"But Tim saw that son of his climb through the fence last night, coming from the direction of the kennels," said Fanny-Rosa. "It is obvious that he did it.
Why don't you take a stick and thrash the lout within an inch of his life?"
"Yes, and be summoned by Sam for assault," said John wearily. "Oh, confound it, what's the use? Poor Lightfoot will never run again, or Dauntless either. They gave me the happiest moments of my life, after you, Fanny-Rosa. Maybe it's foolish of me, but this business has saddened me more than anything that has happened for years."
He went away by himself, and sat in the little summer-house up in the woods, where Henry used to lie ten years previously, and he thought about Lightfoot and Dauntless, how he had trained them both from puppyhood to be the champions of their year, and now they lay stiff and motionless, having died in agony, without their master near them. He wondered if they had cried for him in the night, and felt themselves lost and deserted when he had not answered them. The fun of those old coursing days, that first season in Norfolk, when Lightfoot had won all the points and all the cups, and then later, in this country, travelling over to Mundy with Fanny-Rosa beside him, the shouts of the crowds, the smile of the judge, Lightfoot slim and eager, waiting upon his master's word, his master's hand. There had been beauty in that dog, and a soul too, he could swear. They had understood one another as human beings rarely did. He had neglected the dogs these last years, allowed them to grow idle and fat like himself.
Well, there was an end of it all now. Nothing remained of his coursing days but the silver cups on the sideboard in the dining-room. '
Such a useless finish. Poisoned by the Donovans. He had never in his whole life harmed one of that family, but he remembered old Morty Donovan cursing him that night in the rain on Hungry Hill. So perhaps the curse was taking effect now. He wished that it could have spared the greyhounds. As John sat alone in the summer-house he began to think about the Donovans, and tried to put himself in their place. Clonmere had been theirs, he reminded himself, before a Brodrick had set foot in the place. And then, of course, like so many other families, the land had been taken away from them after the rebellion in 'bleda and given to some peer or other, and so to the first Henry Brodrick.
It was natural enough that they should show resentment, and natural enough that they should detest the duty-loving, law-abiding John Brodrick, who stopped them smuggling, and took away the only chance they had of making a bit of money on the sly. Small wonder that one of them took a shot at him when he was riding to church, and small blame if he was glad when the shot succeeded. They said the blood still welled up in the creek beside the drive on the anniversary of the day he died. John and Henry used to go and look for it as boys, but never a drop of blood did they see, unless it was chickens' blood thrown in the water by the woman at the gate-house hard by. Anyway, the Donovan who fired the fatal shot was killed for his work by Brodrick's friends and his house destroyed.
Little wonder there was enmity between the two families.
"If I had the energy," thought John, "I would go down to Doon-haven and have it out with Sam, and tell him to make an end to the business. Otherwise the ridiculous feud will never finish. Johnnie and that son of his will start scrapping about something, though I dare say Johnnie would hold his own without help from me or anyone."
He left the summer-house in better spirits than he had gone into it Poor Lightfoot and Dauntless were dead, but their lives had been happy, and maybe it was better that they should go suddenly, in their prime, even if their end had been painful, than live to an old age of rheumatism and bad teeth, unable to chase a hare when they saw one.
He came down from the woods to the bank above the house. The hydrangeas were in flower, and Barbara, in her shady hat, was moving amongst them with her scissors. She did not look well these days, sometimes he feared that cough of hers sounded too much like Henry's. No use saying anything, though. The children came running towards him, Johnnie turning somersaults, laying small Edward flat on his face as he cart-wheeled in the air. Fanny-Rosa came out of the house with the baby Herbert in her arms. Five children in eight years; they had not done badly…
She handed the little fellow to his aunt, and came up the bank to meet her husband. Something touched his heart as she did so. Would she always have the power to move him thus, with her smile, with her eyes, with the feel of her hand on his arm?
"It's our wedding day on the twenty-ninth," he told her. "We shall have been together nine years. Did you know that?"
"I'm not likely to forget it, am I?" she said, pointing to the children. "Maybe it's time I wore a cap in the house, and gave up running about the grounds the way I do. They say that the tenth year of married life is the most difficult."
"Do they now? And in what way would it be difficult?"
"Why, the husband becomes weary of seeing the same face every night on his pillow, and he looks around him to see if he might do better."
"How do you know I have not done so already, and cannot find one?"
"Because you are too lazy, dearest one, andwiththe side-whiskers on your face there's not a woman would look at you."
"I am not so lazy as you suppose. In fact, I propose taking a step one day this week that will astonish you when you hear of it."
"And what would that be?"
"I'll not tell you. You shall plague me as you will, but I shall keep my secret."
The truth was that John was determined after all to go down to the village to see Sam Donovan, and make an attempt to bury the hatchet of nearly two hundred years. It mattered little for himself, but for his children's sake he felt that it must be done. Why should Johnnie, and Henry, and Edward, and Herbert, and Fanny, be landed with ridiculous squabbles in the years to come? So a week after the poisoning of the greyhounds John set off one afternoon on foot for Doonhaven, having reluctantly refused to accompany Fanny-Rosa and the children on a picnic.
"There'll be picnics a-plenty in the days to come," he told them. "For once in my life I am going to do a piece of work."
"Don't let it kill you," laughed Fanny-Rosa.
"It certainly shan't do that," said her husband.
It was pleasant walking in the October sunshine.
The path through the woods was crisp with fallen leaves, and the old herons rose from their nests in the trees and flapped away at his approach. The tide was making in the creek. Some of the men were burning leaves up in the park. The good bitter wood smell came floating down to him on the wind. Soon the cock would be in, and he would persuade his father to take a day off from the mines with his gun. They might get a few snipe up in the bog at Kileen, and have another day with the hares on Doon Island. He would suggest to Fanny-Rosa that they stayed on at Clonmere until Christmas. Five small children seemed like ten at Lletharrog. If they went on as they were doing at present he would have to give the farm-house back to his father and take something larger. It was close and sultry down in Doonhaven, more like summer than autumn in the market-square, and the place seemed deserted, as it always did in the afternoon.
He went down to the quay, and along to Sam Donovan's shop. It was closed, and the shutter was up at the window. He knocked on the door, and presently it was opened by Sam's wife, a thin, tired-looking woman, who was wiping her hands on a dirty apron. A girl of ten or eleven, with a mop of fair hair and light blue eyes like all the Donovans, peered over her mother's shoulder.
"Is Sam at home?" asked John, aware that his voice sounded a shade too hearty to be natural.