in time. He used to commence to clean his silver at four o'clock, and
when it was half-past the tea-pot would be all pink paste."
"Asking your pardon, Ma'am, but that same was only on days when I had
jobs given me," said Naylour firmly, "all the coats to brush and all
throusers to press."
"Naylour!" said Mrs. Keane haughtily.
"An' tay is not afther bein' late, Ma'am, but the Masther's watch is on.
He sot it on this mornin', thinkin' he'd be huntin', so as to get all
out, an' he forgot to sot it back."
"Four kinds of cake!" groaned Mrs. Keane. "I allowance them to a spoon
of sugar to each cup now in the kitchen and four cups of tea a day."
"I remember noticing the cake for the concert tea wasn't sweet," said
Gheena absently. "We made five pounds, and we'll have another for the
Red Cross--with the recruiting song."
"So dreadfully immodest!" said Mrs. Keane. "Just think how the soldiers
would hate it, too, if everyone who had sung that song ran to kiss them
on platforms on their return. I should insist on its being altered to
greet."
"Darby said that wouldn't do for Scotch regiments, because 'greet' was
Gaelic for 'cry.'"
"I found him," said the Professor, returning, "but so also had Crabbit."
He held up a large bandanna rent across by sharp teeth. Stafford stared
at the pocket-handkerchief thoughtfully, and Crabbit wagged his tail
pleasantly.
"War is a dreadful thing!" said Dearest George, rushing back. "Too many
complications. Confound it, Gheena, it's your wool again!" His plunge
into space was checked by the Professor's plump shoulder. "Several
suspicious characters hanging round the wireless. Two cars puncturing
on the road just outside and taking an unreasonable time to repair. Oh,
yes, they took their numbers quite cleverly. And people asking the way,
and they've seen a submarine outside the bay. English or German? Oh,
German, of course, Matilda! What foolish questions you do ask! And
they are afraid----"
"Here--my friend, was all this for publication?" said the Professor
softly--"all?"
"There's nothing private in a sighted submarine," snapped George Freyne
peevishly; "the fishermen saw her from the point. The Guinanes say they
did not, although they were out at the time, but they never like to
agree with anyone. Mary Talty did and Con Talty."
"What I came to tell you," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane, raising her voice
and looking importantly, "was that----"
"You've dropped your hot bun," said Mrs. Freyne absently, "the butterest
bit. Please, Crabbit."
"--Was that Lancelot Freyne is wounded," concluded Mrs. Keane irately.
"I met his mother and Annette both in tears because the wire did not say
how much though it mentioned a foot."
"Just think of Lancelot wounded! Somehow one never realized that he had
really gone out," said Mrs. Freyne.
"He was at the base looking after embarkations," said Gheena. "He must
have got run over. They did not send him up, I know, because his
letters were all Boulogne, and how cleverly he could talk French."
"Still, he's wounded," said Mrs. Keane. "And you might think more of
your cousin, Gheena. He will probably come home to recuperate."
"If General French can spare him," said Gheena sweetly. "You see,
someone who might be of use will have to replace him now at the base."
Dearest George broke in hotly to remark that Gheena was very heartless
talking in that fashion about a gallant boy who had gone to fight for
his country, and decided that he would drive over to Cahercalla to find
out the news. He thought it over as a fresh blast of rain drove against
the window and a boom of wind shook the trees outside.
Stafford, seated in a dark corner, was absently breaking up pieces of
plum cake and feeding Crabbit with them. He seemed lost in thought.
"The extravagance--in war-time!" said Mrs. Keane, seeing him. "I am
astonished! with plums in it too!"
"To say nothing of its making him sick," said George Freyne. "I think
all dogs should be got rid of with food so dear."
Gheena's cheeks lost some of their colour. Her stepfather could do
nasty things when he was put out.
"If anything were to happen to Crabbit I'd get married next day to
replace him," she said, a note of cold warning in her voice. "To
anyone! You might take me, Professor."
The old Professor spilt his fourth cup of tea as the remark reached him;
then recovering, he observed that the marriage of a maid to her
grandfather was forbidden in the prayer-books, and asked for more tea
placidly.
"Well, someone," said Gheena. "Darby, how many wild things did the pack
do to-day in the rain?"
"They just clung to the horses' heels," said Darby gruffly, his voice
sounding hoarse and strained; "that was all, Gheena. By the time the
war is over they will be a model pack. If one could breed a fox-hound
with Grandjer's nose!"
