The tall gates of Aussolas shrieked on their hinges as they admitted us, and shut with a clang behind us, in the faces of an old mare and a couple of young horses, who, foiled in their break for the excitements of the outer world, turned and galloped defiantly on either side of us.
Flurry"s admirable cob hammered on, regardless of all things save his duty.
"He"s the only one I have that I"d trust myself here with," said his master, flicking him approvingly with the whip; "there are plenty of people afraid to come here at all, and when my grandmother goes out driving, she has a boy on the box with a basket full of stones to peg at them. Talk of the d.i.c.kens, here she is herself!"
A short, upright old woman was approaching, preceded by a white woolly dog with sore eyes and a bark like a tin trumpet; we both got out of the trap and advanced to meet the Lady of the Manor.
I may summarise her attire by saying that she looked as if she had robbed a scarecrow; her face was small and incongruously refined, the skinny hand that she extended to me had the grubby tan that bespoke the professional gardener, and was decorated with a magnificent diamond ring. On her head was a ma.s.sive purple velvet bonnet.
"I am very glad to meet you, Major Yeates," she said, with an old-fashioned precision of utterance; "your grandfather was a dancing partner of mine in old days at the Castle, when he was a handsome young aide-de-camp there, and I was--you may judge for yourself what I was."
She ended with a startling little hoot of laughter, and I was aware that she quite realised the world"s opinion of her, and was indifferent to it.
Our way to the bogs took us across Mrs. Knox"s home farm, and through a large field in which several young horses were grazing.
"There, now, that"s my fellow," said Flurry, pointing to a fine-looking colt, "the chestnut with the white diamond on his forehead. He"ll run into three figures before he"s done, but we"ll not tell that to the ould lady!"
The famous Aussolas bogs were as full of snipe as usual, and a good deal fuller of water than any bogs I had ever shot before. I was on my day, and Flurry was not, and as he is ordinarily an infinitely better snipe shot than I, I felt at peace with the world and all men as we walked back, wet through, at five o"clock.
The sunset had waned and a big white moon was making the eastern tower of Aussolas look like a thing in a fairy tale or a play when we arrived at the hall door. An individual, whom I recognised as the Robinson Crusoe coachman, admitted us to a hall, the like of which one does not often see. The walls were panelled with dark oak up to the gallery that ran round three sides of it, the bal.u.s.ters of the wide staircase were heavily carved, and blackened portraits of Flurry"s ancestors on the spindle side, stared sourly down on their descendant as he tramped upstairs with the bog mould on his hobnailed boots.
We had just changed into dry clothes when Robinson Crusoe shoved his red beard round the corner of the door, with the information that the mistress said we were to stay for dinner. My heart sank. It was then barely half-past five. I said something about having no evening clothes, and having to get home early.
"Sure, the dinner"ll be in another half-hour," said Robinson Crusoe, joining hospitably in the conversation; "and as for evening clothes--G.o.d bless ye!"
The door closed behind him.
"Never mind," said Flurry, "I dare say you"ll be glad enough to eat another dinner by the time you get home," he laughed. "Poor Slipper!" he added, inconsequently, and only laughed again when I asked for an explanation.
Old Mrs. Knox received us in the library, where she was seated by a roaring turf fire, which lit the room a good deal more effectively than the pair of candles that stood beside her in tall silver candlesticks.
Ceaseless and implacable growls from under her chair indicated the presence of the woolly dog. She talked with confounding culture of the books that rose all round her to the ceiling; her evening dress was accomplished by means of an additional white shawl, rather dirtier than its congeners; as I took her in to dinner she quoted Virgil to me, and in the same breath screeched an objurgation at a being whose matted head rose suddenly into view from behind an ancient Chinese screen, as I have seen the head of a Zulu woman peer over a bush.
Dinner was as incongruous as everything else. Detestable soup in a splendid old silver tureen that was nearly as dark in hue as Robinson Crusoe"s thumb; a perfect salmon, perfectly cooked, on a chipped kitchen dish; such cut gla.s.s as is not easy to find nowadays; sherry that, as Flurry subsequently remarked, would burn the sh.e.l.l off an egg; and a bottle of port, draped in immemorial cobwebs, wan with age, and probably priceless. Throughout the vicissitudes of the meal Mrs. Knox"s conversation flowed on undismayed, directed sometimes at me--she had installed me in the position of friend of her youth, and talked to me as if I were my own grandfather--sometimes at Crusoe, with whom she had several heated arguments, and sometimes she would make a statement of remarkable frankness on the subject of her horse-farming affairs to Flurry, who, very much on his best behaviour, agreed with all she said, and risked no original remark. As I listened to them both, I remembered with infinite amus.e.m.e.nt how he had told me once that "a pet name she had for him was "Tony Lumpkin," and no one but herself knew what she meant by it." It seemed strange that she made no allusion to Trinket"s colt or to Flurry"s birthday, but, mindful of my instructions, I held my peace.
