Part 4

"With all this talk of horses," said the Professor patiently, "I wait to play."

When it was decided that he had not gone three diamonds over Basil's three clubs, because when pressed he offered to show that of diamonds he had but one, the game proceeded, some umbrage being taken to Gheena the Professor's partner, leading the ace of diamonds and then another.

"But she might have, in any case," said Violet Weston easily. "Mr. Keefe, what shade is my new horse?"

Keefe, who was standing out, said: "Bay, blood bay, with black points."

"Then it's Casey's with the foreleg, I suppose. We're down two," said Basil.

"It is not," said Keefe, with deepening complexion.

"Slattery's, then. It had such a cold, the remount man wouldn't look at it. They're are the only two bays."

"I will double them," said the Professor viciously, and was almost put out, holding five spades, to find that he had not heard correctly.

Basil Stafford offered to see Gheena home.

It was nearly full-tide; the harbour gleamed under the moonlight, with the shadows black as ink.

The ceaseless voices of the sea whispered through the calm--the distant creak of a boat at anchor, the lap and suck of the tide, the cry of sleepless birds.

Oars plashed, leaving a trail of phosphorescent light, low voices echoed.

"The Guinanes come back for a second load," said Gheena. "Good night. I'll go up from the bathing pool."

She heard his footsteps as he went away, not back to the village, but down along the beach. She saw him light a cigarette for a moment, and then disappear into the black shadows of the cliff.

The hall door at Castle Freyne was still open, a yellow gash of light in the darkened house. Darby Dillon leant on his crutch, waiting for her.

Gheena grew hilarious as she discussed the Bridge and the two bays and the Professor's still too well-preserved German accent.

"Stafford saw you home?"

"Yes--he--he has gone off along the cliffs," said Gheena. "Darby, what kind of a man do you think Basil Stafford is?"

"A decent kind of young fellow--with straight limbs," said Darby slowly.

*CHAPTER IV*

When Captain Lindlay had written from the front in pencil, to say he didn't mind how they killed foxes as long as they kept the people in good humour and the committee agreed, and that they could take lessons from old Barty as to blowing the horn, a committee of four, with a feminine president, formed itself, to get to work as soon as possible.

George Freyne saw financial difficulties, because covert keepers would desire to be paid for a find by Grandjer just as if the Dunkillen hounds had all thrown their tongues in unison; but the absent Master had foreseen and anticipated this, so that Darby was able to talk quite firmly of finance.

"Unless one of those terriers gets into a flock of sheep," he said thoughtfully. "They are coming over to-morrow, Gheena, and old Barty is to teach a man how to boil for them; and I am quite sure that Andy Casey will stay to help." Here he winked at Andy who had come down to get orders.

"We'll hunt with ten couple of fox-hounds' relations and I can toot the 'Gone away.'" Here Mr. Keefe, taking out a hunting-horn, made note hideous and forlorn, but still a sound, and unclasped his pink cheeks from the mouth-piece with a gasp of triumph.

Darby remarked he looked rather like one of the Mons angels when he was at it, and he hoped the pack wouldn't think it was anyone dead in the parish; but, after all, one must learn. Here he brayed out "Gone away" shrilly and clearly, and tried to blow them out with minor success.

Mr. Keefe then commenced to practise again until Mrs. Freyne came in mildly, to ask Dearest George if it was possible that a German band had been wrecked in the harbour; and George Freyne, having shrieked, fingers in ears, for silence, surreptitiously picked up one of the hunting-horns and tried himself.

When Gheena took Darby's she smiled, for old Barty had taught her long ago, and she rang out notes worthy of the absent Master.

"I shall carry one myself," said Gheena proudly. "Dearest, Crabbit will howl if you make that noise again."

To which Dearest retorted hotly that he supposed she had made queer noises herself on the beastly trumpet when she began to learn.

"Four of 'em, with copper wanted for shells, too," said Darby thoughtfully. "Will you be the first whip, then, Gheena? and I'll be the second; any number you like. And George can be Master and Keefe the other."

"If I do it in public, I'll make it a whistle," said Freyne hurriedly. "And Keefe had better, too, judging by the wheezes he made."

"We could raise the horns up and blow the whistles inside them," said Keefe thoughtfully. "But, then, if these two blow horns, how are the dogs to know any order at all?"

