"and I think she died in it; and I would not have it back; she had
something unpleasant, I know. Then I think it got broken. Tell the
messenger, Naylour, that Mrs. Keefe has an excellent bath-chair and
quite new. Oh, I did not ask you about lending it, Dearest, because
probably you weren't here, or perhaps I thought you might have objected
and one wheel was quite bad."
George Freyne carved pheasant furiously.
The days before Christmas were always feverishly occupied at Castle
Freyne. Chunks of cow had to be distributed among the work-people, with
tea and sugar and flour. Everybody the Freynes ever did anything for
had to receive a goose or a turkey or game.
Mrs. Freyne agreed to the necessity for economy with a resolution which
melted as wax at the faintest idea of putting it into practice.
"Everything died just as usual," she said placidly to her husband; "and
as they were dead, it would be waste not to give them away, especially
in war-time, Dearest, would it not?"
Mounds of parcels had been secreted by Gheena and sent to every
acquaintance she had in France--cakes, sweets, plum-puddings and
mince-pies, tobacco and socks. No man from the village missed having a
parcel.
The day's papers merely contained the usual news of the winter deadlock,
so there was no excitement to interfere with the long morning in the
kitchen and the long stream of presents which went out.
Mrs. Freyne remarked on the unusual scarcity of pheasants, to be
informed by stout Anne that the Masther was sellin' them same to
Hourigans there in the city.
George Freyne arrived at too frequent intervals to groan before the
array of food, until the sound of his steps caused a laden rush to the
rabbit-warren of sculleries and larders off the huge kitchen and a
general concealment of anything which could be hidden speedily.
"We must slip away most of the parcels when Dearest George has gone to
Cahercalla, Gheena, mustn't we? The Master is so dreadfully anxious that
we should not be extravagant during the war, you see, Anne. Gentlemen
have it constantly before them."
"There is a fire to keep going in the red room from this till Friday,"
announced Maria, coming down for coal. "The Masther says it is roarin'
damp, and there is a telegram to go for Eysters, Phil--when ye are
exercisin' the horses."
Phil remarked bleakly that it would be aisier to take ramble on the
bicycle than be rubbin' muck off his horses for two hours afther the
roads, and departed.
The afternoon was marked by the white fluff of last year's cotton-wool
which pervaded carpets and chairs, and which Darby said was worse than
snuff. Fresh holly duly dabbed with glass and ground sugar added a
stickiness to which the fluff clung lovingly.
They all worked in the servants' hall, a long room in the basement, with
a stone floor which chilled through meagre rugs, and took a heavy tea
there flavoured with gum and fluff.
This was all a yearly amusement, generally tempered by piles of new and
snowy cotton-wool for the texts.
"But this year we are not neglecting the beauty of the church, and still
are saving money for the war," said Mrs. Keefe piously. "I wonder if
the fluff will ever go off us again? That 'Unto Us' will look quite
beautiful, especially if the sun doesn't shine on the 'Son'; that word
is dreadfully yellow. If you put on more berries, Gheena, no one will
know what it's meant for."
"And they'll think of German measles, too," said Darby gravely. "Mrs.
Weston, you're the worst stitcher I've ever seen."
Violet Weston was clamping holly leaves to a piece of red calico nailed
between two painted pieces of wood. They were intended to cover a
pencilled text decorously, but instead were straying drunkenly off the
lettering and leaping hopelessly up again, until a cypher message was
the result.
"They prick so," said Mrs. Weston resentfully. "And we've all got to
put them up to-morrow because you're hunting on Saturday. If they only
were calico letters, but real holly." She sucked a finger. "That bay
horse of mine is a very funny horse," she went on. "He stands still
when he's tired, and gulps."
"He was pretty bad last year," said Darby sympathetically. "But you can
turn him over for his own riding, you see, and get even that way."
Mrs. Weston dropped a lapful of holly leaves and stared with puzzled
eyes.
"Oh, Mr. Keefe didn't know," she said blithely, "and here he is with Mr.
Stafford." She looked swiftly at Gheena.
"Stafford drove me over to the Wireless Station," Keefe said
importantly. "We thought some news might be in. And now we've come to
help. I'll sit here near you, Mrs. Weston."
"I think they're so squashed probably they won't prick," said Mrs.
Weston thoughtfully. "Oh, they did"--for Mr. Keefe got up hurriedly.
"I'll hold the board if you finish the text. I am all sore."
