"We are retreating. They are close to Paris," he said quietly. "The roses in the papers are red roses out yonder, Miss Freyne. No break in our line. Retreating in perfect order. Kaiser's time-table wrong. Germans fed on beet. The nonsense of it all absorbed with boiled eggs at breakfast. Eggs put up by the war too."
"This car," said Gheena, offended at the mating of war news and boiled eggs, "came up Lishna Hill quite quickly. Did she do it on second?"
"Well, no—on top," said Stafford apologetically. "No load, you see."
"She must be a very powerful car," said Gheena suspiciously. "A twenty, is she?"
"Well, yes," said Stafford meekly, suppressing the extra twenty-five. "Yes, I—was given her, you see, by the——"
He stopped short at the word to swing in a narrow gate, while Gheena, leaning back, wondered darkly why a humble inspector or overseer of drainage works should own so powerful a two-seater. Her active mind was so full of conjectures that she awoke with a start to their stoppage in a small field fenced by banks topped with slates, and was greeted by a small woman with ill-tempered eyes.
The prospects of getting rid of four useless hounds appeared to appeal to her instantly.
"There bein' no one to hunt afther them now, an' blow Jim's bugle, and yellow male up to the height of Hiven."
The four hounds, now produced, lounged out for inspection from happy slumber on roasting slates, stretching themselves and yawning.
Daisy, Bridgie, Grandjer and Greatness were of much the same breed as the four first seen. Daisy was a dog hound, names being irrelevant, with some strain of foxhound in him; the others were not particular as to ancestry, but they could all hunt. Grandjer was black and tan, with a docked tail, because, old Casey explained, Jim thought from the colour of him that he was likely to be a torrier.