All on the Irish Shore | Page 8

demesne; the grey wall made a sharp bend to the right, and just at the
corner Governor had begun to gallop, with his nose to the ground and
his stern up. The rest of the pack joined him in an instant, and all
swung round the corner and were lost to sight.
"It's a fox!" exclaimed Freddy, snatching up his reins; "they always
cross into the demesne just here!"
By the time he and Mr. Taylour were round the corner the hounds had
checked fifty yards ahead, and were eagerly hunting to and fro for the
lost scent, and a little further down the old road they saw a woman
running away from them.
"Hi, ma'am!" bellowed Freddy, "did you see the fox?"

The woman made no answer.
"Did you see the fox?" reiterated Freddy in still more stentorian tones.
"Can't you answer me?"
The woman continued to run without even looking behind her.
The laughter of Mr. Taylour added fuel to the fire of Freddy's wrath: he
put the spurs into Mayboy, dashed after the woman, pulled his horse
across the road in front of her, and shouted his question point-blank at
her, coupled with a warm inquiry as to whether she had a tongue in her
head.
The woman jumped backwards as if she were shot, staring in horror at
Freddy's furious little face, then touched her mouth and ears and began
to jabber inarticulately and talk on her fingers.
The laughter of Mr. Taylour was again plainly audible.
"Sure that's a dummy woman, sir," explained the butcher's nephew,
hurrying up. "I think she's one of them tinkers that's outside the town."
Then with a long screech, "Look! Look over! Tiger, have it! Hulla,
hulla, hulla!"
Tiger was already over the wall and into the demesne, neck and neck
with Fly, the smith's half-bred greyhound; and in the wake of these
champions clambered the Craffroe Pack, with strangled yelps of ardour,
striving and squealing and fighting horribly in the endeavour to
scramble up the tall smooth face of the wall.
"The gate! The gate further on!" yelled Freddy, thundering down the
turfy road, with the earth flying up in lumps from his horse's hoofs.
Mr. Taylour's pony gave two most uncomfortable bucks and ran away;
even Patsey Crimmeen and the black mare shared an unequal thrill of
enthusiasm, as the latter, wholly out of hand, bucketed after the pony.
* * * * *

The afternoon was very cold, a fact thoroughly realised by Mrs.
Alexander, on the front seat of Sir George's motor-car, in spite of
enveloping furs, and of Bismarck, curled like a fried whiting, in her lap.
The grey road rushed smoothly backwards under the broad tyres;
golden and green plover whistled in the quiet fields, starlings and huge
missel thrushes burst from the wayside trees as the "Bollée," uttering
that hungry whine that indicates the desire of such creatures to devour
space, tore past. Mrs. Alexander wondered if birds' beaks felt as cold as
her nose after they had been cleaving the air for an afternoon; at all
events, she reflected, they had not the consolation of tea to look
forward to. Barnet was sure to have some of her best hot cakes ready
for Freddy when he came home from hunting. Mrs. Alexander and Sir
George had been scouring the roads since a very early lunch in search
of the hounds, and her mind reposed on the thought of the hot cakes.
The front lodge gates stood wide open, the motor-car curved its flight
and skimmed through. Half-way up the avenue they whizzed past three
policemen, one of whom was carrying on his back a strange and
wormlike thing.
"Janet," called out Sir George, "you've been caught making potheen!
They've got the worm of a still there."
"They're only making a short cut through the place from the bog; I'm
delighted they've found it!" screamed back Mrs. Alexander.
The "Bollée" was at the hall door in another minute, and the mistress of
the house pulled the bell with numbed fingers. There was no response.
"Better go round to the kitchen," suggested her brother. "You'll find
they're talking too hard to hear the bell."
His sister took the advice, and a few minutes afterwards she opened the
hall door with an extremely perturbed countenance.
"I can't find a creature anywhere," she said, "either upstairs or down--I
can't understand Barnet leaving the house empty--"

"Listen!" interrupted Sir George, "isn't that the hounds?"
They listened.
"They're hunting down by the back avenue! come on, Janet!"
The motor-car took to flight again; it sped, soft-footed, through the
twilight gloom of the back avenue, while a disjointed, travelling
clamour of hounds came nearer and nearer through the woods. The
motor-car was within a hundred yards of the back lodge, when out