he "practised" the new young lady over some bushes made up on the lawn.
"Sit back! Hould ye howlt! Great begorra! Now, at it agin!"
"Oh, it's lovely!" gasped Psyche, as she bumped from the saddle, gripped
the mane, and yet was still there, hanging on.
"Don't be afeard, ye are still above," comforted Phil. "Let ye lane back
when ye'd feel him hop and straighten yerself when he dhrops, and the
Queen of England couldn't do more. That's bether. Now agin."
Redbird, a sedate little horse, now felt the spirit of the morning enter
into him, and suddenly did a little jump not over the bushes.
Psyche understood a buck-jump; she sat down to it with a little coo of
delight, and raced once more at the fence.
In a very pale grey habit she was as sprite-like riding as on foot.
"If we do not move on," said Mr. Freyne ill-humouredly, "we shall never
leave this place."
Darby thought this a sound opinion. He limped off to his horse slowly,
watching with amusement Miss Delorme's spirited efforts to master the
balance of a jump.
The rejected grey was brought to the step by Phil, George explaining
with disgust how he had been returned for some private spite.
"The quietest soort of a horse ever I seen," said Jamesey Rourke, and
whistled absently.
It was unfortunately quite like the signal which Greybird had completely
at heart.
At Darby's side, Mr. Freyne was moving off, feeling that all eyes were
upon him, when without warning the Greybird died for his country with
extreme spirit, decanting his rider on to the wet grass.
"Oh, heavens! someone whistled!" said Gheena. "It's two whistles sharply
given, and he's got it on his mind now, and he's on the croquet hoops."
The grey stood up, his saddle scratched, his side smeared, with a benign
expression on his good-tempered face.
"The megrums," said Rourke, excitedly catching the horse. "The megrums
he has, the craythur."
Gheena explained softly. Mr. Freyne, smeared with green, remounted with
bitter dignity and noisy comment.
The woods behind the house soon rang with the towling harrier note,
until Grandjer, rushing out, pinned a small yellow fox which had one paw
badly injured.
"Those dreadful men on the cliffs," said Mr. Freyne pompously.
"Dreadful--my foxes!"
Looney Rooney, limping through the crowd, muttered "Shopman's rabbits!"
happily, and grinned at Darby.
"Dirty German thing, trapping!" said Darby curtly. "If Lindlay comes
back and finds out who does this, he'll make Huns of them for the time
being, I tell you."
Mr. Freyne nursed the cheek injured by the croquet hoop and remained
silent.
They drew on through the long wood at the foot of the hill, trying every
yard of it, monotony varied by the occasional slaying of a rabbit by
Grandjer or Beauty, both adepts at it. Wherever Darby rode, little Miss
Psyche was on his heels. To be with the Master was hunting for her.
She squealed nearly as loud as the rabbits when the hounds gave tongue
and were rated; she wailed for a hunt. She put her horse over fallen
trunks of trees and piped shrilly that she had learnt to sit on at the
jumps. She viewed a squirrel with a "Tally ho!" which made the wood
ring.
"Now look here!" said Darby firmly. "That's not a fox. And I'll do the
hollering away."
"It had a long tail," said Miss Delorme equally firmly, "and it was red.
And suppose I see a fox and you don't see the fox, am I to say nothing
because I am not sure it is a fox?"
Darby gave it up politely. He pulled up to rub his head and say "Hounds
noses," looking straight into the small pale face and the big grey-green
eyes half hidden by a tangle of dark brown eyelashes.
"They'll be off on the scent of Cupid in a minnit," he said, "or
Endymion. Siren would be a better name for you, Miss Moonbeam."
They scrambled through a hole in the boundary bank, and got out into
poor pasture fields to draw more woods on the crest of a hill.
"When you run across to that--" said Psyche, pouting. That was the
opposite cliff across the harbour.
"--Do you have to swim?" she asked.
"No, there's a ferry," said Darby gravely. "The fox hails it first.
Then it comes back for me and the hounds and the hunt servants, and the
others wait on the shore for their turn; that's the way we cross the
sea, hunting here."
A small bank reared its barrier across the grass. Darby's horse
scrambled over contemptuously, Miss Delorme rushing at it wildly, and
recovering by the breastplate when the bustled Redbird bungled.
Home Ruler put his nose down with sudden interest, Beauty following
suit. A fox had been about. They spoke to the line in the larch wood,
when the whip-like tasselled boughs scratched unwary faces as they rode
through. It was a stale line. Darby cheered them, hoping the fox might
be lying in some clumps of gorse outside, from which there was even the
possibility of a hunt.
