Part 8

"Didn't I tell ye Grandjer was the dog?" screamed Andy, flying out. "He is thrackin' that one now since the commincemint, an' never left him."

"We'll have to break this one up, then, I suppose," said Darby. "We must do the right thing."

Grandjer worried and growled and tore. He was screened from view by a big stone and a clump of brambles.

"He will ate it be himself," said Andy. "Do ye go afther the ould fox, sir; none'll know."

Darby looked at Barty, and Barty grinned.

"Be the time someone is bit getting away the fox, the other one'll be at Durra," he whispered. "And why should we lose a hunt acclimatizing this lot to do right, when, with the help of God, the Kayser'll be dead and our own hounds out again next October?"

"But," said Darby, "well, then. Forrard on!"

"He won't ate it all," said Andy. "He'll tiren, an' unless Mr. Keefe bein' bit already wouldn't so much mind another, I'd say whoever went to take it'd get a quare nip."

"Toot" went Darby's horn. "Shrr," George Freyne's whistle. A grating gurgle emanated from Keefe. Slowly hounds dribbled out, but surely, everyone hunting. When he got three couple together, Darby went away, wondering vaguely if he would ever see any of the other which was still conscientiously towling and yowling in covert.

Home Ruler, distantly related to a deer-hound, could travel; she flung herself on the line, with Beauty close behind and Greatness yowling joyously.

Grandjer, finding his fox high and tough, especially as there was no one to dispute it with him, picked up his kill and galloped in pursuit of the charge.

The fox had been gone some time, and scent, the mysterious, was not too good. Home Ruler, dashing light-heartedly in front, threw up her big head suddenly. The remainder of the pack, all hunting zealously, towled into view, coming undisturbed through the horses. Grandjer dropped his cub and galloped down to his companions. It was his sharp yap which rang out as he passed Home Ruler and spoke on the line. Then "Yow-Ow," the long-drawn musical harrier notes, as at a fair pace they pressed on. The going was light on the top of the hill, the banks fair and sound. What matter if Dandy's pup was leading, his docked stump quivering! They were hunting. Slowly but surely they dipped into Durra, a big place in a hollow, and circled round it until it was evident that the unpressed fox had gone back to covert.

"We'll be a long time killing one this way," remarked Darby, watching the pack spread out as they checked.

"And if we do not kill, we are practically of no use." George Freyne would have been supremely happy if his face had not worried him. He knew the line of gaps coming across; he had ridden, as became a Master, in the van, and he was now wondering if blowing his whistle would be a good thing just to remind people of his position.

"The men up at the covert said they were looking for a kill, Darby."

"And we might have had one," said Darby, "if we'd tackled that cub." He looked guiltily at his companions and Barty coughed.

"Beauty has it! Listen to her now! Hurreh on, Beauty! All to Beauty!" yelled little Andy.

The child had lost his cap, his hands were bleeding. The Rat had gone exactly as he chose, but Andy had in these crowded minutes tasted nectar.

That ecstatic jump on to the high bounds bank, the crawl along the top, all but swept off by a branch, the blissful leap straight off the road over a coped wall, with everyone else going in at the gate, the bumping rush through the crowd at the beginning--all these things had gone as wine to young Andy's head.

Might the war go on for ever if it meant his having the Rat to ride on.

Violet Weston, a little ruffled, a brickish red forge showing through the powder on her cheeks, rode up close to Keefe.

"This horse makes a very curious sound when going up a hill," she said a little coldly, "and he seems to find it hard also to do so; also, he stumbled at the banks."

"You--er--rode him at a very high place," said Keefe a little nervously. "That bounds fence is full of rabbit-holes."

"Well, he is very nice to look out, but I say----" Violet Weston turned to beam at Stafford.

"I was just saying this horse makes such a funny gurgle running up hill," she said, "and I shall be disappointed if he is not really a good hunting animal. After paying sixty pounds, too, for the thing. What is that noise, Mr. Stafford?"

"Intake or out-take?" said Stafford, his eyes glued to the persevering Beauty, who was feathering on to the line, with Grandjer dashing wildly about close to her.

"Oh, intake, certain," said Mrs. Weston grimly; and she added rapidly: "What does that mean? It's a shrill noise."

