Front matter

Author of "The Strayings of Sandy," "Meave," etc.

LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO. PATERNOSTER ROW 1916

THE SCRATCH PACK

CHAPTER I

"If there even appeared to be the faintest reason for his not going into something," said Gheena severely. Then she put her hand on the collar of the nondescript cur named Crabbit, an animal which was not precisely an Irish terrier and not quite a retriever, had some distant connections in the house of spaniels, and other relations too varied to trace, the result of this liberally scattered ancestry being endowed with a silky-red coat, and liquid, truthful eyes which expressed his powers of affection, but not the original sin behind his broad forehead.

"You will get a cold in your nose and snuffle at dinner if you go into the water again, Crabbit. No, sir! If there could be the faintest reason for it," went on Gheena Freyne. "If he was like Dick Kennedy, who has no one to help him, or half blind like Professor Brown, or couldn't walk——" She stopped, flushing, and took up her knitting.

"Like me—yes, Gheena." The words came lightly, but a little half stifled twisted sigh slipped from Darby Dillon's lips. Darby had been a light-hearted, long-limbed soldier in days of peace. If you saw him sitting down or in the saddle, and came up at his right side, he was apparently long limbed and good-looking still: a lean well-built man of about thirty-five, but at the left side Darby's shoulder stooped; he shuffled with one limb stiff and useless, generally with a crutch under his shoulder.

A crashing fall playing polo on hard Egyptian ground had left him maimed and crippled.

"I—did.... I wasn't. He's gone again," said Gheena philosophically.

A streak of red had tumbled over the brow of the low cliff, and a resounding splash marked the fact that Crabbit was once more in hot pursuit of seagulls, the hope to seize one unawares being embedded deeply in him.

"He is off to that rock where they all sit on. Mother gets quite worried when he snuffles under her chair and thinks it is bits or perhaps he is going mad. Why do some people"—Gheena whistled impotently—"never get a grip of life, Darby? Mummie can't ever think about Crabbit without asking Dearest if it isn't right—Aren't the dog's nose noises suspicious? Darby—I—I never meant to refer to anyone."

Darby said cheerily that he knew it, and that one got used to a lost leg, even if it meant other losses—here his eyes clouded—and that a fellow who could sit on a saddle need never grumble.

They sat silent then, looking across the sea; the great endless water carpet was grey under a grey sky, always moving with froth of spray on its lips when it touched the shore, here and there a line of white breaking over some hidden rock, its steely heaving distance merging to the moving sky. Far off the smudge of smoke marked the track of a liner standing out, and two fishing boats, red-sailed, were creeping into harbour. The sea-birds cried their curiously eerie notes, a little stretch of golden sand sandwiched between the rocks was fringed with pipers skimming on their infinitesimal legs, and here and there a breathless and outraged gull eyeing Crabbit irritably.

The peace of late autumn was on the world; smoke curled up lazily from the little stone chimneys; children were gathering seaweed and carrying it up to dry. Red war seemed impossible as the two looked out across the heaving, dimpling sea.

The cliffs, covered with short, sweet grass, ran at Duncahir to the V of a small deep harbour, shaded by high hills at the back, shadowing it chilly. Beyond the shadow of the hills stretched a tangle of jutting rocks hollowed by innumerable caves, out to where the Atlantic beat and surged on the higher cliffs outside, and, skipping, trod its brave way to and fro to distant ports.

The mouth of the inlet was wide, and generally rough with the swell and rush of cross currents.

In the soft salty air fuchsias flourished, their blazing bells in every sheltered nook, and planted in hedges for shelter.

In a hollow near the mouth of the harbour, battered trees protesting against their position as mere protection from roaring gales, Castle Freyne stood, tall and rambling, with all kinds of semi-tropical flowers growing in the garden, and its rows of blind windows staring reproachfully among open-eyed glassed fellows.

The village of Duncahir hung upon the very edge of the cliffs with an air of supreme pride because it did not topple over, so close were the houses built to where the land broke off and the sudden rent all fuchsia-edged.

The Freynes had once owned all the mountain and bog and flat lands along the east side of the harbour, and had now disposed of it with cheer; this sentiment lessened when it appeared that the tenants of the estate still expected to have defunct calves replaced, help given with carts and horses and all the old benefits which a patient landlady had conferred on them.

Matilda Freyne, Gheena's mother, had acquiesced with every decision made for her in life save one—her own name. She had detested it in her childhood, turned it to Matty and Mat and Tilda during her girlhood, and then dared anyone worthy of the name of friend to call her by any of these abbreviations, as they were worse than the original.

She had seriously thought of becoming Genevieve when confirmed, but having some vague idea that a change of name was irrefutably coupled with immersion, and her hair being straight by nature, she refrained, holding a grievance for years afterwards against the clergyman because he had not fully explained a subject which she here consulted him.

On her wedding day the "I Matilda" was spoken so faintly that an agitated mother held out strong smelling-salts and quite upset the ceremony. It took the Bishop, a nervous man, five minutes to recover, because he had been bending over to whisper reassurance to the faint-voiced bride at the moment.

In the vestry Matilda viciously upset the ink-bottle over the registry book, thus obliterating every signature except her own.

When her first child was born and proved to be a girl, Mrs. Freyne decided that at least she should not be burdened with one hideous name. Her child's was to be Irish and the name of a flower. Very weak-minded people have occasional outbursts of complete obstinacy, and when Major Freyne, who was very deaf, insisted on the family name of Annette or Caroline, Matilda, his wife, merely sent for the gardener and asked for information about Irish flowers.

When Hallinan scratched his head and seemed to think of nothing but Push och Bui and Cruve tharrig, Mrs. Freyne was still determined, but undecided. She held the baby herself at the font, had a flash of inspiration five minutes beforehand, and pronounced its name firmly—Carrigeen.

It was sufficiently like Caroline to escape her husband's notice, and when the astounded Mr. Hallinan, who was too well acquainted with the word, said "Eh, what?" Matilda Freyne repeated it hurriedly and firmly.

When it was pointed out to her—and, in fact, she remembered that Carrigeen was a certain edible seaweed—Mrs. Freyne said gloomily that at least it was not Matilda, and bent before the blast of marital wrath, with what Major Freyne called heatedly the aggravation of a sally bough.

When Carrigeen could no longer be Baby or Doatie she certainly could not be Carrig or Een, and it was the nurse who settled the matter by calling her Miss Gheena, with an "h" introduced.

Major Freyne was taken early to his fathers, and his wife being quite unable to decide anything for herself, drifted into matrimony with a somewhat peppery cousin, who resented Gheena's ultimate inheritance of Castle Freyne at her marriage and the prospect of the dower house, Girtnamurragh, for himself.

Gheena was slight, with very bright brown hair, seldom burdened with a hat; a skin browned to a very soft tan, grey-blue eyes, a crooked smile and a determined will.

"Crabbit very nearly got a gull, Darby; he is snapping at jelly-fish now and coming in. And why you men don't say something!"

Darby Dillon observed patiently that if an American citizen chose to come to Duncahir for his health, they really had no right to criticize.

Gheena returned severely that she did not believe that Basil Stafford had any right either to America or ill-health, and got up.

The sun was setting, and through a rift in the pack of clouds came bars of amber and gold, turning Innisfail island to a dome of misty purple, and Leeshane to a low hump of mauve.

"If Mom did not cry and talk of her heart I'd go out myself," said Gheena, dropping three stitches in her excitement, her needles clicking and flashing feverishly.

"And if I went, no one here would knit. I caught that hateful Maria Casey doing fancy work yesterday, and Annette Freyne making a mitten which might do for a sandbag. There is even no hope of hunting. Hill has gone now. I tell you, Darby, I believe—I really believe that he's—that Stafford man—a——"

"It was hot enough to take a swim this morning," said Basil Stafford easily. "You might have come out, Miss Freyne, when I was doing aquatic feats."

