"Give him some water," she directed, "and settle him down as soon as you can."
"Very good, Miss," the little jockey answered.
It was an hour later that the stable-door clicked and Joses entered.
He was wearing rope-soled shoes, and he moved softly behind the long line of horses.
In his slouch hat and loose cloak he looked like a stage conspirator.
Monkey Brand was nodding on an upturned bucket.
As the fat man entered the loose-box, the great horse turned a shining eye on him and whinnied.
Monkey blinked, stirred, and grunted:
"'Ello!"
He smelt strongly of whiskey.
The tout, unheeding him, produced a twitch.
But Monkey rose with heavy eyes and jerked it irritably out of the other's hand.
"None o' that," he said.
He nodded to the open trap-door overhead.
"She sleeps up there, don't she?" whispered the fat man.
"She never sleeps," muttered the other. "Got the stuff?" he asked drowsily.
Joses produced a bottle from the pocket of his cloak.
Monkey looked around.
"Where's a blurry bucket?" he asked, and with faltering hands inverted the one on which he had been sitting.
"Put a drop of water in," urged the fat man.
The little man obeyed, moving uncertainly.
"Is he dry?" asked Joses.
"I wish I'd only 'alf his thirst," drowsed the other.
The fat man removed the cork from the bottle. Monkey seized it rudely and sniffed it.
"What is it?" he asked sullenly.
"Nothing to hurt him," said Joses soothingly. "Just take the shine out of him for a day or two."
The jockey was so drunk that he needed humouring. The tout cursed his faulty judgment in having given the little man money to spend before the deed had been done.
Monkey let his heavy-lidded eyes rest on the other. He was breathing almost stertorously. Then he pushed the bottle back toward Joses.
"I mush trush you," he said, "same as you trush me. You wouldn't deceive me, Oxford genelman and all."
"What d'you take me for?" answered Joses.
He poured the stuff into the bucket that Monkey held. It was dark and sweet-smelling. Four-Pound-the-Second sniffed with inflated nostrils.
"Hist!" cried Monkey.
"What's that?"
"Somebury at the door."
"The door's all right. I locked it."
"He's got a key."
"Who has?"
"Silver."
"Is he on the ramp?"
"Ain't he?" snorted Monkey. "Hundred thousand—and the gal." He added with a snort: "Thought I were a copper's nark. Good as told me so."
Joses stole down the gangway to the door.
When he came back Monkey was holding the bucket to Four-Pound-the-Second, who was drinking noisily.
"It was only the cat," he said. "I heard her scuttle."
"Don't it smell funny?" whispered Monkey, swirling the bucket gently under the horse's muzzle.
Joses patted the drinking horse.
"There's the beauty," he said. "Suck it down. It'll give you pleasant dreams."
Four-Pound-the-Second had his fill by now and moved away.
Joses picked up his twitch and made for the door.
Monkey placed himself between the fat man and the exit, heavy-lidded, stertorous, and menacing.
"One thing," he said.
"What's that?"
"Them little bits o' paper there was some talk about."
"Oh, aye, I was forgettin' them."
"Was you, then? I wasn't," said Monkey brutally. "Dole 'em out."
The fat man obeyed with a snigger; then shuffled softly down the passage and out.
Monkey Brand heard him open the door and cross the yard.
Then a voice called:
"Hi at him!"
There was a scurry of pursuing feet, a scuffle, and a yell.
The jockey rushed out into the yard.
Joses was disappearing over the gate, flinging something behind him, and Billy Bluff was smothered in a cape which he was worrying.
Jim Silver, racing across the yard, snatched the cape from the dog.
A window flung open.
Boy looked out.
"What is it?" she cried.
"It's all right, Miss," answered Monkey. "No 'arm done."
The girl came swiftly down the ladder in the moonlight. She was in her wrapper, her short hair massed.
"Is the horse all right?" she cried.
"Yes, Miss."
"Where's Billy Bluff?"
"There."
Silver turned his electric torch on to a far corner of the yard, where the dog was seen chewing a lump of meat.
Boy flung herself on him and tore it away.
"Hold him!" she cried to Jim. "Between your knees! Force his mouth open! Mind yourself now."
She brought the stable-hose to bear upon the dog's extended mouth. He wrestled hugely in the grip of the young man's knees, gasping, spluttering, whining for mercy. But mercy there was none. The girl drenched him with the hose, and the man who was holding him.
"Go and get the tandem whip!" she cried.
Monkey ran.
"Now stand at the gates, both of you, and don't let him through."
Boy seized the whip and hunted the dog about the yard. He fled madly. For five minutes the girl pursued him remorselessly. Then he was violently sick.
"That's better," panted the girl. "Bring that meat, Brand."
