Part 7

"It was thinkin' of kapin' the payce mid us, me Dada 'd say," murmured little Andy. "What they kills, Mr. Darby can pay for aisy. They're apt to catch bins, an' they hungered. It was the widow Hefferty's turkeys onst an we never sent thim dogs out empty agin."

At this stage Barty threatened reprisals if Andy did not instantly run away to mind his own bizness; so Andy hovered for a space, repeating that even the least taste of food would quieten the dogs, and then scampered back to the yards.

Darby's active, well-bred bay was being polished until he shone as a horse-chestnut fresh from the husk. The sedate grey, which was Barty's mount, poked a lean head from his loose box, and knew it was hunting again. A liver chestnut, destined to carry Carty, the newly-broke-in second whip, was doing what his rider called rings around his box, induced by the sight of the whip which Carty had only just learnt to crack, and which, so far, had generally hit his horse by mistake.

The chestnut preserved a too lively recollection of how often the thong had found him out in tender places.

"Have ye e'er a polish put on the Rat?" was what Andy demanded, as he seized a clean bridle, and zealously rubbed the bits in sand.

"Let ye put a polish on him yerself, ye pinkeen." Mike, the head groom, raised a heated face.

"He'd clout me with his hindmost legs," remarked Andy soberly, "unless I had a one to howld him."

"Me gran' bits that was clane an' all." Mike left the bridle for Andy, looked at it, and hinted darkly that it was not the Rat but Andy who would have a polish put on his hide if he did not leave his bethers to themselves. Next moment, as Andy trailed tearfully back to the kennels, old Mike stumped growling to the Rat's stable, directing that the pony should be cleaned properly, so that Miss Gheena wouldn't be at them at the meet.

The Rat was a long-tailed, powerful little beast, with the second thighs of a big horse, no shoulder, and a lean, vicious head. If he had been sixteen hands, he would have carried sixteen stone with ease.

He bit and kicked in the stable and ran away out of it; but few more wonderful hunters had been foaled, and his inches made his evil efforts to hunt futile. They had tried him in harness, to the extreme detriment of two pony carts, and with additions to chips for lighting the fires. If they stopped him kicking, he lay down and slumbered stolidly, but Gheena would not part with him.

"The head of that child will open and let out his brains, the sthate he is in," said Mike, looking after Andy. "If he has flithered up to the kennels onst to-day he has done it twinty times, an' the eyes lightin' out of his head. Will ye have Colleen out second, sir?"

This to Darby, who came limping and crippling across the yard.

"A second horse." Darby glared back at the kennels, and suggested that possibly half a horse might be sufficient with the pack which he had gathered together.

"For the huntin' they'll do it might be," said Mike, grinning; "but it is the huntin' ye'll do yerself afther them, Misther Darby, when, maybe, they'll make home on ye, and, sure enough, bein' used to Matt McInerny's bugle, they'll not come to yer own. An' the teasin' they may be afther givin' ye. Will I send Colleen to Drumeneer, sir, at one o'clock, an' Sportsman for Barty? That grey isn't half fit."

Darby went to his breakfast and came out again before he was finished, disturbed by the pursuit of Grandjer and Daisy round the house. Grandjer was, in fact, hot on the line of the stable cat, which took cover just in time, crackling like a live wireless installation from the depths of a holly tree.

"If ye had to quieten them with a taste of mate," panted Andy, when he had entreated Grandjer to give over and come huntin'. "If Barty had to be said by me. 'Ware cats, ye thievin' rogue."

"Where is Barty?" Darby inquired, limping out with his hunting whip.

"It is Greatness an' Doatie he is afther," observed Andy absently, "that got into the chicken yard. We have the resht secured in the coach-house. Would ye flick a clout at Daisy, sir, where he is nosin' in the bushes? There wasn't the thickness of a hair between Grandjer an the ould cat's tail when she treed," confided Andy proudly. "Grandjer is hard to bate, I tell ye. If he had to take afther Dandy, wouldn't he have been the grand terrier afther rots?" he finished regretfully.

Grandjer, leaving the animated Marconi in the tree with sorrow, growled out that it was a pleasure deferred as he yielded to persuasion and trolled towards the yard.

"An' he'll trail a fox as good as a cat," said Andy still more proudly. "We should be off now to be in time."