Violet Weston's tall bay snorted and whistled as they climbed the steep
hill. She was attended by her small red-faced swain, who was
endeavouring to conceal from his thoughts that green Chartreuse in the
morning will mount to the head.
A nip from his flask to assure himself made him happier; he found that
irritability passed to loquacious cheeriness, and it took a second nip
to bring a thorough glow of sweet peace.
Then he discussed the war and his work, explaining how much of it all
entailed upon him--constant rushes to the Wireless Station, where they
were ordered to let no one in now; incessant false alarms; the arranging
of everything in case of invasion.
"You know that man with the broken leg still says he was too far in to
have fallen over," he said. "He said he was amongst the gorse inland
when he was tripped up and fell."
"Drunk, of course?" said Mrs. Weston.
"A teetotaller," said Mr. Keefe, again staving off irritability; "and
now we have some whisper of wireless messages being sent off the coast."
"Mrs. Weston and I," said Gheena, riding up, "are going to search right
along the cliffs for caves and holes. We might find where the petrol
base is, if there is one, and then you'll be promoted."
Little Keefe snapped out that he did not believe in the rumours.
Beauty towled out her long note; a fox had been somewhere about.
"You must take off those lovely shoes of yours if you're going for long
walks on the cliffs," remarked Keefe fatuously. "Never do it on those
heels you wear, Mrs. Violet."
A minute later Stafford, who had ridden to their right, came up to
Gheena. She was on the young horse, managing it perfectly, her bright
face glowing as she played with his mouth.
"Look here," he said earnestly, "you are not to attempt to look along
these cliffs, you two girls. Have you thought what it might mean if
there really was a base, and desperate men earning their living by
holding it? As their lives would certainly be over if they were found,
do you think they would let you two come back quietly to tell the
police?"
Miss Freyne withered him with a look before she inquired icily who had
told Mr. Stafford of their intention.
Basil Stafford observed with some confusion that he'd heard of
it--er--somehow.
Gheena replied that she did not remember mentioning it until that
morning, and then only to two people who took an interest in the war.
At this Basil Stafford shot out "Steady," his voice shaking a little.
"Well, you can't," she replied with firmness.
"I can take an interest in folly," he observed after a pause, speaking
with the extreme sweetness which marks distinct ill-humour.
"Keep off those cliffs, Miss Freyne. You see, there really is a war
somewhere, a real war, and the German Emperor is not yet at Runnymede."
"You'd like us to keep off the cliffs," said Gheena. "No doubt."
Mr. Stafford suddenly allowed his ill-humour to pass to laughter.
"War includes many things which you have not even dreamt of," he said,
grinning. "Keep away from it."
To which Gheena returned that so far as she could see, people kept away
from it who ought to be in it, or perhaps they did not keep away.
Here she stopped abruptly and Darby's voice rose cheerily. They had
found.
Scent was of the poorest. A small red fox, put up out of a clump of
gorse, loped into the wood, and though they hunted fairly well in
covert, even the harrier noses were at fault outside.
This fox topped the hill and made for a clump of trees about a mile away
across rough heathery ground.
When the wood had given up the branch-slashed and irritated Field, they
kept to a boggy track leading to the spinny where they were making
for--all but Darby, who rode with his hounds, risking the rough broken
ground and the narrow rotten fences, mere uprights of soft earth, darned
together with heather and fern. At his heels, exactly upon them, came
Miss Delorme, crying "Oh! Oh! glorious!" as her horse stumbled and
slipped, left completely to himself.
Gheena also left the track. One was glad of any excitement; hunting out
of Castle Freyne and the bumpy going was practice for the youngster. It
would do him good, too, to flounder on the ugly little banks.
Darby looked round. On his heels came fair, pale Psyche, radiant with
sheer joy, her reins flapping, her whole mind full of the rush of the
pack in front, of the towling, yapping notes as Home Ruler led and every
hound gave tongue, the soft fresh air against her face, the whole
unsounded mystery of it in her blood. At his left Gheena, the too eager
youngster, held well together, the girl sitting down in her saddle, her
hands low, giving and taking to her impetuous mount, both so young, so
full of sheer keen life, both with all their limbs their own, both
unknowing trouble.
The glow in their faces lashed the Master with a whip of bitterness.
Here, as they rode, he was on an equality, able to ride a hunt as well
as they could, to sit his horse as easily; but if any difficulty came,
if he had to get down, he would be Darby the cripple, limping and
crumbling through life--asking for help to get back on to his horse.
