.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 53175
   :PG.Title: The Scratch Pack
   :PG.Released: 2016-09-30
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Dorothea Conyers
   :DC.Title: The Scratch Pack
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1916
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

================
THE SCRATCH PACK
================

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      *The Scratch Pack*

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      *By Dorothea Conyers.*

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   .. class:: medium

      *Author of
      "The Strayings of Sandy," "Meave," etc.*

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   .. class:: medium

      *LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO.
      PATERNOSTER ROW
      1916*

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.. _`CHAPTER I`:

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   THE SCRATCH PACK

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   CHAPTER I

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"If there even appeared to be the faintest reason for
his not going into something," said Gheena severely.
Then she put her hand on the collar of the nondescript cur
named Crabbit, an animal which was not precisely an
Irish terrier and not quite a retriever, had some distant
connections in the house of spaniels, and other relations
too varied to trace, the result of this liberally scattered
ancestry being endowed with a silky-red coat, and liquid,
truthful eyes which expressed his powers of affection, but
not the original sin behind his broad forehead.

"You will get a cold in your nose and snuffle at dinner
if you go into the water again, Crabbit.  No, sir!  If
there could be the faintest reason for it," went on Gheena
Freyne.  "If he was like Dick Kennedy, who has no one
to help him, or half blind like Professor Brown, or couldn't
walk——"  She stopped, flushing, and took up her
knitting.

"Like me—yes, Gheena."  The words came lightly,
but a little half stifled twisted sigh slipped from Darby
Dillon's lips.  Darby had been a light-hearted, long-limbed
soldier in days of peace.  If you saw him sitting
down or in the saddle, and came up at his right side, he
was apparently long limbed and good-looking still: a lean
well-built man of about thirty-five, but at the left side
Darby's shoulder stooped; he shuffled with one limb stiff
and useless, generally with a crutch under his shoulder.

A crashing fall playing polo on hard Egyptian ground
had left him maimed and crippled.

"I—did....  I wasn't.  He's gone again," said Gheena
philosophically.

A streak of red had tumbled over the brow of the low
cliff, and a resounding splash marked the fact that Crabbit
was once more in hot pursuit of seagulls, the hope to seize
one unawares being embedded deeply in him.

"He is off to that rock where they all sit on.  Mother
gets quite worried when he snuffles under her chair and
thinks it is bits or perhaps he is going mad.  Why do
some people"—Gheena whistled impotently—"never get
a grip of life, Darby?  Mummie can't ever think about
Crabbit without asking Dearest if it isn't right—Aren't
the dog's nose noises suspicious?  Darby—I—I never
meant to refer to anyone."

Darby said cheerily that he knew it, and that one got
used to a lost leg, even if it meant other losses—here his
eyes clouded—and that a fellow who could sit on a saddle
need never grumble.

They sat silent then, looking across the sea; the great
endless water carpet was grey under a grey sky, always
moving with froth of spray on its lips when it touched the
shore, here and there a line of white breaking over some
hidden rock, its steely heaving distance merging to the
moving sky.  Far off the smudge of smoke marked the
track of a liner standing out, and two fishing boats,
red-sailed, were creeping into harbour.  The sea-birds cried
their curiously eerie notes, a little stretch of golden sand
sandwiched between the rocks was fringed with pipers
skimming on their infinitesimal legs, and here and there
a breathless and outraged gull eyeing Crabbit irritably.

The peace of late autumn was on the world; smoke
curled up lazily from the little stone chimneys; children
were gathering seaweed and carrying it up to dry.  Red
war seemed impossible as the two looked out across the
heaving, dimpling sea.

The cliffs, covered with short, sweet grass, ran at
Duncahir to the V of a small deep harbour, shaded by high
hills at the back, shadowing it chilly.  Beyond the shadow
of the hills stretched a tangle of jutting rocks hollowed by
innumerable caves, out to where the Atlantic beat and
surged on the higher cliffs outside, and, skipping, trod its
brave way to and fro to distant ports.

The mouth of the inlet was wide, and generally rough
with the swell and rush of cross currents.

In the soft salty air fuchsias flourished, their blazing
bells in every sheltered nook, and planted in hedges for
shelter.

In a hollow near the mouth of the harbour, battered
trees protesting against their position as mere protection
from roaring gales, Castle Freyne stood, tall and rambling,
with all kinds of semi-tropical flowers growing in the
garden, and its rows of blind windows staring reproachfully
among open-eyed glassed fellows.

The village of Duncahir hung upon the very edge of
the cliffs with an air of supreme pride because it did not
topple over, so close were the houses built to where the
land broke off and the sudden rent all fuchsia-edged.

The Freynes had once owned all the mountain and bog
and flat lands along the east side of the harbour, and had
now disposed of it with cheer; this sentiment lessened
when it appeared that the tenants of the estate still
expected to have defunct calves replaced, help given
with carts and horses and all the old benefits which a
patient landlady had conferred on them.

Matilda Freyne, Gheena's mother, had acquiesced with
every decision made for her in life save one—her own
name.  She had detested it in her childhood, turned it
to Matty and Mat and Tilda during her girlhood, and
then dared anyone worthy of the name of friend to call
her by any of these abbreviations, as they were worse
than the original.

She had seriously thought of becoming Genevieve when
confirmed, but having some vague idea that a change of
name was irrefutably coupled with immersion, and her
hair being straight by nature, she refrained, holding a
grievance for years afterwards against the clergyman
because he had not fully explained a subject which she
here consulted him.

On her wedding day the "I Matilda" was spoken so
faintly that an agitated mother held out strong smelling-salts
and quite upset the ceremony.  It took the Bishop,
a nervous man, five minutes to recover, because he had
been bending over to whisper reassurance to the
faint-voiced bride at the moment.

In the vestry Matilda viciously upset the ink-bottle
over the registry book, thus obliterating every signature
except her own.

When her first child was born and proved to be a girl,
Mrs. Freyne decided that at least she should not be
burdened with one hideous name.  Her child's was to be
Irish and the name of a flower.  Very weak-minded people
have occasional outbursts of complete obstinacy, and
when Major Freyne, who was very deaf, insisted on the
family name of Annette or Caroline, Matilda, his wife,
merely sent for the gardener and asked for information
about Irish flowers.

When Hallinan scratched his head and seemed to
think of nothing but Push och Bui and Cruve tharrig,
Mrs. Freyne was still determined, but undecided.  She
held the baby herself at the font, had a flash of inspiration
five minutes beforehand, and pronounced its name
firmly—Carrigeen.

It was sufficiently like Caroline to escape her husband's
notice, and when the astounded Mr. Hallinan, who was
too well acquainted with the word, said "Eh, what?"  Matilda
Freyne repeated it hurriedly and firmly.

When it was pointed out to her—and, in fact, she
remembered that Carrigeen was a certain edible
seaweed—Mrs. Freyne said gloomily
that at least it was not Matilda,
and bent before the blast of marital wrath, with what Major
Freyne called heatedly the aggravation of a sally bough.

When Carrigeen could no longer be Baby or Doatie
she certainly could not be Carrig or Een, and it was the
nurse who settled the matter by calling her Miss Gheena,
with an "h" introduced.

Major Freyne was taken early to his fathers, and his
wife being quite unable to decide anything for herself,
drifted into matrimony with a somewhat peppery cousin,
who resented Gheena's ultimate inheritance of Castle
Freyne at her marriage and the prospect of the dower
house, Girtnamurragh, for himself.

Gheena was slight, with very bright brown hair, seldom
burdened with a hat; a skin browned to a very soft tan,
grey-blue eyes, a crooked smile and a determined will.

"Crabbit very nearly got a gull, Darby; he is snapping
at jelly-fish now and coming in.  And why you men don't
say something!"

Darby Dillon observed patiently that if an American
citizen chose to come to Duncahir for his health, they
really had no right to criticize.

Gheena returned severely that she did not believe that
Basil Stafford had any right either to America or
ill-health, and got up.

The sun was setting, and through a rift in the pack of
clouds came bars of amber and gold, turning Innisfail
island to a dome of misty purple, and Leeshane to a low
hump of mauve.

"If Mom did not cry and talk of her heart I'd go out
myself," said Gheena, dropping three stitches in her
excitement, her needles clicking and flashing feverishly.

"And if I went, no one here would knit.  I caught
that hateful Maria Casey doing fancy work yesterday,
and Annette Freyne making a mitten which might do for
a sandbag.  There is even no hope of hunting.  Hill has
gone now.  I tell you, Darby, I believe—I really believe
that he's—that Stafford man—a——"

"It was hot enough to take a swim this morning,"
said Basil Stafford easily.  "You might have come out,
Miss Freyne, when I was doing aquatic feats."

Gheena knitted faster still.  She looked up, frowning,
at a nondescript and active young man, with pleasant
eyes and a somewhat grim mouth, who was standing
close to them.

"Coming like—like—a man in rubber shoes!  You
might be out after spies," said Gheena sarcastically.

"It was after Carrigeen at low tide," said the young
man gravely, showing a basket of white seaweed, to
prove that the remark was not personal.  "The news is
none too cheery," he added gravely, looking down at a
telegraph-form.

Gheena pulled at the flimsy slip, to read something
concerning cows, sheep, pigs and several numbers, and
to grunt suspiciously.

"The newspaper office sends them to me in code," said
Basil softly.  "I get so much more for my money that
way."  He translated a long message, and Gheena's lips
drooped until her eyes grew angry.

With the energy and skill of the amateur strategist,
she immediately explained how completely everything had
been muddled.

"How, if the English had done one thing and another
and France and Russia the rest, the whole of the German
army would be scrambling away back to Berlin to get
into the Kaiser's coal cellars."

"Just rush and dash," declaimed Gheena loftily, "not
this retreating and losing."

Basil Stafford remarked, "And perhaps of men," rather
slyly; to which Gheena answered, "Yes," with a glance
of fiery meaning, and he grinned—softly.

Picking up the khaki sock—Gheena often dropped
it—Basil inquired gravely whether the holes were for the
easily clipping in of suspenders, and really wilted this time
before the look which flashed over the piece of knitting.

"There is quite a party here to-night," said Dillon,
looking along the cliff.  "Here is Mrs. Weston now."

Gheena, staring unhappily, suddenly remembered that
she had promised to go to Mrs. Weston's and fetch her
up to tea and: "It was all Crabbit's fault," said Gheena
placidly.  "I don't know why people are staying on here
this year like this.  Mrs. Weston hasn't even the excuse
of drainage works."

Mrs. Weston, who was slim and upright and nice-looking,
came tripping in, heels palpably too high, along the cliffs.
She was quite ostensibly but neatly painted, and made
no pretence as to the expense of her chestnut wig.  She
was a capable young woman, who now talked of taking
a house at Duncahir because her people in Australia had
joined the army and she was quite alone.

The district inspector, a stout and self-opinionated
youth, had shown marked symptoms of admiration,
these coupled with discreet desire to know if she was one
of those widows whose husbands left provisos in their wills.

Mr. Keefe joined the group at the moment.  He was
also asked to tea, and Darby nodded.

Violet Weston held out an eager hand for the telegram
and clamoured for news.  Personally, she was one of the
optimists who regarded the retreat as mere strategy to
lure the Germans on, and who considered that the war
would end in Berlin with the Kaiser on exhibition in a
neat brass cage.

Stafford read the message aloud, keeping it himself.

"You see, you wouldn't understand it," said Gheena,
eyeing her knitting.  "He has them sent to him in some
code or other."

Stafford tore up the wire into very small pieces and
coloured faintly.

Mrs. Weston, walking on, was as fine as an optimist
as Gheena had been as a strategist.

She reviewed the revealed facts of the Germans having
been found starving, their foolish mistakes, and of that
dreadful man, the Kaiser.

"The scald to him and his likes," said a voice bitterly.

The old kennel huntsman, Barty, limped out from
behind a hedge of crimson fuchsias, his face set dolorously.

"The scald to all Kaysers," said Barty, "with Mrs. Day
down to say, an' thruth in it, that seven geese were whipt
lasht night, and that ould Larry Hassit, that was never
too dacent, swearin' he'll pisin if the foxes isn't kilt.  If
there's no huntin' now there'll never be huntin' again,
Misther Darby," said Barty lugubriously.  "I declare
to God the poor craythers of hounds an' I out, do be
throwin' an eye across the finces an' then an eye up to
me, an' they are but axin' the question aloud why they
wouldn't be let off to hunt.  Signs bye, the nice run I
had afther two of the puppies last Thursday, and what
harm but it was a hare an' I lambastin' them, Sammy
must let the resht out of hand, and where did they make
but up into Grange Gorse just across the road and
frightened Mrs. Harby's bawn of cows hither an' over, an'
she milkin' them at the time."

Gheena dropped her knitting, and wished to know if
someone could not hunt the hounds.  "Why not, Darby?
And——"  She could whip in, they might try.

Harold Keefe thought that if he was not too busy,
that a joint mastership might be possible—say, Freyne
and Dillon and himself; he looked important.

Darby leant over to Barty, because he knew the old
man always had a hunting-horn in his pocket.  This he
extracted and handed politely to Keefe, with a wintry
smile.

Mr. Keefe's cheeks assumed the proportions of cherubs
as he endeavoured to wrest sound from the piece of
fashioned metal.  Having produced a faint squeak, he
said irritably that of course anyone could learn to blow
on the thing; and, anyhow, they might have whistles,
as more respectful to the absent master's memory.

"God save ye—whistles!"  Barty blew a clear shrill
hoot on the horn—the quick toot of the "gone away"—and
it set Gheena's pulses dancing, and brought a flush
to Darby's cheeks as he limped along, holding his crutch
deftly beneath his half useless arm.

"Forrard away!  Away!" the shrill screech echoed out
across the sea.

"But supposing—oh, the sock!  thank you,
Mr. Stafford—that we got leave to keep a bobbing
back—if it is bobbery, it's just the same, Darby—and rout out
the coverts and kill foxes.  Now both the Slatterys have
enlisted, so Michael Maher told me he would not run his
'baygles' this year, and there are lots of them."

Darby broke in to say thoughtfully that there were, and
lots of varieties among them also.

"You could gather them up and keep them at Dillonsview,
Barty, in the old yard, and everyone would love
to come out, if Captain Lindlay would give us leave.  He
might even lend us Patience and Pollen to keep."

Barty murmured "God help us!—lend ye!" impolitely.

It is at all times difficult to discuss anything when one
stands up.  There was a large rock jutting out of the
short grass, and the three men sat down upon it, because
the idea was worth thinking of.

Darby waved his crutch, Keefe and Barty chattered.
The absent might be glad to have his wild country hunted
over in some form.  Subscriptions would roll in, everyone
wanted to hunt—and it was really quite possible now
that the war might last for the winter months.

"A bit of a note to the Captain," said Barty.

"It's quite absurd, but it might be done," said Darby.

"And you agree as to joint mastership and the
whistles," said Harold Keefe.

"And I'll whip in," said Gheena, "as we could not get
a temporary master and the huntsman left unexpectedly,
and Lindlay is shy about a strange man."

"But—you don't really think they won't be completely
beaten before the winter is over," chipped in Violet
Weston.  "Is it really worth while?  They can't prosper,
those dreadful treaty-breakers, can they?  But, of
course, hunting would be nice."

Mr. Keefe said that he knew of a horse, one the
Government hadn't snapped, and to be bought for the
value—if Mrs. Weston was for the chase.

That neat-looking lady said she was, indeed; but in
Kleeawuvia there were no side saddles, and would people
here object to her riding like a man?

Mr. Keefe replied that Lady Rosie O'Brien rode astride,
and that ought to be enough for anyone.  Here he tried
to get up, to find himself enveloped in the grey warp and
woof of Gheena's sock, a portion of the wool having
unwittingly got round Darby's crutch, so that at every wave he
had unwrought much labour.

Gheena, winding wrathfully, declared that if she had
not just got on nicely in the plain part she would not have
minded; but to re-do half a sock—here she hauled a loop
tight about Mr. Keefe's plump neck, and made him
gurgle voiceless wonder at the strength of wool.

When his pink flush had deepened to vermilion, he
broke the strangling strand and gulped reproach at the
unsympathetic but annoyed Gheena.

They had decided they would be too late for tea, and
were walking on again, when with a hurricane of little
squeaks Mrs. Weston discovered that she had dropped a
topaz and diamond brooch of some value.

One which dear Francis had given to her, and the clasp
had always been fairly good.  The prospect of her tea
faded as she looked across to where they had been sitting.

Basil Stafford felt the sad right at his youth when he
offered to go back and look for the jewel.

"No.  If Mr. Keefe will come, I know his eyes would
find anything."  A flashing glance almost dispelled the
sinking desire for tea and plum cake which Mr. Keefe
felt acutely.

"We won't be long," said Violet Weston, scuttling
away on her high heels.

Mr. Keefe left with her and returned for a box of
matches.

"I'll catch her easy," he said, with a blend of gloom and
complacency in his voice.  "The fine mover she'd be if
it wasn't for those silly shoes she puts on because her
feet are a bit out-size."

"All that planning for that fellow," observed Darby,
looking after the hurrying pair.





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.. _`CHAPTER II`:

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   CHAPTER II

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It was considerably past five when Gheena Freyne
coo-eed loudly towards the drawing-room window
and followed the Australian call with a shriek for tea.
Mrs. Freyne, promptly appearing on the door-step,
observed placidly that she had not waited, and didn't they
all think she was right?

Matilda Freyne was stoutly comely, possessed with a
mild attractiveness which would never leave her.  A
quantity of shining red-gold hair, which declined to get
grey, was puffed in old-fashioned style above her placid
forehead.  She had mild blue eyes and a charming voice.

"One never knows when Gheena goes to the sea what
she may get into," continued Gheena's mother, holding
out a plump hand.  "Now wasn't I right, Darby, not
to wait?"

When Darby said "You were, Matilda," the word
brought a look of dislike which forty-six years of possession
had not toned down.

"But they will boil a new kettle, and the hot cakes
may not be quite cold," said their hostess cheerfully.
"Even if they are, as they were, rather underdone, it
will not much matter.  And where is Mrs. Weston?"

Darby observed that the widow lady had gone looking
for a topaz with Mr. Keefe and would be back presently.
Mrs. Freyne, with a placid and unmoving finger on the
bell, said she thought that was quite useless, because
Dearest George had told her long ago that there were none
on the Duncahir beaches.  The only thing she had ever
got there was that disappointing stone with the imitation
silver in it; so perhaps they had better send the pantry
boy to tell the others to come.

Basil Stafford stood at the window looking out.  The
trees had been cut away in front of the house to show
a glimpse of the sea and the opposite cliffs.

Fuchsia hedges sheltered the empty flower-beds from
the blast, and beyond the other fuchsia hedges sheltered
the two smooth green tennis courts, where watchful
Gheena pounced on every weed.

It was all still and peaceful in the falling autumn dusk,
the golden light of the dipping sun still flashing below the
curtain of clouds, a boat stealing home to harbour.

The hot cakes proved to have lost even warmth, but
to have preserved their memory of their too early exit from
the oven.  Yet three young people ate them with fearless
risk of indigestion.

Several very large cakes of heavy calibre stood on the
wide tea-table.  Mrs. Freyne had not as yet commenced
the small economies of war time and given up raisins,
cherries and icing.

The discussion concerning the possibility of the scratch
pack of hounds rose and fell over the tea-table, spurred
on by comments from old Barty, who was taking his tea
just outside the front windows, nibbling cherry cake and
enumerating the danger of not killing foxes.

"What I want to know is how many of them we are
likely to kill," said Darby thoughtfully, "with those old
harriers and our amateur hunting?"

Barty said: "What harrum so long as they'd see ye
makin' endeavours?"  And added, after a pause: "An'
in spite of ye, Misther Darby, they might get away and
pull down a sad one that wouldn't be too crabbit, or that
was full of hins.  Ye'd never know."

Darby coughed thoughtfully.

Mrs. Freyne, who still hunted, and went wherever her
pilots led her, enjoying each hunt completely without a
thought of what hounds were doing, was enthusiastic.
She disliked riding without an object, and her dresses
appeared to be shrinking.

"Of course, if Dearest George thought——"

Gheena saw Mrs. Weston's blue sailor hat in the distance,
pointed to it, and asked where Dearest had got to.

Gheena had been a completely self-willed girl of eight
when her mother had married again, and would probably
have called him Papa or Daddy without thought, if her
mother had not consulted her anxiously as to her
convictions on second-hand fathers.

Once the idea of wronging the kindly deaf man, who
had called her his Baby Seaweed, was placed in her head,
Gheena started round her stepfather with suspiciously
resentful eyes, and called him nothing until her mother's
"Dearest George" made her mutinously say Dearest
also, naughtily, feeling resentful surprise because it was
accepted as a charming idea.

"We got it," said Keefe, mopping his pink forehead,
"but I tell you we had to look."

Basil Stafford asked where with a faint grin.

"On the edge of the cliff," said Keefe.  "I'll take it
stewed or roast, Mrs. Freyne, so long as it's wet.  Where
Mrs. Weston tried herself twice; but she sent me down
the third time."

"And Mr. Keefe's sharp eyes saw it shining," said
Mrs. Weston happily, patting a small ornament in her blouse.
"I knew he could help if anyone could.  If it's absolutely
no trouble, Mrs. Freyne, I am afraid of very strong tea;
it's nervy.  And we walked so fast!  Mr. Keefe flies.
I'm tired."

"And I after her all the——" began Keefe blankly,
and then stopped to drink....  Why put aside admiration
even if undeserved.

At this point a motor came to the door and George
Freyne bustled in.

He was an undersized man, with bushy eyebrows,
cheeks which Gheena always said looked like pink
pork-pies, and a dome-shaped bald head.

Anyone whom he failed to dominate he disagreed
with; and as Mat the old groom used to remark: "The
Masther begridged even if the fox to go the way he'd like
himself."

He had been out on some mysterious business, which
embraced visits to the coastguards, a cryptic and reluctant
silence, and a look of impatience.

Sitting down to tea, he discussed the war with
Mrs. Weston, becoming deeply pessimistic when she piped out
her contempt of Germany, and then having left her
floundering in a red sea of doubt and despair, would
immediately explain how it all could be ended in a month,
provided such-and-such plans were carried out, and if
instead of Lord Kitchener and General French there
were a few men unencased in red tape and not stale from
custom of mimic warfare—a fresh brain in fact, such as
he himself might bring, to plot and hew and smash until
it was over.

The two played see-saw over the cold, slim cakes, until
Mrs. Weston asked Dearest George what he might think
of this wild idea of Gheena's, of gathering up hounds to
eat foxes, because the farmers seemed worried about losing
a few chickens.

"So unpatriotic of them, grumbling, with the hay at
four pounds a ton," she said blandly.

It was, in fact, this way of putting it which made Dearest
George immediately favour the prospect.

He said sharply that he could not see why, if it was at
all feasible, Gheena should make silly objections.

Gheena opened her mouth—and shut it—wisely.

"The claims are positively pouring in," said George
Freyne irritably.  "There were three women and James
Macavee here to-day, all with tales of dead geese and hens."

"And even if the common herds was all they had to
be pratin' over," put in Barty.  "But here's one chattin'
of Orpinntons, an' the next of Leggyhorns, an' another
that paid tuppence apiece for eggs of the slim-mouthed
Rocks, the lord liftenant an' lady havin' them all sot
up an' above themselves with some schame for fancy
breeds.  An' the name alone bein' all that's right," added
Barty, "seein' that a depot for maybe Speckledy Sussexes
'll be but twenty yards away from some woman that
just keeps what she gits, an' the two flocks rootin' out in
the one place.  When 'twas claims for hins it could be
put up with; but when it's claims for the schamers
out of Dublin, then I tell you it's money."

"Barty came over about it," said Mrs. Freyne.  "Did
you, Barty, to ask Mr. Freyne his opinion?"

"I did not, ma'am," said Barty placidly, "nor think
of such nonsense.  It would be bether for ye to take
the cup, Miss, an' Crabbit nosin' around it; but if we
could gather even thim objecs of dogs, an' to show the
red coats an' all, it might be the way it would make them
think we was kapin' up the counthry, an' good in
nonsense."

Gheena, now greatly excited, said that she would go
the very next day to see about the hounds.  Darby had
old kennels at his place.

When Dearest George intimated curtly that he must
take the car next day, as he had to drive to the coastguard
station at the far side of the harbour, Gheena replied that
she could walk.  "The nearest Dayly was quite close,
and even if the farthest were farther on——"

Darby said "Yes," and picked up the knitting
thoughtfully.

"Well, it was, that was all.  And you can come, Darby,
and meet me at the cross roads below Macinerny's Public
House, and drive me the rest of the way."

Violet Weston, smoking a cigarette, wanted to know
if there was any real fear of anything happening, as
there was so much fuss about coastguards.

"Our ships will never let anything happen," she said
stoutly.

"Henry Ashleigh is gone," burst out George Freyne,
"to drive a motor.  I forgot to tell you.  I'd go myself,
but I'm too useful here."

"You haven't applied for anything yet, have you?"  Gheena
turned with crushing directness to Basil.

"Well, you see, I'm in the pay of the Government,
and only the Government can let me go," he said quietly.
"If the drainage works were shut up, all those men who
bought the farms on the understanding that they would
be drained for them would be cheated."

To this Miss Freyne observed freezingly that she would
have thought an older man could have looked after drains,
and drummed on the tea-table, laying down her knitting.

Barty raised his battered hunting cap to say good-night.
As he turned he shaded his keen old eyes, and looked
out at the ship of rocks just visible in the grey dusk.

"I never seen such a man as the ould Professor for
beltin' around the cliffs," remarked Barty, "crackin'
thim rocks with a hammer that can only be irritaytin'
thim, an' off back with picks and bits that he is gropin'
over till two in the mornin's, behind his specs.  A tax on
ile 'd be the bad one for him," said Barty slowly.

A little withered thing, he went off briskly, one leg
slightly shorter than the other, one arm a little stiff.
His collar-bones had grown almost weary of being mended;
one thumb was bent in, and a little finger crooked, as if
perpetually poised to hover politely over food.  But Barty
was hale and active still, and thought mournfully how
much he would have liked to come out to hunt hounds
again himself, a post which his broken leg and subsequent
ill-health had taken from him.

He skirted the clipped laurels, passed under the vast
arch, put up as a gateway in almost all old yards, and
peered into the kitchen to ask the big peppery Anne,
the cook, "If firin' was short, that the cakes wasn't baked
above."

"Didn't I put them on for Miss Gheena, and mustn't
the Missus have them out for herself?" said Anne
good-humouredly.  "Terrible times, Barty!  To be lookin'
above in the air for thim Zepherills they do talk about,
and Donellan the coastguard havin' chat about the
underground ships bein' about beside the coast watchin'
us, till they've a chance to swhoop."

Barty then gave some lurid details as to the life on
Bretham Island, where the officers dined in the cellars,
sitting on the ammunition, "they were so afraid of it
being struck."

"If I was to be flyin'," Anne observed, as she deposited
a large leaf of pastry on a gigantic pie.

Barty said "Yes" politely.  Anne weighed fourteen stone.

"I'd fly," said Anne darkly, as she opened the oven
door, "where—where flyin' 'd be of use," she added.
"Not hither an' over just to say there was a man here
an' a gun there, but off to Berlin.  An' if I didn't drop
what 'd hate him up on the Kayser my name isn't Anne
Dwyer.  Th' ould vilyin.  Isn't Paddy Hanratley's life
lost be his devilment, in that retrate from Mongs?  He is
on to-day's paper."

Barty abstracted the *Irish Times* from the dresser and
read the news greedily.  He raised his head to tell the
cook, now surrounded by a halo of several attentive
maids, that the land was sown with spies.

"Two holy nuns taken in Cork," said Barty.  "I had
it for a fact from me aunt's cousin be marriage, her
nephew being husband to the landlady's dather.  An'
the two of thim takin' lodgin's, sayin' they was out for
charity, an' God save us, didn't the little gerril carry in
hot wather one mornin' without knockin', an' out she
runs, for their caps was off, an' the two big faces of men
above the bedclothes.  Masther Darby says they beyant
are going to make a shot to invade us, the vilyins, an'
spies here is mappin' out the very ripples on the say,
an' every turf sod in the land, so as to be ready for them."

"Me Dadda has us towlt," began Maria the between-maid,
"I am slicin' the pyates, Mrs. Dwyer, ma'am, for
the fryin'.  Me Dadda has it they'll come frindly with
no waypons on them; not another penny, then, need we
pay for the land we has bought, an' the hay barns, nor
nothin'."

"The Germans bein' such gran' men they can live
without money," said Barty dryly.  "God send ye're
Dadda sinse, Maria Harty, an' something to do besides
clanin' his boots markin' time on Sundays with the
Volunteers."

Then Phil the groom coming in, observed: "That
he'd seen a German Frollin that was maid to some at
the hotel.  An' bottled plums she clapped into a stew
that she had leave to make.  An' quare soorts of sossidges
they'd get over the wather, black as the coals, Anne, an'
solid."

Barty folded up the paper, sighing as he did so; then
he leant forward.

"What is that ould Professor knocking chips out of
the rocks for?" he whispered darkly.

Anne the cook sat down heavily, and prayed to the
heavens above her to see her safe from harm, with all
their talk.

"Makin' channels for submarines, he might be, with his
hammer," she whispered fearfully.  "Oh, good evenin'
to ye, Barty.  Good evenin'.  There could be no good
behind his black specs," went on Anne fearfully.  "God
betune us an' harrum; no good at all.  An' there is the
pie burnin', an' all the fault of that ould Kayser," she
added, as she rolled with a wail to the oven to announce
that the grannut ornymints she even drew out were black
as a Germin's heart, and to scold everyone quite
impartially and without resentment for the occurrence, they
putting professors into her head.

Upstairs Mrs. Freyne was consulting Dearest as to
whether the Army was really retreating, or whether it
was only reported so as to deceive the Germans and bring
forward recruits.

Dearest adjusted his glasses to explain pompously that
going backwards was not advancing, and to illustrate
with the flower-vases until one fell off never to stand
upright again, and Gheena went to dress hurriedly.

Her big room looked out to the sea.  It was high up,
and she could see, when it was light, the restless waters
beyond the point as well as the calmer stretch shown by
the gap in the trees.

Leaning out, the soft dampness of the autumn air
welcome after the stuffy heat of the drawing-room, Gheena
thought she saw a flicker of light far away just where the
cliffs were honeycombed by endless caves.

"I don't believe—in—any drains," said Gheena to the
night very severely.  "And I should certainly go to be
a nurse if it was not for the knitting club."

Gheena's room possessed the advantage of a side door
reached by a narrow flight of stairs just beneath it.
Dearest showing signs of irritation at trails made by damp
bathing dresses and Crabbit's paws on the polished hall,
Gheena had taken over this door for herself and ran from
it, in the morning generally, clad in nothing but her
bathing dress, to return dripping under a light mackintosh,
with Crabbit barking at her bare heels.

She bathed, too, sometimes on hot summer nights;
delighting in the dripping flames which fell from her
finger, and the blue fire streaks as she struck out.  These
night baths, when her mother reposed in a room which
gave oblations to hygiene with a slightly opened window,
behind which thick curtains were carefully drawn, were
only known to the housemaid and the cook, who
considered them outrageous, but said nothing.

"I should like to bathe to-night.  Crabbit, you're
snuffling.  You couldn't come.  And we might, after
dinner, Crabbit, though it is October, after we are baked
downstairs."

Dearest George disliking draughts, the library curtains
were always closely drawn on still nights, and the shutters
closed when a wind blew; also, there was always a fire.
He sat there now, thinking; the problem of Gheena
troubled George Freyne deeply.  His objection to the
Dower House, which lurked in a gloom of trees on the very
edge of the cliff, increased hourly.  A stealthy backwater
came fawning to the end of the garden, casting up chill
salt airs from its slowly moving waters, yet sea-like enough
to expose an unsightly stretch of shingle and rock at
low tide, and to sap in a mean, secretive way at the
protecting wall of the garden, picking away constant gaps.
Castle Freyne became Gheena's, when she married, and
a nephew of George Freyne's, who combined meekness of
mind, strong conceit with plump cheeks and an Irish
accent, had been decided upon as Gheena's future spouse.

In fact, failing Gheena, he was the next heir following
a life tenancy by Matilda Freyne, so it was only right.

This Lancelot Freyne had been considered too delicate
to go to school, and had strayed to manhood in his
home, tyrannized over by his too fond mother.  Now
having dutifully ridden to hounds, gone out shooting,
and applied his mind to the courtship ordered by his
mother, Lancelot had upset all calculations by immediately
getting a commission from the Militia and going off to
train in a camp in England.

Castle Freyne was quite large enough for everyone,
but Gheena, as owner, might show a still more marked
desire for open windows, unguarded by curtains or shutters,
and also for various innovations which made a comfort-loving
soul shiver apprehensively.  In any case, it would
be hers when she was twenty-five.

Gheena, coming down to dinner in white, was exceedingly
good to look at, and with strangers at Dunaleen
Camp Mr. Freyne grew anxious.

The night fell in a mist of grey stillness, broken by a
taint whimper of little waves weeping as they broke
upon the rocks.

Gheena put on a black cloak, wrapped her head in a
Lusky veil and slipped away to the shore.  It was cold
to bathe, but she scarcely knew what she was going out
to look for.  Some patrol ships, coastguards
tramping—anything to show her that war raged somewhere, despite
the grey peace upon Ireland.  Her mother had already
begun to re-read the papers and ask for explanations,
until her husband fell asleep; then she would fall asleep
herself, until ten o'clock, when she invariably awoke with
great vigour, and hoped Dearest George would not lose
his figure for his bad habit of sleeping in his chair, and
then read a novel until eleven, when she put out all the
lamps, drank hot milk, and went to bed.

Crabbit scuttled into the undergrowth, crashing through
it with little short yelps, as he scented rabbits.  Gheena
stepped on to where the low cliffs jutted to oppose the
sea.  The waters whispered, fretting, lapping, sucking
through the rocks; lifted on the coming tide the fringe of
brown seaweed rustled faintly as it awoke to the life of
the sea.  A sleeping row of sea-birds on a peak of brown
rock, a blur of white just visible.

Gheena had put on tennis shoes; she moved soundlessly,
sure-footed, across the still uncovered rocks,
stooped at the edge of the tide, where it lapped deep and
cool, to put her hands in, and see the blue drip run off
her fingers back to the gleaming tide.

At this point, Crabbit, having mislaid her, uttered a
yell of anguish, and hurled himself noisily across the
rocks, his unerring nose down.

This onrush was stopped by something solid, which
melted and slipped with sudden outcry into a fairly deep
pool.

As the something rose and groped, it said aloud several
things of extreme pungency, and wished to know what
the—well—earthly dickens sea-serpents or wild goats
were out on the rocks for at midnight, knocking people
down for.

The voice bearing a distinct resemblance to Mr. Basil
Stafford's, Gheena observed aloud, calmly, that it was
neither a sea-serpent nor a goat.

"But only Crabbit tracking me, with you in his way."  And
then she wished to know why he did not come out
at once.

Mr. Stafford said something rather indistinctly, and
then more clearly, that it seemed to be the damn
sea-urchins' pool; and everywhere he put his hands down
to catch a rock, he had, so far, caught prickles and couldn't
get out.

The sound of a finger noisily sucked was followed by the
smell of hot metal and the flash of a dark lantern,
blinding in the gloom.  By its rays Basil Stafford swished
through the knee-deep water and stepped out on to
dry rocks.

"He took me just under the knees, like an avalanche,
that dog," he said irritably.  "I just jumped in time to
get in on my feet.  I've sand shoes on, too.  What on
earth," he said, "are you doing down here in the dark by
this hang pool?"

"Looking for submarines," said Gheena dreamily.

Stafford thought dryly that the sea-urchins' pool
would certainly be a good base, and that perhaps there
might be a Dreadnought in the bathing creek.  He shook
his head and by the light of the lantern extracted prickles
from his fingers.

"Anne Dwyer says they all fester," observed Gheena,
watching with interest, "and you're breaking half of them.
Here!"

She took the big brown hand in hers, extracting gently
but deftly; Mr. Stafford insisting, as she said she could
see no more, that he felt two of the worst just in below
his first and second fingers, and the light of the lantern
proving quite inadequate to illuminate them.

"And as I said, why Crabbit should have been on
the rocks," said Stafford—"further down, on the fat
place—and why he chose that pool."

"There isn't any fat place," said Gheena.  "And
why"—she raised her eyes—"why were you out?" she
asked emphatically.

"It's right in the muscle, and I shall never use those
fingers again.  I—well—I saw—queer lights," said
Stafford, after a pause.  "Chaps here might
start—er—smuggling again.  And—oh, good Lord!" Crabbit
barked at the sharp yell of anguish.

"I was only just using the pin of my brooch to burrow,
as you were so sure there was a prickle there."  Gheena
re-pinned her brooch with hurt dignity.  "Smuggle
tobacco!  One doesn't think of that kind of smuggling
nowadays," she said bitingly.  "It's smuggling German
emperors and admirals and 'U' boats."

The lantern had suddenly been extinguished, and the
noise of sucking, mingled with grunts of pain, came from
the gloom beside her.  A sound of footsteps coming
cautiously could be heard on the strip of shingle at
high-water mark.

"The coastguards," said Stafford.  "Er—I say, hadn't
you better?—they won't see us if you sit down.  It's late."

Gheena replied that the last yell might even have
produced the patrol ship from the point; and as she
had known Matthew O'Hara and Tim Linsham all her
life, she really did not see why they should not see her
now, especially when they could not in that light.

So they sped lightly back across the rocks, unheard
until Crabbit growled with emphasis.

Someone said "Shucks," in tones of distant alarm.

Stafford flashed the light again upon the spectacled,
wondering face of Professor Machaffy of Bee-bar-oo,
somewhere in New South Wales, who again said
"Shucks," before he became a shadow in the gloom.

"I take a little walk almost every night," said the
Professor mildly, "before I go in to sort specimens.  It
fills the lungs with ozone.  And you!  You also take a
little walk."  There was a distinct quiver of understanding
laughter in his good-natured old voice.

"On fine nights the unseen world is very beautiful,
because as a lost love, you remember all its perfections,"
went on the Professor.  "The darkness is Zimmerian,"
he added blandly.

"Never quite lost the German accent, Professor?"
said Basil easily.  There was a pause; the Professor,
judging by the shower of shingle, appeared to have kicked
some of it.

"After several years' study—there," he said slowly.
"It is difficult, Mr. Stafford.  I'm learning, as in war
they study closely," he added.  "We have no such
scientists in England.  I bid you good-night.  It is time
for me to get in."

They could hear him chuckle again as he shuffled off.

One by one the lights at Castle Freyne were blinking
out; Matilda Freyne was going to bed.

"And you?" said Stafford, a little anxiously to Gheena.

"I—oh!" Gheena explained her side entrance.

Mr. Stafford said if that was so, he had just found a
new and vicious prickle in the palm of his hand.  She
could feel it—there was no need of light.

He sat down in the short, sweet grass and Gheena sat
beside him, her nimble, deft fingers pressing at the spot
he guided them to.

The lap and whisper of the coming tide was clear in
the grey stillness.

"Crabbit—Crabbit, you are breathing hard, just in
my ear," said Gheena.  "Go away.  I can't get the
thing.  Sit still, Mr. Stafford."

Stafford leant back a little to listen to the aggressive
snuffle of Crabbit at his right side and some distance
away.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER III`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER III

.. vspace:: 2

"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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER IV`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IV

.. vspace:: 2

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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER V`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER V

.. vspace:: 2

"How the dickens did your Dada call them up?"
said Darby, eyeing the ten couple of fox-hounds'
relations as they rushed joyously round his park, declining
to come near anyone.

"He had a nise of his own," said Andy cautiously,
"and his bugle.  Maybe if ye sounded ye'res, yer honor."

Heads were thrown up at the note, to go down again,
apparently regarding the sound as something of no moment
to them.

"Me Dada's bugle had a grating screech on it," said
Andy.  "Grandjer!  Grandjer!  Grandjer is after a
rabbit.  Beauty, ye spalpeen!  Beauty agragh?"

The crooked-legged old matron came to the call, wagging
her long tan stern abjectly.

Darby said cheerily that it was a good thing to have one
obedient.  He watched Gheena galloping her grey
recklessly as she endeavoured to put hounds back to him.

"D'ye hear that!  Isn't Grandjer terrible swhift?"
Andy's admiring note was called for by the dying scream
of the rabbit as Grandjer broke it up and ate it.

"What I intended to do," said Darby, lifting his hat
to cool his head, "was to take these brutes round by
Leshaun and back the mountain road.  It is not a bit of
use taking them out if they won't follow us anywhere.
Good man, Phil!"

An accurately aimed lash was driving Spinster and
Doatie out of the woods.

A little more noise and violent whip-work brought the
whole of the pack into view; they sat down, greeted
each other as complete friends, but looked with distrust
at Darby on his black mare.  Their master had always
been on foot.

"If ye were to borry me Dada's bugle," said Andy
hopefully.  "It is hangin' up at home."

"Chance the road, Phil," said Darby.  "We must get
to Cullane on Monday somehow."

Darby's old house stood well back from the sea, a long,
rambling house, which had been pulled down by someone
who objected to its original hideousness, and rebuilt with
gables and wide windows.  A flagged terrace, guarded with
stone railings and stone urns, which in summer overflowed
with scarlet geraniums, had been laid out at one side;
and the usual basement, where the kitchen blinked up
behind a dark alley, was made darker still by another railing
of cut stone.  The inevitable fuchsia hedges guarded the
flower-beds, a tangle now of withering dahlias and
Michaelmas daisies.

A fine old place, well kept up, and no one alive knew
what battles the young owner had fought with himself
there when he came back to it crippled.  Battles fought
for endurance, when the joys of being up again and able
to shuffle in the sunshine had worn off.  The very trees
which he used to climb, the sunk fences which he jumped
so lightly over, the ladders leading to the lofts, mocked
Darby.

To get down to the trout stream meant a long weary
struggle, or the bitterness of sitting in his bath-chair drawn
by old Ned the donkey.

When hope of amending culminated in being able to
ride, Darby knew that his days of swift life were done for
ever.  He snatched something from the wreck; he could
shuffle on his crutch.  He could shoot as straight as ever,
fish from a boat or where the banks were flat.

When he ceased to rebel, he knitted up as many ravelled
strands as he could, and twisted and crippled, faced his
lease of life.

England called now; he could not go to her, not back
to his old regiment which was fighting somewhere in
France.  Riding at Darby's right side, he looked straight
and whole, a lean, good-looking man, with a kindly
ravaged face.  Coming to the other, one saw an arm tied
up, a leg palpably cork, stiff and useless, an almost useless
hand, and a scar, vanishing now, on the cheek-bone.

He could ride still, and shuffle back to the saddle without
much difficulty after a fall, easy things to meet with
in the close country, with its trappy fences and its
occasional big bog drains or awkward pieces of gaps fenced by
stabs of bog dale.

Black Maria sidled and snorted at the pack, which
trolled along obediently enough now, believing they must
really be going out hunting.  Stafford said he would come
to help and get them to know him.  And Mr. Keefe could
not come because they wanted him somewhere.

"They seem to want everyone somewhere now," said
Gheena gloomily.  "There are the Guinanes out fishing,
and it's horribly rough."

The Guinanes' boat was bobbing actively on the back
of vicious leaden waves, bobbing down almost out of sight,
and the two men had their backs in it as they pulled.

"Just by Shanockheela, where there's that nasty
current—they can't catch anything to-day."

"They have a new boat got for sailing," commented
Andy.  "An' me Mama does be thinkin' Mrs. Weston
gave it to them, for they couldn't have the money nor
half of it themselves."

"It is McGreery's boat that he left an' he to list," put
in Phil; "thirty pound they should pay.  She is above
at the Quay now."

"They seem to be rowing out," said Darby, staring,
"and there's a real big sea at the point.  Oh, it's to meet
that fishing-smack that's standing in."

They stood watching the dipping and rising of the
little boat, and the pitching of the red-sailed smack, which
beat in against the wind, lurching past the rowing boat.

"They've had enough," said Gheena; "they're putting
the lines in.  Good gracious! they'll be swamped."

The sea out there for a small boat was cruelly wild, but
the men put up a rag of sail and ran down to the coast
before the strong wind into the shelter of the harbour.

"There is some clather behind us," said Andy, pulling
up Ratty just as Darby commented upon the bravery of
fishermen.  "A sight of horses, I'm thinkin'."

There were four, all ridden at a break-neck trot, with
Mrs. Weston's Commander-in-Chief, very fresh and jaunty,
leading the procession.

She wore a multitude of curls showing round the edge
of her bowler hat, which curls, she confided to Gheena,
she simply could not tuck away, and she looked fresh
and young as she rode loose-reined, with the sea breeze
blowing off her powder.

"For two miles," gasped George Freyne, "I've talked
about tendons, and she went faster and faster."

"But if I hadn't gone so very fast, I'd simply have had
to go rather fast for longer," said Mrs. Weston equably.
"You were so late coming for me."

"The cutting of drains," said Basil gravely, "and the
guarding of coasts.  Freyne here is worn out at Home
Defence, and even I had to take messages to-day right
round to Clona Kratty."

"I'll be giving you all orders soon," said Keefe, mopping
his pink face.  "As we're all friends here.  They may
come and invade us."  This deep note of tragedy in his
voice caused the two boys to say, "Laws Almighty, d'ye
say so, the haythens!" and Gheena to clutch so nervously
at the grey's mouth that he reared in astonishment.

"In Heaven's name, Keefe," said George Freyne,
"when are we to go to sleep in safety?"

"That's what they'll tell you," breathed Mr. Keefe
mysteriously.  "When they come."

"One would think you'd been talking to them," said
Gheena suspiciously.  "And as we have no guns and no
troops, I don't see why they shouldn't."

"If we drive to the very top of the hills," said Violet
Weston, hopefully hysterical, "and built eyries there,
they're dreadfully short-winded and might never bother
to run up after us."

"You wait until they shelled you," said Darby, "in
your eyrie.  Gheena looks as though she contemplated
entrenching on the lawn."

"Are they beyant in the little boat?" piped Andy
dolorously.  "Are they, Mr. Keefe, was thim Germins?"

"Who told you, Keefe?"  George Freyne showed
symptoms of acute strain.  "Who—is it right?  Are they
coming?  Are they?"

"Don't get so enated," said Keefe calmly, "I can't
tell you now.  When they come, you know.  What are
you talking about, Dillon?  It won't be any use when
you're crucified bodies!  Don't be absurd!"  Staring at
a ring of white faces and hands dropped limply on their
horses' necks, Mr. Keefe grew irritable.  "When the
orders come," he said sharply, "they'll be really nearly
a reality."

"To have lost all that fright for nothing," said Darby
tersely.  "Orders!"

