Part 10

"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.

*CHAPTER IX*

"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.