spy and the old Swiss a man with her. "Hadn't they found pipes and
tobacco in his room and men's boots and what not, an' he seen to lep to
the car like a mountain goat?"
"She put Gheena up to everything," pattered Psyche, "to keep suspicion
away from herself."
"And Gheena suspected Basil, and Basil suspected the Professor, and they
all ran round in rings," said Darby smilingly, surprised to find that he
could smile.
"Gheena?" asked Miss Delorme.
Darby replied steadily that Gheena was looking after Mr. Stafford, and
was, in fact, going to look after him for the rest of her life.
Psyche's small face grew peaked and hard. She looked at Darby.
"You'll go in to congratulate her," he said quietly. "I was never really
in the hunt, you know. It was just a play for me."
"I won't," said Psyche. "I can't. Because--she has made you unhappy!"
seemed to almost float back across the garden full of violets, as Miss
Delorme ran away back to Castle Freyne.
Later, Darby was able to sit listening to Basil talking, and almost
wonder why his pain was not deeper.
Basil Stafford told, laughing at it now, how he had tracked and watched
the old Professor over slippery rocks and on the sands and along the
cliffs. Also how that it was quite certain that the Guinanes had
knocked down Nat Leary when he came close to them unexpectedly. And then
put him upon the shale cliff to slip over or no as Providence ordained.
In fact, Guinane had confessed to it.
"Spying was bad enough," grunted Basil, "but to"--he looked at Gheena
jealously--"dozens of times," he burst out, "before everyone's eyes."
Miss Freyne, behind a mantle of blushes, observed frigidly that Violet
was always more affectionate in public than elsewhere, to which Stafford
replied that he trusted so, somewhat coldly.
When Dearest George heard it he was quite upset. In war time he
considered trifling with two men was almost prodigal coquetry. He
gloomed before a large fire until Matilda told him that Gheena had made
up her mind to go about with Basil's regiment for some years--that is,
if Dearest George thought there would be any regiment to go about
with--as, of course, he would know.
Mr. Freyne, glaring at the fire, then decided that he would grow
potatoes at Girtnamurragh, and also that Lancelot had played his cards
very badly indeed not to have worked his wounds for more.
Mrs. Freyne thought that it was the fault of the cart wheel. "If it had
been a gun," she said--"but Gheena said it was not."
Mr. Freyne grunted again; then he whistled. He began to see a vista of
many years of saving, with Castle Freyne at his mercy and a growing
quotia of solid investments.
"After all," he said briskly, "she will be much better away travelling,
Matilda, and Darby has an eye like a hawk, a nasty way of saying things
too, behind a smile."
Someone said a smile of gold, startling Dearest George exceedingly. He
felt sure that it was his wife until she assured him that she had been
silent, so he took to whistling again and shut the open door.
"Lancelot," said Mrs. Freyne, looking out, "is driving up in Miss
O'Toole's pony trap. She seems quite attached to him, don't you think,
Dearest?"
Mr. Freyne's reply contained some mention of grandmothers as he marched
to the door to admit Lancelot, who had forgotten his courtship, and who
had found someone who understood his symptoms.
The installing of Basil Stafford as an invalid at Castle Freyne, with
Gheena waiting on him and and wondering if she had ever felt alive
before, was followed by a spell of dry weather, chill nights, days of
bright sunshine, evenings and mornings swathed in silver fog.
May was with them, the sea dimpling to her summer blue, with discreet
return to steel in the shade.
Darby stood one morning with his hounds, the scratch pack, leaping
clamorously at the bars, and decided to take them home. They knew him
now; they would not run riotously when he let them out, but trot at his
horse's heels.
Hunting was over; Grandjer and Beauty and Greatness were never likely to
come to Dillon's Court again. The sadness of all endings tinged his
glances at the medley of hounds. They had possessed noses, they had
hunted keenly and with infinite patience; they had pulled down foxes and
had given him many hours of pleasure, many hearty laughs.
It was early morning. The sun had not lifted the mist wraiths from the
hollows; dew lay everywhere and a maze of silver gossamer threads caught
the glints of light. Scarlet anemones, blood red, peered from the beds;
in the front, narcissi were replacing the yellow daffodils.
"I came--you said they were to go back this morning." Psyche dropped
off Whitebird. "Oh, I shall never love anything again as I have running
after them, the darlings! Anne gave me some early breakfast."
"You'll run after real packs," said Darby, "and forget my assortment."
"But they--the others--will never be my first pack," said Psyche with
logic, "and I want to stay here with them."
They pattered out of the yard, the hounds going dejectedly, the horses
stale from working for too long; Carty's chestnut apathetic even as to
whip lashes, Andy with tears in his eyes. A wondrous winter had ended
and school loomed before him. They passed from the mists to the higher
ground, where they could cut across the hills to the house of Andy's
mother.
What brought an old fox out on that May morning, sunning himself close
to a patch of gorse? And he must have wondered what brought a pack of
mongrel dogs, all related to hounds, trotting through the heather and
over the shining slates. Grandjer threw his tongue almost savagely; the
old fox turned tail and fled, and in a moment the whole pack were
yowling in pursuit as he topped the crest of the hill.
The rusty-coated horses woke up; Andy screamed Barty's "Forrard away!"
rolled down the hillsides, and the four turned to ride over a country
with all the gaps fenced up, with corn sown, meadows growing.
"This," said Darby philosophically, "will cost me twenty pounds. Be
careful, Psyche." Her name slipped out as Whitebird topped a
newly-bushed-up bank and pecked in the tangle.
"Isn't it great entirely? That same is Thady Lawless's rye grass, an'
he will be upset over it," piped Andy. "Have ye the nippers, Barty;
there is wire oberight us."