Gheena knitted faster still. She looked up, frowning, at a nondescript and active young man, with pleasant eyes and a somewhat grim mouth, who was standing close to them.

"Coming like—like—a man in rubber shoes! You might be out after spies," said Gheena sarcastically.

"It was after Carrigeen at low tide," said the young man gravely, showing a basket of white seaweed, to prove that the remark was not personal. "The news is none too cheery," he added gravely, looking down at a telegraph-form.

Gheena pulled at the flimsy slip, to read something concerning cows, sheep, pigs and several numbers, and to grunt suspiciously.

"The newspaper office sends them to me in code," said Basil softly. "I get so much more for my money that way." He translated a long message, and Gheena's lips drooped until her eyes grew angry.

With the energy and skill of the amateur strategist, she immediately explained how completely everything had been muddled.

"How, if the English had done one thing and another and France and Russia the rest, the whole of the German army would be scrambling away back to Berlin to get into the Kaiser's coal cellars."

"Just rush and dash," declaimed Gheena loftily, "not this retreating and losing."

Basil Stafford remarked, "And perhaps of men," rather slyly; to which Gheena answered, "Yes," with a glance of fiery meaning, and he grinned—softly.

Picking up the khaki sock—Gheena often dropped it—Basil inquired gravely whether the holes were for the easily clipping in of suspenders, and really wilted this time before the look which flashed over the piece of knitting.

"There is quite a party here to-night," said Dillon, looking along the cliff. "Here is Mrs. Weston now."

Gheena, staring unhappily, suddenly remembered that she had promised to go to Mrs. Weston's and fetch her up to tea and: "It was all Crabbit's fault," said Gheena placidly. "I don't know why people are staying on here this year like this. Mrs. Weston hasn't even the excuse of drainage works."

Mrs. Weston, who was slim and upright and nice-looking, came tripping in, heels palpably too high, along the cliffs. She was quite ostensibly but neatly painted, and made no pretence as to the expense of her chestnut wig. She was a capable young woman, who now talked of taking a house at Duncahir because her people in Australia had joined the army and she was quite alone.

The district inspector, a stout and self-opinionated youth, had shown marked symptoms of admiration, these coupled with discreet desire to know if she was one of those widows whose husbands left provisos in their wills.

Mr. Keefe joined the group at the moment. He was also asked to tea, and Darby nodded.

Violet Weston held out an eager hand for the telegram and clamoured for news. Personally, she was one of the optimists who regarded the retreat as mere strategy to lure the Germans on, and who considered that the war would end in Berlin with the Kaiser on exhibition in a neat brass cage.

Stafford read the message aloud, keeping it himself.

"You see, you wouldn't understand it," said Gheena, eyeing her knitting. "He has them sent to him in some code or other."

Stafford tore up the wire into very small pieces and coloured faintly.

Mrs. Weston, walking on, was as fine as an optimist as Gheena had been as a strategist.

She reviewed the revealed facts of the Germans having been found starving, their foolish mistakes, and of that dreadful man, the Kaiser.

"The scald to him and his likes," said a voice bitterly.

The old kennel huntsman, Barty, limped out from behind a hedge of crimson fuchsias, his face set dolorously.

"The scald to all Kaysers," said Barty, "with Mrs. Day down to say, an' thruth in it, that seven geese were whipt lasht night, and that ould Larry Hassit, that was never too dacent, swearin' he'll pisin if the foxes isn't kilt. If there's no huntin' now there'll never be huntin' again, Misther Darby," said Barty lugubriously. "I declare to God the poor craythers of hounds an' I out, do be throwin' an eye across the finces an' then an eye up to me, an' they are but axin' the question aloud why they wouldn't be let off to hunt. Signs bye, the nice run I had afther two of the puppies last Thursday, and what harm but it was a hare an' I lambastin' them, Sammy must let the resht out of hand, and where did they make but up into Grange Gorse just across the road and frightened Mrs. Harby's bawn of cows hither an' over, an' she milkin' them at the time."

Gheena dropped her knitting, and wished to know if someone could not hunt the hounds. "Why not, Darby? And——" She could whip in, they might try.

Harold Keefe thought that if he was not too busy, that a joint mastership might be possible—say, Freyne and Dillon and himself; he looked important.

Darby leant over to Barty, because he knew the old man always had a hunting-horn in his pocket. This he extracted and handed politely to Keefe, with a wintry smile.

Mr. Keefe's cheeks assumed the proportions of cherubs as he endeavoured to wrest sound from the piece of fashioned metal. Having produced a faint squeak, he said irritably that of course anyone could learn to blow on the thing; and, anyhow, they might have whistles, as more respectful to the absent master's memory.

"God save ye—whistles!" Barty blew a clear shrill hoot on the horn—the quick toot of the "gone away"—and it set Gheena's pulses dancing, and brought a flush to Darby's cheeks as he limped along, holding his crutch deftly beneath his half useless arm.

"Forrard away! Away!" the shrill screech echoed out across the sea.

"But supposing—oh, the sock! thank you, Mr. Stafford—that we got leave to keep a bobbing back—if it is bobbery, it's just the same, Darby—and rout out the coverts and kill foxes. Now both the Slatterys have enlisted, so Michael Maher told me he would not run his 'baygles' this year, and there are lots of them."

Darby broke in to say thoughtfully that there were, and lots of varieties among them also.

"You could gather them up and keep them at Dillonsview, Barty, in the old yard, and everyone would love to come out, if Captain Lindlay would give us leave. He might even lend us Patience and Pollen to keep."

Barty murmured "God help us!—lend ye!" impolitely.

It is at all times difficult to discuss anything when one stands up. There was a large rock jutting out of the short grass, and the three men sat down upon it, because the idea was worth thinking of.

Darby waved his crutch, Keefe and Barty chattered. The absent might be glad to have his wild country hunted over in some form. Subscriptions would roll in, everyone wanted to hunt—and it was really quite possible now that the war might last for the winter months.

"A bit of a note to the Captain," said Barty.

"It's quite absurd, but it might be done," said Darby.

"And you agree as to joint mastership and the whistles," said Harold Keefe.

"And I'll whip in," said Gheena, "as we could not get a temporary master and the huntsman left unexpectedly, and Lindlay is shy about a strange man."

"But—you don't really think they won't be completely beaten before the winter is over," chipped in Violet Weston. "Is it really worth while? They can't prosper, those dreadful treaty-breakers, can they? But, of course, hunting would be nice."

Mr. Keefe said that he knew of a horse, one the Government hadn't snapped, and to be bought for the value—if Mrs. Weston was for the chase.

That neat-looking lady said she was, indeed; but in Kleeawuvia there were no side saddles, and would people here object to her riding like a man?

Mr. Keefe replied that Lady Rosie O'Brien rode astride, and that ought to be enough for anyone. Here he tried to get up, to find himself enveloped in the grey warp and woof of Gheena's sock, a portion of the wool having unwittingly got round Darby's crutch, so that at every wave he had unwrought much labour.

Gheena, winding wrathfully, declared that if she had not just got on nicely in the plain part she would not have minded; but to re-do half a sock—here she hauled a loop tight about Mr. Keefe's plump neck, and made him gurgle voiceless wonder at the strength of wool.

When his pink flush had deepened to vermilion, he broke the strangling strand and gulped reproach at the unsympathetic but annoyed Gheena.

They had decided they would be too late for tea, and were walking on again, when with a hurricane of little squeaks Mrs. Weston discovered that she had dropped a topaz and diamond brooch of some value.

One which dear Francis had given to her, and the clasp had always been fairly good. The prospect of her tea faded as she looked across to where they had been sitting.

Basil Stafford felt the sad right at his youth when he offered to go back and look for the jewel.

