kind of a man do you think Basil Stafford is?"
"A decent kind of young fellow--with straight limbs," said Darby slowly.
*CHAPTER IV*
When Captain Lindlay had written from the front in pencil, to say he
didn't mind how they killed foxes as long as they kept the people in
good humour and the committee agreed, and that they could take lessons
from old Barty as to blowing the horn, a committee of four, with a
feminine president, formed itself, to get to work as soon as possible.
George Freyne saw financial difficulties, because covert keepers would
desire to be paid for a find by Grandjer just as if the Dunkillen hounds
had all thrown their tongues in unison; but the absent Master had
foreseen and anticipated this, so that Darby was able to talk quite
firmly of finance.
"Unless one of those terriers gets into a flock of sheep," he said
thoughtfully. "They are coming over to-morrow, Gheena, and old Barty is
to teach a man how to boil for them; and I am quite sure that Andy Casey
will stay to help." Here he winked at Andy who had come down to get
orders.
"We'll hunt with ten couple of fox-hounds' relations and I can toot the
'Gone away.'" Here Mr. Keefe, taking out a hunting-horn, made note
hideous and forlorn, but still a sound, and unclasped his pink cheeks
from the mouth-piece with a gasp of triumph.
Darby remarked he looked rather like one of the Mons angels when he was
at it, and he hoped the pack wouldn't think it was anyone dead in the
parish; but, after all, one must learn. Here he brayed out "Gone away"
shrilly and clearly, and tried to blow them out with minor success.
Mr. Keefe then commenced to practise again until Mrs. Freyne came in
mildly, to ask Dearest George if it was possible that a German band had
been wrecked in the harbour; and George Freyne, having shrieked, fingers
in ears, for silence, surreptitiously picked up one of the hunting-horns
and tried himself.
When Gheena took Darby's she smiled, for old Barty had taught her long
ago, and she rang out notes worthy of the absent Master.
"I shall carry one myself," said Gheena proudly. "Dearest, Crabbit will
howl if you make that noise again."
To which Dearest retorted hotly that he supposed she had made queer
noises herself on the beastly trumpet when she began to learn.
"Four of 'em, with copper wanted for shells, too," said Darby
thoughtfully. "Will you be the first whip, then, Gheena? and I'll be
the second; any number you like. And George can be Master and Keefe the
other."
"If I do it in public, I'll make it a whistle," said Freyne hurriedly.
"And Keefe had better, too, judging by the wheezes he made."
"We could raise the horns up and blow the whistles inside them," said
Keefe thoughtfully. "But, then, if these two blow horns, how are the
dogs to know any order at all?"
"They never did know it," said Darby mildly. "Little Andy will beat
them with a whip when they run sheep or pigs, and they have forgotten
more about hunting than we ever knew."
"But to take them out of covert," said Keefe, "when it's blank."
"I suppose they'll come when they know it is," said Darby thoughtfully.
"You see, they never drew any of ours. What's that, Andy? They often
did unbeknownt. I daresay. And as to getting them out--what do you
say?"
"If there was a fox inside or any of his pups, they'd root them out,"
said Andy firmly. "Beauty 'd make 'em lep, I'm tellin' you, an' if the
foxes got to the din, me Dada 'd go in with a few rocks; we'd gother an'
hunt the dogs away back to us outside."
Darby considered the advisability of the Master, even of a bobbery pack,
collecting donations of rocks from his field, and thought it was better
to wait until occasion arose to think about it.
George Freyne had got the Stores' list open, and was longing dubiously
at lists of whistles. Incidentally, he wondered if Lindlay was one of
those jealous fellows who would object to another Master in his absence;
and added, after a pause, that he'd heard once of some chap who had his
neck broken in a hunting cap. Some Lord Something, so perhaps Darby had
better be Master.
He was too much occupied by whistles to hear Darby say that ropes
appeared equally dangerous at times, as he directed Mrs. Freyne, who had
just oozed in and wondered if it was late, to write to the Stores for
the loudest whistle they had.
"With two Masters," said Darby, "I wonder whom the hounds will obey?"
"The sorra the sowl but me Dada," comforted young Andy from the window.
"Only Beauty 'd follow meself to destruction, the craythur. He came to
mass onst an' rose a bawl, an' Father Pat prayin'! An' not a move out
of him till me Dada rocked him with Mrs. Maguire's prayer-book."
"Mrs. De Burgho Keane is late; don't you think so, Dearest?" said Mrs.
Freyne, shutting up her letter to the Stores. As it appeared in George
Freyne's opinion that Mrs. De Burgho Keane was always too early, Matilda
Freyne merely looked out, and said perhaps it was not four-thirty yet.
