Mount Music Part 37

Of the _fiance_ and of his frame of mind, what shall be said? He, at all events, said as little to himself as was possible, but, in the circ.u.mstances, it was no more than could be expected that a lively fancy would not wholly be denied, and that occasional vagrant visions would present themselves uninvited. He pictured to himself a meeting with Christian, all in the clouds, of course; he told himself he had no wish to meet her, nor, if he did, was he at all likely to discuss the matter with her; still he thought that he would rather enjoy telling her that he had acknowledged his engagement with Tishy, to Tishy's father, in the very same words in which she, Christian, had broken hers with him. They had somehow stuck in his head. He would tell her that. He had certainly been rather screwed (but that there would be no necessity to mention); it was just a curious chance that he should have used them. He dramatised the interview in his mind. It would serve Christian right; it would be a rather jolly instance of retributive justice--only he wished that the Christian whom he visualised was not always that shadowed, ethereal Christian whom he had painted, with, as Rossetti said, the wonder not yet quite gone from that still look of hers. Bother Rossetti, anyway! What did it matter what he said? The main point was what Larry himself had said, and the result was that he was engaged to Tishy Mangan, solidly and seriously.

There was nothing fatiguingly ethereal about Tishy anyhow; she was just about as good-looking a girl as he had ever met in his life. He would take her to Paris some day, and would see what his pals would say to her. He thought there wouldn't be two opinions about her there.

He and she would travel about a bit. He didn't feel as if he would care about settling down at Coppinger's Court at once. Anyhow he would have to fix up about Aunt Freddy. She hadn't written him much of a letter about his engagement; she seemed to like it just about as well as she had liked his excursion into politics.

"Of course Tishy's a Papist!" he thought, mockingly, accounting to himself for the chill of the congratulations. "That's enough for Aunt Freddy! But, hang it all, so am I! She ought to see how suitable it is! I'd like to lay on Father Greer to talk to her!"

There is no need to attempt to record in detail the comments of the wider circle of Larry's acquaintances, but it may be said that his friends of all ranks had one point in common, a sincere admiration for Dr. Mangan. Bill Kirby, who had supported him politically, now fell away from him. Judith had not refrained from admitting him to the secret which she had extracted from her younger sister, and Bill's references to young Mr. Coppinger and to Doctor, Mrs., and Miss Mangan, would have been very helpful to those ladies, of whom there were many, who took the matter to heart.

The unpopularity of the engagement was considerably aggravated by the extreme magnificence of the furs, presented by the bridegroom elect to his _fiancee_, and worn by her at a meet of the hounds, which she attended in her father's motor.

It might have been some consolation to the neighbourhood had it known that those grey furs had been of the nature of a peace-offering, after a rather acute difference of opinion on that point of settling down at Coppinger's Court as opposed to going abroad. Larry had shelved it for the present, and had, as he told himself, made good by the dint of the furs. That had come out all right, but now, Larry, mounted on Joker, and led in chains at Tishy's motor-wheel, found that among his former allies of the hunt things were not as they once had been, and was not pleased. Singularly enough, Judith alone was faithful found among the faithless. She declared that Larry had been brutally and idiotically treated, and that this engagement was the result, and justified all that she had been saying for many past ages. When Larry appeared at the Meet, his scalp-lock prominent among Miss Mangan's furs, Judith alone of his former intimates met him with cordiality, condoled with him over his election defeat with sympathy, and congratulated him on his engagement with decorum.

"I felt it was only decent," she said later, to the friend to whom she complacently recounted her effort, "after he had been kicked downstairs by Papa, and booted out of the house by Christian, quite without justification. I congratulated him warmly! I absolutely rode up to the gorgeous Tishy and said civil things there too!"

"It was perfectly angelic of you!" said the friend.

"Quite the reverse, my dear!" said Judith, proudly. "But you see Bill has the hounds, and anyhow, I like to prepare for all contingencies!"