"No. If Mr. Keefe will come, I know his eyes would find anything." A flashing glance almost dispelled the sinking desire for tea and plum cake which Mr. Keefe felt acutely.

"We won't be long," said Violet Weston, scuttling away on her high heels.

Mr. Keefe left with her and returned for a box of matches.

"I'll catch her easy," he said, with a blend of gloom and complacency in his voice. "The fine mover she'd be if it wasn't for those silly shoes she puts on because her feet are a bit out-size."

"All that planning for that fellow," observed Darby, looking after the hurrying pair.

CHAPTER II

It was considerably past five when Gheena Freyne coo-eed loudly towards the drawing-room window and followed the Australian call with a shriek for tea. Mrs. Freyne, promptly appearing on the door-step, observed placidly that she had not waited, and didn't they all think she was right?

Matilda Freyne was stoutly comely, possessed with a mild attractiveness which would never leave her. A quantity of shining red-gold hair, which declined to get grey, was puffed in old-fashioned style above her placid forehead. She had mild blue eyes and a charming voice.

"One never knows when Gheena goes to the sea what she may get into," continued Gheena's mother, holding out a plump hand. "Now wasn't I right, Darby, not to wait?"

When Darby said "You were, Matilda," the word brought a look of dislike which forty-six years of possession had not toned down.

"But they will boil a new kettle, and the hot cakes may not be quite cold," said their hostess cheerfully. "Even if they are, as they were, rather underdone, it will not much matter. And where is Mrs. Weston?"

Darby observed that the widow lady had gone looking for a topaz with Mr. Keefe and would be back presently. Mrs. Freyne, with a placid and unmoving finger on the bell, said she thought that was quite useless, because Dearest George had told her long ago that there were none on the Duncahir beaches. The only thing she had ever got there was that disappointing stone with the imitation silver in it; so perhaps they had better send the pantry boy to tell the others to come.

Basil Stafford stood at the window looking out. The trees had been cut away in front of the house to show a glimpse of the sea and the opposite cliffs.

Fuchsia hedges sheltered the empty flower-beds from the blast, and beyond the other fuchsia hedges sheltered the two smooth green tennis courts, where watchful Gheena pounced on every weed.

It was all still and peaceful in the falling autumn dusk, the golden light of the dipping sun still flashing below the curtain of clouds, a boat stealing home to harbour.

The hot cakes proved to have lost even warmth, but to have preserved their memory of their too early exit from the oven. Yet three young people ate them with fearless risk of indigestion.

Several very large cakes of heavy calibre stood on the wide tea-table. Mrs. Freyne had not as yet commenced the small economies of war time and given up raisins, cherries and icing.

The discussion concerning the possibility of the scratch pack of hounds rose and fell over the tea-table, spurred on by comments from old Barty, who was taking his tea just outside the front windows, nibbling cherry cake and enumerating the danger of not killing foxes.

"What I want to know is how many of them we are likely to kill," said Darby thoughtfully, "with those old harriers and our amateur hunting?"

Barty said: "What harrum so long as they'd see ye makin' endeavours?" And added, after a pause: "An' in spite of ye, Misther Darby, they might get away and pull down a sad one that wouldn't be too crabbit, or that was full of hins. Ye'd never know."

Darby coughed thoughtfully.

Mrs. Freyne, who still hunted, and went wherever her pilots led her, enjoying each hunt completely without a thought of what hounds were doing, was enthusiastic. She disliked riding without an object, and her dresses appeared to be shrinking.

"Of course, if Dearest George thought——"

Gheena saw Mrs. Weston's blue sailor hat in the distance, pointed to it, and asked where Dearest had got to.

Gheena had been a completely self-willed girl of eight when her mother had married again, and would probably have called him Papa or Daddy without thought, if her mother had not consulted her anxiously as to her convictions on second-hand fathers.

Once the idea of wronging the kindly deaf man, who had called her his Baby Seaweed, was placed in her head, Gheena started round her stepfather with suspiciously resentful eyes, and called him nothing until her mother's "Dearest George" made her mutinously say Dearest also, naughtily, feeling resentful surprise because it was accepted as a charming idea.

"We got it," said Keefe, mopping his pink forehead, "but I tell you we had to look."

Basil Stafford asked where with a faint grin.

"On the edge of the cliff," said Keefe. "I'll take it stewed or roast, Mrs. Freyne, so long as it's wet. Where Mrs. Weston tried herself twice; but she sent me down the third time."

"And Mr. Keefe's sharp eyes saw it shining," said Mrs. Weston happily, patting a small ornament in her blouse. "I knew he could help if anyone could. If it's absolutely no trouble, Mrs. Freyne, I am afraid of very strong tea; it's nervy. And we walked so fast! Mr. Keefe flies. I'm tired."

"And I after her all the——" began Keefe blankly, and then stopped to drink.... Why put aside admiration even if undeserved.

At this point a motor came to the door and George Freyne bustled in.

He was an undersized man, with bushy eyebrows, cheeks which Gheena always said looked like pink pork-pies, and a dome-shaped bald head.

Anyone whom he failed to dominate he disagreed with; and as Mat the old groom used to remark: "The Masther begridged even if the fox to go the way he'd like himself."

He had been out on some mysterious business, which embraced visits to the coastguards, a cryptic and reluctant silence, and a look of impatience.

Sitting down to tea, he discussed the war with Mrs. Weston, becoming deeply pessimistic when she piped out her contempt of Germany, and then having left her floundering in a red sea of doubt and despair, would immediately explain how it all could be ended in a month, provided such-and-such plans were carried out, and if instead of Lord Kitchener and General French there were a few men unencased in red tape and not stale from custom of mimic warfare—a fresh brain in fact, such as he himself might bring, to plot and hew and smash until it was over.

The two played see-saw over the cold, slim cakes, until Mrs. Weston asked Dearest George what he might think of this wild idea of Gheena's, of gathering up hounds to eat foxes, because the farmers seemed worried about losing a few chickens.

"So unpatriotic of them, grumbling, with the hay at four pounds a ton," she said blandly.

It was, in fact, this way of putting it which made Dearest George immediately favour the prospect.

He said sharply that he could not see why, if it was at all feasible, Gheena should make silly objections.

Gheena opened her mouth—and shut it—wisely.

"The claims are positively pouring in," said George Freyne irritably. "There were three women and James Macavee here to-day, all with tales of dead geese and hens."

"And even if the common herds was all they had to be pratin' over," put in Barty. "But here's one chattin' of Orpinntons, an' the next of Leggyhorns, an' another that paid tuppence apiece for eggs of the slim-mouthed Rocks, the lord liftenant an' lady havin' them all sot up an' above themselves with some schame for fancy breeds. An' the name alone bein' all that's right," added Barty, "seein' that a depot for maybe Speckledy Sussexes 'll be but twenty yards away from some woman that just keeps what she gits, an' the two flocks rootin' out in the one place. When 'twas claims for hins it could be put up with; but when it's claims for the schamers out of Dublin, then I tell you it's money."

"Barty came over about it," said Mrs. Freyne. "Did you, Barty, to ask Mr. Freyne his opinion?"

"I did not, ma'am," said Barty placidly, "nor think of such nonsense. It would be bether for ye to take the cup, Miss, an' Crabbit nosin' around it; but if we could gather even thim objecs of dogs, an' to show the red coats an' all, it might be the way it would make them think we was kapin' up the counthry, an' good in nonsense."

Gheena, now greatly excited, said that she would go the very next day to see about the hounds. Darby had old kennels at his place.

When Dearest George intimated curtly that he must take the car next day, as he had to drive to the coastguard station at the far side of the harbour, Gheena replied that she could walk. "The nearest Dayly was quite close, and even if the farthest were farther on——"

Darby said "Yes," and picked up the knitting thoughtfully.

"Well, it was, that was all. And you can come, Darby, and meet me at the cross roads below Macinerny's Public House, and drive me the rest of the way."