Just then a motor sounded outside, and a deep voice could be heard
giving directions to a chauffeur.
Mrs. De Burgho Keane--to forget the De Burgho was to receive a glance
which Darby said struck you like a horse's kick--was immeasurably large,
and covered with a great deal of drapery, which made the largeness a
mystery. Her coats or mantles, generally edged with beads, floated
about her; her veils obliterated the outline of her neck; when skirts
were hobbled, she had covered them with dust-coats, and her evening
dresses were generally flowing. From this haze of dark-hued costume
appeared a commanding countenance, high-nosed and keen-eyed, and framed
by a toupee which advertised itself as one, without guile.
She wrapped Mrs. Freyne in her large arms, and looked round for Gheena,
who had disappeared out the window.
"When she's busy with a tea-cup, she can't kiss you. I'm going until
then," said Gheena from somewhere outside, to Darby.
Mrs. De Burgho Keane was a pessimist who regretted everything. Her
glances towards the sea seemed to search it for the flotilla of the
invaders which she knew must come; she said no precautions were being
taken, they were left open-coasted and alone.
"To hear her talk," said Darby in the corner, "one would say the whole
British Fleet ought to patrol the coast of Dunkillen."
"We are not taking it to heart," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane as she
floated ponderously to rest. "No one seems to mind. Economy is not
being borne in upon the nation. Mrs. Harrison's cakes, when I called
there, were just as rich as before August."
Darby looked thoughtfully at the array which the old butler was just
putting on the tea-table; there were five, and Anne was rather proud of
them all. They had done lightsome with her, she had told the
kitchen-maid.
Mrs. De Burgho Keane's glance passed from the cakes to the butler, and
she grew fiercely red, ejaculating "Naylour!" angrily.
The butler replied, "Good evening, Ma'am," politely, but nervously.
"Hot cakes? Oh, thank you, Matilda; I should hate to grow stout, but as
I walked to the garden to-day I may venture. And good evening, Gheena
dear! How nicely browned you are, even so late in the year!"
With the faint nervousness with which everyone addressed Mrs. Keane,
Gheena touched her cheeks, and said it was bathing all summer.
"The news," said Mrs. Keane ponderously, "is bad. It is always bad. Why
do we not sweep Belgium clear? Why?"
Darby, whose eye she caught, replied that he couldn't say, and offered a
sultana cake humbly.
"Why not give it back to them instead of bringing the poor things over
here?" said Mrs. De Burgho Keane gloomily. "So expensive, too! I am
taking three gardeners, and I am told they have never even learnt
English. One can hardly imagine it nowadays. I am looking things in
the face," she went on emphatically. "It's no use putting futurity
behind your back and hoping it will stay there."
Darby put down his tea-cup and rubbed his head softly.
"So I make it keep itself in the future where it should be. I had all
the servants up and I've put my foot on their many eggs firmly, and
stopped their jam on Fridays, and weeded out those----"
"Those who could go to the war?" flashed Gheena, the patriot, ceasing to
be nervous. "Hanly, of course?"
"Your tea is always so good," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane, ignoring
Gheena. "Thank you, Matilda. Do you weigh it out daily? I told old
Naylour he would have to do without James, the pantry boy, and do
Eustace's valeting as well, as Carty had enlisted; and when he said it
was too much for him, I made James butler. I saw old Naylour here,"
added the lady haughtily.
"He was too old to go to strangers, and we thought we could do with
him," said Gheena quietly.
"You remember I asked you, Dearest George," put in Mrs. Freyne, an
anxious eye on her visitor. "I asked you twice, and you--what are you
saying, Dearest, now?"
Dearest was saying "Damn!" a little too audibly, and looking at the
door.
"Yes, Dearest George said that he was quite tired of carving," said Mrs.
Freyne, "and Naylour is splendid at it. George had just upset some
gravy on his lap the evening I asked him, and I think that helped him to
decide. Crabbit will snuffle just when Dearest George is getting to the
jointy part of the ducks, and it's so upsetting; very like an earthquake
or a serious illness under the table."
"It was I who took him," said Gheena briefly. "He is a dear."
"Then I sent away the cook; she was quite old, too," said Mrs. De Burgho
Keane, forgetting Naylour gracefully, "and the present one only needs a
scullery maid, and I've put down one housemaid; and told the gardener he
must do without old Magee, he only pottered lately. I have thoroughly
faced futurity," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane; "even my cakes are only
caraway seeds now."