They got round the wire. Red clods of dry earth, wheat sown, rattled up
from their heels. The scratch pack pounced on a breast-high scent down
the slopes and into the fertile valley, with the woods of Dillon's Court
on their left.
Here the old fox was plainly making for Castletown Roche, four miles
ahead and up hill.
"An' a planted counthry," said Andy. "Look at Grandjer! Isn't he the
boy?"
Scent failed as the sun rose higher; where the mist clung hounds ran
fast, but more slowly in the open, a they sped across meadows, while
astounded owners remarked bitterly that it was a damn shame entirely,
until assured by Darby that hounds had got away were being chased until
caught.
"Lie back a field, then," advised Andy, "an' if they thrun up we could
not do that same excuse for the next man."
"The worst man of all," said Darby, "will be Sir Hercules Roche. This
is all rye grass we are crossing."
Sorrow died as they galloped, with the horses fencing accurately, with
hounds driving steadily ahead, the music echoing and ringing, with
little Psyche, her face aglow, close by the Master, crying out in pure
rapture, oblivious of crops or damage.
The first wood of Castletown Roche lay on a steep slope. The servants,
going to the left, got into the place with difficulty. Darby pulled up,
listening; then he scrambled off. The old fox, sorely astonished, had
saved his brush, and was safe in a big rabbit-hole.
Sun had now filtered through the trees; the soft carpet of mist was
almost warm.
"I am no master of hounds. I am glad he got in," said Darby. "We took
him unawares."
"And he'll run next year." Psyche slipped off, a glow on her small pale
face; she took off her hat, her light gold hair shining.
"Next year," said Darby. Through the dreariness of futurity came a glow
bright as that of the unexpected gallop. He had come to the moment when
he had to chain sorrow, lest it should surprise him by running away.
Life with Gheena would have been too hard a thing in its inequality.
"Next year, when Gheena is married, who will want to keep up the scratch
pack?" he said slowly.
They could look down on the budding woods of Darby's old home--a sea of
tender green, with the smoke from the chimneys filming blurrily in the
clear air. They could see the glitter and ripple of sea, and far out
the grey-green roll of unsheltered waters.
The old country, the old grey-skied land, had cast its glamour upon the
girl. She wanted to live there among the childish, thriftless, and yet
industrious people, who carried young hearts to their graves--where
order and law did not count, and what ought to be done to-day could
always be done to-morrow. And to her, Darby, limping, crippled, was man
apart, perfect when he rode, seemingly part of his horses, the hunter of
the hounds; every note in his voice, every look in his kind eyes, were
dear to Psyche.
She must go back to trim order, to neat servants who toasted muffins
admirably, but could not "slap" up cakes at five minutes' notice; to
breakfast at eight-thirty and lunch at one; to sewing parties and small
talk; to frigid douches of cold water thrown at that dreadful country,
Ireland--a rebels' land, a land of law-breakers; to hear that hunting
was not right in war times.
With her whole heart crying for the lap of the sea, for the tangle of
the humping hills, the brown of the bogs, she must go.
"If I were here," she whispered, "I should want to----" She muttered
something of her rebellious objection to returning to Kent.
Darby saw the glint of tears under the thick lashes.
"If you could stay to hunt hounds with me, little Sprite!"
"Oh, if I could!"
Darby looked again. He had heard and seen several things which amazed
him. He knew suddenly how he would miss the small pale face out
hunting, the shining eyes which he saw whenever he looked over his
shoulder; the admiration in them which he had never dreamt of seeing in
any girl's again.
"Sprite, Sprite, you could not want to stay with Darby Dillon, who will
limp through his life?"
Sorrow rolled up as mists caught by the sun. He knew now why he had
felt Gheena's loss so lightly.
"Since you peered over my shoulder," he said unsteadily, "and tallied
the squirrel, I think then..."
"Ever since you blew at the hounds," said Psyche. "If you would keep me
here always, Darby!"
Andy, unseen, rode the Rat into view and remarked: "There's for ye now,
an' the fox earthed," and rode out of view again thoughtfully.
"The sorra a dog will go home this day," he said to Barty; "so we'll be
bilin' agin to-night, an' me name is not Andy."
But Andy said nothing of what he had seen. He was a gentleman.
Even as Andy said, the pack returned to kennels, Darby riding among them
through the hot sunshine; the old house looked lonely to him no longer.
Already his crippled limb seemed to grow stronger, and as they rode he
planned.
The Castle Freyne motor was at the door, Dearest George remarking
peevishly that he had come over to look for Miss Delorme, who really
must not disappear before breakfast-time, the result being leathery
bacon, as he no longer used the copper heaters.
Gheena came swinging round from the stables with Stafford, Crabbit at
their heels. The two matched well, even if Basil Stafford still looked
pale, and knew now that the old hurt reopened by the wound would not
heal for six months.
"Gheena," said George Freyne, "talks now of being married next month.
It seems to me heartless, Darby. And your Aunt, Mona, wishes you to
return to Kent. She is suffering from nerves. She has written to me."
Miss Delorme said briefly that she was not going.
"But if Dearest George advises it----" said Mrs. Freyne vaguely.
Gheena ran up to them. "Dearest is dreadfully upset," she said. "It's
Lancelot and Miss O'Toole. She is going to marry him. It isn't
nonsense, Dearest, she will."
From Dearest George's next remark he seemed to think all matrimony
nonsense, especially between unsuitable young people.
"And Miss Delorme's aunt insists," he repeated; "she is guardian or
something joint. She insists, she says so."
"I shall not go," said Psyche.
George Freyne started the car gloomily.
"Because I am going to stay here with Darby," said Psyche
softly--"always."
THE END
_Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Surrey._