"He was a whistler, an' he a colt," remarked a voice close by. "An' if you do not aise him up the hills, miss, he will tangle in the banks an' his breath gone from him."

"I told you--there was a slight 'if,'" said Keefe, adjusting his hunting cap peevishly. "I said so not enough to stop him. You can't get sound horses this year for small sums."

"They wouldn't pass him for th' army," murmured the same voice in the background. "Twenty pound Tom Talty said, but it was his ankles, an' not the wind."

"They have got it. Forrard on!" yelled Mr. Keefe enthusiastically. "Forrard away!"

Beauty and Grandjer rushed to the cheer which was followed by the thunderous advance of Darby and a heated request to the third Master to let hounds alone when they were puzzling matters out for themselves.

"One of them threw his tongue," said Keefe snappishly.

"He did when Annette Freyne's mare kicked him. So would you," returned Darby dryly.

"If you're anxious to hunt this for yourself," he went on, his voice raised, "do it. You're all over the place. Get the Field up, somebody. Get them back to the clump of trees."

George Freyne, blowing his whistle, rode backwards and forwards busily, right over the line.

"If the Master was not in France he would be dead with the rage an' he here to-day, annyways," said old Barty bitterly. "His breath 'd never see him out with what's doin' here this hour past."

"Will I carry on Beauty or Grandjer?" whispered Andy, "beyant anear the sunk fence where he must have gone over? They won't folly himself or yerself," added Andy wisely.

Beauty's nose went down when she was clear of the crowd. With a long-drawn ecstatic yowl she declared that their fox had gone that way. Grandjer dashed over and spoke to it beyond, the whole pack coming towling melodiously to do their part.

They were patient. It often took three or four hours to wear down a hare. There was very seldom anyone to hurry or help them when they checked, and they were used to their own leisurely ways and their own melodious fashion of puzzling things out. They settled down to it again now, stringing out, every hound hunting without faith or reliance on the one in front, Home Ruler bringing up the rear, her great bulk wearing her out speedily.

Mrs. Weston kicked her spurred heels into the tall bay and put him at his scratchy gallop at the sunk fence, which he rose at gallantly some three feet too soon, and then blundered on his head at the far side.

"She can ride," thought Darby approvingly, as he watched the widow pick the horse up, digging her heels in again to reward him for his blunder with a savage thump of her whip.

Hounds carried on across the road and swung left into some low-lying land cut across by small deep ditches. The little Rat, his wicked head either high in the air or stretched out almost touching the earth, hung among the tail hounds, young Andy quite incapable of anything except sticking limpet-like to the low shoulders in front of him. Their fox had evidently been headed on the road, and not being hurried, had loped off to try a gullet in the bog. Finding this stopped, he turned up again for the covert. The ground was squelchy and holding; the edges of the small dykes were of crumbling peaty earth. Horses bucked and scrambled across, labouring in the deep going.

Several wise people were proceeding leisurely along the high ground to the covert, riding an easy line of gaps.

"We will be apt to meet the Croompaun this course," said Barty to Darby, "an' it will be ugly with all the grass above on it."

The Croompaun was a blend of bog drain and stone-faced bank, fencing the end of the bog. It was a nasty jump coming down from the gorse, when a horse could get fairly easily on to the bank, and what Barty called, settle himself before he made his effort to shoot out over the wide bog drain; but going up it took a really bold horse to get on to the bank far enough to avoid an ugly scramble or an extremely probable topple back.

"We are for it and it's half a mile round," said Darby philosophically.

"That bye Andy will be apt to be kilt at it," observed Barty, "on that skelp of a pony."

Splash! The leading hounds sent up sprays of amber-hued water, and then scrambled up the stony, treacherous bank, now overgrown with long, coarse tufts of grass and trails of bramble.

Darby held his breath as the Rat altered the position of his lean, pointed head, putting it straight up, and cocked his lop ears with complete determination. Next moment he hurled his powerful little body high in the air, landed seemingly on a mere tussock, and with the scratch of steel on stone, was safe on the top.

"Good Begonnes!" said old Barty. "Have a care of that Home Ruler, Misther Darby; she is undther your feet."