For the rest, a chilly neutrality reigned at the Meet. Larry was finding his official position of captive decidedly irksome. He wished that Tishy would not call him by his name every time she spoke to him; that she would not speak so loud; that this eternal jog to the covert would end before the Day of Judgment; finally, that he had stayed at home. He saw the red-headed Cloherty, and, failing more congenial society, joined him. But the red-headed Cloherty was crosser than any of them, and what the devil was it to him what Larry's politics or his matrimonial intentions were? Confound Cloherty, anyway! He was a sufficiently common object of the Cluhir scene--and infernally common at that. Hardly a day that you didn't meet him loafing about the town.

Larry hadn't the smallest wish to talk to Cloherty. When, some brief time before the Day of Judgment, they reached the covert, it was drawn blank, and Bill Kirby took quite a month to get the hounds out.

Hunting rabbits, of course. Larry never knew them so out of hand. And then another rotten jog along the road to the next draw. Why on earth couldn't Bill get into the country and let them have a school at least, and get away from these d.a.m.ned motors? He was hoa.r.s.e from shouting replies to Tishy's airy nothings, all winged with his name, and all, he felt, addressed as much to the public as to him. She looked stunning, of course, and he was glad he had given her those furs, but three miles trying to keep a suspicious fool of a horse up to the elbow of a car roaring along at half speed, was--!

It matters not what Larry thought it was, the point is that Tishy thought it wasn't, and, suddenly realising his views, turned in one of those instantaneous furies of hers, to the cavalier at the other elbow of the car, who happened to be the red-headed Cloherty.

Larry, neglected, fell back, and presently found himself beside an old friend, Father David Hogan, the priest of Riverstown. It was nearly ten years since the great days of Father David's black mare; she had pa.s.sed into legend, and Father David, something heavier than he was but no less keen, now followed hounds in more leisurely fashion on the back of the black mare's son, a portly and careful bay cob.

"I'm very pleased to see you out, Mr. Coppinger," Father David began, the kindly little blue eyes twinkling deep in his red face, confirming the a.s.surance imparted by his extensive smile, that his friendship was still unshaken, "You've been missing some nice hunts."

"I've been too hard worked to get out, Father," apologised Larry.

"Ah, otherwise engaged, maybe?" said Father David, with a facetious stress on the word engaged. "I was greatly put out over the election,"

he continued. "Tell me now, why didn't the Unionists support you? I noticed that our worthy M.F.H. came to record his vote, but your cousin, the late M.F.H., was, as they say, conspicuous by his absence."

"He's quite an invalid now," said Larry shortly.

"Indeed? Indeed? And is that the case? I'm grieved to hear it!" Father David pressed the stout cob nearer to Joker, and murmured very confidentially. "I've known you since your boyhood I may say, Mr.

Coppinger, and you will not consider me impertinent speaking to you.

But could you tell me is it a fact what I'm 'hearing about the good Major--you, no doubt, have prior information--"

"I think that's very unlikely," said Larry, sulkily, flushing as he spoke.

Father David eyed Larry cautiously, and began to wonder if something he had been told not long since were true.

In Ireland, it may confidently be said, all things are known to the poor people, and a brief consideration of this position will show, that this being so, there is but little that is unknown to the Church.

"Well, Mr. Coppinger," Father Hogan resumed, "I'm told--only told, mind you--that the Major had Mount Music and the demesne advertised on the English papers--"

"Good G.o.d!" exclaimed Larry, startled out of his sulk; "to sell?"

Father David, like other gentlemen of his age and cloth, had the Baboo's predilection for a well-worn quotation. "As to that I cannot say," he said portentously. "''Tis whispered in Heaven, 'tis muttered in h.e.l.l' that the enc.u.mbrances are very heavy--mortgages and debts--. The good Major had a long family, Mr. Coppinger; fine, dashing young min they are too, but we all know that expenses do not tend to diminish as families grow up! Children may be a heritage that comes from the Lord, but unless other heritages accompany them--!"

Father David put his head on one side, and, beaming at Larry, laid his little professional joke, so to speak, at his feet.

"Well, well," he resumed, "'What business is it of yours?' says you!"

"Not at all, Father," said Larry, still shaken by what he had heard.

"Thank you for speaking to me--it's the first I've heard of it."