Violet Weston was aggressively, brightly pretty in her light-coloured
frieze skirt and jersey, with vermilion silk stockings framed by
ultra-smart shoes. She was painted and thickly powdered, and told
everyone her fringe was false; but something in her light-hearted
good-humour made her difficult to resist.
Everyone's feet were lumps of ice, everyone's faces had flushed from hot
tea and lack of air; sneezes not entirely born of fluff peppered the
conversation.
The Vicar at some length put forward a plan of campaign which must end
the war in a month. It included the crossing of the Rhine, a march into
Berlin, and the permanent imprisonment of the Kaiser on Spike Island.
Mrs. Keefe then thought if there were more like her Albert at the
front--he was called after the Prince of Wales--no, of course, the
Prince Consort--who used their brains instead of merely running in and
out of ditches, that the awful loss of life would soon end. In fact,
Albert had volunteered to go as chaplain, and he might be attended to
then.
The black back trail of the war was gone over many times--the great
hopes which had fallen so heavily--Antwerp, which men said could hold
out for six months.
"Betrayed by spies," said the Vicar bitterly. He went on to remark that
man of God as he was, he would himself shoot a spy without compunction.
"After he had said a prayer, of course," temporized his wife soothingly.
The Rev. Albert Keefe did not reply. He came of a fighting race.
"General Brownlow will doubtless be able to tell us why the Germans did
not take Paris," said George Freyne, coming in in a motor-coat, "and
Lancelot comes to-morrow in the mail on crutches. He is not likely to
rejoin. Some bone must come out."
"Fancy if we found a spy here!" giggled Violet Weston. "You just finish
that 'towards men,' Mr. Keefe. I won't. How exciting it would be! And
you know if it's true that there is a supply base for submarines about,
there might easily be someone paying out the money, mightn't there?"
Again she looked at Gheena. Stafford flushed slowly, his lips set
together.
Mr. Freyne, who had to have fresh tea--not China--and fresh hot cakes,
and who was palpably annoyed because no one took a great deal of
interest in Lancelot, his nephew, now remarked acidly that he had run
into Mrs. Weston's on his way back to leave in a book which Annette had
borrowed from her, and he was astonished to see how untidy her little
back garden was. The man Guinane was absolutely useless to her, and he
suggested her taking on old Dillon instead.
Violet Weston replied that she loved the boating on calm days, and that
Guinane had promised her to grow peas and beans in the spring, and
flowers she must grow herself, she supposed; but she liked Guinane.
The texts were piled against the wall; patient house-maids removed
fluff, nails and leaves, and everyone thought of hot baths.
"I have asked them all to dinner for Christmas," said Mrs. Freyne
presently. "It makes us forget how bad the war is when everyone talks
of it, doesn't it, Dearest George?"
"Mr. Keefe will argue with the General," said Dearest George gloomily,
"and Annette and Grace and Lancelot must come. But it is your house, my
dear love," he added gloomily; "one cannot take back invitations."
General Brownlow was motored from Clonaheen on a blustering night. He
proved to be an elderly but active person, with a lean, hatchet face,
deeply-set eyes and a repressive manner. He brought his man--a
particularly superior-looking person, not a soldier--and hoped they had
expected a valet.
Mrs. Freyne thought hopefully that if the man was not rheumatic, a good
deal of hot air from the red room must have gone into the little one
next to it, and the man could sleep there.
The General looked anxious, but was reassured by a murmur in a language
not English and the departure of Hook with the bags.
The expected flood of information was not forthcoming at dinner. The
lean man seemed only to have heard the usual rumours, and to be as
firmly convinced as everyone that all the right men were in the wrong
places, and that the one person to adjust matters had not yet been
found. When he did talk, it was of Ireland and the Irish, and he grew
absolutely cheerful when he heard of a prospective hunt.
"Met Lindlay," he jerked out. "Yes. Told me he he'd spared no money
with the pack here; poor country but great sport. Any experience
hunting?" he jerked out at Darby.
"Twenty years ... compressed," said Darby thoughtfully. "Hares, foxes,
cats, dogs. May say I've a good deal now, I think, sir."
General Brownlow considered the list mentally. "Yes. India; jackals,
dogs ... but cats. You don't mean tigers, Dillon?"
"No, cats," said Darby briefly. "They are ... well ... it's not exactly
Lindlay's pack we're hunting here," he added.
"That man is making such a muddle of waiting," whispered Gheena, when
her stepfather began to talk again. "He upset one plate of soup, and
he's rigid now with the bread-sauce at mother's wrong side. She'll
never notice him there."