"Then why in the name of Goodness did you say it
was Germans?" blared Freyne furiously; "considering
I have got a weak heart.  You did say the Germans
were coming.  I say you did, sir."

"As plainly as the hills," said Mrs. Weston reproachfully.
"Oh, what a fright!"

"Unless they showed playing Wagner on the road, it
could not have been plainer," said Gheena huffily, "making
us all fuss like that, and trying to look as if we weren't,
and Phil——"

"Phil appears to have gone home to tell your mother,"
said George Freyne, answering.

"She won't mind a bit until you come to advise her
about it, so that doesn't matter," returned Gheena.
"Yes, he's gone."

"He said he was off to the Missus," said Andy, "an'
ye none of ye heard him go."

"Three times I repeated: When my *orders* come!"
wailed Keefe.  "And I should not have said even that,
but I was just trying to break it easily to you all that
there will be orders as to invasion, if there is an invasion;
and when they come..."

"If you say it again, Keefe, I shall set Grandjer at
your horse," said Darby loftily.

Mr. Freyne then got off his horse, and suggested learning
the hounds' names, which they had come out for instead
of talking nonsense.  Andy knew them all.  But, as in
a kaleidoscope, tan and pied bodies and flapping ears
and wistful eyes seemed to shift and melt before the
would-be learner.

"That is Doatie, with the sphot above his tail.  Call
him.  That is Sergeant ye called, an' his biggest sphot is
on his eye."

"Didn't you call the first one a he," said Freyne
heatedly, "and that other—and both?"

"Well, he—Doatie—do have pups surely," said Andy
patiently; "but he has a sphot on his tail annyways,
an' that is Sergeant."

Grandjer, yellow tan and tailless, was unmistakable.
So was Sweetheart, who had lost an ear, and the enormous
Home Ruler.  The two small black hounds called
respectively the Divil and the Tailor could only be
mistaken for each other.  They were, Andy told them,
"Holy terrors to hunt, but apt to be yowlin' if a fence
was very high, bein' baygles entirely."

The pack sat or rolled, greatly interested in the
increasing reiteration of its names.

Beauty, being polite, thumped her tail without pause;
it was really hardly worth while stopping.  All the more
obliging hounds shifted and oozed from side to side as
they were called, and the lesson terminated at length by
Darby suggesting that dinner-time would be upon them
and they had better go on.

It was too late to wander into the mountains.  Darby
took a road which wound up to a little group of houses,
and then back again to the coast, with the pack lumbering
along quite placidly and the four whippers-in all
repeating names behind them.

All save Gheena.  Sundry visits to the meets of the
foot dogs had made her familiar with most of the pack.

The Commander-in-Chief, somewhat exhausted by his
burst, was now forging noisily, clicking his flat feet
together fiercely, and varying this by an occasional
stumble.

"Did you really think Mr. Keefe meant the Germans
were coming?"  Gheena found Basil Stafford riding
beside her.

"And if he had meant it," he said, with a thrill in his
voice.  "It's a big sea to guard, Miss Freyne.  Lord, if
he had meant it!  Spiked helmets marching along this
road—oh, with their owners, if you like it, and everything
seized!  Promise me if they ever do come you'll run away
inland," he said.  "They won't go off the railway lines."

"How could they come?"  Gheena looked out to sea.
"You don't think they mean to try?"

"I know"—he checked himself—"I know—that it
may be possible for them to try."

"I shall ride away Whitebird and lead Redbird, and
lead Bluebird, and take all the dogs," said Gheena firmly.

Save for the chasing of a blameless cat, the pack got
home in chastened mood, greatly depressed by an aimless
promenade.  George Freyne's car was at Darby's gate,
and a suggestion of bed at Castle Freyne was well received.

"Keefe can lead Gheena's horse, he won't want to hurry,
and Stafford can take mine, Darby, and we'll drive.
Matilda may have been worried by Phil about Keefe's
nonsense."

A tyre bursting delayed the motor, and the horses
could cross a short way through the park, so that as
they drove up the avenue they saw Stafford appearing
with Gheena's grey jogging amicably beside him.

"Hello, there!  Hello, you!  I say, Freyne!" he
called out, amazed to see the motor swerve.

"Dearest, the sunk fence!" shrilled Gheena.

For the car was suddenly left to itself as Dearest George
cleared something from his face, and again, with
light-hearted gaiety, the Sunbeam immediately dived off the
gravel at the sunk fence.

"Hello, I say!" Gheena leaped from the car wildly.

"A bee," said Freyne, beating at the air hard, "a bee!
Bees, my God!"

He switched the power off and leaped for the shelter
of the laurels.

"He's mad," said Gheena.  "But it is bees!  All the
bees!"  Her dive into the undergrowth was even swifter
than her stepfather's.  She was followed by Darby going
with long bounds off his crutch, and then by the
chauffeur.  A swarm of furious insects buzzed outside.

"Bees!"  George Freyne wiped his forehead.  "The
bees have risen.  I am badly stung on my nose."

"They've swarmed on the doorstep," suggested Gheena.
"Look! they are in a cloud.  I thought you were crazy
at first, Dearest, but you're right.  And the car has not
gone over."

"Bees," said Darby, "don't swarm in October."

"The two hives is beyant on the steps," remarked
Dayly the chauffeur, as he nursed a stung cheek drearily.
"I sees them."

Basil Stafford, skirting the sunk fence, believed that
they had all gone away and called out loudly.  His
fevered imagination even sprung to the chance of Germans
having really come and being in full occupation of Castle
Freyne.

"Hello—what!"  He struck an insect from his nose.
The bees saw new worlds to conquer.  He beat his ears.
It is lamentable to add that young England's manhood
sprang yelling from the saddle, leaped the sunk fence,
and was into the laurels on to Dearest George's body.

"Bees!" howled Stafford.  "Swarms!"

"In October," wailed Freyne, dabbing his swelling
nose and nursing a trampled-on leg.

"And both the horses have gone off their heads," said
Gheena.  "They have simply flown away.  You will
go at once to catch them, Dayly."

"I would be afeard, Miss," said the chauffeur simply.
"They are terrible sot agin horses any times, them bays."

At this point the dining-room window was opened very
cautiously.

"The first of them," quavered Phil's voice dramatically,
"It was thruth.  They are lurkin' in the bushes.  I hears
them."

Gheena said, "Listen."

Then there was a pause in conversation filled by prayer.

"It is the Masther's cyar," declaimed Anne the cook.
"I'd know her in Heaven."

"They took her off him," gulped Mary Kate, the
kitchenmaid, who was in the throes of Ave Marias.  "He
is kilt, the craythur.  See the empty sate."

"An' there is some lurking outside," breathed Phil.
"I can hear them in the shrubs.  I tell ye wasn't it the
great plan entirely to kape us safe?  The poor ould
Masther, the craythur."

His master's head, veiled by a flapping laurel leaf,
suddenly issued from the thicket, and the voice which
issued from behind it did not seem to be discussing
Germans.

"God above us, did they do ye a harrum, sir?" wailed
Anne from the window, putting out her kindly face for
a second.  "An' ye too, Bayly?  God be praised for
ye're lives."

"The two eyes out of me head," replied Dayly—Dearest
was incoherent—"and the Masther's nose the
size of two, an' Misther Stafford picked in the ear."

"The haythens!" said the voice, now again behind the
blind.  "The Turks an' infidels.  I hear Dayly.  Could the
polis——"  She prayed loudly.

"Prayer won't mind ye, Mary Kate," counselled Phil,
sobbing.  "I hear Miss Gheena bawlin'."

At this point Gheena grew hysterical.  George Freyne's
words became clear as he ordered Phil, as a something,
something, something idiot, to get away the bees, to get
help and take the dam brutes away.

The angry bees were racing up and down the avenue
between the laurels and safety.

"I carried them around," said Phil soberly, out of the
window, "thinkin' they'd destroy the robbers if they
comes up, so I up and clapped the two carriage rugs
around them, an' they neshtin' within, an' I wouldn't
say we can ever get them back till it is dark entirely,
sir, they bein' a trifle irritated in themselves an' all
out."

The prospect of crouching in the laurels until after
dark, or the alternative of squeezing through the barbed
wire palings or of taking the open surrounded by a cloud
of bees was now with the refugees.

The remarks which sped from the bitter smelling shade
of the laurels were venomous as the disturbed honey-makers.

"Someone is talkin'," said the sober voice behind the
Venetian blind.  "Howld ye're whist, Mary Anne, till
we listen.  Would ye dhraw the Germins on us?  Do not
stir the blind on ye're life or they'll be in.  The bees
Mary Anne, not the——"

At this point Mrs. Freyne opened the hall door.  It
was dim behind her, and she was not perceived by the
questing enemy.

"Matilda," wailed her husband, "get them away!"

"Oh, you, Dearest!" replied his wife placidly.  "Dear
me!  I see the car nearly over the sunk fence, and I
thought I heard George, but I cannot do anything until
he comes—can I, Professor?—about the Germans."

A deeper note grunted from the hall.  Mrs. Freyne
chased a bee from her face.

"Matilda," yelped George Freyne, "send someone!"

"There are no Germans, only bees," called Dayly
loudly.  "An' we are all picked and bit sorryful, Ma'am."

"Bees!"  Mrs. Freyne saw the hives.  "Professor,
someone has put two hives at the door, and Dearest
George is in the bushes.  Dearest, what am I to do?"

George put forth a swollen face to deliver orders, to
cry for men and bee dresses.  To pray that veiled rescuers
should be sent to them and gauze veils—anything to
escape the bees.

Mrs. Freyne, obliged to ask advice, hurried to the
Professor.  A stifled yell and a crash told that the enemy
had gone inside, and the hall door was slammed, promises
of aid being presently shrilled from the upper windows.

"We are getting transparent things, Dearest.  You are
sure there is no danger?  My net skirt, do you think?
Oh, dear!"

The enraged bees sighted new worlds to conquer as
they sped out at Violet Weston and Mr. Keefe, who were
riding quietly across the lawn, the result being—four
gaitered legs described some circles and curves, and
two people dived wildly from their saddles and ran.

"If you ask Dearest George what to do," advised
Mrs. Freyne from the upper window—"he is under the
laurels—he'll tell you."

Mrs. Weston crashed to covert with a shriek, followed
by Mr. Keefe swearing fluently, and plucking bees from
his collar; these he stamped on, but they had stung
him first.

A variety of advising onlookers began to collect
cautiously on the avenue, all advising at the same time.

Dayly suddenly put his coat over his head and sped
blindly to comparative safety.

"An' I thinkin' it the grandest plan," said Phil,
speaking now from the bushes at the other side of the drive.
"Bullets they is used to, says I, an' they might resint;
but innocent bees, they could blame none for, says I, an'
the two maids bawlin' and prayin' within."

"There is James runnin', afther they have him kilt,"
wailed the housemaid wildly.  "Oh, the Turks!  An'
the Missus cool an' aisy at the windy above."  Another
wild shriek echoed despairingly, followed by sobs for
mercy, and Mary Kate hid her face.

Now just as James took flight, Mrs. De Burgho Keane's
large car hummed to the gate, and was pulled sharply up
to avoid Dayly.

Mrs. De Burgho Keane was pinched and anxious looking.
Phil had dropped word as he scurried for home.

The sight of the flying figure, the murmurs from the
bushes, upset her completely.

Even as Dayly escaped, Smith, her own chauffeur,
suddenly let the car slap into the bushes as he beat
frantically at the air.  Mrs. De Burgho Keane suggested
"Mines!" at the pitch of her voice, reasoning out that
some hidden force must have upset the discreet Englishman.
Muffled figures rushed across the drive.

"If they would take five pounds and the ham to let
me go," she pattered unevenly, searching in her purse.
And she got half out of the car as Dearest George, his
head muffled in an old net skirt of his wife's, came tearing
blindly out of the laurels, flapping at a cloud of bees.  They
were in the net, entangled, these furious little beings of
wrath tinged and buzzed in his ears.  He struck the car,
and with a sob clutched Smith the chauffeur, burrowing
down under the wheel for covert.

"My God! they are after you!" said Mrs. Keane
heavily.  "They have hurt you!  Oh, the horror—of
reality!"

The amazing spectacle of George Freyne veiled in net
thrilled her with horror.

"Half killed me, the devils!  Start the car, Smith; back
her!  Get her away!  Get us out of this!  Half killed
me!  One eye gone, my nose ruined!  Start her, will
you?"

Smith jogged the self-starter, and put in the reverse
with a yell.  He had just been stung.  Mrs. De Burgho
Keane on the avenue leaped for safety as the maddened
chauffeur passed her without heed.

"Put your long veil down," yelled George Freyne;
"you'll be all right if you do."

A variety of muffled figures now issued from the bushes.
Gheena entirely covered by art-muslin curtains, Stafford
with a butterfly net over his head and the handle wagging
behind, the rescuers insecurely draped, and the gardener
in a correct bee dress and armed with a syringe and
a bell.

Mrs. De Burgho Keane had sat down flat on the avenue,
and she was quite close to a collapse.  Stafford stopped
to help her.  She was clasping her floating lace veil across
her face and she endeavoured to speak with a German
accent.  She leant back against nothing and nearly
overbalanced.

Darby Dillon had driven his car over and had pulled
up to watch in rare amazement the flight of Dearest
George; the spinning away of the Limousine from its
rightful owner, and her subsequent collapse.

Rocking helplessly at the wheel, he saw the Professor
spin out Dervish-wise into the open, with a black ninon
skirt roped round his neck and spreading out cape-wise
over his shoulders.

"The party," said Stafford, from the butterfly net, "is
now complete."  He wagged the handle at Darby.

"You are not going to lift it!" muttered Mrs. Keane
heavily.  "Not going to look at me!  I am really not so
beautiful at all, Herr German.  Mines!  So quickly!
They upset Smith—Schmidt, a name homelike to Boches.
I—if five pounds, and a ham—it's all I've with me—to
let me go."

Stafford's laughter rent him for a time, then he said:
"Oh, come along!" quite kindly, and poked sufficiently
behind the lacy shoulders to lift her up.

"Mr. Stafford, how did you escape?"  The stout lady
got up and stood unsteadily.

"They won't follow us into the house, but hurry," said
Stafford, choking.  "Hurry, while the gardener bells
them."

For Carty, loftily secure in veil and gloves, commenced
to peal the bell.

Mrs. De Burgho Keane heard and gave up with a stifled
cry of the Tocsin, then slid into Stafford's arm, her head
on his shoulder, the Professor supporting her the other
side.  She was not quite unconscious, but absolutely dazed,
submitting without realizing it to the support of the
nearest wheelbarrow which was half full of weeds.  Darby
drove swiftly across the lawn to the yard gate, thus
avoiding the bees.

When they had all assembled in the drawing-room,
picked off the remaining bees and stood uneasily, starting
at every sound, Mrs. De Burgho Keane woke up.  Someone
had drenched her in toilet vinegar and left her to recover.

Mrs. Freyne consulted Dearest George as to remedies
for bee stings before, a little hurt at his reply, she fetched
the blue-bags and onions, of which the room reeked
healthily.

George Freyne had apparently lost one eye; the other
glared from the shelter of a swollen nose in an outraged
frenzy of pain.  Stafford rubbed his neck delicately and
Gheena shook a finger regretfully.

Old Naylour, quite unshaken, had brought in comforting tea.

"Do you think, Dearest George, that tea would upset
Mrs. Keane?" asked Matilda Freyne thoughtfully.  "She
is opening her eyes."  To which George Freyne remarked
unsympathletically that anyone was damn lucky who
had eyes to open, and Mrs. Keane sat up appalled by
such callousness.

"They hurt you," she said faintly, "hurt you all.  I
succumbed.  And they?  They spared us.  I said Schmidt
to placate them."

"They are nearly all in now," said Stafford, looking
out.  "The bell did it and the dark."

Mrs. Keane muttered something incoherently; the
words related to the Tocsin and the French.

"And the mines which upset Smith," she said.  "Poor
Smith!  What an experience!"

When the facts of the case and Phil's strategy were
fully explained to her, Mrs. De Burgho Keane felt a sense
of loss.  If they were not Germans, then everyone had
behaved as though they were—well, she sniffed up the
scent of onions.

"Bees alone," she said awfully, "do not cause men to
rush and scream and hurl themselves from dark corners
and take my car, and my man Smith, and——"

"He got it on the cheek and the hand," said Stafford
gloomily.  "Some of your half-dead 'uns, Freyne, in
your bridal veil."

"The skirt which the cook did get me," said the
Professor, "is torn sorely, but it kept out much pain."

Mrs. Violet Weston, stung on the neck, said gruffly
that it was all absurd.  Mr. Keefe, whose cheeks were
engaged in swallowing his snub nose, decided that he
would not be able to do duty anywhere for a week or
more.

A chorus of voices sounded outside advising and
declaiming.  Presently Mrs. De Burgho Keane, shaken
and offended, made her way to her car attended by her
gloomy one-eyed host.

"And Phil"—she turned round—"what will you do
to Phil, or what has been done to him?"

George Freyne muttered the words, "Hang Phil!"
viciously but indistinctly.

To this day Mrs. De Burgho Keane believes that the
truth was concealed from her, and that an invading army
of Germans are either buried in the park or took sail
again for Germany, finding Ireland useless to them.

"Bees!" she said haughtily to those whom she confided
in, "the bees were a blind for other excesses."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER VI`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VI

.. vspace:: 2

"Wasn't it all a great upset entirely, Miss Gheena,"
said Phil sympathetically.  "Mary Kate isn't
the bether of it yet, an' the Masther's lost eye blinks,
an' all."

Gheena remarked gravely that she thought the defence
of Ireland ought to be entrusted to Phil.

"Bein' full sure themselves was comin'," continued
Phil ruefully, "an' the Missus alone in the Great House
with that Professor that's up to no good.  Sure I thought
it was the great thought, an' when I heard the nise in the
bushes, I wasn't full sure they was come on us, an' I
right entirely to brin' the bees out."

Darby burst into sudden laughter, memory of those
thronged moments reaching him.

"When Dearest went off backwards in the car, and
she sat down," gulped Darby, "and the Professor danced
out in the black tea-gown tied over his head."

"If ye had it dhrawn out on one of thim twiddly picthers,
wouldn't it be the great sight?" said Phil.  "But when
they were afther sayin' the Germans was comin', was
I right to believe them, Mister Darby?  Wouldn't it be
the price of them haythens to be picked be honest bees?
But the Masther is that peevish about it," ruminated
Phil, "an' at me noon and night.  If he was one of us
afther a fair or a dance, he wouldn't be thinkin' long of
a closed eye."

Darby grinned again, and looked up to see Gheena cast
off her coat and stand in close-fitting stockingette.

"It is much too cold for a bathe," he said paternally.

Gheena kicked off her shoes, and remarked that cold
water was always warmer when it wasn't really warm,
as she poised for a dive.

The sea poured in just there into a deep narrow pool,
hedged over about twenty yards down by a narrow belt
of rocks.  Beyond that was another pool, a small one,
and there the sea seemed to dive under a ledge, called
the Bridge, where it gurgled and sucked and muttered
restlessly, until it showed again in a basin of great depth,
washed into at low tide by the waves and covered at high.

Gheena poised, balanced, disappeared.  The water
surged and parted, throwing up protesting sprays and
rippled as she shot up.  Then she was gone again out of
sight.

"Always she does be doin' that same," said Phil,
"undther the rock no less, like a merrymaid."

Darby ran to the Bridge.  A shadow showed in the
green depths swimming easily under water; next moment
Gheena's merry face shot up.

"I call it my diving-bell."  She trod water easily.

"It's hang dangerous going under like that; if there
was a devil-fish down there."

"Or a shark," suggested Gheena, holding on to the
seaweed-hung ledge.

"There does be cobblers, anyways," put in Phil, "an'
I seen a lobsther out of that hole onst."

"I say I call it my diving-bell," Gheena laughed.
"I can get out to the Basin now, Darby.  That took me
ages.  I used to go half way and get frightened.  And
I'm waiting to find a way into the pool of Cons Cave;
there must be a passage, and it's close to this."

"You go out to the Basin!"  Darby stood on the
rocks, his face white and drawn.  He could hobble, he
could ride, but if Gheena choked down there he could not
dive in to help her.  He was twisted, crippled, useless.
She would drown before his eyes.

"I wish you wouldn't, Gheena.  If you got cramp out
here, if you hit the rocks..."

"It was girls at the Coliseum," said Gheena absently
"they did things under water and I had to learn."

"There is Mister Stafford now," said Phil.

Stafford's face appeared above a ledge of rock; he
clambered over and came towards the pool.

"You'll get to know these rocks," said Darby thoughtfully.

"All systems of drainage, even that of the tide, being
interesting to me," Stafford laughed.  "And, Miss
Freyne, bathing in October!"

Gheena merely replying it was better than in November,
climbed out and dived skilfully; she came up to take
a big breath, disappearing again.

"She will rise outside now," said Phil, fingering the
rope which Matilda Freyne insisted on being carried
by him.

A minute, almost two, Darby scraped and shuffled
along the rocks, his teeth set, Stafford slipping past him
easily.

"Is it this pool, Phil?"  Stafford peered down beyond
the Bridge.

"It is," said Phil, gathering sea-grass placidly.

Something alive had vanished under that wall of rock,
down into the sucking cold depths, something at the mercy
of the sea; the men bent over, both tense from fear.

"Phil, for God's sake!  Does she do it often?  Phil,
come here!"

"She does so, sir, too often.  I am gatherin' say-grass
for the Misthress, sir, and won't she be plazed if there
isn't enough."

"Say-grass, you Phil?"  The green water stirred.
Cobbles scurried madly away.  Gheena's face parted the
water.

"Po-oh!" She drew a long breath.  "Po-oh!  I
got on slowly to-day somehow."  She ran back, swam up
the long pool and hurried off to dress.

"That submarine business," said Darby gloomily,
looking down into the still pool.

Stafford looked up sharply.

"I don't like it," said Darby.  "The slightest accident
in that hole under the rock and——"

His mouth twisted.

"She just takes her own way in everything," he went
on.  "Matilda will ask the angels' advice about her wings
in Heaven; she never gave an order in her life, and
Dearest George is so obsessed by his authority that the
girl never takes any notice of him.  She has no business
to bathe at all in October, it's too cold; and what she
meant by learning to hold her breath."

Basil Stafford jumped lightly over the narrow pool
landing with a slight slip and stagger.

"It's ... a fine thing to have one's limbs," said
Darby gently.  "A very fine thing, Stafford, to be fit and
able to move as a man should."

Stafford said nothing—it was the only thing to say.
The unmarred side of Darby's face was turned towards
him, lean, fine in its lines, with cleanly-cut features—the
face of a man who had power to feel and to enjoy life.

"I'll be only one of many after this war," grunted
Darby after a pause; "but, Lord, if I could have lost
myself for my country, out there!"

Basil Stafford sighed uneasily, flushing a little.

"We are going to have five-o'clock tea out here at
four," announced Gheena, appearing suddenly.  "Mama
has got callers—the Bradys from the Rectory, with a
right-minded cousin, and the O'Haras from Crom Rectory,—and
they are all going to knit."  She flicked out her
own knitting as she spoke.  "So Phil is making a fire.
He always lets it go out."

Phil was coughing patiently, his face hidden in a
pungent reek of turf smoke.

"I am afther blowin' it up, Miss Gheena, till there isn't
a puff in me two cheeks," he explained; "but someone
was at our little cranny of turf, and this same is moist
on us."

To boil a kettle with bunches of heather requires constant
scurryings to and fro, outbreaks of fiery flame being
varied by smouldering ashes.  Mocking songs from the
kettle, followed by glum silences which it refused to
break.

Basil Stafford, his eyes full of tears, thought almost
regretfully of the tea-party at Castle Freyne, and it was
Darby at last who hauled a now stormily bubbling kettle
from a roaring blaze, and was then heartily abused because
he had forgotten to heat the tea-pot.

Immediately the tea was made the turf glowed to a
fiery red and the smoke was no more.

Basil Stafford drank smoked strong tea in silence.
His glasses lay beside him, and more than once he looked
through them out at the silver-grey sea.

"Uncle Richard says they suspect bases here"—Gheena
looked along the low cliffs—"for the submarines;
people supplying them with petrol.  No one would;
they couldn't."

"Money," said Stafford, "tempts some people greatly.
The Germans pay well, I am told," he added a little
hurriedly.

"Tom Knox got his commission yesterday."  Gheena
waved her tea-cup.  "He is all khaki and importance.
How anyone who could go can stay!"  She looked fierily
at Stafford.

"Some people cannot help themselves," he said
apologetically.

Gheena said icily that they could do something, drive
a car, replace other men; then she stopped abruptly,
seeing Darby's drawn face.

"The Professor," said Darby, "is making studies of
rocks as usual.  What amusement he can find hammering
out little pieces of stones I cannot say."

"And he do be lookin' at thim half the night through,"
put in Phil.  "Ye can see his shaddy if he pulls down
the blind—he forgets most times—pokin' an' peepin',
with big books in front of himself."

The Professor saw the group and waved a telegram.

"Your man was very busy, Stafford; he had forgotten
some supplies, so I offered to bring this."  He held it out,
beaming softly.

Basil opened it, reading with slow ease.  Then he
looked round at the distant wireless station and grunted
sharply.

"Of course," he said to himself.  "It does make it..."

Gheena had snatched the wire, reading out a meaningless
jumble of letters and short words.

"And the news?" she asked softly.

"Oh, the war news.  Everything much as usual.
Great hopes and little else," he answered coolly.  "When
they strew the papers with roses they seem to forget
the thorns or the stems, Miss Freyne."

Having been haughtily told he was a pessimist, Basil
Stafford read his wire again to himself.

"Mrs. Weston offered to do post-boy, too," said the
Professor.  "I met her, but I wouldn't allow it.  She
was at your house borrowing note-paper.  Hers was out.
She has gone to see Mrs. Freyne now."

Basil Stafford said "Oh!" very thoughtfully.

The party at Castle Freyne was gathered in an airless
room when they got back, heated by a large fire of wood
and turf, the blend of tea and conversation strong in the
close atmosphere.  The women were knitting and the
men discussing the mistakes of the war, humbly listened
to by their spouses.  The Bradys' right-minded cousin—her
name was O'Toole—stabbed wool which grated
harshly on the needles, and occasionally commented
shrewdly.

Gheena let a breath of soft fresh air into the room as
she threw up a window, and the visitors shivered politely.

"Going to nurse, or motor drive, or release a man?"
asked the right-minded cousin almost as she shook hands.
"I'm on five committees in Dublin."

Gheena said meekly that she was waiting to act as
interpreter when the South Coast was invaded, and
Mr. O'Hara carefully explained that nearly all Teutons
spoke English fluently, so that that idea was absurd.

Gheena snubbed, closed half the window, and sighed
patiently.

"Are you joining?" said Miss O'Toole to Stafford.

Mr. Stafford eyed her rancorously, merely remarking
that his time was occupied by business.

A fumble at Miss O'Toole's pocket revealed the probable
presence of a box of white feathers.

"Dearest George thinks the Germans are making all
kinds of mistakes," said Matilda Freyne placidly.  "Losing
such lots of men, you know, and making themselves so
unpopular and digging so much.  He thinks they will all
get rheumatism and have to go to Harrogate."

Darby suggested Marienbad and Homburg slyly.  He
thought the German army invalided might congest
Harrogate.  Matilda looked at Dearest George, feeling uncertain
until she consulted him.  George Freyne got up and shut
the window sharply.  Then he remarked to Stafford that
he was glad the wireless station was now properly guarded.
Anyone might have reached it before.

"When I saw you over there yesterday, Stafford, I
said to you——"

Gheena listened with such elaborate carelessness that
it was impossible to avoid nothing what she was doing.

"And, by the way, how did you get in?" added
George Freyne fussily.

"I had some business there.  Hanly charged my
battery for me, too.  Yes, I knew the guard.  I thought
they'd put on men soon."

Mrs. Weston, knitting rapidly, began to talk about the
hunting in rapturous tones.  It was actually going to
commence next day, and she hoped her bay horse would
be as good as he looked, the darling.

"If he only gets as far as his looks go," said Darby
absently.

Miss O'Toole was questioning Basil Stafford ruthlessly—as
to his age, birthplace and nationality.  These
items she wrote down in a small note-book, where, she
said pointedly, she kept a register of fit men.  Then
quite suddenly she asked a question in laboured German.

"Hanoverian or Platt?" asked Stafford amiably.  "I
should like to know which you'd understand best before
I answer.  When I was at Berlin I practised both."

Then the mocking look died out of his face, which
reddened slowly.

Gheena escaped from the heat to the doorstep.  It
was one of those autumn nights which are as oppressive
as June with none of its lightness.  The air was murkily
hot, and a fog was stealing into the hollows; through
the grey haze one could hear the sea boom at the end
of the park.

Everyone began to put up their knitting.  The O'Haras'
wagonette, poised haughtily high over a dejected grey
cob, came round to the door, the weary beast walking
with the bitter certainty of seven miles to go and a feed
of hay at its end.

Miss O'Toole, trailing her ball of wool, came stealthily
towards Gheena.

"I should ... watch him," she breathed fiercely.
"Wireless here, and a coast for submarines, and—what
is he doing?"

Gheena said "Drains" a little faintly.

Miss O'Toole compared drains to trenches with a sort of
disdain.

"Young—strong—active.  Blurts out he's been to
Berlin and blushes over it.  It's a place to watch," gulped
Miss O'Toole dramatically.

Several exclamations, coupled with seven stumbles,
heralded the approach of Basil Stafford, who had spun
a cocoon of wool about his legs, and was cursing volubly
in discreet undertone.  His endeavour to get unwound
involving him more securely still, he demanded tartly
why Miss O'Toole played Fair Rosamund on the doorsteps;
and, of course, if she could take it off in a second
he would not cut the stuff, but——

Miss O'Toole, coursing round him agilely with dives
and dashes at his gaiters, managed, as she loosed Stafford,
to meet and involve the master of the house in the tangle.

Basil Stafford said "Silkworms," and advised George
to stand quite still.

"Under, over.  That's his bit.  I never saw anyone
dive so neatly on dry land."

A whistle sounded clearly on the cliffs, shrill and sweet.
Basil suddenly used force, so that the wool fell from him
in frayed pieces, and slipped to the door, followed by bitter
reproaches from Miss O'Toole.  In her opinion, at least
two soldiers had been deprived of mittens.

It was unkind of Dearest George to say huffily that
they were jolly lucky, for the drawing-room door opened to
show him standing, wondering with the agile danger swoop
round him, and winding feverishly.  Gheena was outside.

The suspicious eyes of two blameless clergymen and
their spouses fell heavily upon George Freyne, Mrs. Weston's
cheerful voice wishing to know if it was a new
game of "Now we go round the Mulberry Bush," or
Kis...? and here her host's glance stopped her, and
trying to help, she involved herself in the tangle.

"How you became so entangled," said Mrs. Brady icily,
"in my niece's wool, Mr. Freyne?"

"It was Stafford," roared Dearest.

The eight suspicious eyes looked round for Mr. Stafford
and four noses sniffed simultaneously.

"Break the stuff!" foamed Freyne.  "Get me a knife!
No, the other leg, not the right, the left."

"Take Dearest George's advice," counselled Matilda;
"he is sure to know his own legs.  There! you were
wrong.  Just lift that foot, George, and the other at
the same time.  And, dear me, George!"  George's
answer being curt.

"Not being a Zeppelin," said Darby thoughtfully.
"Round his arm now, Miss O'Toole, and his neck.  Put
your arm round it, and you too, Mrs. Weston.  It's the
last strand."

Mrs. O'Hara, who had listened for quite an hour on the
previous day to accounts of the perfections of Miss O'Toole
from Dublin, now decided in awful tones that the pony
could not stand for another moment, and said "Good-bye"
heavily.

"I am not evil-minded," said the clergyman's wife,
"but I thought better of Mr. Freyne, and that painted
Mrs. Weston."

"Even if the girl were pretty!" said her husband.
"Go on, James, home.  One could understand."  Here
he coughed hoarsely.

Gheena, who had run down from the sea, came back
slowly; through the still mist she could hear voices
on the water—men rowing back to the little village on
the point.

Crabbit barked suspiciously at something unseen on
land, ran it to earth, and came back with Basil Stafford.

"What did you think?  Who whistled to you?" said
Gheena abruptly.

"War makes the world jumpy," he said coolly.
"Might have been an advance patrol of Boches, y'know,
coming up to supper."

The day of the first meet of the scratch pack dawned
in a grey mist, with the sea whimpering under a shroud
of white.  At seven, when everyone in Darby's yard was
busy polishing and hissing, the mist cleared to a clammy
greyness, hot and still.  Little Andy, extremely resembling
an active mosquito leaping from place to place, regretting
as he reached each, that he was not at the other.

He tore to the kennels, advising old Barty, calling on
Beauty lovingly, prophesying that she would folly none
but himself.  Telling Grandjer not to be frettin' for his
tail, because the front of him would soon show them
what he was; pouring out tales of Daisy and Greatness
and their prowess.

Barty, his new leathers covered by overalls, observed
bitterly that to be goin' out with such a pack was like
what a man'd dhrame of afther he atin' too much.

"Like a dhrame when ye'd be at a hunt an' all off, an'
the horse undher ye sthandin' sthock sthill," he ruminated
sourly, "an' hounds leggin' it over the besht of ye're
counthry, or maybe a check an' ye knowin' the line,
an' the horn ye'd put to ye're mouth is a concertina, an'
two strange masthers out laffin' at ye.  Save us!  I am
terrible for dhramin'.  Andy McInerny, terrible!  The
least taste extry at night and I'll be at it.  One was the
worst of all, that there was a great lawn meet at Dom
Dhurres, an' I with the grey horse outside waitin', an
the crowd an' all, an' not a ridin' trouser or a boot on
me, and no way to git thim.  Sometimes I'd see the sphur
tacked to me bare heel, an' the shame of it'd be through
me; but I never axed even for a horse's hood."

"When I dhrames I dhrames plisint," remarked Andy
simply.  "I med believe onst I had Mr. Freyne's best
horse whipt off, an' he himself dead in a ditch, cosy and
quiet an away I bolted, an' Miss Gheena watchin'."

"Plisint!" said Darby softly.  He had come up
behind the two.

"An' off I whipt before hounds an' all, till Misther
Freyne run up, shouting and leppin', but I travelled on.
Ye're not goin' to send them out empty, Misther Barty,
are ye, the craythers?"

"In the name of God, youngster, would ye feed hounds
on huntin' day, ye omadawn?"

"It was thinkin' of kapin' the payce mid us, me Dada 'd
say," murmured little Andy.  "What they kills,
Mr. Darby can pay for aisy.  They're apt to catch bins, an'
they hungered.  It was the widow Hefferty's turkeys onst
an we never sent thim dogs out empty agin."

At this stage Barty threatened reprisals if Andy did
not instantly run away to mind his own bizness; so
Andy hovered for a space, repeating that even the least
taste of food would quieten the dogs, and then scampered
back to the yards.

Darby's active, well-bred bay was being polished until
he shone as a horse-chestnut fresh from the husk.  The
sedate grey, which was Barty's mount, poked a lean
head from his loose box, and knew it was hunting again.
A liver chestnut, destined to carry Carty, the
newly-broke-in second whip, was doing what his rider called
rings around his box, induced by the sight of the whip
which Carty had only just learnt to crack, and which, so
far, had generally hit his horse by mistake.

The chestnut preserved a too lively recollection of how
often the thong had found him out in tender places.

"Have ye e'er a polish put on the Rat?" was what
Andy demanded, as he seized a clean bridle, and zealously
rubbed the bits in sand.

"Let ye put a polish on him yerself, ye pinkeen."  Mike,
the head groom, raised a heated face.

"He'd clout me with his hindmost legs," remarked
Andy soberly, "unless I had a one to howld him."

"Me gran' bits that was clane an' all."  Mike left the
bridle for Andy, looked at it, and hinted darkly that it
was not the Rat but Andy who would have a polish put
on his hide if he did not leave his bethers to themselves.
Next moment, as Andy trailed tearfully back to the kennels,
old Mike stumped growling to the Rat's stable, directing
that the pony should be cleaned properly, so that Miss
Gheena wouldn't be at them at the meet.

The Rat was a long-tailed, powerful little beast, with
the second thighs of a big horse, no shoulder, and a lean,
vicious head.  If he had been sixteen hands, he would
have carried sixteen stone with ease.

He bit and kicked in the stable and ran away out of it;
but few more wonderful hunters had been foaled, and his
inches made his evil efforts to hunt futile.  They had
tried him in harness, to the extreme detriment of two
pony carts, and with additions to chips for lighting the
fires.  If they stopped him kicking, he lay down and
slumbered stolidly, but Gheena would not part with him.

"The head of that child will open and let out his brains,
the sthate he is in," said Mike, looking after Andy.  "If
he has flithered up to the kennels onst to-day he has done
it twinty times, an' the eyes lightin' out of his head.  Will
ye have Colleen out second, sir?"

This to Darby, who came limping and crippling across
the yard.

"A second horse."  Darby glared back at the kennels,
and suggested that possibly half a horse might be
sufficient with the pack which he had gathered together.

"For the huntin' they'll do it might be," said Mike,
grinning; "but it is the huntin' ye'll do yerself afther
them, Misther Darby, when, maybe, they'll make home
on ye, and, sure enough, bein' used to Matt McInerny's
bugle, they'll not come to yer own.  An' the teasin' they
may be afther givin' ye.  Will I send Colleen to Drumeneer,
sir, at one o'clock, an' Sportsman for Barty?  That grey
isn't half fit."

Darby went to his breakfast and came out again before
he was finished, disturbed by the pursuit of Grandjer
and Daisy round the house.  Grandjer was, in fact, hot
on the line of the stable cat, which took cover just in time,
crackling like a live wireless installation from the depths
of a holly tree.

"If ye had to quieten them with a taste of mate,"
panted Andy, when he had entreated Grandjer to give
over and come huntin'.  "If Barty had to be said by
me.  'Ware cats, ye thievin' rogue."

"Where is Barty?" Darby inquired, limping out with
his hunting whip.

"It is Greatness an' Doatie he is afther," observed
Andy absently, "that got into the chicken yard.  We
have the resht secured in the coach-house.  Would ye
flick a clout at Daisy, sir, where he is nosin' in the bushes?
There wasn't the thickness of a hair between Grandjer
an the ould cat's tail when she treed," confided Andy
proudly.  "Grandjer is hard to bate, I tell ye.  If he had
to take afther Dandy, wouldn't he have been the grand
terrier afther rots?" he finished regretfully.

Grandjer, leaving the animated Marconi in the tree
with sorrow, growled out that it was a pleasure deferred
as he yielded to persuasion and trolled towards the yard.

"An' he'll trail a fox as good as a cat," said Andy still
more proudly.  "We should be off now to be in time."

Barty climbed to the grey's back, age slipping from
his withered monkey-like little form as his knees gripped
the saddle.  In a new pink coat, his little twisted face
all aglow under its peaked cap, Darby awoke to a second
youth.  He could still ride.  He was a huntsman once
again, with the right to swear respectfully at his superiors
and fluently at offending equals.  His old hands took up
the reins until the grey bent his neck proudly to the
light touch, and slipped away with his strong halt
exaggerated by his light-hearted pride.

Carty landing with difficulty on to the suspicious chestnut,
said "C'o-op thee" knowingly and cracked his whip.

A certain number of hounds pattered out docilely,
but Beauty, Grandjer and Daisy sat down and waited for
little Andy.

When the lash-stung chestnut had done two maddened
circles round the yard and upset Carty on to a barrow full
of sand, men on foot used blandishments and threats to
induce the three to join the pack.

A small eager face peeped rapturously round a half-open
door, for the three were adepts at dodging blows
and very few got home.

"They are looking for Andy," suggested Darby.

"Tell that shrimpeen Andy if he does not hurry along
I'll tear the nose from his face," yelled Barty at length,
his dignity as huntsman spent.

"Didn't ye tell me not to move on until ye were moved
on yerself?" shrilled a reproachful voice.  "An' I'll be
late, says I, an' the price of ye, says you, an' now the
gaither on me leg is not even hooked up yet."

Discomfited Barty said several things to himself;
aloud, he told Andy that if himself and his pony did not
come on the minnit, they might remain inside, an' them
three wastrels of dogs with them.

This threat brought forth the Rat and Andy with a
rush, the little wicked-eyed pony tearing along with his
jaws set and only stopping when he saw hounds, the
three renegades falling in happily.

"Didn't I say ye could not go without me?" said
Andy.  "And if anyone does go without me it will be
the Rot," he added a little anxiously, as that animal
reared abruptly and then dropped and kicked.

Barty, distinctly raffled, started again, the body of
the crooked-legged miscellaneous pack at his heels, with
Andy and Carty behind, and behind them the three rebels,
now strolling along placidly.

Far off the sea could be seen, grey-blue under a
grey-blue haze; before them the hills bumped and twisted,
with the narrow-slated banks dividing the fields; here
and there brown chasms from which turf had been cut,
and the coppery gleam of a stream, and further off some
fair pastures with the slates on the banks replaced by
growth of gorse and fern.  Something had to hold the
crumbling treacherous soil together.  It took an active
horse and a quick jumper to slip over those banks without
a fall or scramble, unless they adopted the safer plan of
some of the heavy-weights, who stood on them until the
fence crumbled into a brown mould of safety.

Darby watched the final start with resignation and a
grin.  He foresaw complications before him, but at least
they were trying to keep things together for the peppery
brave little man who was out fighting for his country,
and they were not trying to ruin a really good pack.

"We'll pull down a few foxes if we have to get
lassoes," said Darby cheerily, going to put on his hunting
cap.

The good side of his face was reflected in the glass.
He was young and strong despite his injuries; the cheer
of a day's hunting was in his blood, and for a moment a
flash of hope lit his lurid young eyes.  A flash he so
seldom saw, or allowed himself to see, that almost with a
snarl he turned so that the scarred cheek was reflected and
buried the gay hope almost as soon as it was born.

"You fool!" said Darby severely.  "You rotten fool!
To think!"

"Chicken or egg sandwich, sir?" the antiquated butler
inquired in the hall.

"Egg; and provision the car with the chickens.  I
may appease the pack with them," said Darby grimly.

What a fine old place it was as he looked out across
the wide park, the big old trees flaunting in autumn glory,
the sea just visible!  He might have been running down
those steps lightly, with hopes which had not to be
smothered at birth and his heart.  He might have loved
the old place doubly, because he could offer it as a home
to a girl whom he cared for; instead of—his hand touched
his useless leg; he leant on his stick.  "But, hang it,
if it were so, I should have been in France and probably
crippled for good," said Darby, trying to put care away.

It was on mornings such as these, when he could enjoy
part of life, that Care clung closer.  He could ride, but
must call whole men to open gates or catch his horse for
him.  He could feel the rush of the wind on his face and
the horse between his knees, see hounds hunt, look for
his turns and his luck as other men did; but at the finish,
when men jumped from their tired horses, he must climb
down laboriously, feel the glow dying as he limped to his
car or into some house to have tea.

He met the post-boy on the avenue and found a short
letter from the Master.

"Keep it going if you can.  We're having poor hunting
here; but back the old country to kill its fox in the end,
for all the croppers they'll take on the way."

Darby drove fast along the narrow bumpy roads,
drawing a distinct breath of relief when he saw Barty and
the hounds demurely still upon a hill and quite a crowd
of people waiting.

There was a lack of smartness about the assemblage.
Mrs. O'Gorman from the Bank had only half clipped her
stout roan.  She said that it seemed wrong to turn out
a horse just the same as one would in peace times.  There
were no new habits and half the familiar faces were gone.
Mr. Hefferty, the local dealer, who generally had a string
out—at least four horses, shaven and tidied and gingered
until their tails stood out as banners, and every semblance
of a good point was emphasized—now had only one, a light
whity grey with big feet, an animal which would have to
be dyed if it ever went on active service.

Someone who had seen a paper was immediately surrounded.
How was it?  What was the news?  Good or bad?

These were the days when people hoped that war could
not go on, that it would end suddenly and dramatically
because it was too huge to endure; when everyone forgot
that its very hugeness would keep it going until money
and men failed.

Old Captain Moore, who was fiercely anxious to do
something, was even explaining to people at what point
our troops would enter Berlin.  He had been there twice
on a Cook's tour, and he meant to go for another directly
there was peace.  He had even written about his ticket.
Mr. O'Gorman was concerned as to the choice of prisons
for the Kaiser and personally blamed that excitable
Emperor for the feverish price of oats.

"Spoiling even what's left to us over here!" he said.
"Hope they'll give him black bread when they shut him up."

A thousand places for victory were discussed and
argued over.  Everything was hopeful and nothing
ominous of defeat or even of check.  Antwerp, after all,
was only part of unfortunate Belgium, and its fall made
the air clearer.

The communiqués were things to be hung over, relied
on, and devoured.  People believed then that every word
from Berlin was an invention.

Then the small field turned its thoughts from war and
looked at the hounds.

"Any more adventures, Barty?" Darby asked softly.

"There is one thing, sir."  Barty returned an indirect
reply.  "That hunt or no, they'll get a bit to ate another
mornin'.  We only tore them off the back of Carty's
mother's pig, an' they had three chickens gone from me
own aunt while you'll be clappin' an eyelid."

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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER VII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VII

.. vspace:: 2

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."

"*If* it 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 the
*Field*," 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."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER VIII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VIII

.. vspace:: 2

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—*what* is
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' *he* can'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.

"Then Matilda must."

"Oh, Dearest George," said Matilda weakly, "I thought
of taking a little ride; but if you think I'd
better——  Of course, they are upset about Lancelot."

A second figure appeared on the cliffs, someone tall
and active.  Gheena flung the French windows open,
omitted to close them, and slipped into the wood which
went down to the edge of the sea.

"Gheena gets rougher every day," said Freyne
angrily—"every day, and more thoughtless."

Darby, on his stick, hobbled out and went slowly down
the lawn, his eyes fixed sadly on the trees that held the
girl.  How quickly she had slipped out, leapt over the
sunk fence and disappeared!  It was good to be young
and strong and active.  The measure of strength which
had returned to him could not content him.  Always
with one side which would drag, always slow and crippled.
He would be better, people told him.  His crushed limb
would improve by degrees, but he could never know the
fullness of life again.  He saw Gheena come dodging
across the carpet of dead leaves and peep at the fretted,
still blue sea.  She leant out cautiously, then came into
full view, and stood as if listening.  Two people were
talking just below the verge of the cliff.

"Are you looking for Germans?" said Darby politely.

"Oh, hush, Darby; do hush!  You don't know"—Gheena
came close to him—"you don't know the kind
of things I think," she whispered.

"If there was any use in those blamed bits of rock,"
said Basil Stafford's voice.