The procession of the hunt halted, the hounds left the road by the direct method of a high stone "gap," and Father David and the bay cob melted away to betake themselves to those secret equivalent routes known to those who have come to years of discretion in the hunting-field.

The second draw seemed at first as if it were to be no more fortunate than its predecessor. The covert was a patch of scrubby woodland at a little distance below the road, at the head of one of the long deep glens that were the terrors of the Broadwater country. The wind blew from the west, across the wide cleft of Gloun Kieraun, and the hounds were thrown into the wood in which the upper end of the glen was masked, and were encouraged to work downwards. An unaccustomed wave of misanthropy had a.s.sailed Larry, and instead of following with the crowd the course of the hounds, he moved onwards along the road, scarcely considering where he was going. He was thinking with consternation of what Father Hogan had told him. Larry was not of those who nurse their wrath to keep it warm, and the thought of d.i.c.k's misfortunes swept away the recollection of his insults. Joker had, of his own initiative, soon turned aside from the high road into a gra.s.sy lane, and he moved along it in the relentless manner in which many horses will decline to stand still while Larry, deep in thought, allowed the reins to lie on the horse's neck while he lit a cigarette and tried to fix in his memory Father David's exact words. He thought he would talk to Dr. Mangan about it. Things might be better than the old priest thought. From the thought of the doctor his mind pa.s.sed on to that of his wedding. Was it possible that he was to be married next week? A distinct physical drop of the heart accompanied the realisation. "Nerves!" he told himself, and hurried on to reflect upon his bride. She certainly looked stunning in those grey furs; he was glad he had given them to her; she knocked spots off any other girl in the country. He impressed this thought on his mind. And she had sung jolly well last night, and had accompanied him quite decently. They would get on all right once they were married. She had been a bit edgey these last few days, but--some under-self warned him off the pursuit of this topic. He began to formulate excuses for her that inculpated himself. Larry "came of a gentle kind," and had the generous temper that finds it easier to bear than to ascribe blame.

A note of the horn was wafted sweetly across the glen, and he came to the surface of his thoughts. By Jove! Where had Joker got him to? The lane they had wandered down ran parallel with Gloun Kieraun, and a gap in the fence on his left made him aware that he was now moving abreast with the hunt, but was divided from his fellows by the chasm of the glen.

A second touch of the horn came; Larry checked his horse; Bill Kirby had seen him and was shouting to him.

"Head him back if he breaks your side! I want him his way!"

All jolly fine for old Bill, but where did young Mr. Coppinger come in? He held up his hand to show he had heard, and stood still.

One hound spoke, sharply, in the depths of the woody glen. Another and another joined in. In a moment, the echoing glen was full of voices; it was impossible to tell what was happening. A couple and a half emerged on the farther side in the heather above the trees, working a line upwards, and speaking to it as they went. Larry saw the Master force his horse down near them, and heard him cheering them and doubling his horn. Another couple joined them, and Larry swore heartily. Here he was on the wrong side, and the fox away to the east!

The cry redoubled; it sounded as if twice the pack were engaged, yet the two and a half couple were not being reinforced. By some chance Larry withdrew his eyes from them, and just then, about a hundred yards further on, on his side of the glen, something like a brown feather floated up into view.

"A second fox, by the living Jingo!" whispered Larry, thrilling to that sight that never fails to thrill.

He held up his hat. Bill saw the signal, and acknowledged it by redoubled efforts to get the hounds away with the fox that had broken to the east. The chorus of sound grew and grew, and as Joker and his rider, tense with an equal excitement, listened, it became plain that the cry was drawing nearer to them. Joker's sensitive ears were twitching, his heart thumped; the storm of sound was just below them now, and then, hound by hound, Larry counted them as they came, fourteen couples struggled up over the lip of the glen where that brown feather had so lightly lifted into view, and drove ahead, on the way it had gone, with a rush and a cry that Larry could no more have checked than he could have stemmed and driven back the wild stream in the glen below.

It may be said at once that he made no such futile effort. With a single glance at the frenzied party on the farther side, already galloping distractedly for a possible pa.s.s lower down the glen, Larry released his feelings in a maniac howl to the fleeting pack, and let Joker--who had already stood up on his hind legs twice, in legitimate protest--follow them.