She led the way into Four-Pound-the-Second's horse-box, followed by Silver, torch in hand.
"He'snot taken much harm," she said, patting the horse in her deliberate way.
A delicious little figure she made in her striped pyjamas, her wrapper girt about her, her feet bare in shining black pumps, and her short hair thick and curling about her neck.
Suddenly she was aware of her companion and withdrew into herself as she felt him watching her.
"Sweetheart honey," he purred, reaching out tender hands toward her.
She put up a warning finger.
"There's no one looking," he answered her.
"Yes, there is."
"Who?"
"Four-Pound."
"He don't matter."
"I'm not sure," she answered gravely. "He's a funny little look in his eye."
He was making passes close to her face and throat. She restrained him.
"Wait," she said gently.
He dropped his hands.
"I shall go back to bed now," she continued. "You'd better turn in, too—now you've caught your rat."
"I've cut off his tail anyway," laughed the young man, showing the cloak.
Swathed in her light wrapper, the little creature shuffled swiftly down the gangway behind the line of sleeping horses, her pumps, too big for her bare feet, clacking on the pavement.
He followed her heavily, his eyes brimming laughter and delight.
A few minutes later Silver joined Monkey Brand in the loose-box.
"Good little try-on, sir," said the jockey busily. "Funny smelling stuff though."
Removing a rug, he produced a bucket hidden beneath and held it to the other's nose.
"Chuck it down the drain," said the young man.
"'Alf a mo, sir," protested Monkey Brand. "Let me fill me bottle first."
He looked up at the young man with extraordinary cunning.
"Ever know'd a monkey get squiffy?" he asked confidentially. "No. Nor me neever."
Joses was lying on his bed in the gray of dawn, looking curiously livid, when somebody whistled beneath his window.
He rose and looked out.
Monkey was standing morosely in the garden underneath.
The fat man beckoned him in, and returned to his bed.
The little jockey entered.
He was dark, sullen, dangerous.
"Well?" said the tout, lying in disarray upon the bed.
"I thought you'd done a get-away," said Monkey surlily.
"I've been queer," answered the other. "Has the stuff worked?"
"Worked!" cried the jockey, with smothered fury. "It's workedmytrick all right. Never touched the 'orse. Run through him like so much water. The chemist who made up that stuff doped you and not the 'orse—and done me."
"What they done to you?"
"Took the cash off me, and give me the —— boot instead."
The tout considered.
"He's fit, is he?"
"Fit?" snorted the little man. "He's throwin' back-somersaults in his box. That's all."
"When do they box him for Liverpool?"
"Twelve-fifteen train."
Joses gathered himself with difficulty.
"See here, Brand," he said. "Are you straight?"
"Straight!" shouted Monkey. "Would I ha' sold the guv'nor I serve for twenty year if I wasn't straight."
The fat man pulled on his boots.
"Never say die till you're dead," he said. "We must go north, too. There's the last card and we must play it."
Nobody but those immediately concerned were at Polefax station to see the local National horse boxed for Liverpool.
Albert was there, and Boy, her collar about her ears, and Billy Bluff looking unusually dejected.
Old Mat, it was remarked by the porters, was not present; and Monkey Brand, it was also remarked, though at the station, took no part in the proceedings, huddling over the fire in the waiting-room, a desolate little figure of woe.
As the young horse entered his box at a siding, the train from Brighton came into the station.
Silver stepped out of it, a cloak over his arm.
He did not join the little group busy about the box, but made for the solitary figure watching from the far end of the platform.
"Your cloak, Mr. Joses," he said pleasantly.
"Thank you," replied the fat man, cold and casual. "I shall want it at Liverpool."
"You left it behind you last night."
"I did," admitted the other. "I was having a chat with Monkey Brand. And that brute of a dog came for me as I left."
"The bottle you brought's in the pocket," continued Silver.
"Good," said Joses. "I hope there's something in it."
"Nothing now."
"Ah, shame! You shouldn't hold out false hopes."
Silver's chin became aggressive.
"Doping's a crime, Mr. Joses."
"Is that so, Mr. Silver?"
"Your attempt to dope that horse last night puts you within the grip of the law."
"Who says I attempted to dope him?"
"I do."
"Any evidence to support your libellous statement?"
"What about the notes you gave Monkey Brand?"
The fat man laughed.
"So Monkey Brand's implicated, is he?" he said. "He took money from me to settle your horse, and leaked when he was in liquor. That's the story, is it?" He lifted his voice. "D'you hear that, Brand?"
"I hear," came the little sodden voice from the waiting-room. "And I says nothing. There's One Above'll see me right."
Joses shook his curls at Silver.