As, at about half-past eight, we drove away in the moonlight, Flurry congratulated me solemnly on my success with his grandmother. He was good enough to tell me that she would marry me to-morrow if I asked her, and he wished I would, even if it was only to see what a nice grandson he"d be for me. A sympathetic giggle behind me told me that Michael, on the back seat, had heard and relished the jest.
We had left the gates of Aussolas about half-a-mile behind, when, at the corner of a by-road, Flurry pulled up. A short, squat figure arose from the black shadow of a furze bush and came out into the moonlight, swinging its arms like a cabman, and cursing audibly.
"Oh, murdher, oh, murdher, Misther Flurry! What kept ye at all? "Twould perish the crows to be waiting here the way I am these two hours--"
"Ah, shut your mouth, Slipper!" said Flurry, who, to my surprise, had turned back the rug and was taking off his driving coat, "I couldn"t help it. Come on, Yeates, we"ve got to get out here."
"What for?" I asked, in not unnatural bewilderment.
"It"s all right. I"ll tell you as we go along," replied my companion, who was already turning to follow Slipper up the by-road. "Take the trap on, Michael, and wait at the River"s Cross." He waited for me to come up with him, and then put his hand on my arm. "You see, Major, this is the way it is. My grandmother"s given me that colt right enough, but if I waited for her to send him over to me I"d never see a hair of his tail.
So I just thought that as we were over here we might as well take him back with us, and maybe you"ll give us a help with him; he"ll not be altogether too handy for a first go off."
I was staggered. An infant in arms could scarcely have failed to discern the fishiness of the transaction, and I begged Mr. Knox not to put himself to this trouble on my account, as I had no doubt I could find a horse for my friend elsewhere. Mr. Knox a.s.sured me that it was no trouble at all, quite the contrary, and that, since his grandmother had given him the colt, he saw no reason why he should not take him when he wanted him; also, that if I didn"t want him he"d be glad enough to keep him himself; and, finally, that I wasn"t the chap to go back on a friend, but I was welcome to drive back to Shreelane with Michael this minute, if I liked.
Of course, I yielded in the end. I told Flurry I should lose my job over the business, and he said I could then marry his grandmother, and the discussion was abruptly closed by the necessity of following Slipper over a locked five-barred gate.
Our pioneer took us over about half-a-mile of country, knocking down stone gaps where practicable, and scrambling over tall banks in the deceptive moonlight. We found ourselves at length in a field with a shed in one corner of it; in a dim group of farm buildings; a little way off a light was shining.
"Wait here," said Flurry to me in a whisper; "the less noise the better.
It"s an open shed, and we"ll just slip in and coax him out."
Slipper unwound from his waist a halter, and my colleagues glided like spectres into the shadow of the shed, leaving me to meditate on my duties as Resident Magistrate, and on the questions that would be asked in the House by our local member when Slipper had given away the adventure in his cups.
In less than a minute three shadows emerged from the shed, where two had gone in. They had got the colt.
"He came out as quiet as a calf when he winded the sugar," said Flurry; "it was well for me I filled my pockets from grandmamma"s sugar basin."
He and Slipper had a rope from each side of the colt"s head; they took him quickly across a field towards a gate. The colt stepped daintily between them over the moonlit gra.s.s; he snorted occasionally, but appeared on the whole amenable.
The trouble began later, and was due, as trouble often is, to the beguilements of a short cut. Against the maturer judgment of Slipper, Flurry insisted on following a route that he a.s.sured us he knew as well as his own pocket, and the consequence was, that in about five minutes I found myself standing on top of a bank hanging on to a rope, on the other end of which the colt dangled and danced, while Flurry, with the other rope, lay p.r.o.ne in the ditch, and Slipper administered to the bewildered colt"s hindquarters such chastis.e.m.e.nt as could be ventured on.