Darby pulled his horse together in the deep churning ground. A fall to him was an ugly thing, but he had no thought of it as he faced the Croompaun.

His active little horse rose with a grunt of effort, landing safely with his hind legs well under him, just as Barty rolled actively from the grey's back; that animal, relieved of weight, managed to get up somehow. The chestnut settled matters by refusing honestly, ridden, it must be owned, rather half-heartedly by Carty.

The two other black caps pulled up immediately, considerately remembering that Hunt servants must be attended to.

"Hold him at it and I'll whip him for you," said Dearest George, unloosing his thong.

At the sound of the swish the chestnut swerved with the swiftness of an acrobat, and declined to be straightened again.

"It will be quicker, maybe, to go around than to be swhervin' for half an hour," said Carty nervously. "Aisy, sir, he is in dread of a whip."

Gheena and Stafford got over side by side, and the tall bay, completely blown, simply slipped in to cool himself, Violet Weston shooting off with a shriek of wrath.

"I never saw a woman leather a horse so hard," said George Freyne afterwards. "She clouted him up to the place you can land, and never asked a soul to help her."

The few who had got over galloped on over light land, galloped and sometimes trotted, for scent was none too good, and the scratch pack did not mean to hurry themselves.

"Take us a long time to kill a fox at this rate, Barty," said Darby. "Eh?"

"They'll eat him in covert if he has no wish to break out again," said Barty; "an' that same will be no good thing this hour of the year."

"They have the thrail losht," said Andy as the rat stopped.

They had, just where Grandjer had dropped the limp remains of the cub. He recognized his prey now pouncing at it with a growl. Darby looked at the Field, which had short-cutted, and were just coming into view three fields away. Gheena and Stafford, stopped by wire, were some way behind. And the avoiders of the Croompaun were only looping the hill.

Spurs went in and bridles were shaken as Darby sent a blood-curdling yell of triumph echoing across the still day. It seemed mixed up with "Have it, Grandjer! Have it!" And this was followed by Barty's trained screech and a still "Who-whoop!" from Andy.

The new pack, the foot dogs, had run into their fox handsomely in the open.

"Yoi-i, there! Who-whoop!" Barty was dexterously removing brush marks and pads before he held the carcass above his head in the midst of the slightly interested hounds, Grandjer alone showing what he thought of the matter by snapping at Barty's legs and growling savagely.

"Well done! Bravo! Just what's wanted! How they must have bustled him!"

"Yoi-i, there! Worry! worry! worry! You would never make dacent fox-hounds of thim," said Barty disgustedly, "so what the odds!"

"Me Dada schnaps the hares if he is up quick enough," said Andy thoughtfully; "an' whin he is not, there is no one to be nisin', so they are not acclimatized to what ye are bawlin' out."

"The finest thing that could happen. We may congratulate ourselves," gasped Freyne. "Tally ho! Tear him and eat him! Tally ho!"

"Hi, puss, puss! Hurreh! Hurreh!" chorused the arriving foot contingent. "Yerra ate him! Hi, puss!"

"There is one fox pasht in half an hour back," added the covert keeper. "Had ye two in front of ye, sir? Ar'n't they wondthers for what they look like, thim dogs!"

"Dearest George, I took your advice and came across high ground," remarked Mrs. Freyne, ambling up. "We all saw you riding away from the Croompaun. I should have been afraid you had fallen in, but I saw your hunting cap going round so plainly and so sensibly."

George Freyne said nothing rather expressively. It was a little hard on a man who had just been telling his cousin Annette the dangers which she had escaped in the bog, and how hounds had flown down there.

"And, by the way, Annette, I thank you to buy tuppenceworth of red ribbon for that mare's tail," put in Darby. "Home Ruler is quite lame where you kicked her. She was last all the way."

"She is always lasht afther she is first for ten minutes," murmured Andy. "Me Dada says it is the weight of him, and that some of his fambly was mastiffs an' them yally saintly dogs."

The next covert was three miles off, and hounds, now learning something of their new work, pattered in fair order along a stony road. There was a faint diversion occasioned by Grandjer almost chopping a cat, one which Andy explained he was near to get offin befour, she having dragged her claws down his face onst an' got away from him.