"Won't wash," he said. "Really it won't. What the lawyers call collusion. You didn't know I was trained for the Bar, did you? Another little surprise packet for you. Come, Mr. Silver, you must do a little better than that—an old hand like you."
The young man observed him with slow, admiring eyes.
"Joses," he said deliberately, "you're a clever rogue."
The fat man's eye became almost genial. He looked warily round, and then came a step closer.
"Ain't I?" he whispered.
Silver, laughing gently, handed him his cloak.
"Here it is," he said. "I'm keeping the little bit of paper that was in the pocket."
The other's pupils contracted.
"What paper's that?"
"The prescription of the dope mixture you handed in to Burgess and Williams, the Brighton chemists, yesterday morning. They put their stamp on it and the date. I've just come back from a chat with them."
The fat man watched the other as a rabbit watches a weasel.
"Are you going to peach?" he said.
"I'll tell you after the National," replied the other.
Joses dropped his voice into his boots.
"Make it a monkey and I'll quit," he muttered. "She's worth it," he added cunningly.
Silver looked at him.
The tout came a sudden step closer.
"Iknow," he whispered.
The Grand National is always the great event of the chasing year. This year it was something more. As the American Ambassador in England, speaking at the Pilgrim's Club a week before the race, said, it was an international affair fraught with possibilities for two great peoples, one in blood and tongue and history, whom an unhappy accident had parted for a moment in the past.
The mare indeed was a magnet. At the time that England is loud with the voice of lambs, and the arabis in Sussex gardens begins to attract the bees, she was drawing men to her from all the ends of the earth.
They came hurrying across the seas in their thousands to see the Hope of the Young Countries triumphant, and above all to compel fair play for their champion.
Indeed, there was an undeniable touch of defiance about the attitude of most of them. Last year the old folks at home—God bless em!—John Bull, the leariest of frank-spoken rogues!—had done her in.
The mare had won and had been disqualified. Those were the simple facts; and no casuistry by the cleverest of London lawyers could get away from them.
On the question of Chukkers and the Bully Boys, as the English cheap press called them, showed themselves eminently reasonable.
As they said themselves not without grimness, "Gee!—Don't we know Chukkers?—Didn't we riz him? His father was a Frisco Chink, and his mother a Mexican half-breed. You can tell us nothing about him we don't know. We admit it all. Wipe it out. If she'd been ridden by the straightest feller that ever sat in the pigskin the result'd have been the same. Are you going to give America best in your big race? Is John Bull a bleatin' baa-lamb?"
And soHands off and no Hanky-Pankywas the war-chaunt of the young American bloods whom great Cunarders vomited on to the docks at Liverpool and P.-and-O.'s landed at Tilbury to join the Ikey's Own, who had been on watch throughout the winter.
The National always takes place on the Friday of Aintree week.
All the week special trains were running Liverpool-ward from the ends of the British Isles. London, Glasgow, Cardiff, and Plymouth each sent their contingents speeding north on the same engrossing errand. All day and night people were turning out in their thousands, hanging over bridges, lining railway embankments, to see the great engines with the Kangaroo bound to their buffer-plates coming through, yes, and cheering them.
The Boys in the corridor trains stood at the windows with folded arms, watched the waving crowds grimly, and winked at each other.
They had a profound admiration for John Bull's capacity for roguery, and an equally profound belief in their own ability to go one better.
Last year J.B. had bested them—and they thought all the better of him for it. This year they meant to get their own back—and a bit more.
We are coming, Uncle Ikey, we are coming millions strong,For to see the haughty English don't do our Ikey wrong,
they sang out of the windows with provocative enjoyment.
The people waving on the embankments were in fact innocent of crime, committed or conceived. They had no champion of their own, and with a certain large simplicity they hailed as theirs the mare who had crossed the seas to trample on them.
Liverpool made holiday for the occasion.
The Corporation feasted its American visitors, while the big ship-owners gave a dance at the Wellington Rooms.
The Adelphi Hotel was the headquarters of the Beyond-the-Seas folk, and it was full to overflowing. In the huge dining-room, where every year the Waterloo Cup dinner is held, there was an immense muster the night before the race. Lord Milburn, the Prime Minister, was there, with the Mayor of Liverpool on his left, and the American Ambassador upon his right. One famous Ex-President of the Great Republic was present, and many of the most distinguished citizens of the two countries; Ikey Aaronsohnn with his eternal twinkle, was there, and Jaggers looking like a Church of England Bishop. Chukkers alone was absent. And he was lying low upstairs, it was said, with one of Ikey's Own at his bedside, and another over his door, to see that no harm befell him before the great day dawned. America might not like the great jockey, but she meant him to ride her mare to victory.
Lord Milburn, a somewhat ponderous gentleman, well-known with the Quorn, a representative Imperialist statesman, was at his best. And if his best was never very good, at least his references to Mocassin brought down the house.