Barty climbed to the grey's back, age slipping from his withered monkey-like little form as his knees gripped the saddle. In a new pink coat, his little twisted face all aglow under its peaked cap, Darby awoke to a second youth. He could still ride. He was a huntsman once again, with the right to swear respectfully at his superiors and fluently at offending equals. His old hands took up the reins until the grey bent his neck proudly to the light touch, and slipped away with his strong halt exaggerated by his light-hearted pride.

Carty landing with difficulty on to the suspicious chestnut, said "C'o-op thee" knowingly and cracked his whip.

A certain number of hounds pattered out docilely, but Beauty, Grandjer and Daisy sat down and waited for little Andy.

When the lash-stung chestnut had done two maddened circles round the yard and upset Carty on to a barrow full of sand, men on foot used blandishments and threats to induce the three to join the pack.

A small eager face peeped rapturously round a half-open door, for the three were adepts at dodging blows and very few got home.

"They are looking for Andy," suggested Darby.

"Tell that shrimpeen Andy if he does not hurry along I'll tear the nose from his face," yelled Barty at length, his dignity as huntsman spent.

"Didn't ye tell me not to move on until ye were moved on yerself?" shrilled a reproachful voice. "An' I'll be late, says I, an' the price of ye, says you, an' now the gaither on me leg is not even hooked up yet."

Discomfited Barty said several things to himself; aloud, he told Andy that if himself and his pony did not come on the minnit, they might remain inside, an' them three wastrels of dogs with them.

This threat brought forth the Rat and Andy with a rush, the little wicked-eyed pony tearing along with his jaws set and only stopping when he saw hounds, the three renegades falling in happily.

"Didn't I say ye could not go without me?" said Andy. "And if anyone does go without me it will be the Rot," he added a little anxiously, as that animal reared abruptly and then dropped and kicked.

Barty, distinctly raffled, started again, the body of the crooked-legged miscellaneous pack at his heels, with Andy and Carty behind, and behind them the three rebels, now strolling along placidly.

Far off the sea could be seen, grey-blue under a grey-blue haze; before them the hills bumped and twisted, with the narrow-slated banks dividing the fields; here and there brown chasms from which turf had been cut, and the coppery gleam of a stream, and further off some fair pastures with the slates on the banks replaced by growth of gorse and fern. Something had to hold the crumbling treacherous soil together. It took an active horse and a quick jumper to slip over those banks without a fall or scramble, unless they adopted the safer plan of some of the heavy-weights, who stood on them until the fence crumbled into a brown mould of safety.

Darby watched the final start with resignation and a grin. He foresaw complications before him, but at least they were trying to keep things together for the peppery brave little man who was out fighting for his country, and they were not trying to ruin a really good pack.

"We'll pull down a few foxes if we have to get lassoes," said Darby cheerily, going to put on his hunting cap.

The good side of his face was reflected in the glass. He was young and strong despite his injuries; the cheer of a day's hunting was in his blood, and for a moment a flash of hope lit his lurid young eyes. A flash he so seldom saw, or allowed himself to see, that almost with a snarl he turned so that the scarred cheek was reflected and buried the gay hope almost as soon as it was born.

"You fool!" said Darby severely. "You rotten fool! To think!"

"Chicken or egg sandwich, sir?" the antiquated butler inquired in the hall.

"Egg; and provision the car with the chickens. I may appease the pack with them," said Darby grimly.

What a fine old place it was as he looked out across the wide park, the big old trees flaunting in autumn glory, the sea just visible! He might have been running down those steps lightly, with hopes which had not to be smothered at birth and his heart. He might have loved the old place doubly, because he could offer it as a home to a girl whom he cared for; instead of--his hand touched his useless leg; he leant on his stick. "But, hang it, if it were so, I should have been in France and probably crippled for good," said Darby, trying to put care away.

It was on mornings such as these, when he could enjoy part of life, that Care clung closer. He could ride, but must call whole men to open gates or catch his horse for him. He could feel the rush of the wind on his face and the horse between his knees, see hounds hunt, look for his turns and his luck as other men did; but at the finish, when men jumped from their tired horses, he must climb down laboriously, feel the glow dying as he limped to his car or into some house to have tea.

He met the post-boy on the avenue and found a short letter from the Master.

"Keep it going if you can. We're having poor hunting here; but back the old country to kill its fox in the end, for all the croppers they'll take on the way."