"Ou--ich!" was the exclamation trailing in his wake as they came to a
nasty trappy little bank, a mere mound of boggy earth flung up and held
loosely together by coarse grass, bramble vines and heather. The bay,
ridden all loosely at it, did his own steadying and propping, the latter
with a sufficient swift decision to fling Psyche out on to his neck,
where she balanced precariously, gripping at the breastplate.
"Ooo-iche!" came a happy crow of triumph as the little figure got back
into the saddle. "Oh, Mr. Dillon, he full-stopped quite suddenly."
"Hold his head," grinned Darby. "Full-stop him yourself, or you'll be
in a ditch."
The fox tried the spinny, and as Phil upon the cart-pony put it, took a
swee-gee out around the hills. A more abominable country it would be
difficult to imagine--lumps of tussocky ground rising out of sullen
little boggy places, bogs on the summits of the hills and loose slaty
stones, with a few tortuous tracks showing the ways of moderate safety
here and there.
With the fox-hounds flashing over it, it took all one knew to keep near
them; and if one let hounds go, they might top the hill and go on down
to one of the best pieces of country. With the scratch pack yowling
solemnly it was a pretty sight to watch them--every hound hunting; now
Beauty ahead, now Daisy; again dock-tailed Grandjer, throwing his
blended tongue, half hound and half terrier; Home Ruler quite exhausted,
towling melodiously at the rear of them all.
"He will be cot," shrieked little Andy, dashing the Rat over the rough
ground. "He will be cot. See! there is one wavin' ahead."
The fox had sat down to consider matters, and jumped up again as the
steady "Yow-ow" came slowly along, the lulls were growing unsafe, so he
meditated a return to Castle Freyne, where he was sure to find some hole
unstopped if he had time to look. Her pale face glowing as with white
fire, her eyes ablaze, Psyche dashed on behind Darby. She splashed into
bogs, she let her good little horse stumble against tussocks; the
madness of hunting had bitten her, was in her blood, never to come out
again. Every fence was a joy, a thrill of uncertainty. She was not sure
once whether she would not follow little Andy on his Rat, because he was
abreast of hounds, but was checked firmly by Darby.
Even the scratch pack were brought to their noses on a piece of cold wet
ground, where the fox had lain down in a clump of briars overgrowing
some rocks.
They quieted solemnly, every nose down.
"Clever as Christians," breathed Andy ecstatically. "Look at Grandjer
an' Beauty, an' he nosin', an' Daisy! Whiroo!"
The fox leaped from his shelter, flying off down the hill.
"There! there! there!" Darby's right arm was caught and held. "Now,
there, is that a fox or a squirrel--the thing they're hunting? And may
I say 'Tally ho?"
Darby observed gravely that it was not usual for him to hunt squirrels,
and cheered on Grandjer and Beauty.
They flew back down the hill, hounds running almost in view.
"I shall never go back to Kent. I'll hunt all day long," breathed
Psyche wildly.
"She yappin' to herself the same as Home Ruler, an' he behind tirened
out," remarked Phil to Andy. "Listen to her, an' she off afther the
Masther an' howldin' his arrum an' he lookin' for his bugle!"
"The craythur!" said Pat. "She'd see nothin' but baynits in England now
and Zeppylins, an' then to be out like this is life to her."
But running down wind scent failed again. Slowly, earnestly, hounds
puzzled it out, now one flinging forward with a long yowl, then dropping
into silence almost angrily. Slowly they trailed it on until they were
absolutely at fault on some scrubby ground. Darby did not, as a rule,
help the scratch pack; he looked on while George Freyne blew his
whistle, and Mr. Keefe fussed about like a red-faced bee, and the steady
old stagers took no absolute notice of them.
But to-day, with Castle Freyne in front, he meant to cast forward; they
might catch their fox in the woods when scent held better. Barty and
Carty got round the puzzled pack and whipped them on to him.
Dearest George was in a bad humour. Their return to Castle Freyne at
this hour would mean everyone in for drinks, late lunch and tea. His
petty spirit rebelled, and he thrust his dual mastership forward.
"That fox is back, Darby, over the hill."
"He is not," said Darby mildly.
"I say he is. He has turned here. I say we must try back. Barty, whip
those hounds back to me." Mr. Freyne blew his whistle shrilly.
"Grandjer's touching the line," said Darby; "put them on, Barty."