"They never did know it," said Darby mildly. "Little Andy will beat them with a whip when they run sheep or pigs, and they have forgotten more about hunting than we ever knew."

"But to take them out of covert," said Keefe, "when it's blank."

"I suppose they'll come when they know it is," said Darby thoughtfully. "You see, they never drew any of ours. What's that, Andy? They often did unbeknownt. I daresay. And as to getting them out--what do you say?"

"If there was a fox inside or any of his pups, they'd root them out," said Andy firmly. "Beauty 'd make 'em lep, I'm tellin' you, an' if the foxes got to the din, me Dada 'd go in with a few rocks; we'd gother an' hunt the dogs away back to us outside."

Darby considered the advisability of the Master, even of a bobbery pack, collecting donations of rocks from his field, and thought it was better to wait until occasion arose to think about it.

George Freyne had got the Stores' list open, and was longing dubiously at lists of whistles. Incidentally, he wondered if Lindlay was one of those jealous fellows who would object to another Master in his absence; and added, after a pause, that he'd heard once of some chap who had his neck broken in a hunting cap. Some Lord Something, so perhaps Darby had better be Master.

He was too much occupied by whistles to hear Darby say that ropes appeared equally dangerous at times, as he directed Mrs. Freyne, who had just oozed in and wondered if it was late, to write to the Stores for the loudest whistle they had.

"With two Masters," said Darby, "I wonder whom the hounds will obey?"

"The sorra the sowl but me Dada," comforted young Andy from the window. "Only Beauty 'd follow meself to destruction, the craythur. He came to mass onst an' rose a bawl, an' Father Pat prayin'! An' not a move out of him till me Dada rocked him with Mrs. Maguire's prayer-book."

"Mrs. De Burgho Keane is late; don't you think so, Dearest?" said Mrs. Freyne, shutting up her letter to the Stores. As it appeared in George Freyne's opinion that Mrs. De Burgho Keane was always too early, Matilda Freyne merely looked out, and said perhaps it was not four-thirty yet.

Just then a motor sounded outside, and a deep voice could be heard giving directions to a chauffeur.

Mrs. De Burgho Keane--to forget the De Burgho was to receive a glance which Darby said struck you like a horse's kick--was immeasurably large, and covered with a great deal of drapery, which made the largeness a mystery. Her coats or mantles, generally edged with beads, floated about her; her veils obliterated the outline of her neck; when skirts were hobbled, she had covered them with dust-coats, and her evening dresses were generally flowing. From this haze of dark-hued costume appeared a commanding countenance, high-nosed and keen-eyed, and framed by a toupee which advertised itself as one, without guile.

She wrapped Mrs. Freyne in her large arms, and looked round for Gheena, who had disappeared out the window.

"When she's busy with a tea-cup, she can't kiss you. I'm going until then," said Gheena from somewhere outside, to Darby.

Mrs. De Burgho Keane was a pessimist who regretted everything. Her glances towards the sea seemed to search it for the flotilla of the invaders which she knew must come; she said no precautions were being taken, they were left open-coasted and alone.

"To hear her talk," said Darby in the corner, "one would say the whole British Fleet ought to patrol the coast of Dunkillen."

"We are not taking it to heart," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane as she floated ponderously to rest. "No one seems to mind. Economy is not being borne in upon the nation. Mrs. Harrison's cakes, when I called there, were just as rich as before August."

Darby looked thoughtfully at the array which the old butler was just putting on the tea-table; there were five, and Anne was rather proud of them all. They had done lightsome with her, she had told the kitchen-maid.

Mrs. De Burgho Keane's glance passed from the cakes to the butler, and she grew fiercely red, ejaculating "Naylour!" angrily.

The butler replied, "Good evening, Ma'am," politely, but nervously.

"Hot cakes? Oh, thank you, Matilda; I should hate to grow stout, but as I walked to the garden to-day I may venture. And good evening, Gheena dear! How nicely browned you are, even so late in the year!"

With the faint nervousness with which everyone addressed Mrs. Keane, Gheena touched her cheeks, and said it was bathing all summer.

"The news," said Mrs. Keane ponderously, "is bad. It is always bad. Why do we not sweep Belgium clear? Why?"

Darby, whose eye she caught, replied that he couldn't say, and offered a sultana cake humbly.

