The thick mist of the morning had crept up again, grey and clammy. It hung with a stillness through which voices echoed hollowly, and great drops began to collect on the branches.
Harold Keefe shivered in the chill, proffering apologies to Mrs. Weston for any fancied shortcomings in the bay horse; Mrs. Weston, with her legs very damp and her boots full of water, receiving them quite graciously.
"Oh, I'm sure you meant him to be a dear horse!" she said good-humouredly. "And perhaps when he's hunted more he'll have more breath and less waist. I couldn't keep the girths tight. What a day for Germans to land!" she added with a shiver, peering into the mist. "What's that, Mr. Stafford? There would be nothing to stop them if they did. You've got the wireless to call for help."
"I fancy—that before they landed that the wireless would be arranged about," he said thoughtfully, tapping his boot. "It wouldn't do to have the power of summoning any of the fleet, would it?"
Gheena Freyne stopped listening to the hounds and edged her horse closer.
"A few men in their pay could account for the small guard on the station. And if the transports once got in the men could do a lot of harm before they went out again or were caught." He had got off his horse and was holding one hand to his side as if something hurt him.
"They'll be all so horribly beaten by Christmas there won't be anyone to come," declared Violet Weston optimistically. "You don't think the old Professor is taking notes of the coast, do you, Mr. Stafford?"
"Not that I——" Stafford stopped. "They're coming past this way again," he said. "I don't envy Darby all this time."
The fog came down so thickly that Darby gathered the pack and decided to go home. He had at least vindicated his start by killing two foxes and having some fun.
It was more to Andy's shrill pipe than the horn which brought hounds out, a great many of them suspiciously red about the mouth.