Dearest George wished frantically to know what he wore a black cap for
if he was not to put forward opinions.
"Forrard on, Grandjer!" remarked Darby.
"And I will cast back," stormed Dearest George, "or--or resign, Darby,
resign."
"Well, cast away," said Darby affably. "Cast them back now, if you
can"--for at the moment Beauty gave a long yowl of joy, and held on
steadily, throwing her tongue; Grandjer, Daisy and Spinster following
suit.
"That is the way we came up. Heel! Back trail!" cried George Freyne.
Darby said thoughtfully it must be a really heavy heel to leave its mark
for so long, and cheered hounds in the same breath.
"To know which way he has run away," cried Psyche ecstatically. "Oh,
Mr. Dillon, you are wonderful!"
Darby was not accustomed to whole-hearted admiration; he smiled at the
little white face which peered almost over his shoulder.
"Now, if you were a fox," he said as they cantered towards the woods,
"would you go up that hill again with dusk coming on?"
"But aren't foxes like women--always doing just what you don't expect
them to?" she said, as she pulled the gate open.
"Those are the twisty ones which we catch," he said briefly. "Now
they're at him! Unless he gets into a hole, he's done."
George Freyne said gloomily that he would dismiss his head man. This
was when the fox found refuge in some rocks quite close to the house.
"I'd better ride on and have some cold things put out, hadn't I, Dearest
George?" observed Mrs. Freyne happily, "and get eggs done. Anne's hot
cakes will be sure to be ready. Everyone is here and we shall have
quite a party," she added pleasantly. "Come and have a drink, Rourke,
and bring anyone."
"Thin I wouldn't say against another glass of that ginger wine, Ma'am,"
said Rourke bashfully. "There was the sweetest sort of bite in it, a
sphur in the head it gave ye."
"Stay there, George; we might dig him." Darby stopped George as he
turned to ride away. "Don't desert me--as fellow-Master."
Mr. Freyne put the peak above his forehead with a gesture of pure
tragedy. Nothing but a speedy rush to the house could have saved his
Chartreuse.
*CHAPTER XIII*
"This," remarked Psyche, opening the hall door very wide, "is the
loveliest place that I have ever been in."
Miss Delorme looked through the gap in the trees at the quiet gun-metal
sea, surging between the cliffs. She sniffed up the soft air with its
tang of salt and peat. There was in her young mind the desire to dance
and run from sheer lightness of spirits. Crabbit sat upon the doorstep
and eyed her with grave curiosity. He had twice endured being caught up
and called a dear darling.
A well-ordered villa on the outskirts of Folkestone seemed to belong to
another world, with its orthodox morning slits of open window airing the
rooms, its neat and congested garden, where calceolarias, geraniums and
lobelia were replaced by spring bulbs each year, in the same week, on
the same day, if it did not rain. Where rooms were turned out on their
appointed day and the bitter cold of leafy June never could call a fire
into existence once the grate was ornamented with a plant mausoleum in
chequered pottery. Here, at Castle Freyne, the asters still lingered,
with here and there a flower upon them. Thomas, the old gardener, was
declaring the Missus 'd ate the face off him if he delayed lashin' in
thim bulbs a day longer; but what could he do when he could not lay his
hand to them in any place--an' he knowin' he put them away careful.
The thought of Miss Eva Delorme with spring bulbs which would not be
found brought a bubble of laughter to Psyche's lips.
Phil was bringing the hunters out for a mouthful of sweet grass,
placidly letting them graze between the flower-beds.
"Destroyin' the lawn before the masheen, Phil!"
"Won't the blast of the roller flatten it!" returned Phil cheerily.
"And it is the sweetest taste in the place, Thomas--like nuts, it is."
From some unseen abyss fat Anne's voice thundered to Phil that his
breakfast was waitin' on him, an' if he didn't come to it there were
dogs in plenty, as she would not be disorganized with the table led all
night.
"Wasn't I in ten minnits ago an' not a sign of it?" replied Phil
pleasantly. "So I to run out with these two, Anne; put me bit of bacon
on the range, Anne Macree, till I gits in to it."
Anne Macree replied fierily in a voice of complete good-humour that it
was Cragsbread his likes should be gettin', same as the Germans, and
that there was a few cakes in the oven for the upstairs breakfast which
he could have if he'd hurry up, himself an' his Macrees.
A shaft of light came through the grey clouds, making a bar of silver on
the steely sea; the sky, travelling quickly, now showed little flecks of
blue and flaws of pearly white. Yesterday's cold wind had gone.