"If they didn't get stuck in one's teeth," said Darby absently, "they
make you think of Kuemmel, and that's pleasant. Crabbit, you've had
three pieces of sultana cake."
Crabbit laid a witchingly innocent head on Darby's knee, his big liquid
eyes looking up sweetly.
"And I got rid of two of Eliza's dogs," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane
pleasantly--"those two useless terrier brutes, with a touch of spaniel
in them, Gheena."
"Eliza's dogs, what she loved!" Gheena was on her feet, her eyes
flaming. "The dogs! You--you----"
"I told the men to do it," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane placidly, "in the
lake--quite humanely."
What Gheena might have said was checked by a whisper from the old
butler.
"They are both below at me house," he breathed over the tea-cups.
"Little Miss Lizzie 'd break the heart in her, the craythur, over them."
Gheena's flush faded slowly. Mrs. Keane was just asking Darby if he did
not think of doing something out there. Drive a car even, he could do
that.
"I should be more in the way than a help," said Darby after a pause. He
seemed to find it hard to answer. "There will be enough cripples going
home without a ready-made one going out," he added with a twisted smile.
"What do you think Evangeline De Burgho Keane was born into the world
for?" Gheena asked fiercely, watching the lady go towards the garden,
from which she would return followed by a youth bearing a bundle of
cuttings and plants, and possibly fruit.
"To make us see how nice other people are," said Darby equally. "Keefe,
she's calling you now, she's turned back."
Mr. Keefe emerged from behind a newly-lighted pipe to answer humbly.
"I do trust you are looking after your part of it, Mr. Keefe, and not
allowing the police to do nothing on bicycles all over the country when
there's a war in Europe. Their place should be on the cliffs watching
for spies and submarines."
"I've applied for a commission," said Keefe briefly and irrelevantly,
"and the coastguards are trebled. These are on the look-out for men on
Leeshane and Innisfail, and there is the patrol boat. My part's inland,
Mrs. De Burgho Keane, until I get out to fight."
Mrs. Keane--his tone offended her--said that she feared Mrs. Weston
would miss him; but no doubt when they took him off to learn drill they
would send some old and experienced man to a place of importance.
"It's like slipping down a cliff covered with furze bushes," said Darby,
"everything raking you the wrong way, painfully. Gheena, come and see
the horses. Cheer up, Keefe."
He began to move so easily that he looked at his twisted limb, and a
thrill of hope moved him. Would it ever regain some strength--allow him
even to walk without the crutch he detested? He let it--the leg--drag
and saw its inert helplessness, and still thought it did not drag so
much or fall so uselessly.
The fine day was passing to a chill evening; the sea looked as though
all the gun metal of the world had been ground fine and spread over its
heavy waters. It gleamed metallically, caught here and there by rays
from a sun half hidden by storm clouds. Autumn turned to sterner mood,
weary of flawless skies and brilliant sunshine.
The yard at Castle Freyne was a huge place, sunny and sheltered, with
rows of stables sunk darkly into its walls. They were roomy places,
with square holes in the ceiling to drop hay and straw through; cold in
winter, but horses throve hardily in them, if satin coats were unknown.
Gheena had established innovations, such as the removal of hay-racks,
water supplied constantly, and oat-crushers--all things which caused the
fat old coachman to say loftily that her Dada's hunthers and his
father's before him, God rest their sowls! wint out with none of that
nonsinse, and follyed the dogs as good as thim Miss Gheena worrited
over.
Hanly was nearly seventy, and Hanly's father, who was ninety-four, and
absorbed sunshine and firelight according to the seasons nearly all day,
seated smoking in an arm-chair, could remember when hunting was hunting.
"'Twasn't at airly dinner-hour ye'd be at the meet, but out at six
o'clock till 'twas too dark thin, an' so on up till nine, an' none of
ye're trapsin' here an' trapsin' there; but wouldn't one good breedy fox
often run till they had their stomachs full of it, an' they'd kill him
an' be home by twelve or one, an' in to a fine honest male of pounds of
beef and geese and turkeys an' lashens of drink."
Old Mat could not be shaken by any tales of improved breeding of
fox-hounds.
"Don't you go out to hunt and not to race?" he would pipe. "An' how can
ye be watchin' hounds if ivery moment ye think ye're horse 'll give out
an' ye be left behind?"
There was no wire those days, according to Mat, and no claims for fowl
eaten by foxes, and no doing up of horses when be rights the big house
should be shut for the night.
"A gran' dinner at five an' the shutters shut, an' a bed to sleep in
that wasn't all twisted iron, full of air-holes, but close and cosy,
with curtains around ye."