Violet Weston, smoking a cigarette, wanted to know if there was any real fear of anything happening, as there was so much fuss about coastguards.

"Our ships will never let anything happen," she said stoutly.

"Henry Ashleigh is gone," burst out George Freyne, "to drive a motor. I forgot to tell you. I'd go myself, but I'm too useful here."

"You haven't applied for anything yet, have you?" Gheena turned with crushing directness to Basil.

"Well, you see, I'm in the pay of the Government, and only the Government can let me go," he said quietly. "If the drainage works were shut up, all those men who bought the farms on the understanding that they would be drained for them would be cheated."

To this Miss Freyne observed freezingly that she would have thought an older man could have looked after drains, and drummed on the tea-table, laying down her knitting.

Barty raised his battered hunting cap to say good-night. As he turned he shaded his keen old eyes, and looked out at the ship of rocks just visible in the grey dusk.

"I never seen such a man as the ould Professor for beltin' around the cliffs," remarked Barty, "crackin' thim rocks with a hammer that can only be irritaytin' thim, an' off back with picks and bits that he is gropin' over till two in the mornin's, behind his specs. A tax on ile 'd be the bad one for him," said Barty slowly.

A little withered thing, he went off briskly, one leg slightly shorter than the other, one arm a little stiff. His collar-bones had grown almost weary of being mended; one thumb was bent in, and a little finger crooked, as if perpetually poised to hover politely over food. But Barty was hale and active still, and thought mournfully how much he would have liked to come out to hunt hounds again himself, a post which his broken leg and subsequent ill-health had taken from him.

He skirted the clipped laurels, passed under the vast arch, put up as a gateway in almost all old yards, and peered into the kitchen to ask the big peppery Anne, the cook, "If firin' was short, that the cakes wasn't baked above."

"Didn't I put them on for Miss Gheena, and mustn't the Missus have them out for herself?" said Anne good-humouredly. "Terrible times, Barty! To be lookin' above in the air for thim Zepherills they do talk about, and Donellan the coastguard havin' chat about the underground ships bein' about beside the coast watchin' us, till they've a chance to swhoop."

Barty then gave some lurid details as to the life on Bretham Island, where the officers dined in the cellars, sitting on the ammunition, "they were so afraid of it being struck."

"If I was to be flyin'," Anne observed, as she deposited a large leaf of pastry on a gigantic pie.

Barty said "Yes" politely. Anne weighed fourteen stone.

"I'd fly," said Anne darkly, as she opened the oven door, "where—where flyin' 'd be of use," she added. "Not hither an' over just to say there was a man here an' a gun there, but off to Berlin. An' if I didn't drop what 'd hate him up on the Kayser my name isn't Anne Dwyer. Th' ould vilyin. Isn't Paddy Hanratley's life lost be his devilment, in that retrate from Mongs? He is on to-day's paper."

Barty abstracted the Irish Times from the dresser and read the news greedily. He raised his head to tell the cook, now surrounded by a halo of several attentive maids, that the land was sown with spies.

"Two holy nuns taken in Cork," said Barty. "I had it for a fact from me aunt's cousin be marriage, her nephew being husband to the landlady's dather. An' the two of thim takin' lodgin's, sayin' they was out for charity, an' God save us, didn't the little gerril carry in hot wather one mornin' without knockin', an' out she runs, for their caps was off, an' the two big faces of men above the bedclothes. Masther Darby says they beyant are going to make a shot to invade us, the vilyins, an' spies here is mappin' out the very ripples on the say, an' every turf sod in the land, so as to be ready for them."

"Me Dadda has us towlt," began Maria the between-maid, "I am slicin' the pyates, Mrs. Dwyer, ma'am, for the fryin'. Me Dadda has it they'll come frindly with no waypons on them; not another penny, then, need we pay for the land we has bought, an' the hay barns, nor nothin'."

"The Germans bein' such gran' men they can live without money," said Barty dryly. "God send ye're Dadda sinse, Maria Harty, an' something to do besides clanin' his boots markin' time on Sundays with the Volunteers."

Then Phil the groom coming in, observed: "That he'd seen a German Frollin that was maid to some at the hotel. An' bottled plums she clapped into a stew that she had leave to make. An' quare soorts of sossidges they'd get over the wather, black as the coals, Anne, an' solid."

Barty folded up the paper, sighing as he did so; then he leant forward.

"What is that ould Professor knocking chips out of the rocks for?" he whispered darkly.

Anne the cook sat down heavily, and prayed to the heavens above her to see her safe from harm, with all their talk.

"Makin' channels for submarines, he might be, with his hammer," she whispered fearfully. "Oh, good evenin' to ye, Barty. Good evenin'. There could be no good behind his black specs," went on Anne fearfully. "God betune us an' harrum; no good at all. An' there is the pie burnin', an' all the fault of that ould Kayser," she added, as she rolled with a wail to the oven to announce that the grannut ornymints she even drew out were black as a Germin's heart, and to scold everyone quite impartially and without resentment for the occurrence, they putting professors into her head.

Upstairs Mrs. Freyne was consulting Dearest as to whether the Army was really retreating, or whether it was only reported so as to deceive the Germans and bring forward recruits.

Dearest adjusted his glasses to explain pompously that going backwards was not advancing, and to illustrate with the flower-vases until one fell off never to stand upright again, and Gheena went to dress hurriedly.

Her big room looked out to the sea. It was high up, and she could see, when it was light, the restless waters beyond the point as well as the calmer stretch shown by the gap in the trees.

Leaning out, the soft dampness of the autumn air welcome after the stuffy heat of the drawing-room, Gheena thought she saw a flicker of light far away just where the cliffs were honeycombed by endless caves.

"I don't believe—in—any drains," said Gheena to the night very severely. "And I should certainly go to be a nurse if it was not for the knitting club."

Gheena's room possessed the advantage of a side door reached by a narrow flight of stairs just beneath it. Dearest showing signs of irritation at trails made by damp bathing dresses and Crabbit's paws on the polished hall, Gheena had taken over this door for herself and ran from it, in the morning generally, clad in nothing but her bathing dress, to return dripping under a light mackintosh, with Crabbit barking at her bare heels.

She bathed, too, sometimes on hot summer nights; delighting in the dripping flames which fell from her finger, and the blue fire streaks as she struck out. These night baths, when her mother reposed in a room which gave oblations to hygiene with a slightly opened window, behind which thick curtains were carefully drawn, were only known to the housemaid and the cook, who considered them outrageous, but said nothing.

"I should like to bathe to-night. Crabbit, you're snuffling. You couldn't come. And we might, after dinner, Crabbit, though it is October, after we are baked downstairs."

Dearest George disliking draughts, the library curtains were always closely drawn on still nights, and the shutters closed when a wind blew; also, there was always a fire. He sat there now, thinking; the problem of Gheena troubled George Freyne deeply. His objection to the Dower House, which lurked in a gloom of trees on the very edge of the cliff, increased hourly. A stealthy backwater came fawning to the end of the garden, casting up chill salt airs from its slowly moving waters, yet sea-like enough to expose an unsightly stretch of shingle and rock at low tide, and to sap in a mean, secretive way at the protecting wall of the garden, picking away constant gaps. Castle Freyne became Gheena's, when she married, and a nephew of George Freyne's, who combined meekness of mind, strong conceit with plump cheeks and an Irish accent, had been decided upon as Gheena's future spouse.

In fact, failing Gheena, he was the next heir following a life tenancy by Matilda Freyne, so it was only right.

This Lancelot Freyne had been considered too delicate to go to school, and had strayed to manhood in his home, tyrannized over by his too fond mother. Now having dutifully ridden to hounds, gone out shooting, and applied his mind to the courtship ordered by his mother, Lancelot had upset all calculations by immediately getting a commission from the Militia and going off to train in a camp in England.

