Part 16

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.

*CHAPTER XIII*

"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-a-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."