Darby drove fast along the narrow bumpy roads, drawing a distinct breath of relief when he saw Barty and the hounds demurely still upon a hill and quite a crowd of people waiting.

There was a lack of smartness about the assemblage. Mrs. O'Gorman from the Bank had only half clipped her stout roan. She said that it seemed wrong to turn out a horse just the same as one would in peace times. There were no new habits and half the familiar faces were gone. Mr. Hefferty, the local dealer, who generally had a string out--at least four horses, shaven and tidied and gingered until their tails stood out as banners, and every semblance of a good point was emphasized--now had only one, a light whity grey with big feet, an animal which would have to be dyed if it ever went on active service.

Someone who had seen a paper was immediately surrounded. How was it? What was the news? Good or bad?

These were the days when people hoped that war could not go on, that it would end suddenly and dramatically because it was too huge to endure; when everyone forgot that its very hugeness would keep it going until money and men failed.

Old Captain Moore, who was fiercely anxious to do something, was even explaining to people at what point our troops would enter Berlin. He had been there twice on a Cook's tour, and he meant to go for another directly there was peace. He had even written about his ticket. Mr. O'Gorman was concerned as to the choice of prisons for the Kaiser and personally blamed that excitable Emperor for the feverish price of oats.

"Spoiling even what's left to us over here!" he said. "Hope they'll give him black bread when they shut him up."

A thousand places for victory were discussed and argued over. Everything was hopeful and nothing ominous of defeat or even of check. Antwerp, after all, was only part of unfortunate Belgium, and its fall made the air clearer.

The communiques were things to be hung over, relied on, and devoured. People believed then that every word from Berlin was an invention.

Then the small field turned its thoughts from war and looked at the hounds.

"Any more adventures, Barty?" Darby asked softly.

"There is one thing, sir." Barty returned an indirect reply. "That hunt or no, they'll get a bit to ate another mornin'. We only tore them off the back of Carty's mother's pig, an' they had three chickens gone from me own aunt while you'll be clappin' an eyelid."

Matilda Freyne asked Dearest George if he thought it would be wise to get up, and was then lifted to the saddle without making any effort to assist in the proceedings. Once there, she consulted Dearest George as to her straps and the adjustment of her reins, and was placidly happy on her quiet horse.

Gheena had forgotten all wars as she endeavoured to persuade her brown mare not to buck. It was so good to be out with any kind of hounds again.

George Freyne having taken his new hunting cap out of a hat-box and adjusted it with pride, shouted to Darby to wait for him, and grew irritable when Darby looked reproachfully at his watch.

"If you had a wife to get fixed up and the hang post late on account of the hang war! Hunting horn only just here in a box not even opened. Here you, Phil, are there straps for it and for the case?"

"They are, sir," said Phil briefly.

Dearest George tore feverishly at the nailed box, injured one of his fingers, and having sucked it noisily, mounted his horse, ordering Phil to open the hang thing and fix it on.

By this time the majority of the small field had collected by the Freynes' motor, feeling that George Freyne was to blame for keeping them waiting and looking at him reproachfully. Mr. O'Gorman remarked "Twenty past" just as the lid of the box cracked open.

"And you'd like it to be forty past if you were late yourself, O'Gorman," snapped Dearest George bitterly. "I'll move on without you often enough. How is a joint master to go out with nothing to play on, blow at--er--sound for his hounds, I should like to know?"

Here Darby wanted patiently to know if Phil was digging trenches or only opening a box.

"I'd say it will not fit on aisy," said Phil dubiously, coming round. He held up a brightly new Klaxon and scratched his head with his free hand.

"I--Matilda!" yelled George Freyne hopelessly.

"Dearest George," said Matilda placidly.

"I--told you--a hunting horn--weeks ago! Years ago! There was a delay in sending it."

"You said the very loudest one, Dearest George," said Matilda pleasantly. "All the stores were short owing to the war. I did wonder what you could fix it on to, but as you said a whistle too. Isn't there a whistle in the box, Phil?"

"Move on, Barty," said Darby with decision.

*CHAPTER VII*

Darby Dillon left his fellow master glaring at the Klaxon horn and rode up to the hounds. There was no eager greeting to him of quick yaps and wagging sterns, but rather a distinctly critical surveillance, and liquid eyes looking for the men on foot whom the pack knew.