Castle Freyne was quite large enough for everyone, but Gheena, as owner, might show a still more marked desire for open windows, unguarded by curtains or shutters, and also for various innovations which made a comfort-loving soul shiver apprehensively. In any case, it would be hers when she was twenty-five.

Gheena, coming down to dinner in white, was exceedingly good to look at, and with strangers at Dunaleen Camp Mr. Freyne grew anxious.

The night fell in a mist of grey stillness, broken by a taint whimper of little waves weeping as they broke upon the rocks.

Gheena put on a black cloak, wrapped her head in a Lusky veil and slipped away to the shore. It was cold to bathe, but she scarcely knew what she was going out to look for. Some patrol ships, coastguards tramping—anything to show her that war raged somewhere, despite the grey peace upon Ireland. Her mother had already begun to re-read the papers and ask for explanations, until her husband fell asleep; then she would fall asleep herself, until ten o'clock, when she invariably awoke with great vigour, and hoped Dearest George would not lose his figure for his bad habit of sleeping in his chair, and then read a novel until eleven, when she put out all the lamps, drank hot milk, and went to bed.

Crabbit scuttled into the undergrowth, crashing through it with little short yelps, as he scented rabbits. Gheena stepped on to where the low cliffs jutted to oppose the sea. The waters whispered, fretting, lapping, sucking through the rocks; lifted on the coming tide the fringe of brown seaweed rustled faintly as it awoke to the life of the sea. A sleeping row of sea-birds on a peak of brown rock, a blur of white just visible.

Gheena had put on tennis shoes; she moved soundlessly, sure-footed, across the still uncovered rocks, stooped at the edge of the tide, where it lapped deep and cool, to put her hands in, and see the blue drip run off her fingers back to the gleaming tide.

At this point, Crabbit, having mislaid her, uttered a yell of anguish, and hurled himself noisily across the rocks, his unerring nose down.

This onrush was stopped by something solid, which melted and slipped with sudden outcry into a fairly deep pool.

As the something rose and groped, it said aloud several things of extreme pungency, and wished to know what the—well—earthly dickens sea-serpents or wild goats were out on the rocks for at midnight, knocking people down for.

The voice bearing a distinct resemblance to Mr. Basil Stafford's, Gheena observed aloud, calmly, that it was neither a sea-serpent nor a goat.

"But only Crabbit tracking me, with you in his way." And then she wished to know why he did not come out at once.

Mr. Stafford said something rather indistinctly, and then more clearly, that it seemed to be the damn sea-urchins' pool; and everywhere he put his hands down to catch a rock, he had, so far, caught prickles and couldn't get out.

The sound of a finger noisily sucked was followed by the smell of hot metal and the flash of a dark lantern, blinding in the gloom. By its rays Basil Stafford swished through the knee-deep water and stepped out on to dry rocks.

"He took me just under the knees, like an avalanche, that dog," he said irritably. "I just jumped in time to get in on my feet. I've sand shoes on, too. What on earth," he said, "are you doing down here in the dark by this hang pool?"

"Looking for submarines," said Gheena dreamily.

Stafford thought dryly that the sea-urchins' pool would certainly be a good base, and that perhaps there might be a Dreadnought in the bathing creek. He shook his head and by the light of the lantern extracted prickles from his fingers.

"Anne Dwyer says they all fester," observed Gheena, watching with interest, "and you're breaking half of them. Here!"

She took the big brown hand in hers, extracting gently but deftly; Mr. Stafford insisting, as she said she could see no more, that he felt two of the worst just in below his first and second fingers, and the light of the lantern proving quite inadequate to illuminate them.

"And as I said, why Crabbit should have been on the rocks," said Stafford—"further down, on the fat place—and why he chose that pool."

"There isn't any fat place," said Gheena. "And why"—she raised her eyes—"why were you out?" she asked emphatically.

"It's right in the muscle, and I shall never use those fingers again. I—well—I saw—queer lights," said Stafford, after a pause. "Chaps here might start—er—smuggling again. And—oh, good Lord!" Crabbit barked at the sharp yell of anguish.

"I was only just using the pin of my brooch to burrow, as you were so sure there was a prickle there." Gheena re-pinned her brooch with hurt dignity. "Smuggle tobacco! One doesn't think of that kind of smuggling nowadays," she said bitingly. "It's smuggling German emperors and admirals and 'U' boats."

The lantern had suddenly been extinguished, and the noise of sucking, mingled with grunts of pain, came from the gloom beside her. A sound of footsteps coming cautiously could be heard on the strip of shingle at high-water mark.

"The coastguards," said Stafford. "Er—I say, hadn't you better?—they won't see us if you sit down. It's late."

Gheena replied that the last yell might even have produced the patrol ship from the point; and as she had known Matthew O'Hara and Tim Linsham all her life, she really did not see why they should not see her now, especially when they could not in that light.

So they sped lightly back across the rocks, unheard until Crabbit growled with emphasis.

Someone said "Shucks," in tones of distant alarm.

Stafford flashed the light again upon the spectacled, wondering face of Professor Machaffy of Bee-bar-oo, somewhere in New South Wales, who again said "Shucks," before he became a shadow in the gloom.

"I take a little walk almost every night," said the Professor mildly, "before I go in to sort specimens. It fills the lungs with ozone. And you! You also take a little walk." There was a distinct quiver of understanding laughter in his good-natured old voice.

"On fine nights the unseen world is very beautiful, because as a lost love, you remember all its perfections," went on the Professor. "The darkness is Zimmerian," he added blandly.

"Never quite lost the German accent, Professor?" said Basil easily. There was a pause; the Professor, judging by the shower of shingle, appeared to have kicked some of it.

"After several years' study—there," he said slowly. "It is difficult, Mr. Stafford. I'm learning, as in war they study closely," he added. "We have no such scientists in England. I bid you good-night. It is time for me to get in."

They could hear him chuckle again as he shuffled off.

One by one the lights at Castle Freyne were blinking out; Matilda Freyne was going to bed.

"And you?" said Stafford, a little anxiously to Gheena.

"I—oh!" Gheena explained her side entrance.

Mr. Stafford said if that was so, he had just found a new and vicious prickle in the palm of his hand. She could feel it—there was no need of light.

He sat down in the short, sweet grass and Gheena sat beside him, her nimble, deft fingers pressing at the spot he guided them to.

The lap and whisper of the coming tide was clear in the grey stillness.

"Crabbit—Crabbit, you are breathing hard, just in my ear," said Gheena. "Go away. I can't get the thing. Sit still, Mr. Stafford."

Stafford leant back a little to listen to the aggressive snuffle of Crabbit at his right side and some distance away.

CHAPTER III

"There is three of them here inside, Miss," said Mary Casey, looking round. "Doatee, Beauty, an' Colleen. Colleen had three pups, but he has them reared this long ways' back, an' one is gone to Marty, me cousin, for the sheeps. Indeed, then, I am sure an' certain, Miss, that neyther Matt nor Jim would oppose any wish ye have for the dogs, an' I'd be glad to be out of feedin' them myself. Matt is in Bedford, Miss, and Jim in Aldershot presently, an' ye can be afther writin' to them both."

Gheena asked a little feebly for the other hounds.

Young Andrew Casey, aged twelve, issued from behind a curtain of shyness to observe that these three were the besht dogs in the lot. "Colleen can enthrap a cat as well as a hare," he said proudly. "And Beauty there, when he do catch a rot, 'd bring it in to his pups an' not ate it himself."

Mrs. Casey told her son not to be gabbin' before the genthry, so Andrew withdrew again behind the haystacks, a watchful eye on his favourites.

"There is two pairs at Danny's, Miss."

"And one is not a hound at all," chimed in the now irresistible Andrew, "but a torrier. He is Dandy's pup."

Dandy, busily engaged in chasing fleas, raised a yellow head when her name was mentioned.

