey?"

"The sorra the sowl but me Dada," comforted young Andy from the window. "Only Beauty 'd follow meself to destruction, the craythur. He came to mass onst an' rose a bawl, an' Father Pat prayin'! An' not a move out of him till me Dada rocked him with Mrs. Maguire's prayer-book."

"Mrs. De Burgho Keane is late; don't you think so, Dearest?" said Mrs. Freyne, shutting up her letter to the Stores. As it appeared in George Freyne's opinion that Mrs. De Burgho Keane was always too early, Matilda Freyne merely looked out, and said perhaps it was not four-thirty yet.

Just then a motor sounded outside, and a deep voice could be heard giving directions to a chauffeur.

Mrs. De Burgho Keane—to forget the De Burgho was to receive a glance which Darby said struck you like a horse's kick—was immeasurably large, and covered with a great deal of drapery, which made the largeness a mystery. Her coats or mantles, generally edged with beads, floated about her; her veils obliterated the outline of her neck; when skirts were hobbled, she had covered them with dust-coats, and her evening dresses were generally flowing. From this haze of dark-hued costume appeared a commanding countenance, high-nosed and keen-eyed, and framed by a toupée which advertised itself as one, without guile.

She wrapped Mrs. Freyne in her large arms, and looked round for Gheena, who had disappeared out the window.

"When she's busy with a tea-cup, she can't kiss you. I'm going until then," said Gheena from somewhere outside, to Darby.

Mrs. De Burgho Keane was a pessimist who regretted everything. Her glances towards the sea seemed to search it for the flotilla of the invaders which she knew must come; she said no precautions were being taken, they were left open-coasted and alone.

"To hear her talk," said Darby in the corner, "one would say the whole British Fleet ought to patrol the coast of Dunkillen."

"We are not taking it to heart," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane as she floated ponderously to rest. "No one seems to mind. Economy is not being borne in upon the nation. Mrs. Harrison's cakes, when I called there, were just as rich as before August."

Darby looked thoughtfully at the array which the old butler was just putting on the tea-table; there were five, and Anne was rather proud of them all. They had done lightsome with her, she had told the kitchen-maid.

Mrs. De Burgho Keane's glance passed from the cakes to the butler, and she grew fiercely red, ejaculating "Naylour!" angrily.

The butler replied, "Good evening, Ma'am," politely, but nervously.

"Hot cakes? Oh, thank you, Matilda; I should hate to grow stout, but as I walked to the garden to-day I may venture. And good evening, Gheena dear! How nicely browned you are, even so late in the year!"

With the faint nervousness with which everyone addressed Mrs. Keane, Gheena touched her cheeks, and said it was bathing all summer.

"The news," said Mrs. Keane ponderously, "is bad. It is always bad. Why do we not sweep Belgium clear? Why?"

Darby, whose eye she caught, replied that he couldn't say, and offered a sultana cake humbly.

"Why not give it back to them instead of bringing the poor things over here?" said Mrs. De Burgho Keane gloomily. "So expensive, too! I am taking three gardeners, and I am told they have never even learnt English. One can hardly imagine it nowadays. I am looking things in the face," she went on emphatically. "It's no use putting futurity behind your back and hoping it will stay there."

Darby put down his tea-cup and rubbed his head softly.

"So I make it keep itself in the future where it should be. I had all the servants up and I've put my foot on their many eggs firmly, and stopped their jam on Fridays, and weeded out those——"

"Those who could go to the war?" flashed Gheena, the patriot, ceasing to be nervous. "Hanly, of course?"

"Your tea is always so good," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane, ignoring Gheena. "Thank you, Matilda. Do you weigh it out daily? I told old Naylour he would have to do without James, the pantry boy, and do Eustace's valeting as well, as Carty had enlisted; and when he said it was too much for him, I made James butler. I saw old Naylour here," added the lady haughtily.

"He was too old to go to strangers, and we thought we could do with him," said Gheena quietly.

"You remember I asked you, Dearest George," put in Mrs. Freyne, an anxious eye on her visitor. "I asked you twice, and you—what are you saying, Dearest, now?"

Dearest was saying "Damn!" a little too audibly, and looking at the door.

"Yes, Dearest George said that he was quite tired of carving," said Mrs. Freyne, "and Naylour is splendid at it. George had just upset some gravy on his lap the evening I asked him, and I think that helped him to decide. Crabbit will snuffle just when Dearest George is getting to the jointy part of the ducks, and it's so upsetting; very like an earthquake or a serious illness under the table."

"It was I who took him," said Gheena briefly. "He is a dear."