"She is something moa than the best steeplechaser that ever looked through a bridle-ah," he announced in his somewhat portentous way. "She is—in my judgment—the realization of a dream. In her have met once more the two great streams of the Anglo-Saxon race. You have every right to be proud of hah; and so, I venture to say, have we. For we of the old country claim our share in the mare. She comes, I say, in the last resort—the last resort—of English thoroughbred stock. (Cheers, Counter-cheers.) And if she wins to-morrah—as she will (cheers), 'Given fair play'" came a voice from the back. "Thatshe will get—(cheers and boos)—the people of this country will rejoice that another edifice has been laid to the mighty brick—ah of Anglo-Saxon fellowship on which the hope, and I think I may say, the happiness of the world depends."
The evening ended, as the LiverpoolHeraldreported, at two in the morning, when Abe Gideon, the bark-blocks comedian, was hoisted on to the table and sang theMocassin Songto a chorus that set the water in the docks rocking.
Old Mat never stopped in Liverpool for the big race.
That was partly because everybody else did, and partly because he always preferred The Sefton Arms upon the course. When his little daughter first took to accompanying her dad to the National she used to stay the night with a Methodist cousin of her mother's and join her father on the course next morning.
This time she refused point-blank to favour Cousin Agatha, and further refused to argue the matter. She was going with her father to The Sefton Arms. Mrs. Woodburn was genuinely distressed, so much so indeed that Silver heard her hold forth for the first time in his knowledge of her on the modern mother's favourite theme—the daughter of to-day.
Old Mat gave her little sympathy.
"She's said she's goin', so goin' she is," he grunted matter-of-factly. "No argifyin's no good when she's said that. You might know that by now, Mar."
He added, to assuage his wife, that Mr. Silver was going to stop with them at The Sefton Arms.
"He's better than some," said the old lady almost vengefully.
"Now then, Mar-r-r!" cried the old man, "You're gettin' a reg'lar old woman, you are."
When his wife had left the room in dudgeon:
"It's silly," grunted the trainer. "'Course she wants to be on the course. It's only in Natur. It's her hoss, and her race. She ain't goin' to run no risks. And I don't blame her neether. There's only one way o' seein' a thing through as I've ever know'd, and that's seein' it through yourself."
Mrs. Woodburn's good-bye to her daughter was cold as it was wistful.
At the garden-gate Boy turned and waved.
"Cheer, mum!" she cried.
Her mother, standing austerely on the steps of the house, did not respond.
"I shall be back on Saturday," called the girl as she climbed into the buggy.
That was on the Monday.
On that day Boy and Albert and Billy Bluff took the young horse north, travelling all the way in his box.
At Euston it was evident something out of the way was forward. There was hardly a crowd at the station, but expectant folk were gathered here and there in knots and there were more police than usual about.
The secret was soon out.
Jaggers, with the air of the Grand Inquisitor, appeared on the platform with his head-lad, Rushton. The trainer entered into talk with a man whom Albert informed his mistress was a cop in plain clothes.
"Place swarms with 'em," the youth whispered. "And Ikey's Own. They're takin' no chances."
In fact, Mocassin and her two stable-companions were travelling on the same train as the Putnam horse.
As Albert remarked, not without complacency:
"One thing. If there's a smash we're all in it."
At Aintree the crowd, which somehow always knows, had gathered to see the crack. They didn't see much but four chestnut legs and a long tail; but what they saw was enough to satisfy them. You could swaddle her like a corpse from muzzle to hocks, and from withers to fetlock, but the Queen of Kentucky's walk was not to be mistaken. And as she came out of her box on to the platform, treading daintily, the little gathering raised the familiar slogan that told she was betrayed.
Boy let the favourite get well away before she unboxed her horse. There was nobody about by then but a small urchin who jeered:
"Say, lydy! is yon what they call a camel-leopard?"
The little party had the road to themselves, and passed unheeded.
The Billjim Guard were escorting the favourite to the yard, and the crowd were escorting the Billjims.
When Four-Pound-the-Second reached the yard with his three satellites twenty minutes later, the backwash of the crowd still eddied and swirled about the entrance.
The policeman on the gate made a fuss about admitting Billy Bluff. But the head yard-man, who knew Mat Woodburn's daughter almost as well as he knew his own, interfered on her behalf.
"He'll sleep in my horse's box," Boy explained.
"Won't your horse sleep without him, Miss?" grinned the yard-man.
"Not so well," answered the girl.
"Oh, let him in," said the other. "Pity to spoil that horse's beauty sleep. Might lose his looks."
Boy could never bring herself to titter at the jokes of those whom it was expedient to placate. Happily Albert was at hand to make amends, and he, to be sure, had no qualms of conscience.