"They were two hours and a half hunting that fox on Tuesday," said
Gheena, "but they caught him in the end. He looked absolutely blighted
with astonishment going up the last field, considering how many times
he'd left them behind. Oh, dear! what a Christmas it's going to be--all
wool and war!"
"Your chauffeur sent in to say, Ma'am, that if the wind arises any more,
he'll scarcely get the big car across the long hill beyant the bache,"
announced Naylour respectfully, "an' will he come arround before it
does?"
"How you can allow Ma'am, Matilda," said Mrs. De Burgho Keane coldly.
"I had trained him into Madam so completely."
It was unfortunate that Naylour's "She had so, Madam," remarked
completely to himself, should have been audible to Gheena and Darby, who
burst into the insane giggles induced by attempts at suppression of open
laughter.
"His silver wants cleaning," also said Mrs. Keane. "You should make him
do at least what he can do."
"An' what he could not," came murmuring from the open door.
"If you can't get across the hill, come back," said Matilda Freyne,
ignoring the comments placidly. "There are plenty of spare rooms and a
turkey as well. That's for dinner, of course. Gheena, what is amusing
you and Darby?"
"Retrospection," said Darby solemnly; "nothing else."
The bad day gave its wildness to the night, which stormed and raged
through a wind-tormented darkness, to grow ashamed before a murky dawn
and threatening to hide in the caves of storm, leaving a still world and
pallid, washed-out sky, with an apologetic sun wintering in its
cloudless expanse. Far out on the point the spray was lashing up silver
bright; caught in the sheltered bay the caged waves heaved sullenly.
Gheena came down to breakfast in reflective mood. She was completely at
her mother's mercy as to money until she married or came of age, and her
mother's money meant Dearest George's. Vexed by the falling off of his
savings, George Freyne had spent a long evening carping at his
stepdaughter, and forbidden a fire in her own small sitting-room when
she wanted to go there to play cards.
George Freyne objected to Gheena's keeping her three horses, although
there was no real hunting. He objected to a three-year-old bay brought
in to train. He was, in fact, in the humour to object to everything,
and he talked gloomily, of putting down the motor and taking again to
the outside car, which languished in the coach-house.
"As that young horse has been brought in, he could be trained to
harness," he said unpleasantly; "and Bluebird was bought for a cart; she
would do."
Gheena's blue roan mare was a precious possession. Miss Freyne eyed the
breakfast table with unalloyed gloom, and helped herself to eggs simply
as an everyday duty and not because she wanted one.
"Dearest George said we were to have them poached or plain boiled in
future," remarked Mrs. Freyne, coming in. "He said it would save the
frying butter, you know."
Gheena rapped a brown shell and remarked she wished that it was in
futurity.
"As it's our money----" she began.
"But you could not hint that to a sensitive man, Gheena dear, and an egg
is just the same--isn't it, dear? There is always the yolk and the other
part, isn't there, Darby?"
Darby had stayed the night.
"And the shell," said Gheena, talking again. "I'll have ham, I'm not
hungry, and they're quite hard. I've battered all round without a dinge
coming."
She ate ham more cheerily. Dearest was extremely particular as to
boiled eggs. At one time he had hung lovingly on a patent boiler, his
watch in his hand. But the boiler had the determination of all such
affairs, namely, to hand out the egg either quite hard or glutinously
raw, and to decline to say which until the shell was cracked, when it
would chuckle softly over its blue flame of spirit. It could even spoil
two put in at the same time, relying on a current of air to one side the
flame to help in this.
Matilda Freyne, after a weary week of being told it was all her fault
for not taking the time, took to being late for breakfast, and Mr.
Freyne boiled eggs for himself until incidentally the lamp blew up and
singed off his moustache. So Anne the cook now endeavoured to plaze th'
ould grumbler, as she tersely put it.
Gheena tapped two other egg-shells with complete dissatisfaction, and
went to the window to see Mr. Keefe in uniform, trotting up the drive.
"He's rising to the trot," impatiently said Gheena. "Is it the invasion?
Crabbit has gone out and nearly upset him, and now he can't open the
swing gate. Here is Dearest."
"Hard again," announced George Freyne tragically, rapping pathetically.
"Why the simple matter of three minutes in boiling water cannot be
attended to! Gheena, you must pay for that white oats out of your
quarter's allowance, as you ordered it against my wishes."