"Why not give it back to them instead of bringing the poor things over here?" said Mrs. De Burgho Keane gloomily. "So expensive, too! I am taking three gardeners, and I am told they have never even learnt English. One can hardly imagine it nowadays. I am looking things in the face," she went on emphatically. "It's no use putting futurity behind your back and hoping it will stay there."

Darby put down his tea-cup and rubbed his head softly.

"So I make it keep itself in the future where it should be. I had all the servants up and I've put my foot on their many eggs firmly, and stopped their jam on Fridays, and weeded out those----"

"Those who could go to the war?" flashed Gheena, the patriot, ceasing to be nervous. "Hanly, of course?"

"Your tea is always so good," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane, ignoring Gheena. "Thank you, Matilda. Do you weigh it out daily? I told old Naylour he would have to do without James, the pantry boy, and do Eustace's valeting as well, as Carty had enlisted; and when he said it was too much for him, I made James butler. I saw old Naylour here," added the lady haughtily.

"He was too old to go to strangers, and we thought we could do with him," said Gheena quietly.

"You remember I asked you, Dearest George," put in Mrs. Freyne, an anxious eye on her visitor. "I asked you twice, and you--what are you saying, Dearest, now?"

Dearest was saying "Damn!" a little too audibly, and looking at the door.

"Yes, Dearest George said that he was quite tired of carving," said Mrs. Freyne, "and Naylour is splendid at it. George had just upset some gravy on his lap the evening I asked him, and I think that helped him to decide. Crabbit will snuffle just when Dearest George is getting to the jointy part of the ducks, and it's so upsetting; very like an earthquake or a serious illness under the table."

"It was I who took him," said Gheena briefly. "He is a dear."

"Then I sent away the cook; she was quite old, too," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane, forgetting Naylour gracefully, "and the present one only needs a scullery maid, and I've put down one housemaid; and told the gardener he must do without old Magee, he only pottered lately. I have thoroughly faced futurity," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane; "even my cakes are only caraway seeds now."

"If they didn't get stuck in one's teeth," said Darby absently, "they make you think of Kuemmel, and that's pleasant. Crabbit, you've had three pieces of sultana cake."

Crabbit laid a witchingly innocent head on Darby's knee, his big liquid eyes looking up sweetly.

"And I got rid of two of Eliza's dogs," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane pleasantly--"those two useless terrier brutes, with a touch of spaniel in them, Gheena."

"Eliza's dogs, what she loved!" Gheena was on her feet, her eyes flaming. "The dogs! You--you----"

"I told the men to do it," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane placidly, "in the lake--quite humanely."

What Gheena might have said was checked by a whisper from the old butler.

"They are both below at me house," he breathed over the tea-cups. "Little Miss Lizzie 'd break the heart in her, the craythur, over them."

Gheena's flush faded slowly. Mrs. Keane was just asking Darby if he did not think of doing something out there. Drive a car even, he could do that.

"I should be more in the way than a help," said Darby after a pause. He seemed to find it hard to answer. "There will be enough cripples going home without a ready-made one going out," he added with a twisted smile.

"What do you think Evangeline De Burgho Keane was born into the world for?" Gheena asked fiercely, watching the lady go towards the garden, from which she would return followed by a youth bearing a bundle of cuttings and plants, and possibly fruit.

"To make us see how nice other people are," said Darby equally. "Keefe, she's calling you now, she's turned back."

Mr. Keefe emerged from behind a newly-lighted pipe to answer humbly.

"I do trust you are looking after your part of it, Mr. Keefe, and not allowing the police to do nothing on bicycles all over the country when there's a war in Europe. Their place should be on the cliffs watching for spies and submarines."

"I've applied for a commission," said Keefe briefly and irrelevantly, "and the coastguards are trebled. These are on the look-out for men on Leeshane and Innisfail, and there is the patrol boat. My part's inland, Mrs. De Burgho Keane, until I get out to fight."

Mrs. Keane--his tone offended her--said that she feared Mrs. Weston would miss him; but no doubt when they took him off to learn drill they would send some old and experienced man to a place of importance.

"It's like slipping down a cliff covered with furze bushes," said Darby, "everything raking you the wrong way, painfully. Gheena, come and see the horses. Cheer up, Keefe."