The little procession entered, Billy Bluff at the heels of the great horse, striking fire in the dusk from the cobbled yard.
"He's to look after Chukkers, I suppose," said the yard-man grimly, pleased at his own generosity, well satisfied with his wit, and fairly so with Albert's tribute to it.
"He's to look after my horse," said Boy resolutely.
"He looks he could look after himself, Miss," replied the witty yard-man.
"So he can, sir, with you to help him," said the swift and tactful Albert.
The yard-man, who could tell you stories of Boomerang's National, and Cannibal's victory, that not even Monkey Brand could surpass, knew of old the feeling between Putnam's and the Dewhurst stable, and had placed the boxes of the two horses far apart.
All through the week the excitement grew.
The Sefton Arms was seething; the bar a slowly heaving mass of racing-men, jockeys, touts, habitués.
Once or twice there were rows between Ikey's Own—the Yankee doodlers, as the local wits called them—and the English silver-ring bookies; and the cause of the quarrels was invariably the same—the treatment of the mare at last year's National.
Throughout the week Boy went her quiet, strenuous way, unconscious of the commotion about her, or careless of it.
Jim Silver escorted her to and from the yard. Most people knew Old Mat's daughter and respected her; and those who did not, respected the grave-faced young giant who was her constant attendant.
When the pair passed swiftly through the bar, an observer would have noticed that a hush fell on the drinkers, accompanied by surreptitious elbow-nudgings and significant winks.
It was clear that the young couple were of secret interest to the dingy crowd. And in fact there were rumours afloat about them—sensational stories not a few about what they stood to win in love upon the race.
Monkey Brand and Joses were always drinking together in the bar as Silver walked through. Once he passed quite close to them. The little jockey's glassy eye rested meaninglessly on the young man's face and wandered away. When the other had moved on, he dropped his eyelid and muttered to his pal:
"Wants the —— kybosh puttin' on him. Good as called me a copper's nark."
"Hundred thousand in the pot," grinned the fat man. "And a dainty bit o' white meat. I don't blame him." He licked his lips.
There were few more familiar figures at the bar of The Sefton Arms at National time than that of Monkey Brand, and this year few more pathetic ones.
It was soon bruited abroad that Old Mat and his head-lad had parted after more years of association than many cared to recall. And it was clear that the little man felt the rupture. He wandered morosely through the crowd in the train of his fat familiar like a lost soul outside the gates of Paradise. Usually a merry sprite, the life and soul of every group he joined, he was under the weather, as the saying went, and what was still more remarkable he showed it.
Everybody was aware of the facts, though nobody knew the story.
The Duke, who was genuinely fond of the little jockey, and full of vulgar curiosity, coming upon him two nights before the race, stopped him.
"I'm sorry to hear you and Mr. Woodburn have parted after all these years, Brand," he said in his gruff way.
"Thank you, your Grace," said the little jockey, pinching his lips.
The Duke waited. Nothing happened, but Monkey poked his chin in the air, and swallowed.
"I thought you were set for life," continued the Duke slowly.
"I thought so, too, your Grace," answered the jockey. "But the human 'eart's a funny affair—very funny, as the sayin' is."
Long ago he had acquired the trick of moralizing from his old master.
"What's the trouble, then?" grunted the Duke.
He was greatly curious and honestly concerned.
"Thought I were sellin' him," muttered Monkey.
The Duke bent shaggy brows upon the little man.
"Were you?" he asked.
For a moment the old merry Monkey rose from the dead and twinkled. Then he stiffened like a dead man, touched his hat, and turned away.
The Duke clung to him.
He, too, had heard a story, and wished to know the rights and wrongs of it.
"Well, well," he said. "We must all hope the Putnam horse wins—for Mr. Silver's sake. Eh, what?"
"Yes, your Grace," replied the uncommunicative Monkey.
The night before the race the Duke, still hunting the trail tenaciously, stumbled, according to his own account, on Old Mat, and reported the substance of his interview with Monkey in that ingenuous way of his, half simple, half brutal, and all with an astonishingsavoir-faireyou would never have given him credit for.
"One thing," he ended, "he ain't blackguardin' you."
Mat seemed lost in memories.
"I wep' a tear. I did reely," he said at last. Then he shook a sorrowful head. "I ain't one o' yer whitewings meself," he said. "Not by no means. But he shock me, Monkey do. He does reely." He dabbed his eye. "Rogues and rasqueals, yer Grace," he said. "All very well. But there is a limit, as the Psalmist very proply remarked."
The Duke turned to go, his curiosity still unsatisfied.
"Where's Boy?" he asked gruffly. "I've seen nothing of her this time."