"Hould ye're whisht, Andy, the child is demented for them dogs, Miss. He'd ax no bether than be afther them. An' don't be mindin' him, Miss Gheena, for the torrier Doatie's pup as well, with a gran' huntin' nose on him."

Doatie, a pied hound with bandy legs, wagged a pleased tail, and threw his tongue to show his breeding.

Gheena had not found Darby waiting for her, so had taken a short cut to the Caseys', found its apparently straight way barred a boggy trench, and had had to climb up a steep hill, where slates and small quagmires lived cheek by jowl in united friendship. To step squelchily from one and slip with a sharp slaty grate into another had proved tiring. Also, Gheena, inspired by Violet Weston's blue suede shoes, had put on a pair with bright buckles, which she looked at proudly until she missed her way, and then remembered remorsefully the slighted brogues in her room at Castle Freyne. The charm of comparing her feet with the widow's had now completely evaporated.

Marty Casey's, where two more pairs of the pack could be seen, was pointed out to her, a thin trail of smoke marking its chimney.

"The road to it does be leadin' around," said Mrs. Casey; "but across the hills it is not a mile only. Would ye say the dirty piece 'd be good walkin' to-day, Andy?"

"I would not," said Andrew, appearing suddenly, holding Beauty by her forelegs. "I went down a foot in it meself yestherday," he added briefly; "an' I light, not like yerself."

"There's sphots, even if ye go discreet, that is onaisy, but I do go that way meself."

Gheena chose the road with decision. She wrote down the regiments of Jim and Matt and sighed drearily.

Several hounds were billeted in small cottages in the neighbourhood, and she meant to try to see them all. But the conciliation of the Caseys being necessary before any others could be looked at, she shook hands and tramped away.

Andrew, trotting beside her, asked wistfully if she was sot on the dogs.

"Beauty do be sleepin' with me," he said shyly. "I lets him in anonst an' me Mama aslheep."

Gheena, seeing something glimmer behind bright eyelashes, promised Andy that if they hunted, she would lend him Ratty, her Welsh pony, for every meet. This was a small mouse-coloured animal, which attacked large banks as if they were a ladder, but always got to the other side without mishap, and which could go all day. Walls were not often seen, and timber he either went over or under, in both cases generally dislodging his rider. He had a mouth of iron and the self-will of Lucifer, coupled with complete determination to get after hounds, but he was absolutely safe and neither kicked nor bucked.

"Every nice day if we hunt, then, Andy," said Gheena. "And—and you wouldn't like to see all the foxes dead and none to go after when the poor huntsmen come back from the war."

The light of desire in Andy's eyes showed that he would now put up with even the loss of Beauty as a bedfellow. He knew Ratty well.

A doubt concerning a "ridin' throuser" being solved by the promise of a pair of his very own, Andy's eyes sparkled wildly, and to show his gratitude he offered guidance by the short cut, explaining that he had not even an eye sthuck to his feet when he crossed in it yestherday, the two dogs an' Dandy bein' close on a hare; so it might be right if crossed careful.

Gheena chose the road. She had often jogged up it out hunting; now it seemed to wind interminably, and the surface to grate away under each step she took.

High banks, with blackberry vines and honeysuckle sprawling over them, kept away the wind. Gheena toiled up a steep glen and thought out what she would say to Darby. In the glen the clinging friendship of the blackberry and honeysuckle gave way to bare red banks spangled with slabs of drab slate, which caught and gave back the heat of the sun, little oozing trickles of moisture being quite insufficient to cool them.

The glen ended at cross roads. Gheena stood still there. She was extremely hot, her feet ached in the buckled shoes, and she eyed the winding brown ribbon of road turning towards the left towards Marty Casey's house with bitter dislike.

It was a road advancing without apparent method, turning up to the right, then finding that scenery dull, and running off to the left again, climbing steep hills which it apparently might have avoided, and avoiding others which would have shortened its way by miles, its surface, two ruts and gravelly stones, and its edges inhospitable ditches of boggy water.

It was only the prospect of telling Darby of his slackness which made Gheena draw a long breath and look toward the road with gloomy determination. Perhaps Marty Casey had a trap or a cart which he could drive her back to the town in.

The tuff-tuff of a motor made her look round hopefully; a long grey nose glided round the sharp corner where the roads branched to the right, and Basil Stafford put down his foot-brake with a jar.

"I was out at Cloony Point, and I thought that I might find you and Dillon seeing the hounds," he said.

Gheena greeted him ill-humouredly. His grey tweed suit was so completely unlike khaki, and she was in the mood to be jarred.

She wished to know irrelevantly, "Why roads could not go straight to places? Up and down, and round about," said Gheena, with a note of hysterical over-fatigue in her voice, "and everywhere, as if they were playing 'Round the Mulberry Bush' instead of going to Marty Casey's. You make drains. Why don't they go straight?"

Stafford thought apologetically that perhaps it was because there were several places to go to. In the still soft air little trails of blue-brown smoke showed where houses stood.

When Gheena merely snorted, unconvinced, he also explained that in places road-builders found boggy spots or solid rock, and it was more expedient to go round these obstacles to avoid expense.

"People with sense," said Gheena witheringly, "make flat roads. I only thought you might have known. Of course, drains are so simple."

Here Mr. Stafford very humbly offered her a lift, and asked about the hounds.

"Crooked-legged, splay-footed beagles," said Gheena "and Dandys and sheep-dogs. But we could ride after them," she said, brightening up; "they would hunt."

"A Dandy Dinmont," said Stafford absently, "wouldn't hunt far."

Gheena replied icily that she had never mentioned Dandy Dinmonts. Even the Dunkillen people did not hunt over Scotch terriers, and there was no wit in being absurd.

"I—you mentioned Dandies." Stafford's cheeks were a little red. "Shall I drive you on?"

"I can walk," said Gheena coldly. To drive with Basil Stafford would be to tacitly condone his shortcomings.

"Oh, very well. I'm sorry." A sly start sent the grey car throbbing into life; she began to back for the turn home.

Gheena was very tired; she grew white, and the stately hills seemed to gain in size; before her stretched the interminable badly laid-out mountain road.

"And you'd much better drive," said Stafford, humbly again. "It's quite a long way—if you want to see those hounds. It's important."

Gheena got in slowly.

"Or—er—see Dandies," he added as he put in the clutch.

"Dandy was the mother," said Gheena impatiently, "Dandy the terrier. And the pup is some kind of hound one side. I said Dandy, not Dandies."

Stafford stopped the car suddenly. He was sorry to disturb her, but he had forgotten to put in petrol.

Far below them lay the sea, dimpling and flashing in the sunlight, greeny dark by the cliffs, grey blue in the long neck of the harbour, a great carpet of diamond points outside. Leeshane rose its long grey hump from the flash; Innisfail was vaguely purple. Here and there on the great splashing water-way a red sail glinted, or a smudge of smoke hung darkly as some steamer thrashed its uneasy way to harbour.

Gheena sat on the step of the car, looking out. Just behind these hills and across the harbour they hunted. It was hilly and boggy; there were woods and lakes, but patches of grass gave them short glimpses of gallops, and when one got used to it there was joy in the scramble: in hounds hunting over the heathery hills and the ever-constant fear of losing them when they vanished into a glen, or one of the thick little pine woods which were set as dark emeralds in the grey hill-sides. Joy in the perfection of those bursts over grass fields with low banks to jump. And quite far inland, if their fox was kind enough to avoid a chain of lakes and a big bog, there was quite a stretch of good country. It was fox-hunting with its hopes and fears, its joys and sorrows, its mystery of uncertainty. The little field down there was as keen watching hounds run as though they rode in far-famed Leicestershire, and crossed the fox-hunting paradise in Limerick.

Peace hung over the land; the withering heather gave tinge of purple still; the sun caught the slate beds on the hills, making them gleam dull red and brown, and below there was the wonder of the sea.