"My friend, is there any use in dead butterflies, in
used postage stamps, or an array of foxes' heads and
tails?  The rocks are my hobby to collect and ascertain
the stratum.  *Himmel*!"  This exclamation was caused
by Crabbit rolling a completely unwashed small rock on
to the Professor's neck.

"Rabbits," said the Professor, "excavating.  In time
stuffed.  Shall I not have a complete report of every
coast in Britain?"

Stafford said "Oh! add a 'c,'" rather dubiously.
"You'd be paid a bit for that just now," he added
grimly.

"To tell them what was the softest rock to hit against.
*Hein*!"  The old man chuckled.  "And I am well
salaried, pensioned; I have no need of money."

"Before I came here I wanted it as I shall never want
it again," said Stafford slowly.  "An old debt suddenly
cropping up, a dying mother with her only chance an
operation and a minus balance at the bank, and half pay.
But it all came right."

"You found means to get the money—eh?"

"More than I wanted," said Basil.  "I got it in a way
I hated getting it by, but it's here—and it saved my
mother too."

Gheena drew back slowly, her face flushed.

More money than he knew what to do with, and he
was playing at making drains on the south coast of
Ireland.  Gheena decided to go to see Mrs. Weston.

"It was the dog Crabbit what knocked down the stones,
and not a rabbit," remarked the Professor, looking up.
"Miss Freyne's dog."

"I said, add a 'c.'"  Stafford scrambled lightly up
the cliff.  "I heard voices up there."

Darby, leaning on his stick, was hobbling away with
Gheena and keeping pace easily enough with her active
feet.

Gheena whisked round suddenly as they came to the
little bridge over the sunk fence.

"If a man has been dreadfully hard up and gets enough
money suddenly, he must have found some way of getting
it," she said excitedly.

Darby referred her impolitely to "Enquire Within" or
the Ready Reckoner.  He had forgotten even simple
addition himself.

What did she overhear down there to make her look
like a boiling kettle with the spout corked, he said to
himself, his eyes following Gheena with something of
Crabbit's wistfully faithful look in them.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER IX`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IX

.. vspace:: 2

"We shall hear something of how the war is really
going on now," observed Dearest George
excitedly.  "Here is a letter from Eva's husband—the
one that died, Matilda, years ago."

Naylour started, so that a bevy of eggs leapt from the
china hen on to the floor, and Mrs. Freyne said "Gracious,
Dearest, was it suspended animation?"—rather absently,
as she watched them smash.

"It was the sister who died."  George Freyne
invariably bellowed at the slightest check to his flow of
conversation.  "Eva; she married a General.  He was
one then, rather.  How idiotic you can be, Matilda!  And
he's been appointed inspector of something—remounts—is
coming to Cara, and will stay Friday to Monday here—for
Christmas, in fact.  Great heavens, that old Naylour!
He has had a stroke."

"It was the fear what the Masther said put on me,"
murmured Naylour contritely.  "Not bein' sure what
they might be able to do in war-time—an' the gran'
eggs losht!  Scarce a smhell of the fire they got to-day,
Anne bein' repentant for overcookin' thim yestherday."  He
gathered up an uncooked omelette with two silver
tablespoons, murmuring repentance.

"No—we will not have any more—in war-time,"
said George Freyne frigidly.  "There is cold ham and
toast.  They were quite raw in any case.  You can tell
Anne."

The ham had worn down to the end which testifies to
the good feeding of the pig which provided it, and was
principally white fat.  George Freyne's hungry resentment
was not appeased by the appearance of a round
and smoking poached egg done for his stepdaughter,
accompanied by toasted ham.

"Anne does it on a fork," said Gheena cheerfully.
"There was no waste of frying.  Here, Crabbit."  She
put down half a plateful of ham for the red dog.

"And I am starving.  Ring that bell, please, Matilda,
and order up cold pheasant.  Now, having all been
sufficiently amusing, General Brownlow will be here on
Friday, and I suggest we get Darby to alter the meet
to Saturday, so that he can have a hunt.  He rides well,
or he used to—and so dreadfully fond of it.  Eva died
from a fall out hunting."

Darby said "Oh!" thoughtfully.  He had not yet
gone home, but was staying for Christmas Day.  "We'll
have to go out Stephen's Day," he said; "but I daresay,
if we only draw one covert the extra day, they'll be all
right, horses and everything."

"He will tell us news," said George Freyne emphatically,
"news which these Comoniques deny us."  (I write it
according to pronunciation.)  "He will have been at the
War Office and seen people.  And he's rather particular,
Darby, and inclined to take things seriously, so we must
try to keep the pack together, or nearly.  I'll practise
hard on the hunting-horn, and Keefe must try to get
out, and ... then the horses.  He'll want remounts."

"Twenty post-cards," said Darby.  "I'll find them
in the library, I suppose, George? and someone's sure to
be forgotten, even then."

"There is a messenger over from Cahercalla to say
that Masther Lancelot will be home to-morry—he has
a cart with him," announced Naylour impatiently, "an'
his mamma 'd like the loan of the bath-chair."

George Freyne went out fussily.

"Why Lancelot should bring a cart with him," said
Mrs. Freyne vaguely.  "So little room, I should have
thought, on the troopships, unless it was the one which
hurt him, as a memento.  Gheena says a cart ran over
him.  Oh, thank you, Gheena darling, poached eggs for
me and Darby.  I was hungry."

Her pleasure in the forbidden breakfast and its hurried
bolting before her husband came back made Mrs. Freyne
too busy to hear Darby's murmur of "It was the
messenger's cart, not Lancelot's."

"Dearest George gets quite faddy, you know," she
apologized, "about everything, and we never spend our
income—at least, I don't think so.  Gheena, Mrs. Keefe
thinks that last year's 'Unto Us' is in the attic here, and
ought to do in a war year with fresh holly.  She is not
sure if the 'Hallelulias!' were used to stuff the cat
pin-cushions for the bazaar, or if some of them came back
as they were.  What do you think, Gheena?"

"A cart-load of them came back," said Gheena, "and
everyone can just put on holly-berries and save pounds
of trouble."

"It is not in the lofts or the coach-houses; then where
is it? for I must know."  George Freyne drove Naylour
and Maria the housemaid into the room before him.
"A bath-chair in perfect order, which Mrs. Freyne's
mother used."

"Unless they broke it up for firewood, sir," suggested
Naylour, looking anxious.

"I lent it to Andy Cassidy's mother two years ago,"
said Mrs. Freyne, "and I think she died in it; and I
would not have it back; she had something unpleasant,
I know.  Then I think it got broken.  Tell the messenger,
Naylour, that Mrs. Keefe has an excellent bath-chair and
quite new.  Oh, I did not ask you about lending it,
Dearest, because probably you weren't here, or perhaps
I thought you might have objected and one wheel was
quite bad."

George Freyne carved pheasant furiously.

The days before Christmas were always feverishly
occupied at Castle Freyne.  Chunks of cow had to be
distributed among the work-people, with tea and sugar
and flour.  Everybody the Freynes ever did anything
for had to receive a goose or a turkey or game.

Mrs. Freyne agreed to the necessity for economy with
a resolution which melted as wax at the faintest idea of
putting it into practice.

"Everything died just as usual," she said placidly to
her husband; "and as they were dead, it would be waste
not to give them away, especially in war-time, Dearest,
would it not?"

Mounds of parcels had been secreted by Gheena and
sent to every acquaintance she had in France—cakes,
sweets, plum-puddings and mince-pies, tobacco and socks.
No man from the village missed having a parcel.

The day's papers merely contained the usual news of
the winter deadlock, so there was no excitement to
interfere with the long morning in the kitchen and the long
stream of presents which went out.

Mrs. Freyne remarked on the unusual scarcity of
pheasants, to be informed by stout Anne that the Masther
was sellin' them same to Hourigans there in the city.

George Freyne arrived at too frequent intervals to
groan before the array of food, until the sound of his
steps caused a laden rush to the rabbit-warren of sculleries
and larders off the huge kitchen and a general concealment
of anything which could be hidden speedily.

"We must slip away most of the parcels when Dearest
George has gone to Cahercalla, Gheena, mustn't we?
The Master is so dreadfully anxious that we should not
be extravagant during the war, you see, Anne.  Gentlemen
have it constantly before them."

"There is a fire to keep going in the red room from
this till Friday," announced Maria, coming down for
coal.  "The Masther says it is roarin' damp, and there
is a telegram to go for Eysters, Phil—when ye are exercisin'
the horses."

Phil remarked bleakly that it would be aisier to take
ramble on the bicycle than be rubbin' muck off his horses
for two hours afther the roads, and departed.

The afternoon was marked by the white fluff of last
year's cotton-wool which pervaded carpets and chairs,
and which Darby said was worse than snuff.  Fresh holly
duly dabbed with glass and ground sugar added a
stickiness to which the fluff clung lovingly.

They all worked in the servants' hall, a long room in
the basement, with a stone floor which chilled through
meagre rugs, and took a heavy tea there flavoured with
gum and fluff.

This was all a yearly amusement, generally tempered
by piles of new and snowy cotton-wool for the texts.

"But this year we are not neglecting the beauty of
the church, and still are saving money for the war," said
Mrs. Keefe piously.  "I wonder if the fluff will ever go
off us again?  That 'Unto Us' will look quite beautiful,
especially if the sun doesn't shine on the 'Son'; that
word is dreadfully yellow.  If you put on more berries,
Gheena, no one will know what it's meant for."

"And they'll think of German measles, too," said Darby
gravely.  "Mrs. Weston, you're the worst stitcher I've
ever seen."

Violet Weston was clamping holly leaves to a piece of
red calico nailed between two painted pieces of wood.
They were intended to cover a pencilled text decorously,
but instead were straying drunkenly off the lettering
and leaping hopelessly up again, until a cypher message
was the result.

"They prick so," said Mrs. Weston resentfully.  "And
we've all got to put them up to-morrow because you're
hunting on Saturday.  If they only were calico letters,
but real holly."  She sucked a finger.  "That bay horse
of mine is a very funny horse," she went on.  "He stands
still when he's tired, and gulps."

"He was pretty bad last year," said Darby
sympathetically.  "But you can turn him over for his
own riding, you see, and get even that way."

Mrs. Weston dropped a lapful of holly leaves and
stared with puzzled eyes.

"Oh, Mr. Keefe didn't know," she said blithely, "and
here he is with Mr. Stafford."  She looked swiftly at Gheena.

"Stafford drove me over to the Wireless Station,"
Keefe said importantly.  "We thought some news might
be in.  And now we've come to help.  I'll sit here near
you, Mrs. Weston."

"I think they're so squashed probably they won't
prick," said Mrs. Weston thoughtfully.  "Oh, they did"—for
Mr. Keefe got up hurriedly.  "I'll hold the board if
you finish the text.  I am all sore."

Violet Weston was aggressively, brightly pretty in her
light-coloured frieze skirt and jersey, with vermilion silk
stockings framed by ultra-smart shoes.  She was painted
and thickly powdered, and told everyone her fringe was
false; but something in her light-hearted good-humour
made her difficult to resist.

Everyone's feet were lumps of ice, everyone's faces had
flushed from hot tea and lack of air; sneezes not entirely
born of fluff peppered the conversation.

The Vicar at some length put forward a plan of campaign
which must end the war in a month.  It included the
crossing of the Rhine, a march into Berlin, and
the permanent imprisonment of the Kaiser on Spike
Island.

Mrs. Keefe then thought if there were more like her
Albert at the front—he was called after the Prince of
Wales—no, of course, the Prince Consort—who used their
brains instead of merely running in and out of ditches,
that the awful loss of life would soon end.  In fact, Albert
had volunteered to go as chaplain, and he might be
attended to then.

The black back trail of the war was gone over many
times—the great hopes which had fallen so heavily—Antwerp,
which men said could hold out for six months.

"Betrayed by spies," said the Vicar bitterly.  He
went on to remark that man of God as he was, he would
himself shoot a spy without compunction.

"After he had said a prayer, of course," temporized his
wife soothingly.

The Rev. Albert Keefe did not reply.  He came of a
fighting race.

"General Brownlow will doubtless be able to tell us
why the Germans did not take Paris," said George Freyne,
coming in in a motor-coat, "and Lancelot comes to-morrow
in the mail on crutches.  He is not likely to rejoin.
Some bone must come out."

"Fancy if we found a spy here!" giggled Violet Weston.
"You just finish that 'towards men,' Mr. Keefe.  I
won't.  How exciting it would be!  And you know
if it's true that there is a supply base for submarines
about, there might easily be someone paying out the
money, mightn't there?"

Again she looked at Gheena.  Stafford flushed slowly,
his lips set together.

Mr. Freyne, who had to have fresh tea—not China—and
fresh hot cakes, and who was palpably annoyed because
no one took a great deal of interest in Lancelot, his
nephew, now remarked acidly that he had run into
Mrs. Weston's on his way back to leave in a book which
Annette had borrowed from her, and he was astonished
to see how untidy her little back garden was.  The man
Guinane was absolutely useless to her, and he suggested
her taking on old Dillon instead.

Violet Weston replied that she loved the boating on
calm days, and that Guinane had promised her to grow
peas and beans in the spring, and flowers she must grow
herself, she supposed; but she liked Guinane.

The texts were piled against the wall; patient house-maids
removed fluff, nails and leaves, and everyone
thought of hot baths.

"I have asked them all to dinner for Christmas," said
Mrs. Freyne presently.  "It makes us forget how bad
the war is when everyone talks of it, doesn't it, Dearest
George?"

"Mr. Keefe will argue with the General," said Dearest
George gloomily, "and Annette and Grace and Lancelot
must come.  But it is your house, my dear love," he
added gloomily; "one cannot take back invitations."

General Brownlow was motored from Clonaheen on a
blustering night.  He proved to be an elderly but active
person, with a lean, hatchet face, deeply-set eyes and
a repressive manner.  He brought his man—a particularly
superior-looking person, not a soldier—and hoped they
had expected a valet.

Mrs. Freyne thought hopefully that if the man was not
rheumatic, a good deal of hot air from the red room must
have gone into the little one next to it, and the man
could sleep there.

The General looked anxious, but was reassured by a
murmur in a language not English and the departure of
Hook with the bags.

The expected flood of information was not forthcoming
at dinner.  The lean man seemed only to have heard
the usual rumours, and to be as firmly convinced as
everyone that all the right men were in the wrong places,
and that the one person to adjust matters had not yet
been found.  When he did talk, it was of Ireland and the
Irish, and he grew absolutely cheerful when he heard of
a prospective hunt.

"Met Lindlay," he jerked out.  "Yes.  Told me he he'd
spared no money with the pack here; poor country but
great sport.  Any experience hunting?" he jerked out
at Darby.

"Twenty years ... compressed," said Darby thoughtfully.
"Hares, foxes, cats, dogs.  May say I've a good
deal now, I think, sir."

General Brownlow considered the list mentally.  "Yes.
India; jackals, dogs ... but cats.  You don't mean
tigers, Dillon?"

"No, cats," said Darby briefly.  "They are ... well
... it's not exactly Lindlay's pack we're hunting here,"
he added.

"That man is making such a muddle of waiting,"
whispered Gheena, when her stepfather began to talk
again.  "He upset one plate of soup, and he's rigid
now with the bread-sauce at mother's wrong side.  She'll
never notice him there."

Just then George Freyne, looking round fussily,
remarked "Sauce for the General's partridge" very
sharply to Naylour.

"Rooted with it he is," said Naylour in one of his
audible asides.  "Hurry along, young man, will ye!"

The young man feverishly left Mrs. Freyne's right hand
and transferred himself to the General's, Naylour
remarking "War ways," firmly removing the tureen and ordering
the stranger to shove the bell for the lift.

"As curiously behaved as ever—this old country,"
said the General testily—"No, I've finished, thank
you—this Ireland of yours, George.  I spent the week before
my wedding here, I remember."

George Freyne replied heatedly in defence of his
country, answering his brother-in-law that Ireland was
orderly and well regulated.  "And if you mean the
sauce, it was your man," added Mr. Freyne, in what he
believed to be an undertone.

"Oh—er—my man; he's not used to butlering.  The
most annoying habit of the Irish is their inability to see
the gravity of situations."

Darby rubbed his forehead quite slowly with his right
hand, as with his left he set fire to a mince-pie.

"All the same in a hundred years.  My poor Eva would
say that when—when—well, when she ought not to
have—when the month's expenditure was five pounds
beyond her allowance, or something valuable died, or
the impossible maids she brought from home smashed
some of my Worcester.  Dear me!  She would train to
distant meets when we could not possibly afford it.
And ... 'I'll be dead such a long time, Tony,' she said
to me when I remonstrated."

But a gleam of light and softness shone in the hard
old eyes.

"She might box horses anywhere she wished to now,"
he said, sighing.  "And she is not there to do it."

"Then you see, sir, she was right," said Darby gently.
"She had her fun, and it did not matter as you pulled
out and made money."

General Brownlow glared at Darby fiercely; then the
gleam of softness reappeared, and he grunted thoughtfully,
to remark after a pause that he'd never thought of it, but,
after all, she was.  And that he'd write to Tom her boy
to say it didn't matter....  Then he lapsed into silence
again, with something very like tears in his eyes.

When a telegram came for Stafford he read it with such
a disturbed expression that General Brownlow asked softly
if it was bad news.

"No.  War news and no news."  But Stafford's frown
was not that of a man who had received a wire about
nothing.

"You are not joining anything?" the General asked.

"Not at present, sir.  I am tied here."

Stafford tore the telegram up, then walked to the fire
and threw the pieces in carefully.

General Brownlow's man was a success in his own circle.
Old Naylour reported upon him as a dacent boy, with
a twisht of fun in him; this privately to Gheena.

It was a still, muggy night, and as the air in the library
grew heavy with smoke, and the possibilities of making
tricks at Bridge were carefully considered, Crabbit flung
himself with a wild "Bow-wow" against the window
panes.  Naylour at the moment was putting down a large
silver tray laden with syphons and decanters and a jug
of boiling water.  Gheena promptly let her dog out,
letting in a sough of cold raw air, which struck the heavy
heated atmosphere almost as with a blow.

Crabbit trailed off, yelping excitedly, followed by her
owner with her light dress festooned above her arms and
her airy petticoat fluttering round her ankles.

"Unless it is rabbits it is a man," said Naylour
decidedly.  "That Crabbit has the nose on him."

Someone asked if the dog would bite, and Gheena
returned talking affably to General Brownlow's man, who,
it appeared, had gone out for a stroll.

"Being devoted to the sea air, Miss," he said pleasantly,
"and longing for a smell of it, cold as it is."

He came apologizing through the open window; his
boots were very wet, almost as if he had walked in water.

Next morning, during a breakfast at which all war
restrictions were removed, and Anne worked her blissful
way with eggs and bacon and sausages, General Brownlow
asked if a mount could be provided for his man, who loved
a hunt, above all things, and Gheena offered her young
horse heartily.

"He bucks a little, but he's a fine lepper," she said,
"and his mouth is not quite made.  Still, if the man didn't
mind that—you see, you're riding Greybird as the best
we've got, and we have to mount Mr. Keefe too."

The General's man, who had again been out to see the
coast before breakfast, accepted gratefully, saying that
any horse would do.

They drove to the meet, old Dillon coming to bring the
General's car along, and found no hounds when they
reached the fixture, cross-roads tracking through a boggy
stretch with a small gorse-covert inset on rising ground just
beyond.

Private information of the presence of a somebody
from the War Office having trickled through, everyone
who had a horse had turned out.  The horses had been
shaven above as well as below.  Mrs. O'Gorman wore
her best habit again, with grievous thoughts of how it
had shrunk lying by.  A glint of coppery sun came
shining through a soft mist of clouds, the tang of salt
mixing with the scent of peat.

When the Cahercalla Darracq, its tint a brilliant yellow,
drove up, its occupiers seemed to consider that the
non-arrival of hounds was of minor importance, since they
supplied the event of the day.

For it held Lancelot in khaki, his leg extended in front
of him upon a variety of cushions and supports, his face
a little white, but not thin.

Lancelot Freyne was a long boy with a great deal of
loose fat distributed unevenly.  It inclined to his shoulders
and cheeks, and then bulged out again in his thighs.  He
was loose-lipped and combined a desire to show his
excellent imaginative powers with a meekness due to
suppression from his infancy by his mother and elder
sister.

The crowd of people round the car were slaves to the
throb of his foot.  He answered questions concerning the
war with vigorous decision, and apparently had seen
flocks of prisoners, and droves of guns, and yet was gloomy
over it all.

"You see, they really have such a lot of men," said
Lancelot, watching his mother hang upon his words, "and
they don't mind losing them, and then they have so
many guns."

"Was it shrapnel or a bullet, poor Lancelot?" inquired
Mrs. O'Gorman, clasping her stout hands.

Lancelot murmured "Field gun" in rather embarrassed
tones and a little sulkily.

"A 'Jack Johnson' shell," Mrs. O'Gorman passed
back, "and it didn't blow his foot off.  You must have
had a very strong boot, Lancelot dear."

Here General Brownlow backed away, struggling with
a cough which seemed to have got out of control.

"And did you really bring the cart, Lancelot," asked
Matilda Freyne, riding up, "as a souvenir?  The cart
which went on your poor toe, Gheena said."

Lancelot, his interesting pallor swallowed by a wave of
fiery red, replied haughtily that no cart had gone over
his toe, and glared at Gheena.

That damsel was employed in adjusting the young bay
horse's bridle, and offering him to the General's man as
one would a spoon to a child with strawberry jam but
rhubarb underneath.

"Just saw the bits across, Hook, if he pulls very hard
down hill.  He won't pull going up.  If he kicks, try
to jerk his head up.  He often rears instead, you know.
And don't be afraid if he flies small fences; he won't fall.
Just be careful the *first* time he gets his feet on to grass;
he sobers down wonderfully when he's gone for a little."

The General's man grinned softly, landed lightly into
the saddle, and got the young horse's head up with a
determination which gave that high-spirited youngster
quite a shock.  The bay, christened Redbird—all Gheena's
horses were birds, she said—observed that there was little
room for him to play in, so settled down decorously to
walk up and down with the other horses.

Darby looked feverishly for his hounds.  Then he
heard them coming.

"Get away on them, ye set of schamers," shrilled Andy's
voice.  "Get on to bed.  Shame on ye, Grandjer an'
Daisy, shame!"

"Wild as hawks they was," confided old Barty, who
looked hot.  "Here, there and elsewhere, an' ready to
be at the clouds if they'd run along the bog for them."

Darby considered this possible.

"One cat they cot anonst to her," said Barty.  "The
chestnut is latherin' all over with the fear of Carty's lash,
an' even the Rat is sober from chasin'."

General Brownlow removed a cigarette and said "My
God!" to himself twice as he looked at the pack.

Home Ruler always led them, the relationship to a
boar-hound never being quite concealed by a fox-hound's
stern, with the tailless and aggressive Grandjer just
behind.

The General prayed again, lifted his hat a little as if
to admit air to his hair and looked at George Freyne.

"You mean to say they hunt," he jerked out.  "You
bought a hunting cap for this lot, George.  And someone
else has one, too.  Three of you Masters, and, I say,
Hook!  *Hook!*"

For the General's man, riding up, also looked at the
pack, and gave vent to an outburst of hideously clear
laughter, which he made worse by putting up his hand
to hide, as he rocked and backed away.

"Something I thought of, sir," he gulped at last
respectfully.  "Er—a tale—they told me."

"Move on, Barty," said Darby shortly; "it's twelve
o'clock."

The way into the gorse cover lay past a stretch of
bog-land which was thick with hares; then the black caps
lined up behind the pack.

Daisy and Greatness broke away, throwing their
tongues.

"Whip them off that hare, Barty.  Get round them, Carty."

Darby was finding himself as a Master of Hounds; he
no longer gave orders dubiously, but with a pointed
bitterness of decision.

"It is no use to be larrupin' them for what they were
used to," said Barty philosophically, as he rode the
aggrieved Greatness off the line with a polo-player's skill.

"Home to bed, Greatness!" shrieked young Andy
reproachfully.  "Home to bed, ye schamer, ye!  There
is foxes beyant an' ye're wantin' yere nise on little better
than rabbits."

"Lord above us! to be brought out for this," said
Brownlow.  "For this!  Look at them!  Hook, look
out, man!"

The bay horse got his feet on the grass for the first
time.  Three mighty bucks carried him well on to the soft
ground, where he stretched his head out and began to kick.

Mr. Hook, proving himself a horseman, if no butler,
gave the big snaffle bit three jags, which took the
youngster's head up, and bringing down his crop on the
sleek bay quarters, got the big humped back up straight,
and set the great brute going in the deep ground before he
knew where he was.  The bad example brought forth a
series of squeals and light-hearted bounds from more
sedate hunters, Gheena's roan compassing three excellent
plunges, and Dearest George's old bay kicking his master
on to his neck.

"If mine begins," said Matilda nervously.

"Oh, take him into the soft and he'll never lift you,"
suggested the General absently.  "I hope that man won't
be hurt.  He's valuable.  Well over!"

This, as the youngster swept a fair-sized bog trench
with a snort of wrath.

Hounds went into covert now without requiring to be
personally conducted.  They had scarcely vanished when
Home Ruler's great bay sounded sonorously, followed by
Grandjer's short yap.

"Overture to the Valkyrie," said Brownlow thoughtfully;
"full orchestra."

Darby cheered them quickly, his familiar cry being
followed to-day by a bellow from his fellow Master George,
in which "Forrard!" or "Tally ho!" and "Good boys!"
seemed to be blended, but not satisfactorily mixed.

Beauty, in fact, climbed on the bank with an inquiring
expression on her pale face.

"For Heaven's sake, George!  You'll get their heads up!
And Keefe squeaking the 'Gloria' at the other end!  Well,
if it isn't that, it's something out of tune.  He'll go soon.
They're rattling him, but be quiet."

Darby leant forward, twisted useless limbs forgotten
now.  He was on a horse's back, his grip firm there.  He
could ride as well as men who had never known pain.
There was the prospect of a gallop over these small green
fields, and of watching his hounds hunt—terriers, harriers,
what you will, yet his hounds, and keen for blood.

"Yow—ow—ow!" the long harrier note towled out,
soft and musical.

Mr. Freyne, greatly put out, rode away murmuring
"Tally ho's!" to himself, so that onlookers should see
that he was doing his part.

"There he goes!"  An old dog fox, dark in colour and
with a white tag to his brush, whisked out over the bank,
looked back for a moment, and loped off straight through
a patch of bog towards the pasture land.

"The best line.  Give 'em time, will you!  Easy,
O'Gorman....  Steady there!  Easy, George!  You're
the worst of the lot, nesting under your peaked cap,
selling your country, man!  Steady, will you!"

It took time to get the hounds on to the line, to get
them settled down and cup on.  Traitor and Sweetie and
Spinster were given to hunting solemnly on in covert.

"Forrard!  Away!  Away!  Away!"  Barty's screech
equalled that of John Peel.

Long and thrilling it rang out, echoed by soprano
efforts from little Andy, blissfully waiting for the Rat to
run away, and with throaty notes from Carty at the lower
side of the gorse.

"Get away on forrard!" sang out George Freyne
energetically to the crowd round him.  There was only
one good track across the bog.  This permission sent
several people ambling along it, wondering if the hounds
would soon join them.

Mr. Keefe's effort—he had to do something for a
General—was "Yoicks!  Tally ho!" which he kept trying from
C in alt. down to the bass G, to see which note suited his
voice.

"Pretty nonsensical our leaving all the Master's work
to Dillon," he muttered, and tried his part again, the
lower key completely startling Miss Carrie Hourigan that
she dropped her whip so that she might get to her beads
under her habit.

"Thinking it was a gun out of a Zeppelin," she said
pallidly.  "Will you pick the whip up, Mr. Keefe, like
a love, now?"

"Sorry, a Master," bustled Keefe; "this way, Mrs. Weston.
Keep the track."  He did it again on the high
note.

"You'll certainly break something if you try so high,"
said Violet.  "And you're distracting Mr. Dillon, so
do stop."

Hounds were on now.  They towled away, Home Ruler
leading over the springy tussocks, every hound hunting,
every tongue thrown.

The General's man sobered the young horse by pulling
him straight at the spongiest piece of ground, through
which they laboured and heaved, and the bay was in
hand as they jumped an ugly bog drain and landed on
sound grass.

The pace was fair, hounds running steadily over light
springy land, fenced by small narrow-topped banks.

"It's hunting, after all."  Brownlow's hatchety severe
face relaxed to a look of positive surprise as he took his
horse by the head and pulled out to the right of hounds.
How many years ago since he had ridden there before,
just before his wedding, with the bright girl whom he
had met in England and come over to marry—seeing her
send along a half-broken chestnut filly as if she were the
possessor of three necks?

Gheena swung past him now, the same glow of delight
on her young face, her eyes as ecstatically happy; but her
mount was a hunter, trained and fit to go.

"Look out there!  A drop!"

Gheena put the roan at a brake of brambles overgrowing
a slimy spot with a heavy drop outside on to a
rutty cart-track.  It took a clever horse to balance on
the mixture of crumbling earth and shale and slide down
without a mistake.

"One way of doing it."  General Brownlow looked to
his right, to see his man on the bay sail sleepily into the
air and clear even the boreen at the landing side.

The pace had been steady enough to shake off people
who wanted to look before they leapt.  The Field had
thinned out.  Hounds bent to the right along a rushy,
sour field when scent failed a little, and headed for the
road which wound its grey ribbon up the side of a steep
hill.

On this something yellow caught the eye.  Home Ruler's
bolt was shot, but Grandjer and Beauty stopped on the
low bank on to the road and looked up anxiously, thus
explaining to the noisy crew behind that they were at
fault.

"He has gone right back, Darby," said Annette Freyne
excitedly.  "So don't try on.  He turned here.  Oh,
Lance, this is nice for you!  So lucky, General, for our
invalid."  But at this point Darby's voice roared out
immediate orders to have that car stopped.  "You
headed him, you something goldfish!" yelled the man,
who was rapidly growing used to his position in life.
"You canaries, chirrupping there, when no one wants you."

"Canaries! with a wounded hero from the front,"
said Mr. Freyne's mother, after a long hurt pause.  "If
he did see a fox, who could object, really, Darby!  And
canaries!"

"I'll intern you if you don't put it out!" roared Darby.

"Put it out or I'll arrest you!" blared the General,
with sudden fierceness, to Lancelot.

"And it isn't as if she always started," wailed Annette.
"They're crossing the road lower down; he must have
gone on that far," she said a moment later, fixing baleful
eyes on Darby's back.  "To be so rude to us!"

George Freyne's elder sister, who was large, and muddy
as to complexion, kept murmuring Darby's insults
incessantly, so that when she said "Go on" for a change,
Annette, her daughter, told the man to start the canary,
and was accused, despite her thirty years, of impertinence
to her mother.

Beauty meantime had towled across the road, followed
by Daisy, Home Ruler and Spinster, and they carried on
across a field of sodden ploughed upland, which would
have taxed the noses of the fox-hounds sorely.

The fox had not only gone some time, but he was
twisting with the ease of the unpressed animal, looking
for holes here and there, and making for Craughwell
Woods in front of him, where he hoped to find an open
earth.

In this he was mistaken.  He was hunted doggedly
and slowly up and down the big woods, the long harrier
note echoing among the trees, until in a downpour of
rain he broke again, slipping away for the Craughwell
river, which swelled bank-high in flood.

Now Darby knew too well that there were only two
possible passages across the stream, one by the bridge
on the road, an unlikely line, and the other a slippery
ford half a mile up, where if a fox crossed, he generally
made for Ardhee Cross, about three miles off and up hill,
a line through series of small woods and high straggling
hedges.

Darby galloped for the ford, a large contingent at his
heels, to be stopped by a locked gate which even his
heated language could not blast open.

Gheena flew down the long avenue to the bridge in the
road, with her stepfather, General Brownlow and a
few others clattering behind her.  She found an open
gate and splashed up two low-lying fields, to find hounds
at fault in a wide expanse of sown winterage dotted with
sullen little pools of water.

If Darby had been there he would have let them alone.
He knew their noses.  George Freyne's moment was
come; his black cap sat as a crow upon his head, and
his office as first Master was heavy on him.  He would
show his brother-in-law.  And just at that moment
Daisy, staring about, put a hare up out of a tussock near
the hedge and towled off in its wake by herself.

"Tally ho!  One of the brutes has got it!" shouted
George Freyne.  "Here the others.  Tally ho!  Forrard
on!"

Gheena shrieked out that a small boy had viewed a hare
away and that she could hear the horn up the river.

The assistant Master, ignoring this, whistled and blew
and cheered until General Brownlow rocked on his horse.

In a moment everyone was ordered to get round hounds.
Futile groans emanated from the horn.  Mrs. Freyne
cantered vaguely round the pack and asked them politely
to go up to George.

Mr. O'Gorman bellowed, and a variety of youths
whipped until the pack, upset and hustled, had reached
the tuft vacated by the hare.

"It's ... immense," gurgled the General, almost
sobbing.  "Blow again, George!  Whirrrr, and I know
it's a hare!  There are two hounds hunting right-handed
up-stream by the bank from which they checked!

"And I've never known a fox turn this way," wailed
Gheena.  "It's a part we absolutely left to the foot
dogs."

Hounds got on; they were always enthusiastic.  They
circled round the next field and turned where the hare
had turned up by a straggling hedge.

"Fox never ran that way," said the General; "back
again, round this field, I believe."

Then they crossed the road and over a bog and crawled
on over a steep hill, to encounter at the bottom a vast
and ragged ditch, unpleasantly vague as to its depth
and very decided as to its width.  When Gheena and the
General had got over with a scramble, they found themselves
completely alone in another driving storm of rain
and hounds disappearing into grey misty distance over
a high bank.

"That's the Quilty bog near the sea, utterly unrideable,"
said Gheena hopelessly.  "The fishermen can
only go through by paths."  They floundered along the
edge, keeping to the driest parts of the cart track, which
was only used in summer, with deep ruts and patches from
which the rapidly tiring horses had to wrest their limbs
free, and came to a slightly better road with a surface of
loose stone, to look across two miles of bog on one side and
on to the sea at the other.  Far off, faintly, they could
hear the sound of hounds hunting.

Gheena pulled up her roan, now black with bog slime
and sweat, and pointed hopelessly to the track which they
must wallow over again if they followed the line taken by
the circling hare.

General Brownlow's refusal ever to go along that track
again was short but soldier-like in its decision.

"Even to catch the German Emperor," he said emphatically.

"We'll ride up here to the road, then," said Gheena
dejectedly; "we pass the Wireless Station this way."  She
added that it was nine miles home, and she wondered
where her young horse and Hook had got to.

"He made a good hand of that young horse," said
Gheena reflectively.  "If you could leave him here for
a week any time I wouldn't mind at all."

The rain cleared off, leaving them both in the dripping
stage with the wind drying them in chilly gusts.  The
horses stepped carefully on the pointed flints, cheering
up as they turned on a twisty road between high banks,
with the Wireless Station close by.

Here, as they jogged on, they were astonished to see a
khaki-coloured car draw up at the door and Hook just
coming out with a coastguard.

"Lost everything, sir," he explained, "and hopped
into the car to look for you.  Hunt reported in this
direction, so I came to inquire."

Gheena looked thoughtful.  Strangers were not admitted
to the portals as a rule.

The coastguard's suggestion of fire and shelter for the
horses sounded tempting.  There were sheds at the
back where an old farm had stood.  Hook led the horses
away, and Gheena felt gladly the scorch of cheeks which
a hot room brings after a battering in the open air.

The coastguard's room was a typical one, ornamented
with large conch shells and lumps of coral, and
everything arranged with sailor's neatness.

They only stayed for a few minutes.  General Brownlow
was rheumatic and exceedingly damp, and as they watched
the gate, they saw Violet Weston, her hunting hat changed
for a picturesque hood, her bright colouring outlined in
white furs and her expression one of piteous entreaty.

She had driven round to look for Gheena and her car
had gone out.  It would not start without the battery,
which seemed run down.  If they could put it on for
half an hour she would wait.  Then she saw Gheena and
repeated her piteous tale.  Hook, just behind, dropped
off Whitebird and came forward.  He respectfully
suggested that he might start the car or set things right.

After a few futile tugs at the handle he lifted the bonnet.

"But are you a mechanic?" said Violet; "because if
you're not, please don't mess at her.  Someone did once,
and I had to get a man from Dublin afterwards."

"Someone," said Hook, "has been messing her a little,
Ma'am.  Poking their noses into what doesn't concern
them," he added softly, his face hidden.

Violet Weston whispered to Gheena.  The name
Stafford was repeated more than once.  And, as if conjured
up by it, Stafford's two-seater purred round the bend
and his brakes went on with a jar.

"Darby's wailing like Rachael, a few miles back," he
said.  "He had one couple of hounds with him, and he's
thirsting for someone's blood.  He's looking for hounds
now.  George Freyne I met at Ardhee Cross, swearing you
hunted a fox on until he lost you, and everyone who could
has gone home.  I came on to take someone home if I
could, and to find the hounds."

Hook took his head out of the bonnet and swung the
handle of Violet's car again, starting it easily.

"Just a little adjustment," he said.  "And if you
leave your battery here, they'll run it and I'll fetch it
to-morrow, Ma'am."

"I wish to goodness I was coming out again on Monday,"
grunted Brownlow, as he got into his car.  "I
can quite see where Dillon got so much experience
now."

As General Brownlow slithered round stiff bends with
constant inquiries as to who planned Irish roads, they
came upon the drenched Master—it was raining
again—collecting his pack just outside the bog.  They had just
run the hare back and eaten her.

"We'd have been up to Ardhee Cross if George had
let 'em alone," he said bitterly.  "Matilda says he cast
them so beautifully, so he has gone home now, imagining
himself John Peel and Ashton Smith rolled into one."  Then
he whispered to Barty, who pulled a hare's pate
from Daisy's jaws, and Darby with a grin attached it to
his saddle.

Castle Freyne was quite full.  It was simpler after a
long day for people who were not staying to bring their
clothes and not go home to change, so the house was all
bustle when they got in.  Anne, in the basement, was
basking in a torrid heat, with two amateur kitchen-maids
sitting among piles of feathers in the scullery and at least
three turkeys ready to bake.  Christmas was Christmas
in Anne's eyes.  The discarding of sodden garments,
the joys of very hot water, preceded tea for those who
had hunted.  It was laid in the dining-room to-day, and
included poached eggs and fried ham.

Lancelot was ensconced by the fireplace, roasting
slowly, his leg propped on another chair and his expression
one of heated misery.

"You may talk of hunting, Darby," said the second
Master, bursting in happily; "but we left you to-day,
my boy.  Whatever took you off up by the ford?  We
struck the line just where I galloped to, guessing we
should, and I clapped them on, and we ran over the big
fields."

Mr. Freyne, completely happy, bustled in to enlarge on
his success.  How he had cast the hounds, and cheered
them, despite some absurd blowing of Darby's, up the
river, and how they had run on after the fox.

Darby leant on his stick and grunted.

"The fox which Darby had absolutely said was a hare.
Over the big fields, running like pigeons, across Clanchy's,
up Dhura Hill, fluting, and—er—then"—George Freyne
looked inquiringly at his brother-in-law—"my mare
refused—and afterwards——"

"They went on to a very large bog," said the General
dryly, "and we—Gheena and I—lost them."

Mr. Freyne sat down to enjoy his tea; lost hounds tell
no tales, he said importantly; that no doubt they were
beaten there.

Darby said slowly that Beauty could never be beaten.
She would run the spectral huntsman across a glacier if
she got her nose down.

"Then he got in," said George Freyne.  "You got
them in the road.  He got in."

"Or went out in a submarine," suggested Darby;
"that bog touches the sea."

Mr. Freyne, ignoring this, repeated accounts of various
items of his own dash and skill, of his certainty of its
being the line of a fox, and how by his determination he
had shown General Brownlow sport.

"But they did not lose him in the bog."  Darby limped
to the table.  "They killed at the verge of the road just
as I came up."

Dearest George looked up.

"And I brought you the head," said Darby, putting the
hare's astounded dead face on a plate before his host.
"Daisy had it."

"The only thing to be regretted is that I may never
see this hunting again," said General Brownlow, breaking
the silence which followed, his eyes on the hare's pate
lying close to the strawberry jam.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER X`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER X

.. vspace:: 2

Christmas at Castle Freyne came in formally
about ten o'clock with the advent of the wran
boys at the dining-room windows.

Gheena fumed furiously before the sacrifice of tiny
feathered things, and was ignored by her stepfather, who
supported old customs principally because no one else
wished him to.  Custom also dictated that everyone's
presents should repose on their plates; so that they
waited in hunger to slash string and express rapture,
and the table was littered with bits of twine and wrapping
paper.

Gheena rhapsodized over a new bag of severe green
leather with jail-like clasps, then embracing her
stepfather with the fervour expected of her.  She put it aside
to pick up a variety of other oddments, amongst them
a cigarette-case from "V.W." with Gheena scratched
across its tortoiseshell form in silver.  At the bottom
of the heap she discovered her mother's string of pearls,
long coveted, and exclaimed shrilly.

Dearest George grunted gratitude over two new pipes,
a tobacco jar and a box of cigars, and a note-case for the
new paper money from his wife.

Her plate was obliterated by a vast edifice in glass,
destined to hold flowers and glimmering with a dull green
hideousness.

"Got it over from London, you see, Matilda," said her
husband, beaming.  "Badly wanted for the drawing-room
shelf to take the everlastings."

Gheena dived again, to find a big turquoise charm,
with "For Luck" on it, from Darby, and a pair of
race-glasses with no name.

Hooking the charm on the pearls, where it did not look
at home, Gheena turned over everything once more to
find some note about the race-glasses, and heard Dearest
George repress, with extreme difficulty, the words which
he would have used concerning a litter on the floor, if he
had not been opening the case containing Gheena's present
of a pipe, and had to say "Thank you, my dear," instead.

"I wanted race-glasses," said Gheena, "but who?
Darby, you're a duck!"

Darby smiled as he hobbled to his meagre array of
presents.  Gheena always gave him a box of cigarettes.
There were no little mementoes from loving girls for
Darby Dillon now.

"But I say who?" said General Brownlow, picking up
a little silver matchbox.  "I got Psyche's letter yesterday."

"I thought you wouldn't mind—that there'd be nothing
on your plate," apologized Gheena shyly.  "And mother
sent the cigarettes.  Oh!" This as the old man kissed
her rather tenderly.

The theatrical advent of Lancelot with his mother and
sister guarding his crutches, intercepted the sorting of
presents.  He came so plainly expecting general sympathy,
to be installed in an arm-chair with a small table by his
side, and his mother fussily superintending every mouthful
of his breakfast.

They went to church presently, where the cotton-wool
texts looked brave, if a little tired, and the usual smell
of roast stove and drying cushions pervaded the airless
atmosphere.  Mr. Brady completely forgot the season
when he touched upon the war.  He took for his text the
writing on the wall, and forgot that too, as he plunged
into metaphor as difficult to follow as modern tactics;
for in a breath he compared the Germans with burrowing
snakes and carrion-seeking eagles, both of which expressions
were listened to with rapture by his wife, and made the
General and Darby tap their heads softly.  Mr. Brady
then explained smoothly how even as a God-fearing
nation we wanted nothing but peace, and the best way
to get it was to go and kill every man Jack of German
traitors and treaty violators, until there were only
grey-beards and infants left.  "And, of course, the prisoners,"
he added, regretfully.

"The Redeemer of the world," he said, "never meant
an army which warred on women and children to dominate
humanity, and to-day, in the words of the Bible, it 'was
to us to go forth and kill.'"

If he had not got on to the National Anthem very
quickly someone would have cheered.

"Even if we are fighting, the texts will never do for
next year," said Mrs. Keefe in the doorway.  "So what
would you think, Mrs. Freyne, of stuffing pillows for the
troops with them now while the wool is fairly dry."

A fine rain was falling outside, and the gleam of wintry
sunshine somewhere behind it; the day was very cold.

The heavy appetite engendered by church made George
Freyne fidget, when Gheena delayed him by rushing off
with Violet Weston.  Mrs. Weston was brilliant in rather
crude mauve, with sky-blue silk stockings on, and held
Gheena's arm very affectionately as they whispered
together.

The old Professor beamed at them all, a beam with
sadness in it.

"In Germany they love Christmas so," he said gently.
"The Gretchens and the Annas romp like children over
their presents; they all over-eat themselves and everywhere
is the smell of pine needles and candles which have
burnt themselves out—the 'Tannen-baum.'  The women
are as bad as the men, you say, Mr. Freyne, because they
look now as ever, when they are told to look.  They clap
their poor hands now for war as they did for the beauty
of the Christmas-tree.  Christmas, with empty chairs
near the fire—is it not sad for all?"

"How you can say one word for the brutes who lamed
my Lancelot," said Mrs. Augustus Freyne, "I do not know,
Professor."

The Professor said humbly that he only spoke for
humanity and Christmastide.

"We are astonished to hear the dreadful people ever
mentioned," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane heavily.  "After
all, if there were no dreadful fat mothers there would be
no brutal sons to run about murdering and rapining."  Here
Mrs. Keane stopped to consider if that was quite
the right word, especially in the churchyard path, because
the Professor chuckled softly and Darby grinned.  Changing
the conversation, Mrs. Keane objected to last year's
texts as disrespectful to the season.

Mrs. Brady uneasily remarked that the cotton-wool
was to make pillows, and it will all look quite nice with
the lights up this evening.

Mrs. De Burgho Keane replied energetically that the
evening would not concern her.  She passed on to
interrogate Lancelot as he hopped to the motor, and wished
to know if the brutal Germans really laughed when they
wounded people, or if that was a newspaper lie.

Lancelot replied vaguely, the tail of his eye on the
General.  It was a secret carefully preserved that he had
not gone beyond Boulogne.  His foot was badly crushed,
and he was not likely to see service again.

Then came the heaviness of Christmas luncheon.  A
meal which was always faintly neglected by Anne, who
had dinner upon her mind, to say nothing of roast beef
and plum pudding backed up by cheap sherry in the
kitchen.

When it was over George Freyne helped Lancelot
his nephew to his study, where he talked to him long
and seriously.

A wounded man possessed the privilege of sympathy.
Now was the hour to lay siege to Gheena's heart.  Lancelot
was not at all averse to life at Castle Freyne on a large
income.  The fear which he felt for his cousin Gheena now
would easily turn to sulky authority when he found his
position secure.  A boy who had been indulged for his
twenty-three years, was not likely to be a very pleasant
companion through life.

Dearest George, moving his mind on its narrow ledge
of cunning, decided that a new régime of petty tyranny
would make his stepdaughter inclined to take her liberty
at all costs, and Lancelot had promised faithfully that
the Dower House would never be his father-in-law's
position.