Just then George Freyne, looking round fussily, remarked "Sauce for the
General's partridge" very sharply to Naylour.
"Rooted with it he is," said Naylour in one of his audible asides.
"Hurry along, young man, will ye!"
The young man feverishly left Mrs. Freyne's right hand and transferred
himself to the General's, Naylour remarking "War ways," firmly removing
the tureen and ordering the stranger to shove the bell for the lift.
"As curiously behaved as ever--this old country," said the General
testily--"No, I've finished, thank you--this Ireland of yours, George.
I spent the week before my wedding here, I remember."
George Freyne replied heatedly in defence of his country, answering his
brother-in-law that Ireland was orderly and well regulated. "And if you
mean the sauce, it was your man," added Mr. Freyne, in what he believed
to be an undertone.
"Oh--er--my man; he's not used to butlering. The most annoying habit of
the Irish is their inability to see the gravity of situations."
Darby rubbed his forehead quite slowly with his right hand, as with his
left he set fire to a mince-pie.
"All the same in a hundred years. My poor Eva would say that
when--when--well, when she ought not to have--when the month's
expenditure was five pounds beyond her allowance, or something valuable
died, or the impossible maids she brought from home smashed some of my
Worcester. Dear me! She would train to distant meets when we could not
possibly afford it. And ... 'I'll be dead such a long time, Tony,' she
said to me when I remonstrated."
But a gleam of light and softness shone in the hard old eyes.
"She might box horses anywhere she wished to now," he said, sighing.
"And she is not there to do it."
"Then you see, sir, she was right," said Darby gently. "She had her fun,
and it did not matter as you pulled out and made money."
General Brownlow glared at Darby fiercely; then the gleam of softness
reappeared, and he grunted thoughtfully, to remark after a pause that
he'd never thought of it, but, after all, she was. And that he'd write
to Tom her boy to say it didn't matter.... Then he lapsed into silence
again, with something very like tears in his eyes.
When a telegram came for Stafford he read it with such a disturbed
expression that General Brownlow asked softly if it was bad news.
"No. War news and no news." But Stafford's frown was not that of a man
who had received a wire about nothing.
"You are not joining anything?" the General asked.
"Not at present, sir. I am tied here."
Stafford tore the telegram up, then walked to the fire and threw the
pieces in carefully.
General Brownlow's man was a success in his own circle. Old Naylour
reported upon him as a dacent boy, with a twisht of fun in him; this
privately to Gheena.
It was a still, muggy night, and as the air in the library grew heavy
with smoke, and the possibilities of making tricks at Bridge were
carefully considered, Crabbit flung himself with a wild "Bow-wow"
against the window panes. Naylour at the moment was putting down a
large silver tray laden with syphons and decanters and a jug of boiling
water. Gheena promptly let her dog out, letting in a sough of cold raw
air, which struck the heavy heated atmosphere almost as with a blow.
Crabbit trailed off, yelping excitedly, followed by her owner with her
light dress festooned above her arms and her airy petticoat fluttering
round her ankles.
"Unless it is rabbits it is a man," said Naylour decidedly. "That
Crabbit has the nose on him."
Someone asked if the dog would bite, and Gheena returned talking affably
to General Brownlow's man, who, it appeared, had gone out for a stroll.
"Being devoted to the sea air, Miss," he said pleasantly, "and longing
for a smell of it, cold as it is."
He came apologizing through the open window; his boots were very wet,
almost as if he had walked in water.
Next morning, during a breakfast at which all war restrictions were
removed, and Anne worked her blissful way with eggs and bacon and
sausages, General Brownlow asked if a mount could be provided for his
man, who loved a hunt, above all things, and Gheena offered her young
horse heartily.
"He bucks a little, but he's a fine lepper," she said, "and his mouth is
not quite made. Still, if the man didn't mind that--you see, you're
riding Greybird as the best we've got, and we have to mount Mr. Keefe
too."
The General's man, who had again been out to see the coast before
breakfast, accepted gratefully, saying that any horse would do.
They drove to the meet, old Dillon coming to bring the General's car
along, and found no hounds when they reached the fixture, cross-roads
tracking through a boggy stretch with a small gorse-covert inset on
rising ground just beyond.
Private information of the presence of a somebody from the War Office
having trickled through, everyone who had a horse had turned out. The
horses had been shaven above as well as below. Mrs. O'Gorman wore her
best habit again, with grievous thoughts of how it had shrunk lying by.