Gheena flushed painfully. Her quarter's allowance was represented by
the unpleasant little line which denotes minus--she had given it all
away to various war funds, and the man was coming to be paid for the
oats.
Harold Keefe, pink and fussy, marched in in his dark uniform, and agreed
to a second breakfast; he had had his first one at seven.
He came with orders which roused them all. In case of invasion, horses
were to be removed; motors destroyed or taken away; hay burnt. He read
out the notice sonorously and with effect.
"There's really a chance of their landing." George Freyne touched the
silver tea-pot anxiously. "We could hide all this in the cellar and
cover it with slack, but there's the question of the horses again. How
can we possibly get them all away if anything does happen? It makes it
quite clear, Gheena, that one of your old ones and the youngster must be
got rid of at once. Bluebird would make a charger."
"To be frozen and ill-used and shot at, with his bad leg and his
delicate skin!" shot out Gheena peevishly.
But though they laughed at the little man in uniform eating ham with
appetite, the orders which he had brought made something real of that
terrible war across the seas. Germans might come to Ireland--grey-green
uniforms, spiked helmets, fierce dull faces might be seen on the edge of
the low cliffs. What scurry and flutter there would be if it ever came
to pass!
This little man, never quite at his ease, represented the struggle of a
mighty nation, pouring out blood and gold for the cause of freedom.
Gheena recovered from depression to see a vision of the flight of the
family, with her mother packing carefully, and a string of horses being
led off inland.
"I should certainly destroy all the jam," observed Mrs. Freyne, also
waking up; "they are so fond of sweets."
"Our navy," said Mr. Freyne pettishly, "is paid to see to things of this
class. They will never reach us. But, of course, one must be
prepared--and, talking of it, can your cook boil eggs, Keefe?" he asked
gloomily.
Mr. Keefe, starting at the change of subject, thought that anyone
could--just water and a saucepan.
"And bullets," said Dearest George. "Talking of invasion made me
remember the eggs. Bullets--with a delicate digestion."
Keefe picked up an egg and said absently that he liked them hard,
because they slipped into a pocket so handily, and with bread and butter
one was never at a loss. But when you get a kind of squashy thing--
"Oh, thank you, Mrs. Freyne! I'd love to take these two, I've miles to
go!"
The master of the house murmured "Savouries" into his empty tea-cup; the
desire to economize was strong upon him just then.
"I shall go out to warn all the men," he said, "and just show them that
we are at war."
He strode into the yard, followed by his womenkind. Dillon, a very old
man, was polishing the brasses on the car and crooning "Kathleen
Mavourneen" as he did so. He had looked the possibility of the Union in
the face a day or two before.
"Mr. Keefe has just called to say there is a possibility, a probability
of a German invasion," said Dearest George loudly, "and I must give
orders accordingly."
"They'll niver swhim the say," observed Dillon without emotion. "Have
ye another tin of Brasso handy, Phil? This is out."
"Phil--Hennessy, you are to be ready at a moment's notice to fire the
hay and be off inland with all the horses, and----"
Phil scratched his head dubiously.
"An' if they calls in an' ye out, sir, would we do the same?" he
inquired cautiously, "or wait to ax the Germin officers?"
"John Guinane says if they come here they'll come paycable," remarked
Hennessy, as he laboured at a broken oats crusher. "With no waypons,
but frindly. An' he says, too, there'll be no more money to go to the
Government. We'll be let off paymint for our land."
"God bless and save us! Is the haythens comin' here?" remarked Anne the
fat cook nervously. "An' the coffee near out, Ma'am--but a pound in the
house."
Darby leant upon his crutch, laughing silently, and Dearest George tried
to take off the hat he had not put on, missed it, and wiped his
forehead.
"Nothing would make them realize anything," he stormed, as he sat down
on a box--"nothing."
"Father Pat says the ships is patrollin' the say and they'll niver let
them over," said Anne more happily. "An' what is it, Phil?"
"It is the box we put a lick of paint on yestherday; makin' it sweet to
hold the crushed oats. He won't be best plazed if it isn't dry,"
whispered Phil. "An' not much drying in yestherday, aither."
Mr. Freyne got up, removing a film of brown paint with him, and without
noticing it, continued his oration.
He was interrupted this time by Matilda, asking him if he'd remembered
to write for the salt for the dairy, and left hurriedly, saying more to
himself than it was seemly to utter aloud.