"One cannot realize it—here," almost whispered Gheena. "Dust and the pound of feet, and the rattle of guns, and men out to kill each other in this quiet world."

"France was as quiet as this—two months ago," Basil said quietly. "Rows of poplars, long white roads, sluggish rivers, great patches of yellowing corn, grapes growing purple. I've been at a big camp," he said, "and seen and heard the rattle and the tramp and the men's faces come out of the cloud of yellow dust—kindly, merry faces, all so keen for war—and now all fighting...."

"For us," said Gheena very deliberately—"fighting."

"For—us," he said after a pause, looking straight at her. It was Gheena who flushed; except when speared on by patriotism, she was naturally polite and averse to hurting people's feelings.

Something in the flash in Stafford's eye made her look away for quite a long time at the nearest smudge of smoke.

An answering flash hidden from him rose in her own eyes. One could serve one's country by other ways than the knitting of stockings. When she turned, she had smoothed accusation from her expression and even smiled.

"It is almost impossible to realize," she said dreamily, and with a clarified innocence of having meant anything by that emphasized "is."

Basil Stafford eyed her suspiciously, until a sudden smile made him quite good-looking. He took out a pair of glasses.

"That's a liner," he said. "See the far-off steamer, and those are two tramps with food for us. What if the Germans fulfil the threat they are whispering of already and cut off our supplies? It would be reality then, Miss Freyne, over here."

"We could burn turf and eat chickens," said Gheena briefly, "and catch fish. We need never starve here. And is that petrol in yet? I told Darby Malachi's public house, and I waited there and left a message."

"You said McInerny's," said Stafford, screwing down the tank. "Not Malachi's."

"McInerny's—no. Ask Darby."

Gheena found people who contradicted her extremely tiresome. She flashed an awe-inspiring glance at her pilot and repeated "Malachi's" angrily. Lancelot never dared to contradict her; he might disagree vaguely, but he only did it in his mind and not aloud; or to his mother afterwards, who would say, sighing, that heiresses were always wrong-minded; but that, after all, once there was money nothing mattered, and that it was only in small houses with one sitting-room that quarrelling was really objectionable. Lancelot had been duly instructed that he was to marry his cousin Gheena.

"Well, if I said McInerny's I meant Malachi's, and Darby might know the other would be quite out of my way, unless I went to fetch the letters, and it was too early for that," said Gheena, unruffled. "Is—there—any news to-day?"

Basil stopped the car to pull out a telegram, one crisply short.

"We are retreating. They are close to Paris," he said quietly. "The roses in the papers are red roses out yonder, Miss Freyne. No break in our line. Retreating in perfect order. Kaiser's time-table wrong. Germans fed on beet. The nonsense of it all absorbed with boiled eggs at breakfast. Eggs put up by the war too."

"This car," said Gheena, offended at the mating of war news and boiled eggs, "came up Lishna Hill quite quickly. Did she do it on second?"

"Well, no—on top," said Stafford apologetically. "No load, you see."

"She must be a very powerful car," said Gheena suspiciously. "A twenty, is she?"

"Well, yes," said Stafford meekly, suppressing the extra twenty-five. "Yes, I—was given her, you see, by the——"

He stopped short at the word to swing in a narrow gate, while Gheena, leaning back, wondered darkly why a humble inspector or overseer of drainage works should own so powerful a two-seater. Her active mind was so full of conjectures that she awoke with a start to their stoppage in a small field fenced by banks topped with slates, and was greeted by a small woman with ill-tempered eyes.

The prospects of getting rid of four useless hounds appeared to appeal to her instantly.

"There bein' no one to hunt afther them now, an' blow Jim's bugle, and yellow male up to the height of Hiven."

The four hounds, now produced, lounged out for inspection from happy slumber on roasting slates, stretching themselves and yawning.

Daisy, Bridgie, Grandjer and Greatness were of much the same breed as the four first seen. Daisy was a dog hound, names being irrelevant, with some strain of foxhound in him; the others were not particular as to ancestry, but they could all hunt. Grandjer was black and tan, with a docked tail, because, old Casey explained, Jim thought from the colour of him that he was likely to be a torrier.

This was clearly young Dandy.

This Mrs. Casey proffered tea. It was laid in the best parlour, a room of leaden atmosphere, with a great deal of fancy-work about. The grate, instead of cascades of sooty paper, was genteelly hidden by a painted fire-screen, covered with crimson daffodils with purple leaves, and a stork, greatly disturbed at his surroundings, flapping over them. This, they were informed, was the work of Anastasia Casey above at the convent.

Tea was welcome, but oppressed by fashion; appearing on a japanned tray, with slices of baker's bread cut neatly, and pats of butter to apply to it.

Gheena yearned for soda cake, hot—she had seen one in the kitchen—but ate the crumbling papery-crusted slices with resignation, while Mrs. Casey hoped it wasn't too stale entirely, and discussed the war as something one saw in the papers.

"There was talk of Tom Guinane's goin'," she said, pouring out more tea. "Would ye have a neg with it, Miss Gheena, or a taste of jam? The appetite's lavin' ye—but he said he couldn't lave the boat. I would not thrust them Guinanes, anyways," added Mrs. Casey. "There's too much politics in them, spachin' an' chattin' instead of working steady, an' then laying the blame on the King if there isn't the price of a pint in ye're pocket; that's the soort them Guinanes are, Miss."

Gheena nodded. Tom Guinane was a Sinn Feiner, blackly opposed, it would sometimes appear, to everything except all land for nothing, taxes paid by England, free carriage of all fish. These, when he was really brought to bay, were the limits he advanced.

"They are a bad lot out there on Lishannon," said Gheena thoughtfully.

"And in a bad place for a bad lot," put in Basil, "On the point."

Darby Dillon's crutch banged open the door, and he came in, wanting to know why he was left for several hours—in fact, until he drove up and saw Gheena's mother—waiting, in the wrong place.

"If I said McInerny's I meant Malachi's," repeated Gheena impenitently. "And you must have known, Darby, I wasn't likely to want to walk across the shingle to McInerny's in these shoes."

"Not having been there to put them on," said Darby placidly, and avoiding Basil's eye; "but, of course, I might have known, after the fair Violet's yesterday. I'll have hot cake, Mary; I saw some outside."

"If I hadn't been afraid of offending her," said Gheena, thinking regretfully of two dry slices swallowed languidly.

"You were talking of Lishannon and the lot there," said Darby. "There was a chap round last year lodging there, and I'd say a lot of someone's money stayed behind him. There's queer talk down there in the dusk, I tell you."

"What could them foreigners do here an' they not havin' the English to back them?" said Mrs. Casey contemptuously. "Father Dan gave out from the althar that there was no fear of any Germans here, and he should know, for he was at a mission in China for three years."

"So he'd know all about heathens," said Darby gravely.

"He does so," said Mrs. Casey.

"I hears that young widdy below does be takin' Tom Guinane an' looking for mackerels," she said, "an' payin' him five shillin' a day, and none to tell her the robbery. That Tom is the broth of a rogue. Will I lave in the dogs to the back of yere stheam carriage, Misther Darby?"

"You will not," said Darby firmly, "unless Miss Gheena comes to hold them in."

"They might all be aisy but Grandjer. An' a cat couldn't show its whiskers on the road but he'd lep out an' up as if it 'twas an air balloon," Mrs. Casey said thoughtfully. "Bether to throttle them up and let one of the boys carry them to the great house."

Basil Stafford hastily interfered to say that they did not want the hounds dead, and was told sharply by Darby that throttlin' was merely an expression signifying roping up.

"If Mrs. De Burgho Keane wasn't coming to tea to-morrow," said Gheena, walking stiffly, with footsore feet, "I'd go to look at the kennels, Darby. There are about ten other things called hounds about, and they could be collected late when they heard from the Master."