"Then I sent away the cook; she was quite old, too," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane, forgetting Naylour gracefully, "and the present one only needs a scullery maid, and I've put down one housemaid; and told the gardener he must do without old Magee, he only pottered lately. I have thoroughly faced futurity," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane; "even my cakes are only caraway seeds now."

"If they didn't get stuck in one's teeth," said Darby absently, "they make you think of Kümmel, and that's pleasant. Crabbit, you've had three pieces of sultana cake."

Crabbit laid a witchingly innocent head on Darby's knee, his big liquid eyes looking up sweetly.

"And I got rid of two of Eliza's dogs," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane pleasantly—"those two useless terrier brutes, with a touch of spaniel in them, Gheena."

"Eliza's dogs, what she loved!" Gheena was on her feet, her eyes flaming. "The dogs! You—you——"

"I told the men to do it," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane placidly, "in the lake—quite humanely."

What Gheena might have said was checked by a whisper from the old butler.

"They are both below at me house," he breathed over the tea-cups. "Little Miss Lizzie 'd break the heart in her, the craythur, over them."

Gheena's flush faded slowly. Mrs. Keane was just asking Darby if he did not think of doing something out there. Drive a car even, he could do that.

"I should be more in the way than a help," said Darby after a pause. He seemed to find it hard to answer. "There will be enough cripples going home without a ready-made one going out," he added with a twisted smile.

"What do you think Evangeline De Burgho Keane was born into the world for?" Gheena asked fiercely, watching the lady go towards the garden, from which she would return followed by a youth bearing a bundle of cuttings and plants, and possibly fruit.

"To make us see how nice other people are," said Darby equally. "Keefe, she's calling you now, she's turned back."

Mr. Keefe emerged from behind a newly-lighted pipe to answer humbly.

"I do trust you are looking after your part of it, Mr. Keefe, and not allowing the police to do nothing on bicycles all over the country when there's a war in Europe. Their place should be on the cliffs watching for spies and submarines."

"I've applied for a commission," said Keefe briefly and irrelevantly, "and the coastguards are trebled. These are on the look-out for men on Leeshane and Innisfail, and there is the patrol boat. My part's inland, Mrs. De Burgho Keane, until I get out to fight."

Mrs. Keane—his tone offended her—said that she feared Mrs. Weston would miss him; but no doubt when they took him off to learn drill they would send some old and experienced man to a place of importance.

"It's like slipping down a cliff covered with furze bushes," said Darby, "everything raking you the wrong way, painfully. Gheena, come and see the horses. Cheer up, Keefe."

He began to move so easily that he looked at his twisted limb, and a thrill of hope moved him. Would it ever regain some strength—allow him even to walk without the crutch he detested? He let it—the leg—drag and saw its inert helplessness, and still thought it did not drag so much or fall so uselessly.

The fine day was passing to a chill evening; the sea looked as though all the gun metal of the world had been ground fine and spread over its heavy waters. It gleamed metallically, caught here and there by rays from a sun half hidden by storm clouds. Autumn turned to sterner mood, weary of flawless skies and brilliant sunshine.

The yard at Castle Freyne was a huge place, sunny and sheltered, with rows of stables sunk darkly into its walls. They were roomy places, with square holes in the ceiling to drop hay and straw through; cold in winter, but horses throve hardily in them, if satin coats were unknown. Gheena had established innovations, such as the removal of hay-racks, water supplied constantly, and oat-crushers—all things which caused the fat old coachman to say loftily that her Dada's hunthers and his father's before him, God rest their sowls! wint out with none of that nonsinse, and follyed the dogs as good as thim Miss Gheena worrited over.

Hanly was nearly seventy, and Hanly's father, who was ninety-four, and absorbed sunshine and firelight according to the seasons nearly all day, seated smoking in an arm-chair, could remember when hunting was hunting.

"'Twasn't at airly dinner-hour ye'd be at the meet, but out at six o'clock till 'twas too dark thin, an' so on up till nine, an' none of ye're trapsin' here an' trapsin' there; but wouldn't one good breedy fox often run till they had their stomachs full of it, an' they'd kill him an' be home by twelve or one, an' in to a fine honest male of pounds of beef and geese and turkeys an' lashens of drink."

Old Mat could not be shaken by any tales of improved breeding of fox-hounds.

"Don't you go out to hunt and not to race?" he would pipe. "An' how can ye be watchin' hounds if ivery moment ye think ye're horse 'll give out an' ye be left behind?"