Gheena, through the soft cold which was turning to
frost outside, wandered off by the sea.  It shimmered in
steely restlessness, mouthing white-toothed at the brown
rocks.  Cold held the world in its grip, the brown world
looked icy, the shingle as though its touch would hurt
in its chill.

"And out in the North Sea they keep watch," said a
voice behind Gheena, "with the wind we find here cutting,
there as a knife, and spray freezing on their eyelashes,
and constant anxiety."

"And those dreadful submarines," said Gheena, turning
to see Stafford, who had come up quietly over the grass.

"Which they threaten to blockade us with in the early
spring."

"And—you believe there are bases here—men who
help them?" said Gheena.

Mr. Stafford said dreamily that money would do anything.

"You have wanted it badly?" said Gheena.

Basil Stafford shot a swift look at Gheena as he answered
that he had once wanted it so badly that he would have
sold a limb to get it.

"I suppose," said Gheena, walking on, "that you won't
keep to the drains after the winter here.  You'll join
something."

"You're not thinking of putting a white feather in my
mince-pie for dinner, are you?" he said gravely.  "There
are other ways of helping besides wearing khaki, Miss
Gheena, helping on war."

Gheena repeated "Helping on war" with sarcastic
emphasis, and told Crabbit not to chase seagulls.

Crabbit leapt forth in swift pursuit of an elusive bird,
a stately gull, which sailed off and then bobbed down
into the icy sea, floating there gracefully, Crabbit
immediately putting his paws into the water, trying to pretend
that he had only come down to take the temperature.
Then he pounced on something in the line of flotsam,
and galloped back to Gheena to lay the offering at her feet.

It was a pocket-handkerchief of large size.

Gheena said "Crabbit, you beast!" turning away;
but Stafford bent down and picked the sodden rag up;
then dropped it again with a sharp exclamation and looked
out to sea.

"We'll go back."  Gheena walked towards the house.
The kitchen chimney was absolutely pouring out smoke,
heaving against the evening light.

"After all," said Stafford, "if there had been no war
someone else would have been employed for the drainage,
and I should never have come here."

Gheena, nose in air, considered the evening sky.

He laughed slightly bitterly.

"And it doesn't much matter when I go away again,
I suppose," he said.  "There is the Professor on the
cliffs.  He must have sampled every rock in the place
by now."

"And also Hook, coming back."  Gheena stopped to
look at the General's man.  "He seems to do everything
except look after his master, that man of the General's."

Hook and the Professor met upon the cliffs and spoke.
Then the valet overtook them.

"Been right away to the point, sir," he said to Stafford.
"Regular nest of caves and holes, this coast."

"There are some that one can see the water going into,
but are quite hidden," said Gheena.  "I believe there
are entrances from the land.  I know of a way down to
one of those caves.  My old nurse, who came from the
village out there, said there were two or three others, but
she never showed them to me."

Hook stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"One is curious.  It's just over there, if you'd like to
see it, with the tide coming in its ease."

Stafford looked longingly at the lighted house, for
Gheena was already flying back through the scrum of
trees and out on to the chill low cliffs with the sea moaning
below.  Here, diving through a tangle of dead bracken
and unpleasantly live gorse, she came to a hole in the
ground, caught a lichen-covered slab of slaty rock and
dropped out of sight, remarking cheerily that it was
pitch dark and very slippery.

The cliff ran out just there in bare slaty stone, with
stunted fuchsias clinging in the crevices, and brambles
creeping along, long and thorny.

To get goatwise from slab to slab in a grey gloom of
almost complete darkness, with the touch of the stones
biting numbly, was not pleasant, but the two men
followed Gheena down.

"Here is the shingle.  The sea is up.  Oh——"

For Stafford snapped on an electric torch and a dripping
gloomy cavern came into view.  It smelt dankly salt, and
cold sea-water was pouring along the wet floor, sluicing
in through inlets in the rock.

One could imagine sightless slimy fish in there living in
the deep pools in the rocks, chill weeds and noisome
things.  The sea echoed outside, slushing and gurgling,
and the swelling rim of water creeping in through
hidden channels was ghost-like in its grey upward
movement.

"But there's no outlet," was what Hook said thoughtfully.

Stafford said it was like a nightmare, snapped off his
torch and scrambled for the entrance.

The grey dusk outside was sweet daylight after the
gloom below.  Hook thanked them, and they scurried
back to the house, through wisps of white mist which were
rising in the hollows..

"Your cousin is being helped in to tea."  The blinds
were not drawn, and the surrounded entrance of Lancelot
could be plainly seen, with a chair being made ready for
him and footstools arranged.

"He went out to fight," said Gheena sympathetically.
"Whether it was a cart or shrapnel, he did go out to try
to be hit."

Basil Stafford's lips came together with a snap.

Lancelot complained of pain at tea-time.  He carped
at his mother and invited Gheena to adjust his cushions.
When she had done that, he asked her for more tea,
because she knew the exact quantities of cream and
sugar—and then he begged her to show him *Punch's*
Almanack.

The well of pity in which so much female reason drowns
kept Gheena attending to the invalid and forbearing to
say sharp things.  He had gone out bravely and done
his best.

She listened while he fretted and grumbled because
now he could never do anything; his soldier's life was over
for quite a year, if not more, when the war must be over.
He talked of what he might have done, and of the
loneliness at Cahercalla.

The big dining-room table had to have a leaf put in it
for dinner that night.  The Freynes had collected everyone
in the village, down to the Professor, who came in baggy
evening clothes and square-toed boots.

A meal of mighty courses marched solemnly to the
haven of dessert—champagne creamed, regardless of war
time, and from fine oysters to fine brandy-veiled
plum-pudding—it was indigestible Christmas fare.

Of course everyone talked of the war, until Mrs. Freyne
suddenly remembered that Mr. Brady ought to tell the
General his splendid scheme, even down to the Kaiser's
place of imprisonment in Runnymede.

Darby's "Why Runnymede?" held a note of astonishment.

Matilda Freyne said she supposed because it would
always remind the dreadful man of Magna Charta and
England's might.  Well, if it was Spike Island Mr. Brady
had suggested, she thought Runnymede was much more
suitable, so English all round, and everyone agreed with
her gravely.

They played games afterwards, to amuse the Brady
and O'Toole children—blind man's buff and general post—in
which game Mrs. Freyne could never think of any post
save London to Berlin, and as no one would be Berlin,
London got tired of hopping up vainly, and allowed poor
Paris to be caught when someone called this town.

When Mr. Keefe, the blind man, spun frantically round
the room amid a ring of mockers, Gheena took refuge
in a window recess, to find General Brownlow smoking
there peacefully.

Next minute Stafford was caught and blinded.  In the
whirl of pulling hands he felt one catch harder than the
others, and having secured Lucy Brady, of eleven, wondered
if it was chance or design that had placed a goose-quill
in his button-hole.  The Keefe children had had one to
torment their father with, but——  He took it out and
put it carefully into his pocket-book.

"If anyone did that on purpose," said Brownlow as
Gheena came back to him, "it was a dirty thing to do."

"He won't forget, though," said Gheena carelessly.
"And he doesn't care.  Miss O'Toole might have done it."

"Don't you ever judge Don't-cares by appearances,
young lady," he snapped.  "And don't judge that boy,
because he's a good sort, or I'm no judge myself."

Mrs. Weston, in flaming pink silk high to the throat,
and wearing a becoming feather boa because she had a
cold, had disappeared from view with Mr. Keefe.  A
murmur of voices from the firelit library indicated their
retreat.

Darby, by the blazing drawing-room fire, looked on.
He could not romp with the grown-up children, and no
one could settle to Bridge.  Some of the sadness of any
anniversary fell on him.  How many Christmases had
come and gone in that old room!  How many generations
of white-frocked mites, grown year by year to girls and
boys, to men and women, until they sat by the fire and
tried to forget that soon they must go alone into the
unknown!  The withered-handed, tottering people, with
their little pleasures of warmth, which glows as new life
into their blood; of some favourite dish; or of love for
the youth crowding them out of life—their lives are of the
day; they are past looking back and dare not look
forward.  So the hours of waking after fitful sleep to the
time when, tired out, they seek it again—makes each
day a life to them.  How many gay brides had fluttered
in new finery to their new home, wives of the three-bottle
men of old days, when shutters were shut at five
and the day old by night!—women who had no voice
in life.  Subservient, early Victorian wives, advanced
now to dinner at seven, putting away the fragile lovely
furniture which had delighted their forbears, filling the
room with hideous heaviness, with round tables and
mirrors, and stiff arm-chairs and clumsy cabinets.  A later
Victorian, Gheena's grandmother, rejoicing in an outbreak
of macrame-edged brackets, of good china entombed in
red plush mounts, of black and gold, of chenille monkeys,
and satin antimacassars worked over with rosebuds or
forget-me-nots.

An old house must be a sad thing, a looker-on at the
life which comes and goes within its portals—the birth so
gladly hailed, to the solemn tramp of heavily-laden men
and the flower-smothered coffin standing in the hall.

Darby's own house was older than Castle Freyne, and had
seen more people pass, and now he lived there alone, only
son of an only son—and who would come after him?
There was a cousin, a bright boy at school, heir if Darby
never married.

The entrance of a huge bowl of punch carried in by
Naylour broke up the games.  Everyone took a spoonful,
coughed apologetically, and had a little more, for it was
rather a wonderfully deceitful punch, hiding its Samson-like
strength behind a mild and mingled flavour of lemons
and innocent things.

"To those in France who guard us here!"  Gheena
proposed a toast and swung her glass so vigorously that
she upset a large portion of her punch over her stepfather.

"And thank goodness Christmas is over!" said Dearest
George ill-humouredly, wiping sticky punch from inside
his collar.

"I'm leaving two fellows I like behind me," said old
Tony Brownlow next day, "Stafford and Dillon.  All
right, George; come on to the stables before I go."

The Stephen's Day hunt at Dunkillen began with a
completely illegal race run for any stakes which could be
collected, anything over four pounds being called a present.

It was run over an S-shaped course, consisting of small
slaty banks and open ditches and two stone gaps, and
they went round three times.

Darby gave a silver cup this year, so that competition
was, as Phil termed it, fierce entirely.

Dan Rooney's That's the Boy was an easy favourite
from James Rourke's dun gelding, unnamed—That's the
Boy being a great over-lopped, leggy bay, almost in the
book, with a whistler's head and no bone, and the dun
a scrubby beast, hiding a certain amount of quality behind
a goose rump and a ewe neck, but with great second
thighs and nine inches below the knee.  A weedy grey
mare was the only other animal expected to complete the
course.  There were four three-year-olds willing to go
until they fell from exhaustion, and Andy on the Rat,
which he had begged leave to enter.

"You'll never get him round the turns," was what
Darby said to young Rooney, "and you're backing the
horse as if the race was over."

Mr. Rooney replied contemptuously that That's the
Boy had time to run out and back and catch what was
against him, and that he hoped there'd be no talks of this
race when he pulled the horse out to win in Cork Park.

"I'm allowing for a fall or two even," observed Rooney,
as he pulled off his coat to display a silk jacket and a
pair of very baggy drab breeches.

The dun's owner affected a flannel shirt and trousers
tied in below the knee with string, and this, with varieties
of shirts and trousers, was the fashionable and favourite
get-up.

Darby, with the hounds grouped patiently in the
background, was starter and judge.  He dropped the flag
directly they came at all near him, knowing the handiness
of their heels, and saw them tear off in a bunch, the Rat
scuttling along in the rear and the rush of That's the Boy
knocking over one horse at the first fence.

"Bedam to himself an' his breedin'," commented the
fallen jockey bitterly.  "An' me mare gone home on me
for certainty, an' maybe a boy away for the coffin before
I'd be back meself."

That's the Boy's great stride carried him out with a
clean lead, his Roman-nosed head in air; he shaved two
banks with nerve-shattering carelessness, and being pulled
in from the first turn, was crossed by a three-year-old,
ridden out with whip and spur, and came down handsomely.

"There's the price of him," commented the knocked-out
jockey by Darby's side.

The Field's snatched lead was easily taken back, but
they had some way to go, and Darby still prophesied that
the turns would do for the great big horse, even if he did
not come down again.

The first stone gaps being scattered and shattered, the
horses made for the second inward turn.  Two of the
three-year-olds were now trailing, completely done, and
the little Rat, going at his ease, was close up with the
leaders.

Quick and handily, James Rourke's dun slipped over
the narrow banks with cat-like accurate ease, a complete
contrast to the big horse's slithering bounds, invariably
wrongly timed; but so far as pace went, That's the Boy
had only to gallop on and win.

He tore at his head at the fences, cheeked his bit, and
rushed out of the course, the violent wrench which brought
him round bringing him also into collision with a rather
awkward bank and sending him on to his knees.

Now a variety of mistakes will blow any horse.  When
Dan Rooney set his mount going again he did not meet
with the same response, and the dun, the grey and the
Rat were a field ahead.

"Bet you a sovereign, Rourke," said Darby.  "Gheena,
a sovereign."

Gheena, of course, backed That's the Boy.  Wild shrieks
began to arise from the crowd, and the local bookmaker
could not issue tickets fast enough.  He had absolutely
lost count of where he stood, so much that he eyed his
outside car more than once.

The grey mare, going gallantly, closed with the dun,
who wore her down and shot out.  Half a field behind,
That's the Boy, white with foam, was being unmercifully
flogged on.  But the dun gave the last bank a lightning-like
kick, and as James Rourke wondered if he would
be caught in the run home, something slipped by him.

The Rat was clean bred, with brothers and sisters running
races in England.  He had been going quite within himself,
and now he stretched his wicked little head and made for
the hounds at a pace which completely worsted the dun
five-year-old.

"The divil's delight to it, but the pony has it won!"
yelled someone frantically.  "The pony!"

"Andy, for the love of God!" wailed James Rourke.
"An' I have three pound on at fours.  Twelve pounds,
Andy, I'll be dhrawin'."

"I have a shillin' on meself," replied Andy, leaning
forward victoriously.

"Cosy in the trinches they might be the ways they is
chattin'," said a disturbed and embittered onlooker,
who had backed the big horse; "an' even the *obb*\jectin'
won't save us now with that Kinnat out there in front.
Someone suggested obbjectin' to both for conspiracy
and colloquy.

"If we could rowl a hat or two accidental to swherve
thim," suggested another backer of the favourite, "an'
let Rooney up."

Someone else declared the two were too tirened out to
mind any hats, but the big horse was coming on.  James
Rourke bent down and called something out to little
Andy, something emphatic.

Andy shook his head, Rourke bent again, and the next
moment the Rat, instead of passing the post, made for
the waiting hounds, sailing through the crowd dexterously.

And in a hail of hats and a hurricane of yells, the dun
went past the post at his lobbing gallop, with That's the
Boy's head just at his girth and well past him before they
pulled up.

Darby declined to give the cup if there were any
objections, but he went on to Andy to demand explanation.

"Well, you see, me Mama would take the cup for the
parlour, an' he offered me two pounds of them twelve to
pull out," said Andy equably; "an' he a dacent bye that
won't break his word; so I pulled out, and that was the
thraffic there was betune us."

"And such is Irish racing," said Darby thoughtfully.
"You send that pony home, Andy, and ride old Dobbin
to hounds."

Basil Stafford said that if he laughed any more he
knew something would give way.

"What you see to laugh at when my pony might have
had a silver cup," said Gheena angrily, "I cannot see.
Oh, call it Irish.  You don't expect us to be Germans,
do you?"

"If they could only meet you all for a little," gasped
Stafford, "and see your little methods!"

"Oh, you'd like us to meet them, would you?" said
Gheena.  "You seem to know Germany well."

Stafford gasped that he wanted to see German officials
encountering Phil and Andy, or your old Anne.  That
is *verboten*.

"'Forbidden.  Is that so, young man?'

"'*Himmel*!  Haf I not said it must not be done?
Schwine!'

"'One side, young man, an' kape a civil tongue in ye're
head.  Isn't the right side the same as the left for th'ass
a cyar if there is none in the sthreet?'  Oh, if you only
knew them and their superiority and their rages."

"Some people," said Gheena darkly, "ought to know
them better at present."

Mr. Stafford's fingers touched his pocket-book; he
leant forward suddenly.

"There is something here which you may take back
some day," he said softly—"something which you gave
me, I think."

Gheena turned away, looking puzzled.

"Ivery penny he paid me," said Andy deliriously
joyful; "an' isn't that same bether than a silver cup on
the table at home, Miss Gheena?  An' sure, in honour
an' glory I was first as well."

They moved on presently to draw a hill from the crest
of which one could see the sea plainly.

Gheena began to talk of the submarines, wondering if
the menace would ever be carried out.

"They'll want help if they do it," returned Stafford
absently—"bases along coasts and ships to supply oil.
People will do it.  Money can buy anything, Miss Freyne,
even some people's honour."

Gheena grew a little pale.

Christmas Day had interfered with stopping.  A fox
got to ground in covert and Darby decided to go home,
glad of the chance, for hounds had had a hard day
on Christmas Eve, and Barty was riding the same
horse.

Gheena rode back with Darby as far as his turn and
then on with Stafford, whose horse jogged dully and
without spirit.  He only kept one hunter.

It was cold and raw.  Gheena missed Phil, when having
glacially invited Stafford to tea, she slipped off in the big
old yard, waving away proffered help.

"Phil is away with the two horses, Miss, to catch the
thrain at the junction."

Gheena questioned wildly.

"With Whitebird and the Masther's Matty, Miss, the
old mare.  Tin year, he called her.  The General took
them both for remounts."

Gheena was young.  She did not care for the youngster.
But to sell her horse without her leave!

Attended by Crabbit, who was privately certain that
nothing but a rat could create such haste, Gheena stormed
through the back door, slamming it so hard that two
panes of glass smashed, and Anne observed "Bomb-shells!"
from the kitchen and tore to the library.  Her
stepfather, with an ugly look in his eyes which she had
learnt to dread, was reading by an enormous fire.

"Four horses," he said coolly, "at the present time
was absurd and unpatriotic."  Gheena must remember
that she was completely in her mother's hands, and, in
fact ... here he saw the girl's eyes and decided that
threats might not be wise.

Anyhow, the horse was gone, he said, and he had locked
up the white oats.

His stepdaughter went out of the room rather too quietly.

Gheena could not censure her mother, who was nervous,
expecting it, waiting for the girl's wrath.

"Dearest George had said the animal was not wanted,
and there were some new farm implements which were
required—chaff-cutter and oats-crusher; a new reaper for
the spring.  So he said you would understand, my dear."

Miss Freyne kissed her weeping mother and went into
the drawing-room.  Here Lancelot begged for attention,
relying on her so humbly that she gave it ungrudgingly.

"They sold my horse when I was out," she said to
Stafford.  "My grey horse!  You see, until I come of
age or marry, I'm a minor without an income, and Dearest
is affected by economy and wants mowing machines."

A dangerous glimmer shone in Gheena's eyes.  Basil
Stafford said "Indeed!" in tones of unmixed perplexity.

"I'll marry the Professor if Dearest is not careful,"
said Gheena.

Then with the lack of grace which haunts woman in
muddy apron habit skirts and high boots, Gheena marched
to her room, where Crabbit, very wet indeed, was just
tearing into.

Evidently sorry she had missed that rat, he had gone
out to fetch her comfort, and laid the sodden handkerchief,
which he had picked up the day before, at her feet.

"Crabbit, you horrid dog!" said Gheena, her hand
on his soft brown head; "but you meant it nicely."  She
held up the sopped rag, meaning to throw it on the fire,
and saw the marking.

"Heinrich V. Belstein" in neat letters, and a number
torn off.

A German's handkerchief cast up on the shores.
Handkerchiefs do not float for long; even supposing it had
caught in some seaweed, it was not likely to come from
a distance.  No submarine had been sunk.  Gheena
forgot that she was muddy and that a fire which she
expected to see was non-existent.  Someone was trafficking
with German submarines.  Some of the U boats
must have been close in.

Gheena put her finger on the bell and kept it there,
until Mary Kate, the head housemaid, arrived at full
gallop, breathlessly wanting to know if Miss Gheena had
a wakeness.

"Dropped down dead we all thought you must be,
Miss, when the bell went on whirring."

Disappointed, Mary Kate took a message dubiously.
It was teemin' rain out of the sky, she said.

"If the Masther hears it goin' out, Miss, he'll destroy
us," said Mary Kate with resignation.  "So I'll find
some that'll ride a bicycle."

Then Gheena lighted her own fire and waited breathlessly
until Mrs. Weston's presence was announced.

"She is waitin' on ye in the ould school-room.  She
would not come up, Miss Gheena, not a step."

After Gheena had got down, an excited clacking of
tongues rose so high, that Mr. Freyne came along the
passage and severely censured Maria, the second housemaid,
for having lighted an extra fire in the school-room.

As she rushed down Gheena met Stafford, and all but
knocked him over.

"It's Violet; she wouldn't come up," panted Gheena,
rushing on.

After quite a short time Mrs. Weston drove off again,
with her usual bright smile changed to a frown of thought
and her lips pressed into a line.

Gheena was quiet that evening.  She took very little
tea and she was remotely civil to Stafford, instead of
snapping at him in her wonted fashion.  Lancelot she
waited on patiently.

But when the order for sixty pounds for the grey
came, it was made out in Gheena's name, and she said she
would go to Cortra to cash it; there might be difficulties
otherwise.

She came back with the same quiet look in her eyes,
which was anger and mischief beaten by the whip of
thought, and when asked if she had, as desired, paid the
money into her mother's account, merely said it was
all right.

But next day Mr. Freyne was called out to find Dinny,
his herdsman, joyfully unpacking a variety of brilliantly
painted agricultural machines from two carts from
Cornahulty, which his master looked at blankly.

Gheena, quietly demure, came out to listen to the
comments.

"Mother told me you wanted Whitebird's price for
these things, Dearest," she said gently.  "So I went to
O'Malley's, and he knew what you and Dinny had been
looking at, and he gave me discount for cash.  There is
just five pounds more to pay, I think."

Dearest George opened his mouth twice, and shut
it on what he wished to articulate.

"An' the two men from Cornahulty want twenty-five
shillin' for the haulin'," said Naylour, coming in to his
stormy master.  "Miss Gheena agreed to that with them,
they says.  God save us! but ye'd think I axed him for
his heart's blood," said Naylour, when he got back to
the kitchen; "an' he wrote the cheque like as if 'twas his
own ordther for execution.  Miss Gheena said I was to
give the two of ye ye're tea."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XI`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XI

.. vspace:: 2

Darby Dillon ceased reading about the
hobnobbing of Germans and English at Christmas-time
to parley with the infuriated owner of That's the
Boy, who had ridden over to say the horse's charackther
was blighted for life not to get the race and the cup.

"Bathered and bumped an' crossed, sir, an' then to
have me just obbjection pushed down me throat the
same as a dose to a horse, an' all the neighbours at me,
an' that broth of a boy Rourke won't even have a match
to show the rights of it.  Him that I could thrample on
an' bate out with one stride to his two, his muddeen of
a dun horse."

Andy, who was holding the blighted That's the Boy,
looked up to suggest—grinning—a match with the Rat.

"Seein' that the Rat bate ye both," said Andy, "it
is me ye should be matchin' with.  Bate ye aisy, too."

"An' if ye bate him, why was ye not fust?" thundered
Mr. Rooney stormily.

Andy, becoming reserved, said that was his bizness,
and lapsed into silence.

"It would be like the likes of his birth an' breedin' to
offer ye a shillin' to pull off," said Rooney bitterly;
"but I did not think ye're father's son would do the
dirty thrick to me father's, Andy Casey, for dirty pince."

"I will take me Bible oath that he niver mentioned
dirty pince," said Andy, his face scarlet, "nor any
pince."

Darby wondered how that oath would be recorded.

"Then what med ye?"  Mr. Rooney scratched his
chin, shaven two days before.

"It was time for me to go back to me dogs," said Andy
coldly.  "An' if Miss Gheena gives me the pony, I'll
match ye around me own place an' down Carty's Hill an'
around to me uncle's, four miles across the counthry,
any day ye likes."

As the proposed course would include about twenty
sharp bends to avoid bogs, the crossing of a ravine, and
a collection of completely unsafe fences, Rooney replied:
"Match where ye are," and left Andy, to again reproach
Darby.

"Bribery an' corruption the same as ye'd read off the
Holy Bible," he said sourly, "an' ye wouldn't let me
spheak.  I that ran fair an' honest with two falls an' a
run out—an' that's prepared to back meself for twenty
pounds for a match.  There's more than a cup on it,"
he added, whimpering.  "There's Janey O'Dea that is
wavering between us, an' his ould father, chattin' now of
the rale silver cup, an' inclined towards Rourke."

Miss Janey O'Dea was a buxom damsel, who rode in a
bright blue habit topped by a tie which she ironed, but
too plainly did not wash save on occasions, and a bowler
hat which, as Andy put it, just perched above on her
nesht of hair.

"But I got around him lasht evenin' that if it was
Jamesey Rourke's chat an' I could bate his horse aisy,
he'd have the word for me with Janey, an' before Shrove
so that we'd settle."

Rourke was a long, lean youth, with shifty eyes and
a battered complexion; he was loose of joint and given
to wearing the long coats and over-baggy breeches of
the horse-coper.  His friends said that he was one that
knew daylight when he saw it, and his enemies that there
was no roguery that he had not a masthery of, exceptin'
maybe the little he'd forgotten.  He drank and was not
attractive.

"Make Rourke do the dacent, Mr. Dillon, to make up
for the way ye thrated me, an' I'll say no more."

Darby rubbed his nose thoughtfully; this long, lean
youth could do a great deal to spoil fox hunting; there
were two coverts on his land, and several others on those
of his relations and friends.

"We'll ride over to Rourke's," said Darby to Andy.
"I'll see what I can do, Rooney."

Darby crippled down the steps, swinging out more
easily on the gravel with his crutch under his arm.  The
twisted leg was growing so strong that the crutch would
soon be discarded for a stick, and Darby was looking
forward with a child's zest to throwing it away.  They
were making him a new boot which would support the
foot and help him greatly.

Yet the very flush of partial strength, the brightness
of the cool winter's day, brought a sigh quickly on the
heels of elation.  It was hard to be able to feel young,
and yet have all youth's possessions placed well out of
reach.  He was a mere piece of flotsam cast up on Life's
beach, riddled and battered, never to float lightly on the
grey-blue salt waters.

Darby clambered on to the back of his pet chestnut.
Once in the saddle he was upright, sitting easily, a cripple
no longer.  Riper plunged lightly and came down to the
firm, light touch on the bits and the pressure of a heel.
Andy scrambled on to his second mount, a stumpy and
dogged roan cob, rejoicing in the stable name of Go
Aisy—because "go aisy" he would except under stress
of the sharpest spurs—though he had been christened
Dobbin.

Rourke's house lay inland, snug in a hollow.  There
were signs of good farming over the carefully kept fences,
the fields free of weeds, the heaps of manure out ready
for top-dressing; the house was substantial and the
yard clean.

Jamesey himself was ringing a young horse at the back.
He was a fresh-faced, squarely-built fellow, unpretentious
and good-humoured.

In answer to Darby's questions, he put in the lumpy
youngster and put a bridle on the dun horse, pulling
him out.

"Look at him!  An', in God's name, sir, is it likely
he'd ever bate that great stridin' horse again?" he said,
grinning.  "They are schooling That's the Boy now,
an' without a crowd likely he wouldn't fall.  An' why
would I be out to be a laffin' sthock to please Masther
Dan Rooney?"

Darby explained further in low tones.

James Rourke's face fell a little.  He replied that he
was really attached to Jennie once, and that all was going
well until the war and the buying of remounts.

"An' then ye see me bit comes gradual, bein' honest
airnin's; but Dan Rooney med a rich man of himself
sellin' misfortunes to the soldiers—buyin' here an' there,
he havin' a friend in the barracks.  Well, before Hivin,
Mr. Darby, one blind as a sthone, an' one a runaway that
no man could manage, but he drugged him carryin'
him in; an' one with staggers, an' a kicker that it never
let ye up, an' a craythur with spavins.  I couldn't be goin'
to say me prayers thinkin' of some poor felly wantin'
to make a boult with Slattery's grey kicker to try to get
on; but Rooney bought the dhregs of the counthry-side,
an' drew out more than ye'd believe, and now he has
Jennie's father tormented with the show of money.  A
new side-car no less, with green cushions, an' silver spoons
to stir tay with—he bought thim above at an auction—an'
two yelly an' red china vases for the parlour table.
He has the ould man mismerized, while poor Janey——"

Just then Jane O'Dea herself, on her greatly galled black
horse, rode shyly into the yard, and seeing Darby there,
asked behind hot blushes for the lend of a bridle, hers
being unsteady.  She had really come to see the cup.

With a great many protests she got down, folding a
modestly unsafe habit skirt about her gaitered ankles,
and was welcomed by Jamesey's mother.

Darby knew now that tea, eggs and blackberry jam
were things he could not escape from.  He admired the
silver cup which he had purchased, and grinned as he
looked—the reflection of Jamesey silently kissing Miss
O'Dea being clearly mirrored in the polished surface.
Later on, when the room had lost its earthly smile and
grown tropical in temperature, he removed the young
people to the yard, where Jane, growing truthful in her
sadness, said her Dada was set upon Dan Rooney, had
been shaken by the beating of the big horse and the
unpleasant loss of five shillings, but now inclined, bribed
by libations of whisky, to Rooney again.

"Danny sayin' he'll be aisy on me fortin'," she said
tearfully, "an' not on this horse even that is me own;
an' he swearin' that if Jamesey here does not run off the
race, he is a coward and had no right to win; an', agen,
that the raison is that Jamesey has not twinty pound to
lay down ready money."

The course of true love was not running smooth.  It
was Andy coming over and whispering in Rourke's ear
who seemed to oil the machinery.  A slow smile broke
across Jamesey's face, and an expression of dubious
anxiety gradually gave way to one of hope.

He told Darby that he'd say in a day or two if he could
run the match, and then hoisted Janey to her saddle with
many "Lord, save us!" and "Have a cares!" from the
unagile damsel.

Darby rode a little way with her, telling Andy to keep
behind.  Coyly, since it is not maidenly to express
affection, she told him how she disliked Mr. Rooney, and
how her heart was set on Jim.

"An' what is a few pounds extra if it goes on check
ridin' trousers an' whisky," said Miss Janey shrewdly,
"which is both poor value, Mr. Dillon!"

Darby said "Undoubtedly."

"An' he no farmer, but all for buyin' bad horses an'
sellin' them on.  A stable full there now on him, with
the greenest buyers beginnin' to look at more than just
that a horse is alive, as they did at first.  A pianny he
promised me, an' I scalded from musical pieces at the
convent, pullin' out with your fingers what a musical box'd
tune for you for the twist of a handle.  An' if it's up
there I goes, it will be with the heart broke in me,"
concluded Janey tearfully, as she pointed to a bleak house
upon a hill.  "An' go I will if poor Jamesey cannot beat
that ould thoroughbred in a match."

Darby rode on to Castle Freyne.  He found Gheena
leaning over one of the horses' doors, her face set gravely
and time of gay youth fled.

"It's Dearest, Darby," she said.  "He has taken to
sticking little pin-pricks into me, refusing white oats for
the horses, stopping fires, keeping in the motor.  He
would dismiss my two new old men but mother considers
their employment charity.  And Lancelot is staying on
for a month, and I—wish there had never been a war.
It seems to upset everyone so"—Gheena's busy unskilful
fingers clicked at her knitting—"now they talk of
submarines coming along in herds and our having supply
bases for them.  And if they have, Crabbit and I will
find them," said Gheena emphatically.

"I am afraid I cannot come along the rocks to help,
Gheena."

Her face softened suddenly.

"You could motor me," she said, "to points and
places.  As petrol is too dear to use now we are to have
out the wagonette and drive the farm horses.  But
wait until Dearest misses the first train to Cortra," said
Gheena hopefully, "and mother takes his advice as to
hiring a car to go on in, because she must have supplies
for the week and the curry powder is out."

Darby put his horse up and accepted a drive to the
village in Gheena's pony-trap.  The pony was a creature
of moods which occasionally rattled along at a gallop,
and more often walked and grazed.  It had a hard side
to its mouth, a failing which made traffic a difficulty, and
it occasionally kicked when beaten.

As they drove, Gheena explained that she had strong
hopes of Whitebird being returned to her.  She had
written to her uncle, telling of the horse's little
accomplishment, which was lying down flat at a certain
signal.  The grey had been brought up in a circus.  He
had done it once out hunting at the sound of a
whistle.

"And ... Uncle Tony has learnt the whistle," said
Gheena softly and with meaning.

Darby observed that he understood the sixty pounds
had been carefully spent, so the money would have to be
returned, and a bump stopped further conversation.

"If they won't pick up their legs in time I can't help
them doing it too late and overbalancing," she said
severely.  "It's your own fault, Ned Kavanagh, you
know Topsy."

The aggrieved Kavanagh remarked sourly that he was
greatly hurted where he met the road, and that it was
to fall or the loss of two good legs.

He mounted his cart again, glaring balefully at the pony.

Topsy having declined to come over, they had grazed
a donkey cart, and the driver's wild swoop to save his
dangling limbs had resulted in his overbalancing.

They skated off a large heap of stones and pulled up
in the village, when they saw two motors outside
Mrs. Weston's cottage.

"Is Stafford the latest?" Darby asked.

Gheena did not reply, but was snappish to Topsy when
the pony would not stand.  The old Professor was in the
shop—a crowded place, smelling of cheese and bacon
and flannelette, where you could purchase a reel of cotton
with a salted pig's head brushing your hat, and pull the
flannelette of your choice out from under lumps of butter
and loaves of bread.  The window rejoiced in an array of
Peggy's leg firmly adhering to its glass bottles, some tins
of tomatoes, an array of match-boxes and the day's bread;
the far end of the shop was the post-office, smelling of
damp gum and dust.

Here Miss Carty, the postmistress, had at first been
greatly put out because every man in the Army, no matter
what regiment they jined, good Munsthers or not, was
all put into the same lot—the Expeditionary Force—where,
for all they knew, they might be dyin' and fightin'
with misfortunate furriners, Scotch and English.  Explanation
having proved vain, she gave it up and accepted the
injustice.  Mrs. Carty, who rolled to and fro deftly amid
boxes and barrels, was a person of superior intelligence,
greatly shocked just then at the hobnobbing of the
English soldiers with the German thraitors at Christmas-tide.

"If it was rooses to get them over to their ditches
and doctor them quietly, I could understand," declaimed
Mrs. Carty; "but—but to be handin' out smhokes and
dhrinks an' carryin' on pleasantly without an objec'!
I have the sardines in, Miss Gheena.  Thruppence a box
extry, seein' the ways them under-minded boats has all
the fish swhep from the say.  Aisy for them to get a catch
down below with the fish to be cot an' they slheepin'."

Gheena placed the sardines in the trap and got in
gloomily.

They were hailed passing Mrs. Weston's door.  Violet
really brilliant in pale blue with a wide sailor hat on her
toupée, and wearing purple shoes and stockings, was at
it with Stafford.

"Watching for you," she said to Gheena, "to bring
you in to tea."

Gheena observed with care how Stafford kept close
to Violet as they went up the path, and looked really
admiringly at her brilliant colouring and bright face.

"If she'd only let her feet out," said Darby, hobbling in.

Mrs. Weston did not excel in giving tea.  It came up
upon a brass tray, and was generally both stewed and
chilly.  Two bought cakes, crumbly and dry, and a plate
of thick bread and butter were the eatables.

Mrs. Weston said frankly that tea was washy stuff,
and called for the forgotten sugar.

Old Berthe, in frilled cap with banded grey hair,
hobbled off rapidly.  She was enveloped by many petticoats,
and was a taciturn old woman, never going out or
making friends.

"Poor Berthe is so anxious about her precious Switzerland,"
said Violet, "for fear it would go to war, and all
her relations in France, and no way of hearing."

Gheena was still gloomy.  She could not understand
why her stepfather had grown suddenly unpleasant and
niggardly, and why they seemed to collide so often.
Lancelot, the wounded hero, rather interested
her—she was kind-hearted enough to like waiting on him, and
was even a little pleased at his dependence upon her.

After a cup of tepid tea and a prolonged period of
Mr. Keefe glaring at Mr. Stafford, Gheena got up to go
home.  Darby having taken the lid off the teapot
looked into it critically.

"Made with cold water and let heat, foreign fashion,"
he said.  "Why not, Mrs. Weston, teach your old lady
the English way?"

Violet said, "Imagine you knowing the other!" in a
curious way.

"And some of you have left your pipe," called out
Gheena.  She had dropped a glove and stayed to hunt
for it.  She brought out an ornate carved pipe, lately
used.

Violet said she thought it must be the Professor's as
no one else claimed it, and took it back.

The Professor, whom they met toddling back from his
walk, stopped to speak, and got asked in to Castle Freyne
for tea.  He thought the pipe was probably that wild
Mrs. Weston's.  "But her garden is tidier.  She did rave
at the man Guinane when she came back a few evenings
ago, so high that I heard her scolding.  Carefully, Darby;
stand still, Topsy, you beast!"

The hurt of helplessness came back to Darby; he
should have been helping Gheena out.  It reminded him
of what he was to see her spring to the pony's head and
stop the little beast going on.

"You take care of the poor cripple, Gheena," he said
gently.

Gheena's eyes filled with tears as she muttered denial.
Darby swung up the shallow steps, his leg was
undoubtedly growing stronger.

Later on he told Gheena all about the dispute over
the race.

At the next meet, two days afterwards, Rourke rode up
on the little dun.

"They have me shamed, Mr. Darby," he said, "with
'Afraid ye are,' and 'How many mile would ye be left
behind in two?'"

Darby wondered.

"An' 'If ye're horse is good, pull him out.'  So the
match it will have to be—or Juliana Carty above at the
farm, an' I have no great wish for her for a wife."

Janey rode up at the moment, her cheeks polished with
soap, her tie well ironed, and her pretty face looking out
under a fringe of brown hair, and James sighed.

"I have a wish for Janey," he said shyly.  "An' so will
ye settle all for the match, sir, I'll risk it."

Darby said hopefully that the thoroughbred might fall.

"Or he might not gallop as fast as he'd think," said
Jamesey softly.  "Ye'd niver know.  Ye'd niver know."

The result of this was that after a good hunt and a kill,
Darby took the two men home with him to settle matters.

"We will write it out proper," said Rourke, "so as to
be sure."

Darby was familiar with matches.  He wrote out that
Mr. D. Rooney's That's the Boy, five years, by Barcol
Lise, would be matched against Mr. J. Rourke's—here
he lifted his pen.

"I have no right name for him," said Jamesey vaguely;
"put me little dun horse, sir, five years."

"Dun horse, five years," wrote on Darby, "twenty
pounds a side—over a natural course of three miles."

"An' let all have good coats on to keep warm waitin'
for Rourke here," sneered Rooney.

"Yerself an' ye're dirty boastin'," returned Rourke,
without the animosity which seemed natural.

"Will ye bet me five pounds I'm not in five minnits
before ye cross the last fince?" stormed Rooney.

"I will so," said Jamesey firmly, pulling out some
greasy notes which he handed to Darby.

Darby had a great deal to say to the match, and saw
Janey, who was racked by doubt and fears.

"For he'd be the slithery class of a husband, that Dan,"
she said fretfully; "one that does no credit to the good
bit he'd get, an' he takes drink terrible.  An' Jamesey
cannot win, an' yet he has a smilin' face on him; an' he
ordthered two new cushions for his side-car at Carey's
yesterday to drive home from chapel on.  He says he'd
stand me three days in Dublin straight away if I'd fancy
it, too.  An' he without a chance!"

The date of the match was fixed for the second Thursday
in January at one o'clock, until Rooney wrote to say that
he must go to the big town, and could not get back until
three, so it must be run then.

Now the hours after three early in January begin to get
chill and dark, but it had to be.

Everyone related to the Rourkes and Rooneys poured
in from all sides to see the match; the hillside was black with
cars and carts; there was even a stall laden with glutinous
leathery buns dotted with pink sugar, and surreptitious
porter sold and consumed behind a flapping tent.  The one
bookmaker had returned, to close almost immediately up
That's the Boy and take all he could get for Rourke's dun.

At a quarter-past three Rourke trotted up, his mount
veiled in a brand-new American rug of superlative
smartness, and bandaged all round with linen bandages.

"If it's racin' I am, it's racin' I may as well look," he
said good-humouredly when chaffed.

Old Mr. O'Dea, who was stout and slow of movement,
came up to say querulously that he heard it was childthers'
nonsense putting out that dun at all.  And that now
maybe they'd hear no more boasting and chat.

James replied that with luck he might not, looking
fixedly at the flushed countenance of his opponent.

Janey's father, coming to superintend, remarked to
Rourke that if it was an accident his taking the cup, there
was no call to make so much boast of it afther Mass,
Janey listening with tears in her eyes.

Here Mr. Rooney broke in with, "An' he not able to
win until Miss Gheena's pony had to be pulled off.  An'
the gibin' before all with 'Where was ye're racehorse?'
or 'Will ye have a drink out of silver?'"

James Rourke's complete good-humour as he stood by
the sheeted dun roused his opponent to further eloquence.
Bitterly he informed the interested listeners that when
Cup-winner James inquired where was the racehorse
to-day, it was gone home, they could tell him, if any
friends waited on in the could to see the thrickster come in.

Here Darby thought that if the matter was to be put
to the proof, it might be better to start while there was
a little light, and he looked thoughtfully at Rourke's
reserved smile.

When Dan Rooney emerged from the chrysalis of his
coat, as a butterfly in a pink jacket, dirty breeches and
papery boots, his glitter wrought a groan of admiration
from the crowd.

Old O'Dea, falling back to admire, suggested that he
was the Boyo himself, the fine figure of a man, what there
was of him.  When James, quietly arrayed in his hunting
kit, slipped the rug from his horse, leaving on the bandages,
and it was observed that its tail was plaited up, fresh
pleasantries broke forth.

Someone wished to know if Rourke imagined he owned
The Tetrarch.  A large Rooney cousin asked hilariously if
Danny thought maybe that if he foxed the horse he was a
racehorse he'd run faster, to which James replied pleasantly
that he might, and backed himself for another pound.

Darby had laid out a fair course, over easy banks, and
presenting no difficulties for a striding horse.

That's the Boy looked overtrained and tucked up.
He lashed out irritably when mounted.

From the start Rooney adopted the hurricane-like tactics
which he meant to win with.  He tore away at racing
pace, taking the first fence in his stride.

There were no horses to confuse the big youngster.  He
fled along at a pace which no one could possibly hope the
dun to keep up with.

"All over," said Darby, putting up a pair of totally
useless glasses, for it was growing quite dusk.  "Poor
Rourke won't see the way the other is going in half a mile."

But to everyone's astonishment the dun horse and
quietly-dressed rider clung obstinately close to the
comet-like flash of Dan Rooney's pink jacket.  The rider of
That's the Boy shook up the big horse to a pace which set
him sprawling, and all but resulted in disaster at a bank.
Sobered by this, he looked back angrily and pulled his
horse together; he was a fine rider.  Still going quite
easily and slugging hard against his bit, the dun was close
behind.  Rooney sat forward, using as much jockey
fashion as he could master, bumping uncomfortably at
his jumps.

"Did ye dhrug him?" hurled Rooney over an irate
shoulder, "that I can hear him so long?"

"Three gallons of whisky.  Was it cloryform yours
got?" was Rourke's reply, his tone preoccupied, for they
were nearing the nasty little scramble in and out of the
boreen.

Gheena and Darby had cut the two racers off at this
point, and listened, smiling, to them.

"But I never saw Rooney adopt Tod Sloan's style
before," said Darby; "and if he can't get the horse
together, he'll fall at the boreen."

That's the Boy, consummately handled, dropped in and
out just without a fall; the dun struck the far fence hard,
grunted, and bundled somehow into the far field, shooting
his rider off.  With the boreen behind him and Rourke
down, Rooney cheered as he galloped on.

But the fall took little more time than a clean jump
would have done.  James Rourke was up again as soon as
his horse and sat back suddenly.

"Be dam to where the weight is!  How can he win if it
is not there at all!" he stormed as he changed his seat.

Next moment, in the fast falling dusk, the spectators
roared to see the despised dun closing the gap, fighting his
way to the big horse's quarters, to his girth, forging
ahead.

At this stage Jane O'Dea fell upon her father's neck,
clasping him closely as she wailed, "It was no boastin',
Pappy, it was no boastin'," into the displeased ear of a
man who had invested five pounds at evens on Rooney,
and who thirsted for liberty of action to get something
speedily on the other.

"If he wasn't boastin', then wasn't he lyin', to pretend
to let the Rat up lasht time?" roared O'Dea, when his
proffered crown on the dun had been promptly refused.

An enthusiastic cousin of Rooney's offered an even
crown, hotly declaring, "It's cantherin' the man is, so as
to make a race of it, and shame the other."

"If he is, he is beltin'," shrilled Janey, letting her
parent go.  "Beltin'!"

"He has the sphur out too," grunted her progenitor.
"I'll make the crown double, if ye like, Tom Rooney."

The big, bewildered youngster sprang forward to the
drub of the stick and the bite of the steel in his flanks.
He gave of his best, but the little dun was a length ahead,
striding along, pulling double, and his rider had not moved.

They landed over the last fence, the bay closed the
gap, the dun surged forward.  The crowd swayed and
roared, leaping into traps which gave way and upset
them, hurling up hats, jumping to get a better view.
The one bookmaker, seeing the dun ahead, wondered if
he had got straight to Heaven through the laxity of the
authorities, and looked at his book with breath held hard.
As they dashed up the long slope, Rooney dropped his
reins a little, so that just at the post the bay closed upon
him, and the dun's head was barely half a length in front.

"It was one of them hippodromic sirringes," gasped
Rooney, dropping his tired right hand.  "Nothin' less.
Ye dam thraitor of a spy!"  He rolled off, panting.
"I protest, Mister Dillon.  He has an artificial horse
med with one of them hippodromic doses, an' it was near
out of him an' he finishing."

There was no weighing in, catch-weights had been the
order.  Little Andy led off the panting dun, and Darby
himself saw to the exhausted That's the Boy.  A few more
gruellings of this type would break any horse's spirit.

Mr. Rooney, bewildered, took consolation in liquid form,
agreed with several people that he was hardly treated,
then his pink coat gleaming in the dusk, he squared up
to Mr. James Rourke to demand satisfaction.

"I'll show ye, ye Germin thraitor," he said bitterly,
rolling the word on his tongue.  "I'll show ye to drug
horses!"

"Will some friend counsel Dan Rooney not to put up
a fight?" said Rourke with reserve.  "Seein' that he
has more dhrink taken than I have meself, an' that his
faytures will be concayled on him for a week if he thries
it on."

