Produced by Al Haines.
_*The Scratch Pack*_
_*By Dorothea Conyers.*_
_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.