Matty could pipe out tales of great hunts in those bygone days--hunts
lasting for three or four hours after one fox--and tell of Sergeant, the
great black weight-carrier, and of Napoleon and Molly, his own two.
Gheena had three horses of her own--two active compact six-year-olds,
just the stamp to gallop as well as scramble, and known as Whitebird and
Redbird, and a leggy roan mare, which she had purchased herself in the
spring, and which she was not at all sure about, called Bluebird.
Dearest George's horses, paid for by his wife, were large and sedate and
extremely valuable. A stout strong cob, with legs of iron, carried
Matilda in the very hilly country, and a showy whistling bay on other
days.
"I brought over that bay to-day," said Keefe, after he had given the
unstinted praise due to other people's horses, and yawned twice outside
the boxes; there was nothing to be bought here. "The one I wanted for
Mrs. Weston. It had a cold when the remount man was round."
"I knew it was Slattery's," said Darby.
Mr. Keefe grunted irritably.
"I've got it here anyhow," he said. "And I told her I would have, so I
hoped she'd come over to see it this afternoon quietly. It's standing
in that box."
"Pull it out, Phil," commanded Darby; "Mr. Keefe's bay."
Phil pulled out a narrow, very tall bay with black legs and a
well-set-on tail, but showing old marks of brushing in front; it had
slightly contracted feet and a whistler's jowl. Notwithstanding these
faults, the bay could gallop and jump when he was fresh, but two hours'
work saw the end of him; and, tired, he clicked his shoes forging,
brushed, and stumbled on the roads, and if asked to go on fencing,
finished that up by a variety of crumbling falls. Fattened up, he was
taking and showy.
"Of all the--I knew him well," said Darby, just as Mrs. Weston tottered
through the archway.
"Naylour told me you were all here," she said, "except Mrs De Burgho
Keane, whom he didn't seem to count. So I just came along, sans
something, as they say in France, don't they? Mr. Keefe said he would
have the hunter horse here for me to see."
Mrs Weston was pleasantly fresh in a bright mauve tam-o'-shanter, a
white dress, and shoes to match her hat.
"He's just out on view," said Darby; "and don't slip get just behind him
or you might lose him and think him was a clothes-line."
Mrs. Weston stepped forward, gave a quick bird-like glance, and began:
"Of all the----" Then she stopped suddenly and looked again.
"He is a very nice horse, isn't he?" she said brightly.
"There isn't gap in the country you couldn't slip through on that
fellow," remarked Darby, ignoring Keefe's furious eyes. "And you ought
to keep him always tail foremost, Mrs. Weston; his is so pretty."
Violet Weston thought it was a love of a tail, very happily. He was not
at all like the horses they rode in Australia, she added, much
finer-looking; and she thought he might be very nice to run after hounds
on.
"Slattery did it often," said Darby tersely to himself and hobbling off.
Keefe, relieved by his absence, now explained the difficulty of getting
any horses just at present. People who had very good hunters hid them
away for fear they would be commandeered, and all the sixty and
seventy-pound screws were sold.
"The most lamentable sight ever I seen," observed Phil, taking the bay
for a little stroll down the yard and back again. "The teeth dhragged
out of the youngsters to make them the right age, an' ould sthagers
taken that ye'd offered oats to feed 'em on it, sthone blind I seen them
bought, an' sore with spavins, an' broken-winded. Old car horses ripped
out of the shafts an' soult for chargers. Runaways, stoopers,
sthaggerers, the sorra a charnst a man would have to run away at all
with the craythurs sint out for them," concluded Phil sorrowfully.
"He--has his--forelegs a little near together, hasn't he?" inquired
Violet Weston dubiously.
"The way he can't throw dust up betune them," said Phil softly,
something very like a wink trembling on his left eyelid.
Mrs. Weston held up a mauve suede shoe to Phil; next moment she was in
the saddle, with a white skirt very much rucked up, and a good deal of
mauve silk stockings to be seen. She trotted the bay horse out of the
gate and put him into a gallop in the field outside.
When everyone had rushed out to see her fall off, they saw that she was
quite at home in a man's saddle, and if she did not ride over well, yet
knew how to stay on.
Returning with the bay all out, Mrs. Weston had only just time to avoid
Mrs. De Burgho Keane, who fled aside with a scream and then halted to
stare icily at the mauve legs.
"I couldn't hold on sideways," said Violet Weston apologetically; "and,
of course, I'd wear boots. He won't be very dear, will he, Mr. Keefe,
because I want a new fur coat as well?"
Mr. Keefe said sixty pounds with a faint quiver in his voice. "And a
dozen of gloves for luck," he said gallantly.