Further pleasantries concerning the fact that James
was afraid, and a rider to the effect that "Perhaps if
Daniel Rooney's present features were hidden he would
look all the better" from Rourke being exchanged,
Rooney broke loose from restraining friends and rushed
forward, his arms going like windmills and his face aflame.
Rourke shortened matters by knocking him down
scientifically.

From behind an enlarging nose Mr. Rooney, on the
ground, considered that this was another bit of treachery,
for he found that giddiness prevented him from getting up.

"Maybe the hippodromic sirringe in his hand," he
gulped, "pricked into the nose on me face."

A voice suggested that if this was the case Dan Rooney
should immediately get up and show them how fast he
could run away, Dan, completing the crowd's good-humour
by endeavouring—he was now exceedingly drunk—to
gallop on his hands and knees, and finally being
removed to an inside trap, where he swayed as a stricken
pink flower and groaned drearily.

Darby drove over to Rourke's house next day to find
the owner gaily gravelling the little path in front of the
house, and whistling cheerily.  Darby had come to buy
the little dun; he wanted a handy horse and would have
bought him before if he had not been afraid of his lack
of pace.

James Rourke leant upon his shovel and rubbed his chin.

"If ye like to buy him for what he is," he said slowly,
"a nate plodding fair and square little hunther, ye're
welcome; but as a horse with great speed, no,
Mr. Dillon.  Ye're too big a friend to trade that way."

"Then how the mischief did he beat the big bay?"
was what Darby uttered in astonishment.

James looked round cautiously.  "Well, if one dun
horse did not bate him," he said, "isn't there a book says
'All's fair in love and war,' sir—another did.  The writing
only said Dun, Mister Darby, there was no name.  An'
if I paid two hundred, he wouldn't risk it for less, for me
cousin's little horse Custodian that won at Galway last
year, and was second in Punchestown.  Didn't James
Rourke's dun horse win the race?"

"You—scoundrel!" said Darby, after a pause filled by
uncontrolled laugh, he looked towards the stables.

"Oh, he went back the second next night," said James
softly.  "We walked him all the ways to Cortra.  Andy
did, an' it dark!  I borryed Andy off Barty.  I could not
have lived in the place, Mr. Dillon, with all his boastin'
if I either went out, an' was doing full-back all the time
to his forward, or if I did not come out at all.  An' for
the twinty pound Janey an' meself sent it to the Belgums.
Since it came from cheatin' soldiers, it is gone to thim
that soldiers cheated."

An inkling of what had happened leaked out, as it was
bound to, so delighting O'Dea that the banns were
immediately put up, the old man giving Janey two extra
cows because a certain young man deserved to get on
in life.

Also, when a month later Darby drove up to present the
couple with a silver sugar-basin and tea-spoons, he found
Mr. Dan Rooney walking arm in arm with James Rourke,
as they discussed the terms of sale of That's the Boy
to the owner of Custodian, who realized that the bay had
put in a really fine performance in running as he
did—half fit, and never spared.

"To have been bate by that that niver could have bate
me sickened me," said Rooney, beaming; "but to keep
Custodian beltin' it for three mile, didn't I know me bay
horse was a bit of exthry?"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XII

.. vspace:: 2

General Brownlow returned the grey horse,
accompanied by a terse letter to his brother-in-law,
couched in terms which made George Freyne feel that
he was almost lucky to have escaped a drumhead
court-martial.

"Lay down with our fattest commanding officer in the
barrack square," wrote Brownlow, "and again with a
young subaltern ordered to gallop with a message.  Folds
up like a deck-chair when he feels inclined, and I've got
you out of it with difficulty by trying him for another
week myself."

With a spirit chastened but not resigned, Dearest George
got a cheque to return the money, and then looked bitterly
at the array of new machinery in its shed.

The same post had brought a letter to Gheena, which
simply said: "I managed it, my dear—that particular
whistle which brought him down in a moment."

Tony Brownlow wrote again from England, telling his
brother-in-law that as he—Tony—had just got George
out of a nice difficulty, he didn't mind asking a favour.
He wanted a home for his sister's child.  She had lived
with him.  Now he was moving about, the girl was on
the coast of Kent and he was nervous; besides, he would
like her to be friends with that splendid monkey, Gheena.

The sum offered for her board and for keeping a horse
for her was completely adequate.  Her name was Mona,
and she was commonly called Psyche, the sprite.

Mona Delorme arrived almost immediately afterwards.
She was a fragile little person, reminding the imaginative
of a moonbeam—pale, with silvery yellow hair and
grey-green shadowy eyes, with slender feet and hands, and
light quick movements.

Sturdy Gheena adored her fervently from the hour of
meeting her at the station, and was calling her Psyche
before they reached Castle Freyne.

Mona cried out at the homely beauty of the hills, at
the wild sea caught in the long harbour, and the white
spray at the point where it sprang up free in its might.

Her father had been Irish.  She took the country to
her heart with its grey lights and shadows, its kindly
people, its carelessness and consequent happiness.

"The flour is not after coming from Cortra, Miss, nor
the box of groceries from the stores," said Dillon at the
station; "an' the Master axin' for sardines these two
days past—an' Anne out of flour."

"We'll borrow some from Mrs. Brady, Dillon; I daresay
the mistress forgot to write.  How many of your boxes
have you got, Mona?  They generally lose a few.  Only
one gone, Pat?  Wonderful!"

"It must come on in a day or two, Miss," said Pat
hopefully.  "The war has the world an' all muddled up."

Mona was welcomed by Mrs. Freyne.  She was at home
in ten minutes in the old house; told to call Mrs. Freyne
Auntie, and not Aunt—at all costs, not Aunt Matilda.
As their relationship was so remote as to be non-existent
Mona agreed with faint surprise.

She had been given one of the huge bedrooms looking
out on the front, a vast expanse of room, with heavy
furniture solidly occupying as much space as it conveniently
could—a mighty bed, huge wardrobes in which several
spies might be hidden, an arm-chair which it took a strong
man to wheel along, and a small grate of dubiously new
origin lurking in the vast fireplace.  Mr. Freyne had
replaced all the old-fashioned bedroom grates by cheap
and not too economical substitutes.

Here Psyche the Sprite declared she would be lost,
but peered with joy across the expanse of tree-dotted
lawn to the grey sea churning ill-humouredly between the
low cliffs.

"And you mustn't wink lights at night or we'll have
Mr. Keefe up," said Gheena.  "We are dreadfully afraid
of submarines down here."

Gheena, long limbed, tanned clear brown, with bright
hair and deep grey eyes, sat upon the massive arm-chair,
not in it, but poised on the broad arm, her arms clasped
round her knees, and admired her guest whole-heartedly.

"Psyche," she said; "nothing else.  A sprite, Uncle
Tony said.  I can hardly see you edgeways."

Mona's hands gripped the window-sill; they were
slight fragile things, with delicate bones concealed by
milk-white skin.  Even her eyes were pale, grey-blue, misty
and elusive.

"A man on a horse," she announced.  "Yes, do call
me Psyche; it's pretty.  Such a good-looking man.
There were no men in Kent, only a curate and some people
with wives."

Gheena dropped off her perch to run to the window
and see Darby talking to her mother.  The unmarred side
of his face was towards them.  There was no hint of the
twisted, shortened limb, and the seam which punctured
his right cheek.

"Oh, Darby!" said Gheena.  "Poor old Darby Dillon!"

Psyche, late Mona, wished to know if this Darby had
no money at all.

Gheena explained very gently that Darby was a cripple,
lame and twisted.

They went down together—sunlight and moonlight,
ripe chestnut and a mistletoe berry—having, with the
mysterious ease of which girlhood is capable, become
fast friends.

Darby Dillon was just hobbling across the hall.  He
reddened, as he always did, when meeting strangers
and the shame of his marring was stared at by new eyes,
summed up and pitied.  But this girl did not seem to look
at him as though she noticed; she came up to tell him
how already she loved this grey Ireland, and to ask eager
questions about hunting and jumping, and the joys which
she had only read of.

"I bought quite a lot of books and read them," she
said.  "A Badminton and Jorrocks, and oh, crowds of
things!  But I've only ridden on the roads, seen hunting
once or twice from a motor, so I didn't understand.  You
see, we lived in Scotland before mother died, and then
I was abroad.  But I'm coming out here, even if I fall off."

"You won't make a hole in the ground," said Darby
thoughtfully.

"You ride—like men in pictures," said Psyche.

Darby looked up sharply, his face flushing, to see if she
was laughing at the cripple, but the new experience of
being admired after years of tolerant pity made the flush
deepen.

Dearest George corrected his stepdaughter several times
as to her stupidity about Miss Delorme's name.

A veritable sprite, pale, in pale-hued clothes, Psyche
flitted about and took in everyone.  Her appreciation of
Anne's scones was duly recorded in the kitchen.  Her close
questioning of the injured Lancelot was listened to by his
mother and called impertinent.  It was annoying to meet
a girl who seemed to know every town in France, every
spot where the English held the lines, and discomfiting
for the hero to have to shufflingly evade questions
impossible for him to answer.

"It is my belief," observed pale Psyche to Gheena,
"that he never went beyond Boulogne."

Gheena replied quietly that she had guessed that for
weeks, and Lancelot, who played the invalid in his khaki,
looked at them narrowly.

All the Freynes' friends appeared, of course accidentally,
to see the stranger, Mrs. Brady driving Mrs. Weston, who
came to ask for some seeds for her garden, things to sow
in a frame, and was distressed to find that January sowings
needed great care and a skilled man.  Mrs. Brady was
depressed because the news was vile and hopeless.
Stafford came merely to ask for tea.  He yawned once or
twice, apologizing with a start.

"It's being up all night," he said; "no sleep."

"Who on earth did you find to play cards with here?"
said Gheena icily.

Mr. Stafford said "Er!" and grinned faintly.

Lancelot Freyne absorbed Gheena's attention when he
found it possible.  She must pour out his tea and put in
cream and sugar.  She was the only one who could plump
up and arrange his cushions.  She must show him the
pictures in the *Daily Sketch*.  Gheena was patiently
pointing out varieties of somewhat indefinite horrors of
war, when Doctor Mahaffy, a stout man, who did ten
men's work in his big district, burst in to tell them that
one of their workmen had broken his leg.

"Nat Leary.  He was coming back in the dark last night
from the point, and he tripped over something like a wire,
he says.  Whatever it was, it stunned him and tilted him
over the shale cliff, where he was only found at one o'clock,
half kilt."

"The steward said that he had not come to work,"
said Dearest George fussily.  "And Nat was an unusually
sober man."

Old Mahaffy remarked gruffly that that was apparently
as unusual as usual in that way; but as he tripped
something seemed to strike him and smother him, and he
woke up to find himself on the shale bank with his leg
doubled under him.  He was too sick to move, or he'd
have gone over into the sea, so he bawled until someone
heard him.

Something, Gheena could not have told what, made her
look sharply at Basil Stafford.  He was staring at the
doctor, his face tense and strained, with an anxious look
in his tired eyes.

Violet Weston rustled her noisy underskirts across the
room to Gheena; she moved trippingly, because her
shoes generally hurt her feet, and whispered in Gheena's
ear.

"Up all night," she said.  "He let it out.  Could
there be any connection?"

The flush faded from Basil Stafford's face; he grew pale
and his lips set bitterly.

"Well, it's a job for you, Keefe," he said, "to go and
investigate, and I'll come with you.  The cliffs are all
overgrown above the shale bank, but the path is clear at
the edge."

"He turned in through the furry bushes to take that
way to his house," said the doctor.  "I left him grand
and cosy now.  I will take some tea surely, Mrs. Freyne,
for I am cold and tired.  I'm getting an old man for that
two-wheeled motor of mine."

"You must have some fresh," said Mrs. Freyne;
"this would be stewed.  Don't you think so, Dearest?
And, besides, there isn't any.  I remember the last cup
I poured out was not really there at all."

"And in the name of Goodness, Lancelot," burst out
the doctor, "didn't I tell you to use that foot and not
be getting an atrophy in your leg from pasting it up on
cushions?"

Lancelot, flushing, observed haughtily that the pain was
too intense, and leant back as one who considers a matter
fully discussed.

"I'd have a pain in a leg meself if I laid it up to be
lookin' at it, and it only swollen and tender," remarked
Mahaffy, with brutal frankness.  "Unless it's sympathy
you're after, Lancelot, and you do the Tango in your own
room so as to soon fill out and get ready for more service."

At the thought of Lancelot in khaki gravely sitting
before the looking-glass, Mrs. Freyne said: "Oh, good
gracious.  Dearest George, do you think?" and dropped
three stitches of her involved muffler.

"Well, he should use it," observed the family
practitioner, getting up.  "He was always nervous from the
hour he came into the world, and used to be peepin' at
his bottle as if it might bite him.  And now, Maria Louisa
Deane has the measles—German, too—and over there
I must get before I see roast goose to-night."

They tied pheasants on to the old fellow's bicycle and
hung a basket of grapes on the handle and sent him off.

Lancelot, in offended majesty, sat gloomily among his
cushions.  Presently, when it was time to dress for dinner
and get into slacks—he would wear no civilian clothes—he
suddenly put both sticks into one hand, set his foot on
the ground and collapsed against Gheena's shoulder with
a strangled groan of anguish.

"There is really no use trying if it makes you make
noises like that," said Matilda Freyne kindly.  "Is
there, Dearest?  Though it's probably all nerves and
really doesn't hurt a bit; and if you are going to try to
use it, Naylour and George must help you.  Gheena is
not strong enough."

The invalid tearfully murmured that he wanted Gheena
alone.  His glance of reproach at Mrs. Freyne was a
bitter one.

"He is a humbug," said Psyche, accepting Gheena's
help in dressing.  She had brought no maid.  "And I
do not care for your big lady in silk stockings."

When Gheena called Violet Weston a darling, Miss
Delorme shook her head vigorously.

"The only thing that's wrong with her, Darby says,"
went on Gheena, "is that she wears a number eight shoe
on a number ten foot and it hampers her.  They're not
such big feet really, if she did not squeeze them in those
high-heeled shoes and wear such bright stockings."

When they came down again the little district inspector
had just driven back from his examination of the cliffs.
There were two shale banks along the verge, and until
Leary got up again it would be impossible to say exactly
where he had turned and fallen.  He had told the doctor
it was very dark, and he felt the gorse and wheeled,
knowing he would find the gate leading to the path across
to his house, but the gorse grew sixty yards from where
they found him.  They had looked everywhere, and the
only thing they found was a small cork which smelt faintly
of chloroform.

"We chloroformed a stray old cat last week," said
Violet Weston absently, "at least Guinane did.  He
took it off somewhere to the cliffs, because I wouldn't
have the poor thing done in the house."

"It's how striking a wire or a root as he turned to go
in could have tumbled the man over the cliffs is what
puzzles me," said Stafford.  "The verge is several feet
even from the path."

It was a matter of course that anyone coming late
to Castle Freyne stayed to dinner.  The meal was always
elastic, with reserves of vast game pies and cold pheasants
and other things, which Anne smilingly "slapped up"
into hot dishes at a moment's notice.

Psyche sat next to Darby and talked of horses all the
time, an eager, ill-informed but intelligent patter, which
seemed to amuse him greatly.

To-morrow—no later—she would get a horse and
practise jumping.

To-morrow, Darby said mildly, was a hunting day.

"But if I lean back and then forward," said Psyche
excitedly, "I might not fall off.  Gheena says I am to
have her Redbird to begin on, because he's so very quiet
and careful.  And then I am to have a grey for my own
riding."

This was Gheena's sop to her stepfather's ill-humour,
as the grey was returned; it could thus be fed free of
cost.

"And—oh!"  Psyche started nervously.

"It's Crabbit snuffling and Dearest throwing an orange
at him," observed Darby.  "Yes.  Crabbit is now
worrying the orange."

Crabbit chased the orange across the room, bit it viciously,
chased it again, and finally left it, torn open, pulpy, just
beneath the feet of the man who had thrown it at him;
so that when Mr. Freyne rose gracefully to open the door,
his feet slipped on the smashed-up fruit and he
disappeared from view, feet foremost under the table,
accidentally hitting Lancelot's foot and eliciting a yowl of
anguish from his nephew.

The upheaval of Dearest George, his garments now
fragrant with orange juice, was coupled with deep threats
directed against Crabbit's life—deeper still, because that
interested animal came and sniffed at his head when he
was on the ground.

"When Crabbit dies," said Gheena, calling up her red
pet, "I shall marry next day, the very next.  If the
Professor won't have me, Doctor Mahaffy might; I could
give him a motor to drive in."

Dearest George observed something concerning drivel,
but he observed it under his breath and recognized the
threat.  Crabbit was not to suffer.  So turning to Lancelot,
he crushed his nephew by remarking irritably that soldiers
had no business to squeal like rabbits.

The new-comer sang to them in a thin sweet voice,
which was quite sprite-like, and she danced for them
lightly and prettily, but not as well as usual, because
she told Gheena she was thinking of hunting.

The meet was at Castle Freyne itself next day.  It was
without exception the worst meet on the card, with endless
hunting through endless woods, of foxes with limitations
as to sound limbs.

Mr. George Freyne, with the assistance of a reticent
north-country keeper, trapped rabbits and carted them
in the dawn or the dusk to the distant stations, sending
them in bags by the cart of a "boy" of fifty-four by the
name of Looney Rooney, who could keep his mouth shut
on any subject for a shilling and open it for half a
crown.

This matter of the rabbits Dearest George believed to
be so sacred a secret that his amazement when a
three-legger was run into and chopped was most loudly voiced.

"Those hang fisher chaps trapped all round the cliffs,
and of course foxes strayed out."

"And I to poke into some queer-looking bags on Looney
Rooney's cart two years ago," observed Darby once.
"'Rabbits, you poaching villain,' I said to him.  'Whose
rabbits?'

"'Don't be axin' me questions an' I'll tell ye no lies,
Mister Darby,' he said, with his crooked old mouth under
one ear.  'Here's half a crown to tell me whose,' I said.
'The shopman's,' he says, putting his mouth round until
I thought he would have to get someone to feed him for
the future through the back of his neck.  'Hee!
Hee! the shopman's!  Castle Brand,' says the old villain,
whaling his jinnet into a trot, and he was a mile away
when I realized that he had earned his half a crown."

Gheena, of course, knew nothing of this method of
making money.

The scratch pack sat solemnly upon the lawn.  They
were now fit and in condition, yet in their hearts probably
yearning for the many indifferent meals which they had
picked up daily, instead of the one ample portion of meal
and meat.  Every woman who possessed a habit and
saddle came out for the meet at Castle Freyne, and every
man who could muster a horse.

Mr. Freyne had spent an anxious hour in the cellar,
looking out some ginger cordial which had proved a
failure, and which he meant to substitute for the usual
excellent liqueurs provided for the hunting people.

"In war time they ought not to expect anything," he
said fussily, as he decanted some inferior whisky into the
old cut-glass decanters.

In the morning, a clear and sunshiny one, he saw the
table ready in the hall before he went out, very important
in peaked cap, to speak to the pack, and to proffer
hospitality with the extremely whole-hearted air of the man
who regrets it secretly.  The offer comes quite quietly
from those who delight in seeing their substance consumed.

The farmers took little mugs of liqueur coyly, coughing
and wiping their mouths with a thanksgiving of "That's
good entirely," or "Fine lightsome sthuff, Miss Gheena.
Your good health, Miss!  Your good health, Ma'am!
Well now, one more, then."

Mr. Freyne watched without anxiety to see the distinct
disappointment with which they would swallow the rather
tired ginger cordial; but to his surprise, he saw
Mr. Rooney cough with extra vigour, and hold out a withered
hand for another go of that gran' little sthuff.

"And Matilda would have told me it was like water,"
he said genially, offering a drink to fat old O'Gorman as
he pounded up upon his stout cob, leading his wife's lean
mare.  "Liqueur?  Only the ginger cordial, or whisky
and soda, or tea."

"Knowing Mrs. Freyne's ginger cordial, I'll have some,"
said O'Gorman, wiping his forehead.  "That's a great
plowder when you're late, Freyne, eight miles out of the
town."

Miss Louisa O'Donnell, a coy and dark-haired damsel
of uncertain years, also gladly accepted.  She had gone
through life offering unstinted admiration to mankind,
hoping it might induce one of them to take it as a permanent
tonic to his life; but she remained Louisa O'Donnell
still—with a complexion which Darby said unkindly
it was a good thing the rain washed sometimes, and a lean
angular figure.

"Indeed, just the littlest taste, Mr. Freyne," she said
sweetly.  "My! isn't the hunting cap very becoming
to a good-looking man.  It will be quite a loss when we
have the Master out again."

Dearest George preened peacock-wise in the sunshine,
glared down at his white leathers and immaculate boots,
and strode, spurs ringing on the gravel, towards the hall.
"Gheena, two cordials."

But Gheena was on her way to coax pretty Jane O'Dea,
a giggling bride-elect, from her horse and bring her in for
some tea.

Dearest George ran up the shallow steps to note quite
a crowd of men round the table in the hall, and then to call
imperiously to his wife.

Her stout, fair comeliness set off by a well-made dark
habit, she was standing talking to Stafford.

"Yes, Dearest.  Naylour, two glasses."

Mr. Freyne, receiving them, noted with surprise that
the hue of the liqueur was green, and turned in amazement,
giving the tray to Naylour, who shuffled, a white-haired
Ganymedes, out amongst the crowd.

"And oh, Dearest George," beamed Matilda Freyne,
"I found the old cordial which was never corked properly
put out by mistake, and you were outside, so I got out
the green Chartreuse you put away when war was declared
instead.  The other things were locked up, and the
Chartreuse was handy in the dining-room press.  Wasn't
I right, Dearest?"

Dearest George looked bleakly at the bottles of his
favourite liqueur which were being opened by Keefe;
on the floor stood a degraded row of bottles of the cordial.
Green Chartreuse to the farmers!  Outside he heard
O'Gorman's oily voice.

"I wouldn't mind another glassful, Naylour.  I'm beat
trotting the whole way, and that's great stuff, not like
ginger cordial at all now, is it?"

Mr. Freyne made curious noises in his throat.

"Never," observed Darby softly to Miss Delorme, "be
economical without your wife's knowledge.  I've never
known anyone so hard to corner as Matilda.  She reminds
me of chasing jelly with a fork; it's always so soft
and pleasant, and always at the other end of the plate
when you think you've got it."

Darby looked at his watch, but there was no hurry.
If a little piece of Castle Freyne was left undrawn no one
would grumble except George.

The gathering was suddenly enlivened by shouts from
outside—Phil's, as he "practised" the new young lady
over some bushes made up on the lawn.

"Sit back!  Hould ye howlt!  Great begorra!  Now,
at it agin!"

"Oh, it's lovely!" gasped Psyche, as she bumped from
the saddle, gripped the mane, and yet was still there,
hanging on.

"Don't be afeard, ye are still above," comforted Phil.
"Let ye lane back when ye'd feel him hop and straighten
yerself when he dhrops, and the Queen of England couldn't
do more.  That's bether.  Now agin."

Redbird, a sedate little horse, now felt the spirit of the
morning enter into him, and suddenly did a little jump
not over the bushes.

Psyche understood a buck-jump; she sat down to it
with a little coo of delight, and raced once more at the
fence.

In a very pale grey habit she was as sprite-like riding
as on foot.

"If we do not move on," said Mr. Freyne ill-humouredly,
"we shall never leave this place."

Darby thought this a sound opinion.  He limped off
to his horse slowly, watching with amusement Miss
Delorme's spirited efforts to master the balance of a
jump.

The rejected grey was brought to the step by Phil,
George explaining with disgust how he had been returned
for some private spite.

"The quietest soort of a horse ever I seen," said
Jamesey Rourke, and whistled absently.

It was unfortunately quite like the signal which Greybird
had completely at heart.

At Darby's side, Mr. Freyne was moving off, feeling
that all eyes were upon him, when without warning the
Greybird died for his country with extreme spirit,
decanting his rider on to the wet grass.

"Oh, heavens! someone whistled!" said Gheena.
"It's two whistles sharply given, and he's got it on his
mind now, and he's on the croquet hoops."  The grey
stood up, his saddle scratched, his side smeared, with a
benign expression on his good-tempered face.

"The megrums," said Rourke, excitedly catching the
horse.  "The megrums he has, the craythur."

Gheena explained softly.  Mr. Freyne, smeared with
green, remounted with bitter dignity and noisy comment.

The woods behind the house soon rang with the towling
harrier note, until Grandjer, rushing out, pinned a small
yellow fox which had one paw badly injured.

"Those dreadful men on the cliffs," said Mr. Freyne
pompously.  "Dreadful—my foxes!"

Looney Rooney, limping through the crowd, muttered
"Shopman's rabbits!" happily, and grinned at Darby.

"Dirty German thing, trapping!" said Darby curtly.
"If Lindlay comes back and finds out who does this,
he'll make Huns of them for the time being, I tell you."

Mr. Freyne nursed the cheek injured by the croquet
hoop and remained silent.

They drew on through the long wood at the foot of the
hill, trying every yard of it, monotony varied by the
occasional slaying of a rabbit by Grandjer or Beauty,
both adepts at it.  Wherever Darby rode, little Miss
Psyche was on his heels.  To be with the Master was
hunting for her.

She squealed nearly as loud as the rabbits when the
hounds gave tongue and were rated; she wailed for a
hunt.  She put her horse over fallen trunks of trees and
piped shrilly that she had learnt to sit on at the jumps.
She viewed a squirrel with a "Tally ho!" which made
the wood ring.

"Now look here!" said Darby firmly.  "That's not
a fox.  And I'll do the hollering away."

"It had a long tail," said Miss Delorme equally firmly,
"and it was red.  And suppose I see a fox and you don't
see the fox, am I to say nothing because I am not sure
it is a fox?"

Darby gave it up politely.  He pulled up to rub his
head and say "Hounds noses," looking straight into the
small pale face and the big grey-green eyes half hidden
by a tangle of dark brown eyelashes.

"They'll be off on the scent of Cupid in a minnit," he
said, "or Endymion.  Siren would be a better name for
you, Miss Moonbeam."

They scrambled through a hole in the boundary bank,
and got out into poor pasture fields to draw more woods
on the crest of a hill.

"When you run across to that—" said Psyche, pouting.
That was the opposite cliff across the harbour.

"—Do you have to swim?" she asked.

"No, there's a ferry," said Darby gravely.  "The fox
hails it first.  Then it comes back for me and the hounds
and the hunt servants, and the others wait on the shore
for their turn; that's the way we cross the sea, hunting
here."

A small bank reared its barrier across the grass.  Darby's
horse scrambled over contemptuously, Miss Delorme rushing
at it wildly, and recovering by the breastplate when
the bustled Redbird bungled.

Home Ruler put his nose down with sudden interest,
Beauty following suit.  A fox had been about.  They
spoke to the line in the larch wood, when the whip-like
tasselled boughs scratched unwary faces as they rode
through.  It was a stale line.  Darby cheered them,
hoping the fox might be lying in some clumps of gorse
outside, from which there was even the possibility of a
hunt.

Violet Weston's tall bay snorted and whistled as they
climbed the steep hill.  She was attended by her small
red-faced swain, who was endeavouring to conceal from
his thoughts that green Chartreuse in the morning will
mount to the head.

A nip from his flask to assure himself made him happier;
he found that irritability passed to loquacious cheeriness,
and it took a second nip to bring a thorough glow of sweet
peace.

Then he discussed the war and his work, explaining how
much of it all entailed upon him—constant rushes to the
Wireless Station, where they were ordered to let no one
in now; incessant false alarms; the arranging of
everything in case of invasion.

"You know that man with the broken leg still says he
was too far in to have fallen over," he said.  "He said
he was amongst the gorse inland when he was tripped
up and fell."

"Drunk, of course?" said Mrs. Weston.

"A teetotaller," said Mr. Keefe, again staving off
irritability; "and now we have some whisper of wireless
messages being sent off the coast."

"Mrs. Weston and I," said Gheena, riding up, "are
going to search right along the cliffs for caves and holes.
We might find where the petrol base is, if there is one,
and then you'll be promoted."

Little Keefe snapped out that he did not believe in the
rumours.

Beauty towled out her long note; a fox had been
somewhere about.

"You must take off those lovely shoes of yours if you're
going for long walks on the cliffs," remarked Keefe
fatuously.  "Never do it on those heels you wear,
Mrs. Violet."

A minute later Stafford, who had ridden to their right,
came up to Gheena.  She was on the young horse,
managing it perfectly, her bright face glowing as she
played with his mouth.

"Look here," he said earnestly, "you are not to attempt
to look along these cliffs, you two girls.  Have you thought
what it might mean if there really was a base, and desperate
men earning their living by holding it?  As their lives
would certainly be over if they were found, do you think
they would let you two come back quietly to tell the police?"

Miss Freyne withered him with a look before she
inquired icily who had told Mr. Stafford of their intention.

Basil Stafford observed with some confusion that he'd
heard of it—er—somehow.

Gheena replied that she did not remember mentioning
it until that morning, and then only to two people who
took an interest in the war.

At this Basil Stafford shot out "Steady," his voice
shaking a little.

"Well, you can't," she replied with firmness.

"I can take an interest in folly," he observed after a
pause, speaking with the extreme sweetness which marks
distinct ill-humour.

"Keep off those cliffs, Miss Freyne.  You see, there
really is a war somewhere, a real war, and the German
Emperor is not yet at Runnymede."

"You'd like us to keep off the cliffs," said Gheena.
"No doubt."

Mr. Stafford suddenly allowed his ill-humour to pass
to laughter.

"War includes many things which you have not even
dreamt of," he said, grinning.  "Keep away from it."

To which Gheena returned that so far as she could see,
people kept away from it who ought to be in it, or perhaps
they did not keep away.

Here she stopped abruptly and Darby's voice rose
cheerily.  They had found.

Scent was of the poorest.  A small red fox, put up
out of a clump of gorse, loped into the wood, and though
they hunted fairly well in covert, even the harrier noses
were at fault outside.

This fox topped the hill and made for a clump of trees
about a mile away across rough heathery ground.

When the wood had given up the branch-slashed and
irritated Field, they kept to a boggy track leading to the
spinny where they were making for—all but Darby, who
rode with his hounds, risking the rough broken ground
and the narrow rotten fences, mere uprights of soft earth,
darned together with heather and fern.  At his heels,
exactly upon them, came Miss Delorme, crying "Oh!
Oh! glorious!" as her horse stumbled and slipped, left
completely to himself.

Gheena also left the track.  One was glad of any
excitement; hunting out of Castle Freyne and the bumpy going
was practice for the youngster.  It would do him good,
too, to flounder on the ugly little banks.

Darby looked round.  On his heels came fair, pale
Psyche, radiant with sheer joy, her reins flapping, her
whole mind full of the rush of the pack in front, of the
towling, yapping notes as Home Ruler led and every hound
gave tongue, the soft fresh air against her face, the whole
unsounded mystery of it in her blood.  At his left Gheena,
the too eager youngster, held well together, the girl sitting
down in her saddle, her hands low, giving and taking to
her impetuous mount, both so young, so full of sheer keen
life, both with all their limbs their own, both unknowing
trouble.

The glow in their faces lashed the Master with a whip
of bitterness.  Here, as they rode, he was on an equality,
able to ride a hunt as well as they could, to sit his horse
as easily; but if any difficulty came, if he had to get down,
he would be Darby the cripple, limping and crumbling
through life—asking for help to get back on to his horse.

"Ou—ich!" was the exclamation trailing in his wake
as they came to a nasty trappy little bank, a mere mound
of boggy earth flung up and held loosely together by
coarse grass, bramble vines and heather.  The bay, ridden
all loosely at it, did his own steadying and propping, the
latter with a sufficient swift decision to fling Psyche out
on to his neck, where she balanced precariously, gripping at
the breastplate.

"Ooo-iche!" came a happy crow of triumph as the
little figure got back into the saddle.  "Oh, Mr. Dillon,
he full-stopped quite suddenly."

"Hold his head," grinned Darby.  "Full-stop him
yourself, or you'll be in a ditch."

The fox tried the spinny, and as Phil upon the cart-pony
put it, took a swee-gee out around the hills.  A
more abominable country it would be difficult to imagine—lumps
of tussocky ground rising out of sullen little boggy
places, bogs on the summits of the hills and loose slaty
stones, with a few tortuous tracks showing the ways of
moderate safety here and there.

With the fox-hounds flashing over it, it took all one
knew to keep near them; and if one let hounds go, they
might top the hill and go on down to one of the best
pieces of country.  With the scratch pack yowling
solemnly it was a pretty sight to watch them—every
hound hunting; now Beauty ahead, now Daisy; again
dock-tailed Grandjer, throwing his blended tongue, half
hound and half terrier; Home Ruler quite exhausted,
towling melodiously at the rear of them all.

"He will be cot," shrieked little Andy, dashing the Rat
over the rough ground.  "He will be cot.  See! there
is one wavin' ahead."

The fox had sat down to consider matters, and jumped
up again as the steady "Yow-ow" came slowly along,
the lulls were growing unsafe, so he meditated a return
to Castle Freyne, where he was sure to find some hole
unstopped if he had time to look.  Her pale face glowing
as with white fire, her eyes ablaze, Psyche dashed on
behind Darby.  She splashed into bogs, she let her good
little horse stumble against tussocks; the madness of
hunting had bitten her, was in her blood, never to come
out again.  Every fence was a joy, a thrill of uncertainty.
She was not sure once whether she would not follow little
Andy on his Rat, because he was abreast of hounds, but
was checked firmly by Darby.

Even the scratch pack were brought to their noses on
a piece of cold wet ground, where the fox had lain down
in a clump of briars overgrowing some rocks.

They quieted solemnly, every nose down.

"Clever as Christians," breathed Andy ecstatically.
"Look at Grandjer an' Beauty, an' he nosin', an' Daisy!
Whiroo!"

The fox leaped from his shelter, flying off down the hill.

"There! there! there!"  Darby's right arm was
caught and held.  "Now, there, is that a fox or a squirrel—the
thing they're hunting?  And may I say 'Tally ho?"

Darby observed gravely that it was not usual for him
to hunt squirrels, and cheered on Grandjer and Beauty.

They flew back down the hill, hounds running almost
in view.

"I shall never go back to Kent.  I'll hunt all day
long," breathed Psyche wildly.

"She yappin' to herself the same as Home Ruler, an'
he behind tirened out," remarked Phil to Andy.  "Listen
to her, an' she off afther the Masther an' howldin' his arrum
an' he lookin' for his bugle!"

"The craythur!" said Pat.  "She'd see nothin' but
baynits in England now and Zeppylins, an' then to be
out like this is life to her."

But running down wind scent failed again.  Slowly,
earnestly, hounds puzzled it out, now one flinging forward
with a long yowl, then dropping into silence almost
angrily.  Slowly they trailed it on until they were
absolutely at fault on some scrubby ground.  Darby did not,
as a rule, help the scratch pack; he looked on while
George Freyne blew his whistle, and Mr. Keefe fussed
about like a red-faced bee, and the steady old stagers
took no absolute notice of them.

But to-day, with Castle Freyne in front, he meant to
cast forward; they might catch their fox in the woods
when scent held better.  Barty and Carty got round the
puzzled pack and whipped them on to him.

Dearest George was in a bad humour.  Their return to
Castle Freyne at this hour would mean everyone in for
drinks, late lunch and tea.  His petty spirit rebelled, and
he thrust his dual mastership forward.

"That fox is back, Darby, over the hill."

"He is not," said Darby mildly.

"I say he is.  He has turned here.  I say we must
try back.  Barty, whip those hounds back to
me."  Mr. Freyne blew his whistle shrilly.

"Grandjer's touching the line," said Darby; "put
them on, Barty."

Dearest George wished frantically to know what he
wore a black cap for if he was not to put forward opinions.

"Forrard on, Grandjer!" remarked Darby.

"And I will cast back," stormed Dearest George, "or—or
resign, Darby, resign."

"Well, cast away," said Darby affably.  "Cast them
back now, if you can"—for at the moment Beauty gave
a long yowl of joy, and held on steadily, throwing her
tongue; Grandjer, Daisy and Spinster following suit.

"That is the way we came up.  Heel!  Back trail!"
cried George Freyne.

Darby said thoughtfully it must be a really heavy heel
to leave its mark for so long, and cheered hounds in the
same breath.

"To know which way he has run away," cried Psyche
ecstatically.  "Oh, Mr. Dillon, you are wonderful!"

Darby was not accustomed to whole-hearted admiration;
he smiled at the little white face which peered almost over
his shoulder.

"Now, if you were a fox," he said as they cantered
towards the woods, "would you go up that hill again
with dusk coming on?"

"But aren't foxes like women—always doing just what
you don't expect them to?" she said, as she pulled the
gate open.

"Those are the twisty ones which we catch," he said
briefly.  "Now they're at him!  Unless he gets into a
hole, he's done."

George Freyne said gloomily that he would dismiss his
head man.  This was when the fox found refuge in some
rocks quite close to the house.

"I'd better ride on and have some cold things put out,
hadn't I, Dearest George?" observed Mrs. Freyne happily,
"and get eggs done.  Anne's hot cakes will be sure to be
ready.  Everyone is here and we shall have quite a party,"
she added pleasantly.  "Come and have a drink, Rourke,
and bring anyone."

"Thin I wouldn't say against another glass of that
ginger wine, Ma'am," said Rourke bashfully.  "There
was the sweetest sort of bite in it, a sphur in the head
it gave ye."

"Stay there, George; we might dig him."  Darby
stopped George as he turned to ride away.  "Don't
desert me—as fellow-Master."

Mr. Freyne put the peak above his forehead with a
gesture of pure tragedy.  Nothing but a speedy rush to
the house could have saved his Chartreuse.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XIII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIII

.. vspace:: 2

"This," remarked Psyche, opening the hall door
very wide, "is the loveliest place that I have
ever been in."

Miss Delorme looked through the gap in the trees at
the quiet gun-metal sea, surging between the cliffs.  She
sniffed up the soft air with its tang of salt and peat.  There
was in her young mind the desire to dance and run from
sheer lightness of spirits.  Crabbit sat upon the doorstep
and eyed her with grave curiosity.  He had twice endured
being caught up and called a dear darling.

A well-ordered villa on the outskirts of Folkestone
seemed to belong to another world, with its orthodox
morning slits of open window airing the rooms, its neat
and congested garden, where calceolarias, geraniums and
lobelia were replaced by spring bulbs each year, in the
same week, on the same day, if it did not rain.  Where
rooms were turned out on their appointed day and the
bitter cold of leafy June never could call a fire into
existence once the grate was ornamented with a plant
mausoleum in chequered pottery.  Here, at Castle Freyne,
the asters still lingered, with here and there a flower upon
them.  Thomas, the old gardener, was declaring the
Missus 'd ate the face off him if he delayed lashin' in thim
bulbs a day longer; but what could he do when he could
not lay his hand to them in any place—an' he knowin'
he put them away careful.

The thought of Miss Eva Delorme with spring bulbs
which would not be found brought a bubble of laughter
to Psyche's lips.

Phil was bringing the hunters out for a mouthful of
sweet grass, placidly letting them graze between the
flower-beds.

"Destroyin' the lawn before the masheen, Phil!"

"Won't the blast of the roller flatten it!" returned
Phil cheerily.  "And it is the sweetest taste in the place,
Thomas—like nuts, it is."

From some unseen abyss fat Anne's voice thundered
to Phil that his breakfast was waitin' on him, an' if he
didn't come to it there were dogs in plenty, as she would
not be disorganized with the table led all night.

"Wasn't I in ten minnits ago an' not a sign of it?"
replied Phil pleasantly.  "So I to run out with these
two, Anne; put me bit of bacon on the range, Anne Macree,
till I gits in to it."

Anne Macree replied fierily in a voice of complete
good-humour that it was Cragsbread his likes should be gettin',
same as the Germans, and that there was a few cakes in
the oven for the upstairs breakfast which he could have
if he'd hurry up, himself an' his Macrees.

A shaft of light came through the grey clouds, making
a bar of silver on the steely sea; the sky, travelling quickly,
now showed little flecks of blue and flaws of pearly white.
Yesterday's cold wind had gone.

"It's heavenly," Psyche whispered.  "It is nearly ten,
and at the Larches Miss Eva would now be seeing which
fish was the cheapest, and ordering a warm joint which
would go out to the kitchen for luncheon.  And it would
be batter-pudding day."

"You love it, Sprite!"  Gheena came running round
from the stables, her clear brown skin flushed, her bare
head ruffled.

"I want to live here."  The English girl looked out
with her pale bluey-green eyes.  "I want never to leave.
I want to learn the difference between squirrels and foxes,
and how to sit on at jumps, and why the hounds yowl
for a time and then don't say anything."

"And I"—Gheena looked out—"I want to live here
sometimes, but I want to travel, and to see France and
Italy and further away still, and hunt somewhere else
where it's flat going, and just be here in the summer or
in the autumn, but not always."

Dearest George, who came from hermetically-sealed
rooms, and was consequently very chilly in the mornings,
now called out that Mona would catch a bad chill if she
did not at once come in.

A roaring fire mocked at economy in the long dining-room.
Anne's preparations for a visitor smoked in various
forms.  She had what she called loosed her hand at hot
bread and produced three varieties.

Psyche ate an unsprite-like breakfast, listening thoughtfully
to her host's prophetic warnings of financial downfall
and the general muddle of England at war.

"At present," said Mr. Freyne, coquetting between
cold game-pie and hot kidneys on toast, "we are like
candles alight at both ends.  Everything costs more and
we have less money to pay for it with."

"Why not go back to the pie, Dearest George?"
advised his wife affectionately, "and not think of the
kidneys, because they'll get cold."

Mr. Freyne, saying pettishly that by now Matilda
might remember how delicate his appetite was, took
kidneys and returned to his seat.

Gheena was creaming and sugaring her cousin Lancelot's
tea.  The wounded hero was growing puffy and
taking on a greenish hue from constant food and no
exercise.

He wished to know pettishly—it is an invalid's privilege
to be pettish—if Gheena would drive him to the village
in the pony cart to see if his new socks had come to the
shop.

Psyche, thrusting this aside, said quickly that Gheena
had promised to go over to the kennels, so that the names
of the hounds could be learnt.

"You can't call these things hounds," said Lancelot,
"terriers and boar-hounds; and my leg won't fit in the
trap with three other people."  The complete absence of
sadness at this announcement caused a fretful outburst—how
when a fellow couldn't wash no one wanted him,
and if he hadn't gone to fight——

"The wagon would never have rolled over your toe,"
said Gheena absently.  Things leaked out curiously in
Ireland.  "To-morrow, Lance, the car is going to the
station and we take tea with Mrs. Keane.  Here are your
sticks."

"Your arm," was what Lancelot whispered amorously,
as he extended a well-covered hand.

With a welcome opening of the door, Miss O'Toole
came in, apologizing for an early intrusion; but it was
on the important subject of a concert for the Belgians
which they wanted Mrs. Freyne to help with.

"We have been mapping it out," said the young lady
vigorously.  "Miss Freyne will sing the recruiting song,
and Mr. Freyne, I hear, is inimitable as John Peel and
the Meynill Hunt."

George Freyne made modest mention of advancing years
and a declining voice.  His wife, who was a musician
and played his accompaniments, wondered mildly what
key he would commence in.

He generally tried two or three before he rushed away
on a fourth, so flat that to follow melodiously was a
difficulty.

"And we thought if our wounded hero would recite—his
khaki and the crutches, you know—something quite
simple, of course—cheery."

Lancelot, swaying on his sticks, dived in the recesses
of his mind, and remembered that he had done the "Burial
of Sir John Moore" in red velvet and a lace collar at home
when he was ten.

When Psyche said that she was interested in such a
burial, Mrs. Freyne explained at some length that, of
course, Lance did not mean Sir John Moore had put on
a red velvet frock to be interred in, but that was what
Lancelot had worn to show off in.

"The seven-thirty from Cortra will be in time," said
Miss O'Toole eagerly, "and we'll have crowds.  Then
light refreshments, sandwiches and so on given, and
charged a shilling each for it; they'll catch the
eleven-thirty back—the people I mean—or have a special, or
perhaps everyone will motor."

Mrs. Freyne thought it would be dreadful if the concert
dragged on and people had to run away in the middle
of God Save the King or a sandwich.

The glittering brightness of the morning was increasing.
It was almost summerlike when they opened the door
again and stood in the soft air.

"You might drive me in for those stockings, Gheena,"
said Lancelot.  "Any day will do for old hounds, and
I may have twinges to-morrow."

"You'll open with the Marseillaise, and Mrs. Brady is
learning the Russian anthem on the harmonium.  It will
be magnificent!  I'll put you down to help with the
supper, Mrs. Freyne—cake and sandwiches and anything
else.  And—I'll drive you to the village, Mr. Freyne.
It will only do the stubborn pony good."

Gheena said "Splendid!" in relieved tones.  Lancelot
had hobbled in; he disliked too much fresh air.

"Lancelot, you can go to the village," called his aunt
loudly.

Lancelot appeared again with Naylour behind him
adjusting a British warm—a Balaclava helmet under
his cap, and thick gloves completing his entrenchment
against the advance of a chill.  Gheena's pony came
rattling wickedly round at the moment, poking out its
stubborn head while responding gleefully to whacks from
Phil with thuds of iron against the floor of the trap.

Lancelot advanced dubiously,

"Oh, it's Miss O'Toole who is going to take you," said
Gheena.  "She says she won't mind the extra work for
her pony, and you can talk about the recitation.  Don't
bury Sir John Moore."

With a glance which Anne from the kitchen reported
to be as bither as weasels, Lancelot got into the inside
trap.

The two girls drove off behind Topsy and turned inland,
crawling along the narrow fuchsia-bordered road which
led to Dillon's Court.

"You can only see the sea from the hills there," Gheena
said; "but it's a dear old home."

The long, dull red house stood against a background of
dark wood and mountain.  The wide lawn was dotted
with big trees, walnuts, oaks, huge beeches; one could hear
the hoarse splutter and gurgle of the trout stream which
tore on to commit suicide in the lake.  In summer, to the
left of the house, a mass of copper beeches passed to
tender tinted pinky green, to sullen splendour of coppery
crimson, glowing in every gleam of sun.

The wide hall door, standing open, was of panelled oak.

"You can see the sea from the gardens, Psyche.  There's
poor Darby!"

Hobbling down the four shallow steps before the door,
a cripple, the last perhaps of a long line of sportsmen,
the old place which he loved round him, a glorious frame,
enclosing a defaced portrait.  It was bitter to remember
how he had leapt the sunk fence there so lightly once,
swung up those copper beeches up to the topmost boughs,
until he looked through a red cloud up to spatches of blue,
shining down.  Whole-limbed, disregarding torn clothes,
jumping on the ponies' backs, looking forward to life
spelt with a capital L, as his father's had been, a man's
life with his son to follow him.  And now—he shuffled
agilely up to meet the two—brown-skinned Gheena and
the white stranger, whose eyes were full of something
which he had forgotten—admiration.  To Psyche he was
the magician who made the hounds go.