Seen gathered together, the scratch pack were not prepossessing.

Darby grinned softly at the varieties of hound types, at Greatness's crooked legs and Daisy's snub nose, and especially at the crop-tailed Grandjer, so nearly related to a terrier.

A fringe of excited onlookers, previous followers of the foot dogs, gathered close, commenting eagerly.

"That is Spinsther, that ye reared, Marty. D'ye call to mind the day he took the trail down be Conellan's dykes, an' we all at the wrong side?"

Marty rubbed his head and recalled the incident.

"An' when he had his pup, didn't he tear meself too," remarked Marty sourly. "A pair of trouser I had on but eighteen months near pulled off me. He is a savage soort of a dog that Spinsther, an' I to rear him an' all with lashin's of milk an' male."

"An' Beauty, he has the nose. When the thrail was losht down anear the say, an' the other dogs on the back thrail, wasn't it Beauty thrun a yowl of his own?"

"Grandjer was the next," put in little Andy, "or maybe the firsht; but Papa had his mind med up he was only thrailin' old Mrs. Day's cat, Grandjer bein' but a puppy then."

"They do be talkin' of the Hunt Club hounds, but we have one fox an' his pups," said the covert keeper. "Five of them no less, an' thank God ye are out to hunt them."

Darby gathered the pack and waved his hand. The hounds looked up at the passage of the dog-skin glove through the air with mild curiosity. Darby waved it again; he uttered somewhat awkwardly a variety of hunting cries.

"Oh, give them a whack, you two, Barty," he said helplessly. "Thrash them in." Carty raised his whip, a motion immediately followed by a frantic bolt of the chestnut round the field.

"Me Dada 'd get up on the furry banks if he did hunt a covert on the sly," piped Andy; "make a lep in himself till all 'd be afther him. Onst they've a taste of the thrail ye can lave them."

Greatness, Daisy and Home Ruler, an enormous tan bitch with one ear, were sneaking off to draw for themselves; the place might be alive with hares.

Andy whipped two back, and Darby yelled at Carty to follow Home Ruler.

"Get round them, you--idiot!" he roared.

Carty, soliloquizing feverishly that it was the world he would be round if the chestnut carried on them games, or maybe chargin' Germans before he knew what was what, endeavoured to steer his nervous steed in the direction of Home Ruler's tan hind-quarters.

But it was Gheena who drove the prodigal back to fox-hunting.

The Field having come out, expected, as fox-hunters will, that this motley collection were to be as well ordered and obedient as Tom Lindlay's pack. Observing the difficulties, they decided, very audibly that it was perhaps better to leave a country alone than to botch it in this fashion; and as it would evidently be of very little use to come out riding, better try on foot.

Mr. O'Gorman, who had, almost forgotten what his feet looked like, said "Yes," briskly, "or in a motor-car."

"You'll have to get off and go in, George," said Darby. "I can't go crippling and hobbling up that bank."

"An' if meself comes along with ye," said Andy. "Blow a blasht on ye're bugle, yer honor, now to hearten them."

George Freyne looked heatedly at the empty case, got down with a grunt, and pompously marched toward the bank.

Violet Weston, brightly pretty in a light fawn coat and completely irregular soft tweed hat, pushed the tall bay through the crowd, watching critically. She was followed by Mr. Keefe, who also wore a hunting cap, quite considering that he was one of the Masters as he had helped with the consultations.

George Freyne clambered on to the bank, calling lustily.

"You must go down within." Andy leapt up and disappeared into the gorse, followed by his three faithful hounds. "Ye must go within like me Dada."

"Yerra, push him out! Hurreh in with ye! Gan out of that, Spinsther! Hurreh in along with ye! Nose him up!"

The foot people arrived breathless and rushed to the rescue.

"It is the prickles they are afeard of. Nose him out, Daisy, ye schamer! Blow a blasht on ye're bugle, sir, and over with ye; they'll folly."

George Freyne's new whistle rang shrilly clear, but he stayed on the bank.

"Get into it, Freyne. Here, I'll try my horn," said Keefe.

"If you've a hunting cap on you get in yourself," bellowed Dearest George irritably. "Come along and get in; if you can blow that--do!"

Darby Dillon rocked on his horse as Keefe, stout and pink, outlined in a very tight pink coat, made importantly for the bank, and standing there, brought forth a husky wheeze of sound, followed by an impotent broken squeak.