"She's kep' busy, your Grace—nursin' the baby."
"How is he?"
"Keeps a-crowin'," said the old man, "from all I hears of it."
Next morning was gray with gleams of sun: an ideal day, old hands said, for the great race of the year.
Mat found his way to the Paddock early and alone.
At Aintree everything is known about the notables by everybody, and there were few more familiar figures than that of the old man with the broad shoulders, the pink face, and the difficulty in drawing breath.
It was twenty odd years since Cannibal had won the big race for him; and this year it was known that he had only come up to see the sport. True he had a horse running, down on the card as Four-Pound-the-Second, brown gelding, five years old, green jacket and cap, ten stone; but he was an any-price outsider, only entered because for something like fifty years there had never been a National in which a Putnam horse had not played a part. And rumour had it that Four-Pound was a rum un even for Putnam's.
As Mat entered the Paddock, he was looking round him—for his missing daughter, observers said.
Jaggers and Ikey Aaronsohnn marked him from afar and told off a couple of the Boys to track him from a respectful distance.
The old man's familiar figure, his queer clothes, and reputation as a character, drew others toward him. He lilted heavily across the Paddock with a word to one, a nod to another, a wink for a third, talking all the time and breathing like a grampus, with a little crowd of tittering nondescripts swirling in his wake and hanging on his words.
"Don't 'ave nothin' to do wi' me. That's my adwice to you. I'm Old Mat. You oughter know that by this. No, I ain't goin' to walk round the course this year. As I says, the course don't change, but I does. If the course wants me to see it, it must walk round me. I've done the proper thing be the course this sixty year. Now it's the course's turn.Good morning, Mr. Jaggers. Yes, I see him, and he see me—only he look the other way. Pretty little thing, ain't he? Reminds me of that foreign chap went on the religious ramp in Italy. I seen his picture at Mr. Haggard's. Savierollher, wasn't it? They burnt him; and I don't blame 'em. He was Jaggers's father I'ave'eard. Only you mustn't 'and it on, else you might get me into trouble."
He crossed the course, looked at the water opposite the Grand Stand, and examined the first fence lugubriously.
"Time was I could ha' hop it off one foot," he said. "Something's 'appened. Must 'ave."
Then he returned to the Paddock, passing a bookie with uplifted hand of protest.
"Get away from me, Satan," he said. "Don't tempt an old man what's never fell yet."
"I know all about that, Mr. Woodburn," grinned the bookie.
"I got my principles same as them as 'asn't," continued the old man, marching firmly on. "You go and tell that to the Three J's, Mr. Buckland. There they are be the Grand Stand. No, when I gets back to Mar there'll be nothin' to show her only a blank bettin' book." He stopped quite suddenly and dropped his voice to a whisper: "Anything doin', Mr. Buckland?"
His little following roared.
"Favourite fours. Nothing else wanted, Mr. Woodburn," said the amused man. "It's just the day for the mare."
"Fours," said the old man. "Price shorter nor ever I remember it since Cloister's year. It's a cert. for the Three J's. What about my little ride-a-cock-horse, Mr. Buckland?"
The bookmaker referred to his card.
"Four-Pound-the-Second," he said. "Give you forties."
"Forties!" guffawed Old Mat. "A young giraffe like him, dropped this spring in the Sarah desert under a cocoanut shy. Fourhundredand forties I thought you was goin' to say. 'Ark to him!" He appealed to the delighted crowd. "Offers me forties against my pantomime colt, and ain't ashamed of himself. I'd ha' left him at home in the menadgeree along o' the two-'eaded calf and the boy with blue hair if I'd known."
"He's a powerful great horse, Mr. Woodburn," smiled the bookie.
"Hoss!" cried the outraged old man. "'Ave you seen him? He ain't a hoss at all. He's a he-goat. Only I've shave the top of him to took you all in. He's comin' on at the 'alls to-night after the race. Goin' to sit on a stool and singThe Wop 'em Opossum, specially composed by me and Mar for this occasion only."
He lilted on his way.
By noon the Paddock was filling, and the Carriage Enclosure becoming packed.
People began to blacken the railway embankment, to gather in knots all round the course at likely places, to line the Canal.
In the crowd you could hear the dialects of every county in England mingling with accents of the young countries beyond the seas.
At noon the Duke and his party crossed the Paddock.
"You won't join us, Mat?" he called. "I've got a saloon on the Embankment."
"No, sir, thank you," said the old man. "Mat's corner in the Grand Stand'll find me at home as usual come three o'clock."
The Duke paused. He was still hunting the trail.
"If you see Boy before the race, tell her we'll be glad if she cares to join us."
The trainer shook his head.
"Thank you kindly, your Grace. She always goes to the Stand by the Canal Turn when Chukkers is riding."