There was no wire those days, according to Mat, and no claims for fowl eaten by foxes, and no doing up of horses when be rights the big house should be shut for the night.

"A gran' dinner at five an' the shutters shut, an' a bed to sleep in that wasn't all twisted iron, full of air-holes, but close and cosy, with curtains around ye."

Matty could pipe out tales of great hunts in those bygone days—hunts lasting for three or four hours after one fox—and tell of Sergeant, the great black weight-carrier, and of Napoleon and Molly, his own two.

Gheena had three horses of her own—two active compact six-year-olds, just the stamp to gallop as well as scramble, and known as Whitebird and Redbird, and a leggy roan mare, which she had purchased herself in the spring, and which she was not at all sure about, called Bluebird.

Dearest George's horses, paid for by his wife, were large and sedate and extremely valuable. A stout strong cob, with legs of iron, carried Matilda in the very hilly country, and a showy whistling bay on other days.

"I brought over that bay to-day," said Keefe, after he had given the unstinted praise due to other people's horses, and yawned twice outside the boxes; there was nothing to be bought here. "The one I wanted for Mrs. Weston. It had a cold when the remount man was round."

"I knew it was Slattery's," said Darby.

Mr. Keefe grunted irritably.

"I've got it here anyhow," he said. "And I told her I would have, so I hoped she'd come over to see it this afternoon quietly. It's standing in that box."

"Pull it out, Phil," commanded Darby; "Mr. Keefe's bay."

Phil pulled out a narrow, very tall bay with black legs and a well-set-on tail, but showing old marks of brushing in front; it had slightly contracted feet and a whistler's jowl. Notwithstanding these faults, the bay could gallop and jump when he was fresh, but two hours' work saw the end of him; and, tired, he clicked his shoes forging, brushed, and stumbled on the roads, and if asked to go on fencing, finished that up by a variety of crumbling falls. Fattened up, he was taking and showy.

"Of all the—I knew him well," said Darby, just as Mrs. Weston tottered through the archway.

"Naylour told me you were all here," she said, "except Mrs De Burgho Keane, whom he didn't seem to count. So I just came along, sans something, as they say in France, don't they? Mr. Keefe said he would have the hunter horse here for me to see."

Mrs Weston was pleasantly fresh in a bright mauve tam-o'-shanter, a white dress, and shoes to match her hat.

"He's just out on view," said Darby; "and don't slip get just behind him or you might lose him and think him was a clothes-line."

Mrs. Weston stepped forward, gave a quick bird-like glance, and began: "Of all the——" Then she stopped suddenly and looked again.

"He is a very nice horse, isn't he?" she said brightly.

"There isn't gap in the country you couldn't slip through on that fellow," remarked Darby, ignoring Keefe's furious eyes. "And you ought to keep him always tail foremost, Mrs. Weston; his is so pretty."

Violet Weston thought it was a love of a tail, very happily. He was not at all like the horses they rode in Australia, she added, much finer-looking; and she thought he might be very nice to run after hounds on.

"Slattery did it often," said Darby tersely to himself and hobbling off.

Keefe, relieved by his absence, now explained the difficulty of getting any horses just at present. People who had very good hunters hid them away for fear they would be commandeered, and all the sixty and seventy-pound screws were sold.

"The most lamentable sight ever I seen," observed Phil, taking the bay for a little stroll down the yard and back again. "The teeth dhragged out of the youngsters to make them the right age, an' ould sthagers taken that ye'd offered oats to feed 'em on it, sthone blind I seen them bought, an' sore with spavins, an' broken-winded. Old car horses ripped out of the shafts an' soult for chargers. Runaways, stoopers, sthaggerers, the sorra a charnst a man would have to run away at all with the craythurs sint out for them," concluded Phil sorrowfully.

"He—has his—forelegs a little near together, hasn't he?" inquired Violet Weston dubiously.

"The way he can't throw dust up betune them," said Phil softly, something very like a wink trembling on his left eyelid.

Mrs. Weston held up a mauve suede shoe to Phil; next moment she was in the saddle, with a white skirt very much rucked up, and a good deal of mauve silk stockings to be seen. She trotted the bay horse out of the gate and put him into a gallop in the field outside.

When everyone had rushed out to see her fall off, they saw that she was quite at home in a man's saddle, and if she did not ride over well, yet knew how to stay on.

Returning with the bay all out, Mrs. Weston had only just time to avoid Mrs. De Burgho Keane, who fled aside with a scream and then halted to stare icily at the mauve legs.

"I couldn't hold on sideways," said Violet Weston apologetically; "and, of course, I'd wear boots. He won't be very dear, will he, Mr. Keefe, because I want a new fur coat as well?"

