Part 15

"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."