A glint of coppery sun came shining through a soft mist of clouds, the
tang of salt mixing with the scent of peat.
When the Cahercalla Darracq, its tint a brilliant yellow, drove up, its
occupiers seemed to consider that the non-arrival of hounds was of minor
importance, since they supplied the event of the day.
For it held Lancelot in khaki, his leg extended in front of him upon a
variety of cushions and supports, his face a little white, but not thin.
Lancelot Freyne was a long boy with a great deal of loose fat
distributed unevenly. It inclined to his shoulders and cheeks, and then
bulged out again in his thighs. He was loose-lipped and combined a
desire to show his excellent imaginative powers with a meekness due to
suppression from his infancy by his mother and elder sister.
The crowd of people round the car were slaves to the throb of his foot.
He answered questions concerning the war with vigorous decision, and
apparently had seen flocks of prisoners, and droves of guns, and yet was
gloomy over it all.
"You see, they really have such a lot of men," said Lancelot, watching
his mother hang upon his words, "and they don't mind losing them, and
then they have so many guns."
"Was it shrapnel or a bullet, poor Lancelot?" inquired Mrs. O'Gorman,
clasping her stout hands.
Lancelot murmured "Field gun" in rather embarrassed tones and a little
sulkily.
"A 'Jack Johnson' shell," Mrs. O'Gorman passed back, "and it didn't blow
his foot off. You must have had a very strong boot, Lancelot dear."
Here General Brownlow backed away, struggling with a cough which seemed
to have got out of control.
"And did you really bring the cart, Lancelot," asked Matilda Freyne,
riding up, "as a souvenir? The cart which went on your poor toe, Gheena
said."
Lancelot, his interesting pallor swallowed by a wave of fiery red,
replied haughtily that no cart had gone over his toe, and glared at
Gheena.
That damsel was employed in adjusting the young bay horse's bridle, and
offering him to the General's man as one would a spoon to a child with
strawberry jam but rhubarb underneath.
"Just saw the bits across, Hook, if he pulls very hard down hill. He
won't pull going up. If he kicks, try to jerk his head up. He often
rears instead, you know. And don't be afraid if he flies small fences;
he won't fall. Just be careful the _first_ time he gets his feet on to
grass; he sobers down wonderfully when he's gone for a little."
The General's man grinned softly, landed lightly into the saddle, and
got the young horse's head up with a determination which gave that
high-spirited youngster quite a shock. The bay, christened Redbird--all
Gheena's horses were birds, she said--observed that there was little
room for him to play in, so settled down decorously to walk up and down
with the other horses.
Darby looked feverishly for his hounds. Then he heard them coming.
"Get away on them, ye set of schamers," shrilled Andy's voice. "Get on
to bed. Shame on ye, Grandjer an' Daisy, shame!"
"Wild as hawks they was," confided old Barty, who looked hot. "Here,
there and elsewhere, an' ready to be at the clouds if they'd run along
the bog for them."
Darby considered this possible.
"One cat they cot anonst to her," said Barty. "The chestnut is
latherin' all over with the fear of Carty's lash, an' even the Rat is
sober from chasin'."
General Brownlow removed a cigarette and said "My God!" to himself twice
as he looked at the pack.
Home Ruler always led them, the relationship to a boar-hound never being
quite concealed by a fox-hound's stern, with the tailless and aggressive
Grandjer just behind.
The General prayed again, lifted his hat a little as if to admit air to
his hair and looked at George Freyne.
"You mean to say they hunt," he jerked out. "You bought a hunting cap
for this lot, George. And someone else has one, too. Three of you
Masters, and, I say, Hook! _Hook!_"
For the General's man, riding up, also looked at the pack, and gave vent
to an outburst of hideously clear laughter, which he made worse by
putting up his hand to hide, as he rocked and backed away.
"Something I thought of, sir," he gulped at last respectfully. "Er--a
tale--they told me."
"Move on, Barty," said Darby shortly; "it's twelve o'clock."
The way into the gorse cover lay past a stretch of bog-land which was
thick with hares; then the black caps lined up behind the pack.
Daisy and Greatness broke away, throwing their tongues.
"Whip them off that hare, Barty. Get round them, Carty."
Darby was finding himself as a Master of Hounds; he no longer gave
orders dubiously, but with a pointed bitterness of decision.
"It is no use to be larrupin' them for what they were used to," said
Barty philosophically, as he rode the aggrieved Greatness off the line
with a polo-player's skill.