"Whip them on to us now!" shouted Keefe. "Now! What is the 'Come in' note, Dillon?--which, this or that?"

"He is just like a pink puff-ball," gasped Gheena, wiping her eyes. "Just! Oh, Darby, what is the 'Come in' note?"

"If he expects me to blow in or out now, I can't," gulped Darby. "Blow away yourself, Keefe; you'll strike it in time."

"If he stopped that poisonous row, they'd come to my whistle," shouted Dearest George, stuttering furiously.

"They have the thrail!" shrilled a small voice wildly.

At that moment Beauty flung a long throaty yowl; Grandjer, dashing to her, echoed and confirmed it with his nondescript yelp. Beauty spoke again emphatically, and now Daisy threw her tongue.

Every hound outside quivered to the sound.

"Hurreh! Hurreh! Hurreh! Folly on there! Nose him out! In with ye all! Get on to it, Parnellite! Schald to ye, Spinsther! Hurreh! Hurreh! Over! Over!"

A mixed pack of hounds and followers dashed towards the cover. There was no hanging back now. Home Ruler's huge body caught Dearest George's legs; his footing was precarious. Spinster followed the charge. Leaping to get clear, George Freyne lost his balance, grabbed at Keefe, and the two went face foremost into the thick gorse, floundering there furiously.

"Well done! Success! Back him up, Colleen! Hurreh on!" shrieked a jealous onlooker.

"Andrew McCarty, if you knocked me in, I will kill you," said George. Freyne as he emerged, a new Venus, from the sea of prickles.

"I did not, but the dogs," returned Andrew contemptuously. "An' shouldn't ye be within? God save us! I'd say the inspector had a wakeness got; he is schriekin' terrible!" Keefe's face, convulsed, appeared above the gorse.

"Just above the boot," howled Keefe, struggling upwards. "A devil of a dog with a black face. I fell on him."

"That was Spinsther," said Andrew McCarty. "It was only agitayted he is to catch the fox. He manes no harm. It was him tore me own trousers; but he had pups the same time."

"To the bone," moaned Keefe, as he floundered to the bank. "An infernal hound, Dillon, has bitten me to the bone."

"All that way," said Darby with interest. "Did he leave the tooth in, Keefe?"

"Lord, they're at him. Yoi! Yoi! Yoi there! Hurreh! Hurreh! Nose him out! Rout him out!" yelled the crowd. "Forrard on! There's tongues for ye."

Ten couples of hounds, most of them throwing the long harrier yowl, Grandjer's shrill tongue audible above the rest. It was music in the still misty day. Hats were crammed down, reins tightened; the small Field surged to the edge of the gorse, peering in.

Two cubs and an old fox doubled and twisted in the thick gorse, the music echoed and deepened.

"Watch them, Barty; see to the gap. I've no breath," said Darby. "Get on your horse, George. You took covert gallantly."

"_If_ it was that Andrew McCarty," said Dearest George murderously. "Am I all pricked, Matilda? Am I? Have you looked at my face?" exploded George mildly, removing a handkerchief dotted with blood.

"I was listening to the hounds and thinking how nicely you jumped in, Dearest George," said Matilda mildly. "But when you came out, of course I asked you why you did it. Oh, he's away! You are slightly pricked."

The old fox leapt lightly into view, ran for a few yards, was headed by the rush of the crowd, and disappeared back into covert.

"Hi! You!" Darby swung round. "You set of spoilsports! Think I can't go for you because they're only harriers. If you don't keep away from that gap and stay where you're told, I'll go and hunt hares with 'em."

"Think I didn't see you, O'Loughlin, away for a start! You set of----"

"It is not too bad at all for the sthart," murmured Barty approvingly. "Get over to this end, please, gentlemen," he roared himself. "Keep your eye on the gap, Mr. Keefe."

Harold Keefe bound a blue-and-white check silk handkerchief round his leg and consulted Mrs. Weston as to hydrophobia. He was faintly sulky when she took no notice, her bright blue eyes fixed excitedly on the rustling gorse.

"He is away!" Darby darted along the edge of the gorse. "Away just outside the fence. Blow, sir, blow them out! God save us alive! look at that!"

For at that moment Grandjer, with a stout cub firmly clamped between his jaws, leapt over the bank, and putting the limp little beast down, commenced to worry it.