There was a chuckle from the bystanders.
"He's ridin' this time' all right, from all I hear," said the Duke grimly.
"You're right, sir," answered the old man. "Last night he was countin' his dead in his sleep. The policeman what was over his door to see no lady kidnap him for his looks heard him and tell me."
The jockey, who was passing at the moment, stopped.
"Say it agin," he cried fiercely.
The old trainer was face to face with one of the only two men in the world to whom he felt unkindly.
"Ain't once enough, then?" he asked tartly.
The jockey walked on his way.
"Ah, you're an old man, Mr. Woodburn," he called back. "Youtake advantage."
"I may be old, but I amwhite," called the old man after him, his blue eye lighting.
"Oh, come, come!" cried the Duke, delighted, as he hurried after his party. "Where's Mrs. Woodburn?"
Chukkers joined the two J's, who were hobnobbing with some of Ikey's Own under the Grand Stand.
Monkey Brand and Joses stood together on the outskirts of the group.
Jaggers, austere as the Mogul Emperor, approached the tout.
"You're a monkey down, Joses," he said, cold and quiet. "The Putnam horse is starting."
The other smiled.
"He's starting, sir," he said. "But he's not winning."
Jaggers blinked at him.
"What d'you mean?"
"I mean the race isn't lost yet, and mayn't be—even if the mare don't win."
He moved away, and Monkey followed him.
Jaggers joined his colleagues.
"What did he say?" asked Ikey in his eager yet wary way.
The trainer told him.
"Thinks he knows something," muttered the little Levantine, his brown face thoughtful.
"Kiddin' he do," grunted Chukkers, sucking his charm.
Ikey looked after the retreating fat man.
"He's collared Monkey Brand anyway," he said.
"If Monkey ain't collared him," retorted the jockey.
The moods of the three men were various and characteristic: Jaggers glum and uncertain, Ikey confident, Chukkers grim.
"Who's riding the Putnam horse?" asked Ikey.
"Albert Edward," Jaggers replied.
Chukkers removed his charm from his mouth.
"I ain't afraid o' him," he said. "He's never rode this course afore. It'll size him up."
"What's the price o' Four-Pound?" asked Ikey.
"Forties," answered Chukkers, biting home.
The little Levantine was surprised, as those Simian eyebrows of his revealed.
"Forties!" he said. "I thought he was a hundred to one."
"So he were a week since," answered Chukkers surlily. "Silver's been plankin' the dollars on."
"Ah, that ain't all," said Jaggers gloomily. "The Ring knows something. Here, Rushton, go and see what they're layin' Four-Pound."
The head-lad went and returned immediately.
"Thirties offered, sir. No takers."
Jaggers shook his head.
"I don't like it," he said.
All morning, carriages, coaches, silent-moving motorcars, char-à-bancs with rowdy parties, moke-carts, people on bicycles and afoot, streamed out of Liverpool.
By one o'clock people were taking their places in the Grand Stand. Everywhere America was in the ascendant, good-humoured, a thought aggressive. Phalanxes of the Boys linked arm to arm were sweeping up and down the course, singing with genial turbulence
Hands off and no hanky-panky.
To an impartial onlooker the attitude of the two great peoples toward each other was an interesting study. Both were wary, ironical, provocative, and perfect tempered. They were as brothers, rivals in the arena, who having known each other from nursery days, cherish no romantic and sentimental regard for each other, are aware of each other's tricks, and watchful for them while still maintaining a certain measure of mutual respect and even affection.
When the American crowd surged up and down the course roaring magnificently,
The star-spangled banner in triumph shall waveO'er the land of the free and the home of the brave,
the counter-marching Englishmen met them with the challenging,
The land of Hope and GloryThe Mother of the Free.
With any other peoples rioting and bloodshed would have ensued. Here, apart from an occasional cut-and-dry battle between two enthusiastic individuals in the fringes of the crowd, there was never any need for police interference.
There were two flat races before the National. The horses were gathering for the first when Albert in his shirt sleeves bustled across the Paddock.
A whistle stopped him and he turned.
"'Ullo, Mr. Brand!"
"Where are you off to?"
"I'm goin' to dress now."
"You're early."
"First race is starting."
"How's the horse?"
"Keeps a-lingerin' along."
"Who's with him?"
"Mr. Silver."
The fat man chimed in:
"Where's the lady, then?"
Albert looked blank.
"I ain't seen her," he said. "Believe she's walking round the course."
Joses laughed.
"I should have thought you'd have been the one to walk round the course," he said.
"I been," replied the lad keenly.
"And what d'you think of it?" asked Monkey.
The youth rubbed his stomach with the most delicate consideration.