"It is even more beautiful than Castle Freyne," she
said, as she jumped from the trap lightly, her eight stone
of humanity perfectly balanced.  "Oh, what a dear old
place!" she almost whispered.  "You can see the
ghosts of other days here."

"I can," said Darby drearily, his face changing.

"And see the spirits of days to come," she said gently.

"Days I shall go dot and go one through—yes—alone!"  His
eyes were on Gheena, who was romping with two
sprawling joyous terrier pups.

"And the place cries for company."  As lightly as the
sprite they had nicknamed her after, Psyche stepped up
the shallow step wall into the dim cool hall.

The hideous furniture of Victoria's reign had not been
put into it by the Dillon bride of that period.  It was full
of mellow satinwood and darker mahogany of earlier days.
Fine priceless china jostled collections of shells in a large
cabinet, and a moulting flight of stuffed birds flaunted
gaudily in another.

"My grandmother put the Worcester in the pantry to
make two shelves for her shells," grinned Darby, his stick
strafing the polished floor.  "My mother then worked her
artistic will in the drawing-room.  She enamelled the
mantel-shelf."

A wide room, with big windows looking on the lake,
with exquisite pieces of old furniture here and there, but
overshadowed by stiff strips of fancy-work wrought on
black satin, by red plush triangles hung with china, by
plates and dishes gone to ground in red velvet mounts,
by black and gold cabinets, almost smiling because they
took places of honour, while precious pieces of Chippendale
were stowed into corners.

"I never altered it"—Darby looked at the big room
in its ugliness—"but there are enough old things about
to make it a treasure house if anyone bothered.  I believe
the marble can be cleaned.  My father, I am told, regretted
there being no divorce obtainable in Ireland, and wished
himself an American citizen, when he came in and saw the
Aspinall's enamel pot.  Come into my den," he said.
"I never sit here."

A low room, oaken beams, the ceiling and the walls
hung with old pictures and sporting prints, tobacco and
turf smoke a reminiscence in the present.

Man's deep chairs of comfort, thick rugs for dogs to
doze on and bow-wow spectrally in pursuit of dream-rats;
and here among them Darby dreamt awake, as
his terriers and big Scotch deerhound basked.  Dreamt of
what he had been, and of some wondrous bone-setters who
could straighten twisted muscles, patch up broken bones,
and send one Darby Dillon out again walking evenly, no
longer a shuffling cripple, but a man who would have the
right to go to the girl he cared for and offer himself to her.

Here, alone, he saw pictures in the fire and felt the ache
and throb of hopelessness.

Psyche flitted round, looking at the pictured likenesses
of men who had once sat in the room—from silken-clad
cavaliers to the men painted in the present-day tweeds.

"This boy"—Psyche swung round—"your brother?"

It was Darby, painted on the steps, a great hound by
his side.

"Oh, no—myself!" he said.

"Oh, then it was an accident; you weren't born——"

Psyche stopped and became a lively poppy colour.

"I thought Gheena would have told you.  It was at
polo, a bad smash-up, two ponies all rolling together with
Mr. Dillon as a pivot.  Don't look distressed; that hurts.
Come and see the pack."

They went out a back way, along cavernous passages,
through which in bygone days huge dishes of roasts and
boiled had had to be galloped up to the big dining-room.
Darby showed a kitchen in which a range lurked coyly
in the vastness, and through which all the draughts of
the world seemed to rush.

The yards were also built for giants, from the neat square
where the coach-houses showed great black mouths, to the
second stable yard, with its endless range of boxes, a few
of them modernized, and again the cow yards full of
buildings and lofts and barns.

Here Gheena, the puppies in her arms and Crabbit at
her heels, joined them.

The scratch pack were getting used to the cleanliness
and internment by now.  Grandjer had abandoned as
almost hopeless his desire to dig his way out, but he still
howled unmelodiously, remembering happy days of
freedom at the farm.  Home Ruler had lost weight, and
in consequence could go farther.  She was a vast feeder.

Psyche almost leapt through the door on to the flags
as she endeavoured to master the hounds' names.

"Grandjer, him with no tail, Miss," said little Andy.
"Ye can call that to mind.  He is Beauty's son.  An'
Daisy here with the two sphots near his axther."

Psyche took her hat off.

"An' Spinsther, him with one ear yelly and one white,
an' Home Ruler he is the big dog, an' Greatness that's all
black one side.  An' Beauty he is nearly all yally.  He is
Grandjer's mother, didn't I tell ye, Miss?"

"It isn't quite as easy as playing Bridge," said Darby,
listening.  "There, Andy, not any more now."

Miss Delorme was persistent.  She did not leave the
kennels until she had got four hounds off by heart as she
said.  "So that I can call up any of those lot," she said
contentedly, "if they are near me."

"That being, of course, the usual procedure for the
Field," observed Darby with unabated gravity, "to call
the hounds to them.  Now there are the nags."

Psyche revelled in a sight of sleek coats and gentle
snuggling heads, of soft muzzles nibbling at her hands.
Legs Miss Delorme looked upon as merely things which
were necessary to a horse to travel on; but heads and
necks were to pet.

She tore herself away to eat mutton chops and cold
pheasant off a little table drawn close to the fire in the big
dining-room, after which she showed a distinct desire to
return to the kennels and learn more about hounds.

Instead she was driven home, leaving Darby alone on
his steps, his eyes wistful as the pony galloped off.

The silence of the big house seemed to sob to him as
he went in to the fire, his dogs at his heels, the loneliness
to become something tangible and almost evil and alive,
until he got out the car and followed the two girls to
Castle Freyne.

Castle Freyne was occupied by the committee of the
concert, headed by Miss O'Toole, with Lancelot drooping
sulkily alone in the library, his foot full of twinges.

He was only a poor wounded creature, and, of course,
they were right to leave him alone and not bother about
him, and he was going home next day, he said.

Gheena's easily-pricked conscience felt the pangs of
remorse; she fetched Lancelot his tea herself, ministering
to his growing weight with honey sandwiches and
heavily-buttered potato scones and chocolate cakes.

"Where he do put it all an' he never to give it a shake
down with a minnit's walk even, 'd make ye wondther,"
Naylour had muttered once audibly in the door.

This was after an invalid's luncheon of beef-tea, a chop,
a partridge, and a sponge pudding, had completely
disappeared from the tray.  Lancelot's foot held twinges
which only nourishment could assuage.

When the subject of songs had been fully discussed and
a selection, marked by tepid affection and absence of much
air, chosen by several singers, the war, of course, swept
aside even the discussion of the music which its stern
necessity was to evoke.

None of the people were really anxious about it, but
they quoted prophecies to make them thrill, fears of
invasion, of submarines, tales of spies.

"You know it really brought it home to us when dear
Mrs. De Burgho Keane was attacked by them—no, by
the bees which Philip had put ready for them.  That was
a dreadful scare.  It is all owing, no doubt, to Mr. Keefe's
promptness"—Mrs. Brady flashed a smile which blended
appreciation with the respect due to the official in authority
upon Mr. Keefe—"that we are all sleeping in our beds now."

Darby looked at the large sofa and coughed thoughtfully.

Mr. Keefe, who was wrangling with Miss O'Toole because
she thought "Violets" rather an old song, and he was
determined to sing it, looked round nervously.

"He warned the Germans by wireless," said Darby
earnestly, "that if they dared to come here he'd be waiting
on the Seals Rock with his sword on....  He had time
to gallop home for it ... and they put the Fleet's head
nor'-east-south-south-west immediately."

Mrs. Brady replied absently that it must be nice to
know exactly how they would alter things, and really now
with this wireless to send messages by—they were regularly
up to date at Kildrellan.

"If it's illness," said Darby, looking severely at Psyche,
who was choking and weeping close by, "we also have a
doctor, and if you're good, I'll tell you about the bees
and Dearest's nose."

Miss O'Toole's spectacles glimmered severely at Mr. Keefe.

"I say sing something new," she said, "something
from an opera.  'Violets' is full of sickly
sentimentality—tarity—tallity—that's it, tallity.
Now, say, 'The Honeysuckle and the Bee.'"

"They died of frostbite when I was a boy," said Darby.
"Try forrard, Miss O'Toole."

"Well, something from, say, *Betty* or *Bric-à-Brac*—'They
never believe Me' or 'My Old Pal.'"

Mr. Keefe's underlip looked faintly obstinate, and he
hummed 'Violets' in an apologetic tenor.  He meant to
sing it.

George Freyne trilled the "Meynell Hunt" over the
tea-cups blithely, and with variety as to keys.

Mrs. Brady would, of course, give "The Harp that
Once" in the faint echo of a one-time tuneful little voice,
and the Vicar would recite "The Bells."

"We can put those two just about train time, can't
we?" said Miss O'Toole, "when everyone's fussy.  And
Mrs. Weston?"

Mrs. Weston said that she would sell programmes and
violets.  She was not musical.  "Unless a fiddle," she
said lightly; "if anyone's got one, I can play that."

Miss O'Toole thought that one might be found.  It
would be a variety, as no one fiddled, except in the village
at weddings.  And the Vicar, of course, remarked upon
one being at the conflagration of Rome and waited for his
laugh expectantly.

"He has made the same jokes for years," whispered
Psyche, hysterically.  "You can kind of fancy that it's
always the same here, with no one growing older or
changing."

Darby looked down at his stick, stifling a quiet sigh.
Lancelot Freyne was duly taken home next day, his
expression one of puffy peevishness.  Even the wielding
of the sword in France had not taught him how to advance
his suit with Gheena.  He left a gap which let in sunshine
behind him, but with this clearness came frost.

Dearest George grew openly disagreeable.  He growled
over money.  He hinted at the complete suppression of
hunting.

Gheena was twenty.  Five long years of dependence
stretched before her—five years, during which the horses
she loved would grow stout and shapeless upon grass,
and she would fret and fume under the burden of authority.
The two-seater which she had hoped for was out of the
question now.

Mr. Freyne could be disagreeable.  He could look over
his wife's accounts and growl over Gheena's new clothes.
He had not the greatness of any open aggression.  To have
fired off a big gun and borne the recoil would have been
beyond him.  He was one of the small bird shooters,
peppering with No. 10, firing from behind hedges, nagging
with a patient smile.

Sympathetic friends learnt, from reasons which a kind
stepfather suppressed, how difficult Gheena was to get
on with.  She went to bed in a room where the grate would
have gleamed with cold blacklead if she had not gone out
and cut up branches and lighted a fire of wood and
turf—the turf smuggled by Phil up the back stairs.

As the English held on grimly in their ditches of frozen
mud, Mr. Freyne saw no reason to believe in the end of
the war, so anticipated a poverty which he was never
likely to see.  He reproved Anne's limitless kitchen
hospitality, the stout old cook sending away blind Barney
ostentatiously, and then garnishing a humble piece of
cod with several expensive things out of bottles.

Barney went no further than the harness-room, where
a meal concealed in a stable bucket was carried to him.

"The war is above in the Masther's head," said Anne
pleasantly.  "An' I have all them trifles that he's so sot
on emptied out over the cod, that he hates too, but me
Darby loves thim."

"He has taken to ordering me about," said Gheena a
little bleakly to Darby and Psyche—"to making things
disagreeable for me.  He wants to know my plans for the
day, and tells me he wants Topsy himself so as to spare
the car, and then he offers to drive me to see Lance.  He
wants me"—Gheena lifted a mutinous face—"to marry
Lance.  He hints at it with the subterfuge of a—a——"

"A charging bull," suggested Darby, "or a liner
coming out of harbour."  His eyes watched Gheena
wistfully.

"If he is not careful," said Gheena, "I'll marry just
to have the place.  I'll marry——"

"Mr. Stafford, Miss," said old Naylour, opening the door.

Gheena's look of gloom deepened as she eyed the
offender's grey tweed suit.

"I came to tell you news," Stafford said.  "A submarine
sighted off Cortra harbour last night, and again
not far from here."

"Someone here is supplying them with petrol," said
Gheena—"someone."

"There are tales of strange motor-cars seen about at
night," said Darby thoughtfully.

Psyche's grey was a little lame; she remembered it
now, jumping up to drag Darby out to know what was
wrong.  "Because there will be a meet to-morrow and
I want to go," she whispered.

Gheena, left alone with Stafford, remarked intelligently
that the evening was chilly.

"You are very down on me, Miss Freyne"—he looked
down at her, his arm on the old marble
mantelshelf—"because I don't join the army."

Gheena said "Then why don't you?" her cheeks fiery.

"Well, at present I can't.  There are the drains, and
other reasons."

"To prepare potato ground for Germans," said Gheena,
"ought not to be one.  As for other reasons——"  Her
eyes flashed.

"That's one way of referring to the drains," he said
good-humouredly, his eyes twinkling.  "And I run
messages to the Wireless Station and up to the coastguards,
and take out Mrs. Weston to drive.  It's not all drains."

Gheena sat silent, pulling Crabbit's ears.  Her suspicions
were deepening; she grew suddenly white.

"You can't even forgive me for being a slacker, I
suppose?"  Basil Stafford's eyes lost their twinkle.
"Perhaps I don't approve of fighting?"

"Of fighting Germans," snapped Gheena.

Mr. Stafford feared that she would never be taken on as
a diplomatist.  He walked to the window and added that
no lights were to be used now at night near the sea;
the coastguards were on the alert for offenders.

"So if the pups stray you are not to look for them with
the stable lantern," he advised.

"Or with an electric torch," said Gheena, her cheeks
fiery again.

"Miss Freyne," he said gravely, rather angrily, "if a
man can't help himself——"  He stopped suddenly, came
back from the window, and said irrelevantly that he was
changing his car for a new one, or perhaps he would keep
both.

Psyche returned at a run to shout out that the grey
horse could hunt and they'd got the second post.

It included a letter from Miss Eva Delorme, who wrote
a firmly-pointed hand and could fill two sheets of notepaper
with ease.

"A Mr. Stafford, you say, on the drainage works,"
she wrote.  "I knew Staffords of Old Hall in Worcestershire,
very poor people, had lost everything.  Don't
judge hastily; these drains may be for home defence."

Psyche gave Gheena the letter; Miss Freyne read it
carefully.

"And the new car is coming—when?" she said to Basil
Stafford.

"Next week, I think.  What's that, Miss Delorme?
Did we live at Old Hall in Worcester?  Yes, that was our
place.  It's let.  My mother's in London.  She was in a
sky-scraping flat before her operation, but now I've taken
a nice house for her, and she won't leave for any Zeps.
It's so hard to get a chauffeur, two of hers have gone.  I
gave her a car last June."

Gheena's lips came together.  Riches had sprung up
swiftly for this young man.

Basil Stafford left, looking tired, lines round his pleasant
mouth.

The scratch pack hunted a fox with leisurely determination
next day from Green Gorse Hill and through a nice hunt.
Psyche rode close to Darby.  She got in his way several times;
she chattered at moments when she should have been silent;
but the small face was so rapturously happy that he said
nothing.  Dearest George remonstrated fussily with his guest.

"You must keep quiet at the checks, Mona," he said,
"and let Darby alone.  He is my colleague, remember,
a Master, as I am."

"He rides in front, and do you stay behind to make the
lazy dogs keep up?" asked Psyche with interest.  "Is
that why there are two Masters?"

Amid a clarity of silence, broken only by Darby choking,
George Freyne rode away.

"My! but that was the bither remark ye threw at him,"
murmured Rourke softly, "an' he always tryin' to conceal
the way he lies back.  My! but——"  Mr. Rourke
suddenly abandoned himself to uncontrolled laughter while
Pysche mentally pigeon-holed this new piece of knowledge.
She nearly fell off over a piece of timber; she
rode straight on top of Darby at a drop into the road, all
with serene joy.  They closed on their fox, pace improved,
and as they ran fast over a fair country the glow on the
girl's face was as of moonlight.  The small hands clenched
on the reins, her little body swaying to the gallop; the
extreme pleasure of it was almost pain.

They put the fox to ground at the outskirts of Longfield
Wood, Darby getting off to see what the hole was like.

"To think of being you," gasped Miss Delorme, holding
Darby's horse insecurely, "to direct it all, and make
those cooing noises, and to have people get out of your
way, and to whistle to them with that lovely hunting-horn!
And oh, would you change with anybody on earth?"

"With heaps of 'em," said Darby, looking into her
pale face—"the bodies, not the men.  Here is my
rear-guard fellow-Master coming now, looking malignant."

"I shall hunt all my life," announced Psyche earnestly,
"and over here.  I want to stay here always."

They rode down through the long wood.  Darby's
servants were sufficiently Irish to produce hot cakes
almost as soon as everyone got in.  The old library was
warm and homelike, and Darby's dogs politely allowed
guests to occupy the hearth-rug.

Admiration is a pleasant medicine.  Darby felt less
lonely and out of life than he had for months.  He seemed
to step from his horse with scarcely any difficulty, and
he only used his riding-whip to steady him as he went into
the house.  He even forgot to look grimly at the scarred
side of his face in the glass.  The stir of the gallop was
still in his blood—his horse's jumping, the movement of
perfect shoulders, the keenness of a good hunter, unfaltering,
how seldom visibly tired.  And how well Grandjer,
Beauty and Daisy, and the rest of them had hunted,
plodding along on relentless foes.

"It's fun, anyhow," he said gaily, watching with man's
carelessness precious Crown Derby cups being put out
for tea.

Mrs. De Burgho Keane took off her gloves to pour out
graciously.  The tea-table was such an excellent stronghold
to hear all news from.  People had to wait for cream
and sugar, and could not run away.

But it was the two girls who made tea, recklessly giving
cream to everyone, splashing in water much too late, and
looking dubiously at the straw-coloured second cups
which were the result.  Lancelot's mother and sister,
who had driven to-day in a pony cart, stood close to
Gheena, both looking unhappy, and presenting the
expression of people who expect to be questioned, so that
Gheena hoped politely that Lance was out walking as he
was not driving.

To which his mother replied that Lance was either in
bed or on the library sofa, she could not say which, suffering
from depression and twinges.

"He does not pick up," said Lancelot's mother.
"Gheena, that is only hot water; ring for more tea.
Now yesterday we had to coax him to take a second
meringue, and the roast beef he began with was not half
eaten.  He is unhappy, dear Gheena, my poor wounded
boy, and for a remedy..."

"Soda mints," said Gheena absently.  "I see, I must
keep on filling up with hot water and not wait till it's only
tea leaves.  I never pour out at home.  Yes, try soda
mints.  It's never moving about and such a lot to eat.
I'll come to see him soon, I'll promise."

Mrs. Freyne got up, telling her daughter that Gheena
was impossible and rather rude.

Miss O'Toole worked hard at her concert.  She was a
person of high ambitions, so flags of various nationalities
had to be produced to festoon above the raised stage in
the schoolhouse.  The walls she decorated with anything
which she could get, and the platform was such a nest of
greenery that performers had to dive in amongst it to get
into full view, and even then were hemmed in by palms
and boughs.  The harmonium, clasped in the Union Jack,
crouched among a nest of palms in one corner; the piano,
its back covered with the Tricolour, and a toy lion and a
bear on the top, stood out below the platform.

The performers, when finished, fell off steep wooden
steps at the back, generally noisily, so that the encores
were marred by sundry rubbings of injured limbs, Dearest
George, in pink, handing the singers on and off vaguely.

A congested house sat in intense heat to listen to the
first important item.  They had opened with a piece on
the piano, the doctor's daughter clawing out concerted
airs of the nations, and quite forgetting to omit Germany's
which was somewhere in the middle, so that the General
commanding in Cortra entered to the strains of the "Watch
on the Rhine" and sat down extremely surprised as it
changed to "Deutschland über Alles."  Joan Flynne
could not in any case read German, and had learnt the
piece at school.  The first song was then given by
Mr. O'Gorman, its opening bars being interfered with by his
nervous wonder as to what on earth was crawling down
the back of his neck.

"'Steadily, shoulder to shoulder'"—Mr. O'Gorman
moved and a second palm spike tickled his
ear—"'Steadily'"—he caught at the ear, dropped his music and
missed a bar—"'blade—by——'  We're out, Miss O'Toole.
What!"  Miss O'Toole was looking up and almost wailing
"Palm fronds"—"'blade—by——'  Damn the things!"

Mr. O'Gorman wheeled and clutched.

"Palm fronds!" shrieked Miss O'Toole.

Mr. O'Gorman nodded happily, the bars were successfully
adjusted, and the "Old Brigade" marched to a
tuneful ending.

When everyone encored and a response was being
made, Mr. O'Hara could be heard at the side.

"Right!  I'll give 'em 'Toreador.'  'Toreador,' Miss
O'Toole.  Sorry I put you out, but in a place like this no
one knows, does one?  A sash on?  Good gracious!
why should I dress up like a bull?"

"Get on with it.  Now then."

Mr. O'Gorman was nervous but a favourite.  He swayed
a stout body energetically, and his last magnificent effort
of "a-do-or" was faintly marred by an audible "Damn!"
and a clasp at his ear as a palm frond got him again.

Certain young ladies then warbled of loves and kisses,
sweetly and fairly audibly.

Gheena sang the "Recruiting Song" with extreme
energy, fixing her eyes alternately upon Mr. Stafford and
a local butcher, who sometimes spoke vaguely of "giving
them Germans a 'slice' with his chopper, th' ould divils."

The General commanding the district was still upset by
his musical reception, and sat by his pretty wife listening
absently, even to Gheena's appeal for recruits, her hands
outstretched as if to gather up men.

There was a pause after this, Miss Freyne fleeing from
an encore.  The stage was empty until the thrilling strains
of the Russian National Anthem were beaten from the
harmonium, and some of the audience who recognized it
shot to their feet because they thought they ought to, the
rest following suit and wondering why.

To this massed enthusiasm Lancelot Freyne, upon
crutches, made entry alone, bowing gracefully to an
outburst of cheers and honours.  Miss O'Toole pounded
more anthem, everyone sat down, and George Freyne, with
a whisky and soda in his hand, rushed in tardily to
announce the item—"The Charge of the Light Brigade."

"'Half a league, half a league,'" said Lancelot casually,
then proceeding with the "Charge of the Light Brigade."

The General commanding the district rubbed his head hard.

"But why—for this—the Russian anthem?" he
whispered.  "For this!"

"'Cossack and Russian reeled from the sabre's stroke—shattered
and sundered,'" said Lancelot pleasantly, Miss
O'Toole continuing the music with the soft pedal down,
and just a boom when big drums were mentioned.

"Why?" remarked the General hopelessly.  "And
the beginning when I came in!"  Then—he had a sense
of humour—he looked at his wife, and the rest of his
evening was spent in laudable endeavours to check
unseemly laughter and to subdue his wife's.

"'Into the valley of Hell, into the mouth of Death,'"
said Lancelot, and paused to look for his sister at the
wings—"that is—'mouth of Hell.'"  She was prompting.

Boom! went chords in the bass.

"It's the damn piano puts one out!" murmured Lancelot
over his shoulder to his sister.  "What's next?"

"Make some action," hissed his prompter.

The General buried his face in his pocket-handkerchief,
overcome, as Mrs. De Burgho Keane said.

"'They rode back again, but not—not the six hundred,'"
remarked Lancelot casually, and waved one crutch swiftly.
The principal effect of the belated action was to upset the
lion on to Miss O'Toole and make her last piece of Russian
anthem a discord.

Lancelot hobbled off amid loud clapping of hands, and
his mother thought with rapture of how he would look if
he did it in London.

Mr. Keefe and Mrs. Keane were both upset by the fall
of the lion, considering it to be a bad omen for the war.

The interval for sandwiches and liquid refreshment
proved a brilliant success.  Mrs. Weston showed a bag
full of silver collected for programmes.  She had charged
all the men a shilling for programmes.

"And it was worth it," said Darby, "with such a lot
thrown in—the 'Watch on the Rhine' and Lancelot's
recitation."

"I would not," observed the General, "have missed it
for a fiver, especially if the second half is as good and as
funny and as er ... patriotic as to tunes."

Lancelot's mother wandered up and down for plaudits
for her boy, discussing the "Charge."

"No exaggerations," she said, "no undue emphasizing,
just the beauty of the thing—the one swing of the crutch
when they were all killed, and my wounded boy doing it."

Sir Abel replied that he had never in his life been so
touched by a recitation.

Just then Mrs. Freyne took off her gloves and made
nervous way to the piano.

She played the prelude to "John Peel" loudly, lifting
her hands then to endeavour to follow her husband on
his devious paths.

He had put on his velvet cap.

"'D'ye ken John Peel?'" roared Dearest George, and
found it was too high.

"'D'ye ken John Peel?'" he boomed loudly.

Mrs. Freyne struck a chord softly, and without hope.
The General, who was musical, grew quite anxious.

But by the time he had got to the "Break of day,"
George Freyne was, so to speak, in his stride, with his wife
following delicately, afraid to show marked preference to
any key.

Having been loudly encored, Mr. Freyne asked his wife
to play the tune and give him some help, and gave the
"Meynell Hunt" with as much variety, as Darby said,
as if the pack was in full cry.

A song and dance by Miss Delorme made the audience
wonder if it was quite right for them to be there, for Psyche
in costume gave them a song about the moon, and her
dancing was as if a sprite floated over earth.  By this
time all the men were yelling "Encore!" and Mrs. Keane
wished audibly that she had left Estelle and Maria
at home.

Psyche was back again to give "A Little Bit of String,"
out of the *Circus Girl*, and another dance of fairy-like
lightness.  Then Mr. Keefe, pink and moist, was bustled
on after his song had been given out.

Miss O'Toole played a prelude emphatically, unnoticed
by the nervous performer.

"'Every morning I bring thee violets,'" trilled
Mr. Keefe, with the piano vamping "My Old Pal" loudly.

"'Every morning I bring thee'——  Oh, look here,
hang it!" said Mr. Keefe.  "I can't bring them to that
music, Miss O'Toole.  I told you so.  I said——"

Mrs. Weston threw a bunch on to the stage.

When there was a possibility of hearing him, and Miss
O'Toole had changed her music gloomily, Mr. Keefe
brought violets very irately, and flounced off in obvious
ill-humour, declining his encore.

"To start like that when I told her time after time,"
he said, as he sought solace in a whisky and soda.

Then, fetched by the M.C., Violet Weston went on to
the platform; very brilliant stockings gleamed under her
white skirt.  She was somewhat garishly handsome as
she stood in the light; but as she took up the violin her
expression changed.  She cuddled it down, her fingers
loving on the strings; she bent to Miss O'Toole, who
shook her head hopelessly, as she looked at the score.

Matilda Freyne was called on; she listened, and took up
the music.

Next moment the violin was rippling out wild Hungarian
dances, spirits of elves, patter of breathless witches,
rustle of feet on dead leaves, on polished boards, evil in
merriment—they were all in the elfish music.  Only two
people in the audience realized what a master hand played
to them—the General from Cortra leaning forward
entranced, and another listener, the old Professor, sitting
hidden in a corner.

With a sigh as of tired dancers it ended.

The Professor leaned forward listening.  He leant back
frowning, searching for something half forgotten.  When
had he heard this rendered before, with the same skill,
the same feeling?  The memory brought with it recollection
of crowds, of a town.

He left his corner to waddle to the platform where
Mrs. Weston was giving now a selection of Irish airs to
vociferous applause.

"I have to thank you," he said simply, holding out his
hand.  "Music—music is all to me.  But ... somewhere
... once I have heard someone else play that just as
you do."

"Everyone plays it much the same, I should think,"
said Violet Weston, a little abruptly, moving away.

Miss O'Toole made seven pounds clear and had given, as
she said, a wonderful musical treat to everyone.  In fact
Sir Abel Huntley had assured her that if it was a choice
between another concert in Kildrellan and one at the
Queen's Hall, he would come to hers.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XIV`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIV

.. vspace:: 2

"Not tired again, Violet?" said Gheena reproachfully.
"And we began a mile on to-day?"

Mrs. Weston explained that she had twisted her ankle
coming down the stony little lane, and she really could
not go on.  She said acidly that they had come miles,
and one could see all the caves on the shore, and she did
not believe anyone could hide things in them.

"There are one or two ledges," said Gheena thoughtfully,
"and I've heard the water gurgling inside the
rocks.  I shall go on looking with Crabbit if you can't
come."

They were close to the little fishing village of Leeshane.
It crouched in the hollow of a shingly bay with the rocks
poking out on either side, the cliffs gradually rising to
the point, where ships swung into the calm water of the
harbour.

They had been along the cliffs quite often, searching
through the gorse bushes and trails of bramble and
stunted fuchsias, until Violet Weston grew tired;
high-heeled shoes soon caused twinges of pain on the rough
ground.

March had come in weeping to brighten to a promise
of spring.  Primroses shone pale gold in more than one
sheltered hollow; the wild anemones were blue in the
woods; green grass was nosing through the rusty fronds
of yesteryear.  The catkins danced over the banks of the
little trout stream.

In France, men wearying of bitter cold, welcomed the
first warmth of the spring, for there they had frost in their
very bones, and the cold chill of mud had clung to them
as day by day they held on doggedly and waited for the
advance which they were told was to be.  The wild
interest in the day's papers had died to a dull endurance.
People got fewer wires.

While the great monster War went on drinking blood
and swelling hideously, March would see the end of the
hunting, and a dreary summer only enlivened by constant
hopes that something must happen to end it all would be
before them.

Gheena generally went away from home.  This year
her friends were fighting or in mourning, and she meant
to stay at Castle Freyne.

"Well, if you can't go any further," said Gheena, "I'll
come out myself."

"When?"

Gheena said that she did not know, because she meant
to search by herself or with Psyche the sprite.

"I'll look down here now," said Gheena, dropping over
the cliff.

Mrs. Weston, left alone, kicked off one shoe and rubbed
her brilliant foot ill-humouredly.  Then she sketched idly
on a small block, a neat little sketch absolutely devoid of
any claim except that of neatness; and she put that away
and yawned and moved her released toes.

Gheena and Crabbit were scrambling in and out of
caves, swinging along the cliff, with the tide nosing in
sluggishly close to high-water mark.  The sea was silvery
grey under a silver sky, lapping and gurgling calmly.
When a voice close by remarked that it was "airly to be
lookin' for, say, birds' eggs," she turned to see Guinane,
a particularly intelligent-looking youth, with bright blue
eyes and a cunning mouth.

Gheena said briefly that it was.  "But you never know
in war times what a bird might do.  It must upset them
greatly, Mike, when they find they're roosting on a
submarine instead of swimming," she said gravely.

Mike Guinane observed that he saw a submarine above
in the big harbour, and it looked like a ship and nothin'
else.  Himself he doubted their powers of running
down undther the wather, and thought it was mostly chat.

In fact, after a brief pause, he thought that all the
war was mostly newspaper chat entirely, and got up too,
to make labour scarce and dear.

Mr. Mike Guinane, Gheena noticed, was dressed in a new
and completely unsuitable bewaisted blue serge suit, and
sported a watch and silver chain.  Evidently he was paid
well.

"Supposing you stay here for a bit, Violet?"  Gheena
saw Mrs. Weston hobbling on over the rough ground.
"I'll get on past the village."

Mrs. Weston looked at her feet and sighed.

"If I was not so dreadfully vain!" she said cheerfully.
"Let's look at the Dower House instead, Gheena."

Gheena immediately thought of something brilliant.
The neglected gardens of the Dower House stretched in
melancholy confusion down to the water's edge.  Box
trees endeavoured to look forest-like as they stretched in
unclipped luxuriance; spring bulbs made patches of colour
here and there on the edges of the walks.  The shuttered
windows blinked blindly at the sunshiny world.  They
would have tea at Girtnamurragh—send Guinane to the
village for provisions and have a picnic.

"I told Dearest that I could not be back to entertain
Lance, because I was obliged to attend a meeting at
the school-house," said Gheena thoughtfully.  "He'll
never know.  And Psyche said that she was coming with
me, and she slipped out the back avenue for a ride.  Dearest
is so cross nowadays.  Then we might get a car somehow
to take us home."

Mrs. Weston considered it an excellent plan.  She
begged Gheena to come back from the cliffs.  It would
take ages to get beyond the village, and if they went up
to the road they might find a boy to take a message to
Darby or Mr. Keefe—or even see someone.

Gheena paused irresolutely on the cliffs, which in summer
would be fragrant with wild thyme and bright with
trailing trefoil and sea-pinks.  Now the gorse bushes
dotted them and the air blew chilly.

The little fishing village crouched in the hollow, men
shaking out nets to dry, tarring boats and getting ready
for the summer.

War seemed a vague thing, far off and almost impossible.

They went in to the flat garden with its high hedges of
fuchsia planted for shelter.  It was a gloomy place.  A
thick belt of yew trees looking down at the drawing-room
windows, had been planted for further shelter; the house
was squat and inornate and built of weeping stone,
oozing clammily in damp weather.

Stone men, battered and peevish from neglect, guarded
either side of the wide entire garden walk, their faces
pimpled with green patches.

At the back the usual vastness of old yards stood
grass-grown and half ruinous.

A short avenue ran to the twisty lane coming down to
Girtnamurragh, a lane bordered by low banks and gorse
bushes, sprinkled with gold and sweetness.

Up this, abandoning her quest for caves, Gheena walked.
Mrs. Weston hobbled, abusing the ruts and stones.

They reached the narrow ribbon of the coast road, to
find its only occupants at the moment Looney Rooney and
his ass car, and an old man going to the village for
provisions.

Looney Rooney stopped to listen while Gheena spoke
to Flaherty, who was pleased to talk of the sad state of
affairs.

"Sugar risin', Miss, an' flour.  All cakes, I suppose, the
soldjers ates beyant near Mons, an' it terrible hard to live,
but gran' times for shops.  Hasn't Guinane taken over
Rooney's old house next to this own to store all the
supplies he brings in?  Faix, the aisy time he has with
yourself, Ma'am."

"Not looking after my cabbages," said Violet, sitting
down and again kicking off one shoe.

"A big slhated house for all his supplies, no less.  God
save us, Mr. Stafford, but you were there as silent as a
Roosian!"

Basil Stafford had appeared suddenly, coming over a
gap on to the road.

"A slated house he's taken, has he?" he said to old
Flaherty.  "Are you hunting for submarines, Miss
Freyne?"

Violet Weston said that she was, personally, hunting
for a drive home, and must get it somehow, as her shoes
were hurting her.

She grew radiant when Stafford pointed out the long
grey nose of his new car, standing in the shelter of the
hedge some way down the road.  Return being made
simple, they must ask Stafford to the picnic tea, and
Gheena did so lamely just as hoofs sounded and Miss
Delorme took a narrow bank on to the road with complete
confidence and loose reins.

"Over ye'll be, Miss, if ye will not lay a howlt to his
head," said Phil's voice warningly.

"Also, if Looney Rooney had been at his own side of
the road, you would have jumped upon him and his ass,"
said Darby mildly.

Mrs. Weston remarked that it was quite a party now,
and someone must get more bread and butter from the
village.  Rooney volunteered obligingly for a bribe of
sixpence.

Psyche jumped off; she was riding in her everyday
tweed skirt, having been afraid to put on a habit, and
Phil led the horses down the lane, receiving promises of
rugs from Stafford.

The wind was cold; they were all gathered in the
shelter of the hedges when the clip-clop of a horse sounded
coming down from Castle Freyne.

The bright sunshine flickered on a white horse's coat.

"It's Dearest!" Gheena leapt through the gap off the
road.  "He's coming here.  He must see us if he passes
before we have time to hide behind that gorse, and he'll
never forgive me.  Hide the horses.  Darby, get up;
call back Phil!"

Darby said hastily that Mr. Freyne might be going to
the village.  "And, in any case, he can see over the low
bank, and there's no time to get to the yard," he added
hopefully.

They all crouched closely in the warm spring sunshine,
Gheena leaning against the bank, peeping over.

"And I told him I could not come to look over trout-flies,
because I had business," said Darby.  "And he's
here, so I'm caught too."

Dearest George rode along airily, at peace with the
world and secure in a good track, the white horse walking
quickly.

"My horse," said Psyche.

"You couldn't flash a foot at him and blind him, I
suppose?" suggested Darby, looking at Mrs. Weston's
green stockings.

Gheena raised her head.  Mr. Freyne was not going
to the village, he was turning down to the Dower House
to see how many stalls must be replaced after the winter's
wind.  Shrilly and decidedly Gheena whistled the quick
"One—two—three" which Whitebird had learnt so
thoroughly.

He cocked his ears and turned his big docile head.  The
whistle rang again.

Then just on the edge of the turn where it was muddy,
the white horse folded up and died obediently, pinning
his rider's foot quite securely under him.

The yell which reft the air did not disturb him in the
least.  He died, got up again, and saluted at his own
time.

With a rush on hands and knees, Gheena explaining as
they fled, the crouchers scrambled past the open gap,
and round behind a thick clump of gorse on the hill in the
field, from which they could get through a gate and into
the yard, or be hidden where they were.

"You—something—something brute!  You German!"
came in staccato from the road.

"Do you think he's hurt?" whispered Stafford in
Gheena's ear.  They were crouched close together under
the prickly shelter.

Gheena replied briefly that she was not going to see.

"He's up," hissed Darby, "and quite annoyed."

The white horse arose and saluted, looked for a rewarding
carrot, and saw instead a threatening whip, so backed
faster towards home, wondering what he had done wrong.

"You Hun!  You Hindenburg!" foamed Dearest
George, scraping off the mud.  "You stand still, will
you?"

The white horse retreated solemnly at a jog, now
pursued by a lame and irate man.

"He'll go home in any case now to Mumsie," said
Gheena composedly.  "He's all muddy.  It was the only
thing I could think of.  Now we'll have tea."

"Resourceful but heartless," said Stafford quietly.
"Supposing he'd been hurt?"

"He folds up so gently, that horse," replied Gheena
equably.

The getting into Girtnamurragh by opening a window—there
were heaps of panes broken—proved quite simple.
The long dark room gushed damp at them, so that they
moved hurriedly to the kitchen, where turf and wood soon
blazed hotly and the usual difficulties of pioneering
commenced.

The pump would not pump for ages—they had forgotten
to send for a teapot.  But the afternoon was long, and
they all laughed over rebuffs, until mounds of buttered
toast and well-smoked tea stood ready on the wooden
table.

"I thought of smugglers," said the Professor mildly,
peeping in, "so I came up."

"You were out along the cliffs, Professor," said Stafford
a little sharply.

"Upon the rocks.  I saw you upon the cliffs," said the
Professor affably.  "Now that one may see a periscope
on the sea, it is interesting."

Mike Guinane and Phil hung upon the outskirts of the
tea-party, getting fresh water and toasting more bread,
until Phil declared the horses 'd get their deaths and
almost ordered a start.

"I am going out again in a day or two," Gheena
remarked, as they drove home—"off far away on the
cliffs."

"Keep off the cliffs"—Stafford had packed them both
in his two-seater and Gheena was close to him—"keep off
them."  There was a ring of authority in his voice.

"Oh, no doubt you'd like me to," said Gheena icily.

She felt rather than heard a quick sharp sigh and the
new car swerved a little.

They found Mr. Freyne, immersed in ill-humour, resting
in the library with one foot in an old slipper.

With voluble anger he poured out his story—the horse
tripping and falling quite suddenly and running away for
a mile and more, and the mud, and his severe pain.
Lancelot, pale and unsympathized with, was sitting in a
corner without even a cushion for his foot.

"Someone whistled just as I fell," stormed Mr. Freyne,
"but no one came to my assistance.  Oh, doubtless some
ruffian using the stables at Girtnamurragh and whistling
warning."

"Horrid trick to play you!" said Stafford sympathetically.

At the word "trick" Dearest George looked thoughtful.

"It is just possible," he said, "but he only does that
old trick for a signal.  Gheena knows it.  But she was
at the school-house this afternoon."

Gheena and Mrs. Weston stood together in the doorway,
talking earnestly.

"Why is he always upon those cliffs?" said Gheena.
"Why always out alone?"

"These are things which make one thoughtful," said
Violet.  "But I can't believe in much real mischief down
here.  It's so out of the way."

The spring slipped on before Gheena went out again
to the cliffs.  She hurt her foot out hunting, knocking it
against a gate, and was too lame to scramble over rough
ground.

Psyche had learnt to sit on at her jumps now, but
custom brought no abatement of her joy in the chase.

She still glowed and cried out, and still as a shadow
followed the Master.

He got used to the little white face close behind him,
to shining eyes filled with admiration.

"It's so wonderful!  You just blew the horn and
squiggled them along and they bow-wowed again," was
one of Psyche's happy remarks.

"Gave tongue," said Darby politely.

Psyche replied unabashed that it was all the same noise,
and glowed again.

She had learnt how to steady her horse at a fence, how
to hold him together galloping.

"And I want to hunt ever and always," she said—"always.
I'll never live in Kent again."

There had been unguarded moments when Darby,
riding home with his never-weary follower, had even told
her how he felt his crippling.

"I had dreamt," he said one evening, "of a different
life, little sprite, of someone that I cared for being with
me—through it."

Psyche knew—the white glow faded a little and her
eyes darkened.

"If one cared," she began, "nothing would matter."

"But that is it.  She was too young, too.  And now it's
not my place to try to make her care.  Go alone for all
time, Psyche.  I've thought that Stafford——" he added
after a long pause.

"She thinks him a spy," said Psyche slowly, "and
despises him for not joining."

"In the name of God, Grandjer—the foxy Tom that
I lambasted ye for this morning—Grandjer, howld on!"

Little Andy darted after the disappearing Grandjer,
cracking a whip, as a comet-like streak of red dashed
through the hedge.

"The Widow Casey's Tom," said Andy, returning, "an'
I only just to save the craythur.  There is some sort of
a purry sthrain in him, an' she sets the divil's sthore by
him for it."

Psyche suggested Persian, and Andy replied that it was
maybe "Purry Shan," and patted the erring Grandjer
fondly.

Confidences were broken off, and crippled Darby said
good-bye at the next cross-roads.

To ride on with the pain of his loneliness biting him
hard—his way was to the emptiness of his big house,
to the long dull evening, with the paper to read over and
over and the fire to stare into, with the pictured Dillon
men, vigorous and whole-limbed, staring down at him
contemptuously.  There were girls, perhaps, who might
marry him for his place and his income, but Darby knew
that he would never ask them.

Directly her foot mended, Gheena asked Darby to
drive her to the cliffs beyond the village.

"I don't want to take Violet any more," she said
decidedly.  "Her shoes begin to pinch after a mile or so,
and I want to explore for holes and caves.  You can wait
for me," she said, seeing him look at his leg.  "It's quite
warm, and we'll get tea from old Maria Delaney."

Darby came obediently, waiting outside the gates,
because Gheena found that it was better to do all things
secretly and not get scolded.  Hints of Lancelot coming to
spend the afternoon or of being driven to see him made
her rush blithely through the wood, Crabbit at her heels.
Fast as she went, lighter feet pursued and caught
her—Psyche Delorme, hatless and breathless.

"Gheena, Dearest is looking for you, and your mother
is asking his advice as to where you are likely to be, and
I don't want to drive in the car with them."

Gheena looked hard at the blue wash of waves seen
through the tree-trunks, then she swore Psyche to silence
and they ran on together.

"The sprite followed me," Gheena explained to Darby.
"She has got no hat.  Do drive on, Darby, because
Dearest has got the car at the door, and he might come
down to see if I'd walked to Cassidy's."

The car swept along the narrow road, bordered by a
screen of fuchsias along the edge of the cliffs.  They tore
down the slope into Leeshane, scattering dogs and hens,
took the steep ascent, and were out on the exposed road,
which wound round eventually by the open sea.

It ran between low banks, never going down close to the
cliffs, but Darby knew of a tortuous lane, which he dived
into fearlessly, scraping the sides with his mudguards,
bumping and crawling, until he reached an open
close-turfed plateau with the sea growling just beyond it.

Gheena swung away, diving in and out among the clumps
of gorse, peering behind boulders, looking down rabbit holes.

She noticed how in one spot the ground was trampled,
and a path led away towards the road, then slipped over
the verge and climbed among the rocks.  The cliffs were
honeycombed by caves—then irregular cavities, their
mouths choked by fern and fuchsia, a reek of fox coming
from them, showed high up, dark fuchsias below them.
Some of them, narrow-mouthed, forbade entrance; others
could be climbed into and explored.

They were damp places, barely innocent of concealed
petrol.  Gheena clambered on until Psyche grew tired
and went back to where Darby sat in a sheltered nook,
warm in the spring sunshine, his pipe between his teeth.
He looked desolate then, his eyes following the active figure
flying over the rocks.

"Petrol on the brain," he said patiently to Psyche.

Presently Gheena came to a deep channel running up
to a rather large cave.  The tide was flowing and the
water lapping up at the big slimy boulders in the mouth
of the dark place.

To go in might mean getting wet, but Gheena risked it,
slipping and sliding over the stormy rocks.  Crabbit grew
excited, barking and growling, sniffing at the walls.

Something kept Gheena lingering until she had to take
off her shoes and stockings and wade out.  Outside a deep
fissure led into another cave, an opening with a black sense
of hollowness behind it, but no room for a man to pass in.

Crabbit was into the blackness in a moment.  Gheena
could hear him snuffling inside and even growling, then
leaping up, trying to get out.

Sudden fear gripped Gheena, her dog might be entombed
in there with walls too slippery for him to scramble up.
He appeared quite suddenly, hooking on with his strong
paws and coming out looking ruffled.  There was a strip
of shale just beyond this and no dark cave mouths showing.
It was not far from the opening of the harbour.  So Gheena
scrambled up to the top of the cliff to find it thick with
gorse, some of it cut down and piled up to dry for firewood,
and shook her head sadly.

It was quite hot in the shelter of the cliffs, with the
sun shining.  The air was full of the scent of the gorse
and the tang of salt.

Leaping down on to a little shingly beach, Gheena all
but fell over the Professor basking in the sun, his hammer
in his hand.  Crabbit wagged his tail.  He liked the
Professor, and Gheena said it was a long way to walk from
Dunkillen.

The Professor, blinking sleepily, asked if Gheena was
out for birds' eggs or submarines, and Gheena hovered
close to confidence before she thought better of it.

"Exploring caves," she said with strict truth, then
inviting him to Mrs. Maloney's tea.

As they climbed to the verge and stood on the short
sweet grass, they saw a dark figure some way off swinging
along the edge of the open sea.

"It is Mr. Stafford.  He walks that way to get to the
Wireless Station.  Exercise is good for the young," said
the Professor dryly.  "Perhaps he, too, is looking for
submarines.  I will follow you, Miss Freyne."

Gheena sat down for a few minutes in the nook which
Darby had chosen for himself.

"I was not much help, Gheena," Darby said a little
drearily.

Something in his voice touched Gheena.  She remembered
how years before Darby had scrambled with her
over the rocks, and not sat looking on crutches by his side.