"I'd rather have a bridle," said Mrs. Weston pleasantly. "And there is
only a kind of shed which Tom Guinane says he must put a door to; but I
expect the horse will do nicely."
The old saw of Romford's, "I'm too much of a gentleman," rang in Keefe's
head.
"If we really are going to have hunting, and you say horses are so hard
to find," went on Mrs. Weston pleasantly.
Keefe thought ruefully of the string of horses which would be trotted
towards the front gate of Seaview directly Violet Weston made her
intention of hunting known. Prompt decision would alone save him from
loss on his gamble, for he had bought the narrow bay.
Mrs. De Burgho Keane looking on, now declared that if, as her husband
informed her, foxes must be killed, they ought to be shot, and not make
the country a laughing stock by running about after the Caseys' foot
pack. The earths could be closed and the animals dislodged with terriers
and good shots stationed. "Now you are able to shoot still, Darby?"
Darby said "Yes," with the same twisted smile.
"And the foxes killed, the skins could be sold for the Blue Cross Fund,"
said the lady decidedly.
She held the public ear as she put forward the absolute wickedness of
spending money upon hunters when every penny was, and would be, wanted
for the war.
"If everyone gave up keeping everything, it seems to me that a lot of
people would starve," said Darby gravely. "Out-of-place servants who
cannot join the army are rather at a discount this year. If we all did
nothing always, we should make a lot of riches and create a lot of
poverty."
"If you are sure she will get over the fences," said Violet Weston, "I
will buy him. And can I call it Britannia or Commander-in-Chief?"
Darby mildly suggested Equator, because it was a line, and was coldly
turned away from.
Harold Keefe drew a breath of sheer relief.
"I'll have the cob with the curbs for myself now," he thought
blissfully, "out of the profit."
"You are going to take it without a vet.?" said Gheena. "Are you? You
warrant it, Mr. Keefe?"
Mr. Keefe's pained expression rested on the Commander-in-Chief's hocks,
and he said warmly that he'd warrant it fit to hunt, for it never went
lame on them.
"Oh, leave it between them, Gheena," murmured Darby wearily. "They can
put it in the settlements."
Mr. Keefe, with an outburst of unwilling honesty, now drew gloomy
attention to the curb.
"He has a curb," he said darkly. "It never stopped him."
"But--I thought it was a very severe bridle," said the widow vaguely,
"and was two bits; and it is only wearing one at present."
"If it was a gag on his hocks it would do her," gulped Darby, when he
had recovered a little and emerged from the stable he had fled into.
"He wears his curb behind, Mrs. Weston, not in his mouth."
Mrs. Weston said, "What absolute nonsense!" quite huffily and patted the
Commander's white nose.
"I hate a horse with a white nose, he always looks like a sheep," said
Darby. "And, hello, Mrs. Delaney! How many hens has the fox eaten now?"
A little withered old woman had come into the yard, a basket in her
hands.
"It is not hens I am afther, Masther Darby, but the lind of a handful of
flour from Anne to save me walkin' onto the village, the Guinanes being
quite run out."
But they were taking it home last night from the ship, said Gheena
quickly.
"They didn't brin' it to the shop, then, Miss Gheena, an they up an'
toult me they could not have it until to-morrow."
Gheena nodded carelessly.
In a flutter of dark draperies Mrs. De Burgho Keane moved to her
motor-car, a luxurious Limousine.
"And you must be particular with Naylour, Matilda dear," she said. "I
noticed that to-day, after years of impressing Madam upon him he had
fallen back upon Ma'am. You will find him a difficult old creature,"
she added acidly, for just then she recalled the paucity of Naylour's
wages and his great use in the house.
A malignant eye peering from behind the kitchen door revealed that old
Naylour was listening.
The big car lolloped off heavily, and the butler advanced into the yard;
Mrs. Freyne had gone in.
"I wondther who'll juggle the decanthers of port-wine now for her," he
said bitterly. "Fine red sthuff from Macdinough's for the ladies an'
the clergy, and the cellar wine for themselves an' th' experts. An'
champagne the same way, with me heart broke in me, huntin' Jamesey for
fear he'd make a mistake. An' in she'd wheel directly the dinner was
over an' the gentlemin cleared out, makin measure in her heart's eye on
the decanthers befour she'd lock them up. The gentleman had no maneness
in him, poor gentleman, but herself. God save us!"
"I don't know why she ever comes here," said Gheena pettishly. "Isn't
she horrid, Mr. Keefe?"
"She has the face of a fat rat on her," said Keefe briefly.
*CHAPTER V*