"His throuser bein' brown, ye could not see," said Phil anxiously. "God
save us! look at the print of himself on it, an' there'll be pure
murther whin he claps an eye on his throuser. Hurry in to Naylour,
Anne, and tell him to rub on turps whin the Masther changes his
clothes."
"Dearest George will be angry," said Gheena thoughtfully; "it is quite
sticky."
Mr. Freyne was sorely puzzled later on to find smudges of brown paint on
the red leather library chair, and another smudge on the drawing-room
sofa, where he had sat down to ruminate over the crass stupidity of the
Irish.
When both the housemaids took "their Bible oath" that they were innocent
of using fresh paint, there was nothing for it but to harangue his wife
and Gheena. When Gheena offered a sporting bet that he had done it
himself, he got really angry, and unwisely accused her of impertinence
to her elders.
Phil knocked at the library door.
"I'm carrying the horses to the forge, sir, to be looked after against
they take the road," he said pleasantly. "An' James is up to know who'll
lead the prize bull, for he'll go with no one but himself, an' _he_
can't walk five mile. An' where will he go to? he says."
When the locality mentioned by Mr. Freyne was a very hot one, Phil said
"Yes, sir," and returned, murmuring that the Germans made the Masther
terrible peevish.
"I am going on to Cahercalla, Gheena; you would probably like to come."
Gheena said "No" absently. She was watching a distant figure on the
edge of the cliff. It looked like the Professor.
"Then Matilda must."
"Oh, Dearest George," said Matilda weakly, "I thought of taking a little
ride; but if you think I'd better---- Of course, they are upset about
Lancelot."
A second figure appeared on the cliffs, someone tall and active. Gheena
flung the French windows open, omitted to close them, and slipped into
the wood which went down to the edge of the sea.
"Gheena gets rougher every day," said Freyne angrily--"every day, and
more thoughtless."
Darby, on his stick, hobbled out and went slowly down the lawn, his eyes
fixed sadly on the trees that held the girl. How quickly she had
slipped out, leapt over the sunk fence and disappeared! It was good to
be young and strong and active. The measure of strength which had
returned to him could not content him. Always with one side which would
drag, always slow and crippled. He would be better, people told him.
His crushed limb would improve by degrees, but he could never know the
fullness of life again. He saw Gheena come dodging across the carpet of
dead leaves and peep at the fretted, still blue sea. She leant out
cautiously, then came into full view, and stood as if listening. Two
people were talking just below the verge of the cliff.
"Are you looking for Germans?" said Darby politely.
"Oh, hush, Darby; do hush! You don't know"--Gheena came close to
him--"you don't know the kind of things I think," she whispered.
"If there was any use in those blamed bits of rock," said Basil
Stafford's voice.
"My friend, is there any use in dead butterflies, in used postage
stamps, or an array of foxes' heads and tails? The rocks are my hobby
to collect and ascertain the stratum. _Himmel_!" This exclamation was
caused by Crabbit rolling a completely unwashed small rock on to the
Professor's neck.
"Rabbits," said the Professor, "excavating. In time stuffed. Shall I
not have a complete report of every coast in Britain?"
Stafford said "Oh! add a 'c,'" rather dubiously. "You'd be paid a bit
for that just now," he added grimly.
"To tell them what was the softest rock to hit against. _Hein_!" The
old man chuckled. "And I am well salaried, pensioned; I have no need of
money."
"Before I came here I wanted it as I shall never want it again," said
Stafford slowly. "An old debt suddenly cropping up, a dying mother with
her only chance an operation and a minus balance at the bank, and half
pay. But it all came right."
"You found means to get the money--eh?"
"More than I wanted," said Basil. "I got it in a way I hated getting it
by, but it's here--and it saved my mother too."
Gheena drew back slowly, her face flushed.
More money than he knew what to do with, and he was playing at making
drains on the south coast of Ireland. Gheena decided to go to see Mrs.
Weston.
"It was the dog Crabbit what knocked down the stones, and not a rabbit,"
remarked the Professor, looking up. "Miss Freyne's dog."
"I said, add a 'c.'" Stafford scrambled lightly up the cliff. "I heard
voices up there."
Darby, leaning on his stick, was hobbling away with Gheena and keeping
pace easily enough with her active feet.
Gheena whisked round suddenly as they came to the little bridge over the
sunk fence.
"If a man has been dreadfully hard up and gets enough money suddenly, he
must have found some way of getting it," she said excitedly.
Darby referred her impolitely to "Enquire Within" or the Ready Reckoner.