The next covert was a straggling place, a long wood of fir and young larch with a few dubiously rideable paths in it. It was the last place to come to with the new pack, which enjoyed itself completely in its own way: Some hunting rabbits; four couple solemnly towling after a hare, and the rest disappearing in different directions. Barty viewed a fox away, but all their looking and whistling could only produce a dribble of hounds.

The foot people had been left behind; there was no one to drive the pack out in time to do anything. But Greatness presently elected to get on the line of a fox and gather some friends with her, which fox they solemnly hunted round and round, stolidly and carefully, until Beauty marked him in a rabbit burrow and watched Grandjer try to dig him out.

With the aid of the terrier he was bolted and killed.

The thick mist of the morning had crept up again, grey and clammy. It hung with a stillness through which voices echoed hollowly, and great drops began to collect on the branches.

Harold Keefe shivered in the chill, proffering apologies to Mrs. Weston for any fancied shortcomings in the bay horse; Mrs. Weston, with her legs very damp and her boots full of water, receiving them quite graciously.

"Oh, I'm sure you meant him to be a dear horse!" she said good-humouredly. "And perhaps when he's hunted more he'll have more breath and less waist. I couldn't keep the girths tight. What a day for Germans to land!" she added with a shiver, peering into the mist. "What's that, Mr. Stafford? There would be nothing to stop them if they did. You've got the wireless to call for help."

"I fancy--that before they landed that the wireless would be arranged about," he said thoughtfully, tapping his boot. "It wouldn't do to have the power of summoning any of the fleet, would it?"

Gheena Freyne stopped listening to the hounds and edged her horse closer.

"A few men in their pay could account for the small guard on the station. And if the transports once got in the men could do a lot of harm before they went out again or were caught." He had got off his horse and was holding one hand to his side as if something hurt him.

"They'll be all so horribly beaten by Christmas there won't be anyone to come," declared Violet Weston optimistically. "You don't think the old Professor is taking notes of the coast, do you, Mr. Stafford?"

"Not that I----" Stafford stopped. "They're coming past this way again," he said. "I don't envy Darby all this time."

The fog came down so thickly that Darby gathered the pack and decided to go home. He had at least vindicated his start by killing two foxes and having some fun.

It was more to Andy's shrill pipe than the horn which brought hounds out, a great many of them suspiciously red about the mouth.

"They enjoy a place like that," said Andy happily, "with rabbits galore."

"When they get into it, Barty," said Darby as they jogged homewards, "and keep together and get on a little faster, they might show us some fun, after all."

"They'll show ye what noses can do," said Barty grimly. "But harriers with a taste of tarrier an' God knows what they was whelped, and harriers with a taste of tarrier they'll die. Wasn't that Grandjer digging the fox out, no less?"

They would pass close to Castle Freyne. The cars came up looking for them, and Gheena asked everyone to tea.

"I'll drive you, Gheena," Darby said, his voice muffled in the mist.

He climbed down slowly. On his horse he had been upright and good to look at; now he limped and shuffled towards the car, catching at it to support him.

"And you, Stafford?" he said. "Cantillon there would take your horse back for you."

"Mr. Stafford will probably want to get back to his work as he's been out all day," suggested Gheena frostily.

Basil Stafford observed mildly that it was undoubtedly a nice light evening to direct drainage works on, but he thought that he would wait until next day.

"Gheena"--Darby climbed into his car--"Gheena, the Croompaun was a very big leap for you to-day on that new mare of yours."

"You saw her do it?" she asked.

"I generally see you do things," he answered slowly, a rasp of pain in his voice.

Matilda Freyne had ambled homewards some two hours before. She was watching old Naylour pack up the Klaxon when they got in, and explaining how disappointed Mr. Freyne had been.

"If one could have an attachment to a saddle for that, Naylour," she said, "it would make a far better noise than he ever will with his mouth, wouldn't it? And a whistle is so undignified, is it not? And there you all are! And you are very tired, Dearest. And will you have your bath before your poached eggs, Dearest George, because both are ready?"

Darby said he thought that possibly the bath might be the easier to keep hot if it was still in the taps. He was then waylaid by Gheena at the dining-room door, Crabbit gyrating at her feet, worrying her muddy boots, and twisting himself into equine knots in his joy.

