Had Mrs. Crimmeen used the verb scratch instead of screech she would have been nearer the mark.  The puppies, Ruby and Remus, had, after the manner of the young, human and canine, not failed to distribute their malady among their elders, and the pack, straitly coupled, went for dismal constitutionals, and the kennels reeked to heaven of remedies, and Freddy’s new hunter, Mayboy, from shortness of work, smashed the partition of the loose box and kicked his neighbour, Mrs. Alexander’s cob, in the knee.

“The worst of it is,” said Freddy confidentially to his ally and adviser, the junior subaltern of the detachment at Enniscar, who had come over to see the hounds, “that I’m afraid Patsey Crimmeen—­the boy whom I’m training to whip to me, you know”—­(as a matter of fact, the Whip was a year older than the Master)—­“is beginning to drink a bit.  When I came down here before breakfast this mornin’”—­when Freddy was feeling more acutely than usual his position as an M.F.H., he cut his g’s and talked slightly through his nose, even, on occasion, going so far as to omit the aspirate in talking of his hounds—­“there wasn’t a sign of him—­kennel door not open or anything.  I let the poor brutes out into the run.  I tell you, what with the paraffin and the carbolic and everything the kennel was pretty high—­”

“It’s pretty thick now,” said his friend, lighting a cigarette.

“Well, I went into the boiler-house,” continued Freddy impressively, “and there he was, asleep on the floor, with his beastly head on my kennel coat, and one leg in the feeding trough!”

Mr. Taylour made a suitable ejaculation.

“I jolly soon kicked him on to his legs,” went on Freddy, “not that they were much use to him—­he must have been on the booze all night.  After that I went on to the stable yard, and if you’ll believe me, the two chaps there had never turned up at all—­at half-past eight, mind you!—­and there was Fennessy doing up the horses.  He said he believed that there’d been a wake down at Enniscar last night.  I thought it was rather decent of him doing their work for them.”

“You’ll sack ’em, I suppose?” remarked Mr. Taylour, with martial severity.

“Oh well, I don’t know,” said Mr. Alexander evasively, “I’ll see.  Anyhow, don’t say anything to my mother about it; a drunken man is like a red rag to a bull to her.”

Taking this peculiarity of Mrs. Alexander into consideration, it was perhaps as well that she left Craffroe a few days afterwards to stay with her brother.  The evening before she left both the Fairy Pig and the Ghost Woman were seen again on the avenue, this time by the coachman, who came into the kitchen considerably the worse for liquor and announced the fact, and that night the household duties were performed by the maids in pairs, and even, when possible, in trios.

As Mrs. Alexander said at dinner to Sir George, on the evening of her arrival, she was thankful to have abandoned the office of Ghostly Comforter to her domestics.  Only for Barnet she couldn’t have left poor Freddy to the mercy of that pack of fools; in fact, even with Barnet to look after them, it was impossible to tell what imbecility they were not capable of.