"If he vetoes it," said Darby, "thinking we'll spoil his foxes by making them run too slow, we'll hunt something, Gheena, if it's only a herring. Crabbit is outside thinking of fighting with Grandjer."

Crabbit was disputing the entrance to a rat-hole, every hair on his red body bristling, with Grandjer unabashed, gurgling out defiance beside him.

Crabbit, removing himself with reluctance, got into the long, low two-seater and brooded in the wrongs of life. Gheena limped to Darby's car.

"I saw Mrs. Weston with Keefe out on the coast road," said Basil, "and the Ford appeared to be stuck. They were at her for half an hour."

"And—you never helped her?" Gheena swung round.

"Oh, well, I saw them from Dunleep Hill, you see," he said apologetically. "I was just looking down at the road, and saw. One watches the sea these days," he added, hesitating a little.

"What she sees in that pink peony, Keefe?" said Darby. "A smart little woman."

Basil said "Taking" absently. "I'm dining there to-night," he went on, "to hold cards. Not to play Bridge, because only two of us know how, and if we get against the other two, they upset us so much we invariably lose, and if we cut them they upset us still more, and I get to bed with my brain very like a piano in a damp climate. The old Professor makes the fourth."

"To-night, then, I make a fifth," said Gheena. "Crabbit and I are walking over at nine. What! It's not safe out so late alone, Mr. Stafford? Do crabs and jelly-fish attack one, or coastguards looking out for nothing on earth?"

Darby's small car bounced down the hill with the energy, over ruts, due to her short wheel base. She took hills with a grunt of effort, and was unpleasantly opposed to the gliding of Stafford's two-seater.

Mrs. Weston, seated on a bench outside her cottage, with very brilliant orange suede shoes liberally displayed, ran across to stop them, and to inquire eagerly about the hounds. She had already written about a saddle, and that kindly Mr. Keefe was looking out for a horse for her. Darby said mildly that it would be well if she looked out herself, and smiled softly. Harold Keefe had already gone in for some horse-coping.

In the matter of horses, it was evident that Violet Weston was distressingly feminine. She chattered about light-weights and the easiness of finding hunters for a lady as if Queen Victoria still reigned.

"Mr. Keefe advises a side-saddle," she said, "as he's afraid Mrs. De Burgho Keane doesn't like innovations. But neither do I, so I am going to risk riding my own way."

There was something very taking in Violet Weston's bright eyes and slightly squeaky voice.

Darby said so as they drove on.

"Only they seem to be a decade behind the times in Australia," he said, as he swung in the wide iron gates where two stone animals snarled indefinitely at either side.

Darby found George Freyne on the steps, examining the butcher's book by the failing light, and raving at the cost of war. Matilda, his wife, was sitting down—she never stood up for long—and blandly suggesting that it did not matter, as one could eat chickens and game, and herrings would be coming in, that is. Didn't Dearest George think so?

"And lobsters, if Gheena would get Phil to set out the baskets." Dearest produced a pencil, with which he commenced to write down suggestions for economies.

Less cakes for tea; there were baskets of eggs used up every week; less bacon for breakfast; a rigid allowance in the kitchen.

"Didn't you sell your bullocks for more than you expected?" Darby asked, as he put a warm cloak over the Darracq's bonnet. "And if Reedy pays you more, you must pay Reedy more, mustn't you?"

This philosophy proving distasteful, Darby took out nis crutch and shuffled nimbly up the steps.

Gheena had stopped to talk to a fair-haired boy who, when you looked closer, appeared to have been a man for years.

The young man, Phil said, was coughing slightly.

"But she'd ate all before her," said Phil cheerily. "What's that, Ma'am? I'm to set out lobster pots, mate bein' up."

"Them Guinanes do be goin' on at me when I sets out the pots," he whispered to Gheena. "Bitther as horse-chestnuts. But if ye give me a couple of shillin's, Miss Gheena, I'll buy two lobsters from them, an' no one wiser."

This part of the régime of war economy having been disposed of satisfactorily, the news was talked of, picture papers, their illustrations almost aquiver with contempt for Germany, looked at, and the situation discussed heatedly.

"Some people, or people who know, tell me that there is a regular nest of spies all along the coast, ready for months," said Darby, as he ate portions of the sirloin of beef which his host carved with manifest care. "Bases for submarines, with oil for them, and even wireless installations. Those little houses out there on the cliff could use those nicely, couldn't they?"

Gheena was very thoughtful when she set out to Seaview, the intensely obvious name of so many seaside lodges. She was going across the beach, so Darby did not offer to go with her. He stood leaning on his crutch, watching her disappear into the shadows, and his sigh as he turned to go in and play picquet was tinged with impatience. It is hard to stand still in life while others walk easily.

One side showed scant trace of injury, the other so twisted and crippled. The doctor who had patched him together had told him that in time the crushed limbs might grow stronger, a broader hope of activity came to him. But the leg dragged heavily now as he hobbled up the shallow steps.

Gheena begged Crabbit to let rabbits sleep, and swung down on to the beach; she could see the lights of a ship at the quay, one which came in a few times a year with supplies for the villagers. Someone was pushing a boat off; she heard the scrape on the shingle.

Crabbit resented the intrusion on his foreshore, and a man's voice, sounding uneasily, told him to go home. A stone whizzed, its impact changing the red dog's note to one of such swift anger that Gheena could see someone leaping for sanctuary into the boat.

"It is Miss Gheena. Call him off, Miss; he'll ate us."

The moon chose this moment to illuminate the shore, and to show one man just scuffling over the side of the boat, and a second ensconcing himself behind some barrels.

"If you hadn't thrown rocks at him, Tom Guinane," said Gheena angrily, "he wouldn't get cross."

Tom Guinane, visibly nervous, swore by the God above him that it was but a handful of shingle that wouldn't crush a sherrimp, an' only thrun funnin', he not bein' sure whose dog it was.

Crabbit came to heel, master of the situation, with one white tooth bared for inspection, and Gheena watched the loading of the boat.

"Bits of flour an' things," Guinane told her, "for the shop outside, an' cruel dear now, Miss, thanks to the war. Not havin' much time in the light since I went to Mrs. Weston, I must do me work be night."

He spoke ill-humouredly, with a perpetual note of being wronged by life.

The boat was pushed off, passing from inertness to life as she swam in the shallow water. Gheena could see an array of barrels standing on a rock, waiting to be loaded. She climbed the cliff path to Seaview with the ease of good wind and practice, to find the three waiting for her at the card-table, and Mrs. Weston's old Swiss nurse just going out to meet her.

"We thought the gate to the sea path might have been locked," said Violet Weston. "Old Berthe loves keys and safety. She entreats me unceasingly to go to Switzerland as the only safe and proper place during the war."

Berthe, who wore ample skirts and rather represented a feminine barrel crowned with a black cap, came in with syphons and decanters. She returned with sandwiches clumsily cut, bade them Bon nuit in a villainously Swiss accent, and hobbled out.

"Mrs. De Burgho Keane wanted to know if she could be a German in disguise," giggled Violet, "because the old thing of course talks both languages. And Berthe has no sympathy with fighting. Poor old soul! she has some relations hard at it in France—two, I think."

Mr. Harold Keefe was mildly in love—sufficiently so as to occasionally forget to make declarations as he stared at Mrs. Weston, but not sufficiently to forget common-sense and to try to obtain all suitable information concerning Paul Weston, deceased, his circumstances in life, and his last testament. Gheena knitted when she was dummy, and talked incessantly of the Bobbery pack without.

Horses must now be made fit, no one had bothered so far. Mumsie's saddle was not even newly stuffed, and Dearest's two horses were on hay and bran.

Mrs. Weston decided to put hers on straw and looked surprised because Stafford and Gheena laughed immoderately, and Keefe choked politely.

"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 toupée 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 Kümmel, 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.