Mr. Keefe said sixty pounds with a faint quiver in his voice. "And a dozen of gloves for luck," he said gallantly.

"I'd rather have a bridle," said Mrs. Weston pleasantly. "And there is only a kind of shed which Tom Guinane says he must put a door to; but I expect the horse will do nicely."

The old saw of Romford's, "I'm too much of a gentleman," rang in Keefe's head.

"If we really are going to have hunting, and you say horses are so hard to find," went on Mrs. Weston pleasantly.

Keefe thought ruefully of the string of horses which would be trotted towards the front gate of Seaview directly Violet Weston made her intention of hunting known. Prompt decision would alone save him from loss on his gamble, for he had bought the narrow bay.

Mrs. De Burgho Keane looking on, now declared that if, as her husband informed her, foxes must be killed, they ought to be shot, and not make the country a laughing stock by running about after the Caseys' foot pack. The earths could be closed and the animals dislodged with terriers and good shots stationed. "Now you are able to shoot still, Darby?"

Darby said "Yes," with the same twisted smile.

"And the foxes killed, the skins could be sold for the Blue Cross Fund," said the lady decidedly.

She held the public ear as she put forward the absolute wickedness of spending money upon hunters when every penny was, and would be, wanted for the war.

"If everyone gave up keeping everything, it seems to me that a lot of people would starve," said Darby gravely. "Out-of-place servants who cannot join the army are rather at a discount this year. If we all did nothing always, we should make a lot of riches and create a lot of poverty."

"If you are sure she will get over the fences," said Violet Weston, "I will buy him. And can I call it Britannia or Commander-in-Chief?"

Darby mildly suggested Equator, because it was a line, and was coldly turned away from.

Harold Keefe drew a breath of sheer relief.

"I'll have the cob with the curbs for myself now," he thought blissfully, "out of the profit."

"You are going to take it without a vet.?" said Gheena. "Are you? You warrant it, Mr. Keefe?"

Mr. Keefe's pained expression rested on the Commander-in-Chief's hocks, and he said warmly that he'd warrant it fit to hunt, for it never went lame on them.

"Oh, leave it between them, Gheena," murmured Darby wearily. "They can put it in the settlements."

Mr. Keefe, with an outburst of unwilling honesty, now drew gloomy attention to the curb.

"He has a curb," he said darkly. "It never stopped him."

"But—I thought it was a very severe bridle," said the widow vaguely, "and was two bits; and it is only wearing one at present."

"If it was a gag on his hocks it would do her," gulped Darby, when he had recovered a little and emerged from the stable he had fled into. "He wears his curb behind, Mrs. Weston, not in his mouth."

Mrs. Weston said, "What absolute nonsense!" quite huffily and patted the Commander's white nose.

"I hate a horse with a white nose, he always looks like a sheep," said Darby. "And, hello, Mrs. Delaney! How many hens has the fox eaten now?"

A little withered old woman had come into the yard, a basket in her hands.

"It is not hens I am afther, Masther Darby, but the lind of a handful of flour from Anne to save me walkin' onto the village, the Guinanes being quite run out."

But they were taking it home last night from the ship, said Gheena quickly.

"They didn't brin' it to the shop, then, Miss Gheena, an they up an' toult me they could not have it until to-morrow."

Gheena nodded carelessly.

In a flutter of dark draperies Mrs. De Burgho Keane moved to her motor-car, a luxurious Limousine.

"And you must be particular with Naylour, Matilda dear," she said. "I noticed that to-day, after years of impressing Madam upon him he had fallen back upon Ma'am. You will find him a difficult old creature," she added acidly, for just then she recalled the paucity of Naylour's wages and his great use in the house.

A malignant eye peering from behind the kitchen door revealed that old Naylour was listening.

The big car lolloped off heavily, and the butler advanced into the yard; Mrs. Freyne had gone in.

"I wondther who'll juggle the decanthers of port-wine now for her," he said bitterly. "Fine red sthuff from Macdinough's for the ladies an' the clergy, and the cellar wine for themselves an' th' experts. An' champagne the same way, with me heart broke in me, huntin' Jamesey for fear he'd make a mistake. An' in she'd wheel directly the dinner was over an' the gentlemin cleared out, makin measure in her heart's eye on the decanthers befour she'd lock them up. The gentleman had no maneness in him, poor gentleman, but herself. God save us!"

"I don't know why she ever comes here," said Gheena pettishly. "Isn't she horrid, Mr. Keefe?"

"She has the face of a fat rat on her," said Keefe briefly.