"But you're always a help, Darby," she said quickly.

Little Psyche, her hands round her knees, bunched
into a bundle, said nothing.

"Always someone who wants help," he answered laughingly.

"Not out hunting," snapped Psyche resentfully.

They took tea in Mrs. Maloney's cottage.  Its complete
absence of windows flavoured the meal with turf smoke,
which oozed out of one of the two doors ventilating the
house, one facing to the sea where a land breeze blew,
one to the land where the wind roared in from the sea.

But the little place was spotless despite the smoke, the
brass candlesticks shining, the blue china on the dresser
polished—a big home-baked cake appearing, delightfully
indigestible, from the three-legged oven, and Maria's half
a pound of butter used recklessly.

Boiled eggs and whisky were also proffered but refused.

"I couldn't get any butter from Anne to bring out,"
said Gheena, when they were coming away.  "So I must
tell Maria to get some at Guinanes'.  That's the way we
manage.  She gives me her things and I return them.
She wouldn't take money.  Dearest counts the pounds of
butter now when the churning is done, so Anne is going
to put away cream, because she says 'It's orkard on her,
an' people comin' to tay, an' the Masther axin' where the
butter do be goin' to.' You must stop at Guinanes',
Darby; I've told Maria to get a parcel from them."

As they bumped out of the lane, the whining purr of a
high-powered car sounded outside it, and the long grey
nose of Stafford's Daimler swung aside to avoid them.
He had left his car evidently on the road.

"We found the Professor out rocking, and we are
taking him home," said Darby.

"Oh!" said Basil Stafford quietly.  He looked worried
and out of humour.

"News—up there?" queried Darby.

"Not pretty news," Stafford answered grimly.  "The
submarines will do some harm in time."  He sighed a
little.  "And you were all out on the cliffs," he added,
staring at nothing.

"Miss Freyne was out upon the cliffs," said Darby, "I
was not."

"Let those cliffs alone," said Stafford sharply.  "I
wish you would, Miss Freyne, in war times."

He laughed a little bitterly as Gheena looked at him.

It was still early, and a complete distaste for her own
home made Gheena say that she would go to see
Mrs. Weston.

They stopped at Guinanes' on their way back to order
a parcel for their old hostess.

A stout woman at the counter was making complaint
as to damp flour.

"Soggen and weighty, Mrs. Guinane, an' it near to
swheep the life from Thomas Martin with the pain it gev
him.  'The centher of me is on fire, Ma,' he cried out, an' it
twelve at night—'an' I will surely die.'"

Mrs. Guinane, apologizing profusely, looked darkly
towards the door which led to the kitchen.

"Mike, are ye there?  He was there a minnit ago.  I
towlt him not to take the flour out of where 'twas always,
to put it in that new house he has, for flour, says I, will
not do unless there is a fire, says I, an' not one of us will
he let in to put a fire there, but in an' out for himself
always.  Mikey, will ye bring back the flour ye have
destroyed with ye're obstinacy, an' not be spilin' good
food?"

Mrs. Weston's man put his shrewd blue-eyed face round
the edge of the door and muttered something half aloud.

"Or will Mary Kate folly ye now with an apern full of
turf," said his mother, conciliating him, "till we airs that
new sthore ye have?"

Mike said "She will not" shortly, merely promising to
bring back the flour bags to dry quarters.

"An', Mike, we are out of washin' soda.  An' it locked
up with him inside."

Mrs. Guinane then announced hotly that she was
scalded from the new store, and turned to Gheena.

"Thim Germans has the poor ruined, Miss," she said,
as she took the order.  "Heapin' pince on everythin'."

Mrs. Weston, yawning profusely, was at home in a
tobacco-scented atmosphere.  Ends of cigarettes were
littered about and feet cased in green silk were hurriedly
removed from a comfortable rest on the mantelpiece
and thrust into tight shoes.  The old Swiss maid hobbled
past the visitors out of the oven-hot room, curtsying as
she met them.

Gheena only left a message from her mother.  She could
not have stayed long in the close room.  But before she
went she whispered one or two things to her friend.
Mrs. Weston was not pleased to hear that Gheena had gone
alone to the cliffs.

"Even if my shoes were too tight," she said.  "And
you found nothing?"

"Nothing at all," said Gheena absently, because at
the moment she was thinking of the curious cave with the
channel running into it, and of some sound which had not
struck her at the time, but which came back to her now.

They found George Freyne accumulating chill and
bad-humour upon the doorstep, looking out for his
step-daughter.

"If you had told me that you actually wanted me to
go for a drive," said Gheena patiently; "but you were
not sure, Dearest, so I went for a walk and Darby drove
us home.  I—I wasn't spending money on anything,
driving the car or being extravagant."

"Dearest has been quite put out," Mrs. Freyne confided.
"Lancelot was driven over, lying back on cushions,
Gheena, and looking as if he thought he was ill; he's
very stout.  And you were not there, and they asked us
all back to dinner, which would have meant, Dearest said,
no dinner here, so he's put out, Gheena darling, and says
he'll sell another horse."

"If—he—dares to sell mine!" said Gheena with a queer
little gulp.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XV`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XV

.. vspace:: 2

Darby Dillon refused emphatically to believe
"a word of it."  He listened to Gheena and his
expression leant towards rudeness.

"Not one word," he said.  "He's too good a——"

He stopped quite suddenly.  If Gheena looked on Basil
Stafford as a slacker and perhaps worse, she would never
get to care for him, and hope is so strong a thing that
there was always at the back of Darby's mind some vague
thought of getting much better, and then in his fairy
dreamland he would think that he might try to make a
girl care for him.  If she was gone, that dreamland would
close its doors.

Then honesty came first.  "He's too good a sort,"
said Darby gruffly, and observed also that Carrigeen
Freyne, in this instance, had not Grandjer's nose.

Gheena said that Darby was very rude, and took up her
gloves.  They had come in to tea with Darby after a
hunt.  Hunting was just over now, even though here on
the edge of the sea they sometimes killed a May fox.
Still meadows were being closed up and fences mended,
and it was only possible to hunt in the woodlands or on
the mountains.

It was April now, treacherously fine, blue-skied and
finely white-clouded, with all the birds singing, and
spring holding out hands to early summer.  Horses looked
stale and dry-coated, but Darby held on.  His year was
over when hunting stopped, and he must hobble while
Dearest George and Mr. Keefe melted opposite each other
on mossy tennis lawns, and stood bravely up at the net
until someone hit them.

"Mr. Freyne is so wonderful at the net," was a quotation
made with bated breath by the country tennis-players.

"Just because I won't let you run away with things,
you," said Darby—"you want to go without tea.  I say
Stafford's a good sort, Gheena, even if he won't fight
or can't."

Gheena kicked the turf fire vigorously as she railed out
fresh indictment.  Money so suddenly obtained here, etc.

"I would write to the admirals if I knew them," said
Gheena with dignity, "about—well, about things.  And
I did write to someone, who isn't stupid."  Here she
withered Darby with a glance.

Darby repeated equably that he refused to believe it.
Stafford was a good sort, and he offered tea just as
Psyche, a sprite even in her severe habit, came in, Dearest
George, severely aloof, following her gloomily.

As he drank strong tea and ate several eggs, he spoke
with feeling of his nephew Lancelot's health, and the
complete arresting of his convalescence.  He also talked
of economy and the awful future of Great Britain's
finances.

"Money," said Dearest, "being a thing which people
cannot go on finding for ever; and as for horses, no one
would be able to afford them, even if the war dragged on."

Darby saw Gheena's face cloud and assume an expression
of one who had heard this particular form of foreboding
too often.

The two girls jumped into the back of the car when
they were starting, leaving Mr. Freyne to sit alone,
wondering as he let in his clutch what petrol would go
to and how long he would keep the car going.

"And if we were poor," stormed Gheena—"if we were,
but we're not; and it's all mine, or it will be when I——"

She nodded icily to Stafford who was jogging home
alone, riding rather close to Mrs. Weston and Mr. Keefe,
who, with their heads almost touching, ambled in front of
him through the opal twilight.

The sweetness of a spring morning was broken next day
by the arrival of the motor from Cahercalla, with an
urgent message saying that Mr. Lancelot was not well,
and wished Miss Gheena to come over.

Gheena went without enthusiasm.  It was a sunny
morning, and she knew that she would find Lancelot lying
down and basking in a huge arm-chair in the morning
room, with an enormous fire and all the windows shut.
There would be a smell of beef-tea and toast, coupled with
that of a variety of tonics and cotton-wool, and Lancelot
would betray the peevishness engendered by lack of
exercise and too much heat.

As she had thought, she was engulfed in the pale brown
morning room.  Mrs. Freyne was winding wool of a lank
variety, rasping it off a chair-back with dexterous fingers,
Evelyn was stitching flannel night-dresses, and Lancelot
was drinking Bovril and eating toast.  He brightened up
when Gheena, holding the door open for as long as she
could, greeted him, and he at once told her how ill he felt.
Mrs. Freyne went on for a time with her winding, and
remarked after a time, apropos of nothing, that she had
just heard from Geoffery, her second son, and that Lancelot
never seemed really happy at Cahercalla, and that Geoffery
would love to live there.  Here she left the room to see
the cook, followed in a moment by Evelyn.

Gheena found herself alone with her puffily fat cousin,
who suddenly showed some interest in life.

He said it was good of her to come over.  He blushed
and upset his mother's work-basket, and then asked Gheena
if she had been listening.  Gheena asked to what, with
restrained impotence in her voice.

At this point Lancelot sat up and possessed himself of
Gheena's hand and asked her to marry him.  It took
Gheena some little time, sitting with crumpled brows,
to realize what he was talking about.

Lancelot was not lacking in humbleness, nor yet in
certainty of acceptance.  He explained to Gheena the
suitability of the matter—how he would come to live at
Castle Freyne, and being such a friend of his uncle's, no
changes need be made in existing arrangements.  Of
course, he might be again employed in the Army, even
if not on active service, but war would not last for ever.
And then he sat quite up and sighed with the satisfied air
of a child who has repeated a lesson correctly; his next
glance was at the clock.

Gheena's firm removal of her hand did not trouble him
at all.

"Shall we call back mother," said Lancelot, "as it's
time for my tonic, and she'd like to know?"

"Oh, she went away on purpose," said Gheena.  Then
with extreme candour Miss Freyne explained that she was
very sorry, but she had no intention of marrying at
present, and certainly not her distant cousin Lancelot.

Lancelot replied peevishly that he understood that
Gheena wanted to be independent, and that why not now
instead of later.  Complete refusal he evidently did not
understand.

Gheena looked at his plump cheeks; she conquered an
intense desire to laugh heartily and she fell into thought.
If she were engaged to Lancelot the wheels of everyday
would no doubt be oiled, and the fever of economy be
cured.  But Gheena had no meanness in her.

Quite decisively this time, she told Lancelot that an
engagement was as far away from her thoughts as matrimony,
and that he could put the whole thing out of
his head.

Lancelot plumped his cushions and quoted Uncle
George feverishly.  He produced a pearl ring bought for
him at Cortra, and then his pocket-handkerchief.  With
tears of sheer temper in his eyes, he said a great many
things which could not possibly further his suit.

Gheena rang the bell, a haughty look in her face.  She
remarked that Lancelot wanted his tonic, and endeavoured
to look vacant when Lancelot made tearful mention of
Prussic acid, and it was plain that his mother took in the
whole situation at a glance.

The tonic, irony and bitter, was brought up solemnly to
be rejected by the invalid, who even upset the bottle,
declaring that health was no use to him now.  After this
everything was even plainer.

Luncheon with Lancelot glaring furiously at her over
the hot chickens, which he wanted to eat and would not,
was not a pleasant meal.  When her son refused apple
meringue and shook his head at a *foie gras*, Mrs. Freyne
grew almost frantic, and the only conversation was a
spasmodic one between Gheena and Eva.

Castle Freyne was eight miles away.  Gheena had to
wait to be called for by her stepfather, and the afternoon
stretched hot and interminable before her.

Lancelot did not wish to go out.  The prospect of sitting
in the morning-room, seeing his aggrieved face outlined
against the red cushions, until five or six o'clock seemed
almost unendurable.

Making some vague excuse about a message, she slipped
out; even a short respite was something, and once in the
fresh air she considered the eight miles of road between her
and home.

The avenue was a short one.  She got to the gate and
looked out.  Her shoes were not thick and showers were
coming up from the sea.  Gheena wavered between the
thought of hours dragged out under accusing eyes or of
a two and a half hours' tramp, which would include
a meeting with her stepfather.

At that moment the long grey nose of Basil Stafford's
car swung round the bend in the road, and was pulled
up beside her.  In this she could be home in twenty
minutes, get up the back avenue, and take refuge in the
school-room for tea.

Very jerkily she asked to be taken home, murmuring
something about offence given.

It did not take a far-seeing wit to discern the reason.
A flicker of laughter curved Mr. Stafford's lips and he
opened the door at the side.

Gheena flung propriety on one side.  She drove back to
the door and told Evelyn that she was going home, as she
had forgotten to do something particular, and whispered
"Go on" to the willing driver.  The pace at which a
high-powered car can go, even on narrow roads, was
demonstrated to her in the next ten minutes, for to
meet the Castle Freyne people would mean disaster.
They reached the back gate safely, and Gheena, who
had sat silent, could only ask her rescuer to tea, which,
she explained, must be taken in the school-room, and
that they must hide.

Basil Stafford accepted readily.  Together they ran up
the rough avenue until they reached the shelter of the large
hay-barn, from which they could see if the coast was clear.
Scrambling up into the fragrant hay, peering out across
the wall, and then dodging quickly into the haven of the
inner yard, to hear a familiar voice asking for Phil.

A variety of men grinned softly as Gheena dashed into
a stable and went up the ladder to the loft at the double,
followed by Stafford.  Here among piled-up oats they
crept forward and looked through the window down
into the yard.

Mr. Freyne had come out to speak seriously to Phil—that
morning traces of white oats had been observed in
the mangers while Phil was out exercising.  Black, and
black alone, were to be used.

"And black it was," lied Phil pleasantly, "with maybe
a grain or two of white getting mixed in."

Mr. Freyne looked upwards.  He said that he knew
exactly the quantity up there and would see if it had
been depleted.  Gheena drew a long breath, and remarked
that she must face it, unless she went under the oats.

"And have a care of the ladder, sir," said Phil's voice
below.  "I was up lasht when turnin' the heaps an'
two rungs broke on me.  I just slipped them in somewheres,
I'd say middleways."

Dearest George, checked, raved hotly at Phil for
thus replacing rungs which might give way and kill a man.

"Well, I was afther meanin' to," observed Phil
guilelessly; "but knowin' I would not be goin' up to the
white oats maybe agin before May or June, I thought to
put in a fresh laddther, that same bein' pure rotten.
Would I put down a sop of hay in case ye meet the two,
sir, an' they gives?"

When Dearest George spoke again it was in the yard.
He told Phil several things then, as he gloomily awaited
the arrival of his wife, who ambled out from the kitchen,
a basket in her hands.

"Just a few things for Dayly's sick wife," she said.
"I won't keep you a minute there, Dearest, because it's
scarlet fever, and I'm sure you'd advise me not to and
Gheena will want to come home.  She always does from
Cahercalla."

"This time," said Mr. Freyne, "Gheena will not wish
to come home."

"If you mean she'll be engaged to Lancelot," said
Matilda Freyne.  "Of course, Dearest, if you think so,
but I do not.  He's so young and so stout, and she never
liked fat men, and I'd much rather it was Darby."

Dearest ensconced himself behind the wheel and swore
softly.

"He's saying 'Damn it!  I should know best,'"
whispered Stafford.

"At this distance you can't hear," said Gheena.

They were squeezed up together in the window, safe
behind a veil of cobwebs, a friendliness unknown before
between them.  Gheena had forgotten war and spying.
She was with someone who was protecting her.

"Shall we go out the back avenue? it's shorter," said
Mr. Freyne.

Instantly Gheena's hand went out and caught Stafford's
arm.  They remembered the car down there.

"Mike Dundon put new sthones upon it only yesterday,"
said Phil stolidly.  "And the off tyre is shaky, sir."

Basil Stafford felt that no half-crown had been so well
earned as that which he put into Phil's hand when the
car had hummed away out the front gate.

Gheena, a little shaken and upset, gave him tea in the
school-room.  One cannot snub a man who has hidden
with you in an oat-loft.  They talked and laughed
with the same new friendliness, Stafford telling her of his
years abroad, of Italy, of France, and then of Germany.
The cloud came suddenly into Gheena's eyes.

"You were there for years, weren't you?" she said.

"For some months," he answered absently; "in Berlin.
I knew some nice men there too."

"Whom you would not care to fight against now, I
suppose?" Gheena muttered half to herself.  "Oh, if
there was only no war!" she flashed out, "and no economy,
and no black oats, and wounded people and things!"

Basil said gravely that it would be a far better
arrangement.  He saw the cloud which had risen up.

"And—there being a war—we cannot be friends," he
said slowly, coming to the mantelshelf, looking hard
at Gheena.

Gheena felt a very hot flush being succeeded by pallor
as she replied that one could not be friends with someone
one could not understand.

Mr. Stafford said, "Or—anything else except friends,"
still keeping close to her.

"Gheena, a little bird whispered to me that you were
home.  They saw you coming, and I've news for you.
Oh, Mr. Stafford!"  Violet Weston pushed open the door,
her golden head gleaming, her shoes of purple suede
pinching her so that she limped.

"And the news?" Basil asked softly.

Violet replied, "Private news," lightly.  Mrs. Weston
sent Stafford out.  He went to fetch his car, and she broke
into excited whispers of how she'd heard that there was
news of some spy about, and several other things, which
could only have come from Mr. Keefe.

She sat on the edge of Gheena's chair, and was still
there, one arm round the girl's shoulders, when Stafford
came back to say good-bye.  Gheena had already made
doleful confession concerning Lancelot's proposal and
the scoldings it was likely to involve her in.

Darby and Psyche had been out riding.  They were just
in when the unwelcome sound of a motor heralded the
early return of Dearest George.

He came in quite slowly—happiness, of course, makes
tripping feet, and sorrow heavy ones—and took off his
motor gloves with tragic intensity.

When Darby remarked that they were back early,
Mr. Freyne returned that he could not stay to watch
sorrow, and particularly wounded sorrow.

"He even refused scones for tea," said Gheena's mother;
"but I saw a tray on the writing-table, and he'd been
having Benger's food—don't you think so, Dearest?—and
plum cakes."

"He seemed quite annoyed by that question," observed
Mrs. Freyne a moment later, when her spouse had quitted
the room noisily.

Gheena, taken to task presently for girlish caprice, spoke
out with complete honesty.  She would never marry
Lancelot.  In her eyes he was a mere fat youth, and she
had never been able to fix the halo of wounded hero about
his head.

After this the hours marched to bedtime through a
mental atmosphere of Cimmerian gloom.

When Darby made a cheeky remark, Dearest George
quoted the casualty lists.  If Psyche broke out about
hunting, he said that all horses were now munitions of
war.  The taunting reproach in his eyes made a game of
Bridge into a species of *Kriegspiel*, for, of course, Gheena
cut her stepfather, and went "No trumps" after his
repeated "Nos," because she said she thought he was
only no-ing from bad spirits, the result of several lost
shillings not improving matters.

But next morning, as Gheena and Crabbit forgot
troubles among the daffodils under the trees, with the
wind making the flowers as a sea of silvery gold, floating
on spears of green, Mr. Freyne showed that he was in
earnest.

Coming across the grass, he nodded good morning and
called to his wife.  Unsoftened by sheen of gold, by glimpse
of blue restless sea, he scanned futurity with mental
field-glasses and mapped out the following winter's campaign
with precision.

He regretted it, but except Mrs. Freyne's cob—she
was afraid of her weight and must ride—there would be
no horses at Castle Freyne.

"And mine?" Gheena cried.  "My horses, Dearest?"

Gheena's stepfather observed that there would not be
anybody's horses.  He reminded her coldly that until
she came of age or married, she had not even an allowance.

Redbird, Whitebird, Blackbird—friends true and tried—to
go to France as troopers; Redbird, little Redbird, with
her fretful temper; Blackbird, fretful and excitable.
Gheena heard the words pour on, catching one here and
there, realizing vaguely their tone of threatening anger
rather than their full sense.  Then she recovered.  It was
nonsense!  In four years she would have too much in
her power.  Even in war-times her stepfather would not
dare to sell her horses.  But four years!  Forty-eight
months! how many hundred days?—an age interminable!

"You don't mean it really, Dearest?" she said, smiling
bravely.  "Now, do you?  And poverty is nonsense."

Mr. Freyne had delivered himself of much oratory;
this retort snapped the thin thread of his patience.

His dark look at his stepdaughter worried her far more
than any outburst of rage would have done.

"If you marry," he said smoothly, "the power will
be in your own hands."

Gheena flew to her mother, who was bedewing socks with
facile tears.  Matilda Freyne explained that a wife must
take her husband's advice, and that Dearest George had
fully explained the urgency of everything.

"If you married Lancelot, darling Gheena," she said
hopefully, "you could ask him about things.  You see,
the difficulty with you is that you are always asking
yourself—and now I have dropped three stitches, and I
must call Mary Anne."

Gheena refrained from bitter retort.  So far the
unending battle between her and her stepfather had been
one of manoeuvring, firing blank shells; they had pulled
in different directions, Gheena always sublimely certain of
ultimate success.  Now she was faced suddenly by a
mobilized foe and was frightened.

"Your Dearest—that is, Dearest George—means it,"
said Mrs. Freyne tearfully.  "And I——"

"I won't vex you, Mumsie," said Gheena gently, just
as a messenger rode up with a message from Cahercalla.

It stated in the long pointed writing of Lancelot's mother
that the boy was fretting and ill.

"He has had a complete set-back and refused even
meringues and golden plover for dinner," wrote Mrs. Freyne.
"He is now still in bed suffering from the shock
of this unforeseen upset.  Why, when everything was so
absolutely suitable, Gheena could not.  She had better
come over at once before Lancelot's luncheon is due."

Gheena backed towards the door, listening to the reading
of the letter.  Then as Dearest was called for, she swung
out hatless and raced into the wood with Crabbit at her
heels, and slipped through the gardens into the stables.
The swift saddling of Greybird was followed by her escape
down the back avenue at a gallop and a reckless school
across country until she dropped on to the road close to
Darby's house.

He was out, limping among the horses, his dark face
lighting as the girl rode in.

Gheena explained fully.  Darby had always heard her
troubles.  She came into the warm old library and sat
there muttering her forebodings.

"Psyche will find me," she said, looking out.  "I left
a note."  She forgot trouble in the quiet old house.
Darby talked of cheery things, of a speedy ending to the
great war and of Dearest's seeing the error of his ways.

By the time the cook had, in her own language, slapped
up a sweet, and lashed the phisint that was raggety-lookin'
into a fricassey, Psyche had arrived upon a bicycle.

It was, of course, unfortunate that Gheena should have
chosen one of the bones of contention to escape on, and
that George Freyne should have, after some angry
questioning, driven to Dillonscourt, looked for his lost
step-daughter, and captured her out upon the lawn.

He was merely reproachful as he drove her on to Cahercalla,
where Lancelot wilted in fiery heat, with untouched
beef-tea, greasily tragic, by his side.

He explained very gently that he merely felt tired, but
his poor mother was worried, and Doctor Malone said...

Here the old doctor upset the atmosphere of gentle pity
by bursting to say he thought something must be very
wrong if Lancelot couldn't eat as much as three; but
with the help of a few liver pills, please God ... and then
he told Lancelot to keep quiet.  The memory of that
visit was not a pleasant one to harassed Gheena.  She
was young and soft-hearted.  By the time Lancelot's
mother had talked to her feelingly in the vast chill drawing-room,
and his sister had carried her off to the seclusion of
a neat bedroom to clinch the matter, Gheena felt like a
criminal, who ought to show repentance by immediately
accepting the wounded hero downstairs, but she went
away, leaving him sorrowful.

Two weeks of soft spring weather brought April almost
to an end.  It was weather almost summer-like, the sun
turning it into summer and sheltered corners.  The water
was even warm enough for Gheena to take to swimming.

But through the woof of sunshine ran the warp of
trouble.  Lancelot languished.  He really grew thinner
and weak from hot, airless rooms and want of exercise.

The tale of his woes was told by degrees to all Dunkillen.
Mrs. Keefe came to ask Gheena to change her mind because
the boy was a wounded soldier.  Mrs. De Burgho Keane
called to say that any girl ought to be glad to find a
husband now that all the men were being killed.  At the end
of a fortnight Mr. Freyne read the war news, and decided
that the German tactics of attack were the best he could
use, but he said nothing.

Gheena had had a swim.  She came in glowing to dress
warmly, and bask in the hot sunshine right in under the
shelter of the cliffs.  There was not a breath of air in her
nook.  The rocks caught the sun and flung it back, and
in front the sea plashed calmly.

She saw Guinane's boat being pulled towards the village;
it was heavily laden with stores.  Another boat dashed
out from the rocks, showing for a moment and then
disappearing.  Gheena knew it for Stafford's.  She
shrugged her shoulders, and felt the world in an elusive
spring sunshine was not the place which it had been.  The
tide crept higher, bringing a cold breath with it, but Gheena
could scramble out of her nook, even at high-water.

She was going to move when a snow shower of torn
paper obstructed the view, falling in little scraps, some
upon the water, some upon the shingle.

Crabbit cocked his ears and Gheena grew curious;
steps died away on the cliff, and with quick fingers she
took up most of the scraps of paper and put them in her
pocket.

Stamp paper and toil helped away at least two hours in
the house, until with great difficulty she read some of the
letter.  "Undoubtedly ... Submarines ... coast ... wait.
Ba.  Get the supply."  Gheena raised her head.  A
few minutes before the note had fallen Basil Stafford's
boat had shot in to shore; her eyes grew heavy.

Hunting was almost over, Darby still pursuing in big
woodlands which were useless in winter, going out early,
as if for cubbing.  The horses, with rusty coats and
looking far too fine, going with fire or spirit after their
long winter.  But it was something to do, and little Miss
Delorme did not see why they should not hunt all summer
in the mornings.  She never missed a meet.

The attack meditated by George Freyne was carried out
one day, and revealed by Phil, who went tearing to the
shore to find Gheena.

"Save an' bless us, Miss Gheena, but Hartigan is afther
bein' below in the yard an' all the horses soult!  When he
clapped his eyes on them, 'How much,' says he, 'for we have
too many,' an' the Masther says 'Lump them,' says he,
'for a quiet sale.'  An'——"

Gheena said "My horses?" very slowly.

"Redbird an' all."  Phil was sobbing openly.  "The
craythur I reared from a foal to g'out to be run afther
by thim haythens, and where will we all be, Miss Gheena?
And God save us, don't get a wakeness, Miss!"

Gheena had not moved.  She stood dreary, stricken;
they were using their power.  She was to live a virtual
prisoner in her own home—no horses, no next season
to dream of directly this one was dead.

"An' when he sighted the grey over the half door,
'He has the head of a rogue,' says he; 'lave him there;'
but he come around an' said there was weddin's always,
an' so he'd take him too.  So Miss Mona's horse as well.
And, Miss Gheena——"

For Gheena, abandoning all dignity, sat down and wept
hopelessly, with Crabbit walking round, deeply upset.

"You next," said Gheena, feeling the dog's cold nose.

"You next."  Phil went away back, crying himself,
through the budding wood, with its sheen of blue anemones
and tender green of growing moss.  He clambered heavily
over the sunk fence to meet Darby on the avenue—Darby,
riding, whistling as he came, some touch of the spring
making him happy.

"It is Miss Gheena," said Phil, answering Darby's look.
"The horses soult from undther her feet, an' she cryin'
the eyes out of her head.  The Masther an' his wars.
Isn't it enough that there is a war in France?" burst out
Phil, "not to be colloging with it in Castle Freyne.  Black
oats was bad enough; sure we always took a grain of white,
but when there's use for neither white nor black—"

"Who bought them?" Darby bent down.

"Hartigan of Guntreen.  He is within yet, atin' beef."

Darby turned and rode away down the road.

When Gheena, shaken and exhausted, her grief being
rapidly burnt up by anger, came through the wood, she
saw a motor at the door.  This carefully-planned-out
visit by Lancelot was a clumsy effort of diplomacy.
Dearest George had mapped it out.

With the horses still there, Gheena was to cry out that
she would obey her people's wishes, and an afternoon
radiant with joy was to be spent by the family.

Instead Miss Freyne eyed her cousin with distant
rancour, and came in to luncheon in a dangerous mood.

She congratulated him on having improved his figure,
and warned him against baked potatoes, and hoped his
indigestion was quite gone.  The horses she ignored
completely.

The failure of the plan made Mr. Freyne visibly
ill-humoured.  He came majestically to the drawing-room,
where he shut all the windows, and helped his sister to
lecture Gheena.  It was disconcerting when Gheena
excused herself as she had an engagement.

"We are taking tea with Violet," she said politely.
"We are walking," she said hurriedly, when Lancelot
began to get up, "and you could not come."

George Freyne said, "Of all the obstinate, ill-mannered—"
when Gheena had closed the door.  "But if she
thought she is going to have her own way——"

As they walked to the village they met Basil Stafford in
his car, and Gheena remembered the letter, and with her
eyes completely devoid of cunning she told the story of
the scraps, watching him closely.

His quick reply was that he would give a great deal
to see the scraps.  Gheena remarked that she was going
to show it to someone, and she remarked it malevolently.

Mr. Stafford became eloquent.  He said that scraps of
information might be valuable in war-times, and if there
was anything in the letter, he would see that it went to
the proper people.

"The people who would like to see it," said Gheena
meaningly.

Finding Mrs. Weston out, they invaded the Professor,
who made toast for them himself, and sent to the shops
for strawberry jam and barley sugar, which he smashed
into neat pieces and piled on a plate in tiers.  Gheena
told him also of the letter.

"And *Hein*!  You could read it."  He dropped a
spoonful of jam into his tea, fishing for it patiently.
"You read the scraps.  You were there, then—a little
sea bird.  Will you show me the letter, Miss Gheena,
if it is with you?  It is not good, this syrup that I
have made.  No, you have not got the letter.  Well,
later."

The girl's return to Castle Freyne was as marching from
sunshine into a pea-soupy London fog, in the centre of
which sat Dearest George, and Lancelot, frail and fretful,
resenting the sorrow which he had immersed in.

The sea kissed the feet of an opal sky.  The air was
soft and fresh.  Gheena sat, white-faced, with ill-concealed
impatience, listening to fresh arguments as to her future
and her folly in not agreeing with everyone else.

"Eleven more obstinate men I never saw," remarked
Gheena to the fire, and referring to the one juryman
who upset the verdict for hours.  Psyche, stepping in and
out of the close library, now whispered of a hunt on the
morrow—a meet at Mount Beresford at ten in the
morning.

The word "meet" sounded like a knell.  Gheena meant
to stop the horses going, to appeal to her mother.

"And even if it's woods the hounds will yowl and we
shall gallop," said Psyche.

Here Mr. Freyne, rising, assumed the attitude before
the fire so dear to man, and remarked that the hounds
might, but no one from Castle Freyne would.

Gheena stood up also; she stared.

"Because I have done my duty towards my country,"
went on Dearest George heavily, "and retrenched.  If
Gheena had been back an hour ago"—his stepdaughter's
face frightened him a little—"they might have been.
But now—the Army."

"You have—sold all my horses," Gheena heard a
strange hoarse voice whispering—"Redbird, which I
loved.  Not—you dared——"

Mr. Freyne a little nervously replied that he had acted
as he thought best and Lancelot hurriedly asked for the car.

Without a word Gheena went out, out into the opal-tinted
evening to the yards.

"Oh, Dearest, do you think it was wise?" said
Mrs. Freyne tearfully.

Mr. Freyne said testily, "Lancelot will now represent
independence, and she has left the door open."

There were open doors in the yard, many of them—fresh
yellow straw ready for feet which could never trample
on it, Phil, sitting on the pump trough, weeping
unashamed.  There were no eager eyes and solemnizing heads
thrust out, no muzzles ready to nose for carrots.

Quite quietly Gheena went from box to box, Phil
tramping after her, entreating her not to be fretting.

"When it is your own, Miss Gheena, you can have
horses in the coal sheds—above in the farmyard, when it
is ye're own."

Four years, nearly five, and the pets she had seen grow
up were gone.  Crabbit, deeply dejected, wailed at her
heels.  Four years ... they seemed as eternity.

If she married Lancelot it would be her own, or if she
married anyone she could have her horses.

"An' I clane forgot that Mr. Darby sent two notes,"—Phil
produced a letter—-"to be givin' immaydiate;
but when I seen the horses go——"  Phil wept afresh.

For one moment Gheena had looked at the car which
the chauffeur was winding up, then she opened the letter.

"Don't worry, little girl, I've bought the lot.  They're
here for you to hunt to-morrow, and at any time."

"God save us! couldn't he lave you alone?" said Phil,
as Gheena leant against a manger, sobbing openly again.

Darby, always her friend, kind, crippled Darby—Darby,
whose eyes followed her.  If—if——

The housemaid's bicycle was at the kitchen door.
Gheena looked at it.

Voices sounded across the yard.  A cart was coming in.

"An' God help us!  I niver got the pison the Masther
sent for, an' he will ate the face off me now.  Prussian
acid he wanted, an' I declare I forgot it.  Sure I can tell
him they're stockin' none of thim German affairs now."

Gheena looked at her red cur.  In a moment she was
on the bicycle, which was far too short for her, and with
her knees stuck up in unpleasant publicity, was tearing
down the avenue.

"Light in her head to be makin' afther them now,"
said Phil bitterly.  "An' it all the Masther's fault."

The opal glow faded to a silver dusk with little mist
wraiths in the hollows, and light glint of damp on the
budding leaves.  Darby was alone in his library before
a glowing peat fire, his dogs at his feet, when they got up
growling quite politely as the door was flung open and
Gheena came in.

She was white, rings showed round her eyes, her breath
coming short.

"It was the length of Maria's legs which made me so
tired," she said.  "Don't stare, Darby.  Oh, Darby!"

She came across, holding out cold trembling hands.

Darby rang the bell sharply, ordering strong coffee.

"I came, Darby"—she knelt down, the glow of the fire-light
turning her hair to bronze—"I came, because you've
always helped me, to know if you'd—marry me, Darby?"

He held the cold hands more closely, he hid the bitter
pain which leapt into his eyes.  She had come to offer
herself to the man who had loved her so long, simply that
she might be free.

"It would be a poor thing to do," he said slowly;
"there is something more than freedom and paying out
Dearest George in matrimony, Gheena, something more."

Gheena showed no surprise.  It seemed to her natural
that her reasons should be so plain.

"But you like me, Darby, and if you won't, I'll ask
the Professor, or someone."

He looked for one glimpse of love in her eyes, for anything
except the complete trust and the weariness of the
overstrained face, as she explained that she would not
endure for four years, and that she wanted a friend.

"Four years, or for ever?" he said.  "Gheena, it hurts
just a bit."  Then he dropped her hands, putting his on
her head.  It came to him that he was strong enough to
bear an engagement, to see her through her troubles, until
he stepped back with just a little more pain to bear, and
left her happy.  And—perhaps—the strongest of men
dream—cripple as he was.

So Darby said "Right."  He said it quite cheerfully.
"And here's coffee.  You are just worn out, dear, from
that ride."

"It was Maria's legs," said Gheena.  "Darby, you'll
drive me back, and how tired you look!  But aren't you
glad?"

He got up, limping, to look for matches.  A cripple, a
maimed, scarred thing, to whom this light offering of
what never could be love had hurt worse than his injuries.
Gheena would never care for him.  He was just old Darby
to her.  She came to him to help her as she had done all
her life.  She could probably even marry him just as old
Darby, and drag out her life cheerily, hurting him, never
knowing happiness herself.

"I couldn't do much walking with you, Gheena," he said.

"But you're so much better," she answered.  "And I
shouldn't know you if you could walk fast now, Darby.
And you can let your sister have this house; she always
wants it and it's splendid!"

The awful presence of Dearest George, enduring the
night air, was on the doorstep when they drove up to Castle
Freyne.

He said icily that old friend as Darby was, he could not
have his stepdaughter disappearing in this fashion, and
that some change in discipline must be made.

"And all my muscles are stiff from the length of Maria's
legs," said Gheena cheerily.  "And you'd better see
about the Dower House, Dearest, because I am going to
be married."

"You've persuaded her," gasped Dearest George.

"To Darby," said Gheena, lifting Crabbit.  "To Darby
Dillon, Dearest, so don't buy the Prussic acid now.  Let
me alone."

"To Darby Dillon!" repeated Dearest George, sitting
down on the damp steps.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XVI`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVI

.. vspace:: 2

Basil Stafford offered his congratulations on
almost the same spot where the three had stood
in the autumn.

It was fair spring now, nearly May, with a blue glint
on the water.  But Gheena had been out for a swim and
had come in glowing, while Crabbit still pursued gulls
and hoped to catch one.

Darby sat in a sheltered nook.  His face had grown
thinner; some inward war had drawn lines round his
mouth.  A lithe figure sat beside him—Psyche, with some
of her light gaiety gone too.  Basil remarked that he had
come to congratulate, and he also looked quiet and
subdued.

"Oh, thank you very much," said Gheena.  "Lancelot
had three helpings of beefsteak pie yesterday, and Dearest
is glooming at the Dower House over the expense of
putting in radiators.  I'll never let mother go there, of
course, but the radiators won't matter."

"Even in war time," said Basil thoughtfully.  "Mr. Freyne
looks quite thin."

"He says we shall lose the war now and nothing will
matter," said Psyche, "and he's going out to drive a
motor ambulance if they'll take him."

"Everyone," said Gheena, "is doing something now."

Basil Stafford sat down in the shelter.

"And perhaps I am too," he said a little impatiently,
"even if it's not what people think."

There was open hostility in Gheena's eyes when she
replied that perhaps he was.

She climbed the cliff lightly, slow Darby left behind
then jumped back again and slipped, Stafford springing up
to help her, both young and strong and whole-limbed.
Darby's sticks went slowly and heavily as he toiled up.

"Just here," he said, "we thought of the scratch pack.
I have not sent them back yet, they amuse me; but they
must go next week, after one more hunt."

"It will be so awful when one can't see you hunting
hounds."  Little Psyche's eyes were full of the admiration
which Darby never saw in anyone else's.

"Which you think I do well," he said, laughing.

Psyche replied that he did everything well, and Gheena
came up the cliffs again, kindness in her eyes, friendship;
but as he limped on, Darby had seen her look at Basil
Stafford.  The lines of pain deepened in Darby's face;
then he laughed again.  He was no worse off than he had
been six months before, and he had helped Gheena on.
Now that she was engaged, with the prospect of taking
over her inheritance when she chose, Dearest George was
perpetually apologetic and almost wistfully anxious to
please.  He had referred to the engagement to his wife
as being in the nature of a trench mortar—something
hurled at him when he slept.

"Look here, Miss Freyne," Stafford stopped Gheena—"I
want you not to wait on the cliffs at night, or go out
in your boat, but especially at night.  The submarines are
blockading and they've been seen near here."

Gheena said cheerfully that they were not likely to
waste a torpedo upon her.

"Supposing someone saw you out alone.  It's possible.
I heard you were off near the point two nights ago."

"I am looking for the base," said Gheena composedly.
"I shall find it too."

Here Mr. Stafford made the grievous mistake of telling
her hotly that no one wanted her to look for it, and, in
fact, that she was not to.  The fewer people on the cliff
the better, and certain people would be pleased if she did
not wander there.

"That I can understand," said Miss Freyne, adding that
she would go out when and where she chose, and after
this haughty outburst her face clouding and growing sad.

Mrs. De Burgho Keane was at the house to offer
congratulations.  She did it quite gracefully, suggesting that
Darby's injuries would keep Gheena from gadding about
quite as much as most young women did, once that she
knew they would be happy.

"Poor Lancelot, of course, will never go back to be
killed," she added pleasantly.  "He was too young for
you, Gheena."

Gheena jumped up to kiss Violet Weston, and to remove
her to the far end of the room, where they whispered
together impolitely.  A fresh expedition along the coast
was planned, but before it came off Gheena went off alone
in her new two-seater, going down the same narrow lane
which she had last driven down with Darby, and pulling
up only just in time on the plateau.

The beauty and chill of spring lay on the sea; a silver
shade touched the brightest cold blue; little speckles of
white, steel edged, rimmed the tiny waves.  The illusiveness
of girlhood was in the mood of the day, fair and yet
too bright for warmth.  Rock roses crouched in the clefts
of the stones: little yellow flowers, and here and there a
rare blue gentian brilliant against the green.  Fern prongs
were pushing up, and the white gulls sailed happily on the
water, mocking Crabbit's barks.

And on the water and in it, mischief—lurking demons
down below; machines oiled by human relentlessness,
dealing swift death gladly to the toilers of the sea.

Amid the sheen and the glitter Gheena almost brought
herself to believe that she saw the black rim of a periscope.

It was only a floating piece of wood dipping up and
down, but it made the girl spring forward and over the
edge of the cliff down on to the black rocks bared by the
tide—a low one.  There was only one cave which she
wanted to see, the cave close by the hidden one which
Crabbit had gone into.  "Hi, Crabbit, leave these gulls!"
said Gheena; "I want you."  She peered into the hole
which Crabbit had leapt through, wrinkled her nostrils,
wrinkled them again, her heart thumping.  She scrambled
into the open cave as if she were Grandjer hot on a fox,
her eyes sparkling and yet full of fear.  It was a slimy cave,
with a wide creek leading into it when the tide was high.
A large boulder in the cavern stood in a pool of cold dank
water.  Gheena removed her shoes and splashed into the
pool, squeezing between the brown boulder and the wall;
the pool deepened, but next moment, with a scream,
she felt a hole leading into the next cave.  Switch went
her small electric torch, and she saw the dark gap,
completely invisible from the far side of the boulder.  Beyond
it was a kind of open ledge quite wide enough for a man to
pass through comfortably.  Next moment Gheena and
Crabbit were peering into the further cave, the torch
making an elusive glimmer, and still her heart thumped
heavily.

The lower half was damp where the tide poured in, but
the torch glimmered....  The upper and dry range of
irregular ledges was covered with tins of petrol.

It was so easy to see that Gheena knew some light must
come from above, and then saw a little tunnel going to
the outer world, enough to put a little light and air into
the place.

The easiness of rowing stores up the creek and putting
them through was now completely apparent; and, at
the same time, with a crisp chill not caused by the
atmosphere, Gheena remembered that this meant war, and that
the man who had put the petrol there would probably
add Miss Freyne and Crabbit to his store if he found them.
Which man?  She slipped out of the cave, splashed
through the pool, noticed how an overhanging rock almost
completely hid the aperture, and bolted for sunlight with
her shoes in her hands.  She put them on her numbed feet
outside, and then going back to the car, absolutely sat
down to think.

The elusive quarry of her chase stood before her with
bared teeth, and, never having expected to catch it,
Gheena Freyne backed away.  This was grave.  It was
war.  Something outside light confidences to Violet
Weston, or the Professor.  The trouble grew deeper in her
eyes.  It was something to watch for herself.

A boat in the shadows outside by the point would see
the submarine run and *see who supplied it*.  Gheena
shivered, and Crabbit went down to catch a gull.

Yes, who supplied it?  Her eyes were heavy.  If she
went to the coastguards, their clumsy zeal would be sure
to muddle everything.  "They would sit about the rocks
like a lot of puffins," said Gheena aloud, "and pretend
they were looking for shrimps in May."  General Brownlow
must be written to, but ... Behind it all lurked a fear
deeper than she had felt in the cold cave.  The fear of
whom she might see rowing out in the boat ... the
betrayer ... a paid German agent and, doubtless, spy.

It was a very long way to row round from Castle Freyne,
but no great distance from the Dower House, and no
comment would be made if she took a boat over there,
left it and walked back.  Phil must paint both grey to
match the night ... and then ... *Who did it*?

Crabbit sat on the car when he was whistled for; he
was blighted and put out.  These gulls were afraid of him,
and barking from pinnacles of rock was not amusing.

Gheena pressed her self-starter, wheeled round
perilously and bumped up the lane, her discovery weighing
her down.  Who supplied the petrol?  Whose face would
she see when she watched from the shadows?

She saw Mr. Basil Stafford's at that moment, and nearly
ran into him, when he failed to put his long-nosed car out
of her way.

"If you don't keep off those cliffs," he said irritably,
"we shall have to make them forbidden ground, Miss
Freyne.  It's just getting serious now, you see."

She stared at him moodily.  Basil Stafford's eyes
flashed.  "You've ... found something?" he burst out,
leaning across.

Gheena saw a sullen-looking little revolver lying beside
him.

"I found a new cave full of rocks," she said nervously;
"that—that was all."

"You'll tell me if you do—promise," he said earnestly.

"When I tell anyone it will probably be you," said
Gheena drearily.  "And do get out of the way....
I'm cold."

Even Dearest George's complete depression, because
he had already caught a chill in the garden at Girtnamurragh,
failed to cheer Gheena.  The one-time tyrant
humbly asked her where she had been, and himself helping
her to her favourite omelette could not make Gheena
smile.

The magnitude of her discovery frightened her.  They
were really at war, and there was really someone paid by
an enemy—the real enemy ... and this close to her
own home....

The loss of a small and favourite bangle also worried
her.  If the spies found it they would probably track
her.  They would know someone had been there.

Darby, with the sadness deepening in his kind eyes,
wondered what was the matter when she sat on the arm
of his chair, and, with her hand in his, was palpably almost
unaware of his presence in the world.  He dropped the
slight brown little hand and Gheena stroked Crabbit with
it.  She sat close to him, without a trace of self-consciousness.
He was Darby, the friend who had helped her, and
marriage was a thing they could talk of some day.

Psyche, sitting on the fender stool, had seen the dropped
hand go absently to Crabbit's head, and her eyes darkened.

Violet Weston's coming to tea roused Gheena up, but
she looked nervous instead of pleased.

"Gheena," said Darby, "has been submarine hunting
and is feeling the effects of failure; she is depressed."

Mrs. Weston said lightly that she believed it was all
nonsense.  They might find out something—she nudged
Gheena—but it would not be petrol bases on the coast.

"Despair and tight shoes," said Mrs. Weston, "stopped
me looking; but, of course, I'll go with you again,
Gheena dear."

"I'm not going to look any more," said Gheena heavily.

Violet Weston smiled as she admired her mauve suede
shoes.  She said that mysterious motor-cyclists passed
through the village when all respectable motor-cyclists
ought to be in bed, and wondered who they could be.
She had heard them twice or three times, and had told
Mr. Keefe about them.