"It's heavenly," Psyche whispered. "It is nearly ten, and at the
Larches Miss Eva would now be seeing which fish was the cheapest, and
ordering a warm joint which would go out to the kitchen for luncheon.
And it would be batter-pudding day."
"You love it, Sprite!" Gheena came running round from the stables, her
clear brown skin flushed, her bare head ruffled.
"I want to live here." The English girl looked out with her pale
bluey-green eyes. "I want never to leave. I want to learn the
difference between squirrels and foxes, and how to sit on at jumps, and
why the hounds yowl for a time and then don't say anything."
"And I"--Gheena looked out--"I want to live here sometimes, but I want
to travel, and to see France and Italy and further away still, and hunt
somewhere else where it's flat going, and just be here in the summer or
in the autumn, but not always."
Dearest George, who came from hermetically-sealed rooms, and was
consequently very chilly in the mornings, now called out that Mona would
catch a bad chill if she did not at once come in.
A roaring fire mocked at economy in the long dining-room. Anne's
preparations for a visitor smoked in various forms. She had what she
called loosed her hand at hot bread and produced three varieties.
Psyche ate an unsprite-like breakfast, listening thoughtfully to her
host's prophetic warnings of financial downfall and the general muddle
of England at war.
"At present," said Mr. Freyne, coquetting between cold game-pie and hot
kidneys on toast, "we are like candles alight at both ends. Everything
costs more and we have less money to pay for it with."
"Why not go back to the pie, Dearest George?" advised his wife
affectionately, "and not think of the kidneys, because they'll get
cold."
Mr. Freyne, saying pettishly that by now Matilda might remember how
delicate his appetite was, took kidneys and returned to his seat.
Gheena was creaming and sugaring her cousin Lancelot's tea. The wounded
hero was growing puffy and taking on a greenish hue from constant food
and no exercise.
He wished to know pettishly--it is an invalid's privilege to be
pettish--if Gheena would drive him to the village in the pony cart to
see if his new socks had come to the shop.
Psyche, thrusting this aside, said quickly that Gheena had promised to
go over to the kennels, so that the names of the hounds could be learnt.
"You can't call these things hounds," said Lancelot, "terriers and
boar-hounds; and my leg won't fit in the trap with three other people."
The complete absence of sadness at this announcement caused a fretful
outburst--how when a fellow couldn't wash no one wanted him, and if he
hadn't gone to fight----
"The wagon would never have rolled over your toe," said Gheena absently.
Things leaked out curiously in Ireland. "To-morrow, Lance, the car is
going to the station and we take tea with Mrs. Keane. Here are your
sticks."
"Your arm," was what Lancelot whispered amorously, as he extended a
well-covered hand.
With a welcome opening of the door, Miss O'Toole came in, apologizing
for an early intrusion; but it was on the important subject of a concert
for the Belgians which they wanted Mrs. Freyne to help with.
"We have been mapping it out," said the young lady vigorously. "Miss
Freyne will sing the recruiting song, and Mr. Freyne, I hear, is
inimitable as John Peel and the Meynill Hunt."
George Freyne made modest mention of advancing years and a declining
voice. His wife, who was a musician and played his accompaniments,
wondered mildly what key he would commence in.
He generally tried two or three before he rushed away on a fourth, so
flat that to follow melodiously was a difficulty.
"And we thought if our wounded hero would recite--his khaki and the
crutches, you know--something quite simple, of course--cheery."
Lancelot, swaying on his sticks, dived in the recesses of his mind, and
remembered that he had done the "Burial of Sir John Moore" in red velvet
and a lace collar at home when he was ten.
When Psyche said that she was interested in such a burial, Mrs. Freyne
explained at some length that, of course, Lance did not mean Sir John
Moore had put on a red velvet frock to be interred in, but that was what
Lancelot had worn to show off in.
"The seven-thirty from Cortra will be in time," said Miss O'Toole
eagerly, "and we'll have crowds. Then light refreshments, sandwiches
and so on given, and charged a shilling each for it; they'll catch the
eleven-thirty back--the people I mean--or have a special, or perhaps
everyone will motor."
Mrs. Freyne thought it would be dreadful if the concert dragged on and
people had to run away in the middle of God Save the King or a sandwich.
The glittering brightness of the morning was increasing. It was almost
summerlike when they opened the door again and stood in the soft air.
"You might drive me in for those stockings, Gheena," said Lancelot.
"Any day will do for old hounds, and I may have twinges to-morrow."