He began to move so easily that he looked at his twisted limb, and a thrill of hope moved him. Would it ever regain some strength--allow him even to walk without the crutch he detested? He let it--the leg--drag and saw its inert helplessness, and still thought it did not drag so much or fall so uselessly.

The fine day was passing to a chill evening; the sea looked as though all the gun metal of the world had been ground fine and spread over its heavy waters. It gleamed metallically, caught here and there by rays from a sun half hidden by storm clouds. Autumn turned to sterner mood, weary of flawless skies and brilliant sunshine.

The yard at Castle Freyne was a huge place, sunny and sheltered, with rows of stables sunk darkly into its walls. They were roomy places, with square holes in the ceiling to drop hay and straw through; cold in winter, but horses throve hardily in them, if satin coats were unknown. Gheena had established innovations, such as the removal of hay-racks, water supplied constantly, and oat-crushers--all things which caused the fat old coachman to say loftily that her Dada's hunthers and his father's before him, God rest their sowls! wint out with none of that nonsinse, and follyed the dogs as good as thim Miss Gheena worrited over.

Hanly was nearly seventy, and Hanly's father, who was ninety-four, and absorbed sunshine and firelight according to the seasons nearly all day, seated smoking in an arm-chair, could remember when hunting was hunting.

"'Twasn't at airly dinner-hour ye'd be at the meet, but out at six o'clock till 'twas too dark thin, an' so on up till nine, an' none of ye're trapsin' here an' trapsin' there; but wouldn't one good breedy fox often run till they had their stomachs full of it, an' they'd kill him an' be home by twelve or one, an' in to a fine honest male of pounds of beef and geese and turkeys an' lashens of drink."

Old Mat could not be shaken by any tales of improved breeding of fox-hounds.

"Don't you go out to hunt and not to race?" he would pipe. "An' how can ye be watchin' hounds if ivery moment ye think ye're horse 'll give out an' ye be left behind?"

There was no wire those days, according to Mat, and no claims for fowl eaten by foxes, and no doing up of horses when be rights the big house should be shut for the night.

"A gran' dinner at five an' the shutters shut, an' a bed to sleep in that wasn't all twisted iron, full of air-holes, but close and cosy, with curtains around ye."

Matty could pipe out tales of great hunts in those bygone days--hunts lasting for three or four hours after one fox--and tell of Sergeant, the great black weight-carrier, and of Napoleon and Molly, his own two.

Gheena had three horses of her own--two active compact six-year-olds, just the stamp to gallop as well as scramble, and known as Whitebird and Redbird, and a leggy roan mare, which she had purchased herself in the spring, and which she was not at all sure about, called Bluebird.

Dearest George's horses, paid for by his wife, were large and sedate and extremely valuable. A stout strong cob, with legs of iron, carried Matilda in the very hilly country, and a showy whistling bay on other days.

"I brought over that bay to-day," said Keefe, after he had given the unstinted praise due to other people's horses, and yawned twice outside the boxes; there was nothing to be bought here. "The one I wanted for Mrs. Weston. It had a cold when the remount man was round."

"I knew it was Slattery's," said Darby.

Mr. Keefe grunted irritably.

"I've got it here anyhow," he said. "And I told her I would have, so I hoped she'd come over to see it this afternoon quietly. It's standing in that box."

"Pull it out, Phil," commanded Darby; "Mr. Keefe's bay."

Phil pulled out a narrow, very tall bay with black legs and a well-set-on tail, but showing old marks of brushing in front; it had slightly contracted feet and a whistler's jowl. Notwithstanding these faults, the bay could gallop and jump when he was fresh, but two hours' work saw the end of him; and, tired, he clicked his shoes forging, brushed, and stumbled on the roads, and if asked to go on fencing, finished that up by a variety of crumbling falls. Fattened up, he was taking and showy.

"Of all the--I knew him well," said Darby, just as Mrs. Weston tottered through the archway.

"Naylour told me you were all here," she said, "except Mrs De Burgho Keane, whom he didn't seem to count. So I just came along, sans something, as they say in France, don't they? Mr. Keefe said he would have the hunter horse here for me to see."

Mrs Weston was pleasantly fresh in a bright mauve tam-o'-shanter, a white dress, and shoes to match her hat.

"He's just out on view," said Darby; "and don't slip get just behind him or you might lose him and think him was a clothes-line."