"Pore Albert," he said. "That's what I think. They're a yard through some of 'em. You clears 'em clean or—it's amen, so be it, good-bye to the totties, and no flowers by request."
He bustled on his way.
Monkey nudged his mate.
"Keeps it up," he muttered.
"Proper," the other answered.
The second race was run and won. Two o'clock came and went. The jockeys began to emerge from the dressing-room under the Grand Stand. Monkey Brand and Joses watched the door.
"Where's green then?" muttered the tout, as the expected failed to show.
"'Ush!" said Monkey at his elbow.
The fat man turned.
At the far side of the Paddock, by the gate, the looked-for jockey had appeared out of nowhere.
The green of his cap betrayed him, and the fact that old Mat was in close conversation with him.
He wore a long racing-coat, and his collar was turned up. Indeed, apart from his peaked cap drawn down over his eyes and his spurs, little but coat was to be seen of him.
"Where did he spring from?" asked Joses, and began to move toward the jockey.
His companion stayed him suddenly.
Billy Bluff, who had evaded the police, and dodged his way into the Paddock, raced up to the jockey and began to squirm about him, half triumphant, half ashamed.
The fat man stopped dead and stared, with his bulging eyes.
"Straight!" he cried, and smote his hands together.
The jockey cut at the dog with his whip, and then the police came up and hunted him back into the road.
At the moment the band struck up the National Anthem, and the Knowsley party, including the King, the American Ambassador, and Lord Milburn, crossed the Paddock swiftly toward Lord Derby's box.
Suddenly the strains of the band were drowned by an immense roar of cheering.
Mocassin was being led into the Paddock.
Nothing could be seen of her. Ikey's Own had formed a close-linked phalanx about her. No Englishman might penetrate that jealous barrier or help to form it. Within its sacred circle the mare was being stripped and saddled.
Then there came another roar.
Chukkers was up in the star-spangled jacket.
The famous jockey sat above the heads of the crowd, and indulged in the little piece of swagger he always permitted himself. Very deliberately he tied the riband of his cap over the peak while the eyes of thousands watched him. As he did so the crowd about him stirred and parted. A girl passed through. It was the American Ambassador's daughter. She handed the jockey a tricolour cockade, which he fixed gallantly in front of his cap. It was clear that he was in the best of humours, for he exchanged chaff with his admirers, adding a word to Jaggers as he gathered his reins.
Settling in the saddle, he squeezed the mare.
She reared a little as though to gratify the desire of those at the back for a peep at her.
As she left the Paddock and entered the course, the people rose to heren masse. Storms of cheers greeted her and went bellowing round the course. The Canal tossed them back to the Grand Stand, and the Embankment was white with waving handkerchiefs.
Mocassin! Mocassin! Mocassin!
All eyes were on the mare, and the great brown horse, in the far corner of the Paddock, was stripped, and his jockey astride, before half a dozen people were aware of his presence.
By the time Jaggers and Ikey had observed him, he was on the move.
The two J's, Monkey Brand and Joses, crossed toward him, but there was no getting near that tumultuous earth-shaker in brown. Jim Silver was at his head, and, strong as the young man was, he had all his work cut out to hold the horse as he bounced across the Paddock, scattering his crowd with far-reaching heels.
"'Ware horse!" rose the cry.
"Give him room!"
"Look out for his heels!"
"Steady the beauty!"
Plunging across the Paddock, to the disturbance of everybody but the little jockey with the fair hair, who swung to his motions as a flower, fast in earth, swings to the wind, he tore out of the Paddock amid the jeers and laughter of some and the curses of others.
"Smart!" said Joses.
"My eye!" answered Monkey Brand.
Jim Silver, panting after his run, joined Old Mat.
The two made toward the Grand Stand.
In front of them a middle-aged man, soberly dressed, and a tall girl were walking.
"That's the American Ambassador," muttered the old man as they passed. "Come with Lord Derby's party. Great scholar, they say. That's his daughter."
The tall Ambassador with the stoop paused to let the other couple go by.
Then he nodded at the young man's back.
"Mr. Silver," he murmured in his daughter's ear. "And the old gentleman'sherfather."
The girl was alert at once. She, too, had heard the tales.
"Is it?" she cried. "Where's she?"
"I don't know," the other answered.
"Ihopethey win," said the girl—"in some ways."
Her father smiled.
"You're no American," he scoffed. "You're a woman. That's all you are."
As the two men took their places, the parade in front of the Grand Stand was in full swing.
There was a big field: some thirty starters in all.
The favourite, as the top weight, led them by at a walk.
She was quite at her ease, yet on fire as always, snatching at her bit in characteristic style. Chukkers rode her with long and easy rein, as though to show he trusted her. As she came by, the Grand Stand began to sing with one voice: