Part 13

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."

*CHAPTER XI*

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 toupee, 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."