He had forgotten even simple addition himself.
What did she overhear down there to make her look like a boiling kettle
with the spout corked, he said to himself, his eyes following Gheena
with something of Crabbit's wistfully faithful look in them.
*CHAPTER IX*
"We shall hear something of how the war is really going on now,"
observed Dearest George excitedly. "Here is a letter from Eva's
husband--the one that died, Matilda, years ago."
Naylour started, so that a bevy of eggs leapt from the china hen on to
the floor, and Mrs. Freyne said "Gracious, Dearest, was it suspended
animation?"--rather absently, as she watched them smash.
"It was the sister who died." George Freyne invariably bellowed at the
slightest check to his flow of conversation. "Eva; she married a
General. He was one then, rather. How idiotic you can be, Matilda!
And he's been appointed inspector of something--remounts--is coming to
Cara, and will stay Friday to Monday here--for Christmas, in fact.
Great heavens, that old Naylour! He has had a stroke."
"It was the fear what the Masther said put on me," murmured Naylour
contritely. "Not bein' sure what they might be able to do in
war-time--an' the gran' eggs losht! Scarce a smhell of the fire they
got to-day, Anne bein' repentant for overcookin' thim yestherday." He
gathered up an uncooked omelette with two silver tablespoons, murmuring
repentance.
"No--we will not have any more--in war-time," said George Freyne
frigidly. "There is cold ham and toast. They were quite raw in any
case. You can tell Anne."
The ham had worn down to the end which testifies to the good feeding of
the pig which provided it, and was principally white fat. George
Freyne's hungry resentment was not appeased by the appearance of a round
and smoking poached egg done for his stepdaughter, accompanied by
toasted ham.
"Anne does it on a fork," said Gheena cheerfully. "There was no waste of
frying. Here, Crabbit." She put down half a plateful of ham for the
red dog.
"And I am starving. Ring that bell, please, Matilda, and order up cold
pheasant. Now, having all been sufficiently amusing, General Brownlow
will be here on Friday, and I suggest we get Darby to alter the meet to
Saturday, so that he can have a hunt. He rides well, or he used to--and
so dreadfully fond of it. Eva died from a fall out hunting."
Darby said "Oh!" thoughtfully. He had not yet gone home, but was
staying for Christmas Day. "We'll have to go out Stephen's Day," he
said; "but I daresay, if we only draw one covert the extra day, they'll
be all right, horses and everything."
"He will tell us news," said George Freyne emphatically, "news which
these Comoniques deny us." (I write it according to pronunciation.)
"He will have been at the War Office and seen people. And he's rather
particular, Darby, and inclined to take things seriously, so we must try
to keep the pack together, or nearly. I'll practise hard on the
hunting-horn, and Keefe must try to get out, and ... then the horses.
He'll want remounts."
"Twenty post-cards," said Darby. "I'll find them in the library, I
suppose, George? and someone's sure to be forgotten, even then."
"There is a messenger over from Cahercalla to say that Masther Lancelot
will be home to-morry--he has a cart with him," announced Naylour
impatiently, "an' his mamma 'd like the loan of the bath-chair."
George Freyne went out fussily.
"Why Lancelot should bring a cart with him," said Mrs. Freyne vaguely.
"So little room, I should have thought, on the troopships, unless it was
the one which hurt him, as a memento. Gheena says a cart ran over him.
Oh, thank you, Gheena darling, poached eggs for me and Darby. I was
hungry."
Her pleasure in the forbidden breakfast and its hurried bolting before
her husband came back made Mrs. Freyne too busy to hear Darby's murmur
of "It was the messenger's cart, not Lancelot's."
"Dearest George gets quite faddy, you know," she apologized, "about
everything, and we never spend our income--at least, I don't think so.
Gheena, Mrs. Keefe thinks that last year's 'Unto Us' is in the attic
here, and ought to do in a war year with fresh holly. She is not sure
if the 'Hallelulias!' were used to stuff the cat pin-cushions for the
bazaar, or if some of them came back as they were. What do you think,
Gheena?"
"A cart-load of them came back," said Gheena, "and everyone can just put
on holly-berries and save pounds of trouble."
"It is not in the lofts or the coach-houses; then where is it? for I
must know." George Freyne drove Naylour and Maria the housemaid into
the room before him. "A bath-chair in perfect order, which Mrs. Freyne's
mother used."
"Unless they broke it up for firewood, sir," suggested Naylour, looking
anxious.