"Darby, I couldn't ask you. How did they kill that fox in the open like that? Was he sitting down in the fence?"

"He was," said Darby briefly.

"An' he was a cub. An old fox went away."

The corners of Darby's mouth relaxed visibly.

"Well, Grandjer snapped a cub in the morning," he said softly, "and must have carried it along; and when we met it, what Barty said was: 'If we lights down and who-whoops him, sorra the sowl 'll be the wiser, but all well playzed. Thim livin' round the covert extry so. An' Andy 'll kape a sthill tongue.' And Andy said his own Mama wouldn't twist it out of him in purgathory, and it didn't seem to matter what one does with that pack; so--well, it was a great beginning."

"Oh, Darby!" said Gheena faintly.

"I doubt if the best English packs would care for me as a Master; that is, if we write an account of it to the _Field_," whispered Darby. "Will you send one, Gheena?"

"I would not disgrace the County," said Gheena hysterically. "Dearest is telling them all now how he accounted for that fox."

*CHAPTER VIII*

Gheena Freyne knitted with unskilful rapidity and stared disconsolately at a blurred and bitter afternoon. The sea whined and moaned in the harbour, a liquid carpet of warship tint broken by peevish flakes of white. Gheena could hear it because she had the window wide open, cooling the hot air of the long, rather shabby room, before her stepfather came stamping in to shut it emphatically and mutter ill-humouredly as to violent chills.

There was a constant jar as of ill-fitting machinery in motion between Gheena and George Freyne. His fussy love of authority frothed at Gheena to roll back spent and broken into angry fume, her mother's complete and somewhat elusive submission making it even more difficult to bear.

It was elusive because Mrs. Freyne having duly received Dearest George's advice and commands, perhaps as to dinner, would amble down to the kitchen and then take Anne's advice there to save trouble, causing such faint shocks as pheasants for dinner, which George had ordered to be hung for another week, or beefsteak when the economy of mutton had been heavily counselled.

"Well, you see, we did send for mutton, Dearest, and Mullcahy--what did he say, Naylour?"

"That the teeth in ye're head 'd be left is all he had in the shop, Ma'am, it was that fresh."

"Exactly, Dearest. And I thought that really at a penny a pound the dentist would soon equalize; so this is only off the sirloin we bought, George dearest."

In the same way Matilda took the latest advice from grooms and chauffeur. Still, it was better than Gheena, who took none at all, but listened with her grey-green eyes glinting, preserved complete silence, and did exactly as she thought best.

"Shut that window, Gheena--storms of rain and wind and a gale blowing in!" Bang went the sash.

"I've admitted some oxygen," said Gheena equably. "You'd better unwind yourself gently, Dearest; you got three strands round your ankles making that rush."

"And the fire roaring up the chimney with coals at their present price. Well, if it is turf and wood, there won't be wood always."

"Take one step backwards--now turn round," said Gheena. "Thank you. Don't break it; think of the soldiers in France."

The unbroken gloom of the day had irritated her. She looked at the grate and remembered--Gheena was too generous to recall it often--that it was her father's money which paid for everything, and that in a few years' time the house would be her own.

"And your insensate habit of sleeping in a gale," grumbled George Freyne, "smashed the Chippendale table at your window last night. I met Maria carrying it down with a leg gone. It is a valuable table."

"Was," suggested Gheena, her needles flashing. "Tom Malone put a deal leg on."

Her stepfather eyed her a little anxiously. The question of Gheena's future worried him. The thought of the Dower House in winter was almost intolerable. When Gheena married, Castle Freyne would belong to her absolutely, and if she chose an unpliable husband, it would certainly mean turning out. The war and its burdens curtailed the savings which Dearest George was amassing and--he had been out to the yard and found two new and unneeded men there, taken by Gheena because they had been dismissed, one by an economizer and one whose master had been killed in the war.

"Instead of economizing, you and your mother are always reckless," he burst out. "Two old men taken on, Dillon and O'Leary, useless old dodderers, eating in the kitchen, with tea and sugar and flour at their present prices. And oats--I have ordered nothing but black oats for the future, Gheena, for the horses, and I sent away a man who brought white."