"Home to bed, Greatness!" shrieked young Andy reproachfully. "Home to
bed, ye schamer, ye! There is foxes beyant an' ye're wantin' yere nise
on little better than rabbits."
"Lord above us! to be brought out for this," said Brownlow. "For this!
Look at them! Hook, look out, man!"
The bay horse got his feet on the grass for the first time. Three
mighty bucks carried him well on to the soft ground, where he stretched
his head out and began to kick.
Mr. Hook, proving himself a horseman, if no butler, gave the big snaffle
bit three jags, which took the youngster's head up, and bringing down
his crop on the sleek bay quarters, got the big humped back up straight,
and set the great brute going in the deep ground before he knew where he
was. The bad example brought forth a series of squeals and
light-hearted bounds from more sedate hunters, Gheena's roan compassing
three excellent plunges, and Dearest George's old bay kicking his master
on to his neck.
"If mine begins," said Matilda nervously.
"Oh, take him into the soft and he'll never lift you," suggested the
General absently. "I hope that man won't be hurt. He's valuable. Well
over!"
This, as the youngster swept a fair-sized bog trench with a snort of
wrath.
Hounds went into covert now without requiring to be personally
conducted. They had scarcely vanished when Home Ruler's great bay
sounded sonorously, followed by Grandjer's short yap.
"Overture to the Valkyrie," said Brownlow thoughtfully; "full
orchestra."
Darby cheered them quickly, his familiar cry being followed to-day by a
bellow from his fellow Master George, in which "Forrard!" or "Tally ho!"
and "Good boys!" seemed to be blended, but not satisfactorily mixed.
Beauty, in fact, climbed on the bank with an inquiring expression on her
pale face.
"For Heaven's sake, George! You'll get their heads up! And Keefe
squeaking the 'Gloria' at the other end! Well, if it isn't that, it's
something out of tune. He'll go soon. They're rattling him, but be
quiet."
Darby leant forward, twisted useless limbs forgotten now. He was on a
horse's back, his grip firm there. He could ride as well as men who had
never known pain. There was the prospect of a gallop over these small
green fields, and of watching his hounds hunt--terriers, harriers, what
you will, yet his hounds, and keen for blood.
"Yow--ow--ow!" the long harrier note towled out, soft and musical.
Mr. Freyne, greatly put out, rode away murmuring "Tally ho's!" to
himself, so that onlookers should see that he was doing his part.
"There he goes!" An old dog fox, dark in colour and with a white tag to
his brush, whisked out over the bank, looked back for a moment, and
loped off straight through a patch of bog towards the pasture land.
"The best line. Give 'em time, will you! Easy, O'Gorman.... Steady
there! Easy, George! You're the worst of the lot, nesting under your
peaked cap, selling your country, man! Steady, will you!"
It took time to get the hounds on to the line, to get them settled down
and cup on. Traitor and Sweetie and Spinster were given to hunting
solemnly on in covert.
"Forrard! Away! Away! Away!" Barty's screech equalled that of John
Peel.
Long and thrilling it rang out, echoed by soprano efforts from little
Andy, blissfully waiting for the Rat to run away, and with throaty notes
from Carty at the lower side of the gorse.
"Get away on forrard!" sang out George Freyne energetically to the crowd
round him. There was only one good track across the bog. This
permission sent several people ambling along it, wondering if the hounds
would soon join them.
Mr. Keefe's effort--he had to do something for a General--was "Yoicks!
Tally ho!" which he kept trying from C in alt. down to the bass G, to
see which note suited his voice.
"Pretty nonsensical our leaving all the Master's work to Dillon," he
muttered, and tried his part again, the lower key completely startling
Miss Carrie Hourigan that she dropped her whip so that she might get to
her beads under her habit.
"Thinking it was a gun out of a Zeppelin," she said pallidly. "Will you
pick the whip up, Mr. Keefe, like a love, now?"
"Sorry, a Master," bustled Keefe; "this way, Mrs. Weston. Keep the
track." He did it again on the high note.
"You'll certainly break something if you try so high," said Violet.
"And you're distracting Mr. Dillon, so do stop."
Hounds were on now. They towled away, Home Ruler leading over the
springy tussocks, every hound hunting, every tongue thrown.
The General's man sobered the young horse by pulling him straight at the
spongiest piece of ground, through which they laboured and heaved, and
the bay was in hand as they jumped an ugly bog drain and landed on sound
grass.
The pace was fair, hounds running steadily over light springy land,
fenced by small narrow-topped banks.