Mrs. Weston stepped forward, gave a quick bird-like glance, and began: "Of all the----" Then she stopped suddenly and looked again.

"He is a very nice horse, isn't he?" she said brightly.

"There isn't gap in the country you couldn't slip through on that fellow," remarked Darby, ignoring Keefe's furious eyes. "And you ought to keep him always tail foremost, Mrs. Weston; his is so pretty."

Violet Weston thought it was a love of a tail, very happily. He was not at all like the horses they rode in Australia, she added, much finer-looking; and she thought he might be very nice to run after hounds on.

"Slattery did it often," said Darby tersely to himself and hobbling off.

Keefe, relieved by his absence, now explained the difficulty of getting any horses just at present. People who had very good hunters hid them away for fear they would be commandeered, and all the sixty and seventy-pound screws were sold.

"The most lamentable sight ever I seen," observed Phil, taking the bay for a little stroll down the yard and back again. "The teeth dhragged out of the youngsters to make them the right age, an' ould sthagers taken that ye'd offered oats to feed 'em on it, sthone blind I seen them bought, an' sore with spavins, an' broken-winded. Old car horses ripped out of the shafts an' soult for chargers. Runaways, stoopers, sthaggerers, the sorra a charnst a man would have to run away at all with the craythurs sint out for them," concluded Phil sorrowfully.

"He--has his--forelegs a little near together, hasn't he?" inquired Violet Weston dubiously.

"The way he can't throw dust up betune them," said Phil softly, something very like a wink trembling on his left eyelid.

Mrs. Weston held up a mauve suede shoe to Phil; next moment she was in the saddle, with a white skirt very much rucked up, and a good deal of mauve silk stockings to be seen. She trotted the bay horse out of the gate and put him into a gallop in the field outside.

When everyone had rushed out to see her fall off, they saw that she was quite at home in a man's saddle, and if she did not ride over well, yet knew how to stay on.

Returning with the bay all out, Mrs. Weston had only just time to avoid Mrs. De Burgho Keane, who fled aside with a scream and then halted to stare icily at the mauve legs.

"I couldn't hold on sideways," said Violet Weston apologetically; "and, of course, I'd wear boots. He won't be very dear, will he, Mr. Keefe, because I want a new fur coat as well?"

Mr. Keefe said sixty pounds with a faint quiver in his voice. "And a dozen of gloves for luck," he said gallantly.

"I'd rather have a bridle," said Mrs. Weston pleasantly. "And there is only a kind of shed which Tom Guinane says he must put a door to; but I expect the horse will do nicely."

The old saw of Romford's, "I'm too much of a gentleman," rang in Keefe's head.

"If we really are going to have hunting, and you say horses are so hard to find," went on Mrs. Weston pleasantly.

Keefe thought ruefully of the string of horses which would be trotted towards the front gate of Seaview directly Violet Weston made her intention of hunting known. Prompt decision would alone save him from loss on his gamble, for he had bought the narrow bay.

Mrs. De Burgho Keane looking on, now declared that if, as her husband informed her, foxes must be killed, they ought to be shot, and not make the country a laughing stock by running about after the Caseys' foot pack. The earths could be closed and the animals dislodged with terriers and good shots stationed. "Now you are able to shoot still, Darby?"

Darby said "Yes," with the same twisted smile.

"And the foxes killed, the skins could be sold for the Blue Cross Fund," said the lady decidedly.

She held the public ear as she put forward the absolute wickedness of spending money upon hunters when every penny was, and would be, wanted for the war.

"If everyone gave up keeping everything, it seems to me that a lot of people would starve," said Darby gravely. "Out-of-place servants who cannot join the army are rather at a discount this year. If we all did nothing always, we should make a lot of riches and create a lot of poverty."

"If you are sure she will get over the fences," said Violet Weston, "I will buy him. And can I call it Britannia or Commander-in-Chief?"

Darby mildly suggested Equator, because it was a line, and was coldly turned away from.

Harold Keefe drew a breath of sheer relief.

"I'll have the cob with the curbs for myself now," he thought blissfully, "out of the profit."

"You are going to take it without a vet.?" said Gheena. "Are you? You warrant it, Mr. Keefe?"

Mr. Keefe's pained expression rested on the Commander-in-Chief's hocks, and he said warmly that he'd warrant it fit to hunt, for it never went lame on them.