Just then Mr. Keefe, trying to look as if his visit was
accidental, blushed behind Naylour, and explained a
lengthy drive and the tempting vicinity of Castle Freyne.
When Mrs. Weston, who made room for him beside her
on the sofa, continued to talk about the motor-bicycles,
he grew pinker and looked embarrassed.

It seemed to Mr. Keefe that a great deal of nonsense
was talked about bases and so forth.

"But the fact remains," said Darby, "that someone
supplies the beggars, or they would not attempt this
blockade they are so cock-sure of...."  Then he muttered
"The O'Tooles" in tones of depression.

The clergyman arrived primed with war news and plans.
In his opinion the Allies had only just to go there and move
up there, and pinch Germany in one place and nip her
in another, and Poof! it was over.  Just a little dash.
Nothing more.

"If Napoleon O'Toole," murmured Darby—"oh,
thank you, Gheena, I could get my own, really."

It was part of the hurt to have Gheena wait upon him,
to see her jump lightly for hot cakes, a fresh cup of tea.

"Much better let me ... the table's miles away.  Mum
always entrenches over there."

Mrs. Freyne poured out nervously, asking everyone's
advice as to sugar and cream, and confusing matters
greatly by taking the last person's unswervingly until
she asked someone else's.

Dearest George, sneezing gloomily, had no words even
to offer upon the English advance.  He did think the
submarines would be nasty; the sea was so beastly chilly,
but land tactics had ceased to interest him, and he only
grunted.

They had just finished tea when Stafford drove to the
door and sent in for Mr. Freyne, saying he was going to
Cortra on business.

"He motors such a lot," said Mrs. Weston softly—"at
night and all times; that car is a fifty sixty, and
almost silent.  He looked excited or worried."

Gheena did not answer, she was watching the sea.

"Gheena, you did not come on anything to-day?"
Mrs. Weston put an arm round Gheena, bent down to
speak to her, kissing the soft cheek.

"Only a severe chill," said Gheena, growing red.

Basil Stafford slipped away.  He looked worn out,
his eyes haggard, as though from lack of sleep.  With
another heavy sigh Gheena Freyne peered seawards.

In the drawing-room, Darby and Psyche left alone,
drew near to the fire.

"When you are married——" began Psyche.

"When!" said Darby.  "Does it strike you, sprite,
that I should marry a girl who scarcely thinks of me, and
that it would take a great deal of love to make anyone
forget my leg and my scars?"

Psyche replied very sharply that she did not think so
at all, and poked the fire until it collapsed in ruins.

"Didn't I tell Mrs. Malone to co*nn*fine them?" rose
Phil's voice outside.  "Thim haythin Germans of
Faverolly's, an' into the spring beds agin with them.  I'll
hunt thim, Ma'am."  Further yells and shoos from Phil,
with some comments added to the effect that thim beds
wasn't Mongs or Pars, and advice to make in for
thimselves before Crabbit turned them into sossidges.

Psyche went to the window.

"Crabbit has removed several tails," she said, "and there
is no place like Ireland.  I never want to live out of it."

"No?" said Darby absently.

The elusive sunshine next day sent Gheena bathing,
off to her favourite pools, where she dived under the rocks
and came up a little blue.  It was a treat at first.  The
vigorous young life seemed a thing apart from Darby's.
Yet it was Gheena who was content, and Darby Dillon
who looked drearily at the vista of the future.  He feared
the sudden thunderclap of his fortune—the nugget of
gold which he had dreamt of and come upon unexpectedly
was too heavy to lift, too valuable for him to hold.

"Some day," he said to Gheena, "we'll be blasting
that rock to get you out, Gheena.  You'll never come up.
Will you drive with me this afternoon up the hills to see
about returning my hounds?"

"I?  Oh, take Psyche.  I am going for a row," Gheena
stammered a little.  "I should be so cold after a swim,
Darby, in the car."

Basil Stafford watched her start for her row in the
newly-painted, half-dry boat which Phil had spent a day at.
He stood pondering as she shot out on the gay ripple of
the sea and up the harbour.  As cautiously as he could,
he started along the cliffs, taking cover behind friendly
gorse, bending inland at times, his mind occupied by
possible orders which he must give to the coastguards.

Gheena, rowing easily, saw the figure on the cliffs, knew
it too well, a dull fog of misery creeping between her and
the sunshine.  What was he watching for?

She made the boat secure at Girtnamurragh, told the
men to leave it, and made an ostensible survey of the
garden which spades and forks were rending ruthlessly.
The old straggling border had been put to rights, shrubs
were being clipped.  Dearest George, sneezing with
complete lack of spirit, stood superintending the renovations,
and shivering at the chill airs off the sea.

"You could even shut those out if the air inside the
house wasn't like a tombstone," he remarked, looking
limply at Gheena.

"But Gheena is in no hurry, Dearest," replied Mrs. Freyne,
"and the fishermen are sure to steal the vegetables
if we're not here.  Don't you think they might?"

Gheena grinned softly, kissed her mother, and asked
for a drive home; she was tired.  It was opportunity sent
to her.  The watcher on the cliff thought it a completely
natural thing when he saw her go by in the motor.  The
boat was now ready close to the cave.

Phil was made fellow-conspirator, pledged to see that
the small car was placed at night in an outhouse beyond
the yard gate ready to drive.

That night Gheena slipped from her side door, poor
Crabbit left behind, but only walked to the harbour
and rowed out a little then.  The vast loneliness of the
sea at night frightened her; she wanted to get out to
it—to the eerie laps and gurgles among the rocks, the white
gleam of the waves' caps, the voices of the night.  Lying
still, she saw a boat shoot past—some of the fishermen
making for the village—then left the boat and was stealing
home when someone rose out of the dimness and spoke
to her.

"Gheena—Miss Freyne—you must not do it!  What
are you doing out like this, and war time?"

"And what are you doing out like this in war
time?" retorted Gheena, an uncertain note in her voice.

Stafford caught her by the shoulders, holding her.

"I ask you, I pray you, not to come out," he said.
"I'll ask Darby to say..."

"Darby will only say what I want him to," observed
Gheena; "that's what Darby is there for."

"A man has some right over his future wife," said
Stafford slowly.

Miss Freyne murmured several indistinct beginnings
of remarks, and left them all unfinished rather nervously.

"Poor old Darby!" she said amiably at last.

Mr. Stafford returned gloomily that Darby was one of
the best.  If Miss Freyne meant to marry her intended——

"But ... of course."  Then Gheena's voice died
again.  She was acutely conscious of a struggle with tears
as hands gripped hers for a second.

"You must keep off the rocks at night," said Stafford.
"For a reason.  Promise, I beg it of you."

"If you will keep off them" was what Miss Freyne
muttered in a strangled voice.  "I ... ask you
to."  She ran away.

"Hang," remarked Stafford savagely.

A few days later Mr. Keefe got his commission, and
left at a few hours' notice, wildly excited.  He was now
Captain Keefe in a well-known regiment, and his mind was
taken up by Sam Browne belts and revolvers.  So quickly
did he go that his farewell even to Mrs. Weston was a
brief one, though he had just time to hint that he now
thought if he survived he might ask anyone to marry him.
He was replaced by a rather elderly man, whom the police
seemed to regard with awed respect.

Gheena had almost broken down when she had talked
to Stafford, but her resolution was only deepened.  She
must see, and see alone the face of the man who had
arranged to put petrol in those caves!

For several nights the two-seater slipped unheard down
the back avenue and along a narrow by-lane to the
Dower House, where it was left hidden near some bushes
until Gheena crept to her boat.  She grew used to rowing
out alone in the chill darkness in her short skirt and a
thick coat, until one night, in a murky warmth, she rowed
right out opposite the cave, and thought that she heard
voices on the shore—voices subdued and muffled.  Creeping
in, Gheena saw someone on the shore—a dark, indefinite
figure on the very edge of the sea.  Next moment her
heart throbbed suddenly, for even in the darkness she
believed that she knew it.  And she rowed desperately
out.  It felt safer at sea; she did not want to be sure.
After this violent spurt she let the boat drift, lying in the
trough of the swell; it would be time enough to pull when
she heard the waves on the rocks.  She drifted quickly.
Lying there, she was almost invisible, and Gheena Freyne's
heart leaped and missed a beat, a chill horror of certainty
creeping up her spine as, quite naturally, the periscope of
a submarine nosed up quite close to her, and a long thing
like a whale showed in the dim light.

It might be an English submarine.  It might....
Gheena sat as a bird before an able-bodied snake,
completely afraid to do anything, because just then very low
and cautious murmurs commenced to discuss matters
in German, and a laughing gull called.  Also, it seemed
to Gheena, with a German accent.

One man said that he trusted that the Irish pig would
be out in a moment, and a second, subservient but decided,
trusted so, as if he did not, then, owing to the sudden
unforeseen accidents, they were completely powerless to
get away.  This voice appeared to regret the blasphemous
language of the Herr Captain, but repeated its statement
decorously.

"As none of these pigs of fools ever keep a look-out,"
remarked a third voice, which was young and pleasant,
"just do the laughing gull again, Max."

The excellent imitation of the laughing gull was repeated;
it now became evident from the conversation, that
it should have been answered by a whistle from the cliffs.
Then as Gheena began to paddle away, noiselessly she
hoped, someone exclaimed blasphemously.  She heard the
quick splash of a swimmer in the water, and with so much
to be afraid of that she forgot fear, she heard the scuffle
of a man climbing into the boat.

"If you scream or make a sound," said someone in
excellent English, "I..."

Gheena said she supposed then that she had better not,
and that she was only out amusing herself, and would
like to go home.

But the answer to this was to find herself moving as
in a dream on to the back of the steel whale, with everyone
buzzing round her in undertones.

The captain asked her if she understood German, to
which she said "No" hurriedly, believing it might be
useful to pretend ignorance.  She again asked politely
to be allowed to go home.

From the ensuing whispers she gathered that she was
not likely to be allowed to.  Someone argued that it would
not matter, and the voice of the engineer said if they could
not get away it certainly would not, and Gheena found
herself being propelled down into an atmosphere reeking
of oil, where light was permissible.

Here a stout senior officer positively gloated at her
capture.  It appeared that he was even a minor admiral,
whose varied manoeuvres had run the "U" boat out of
fuel.  He sat at a small table and glowered, while Gheena,
not at all sure that she was awake, was conscious of
glances of rapt admiration from the senior lieutenant, the
owner of the pleasant voice ... so Gheena stood closer
to him.

"Good evening; I want to go home," said Gheena in
French, why she hardly knew.  Someone had told her
to address herself to the head admiral.

Having addressed some abusive remarks to her in
German and seen these received blankly, they decided
that the strange woman did not, owing to usual lack of
*Kultur* of her race, understand any language but her own
and French.

The question of the petrol appeared to be pressing.
There were even low-voiced fears concerning treachery,
and Gheena gathered that it was even possible that a boat
must be sent to try to discover a certain cave if they were
not signalled by—Gheena could not catch the name.

"We sent word by wireless," she heard, "to him....
It has always been right...."

Gheena went very white.  Who had they sent word to?

The inferior admiral grunted fiercely, and motioned to
Gheena to sit down.  She did so, closer than ever to the
lieutenant who looked good-natured.  She was told she
was to answer questions.

"In England," said the admiral, "I suppose you are all
now so terrified, you only come out in the dark; that is
why a young Fräulein boats alone at night!"

Gheena nodded thoughtfully, but she said that it was
not England exactly; in fact it was Ireland.  She said
it dreamily because she was sure she was asleep.

"Tell me"—the admiral opened a pocket-book—"what
do they say of our Zeppelins in stricken London?"

"Zeppelins!"  Gheena raised her head.  "Oh, yes ... the
recruiting balloons, of course," she said thoughtfully.

The stout officer grew purple so slowly that it was quite
interesting to watch him—a purple which straddled
gradually across his big nose and lost itself in his beard.

"The ... *Himmel* ... ball ... oons," he said
heavily.  "Balloons!"  At this point the senior
lieutenant developed a nasty cough and had some trouble
with it.

"Yes, the things got up to get more recruits," said
Gheena sweetly, flickering a glance at the lieutenant.
"I believe some people really believe they are German,
sent by the Socialists who are against the war; but we all
think here they're only for recruiting.  Some always come
when we're short of men."

"They who strike the terror, the death-shower!  Girl,
you rave!"  The admiral got up and glared.

"But I was really in England once, Commander, when
balloons did come," said Gheena, "and all the stories of
misery are invented just for a purpose.  You tell your
poor cross Kaiser when you go back...."

The admiral sat down again, and his big mouth opened
slowly, showing discoloured teeth; a muffled voice
somewhere in the background wondered anxiously when the
boat would come.

"You see, in England we are never afraid," said Gheena
carelessly, but she felt a singing in her ears then when the
admiral said something about when she got to Germany.

"You are not going to take me back there," she
whispered.  Gheena Freyne realized her folly.  She would
be imprisoned, questioned.  She would be a girl alone and
friendless.  "You have no right to," she said hotly.
"I've uncles who are generals, and you've no right.  Let
me go!"

If—the commander, who was lantern-jawed, cleared
his throat—if the gracious Fräulein would answer a few
questions intelligently, she might perhaps be landed
somewhere on her own coast; they had no desire to be
harsh.  Every nerve in Gheena's body thumped almost
painfully.  She feared, above all things on earth now, the
thought of going down in this close atmosphere and being
taken away a prisoner.  Basil Stafford had been right,
it was dangerous out alone.

"Your spy," she said unevenly ... "the man ... I
know him...."

The commander then said she must certainly be taken
along and imprisoned, and, still as in a dream, Gheena
realized the folly of this last remark, for the admiral,
fading rusty brown again, said something about troublesome
prisoners and made unpleasant allusions in German
to the bottom of the sea.

Meantime the night was passing.  The engineer sent
for, suggested that they should sink and someone row in
to see what had happened.  He thought, in fact, that
the Herr Lieutenant knew the cave.

She must escape.  Gheena thought she felt the boat
sinking.  She grew suddenly cunning.  With a quick
stagger she caught at the impressionable lieutenant and
muttered, "Air! air! air!"

"A breath of air—all right," whispered Gheena, reeling.

It was the lieutenant who persuaded them to let her
be taken on deck for a moment.  He would see to her
not screaming.  Gheena was helped up very tenderly, and
left for a minute to herself, gripping the rail.

"I've English friends; I'll look after you," the lieutenant
whispered, and went for brandy.  The time was enough to
allow her to slip her arms out of the coat and unfasten her
skirt; she had knickerbockers underneath.

When the perturbed Germans grunted gruffly and
discussed their difficulty, Gheena sprang.

She dived very prettily to the accompaniment of muffled
bad language, and as she came up, heard hoarse whispers
concerning immediate death if she did not return.

The threats were nothing, but the sound of a splash
made the girl shudder.  They dared not show a light or
fire a shot, but a strong swimmer would catch her easily.
She dived again and swam under water until her bursting
lungs seemed to crack, then shot up, treading water, to
see the long whale still close to her and hear a man
swimming, but not in her direction.  Down again and again,
until she felt too far away to be caught.  Then lightly she
struck out for land, and just as she did a shrill whistle
sounded from the shore.

But cold, fright and those underwater swims had tired
Gheena out.  She swam less and less vigorously, swam
until her arms seemed lead and every stroke brought a
panting, wheezing breath.  Then for the first time Gheena
cried out, a feeble cry for help as her lips tasted salt and
she nearly sank.  It was answered by a splash of oars
and a boat shooting out close to her.

The face which she had dreaded to see was outlined
for a moment by the flash of an electric torch.  Gheena felt
warm hands hurriedly pull her into the boat, and as she
crouched, completely exhausted, Basil Stafford's voice
said "I told you not to" in tones of annoyed remonstrance.

Some outer covering was wrapped round Gheena,
whose teeth had begun to chatter.  Her resentment at the
lack of sympathy due to her blended with a dull sorrow
which was stronger than the resentment.

Looking up, Miss Freyne chattered out that she had been
nearly drowned, and wished it had been completely.

"If you will go out alone—"  Stafford's oars were making
no sound in the water.  "And your boat?"

"That's somewhere near it.  You're not—going to
take me out again to it?" said Gheena excitedly.  "I
won't go!  I won't go to Germany!"  And she sat up.
"I must tell ... they're waiting for the oil.  I must
tell!  Oh, why—why did you?" said Miss Freyne,
breaking down into unrestrained sobs.  "Oh, why is
it you, and why did you?"

She stopped sobbing, because it is difficult to cry
comfortably when someone grips your shoulders and actually
shakes you.  Gheena knew that a face which she felt sure
was an angry one was close to hers, and a hoarse whisper
was demanding information.  She gave it brokenly; she
sat back with a gasp as the noiseless oars shot the boat
through the water, and she could hear Stafford muttering
to himself excitedly.

"Don't cry out, do you hear?" he whispered.  "Not
a sound, or I'll..."

Miss Freyne snapped out "Shoot me, I suppose,"
with rancorous dignity and as clearly as chattering teeth
would allow.

"To come here ... to eat our food ... with—with
us ... and give oil to that Father Christmas!" were
the indistinct words which reached Basil Stafford, who
was breathing heavily.  The boat bumped rather sharply
against the shore.

"Don't speak," said Stafford grimly, "or it's Germany
for you.  This way....  Don't you dare to speak."

The path in the dark might have been anywhere.
Waiting for the first opportunity to slip away, Gheena
was propelled along it.  She heard voices, a door opened,
and next minute she was in a big room, with shutters shut
closely and a small fire burning in the grate.

Then Gheena, recovering, demanded liberty, for it was
the drawing-room at Gurtnamurragh, and these traitors
were using it to hide in her house.

Stafford's hands fell heavily on her shoulders; his eyes
were very sad, but determined.

"It is all your own fault, and you will stay here until
I come for you," he said coldly.  "You can't get out,
I'm going to nail the shutters.  There are blankets in the
corner and I'll stoke up the fire.  Perhaps the blanket
first."

Gheena put one on hastily, conscious of her costume.

The fury of Gheena's wrath left him unmoved.  To be
left there alone while the submarine was fed, to be treated
in this fashion!  She said several things about it all.

"You are, of course, quite sure that I was going out
to her?" said Stafford, as he drove big nails home.

"I was afraid.  I went alone because I was half
sure."  Gheena checked herself.  "I found out your cave days
ago ... and I've watched."  She began to cry again.

He came close to her.  Something lit up his eyes.

"You came out alone—because you were sure you
would find me.  That was why you went alone; and
having found me, you must tell—you would have
told—or would you?"

"England first," said Gheena, her voice mixing pride
and broken dreariness.  "But..."

"Then you won't!" he snapped out quite cheerfully,
banging the door.

But he came back with water for the kettle, and pointed
out that there was tea in the basket near the fire.

Then he left again.  Gheena heard the muffled voices
and silence fell.  She was far too angry to be frightened.

Wrapping herself as thoroughly as possible in a blanket,
she put the kettle on, piled up the fire and stamped
wrathfully.

The events of the night now felt to her as though she
had been through an evil dream which could not be real—a
submarine close in—waiting for petrol—and all their
suspicions realized.  Basil Stafford was that vile but
necessary thing, a spy.

"As I actually met him going out to it," said Gheena
wearily—"actually met him—there is no mistake now."

Gheena did not cry out.  Patriotism fought with
something which for a time worsted it completely.  Then,
rousing herself, she cooed dolefully, listening to the echo
of the cry ringing through the empty house.

Inspiration came to her.  The iron fastenings of the
old shutters, if the wood could be burnt round them,
might be wrenched free.  Gheena seized a small piece of
broken iron paling which someone had used as a poker
and stuck it into the glowing heat.

In a very short time she had burnt quite a good sized
hole, and the room was acrid with the smell of charred
wood.  Someone had left a candle on the table.  Gheena
lighted it to peer at her work.  Having seen with dismay
that it would take another half-hour before she could even
hope to move the bar, Gheena swung round to see
Stafford's face thrust into the room.

"Lights!" he said bitterly.  "I might have known
I could not trust you."

Gheena repeated the word "trust" rather blankly, and
gathered her blanket round her.

"Lights—here," he said again.  "Of course, nothing
may happen, but that's not your fault, is it?"  He seized
the candle.

The door banged.  This language from a detected
criminal had bereft Gheena of speech.

She put the poker back slowly, to start in real fear,
for, as if conjured up by the speck of light, voices sounded,
rang in anger, bare and almost animal-like in its sound,
and came the paff-paff of revolver shots—then silence—then
voices again.

"Safe and sound we has him, an' I near to be shot"—this
was the voice of Thomas Hassett, one of the
coastguards—"safe and sound with the stroke Ned Murphy
drew on him."

Ned Murphy was the village sergeant.

Gheena adjusted her blanket and took out the poker
absently, her face very white.

They—had caught Basil Stafford—other people were
on the watch.  It was all over now.

Paff-paff—more shots, the noise of running feet, a yell
of someone in pain.

"God save us! the arrum is hanging on ye, Misther
Stafford," said a sympathetic voice; "an' who could belt
away for the docther as quick as ye could yerself in ye're
cyar?"

"They to come along to the wrong sphot, when ye were
afther bringin' in Miss Gheena, an' we only three.  Will
I run a taste ov rope around the cross one, sir?  He is
lively."

"I tell you I——  Put it down, Mr. Stafford."  Gheena
heard the Professor's voice, as in English, with no trace of
German accent, he entreated someone not to be an idiot.
The door was flung open.  Two coastguards tenderly helped
in a man who crumbled and tottered between them.  With
a gasp of terror Gheena recognized the polite lieutenant,
and her first thought was that she wished he had not
seen her in a blanket.

Opening wider, the door admitted the Professor holding
out something and talking volubly, and Basil Stafford,
his left arm hanging down and his right gripping a revolver.

"And I—thought," said Stafford apologetically to the
Professor, "that it might be you."

The Professor grinned sweetly; he looked at the
wounded officer.

"The sorra a thing wrong with him but a clip on the
head, Miss," said Mr. Dunne.  "Let ye not be frightened.
He'll be all right when he sees clear again, an' the sthars
is in."

Gheena now observed that Stafford had no coat on,
and realized that she was wearing it; she said so nervously.

He looked at her rather sternly.

"So you were determined," he said quietly, "and you
found a way.  It brought them here, anyhow, before I
got away."

Gheena let the poker fall slowly; it lay upon the end
of her blanket, singeing it—yes, it was her work.

Stafford soon went out, Murphy with him.  The German
lieutenant sat up and groaned heavily.  He stared a little
wildly when Gheena proffered him hot tea.

"Treachery," he said bitterly.  "I was sent out to look
round as the man did not come, and we rowed to the
signal—three flashes—a stop and one."

Gheena looked thoughtfully at the guilty candle.

The Professor, breaking into fluent German, questioned
rapidly, and the lieutenant replied sulkily to the effect that
he did not believe the "U" boat could safely go down
again.  Then he fell into a species of stupor, breathing
heavily.

"Light schulls they have," said Murphy pleasantly.
"Any of the little sthrokes I dhrew on him wouldn't
have med one of us miss a pint of porther?"

Completely bewildered, forgetting even her blanket,
Gheena breathed fast and stared.

The old Professor, who appeared to have thrown off
several years of life, chuckled pleasantly.

Then he ceased chuckling to ask gravely if she could
possibly keep a secret, and make no mention of this night's
adventuring to anyone save Darby.

"It was your light which did it," he said.  "And
Stafford here practically alone.  You flashed it; I saw
the gleam.  He says he told you not to."

"You'll imprison him—or——"  Gheena's voice was
unsteady.

The Professor said "With other prisoners of war,"
in an absent voice, and thought Irish girls were
impressionable.

"But a spy—a prisoner of war!"  Gheena's head was
down; she hid her eyes.

Here the Professor remarked a little impatiently that
the officer of an enemy ship was not a spy.

"Stafford found out the eyrie a week ago"—the old
Professor chuckled again—"and, of course, I got to hear
of it.  He had men waiting in that cave until, Murphy
tells me, they came out whitened like celery in the dark.
And he got Guinane there easily last night.  He told me
all about it outside just now.  Guinane has given it all
away."

"But—then, who——?"  Gheena sat down on an
upturned box; she felt she needed support.

The Professor merely chuckled cryptically, making no
reply.

"It's not Mr. Stafford?" said Gheena.

At this the old gentleman also sat down on another
box which was not up to his weight.  Extracting himself
from the ruins, he said "You too," and abused the flimsy
nature of grocery boxes.

"The fellow's store full of petrol," grunted the
Professor—"his new house, y'know.  Guinane was well paid."

Ned Murphy thrust an anxious face into the room.
"If any could guide the mother, sir?" he whispered.
"He is bleedin' and a shiver sot in on him, an' he won't
come anear the fire, but mutherin' words half delarious.
If we could get him where he'd be cared an' there wouldn't
be talk!  Th' ould docther, if ye brings him here, 'll be
chatterin' for all the world like a magpie."

Gheena said sharply that she could drive the car, but
not in a blanket.

Mr. Murphy was a married man.  He produced a penknife
eloquently, and suggested a couple of slashes an'
a taste of twine would make a skhirt while ye'd be
waitin'.

Gheena, still bewildered, stood in meek silence, her
blanket reft from her to be rent in twain.  The skirt
manufactured by Murphy would not have done for Ascot,
but it complied with decency.  Very quietly the girl went
out into the still, dim night, looking back once at the
polite lieutenant lying in stupor on the floor.  She was
not at all sure that he would not vanish.

Someone walking feebly was helped out by two coastguards.
Gheena did not turn to look; she kept her head
down.

"And for Heaven's sake remember you're not driving
Darby's tin-kettle twelve-power," said a weak but
unashamed voice, "and go slow.  I wanted them to get a
donkey cart for me."

Gheena said "Where to?" as she slipped the clutch—was
she in this nightmare to drive to the county gaol
twelve miles away?  The Professor replied, "Why,
Mrs. Maloney's, of course!" rather peevishly.  He was
watching the nearness of the banks in the narrow lane and the
pace at which their dark shapes were sliding by.

But Gheena drove skilfully; she slid round the corner,
and the car seemed to leap forward at the road.

"Steady; there is not much room," said the Professor,
"and Murphy was on the dickey."

"Begonnes, I am here still, sir," said Murphy cheerlessly,
"though that whip around near spilt me."

The gleam of dawn was in the east, a pinky yellow glow
chasing grey night away.

They slipped past sleeping Castle Freyne and into the
village, with the little dark houses clinging to the edge of
the cliff; dun shapes growing just visible.  They pulled
up with complete disregard for Stafford's tyres, and he was
helped out; the hall door of his small house stood open,
ready for his return at any time.  Gheena's lips tightened
as she saw it.  She had now to walk home before any
light came.  She stood uncertain, waiting.

The Professor bustled out to order her in, saying that
Basil was feverish; they had sent for the doctor.

Basil was on the sofa in his dressing-gown; he looked
wan and lined, and he had one hand to his chest as if in
pain.

"I'm sorry," he said quickly, "for what happened."

"Yes"—Gheena held her own hand to her throat
because it hurt her—"yes, it was all my fault."

"But I simply had to shut you up," he said.  "We were
watching at the cave, and your torpedo-destroying in that
little boat was spoiling everything.  Of course, I never
expected to find you swimming.  Then you flashed that
light, and the fellows we caught—they thought that it was
Guinane's lamp and rowed right in to us; they fought.
I told you not to poke round—but—but—they nearly
caught you and took you away, and I've never said——"

Here Stafford's voice grew very weak.  He sipped
something out of a tumbler.

"You were watching in the cave to catch Germans?
You haven't been spying?  Haven't sold yourself for
money?"  Gheena's voice took a clearer note of sheer
clear joy.

"Oh, look here!" said Stafford a little grumpily.
"It hurts.  I used to watch you and that Western
woman.  I've learnt a bit of lip language and it hurts,
besides being ridiculous.  Now do I look like a spy?"

To which Miss Freyne replied incoherently that he had
understood they always looked like unspies—that was,
no spies—and being young and nice-looking and so on—and
she grew confused.

Stafford put his hand on hers for a moment.

"I was in a regiment in India," he said.  "Got a funny
wound on a little frontier expedition, so they wouldn't
pass me for active service.  It's caught again now.  And
I had a friend; I badgered him until they sent me here
to spy round on this coast—so they said.  And all the
time they had a regular secret service man at it, and were
only keeping me quiet for friendship's sake.  But I did
find out something in the end.  There was I watching the
Professor, and fellows grinning as they read my reports
about him.  I knew you suspected me," he went on,
"and even that you believed the money which I spoke of
was German money.  And it's only lately I realized
that—that it hurt you to believe it, Gheena.  You went alone
so that no one else might see me.  I hope to get back to
my regiment next year to do real work.  And—if you
gave me this"—he fumbled at a note-case—"will you take
it back and say it was not deserved?"

He pulled out a note-case and out of it a feather, once
white.  Gheena took it to see it was now stained red in one
place—red with blood.

"I never gave it," she whispered.  "Not that."

"Gheena," said Stafford, sitting up, "you didn't give
it; it was Miss O'Toole.  Oh, I say, Gheena!  And you
belong to Darby!  Oh, I say, and I cared so much!"

Gheena was sobbing almost wildly over the little stained
plume.

"But—I belong to Darby," she said, when she could
speak.  Somehow, brought suddenly face to face with the
naked realities of life, explanations seemed useless things.

"Gone," said the Professor, running in, "off in his
car."  He sat down and groaned.  "Waiting too long,
as usual!" he stormed.

"Who has gone?" Gheena hid her face.

"Mrs. Weston, otherwise Heinrich Helshumer.  She's
left all there—shoes and stockings, and you might as well
look for needles in hay, and she has a wireless there."

"Mrs. Weston," said Gheena weakly.

"Her man gave her away when we cornered him.  I'd
suspected for some time.  I knew from her playing on
the fiddle.  What is it, Stafford?"

"The dam fellow—was always fussing near you," said
Stafford, and fainted.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XVII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVII

.. vspace:: 2

Gheena Freyne found the household awake,
when arrayed in a long coat of Basil Stafford's
she got home.  George Freyne, who was on the doorstep,
announced directly she got within earshot that he had
sent for Darby.  He would not countenance the absence
of his stepdaughter during the night and her reappearance
in knickerbockers in the mornings.

Gheena passed him as if she did not hear.  She went
heavily to her room to try to remember that she was not
dreaming, that it was all real, and to try to banish the
tingle of bitter shame as she remembered how she had
suspected Stafford, and a hotter blush recalling hours
spent with Violet Weston.  To all questioning she merely
answered that she had gone for a row and had upset the
boat.

"I can't believe I am me," she said to Psyche over the
comfort of hot tea and toast.  "I can't, and I can't tell
you even why!"  But being a girl she told some things.

"And now"—Psyche's small face looked peaked—"now
you know it is not only looking on Darby as a friend but
caring for someone else."

Gheena said, "And I never thought I could care," very
drearily, and Miss Delorme stamped very gently.

Whispers of great happenings buzzed across the day.
Someone had heard shots and someone else had seen a
German crew somewhere.  Miss Gheena could tell and
would not.

Dearest George questioned civilly and with authority,
his stepdaughter's return without her skirt and the loss
of the boat making him believe that she knew
something.  But Gheena merely replied again that she had
lost the boat and swum in near the Dower House, and that
was all she knew.  A warm feeling that England depended
on her for silence was near her heart.

She told Darby when he came over and stood leaning on
his sticks, looking down at her as she lay back in a chair.
He heard it all.

Some things he knew already.

"They were watching some strange car," Stafford tells
me, "which Guinane met out on the Dublin road at
nights, and they've got that and Guinane, and the 'U'
boat—the patrol boat caught her."

Gheena said "It was not a bad haul," a little tremulously;
also that she would like to send her love to the
Admiral.

Darby looked at her for quite a long time.

"And you took Basil for a spy," he said slowly.  "Of
course, egged on by the real one.  And you've been in
terrible danger, Gheena."

Gheena replied briefly that she had thought of it first
herself, without any egging.

"I always said he wasn't the sort for a spy."  Darby
put his hand on Gheena's shoulder.  With a little wry smile
he felt her shrink.  "Now we'll go to see him," he said
cheerily—"you and I, Gheena, at once."

Limping behind her light quiet movements as they went
to the car, laying his sticks aside as he got in; the wry
smile clung to his lips as they drove to Mrs. Maloney's,
where a faint reek of disinfectants wafted to them through
the door.  Basil Stafford, very white, was sitting in a
big chair.

"Bullet touched up the old wound," he said.  "And
you'll stay to tea with me, won't you?"  He avoided
looking at Gheena.

Mrs. Maloney produced somewhat mountainous buttered
toast, and a cup of what she called melted chicken
tea for Basil.

"Great it should be," she said, stirring the
weak-looking compound, "with every taste of me young
Plymouth Rock in it, down to his yelly legs."

Basil gave it to Crabbit, and took tea instead.

Presently, when Darby went out, they sat silent, the
noise of the sea crooning in through the windows, with the
scent of violets strong in the sunshine.  Mrs. Maloney's
son grew them for sale.

"And you've forgiven me?" Gheena said at last jerkily.

Basil said that there was nothing to forgive.  He scarcely
recognized humbleness in one who had snubbed him for
months.

"But if you hadn't misjudged me," he said, "I might
have dared to ask you to—well, to use me as a buffer
instead of Darby, and you'll be far happier with him when
you're married—so it's as well."

The complete bleakness of Gheena's voice as she repeated
the word married was too easy to understand; she
repeated it almost angrily.  Stafford said that engagements
generally ended in marriages, and she would make Darby
happy, for he loved her.

"Oh, yes, of course!"  Gheena stood up.  "I mean
to end in marriage.  I mean to.  I would not hurt Darby."

There was a note of interrogation here mixed with defiant
firmness.

"No, for he has been hurt enough," said Stafford simply.
"I shall never be unhappy now, knowing you might
have——"

Darby limped into the room, slowly even for him.

"The door was open," he said.  "Gheena, I never meant
to tie you to me.  I knew always it was only for a time
to keep Dearest in order.  Darby was just your friend, as
he always will be, and one who saw how things were all
along.  It's all over now.  No, don't talk."

Perhaps as he limped out he had his reward in that
low-voiced "Darby!" as Gheena's whole heart seemed
to cry out to happiness.

Mrs. Maloney's house possessed a porch of what she
called rusty work.  A long-limbed, feeble-hearted rose of the
rambler family trailed over it, hauled into order here and
there by large pieces of old cloth nailed on by Thomas
Maloney, Junior.  In this Darby stood alone.  The porch
faced the land, the scrambling rusty hills towered high
above the harbour.  The harbour smell of tar and salt
water came strongly with the scent of the violets.

Darby leant back against the unstable rusty porch
and with the raw pain came comfort.

It was at least over.  Day by day he had found it more
difficult to bear Gheena's careless ignoring of any thought
of love for him.  He was Darby, nothing more.  Just
Darby Dillon, who had always helped her.  Would there
not be something almost of relief in the cessation of
friendly endeavours to isolate the lovers, to place them
alone in chilly sitting-rooms, or send them for walks with
carefully modest references to be sure to go down the yew
walk, or the walk with the laurel hedges?  And life
behind the hedges just the same as in the open; Gheena
unembarrassed, trying to time her quick movements to
the cripple's, Gheena ignoring the word "marriage."  Then
lately, Gheena downcast, moody, with watchful
eyes fixed on the sea; Gheena afraid for the man whom
she suspected, afraid of his unmasking.

A small white face peered into the porch; little Miss
Delorme pushed back an untrammelled length of rose and
spoke feelingly of thorns.

She perched on the unstable bench and chattered for a
minute eagerly.

Mrs. Weston had disappeared and Ned Murphy had
let out that she was a spy and the old Swiss a man with
her.  "Hadn't they found pipes and tobacco in his room
and men's boots and what not, an' he seen to lep to the
car like a mountain goat?"

"She put Gheena up to everything," pattered Psyche,
"to keep suspicion away from herself."

"And Gheena suspected Basil, and Basil suspected the
Professor, and they all ran round in rings," said Darby
smilingly, surprised to find that he could smile.

"Gheena?" asked Miss Delorme.

Darby replied steadily that Gheena was looking after
Mr. Stafford, and was, in fact, going to look after him
for the rest of her life.

Psyche's small face grew peaked and hard.  She looked
at Darby.

"You'll go in to congratulate her," he said quietly.
"I was never really in the hunt, you know.  It was just
a play for me."

"I won't," said Psyche.  "I can't.  Because—she has
made you unhappy!" seemed to almost float back across
the garden full of violets, as Miss Delorme ran away back
to Castle Freyne.

Later, Darby was able to sit listening to Basil talking,
and almost wonder why his pain was not deeper.

Basil Stafford told, laughing at it now, how he had
tracked and watched the old Professor over slippery rocks
and on the sands and along the cliffs.  Also how that it
was quite certain that the Guinanes had knocked down
Nat Leary when he came close to them unexpectedly.
And then put him upon the shale cliff to slip over or no as
Providence ordained.  In fact, Guinane had confessed to it.

"Spying was bad enough," grunted Basil, "but to"—he
looked at Gheena jealously—"dozens of times,"
he burst out, "before everyone's eyes."

Miss Freyne, behind a mantle of blushes, observed
frigidly that Violet was always more affectionate in public
than elsewhere, to which Stafford replied that he trusted
so, somewhat coldly.

When Dearest George heard it he was quite upset.  In
war time he considered trifling with two men was almost
prodigal coquetry.  He gloomed before a large fire until
Matilda told him that Gheena had made up her mind to
go about with Basil's regiment for some years—that is,
if Dearest George thought there would be any regiment
to go about with—as, of course, he would know.

Mr. Freyne, glaring at the fire, then decided that he
would grow potatoes at Girtnamurragh, and also that
Lancelot had played his cards very badly indeed not to
have worked his wounds for more.

Mrs. Freyne thought that it was the fault of the cart
wheel.  "If it had been a gun," she said—"but Gheena
said it was not."

Mr. Freyne grunted again; then he whistled.  He began
to see a vista of many years of saving, with Castle Freyne
at his mercy and a growing quotia of solid investments.

"After all," he said briskly, "she will be much better
away travelling, Matilda, and Darby has an eye like a
hawk, a nasty way of saying things too, behind a smile."

Someone said a smile of gold, startling Dearest George
exceedingly.  He felt sure that it was his wife until she
assured him that she had been silent, so he took to whistling
again and shut the open door.

"Lancelot," said Mrs. Freyne, looking out, "is driving
up in Miss O'Toole's pony trap.  She seems quite attached
to him, don't you think, Dearest?"

Mr. Freyne's reply contained some mention of
grandmothers as he marched to the door to admit Lancelot,
who had forgotten his courtship, and who had
found someone who understood his symptoms.

The installing of Basil Stafford as an invalid at Castle
Freyne, with Gheena waiting on him and and wondering if
she had ever felt alive before, was followed by a spell of
dry weather, chill nights, days of bright sunshine, evenings
and mornings swathed in silver fog.

May was with them, the sea dimpling to her summer
blue, with discreet return to steel in the shade.

Darby stood one morning with his hounds, the scratch
pack, leaping clamorously at the bars, and decided to
take them home.  They knew him now; they would not
run riotously when he let them out, but trot at his horse's
heels.

Hunting was over; Grandjer and Beauty and Greatness
were never likely to come to Dillon's Court again.  The
sadness of all endings tinged his glances at the medley of
hounds.  They had possessed noses, they had hunted
keenly and with infinite patience; they had pulled down
foxes and had given him many hours of pleasure, many
hearty laughs.

It was early morning.  The sun had not lifted the mist
wraiths from the hollows; dew lay everywhere and a
maze of silver gossamer threads caught the glints of
light.  Scarlet anemones, blood red, peered from the beds;
in the front, narcissi were replacing the yellow daffodils.

"I came—you said they were to go back this morning."  Psyche
dropped off Whitebird.  "Oh, I shall never love
anything again as I have running after them, the darlings!
Anne gave me some early breakfast."

"You'll run after real packs," said Darby, "and forget
my assortment."

"But they—the others—will never be my first pack,"
said Psyche with logic, "and I want to stay here with
them."

They pattered out of the yard, the hounds going
dejectedly, the horses stale from working for too long;
Carty's chestnut apathetic even as to whip lashes, Andy
with tears in his eyes.  A wondrous winter had ended and
school loomed before him.  They passed from the mists
to the higher ground, where they could cut across the
hills to the house of Andy's mother.

What brought an old fox out on that May morning,
sunning himself close to a patch of gorse?  And he must
have wondered what brought a pack of mongrel dogs,
all related to hounds, trotting through the heather and
over the shining slates.  Grandjer threw his tongue
almost savagely; the old fox turned tail and fled, and
in a moment the whole pack were yowling in pursuit as he
topped the crest of the hill.

The rusty-coated horses woke up; Andy screamed
Barty's "Forrard away!" rolled down the hillsides, and
the four turned to ride over a country with all the gaps
fenced up, with corn sown, meadows growing.

"This," said Darby philosophically, "will cost me
twenty pounds.  Be careful, Psyche."  Her name
slipped out as Whitebird topped a newly-bushed-up bank
and pecked in the tangle.

"Isn't it great entirely?  That same is Thady Lawless's
rye grass, an' he will be upset over it," piped Andy.
"Have ye the nippers, Barty; there is wire oberight us."

They got round the wire.  Red clods of dry earth, wheat
sown, rattled up from their heels.  The scratch pack
pounced on a breast-high scent down the slopes and into
the fertile valley, with the woods of Dillon's Court on their
left.

Here the old fox was plainly making for Castletown
Roche, four miles ahead and up hill.

"An' a planted counthry," said Andy.  "Look at
Grandjer!  Isn't he the boy?"

Scent failed as the sun rose higher; where the mist
clung hounds ran fast, but more slowly in the open, a
they sped across meadows, while astounded owners
remarked bitterly that it was a damn shame entirely,
until assured by Darby that hounds had got away
were being chased until caught.

"Lie back a field, then," advised Andy, "an' if they
thrun up we could not do that same excuse for the next
man."

"The worst man of all," said Darby, "will be Sir
Hercules Roche.  This is all rye grass we are crossing."

Sorrow died as they galloped, with the horses fencing
accurately, with hounds driving steadily ahead, the
music echoing and ringing, with little Psyche, her face
aglow, close by the Master, crying out in pure rapture,
oblivious of crops or damage.

The first wood of Castletown Roche lay on a steep slope.
The servants, going to the left, got into the place with
difficulty.  Darby pulled up, listening; then he scrambled
off.  The old fox, sorely astonished, had saved his brush,
and was safe in a big rabbit-hole.

Sun had now filtered through the trees; the soft carpet
of mist was almost warm.

"I am no master of hounds.  I am glad he got in,"
said Darby.  "We took him unawares."

"And he'll run next year."  Psyche slipped off, a glow
on her small pale face; she took off her hat, her light gold
hair shining.

"Next year," said Darby.  Through the dreariness of
futurity came a glow bright as that of the unexpected
gallop.  He had come to the moment when he had to
chain sorrow, lest it should surprise him by running away.
Life with Gheena would have been too hard a thing in its
inequality.

"Next year, when Gheena is married, who will want
to keep up the scratch pack?" he said slowly.

They could look down on the budding woods of Darby's
old home—a sea of tender green, with the smoke from the
chimneys filming blurrily in the clear air.  They could see
the glitter and ripple of sea, and far out the grey-green
roll of unsheltered waters.

The old country, the old grey-skied land, had cast
its glamour upon the girl.  She wanted to live there
among the childish, thriftless, and yet industrious people,
who carried young hearts to their graves—where order
and law did not count, and what ought to be done to-day
could always be done to-morrow.  And to her, Darby,
limping, crippled, was man apart, perfect when he rode,
seemingly part of his horses, the hunter of the hounds;
every note in his voice, every look in his kind eyes, were
dear to Psyche.

She must go back to trim order, to neat servants who
toasted muffins admirably, but could not "slap" up
cakes at five minutes' notice; to breakfast at eight-thirty
and lunch at one; to sewing parties and small talk; to
frigid douches of cold water thrown at that dreadful
country, Ireland—a rebels' land, a land of law-breakers;
to hear that hunting was not right in war times.

With her whole heart crying for the lap of the sea,
for the tangle of the humping hills, the brown of the bogs,
she must go.

"If I were here," she whispered, "I should want to——"  She
muttered something of her rebellious objection to
returning to Kent.

Darby saw the glint of tears under the thick lashes.

"If you could stay to hunt hounds with me, little Sprite!"

"Oh, if I could!"

Darby looked again.  He had heard and seen several
things which amazed him.  He knew suddenly how he
would miss the small pale face out hunting, the shining
eyes which he saw whenever he looked over his shoulder;
the admiration in them which he had never dreamt of
seeing in any girl's again.

"Sprite, Sprite, you could not want to stay with Darby
Dillon, who will limp through his life?"

Sorrow rolled up as mists caught by the sun.  He knew
now why he had felt Gheena's loss so lightly.

"Since you peered over my shoulder," he said
unsteadily, "and tallied the squirrel, I think then..."

"Ever since you blew at the hounds," said Psyche.
"If you would keep me here always, Darby!"

Andy, unseen, rode the Rat into view and remarked:
"There's for ye now, an' the fox earthed," and rode
out of view again thoughtfully.

"The sorra a dog will go home this day," he said to
Barty; "so we'll be bilin' agin to-night, an' me name is
not Andy."

But Andy said nothing of what he had seen.  He was
a gentleman.

Even as Andy said, the pack returned to kennels, Darby
riding among them through the hot sunshine; the old house
looked lonely to him no longer.  Already his crippled limb
seemed to grow stronger, and as they rode he planned.

The Castle Freyne motor was at the door, Dearest
George remarking peevishly that he had come over to
look for Miss Delorme, who really must not disappear
before breakfast-time, the result being leathery bacon, as
he no longer used the copper heaters.

Gheena came swinging round from the stables with
Stafford, Crabbit at their heels.  The two matched well,
even if Basil Stafford still looked pale, and knew now that
the old hurt reopened by the wound would not heal for
six months.

"Gheena," said George Freyne, "talks now of being
married next month.  It seems to me heartless, Darby.
And your Aunt, Mona, wishes you to return to Kent.
She is suffering from nerves.  She has written to me."

Miss Delorme said briefly that she was not going.

"But if Dearest George advises it——" said
Mrs. Freyne vaguely.

Gheena ran up to them.  "Dearest is dreadfully upset,"
she said.  "It's Lancelot and Miss O'Toole.  She is going
to marry him.  It isn't nonsense, Dearest, she will."

From Dearest George's next remark he seemed to
think all matrimony nonsense, especially between
unsuitable young people.

"And Miss Delorme's aunt insists," he repeated;
"she is guardian or something joint.  She insists, she says
so."

"I shall not go," said Psyche.

George Freyne started the car gloomily.

"Because I am going to stay here with Darby," said
Psyche softly—"always."

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   THE END

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   *Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Surrey.*

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