I have no s.p.a.ce to narrate in detail the atrocious difficulties and disasters of the short cut. How the colt set to work to buck, and went away across a field, dragging the faithful Slipper, literally _ventre-a-terre_, after him, while I picked myself in ignominy out of a briar patch, and Flurry cursed himself black in the face. How we were attacked by ferocious cur dogs and I lost my eyegla.s.s; and how, as we neared the river"s Cross, Flurry espied the police patrol on the road, and we all hid behind a rick of turf, while I realised in fulness what an exceptional a.s.s I was, to have been beguiled into an enterprise that involved hiding with Slipper from the Royal Irish Constabulary.
Let it suffice to say that Trinket"s infernal offspring was finally handed over on the highroad to Michael and Slipper, and Flurry drove me home in a state of mental and physical overthrow.
I saw nothing of my friend Mr. Knox for the next couple of days, by the end of which time I had worked up a high polish on my misgivings, and had determined to tell him that under no circ.u.mstances would I have anything to say to his grandmother"s birthday present. It was like my usual luck that, instead of writing a note to this effect, I thought it would be good for my liver to walk across the hills to Tory Cottage and tell Flurry so in person.
It was a bright, bl.u.s.tery morning, after a muggy day. The feeling of spring was in the air, the daffodils were already in bud, and crocuses showed purple in the gra.s.s on either side of the avenue. It was only a couple of miles to Tory Cottage, by the way across the hills; I walked fast, and it was barely twelve o"clock when I saw its pink walls and clumps of evergreens below me. As I looked down at it, the chiming of Flurry"s hounds in the kennels came to me on the wind; I stood still to listen, and could almost have sworn that I was hearing the clash of Magdalen bells, hard at work on May morning.
The path that I was following led downwards through a larch plantation to Flurry"s back gate. Hot wafts from some hideous cauldron at the other side of a wall apprised me of the vicinity of the kennels and their _cuisine_, and the fir-trees round were hung with gruesome and unknown joints. I thanked heaven that I was not a master of hounds, and pa.s.sed on as quickly as might be to the hall door.
I rang two or three times without response; then the door opened a couple of inches, and was instantly slammed in my face. I heard the hurried paddling of bare feet on oilcloth, and a voice, "Hurry, Bridgie, hurry! There"s quality at the door!"
Bridgie, holding a dirty cap on with one hand, presently arrived and informed me that she believed that Mr. Knox was out about the place. She seemed perturbed, and she cast scared glances down the drive while speaking to me.
I knew enough of Flurry"s habits to shape a tolerably direct course for his whereabouts. He was, as I had expected, in the training paddock, a field behind the stable-yard, in which he had put up practice jumps for his horses. It was a good-sized field with clumps of furze in it, and Flurry was standing near one of these with his hands in his pockets, singularly unoccupied. I supposed that he was prospecting for a place to put up another jump. He did not see me coming, and turned with a start as I spoke to him. There was a queer expression of mingled guilt and what I can only describe as divilment in his grey eyes as he greeted me.
In my dealings with Flurry Knox, I have since formed the habit of sitting tight, in a general way, when I see that expression.
"Well, who"s coming next, I wonder!" he said, as he shook hands with me; "it"s not ten minutes since I had two of your d----d peelers here searching the whole place for my grandmother"s colt!"
"What!" I exclaimed, feeling cold all down my back; "do you mean the police have got hold of it?"
"They haven"t got hold of the colt, anyway," said Flurry, looking sideways at me from under the peak of his cap, with the glint of the sun in his eye. "I got word in time before they came."
"What do you mean?" I demanded; "where is he? For Heaven"s sake don"t tell me you"ve sent the brute over to my place!"
"It"s a good job for you I didn"t," replied Flurry, "as the police are on their way to Shreelane this minute to consult you about it. You!" He gave utterance to one of his short, diabolical fits of laughter. "He"s where they"ll not find him, anyhow. Ho! ho! It"s the funniest hand I ever played!"
"Oh, yes, it"s devilish funny, I"ve no doubt," I retorted, beginning to lose my temper, as is the manner of many people when they are frightened; "but, I give you fair warning that if Mrs. Knox asks me any questions about it, I shall tell her the whole story."
"All right," responded Flurry; "and when you do, don"t forget to tell her how you flogged the colt out on to the road over her own bound"s ditch."
"Very well," I said, hotly, "I may as well go home and send in my papers. They"ll break me over this--"