The fox, having begun by running west, away from the glen, had then turned right-handed, and was heading north over the mountain whose lower slopes were cleft by Gloun Kieraun. The scent served well; the gurgling music with now and then a sharper note, like a fife among flutes and 'cellos, flowed on, and Larry and Joker, two happy creatures, the world forgetting (though by no means by their world forgot) galloped and rejoiced.

The little mountain sheep with their black, speckled faces sprang before them, quick as rabbits; green plover flopped up from the gra.s.sy places, wheeling and squealing; a woodc.o.c.k whirred out of a furze bush so near Larry that he could have struck it down with his crop.

Long-legged mountain hares fled right and left of the driving pack, unheeded. Great s.p.a.ces of the mountain were bare of fences, but in those tracts where the gra.s.s had mastered the heather, it was "striped" with broad banks, sound, and springy, and bound, as with wire, by the heather roots. To feel Joker quicken his big stride and leap at the banks out of his gallop, to realise the perfect precision of his method, as he changed feet and flicked off into the next field, to race him at the walls of smooth round stones, weathered in the long centuries, and grey with lichen, and to know that if they were three times their height Joker would have sailed over them with the same ease--whatever might have been Larry's burden of care, it would have fallen from him, forgotten, in the pure glory of that ride.

The hounds ran hard for nearly a half hour before they checked, and Larry bethought him of those unfortunates between whom and himself that great gulf had been fixed. Apparently they had not found, any more than the rich man in the parable, a means of crossing it. He was high above the valley; the splendid landscape lay in broad undulating ribbons of brown and green and amethyst and blue, with the Broadwater dividing it--a silver belt, with a band of green on its either side; but within the great circle that was spread beneath his eyes were none of those toiling specks that tell of a Hunt in labour. The check was brief; the hurrying hounds, busy as ants, cast themselves right and left forward, combining in fussy groups, that would suddenly disintegrate as if by an access of centrifugal force; crowding each other jealously along the top of a bank, flopping into the patches of bog, snuffing greedily at the orange stems of the bracken. Soon, reiterated squeals from a leading lady told that the clue was found again, and they began to run, hard as before, but downwards this time, as though the fox despaired of finding refuge among the high places of heather and rock. Larry had lost his bearings; his eyes on the hounds, his thoughts on his horse, he had not even tried to place himself. But as the hounds ran on, south and west, he began to recognise familiar features. Away there to the south, surely were the trees of Coppinger's Court; could it be the Mount Music earths for which the fox was heading? The hounds were running now down hill, through crisp, upland meadows. Farmhouses began to reappear, thatched and whitewashed, tucked snugly in among low bunches of trees; fences were changing in character; the amber streams ran less fiercely, and found time to loiter in pools and quiet reaches. The hounds had begun to hunt more slowly, and Larry looked at his watch.

"Forty-five minutes since they left the glen! Bill's just about mad enough for the asylum by this time!" he thought "If we could only catch this lad!"

But this particular "lad" was not to gratify young Mr. Coppinger by dying, cla.s.sically, in the open, "on the top of the ground." Five minutes after Larry had taken the time he took it again, this time at the mouth of one of many holes in a sandpit, wherein, as was announced by a country boy, "the lad" had saved himself, with "the dogs snapping at his tail."

"He earned it well," said Larry, ungrudgingly, even though the mask that was to have hung so carelessly from his saddle was panting deep and safe in the sandpit, listening warily for a possible eviction notice from the hunt-terrier (left, alas hunting rabbits in the heart of Gloun Kieraun) thanking its own wits for the recollection of the city of refuge.

"Ye're on the lands of Finnahy now," said the boy. "Folly on that way down, and ye'll meet the road. That's the near way."

"Come on, you, and show it to me," said Larry.

Amazing were the ramifications of the near way. The bed of a stream had a share, and a well-trodden path along the wide top of a bank; a brace of wheels had to be trundled out of one gap, a toothless harrow dragged from another. Then they were on heather again.

"Carry on now," said the guide, "and ye'll meet a pat--"