The maid of our mountains—Mocassin's her name!The speed of the panther;The heart of the flame;The Belle of the Blue Ridge,The hope of the plain,The Queen of Kentucky,O, lift her again—
The maid of our mountains—Mocassin's her name!The speed of the panther;The heart of the flame;The Belle of the Blue Ridge,The hope of the plain,The Queen of Kentucky,O, lift her again—
Chanted thus by tens of thousands of voices, singing round the course and up into the heavens, and culminating in the roaring slogan—
Mocassin! Mocassin! Mocassin!
the simple song became for the moment clothed in vicarious majesty.
Jim Silver felt the thrill of it, as did his companion.
"Mar'd like that," said Old Mat sentimentally. "She's same as me. She likes hymns."
The object of the enthusiasm seemed unconscious of it.
She came by at that swift pattering walk of hers—like a girl going marketing as her lovers said—amid the comments of her admirers.
"She's all right, sure!"
"Don't she nip along?"
"He looks grim, Chukkers do."
"Yes; he's for it this time."
"They've injected her—American style."
"Never!"
"They have, my son. Trust Jaggers. Can't leave it to Nature. Must always go one better."
"Ikey's got two other horses in."
"Which?"
"There's old Jackaroo—in the purple and gold, Rushton riding."
"Which is the second Dewhurst horse?"
"This in the canary. Flibberty-gibbet. Little Boy Braithwaite."
"He's only a nipper."
"He can ride, though."
"They're to nurse the crack through the squeeze."
"She'll want nursing."
"She's all right if she stands up till Beecher's Brook."
"She'll stand up. Trust Chukkers."
"He's got nothing to beat."
"Only Moonlighter."
"Whichisthe Irish horse?"
"The gray there. Cerise and white."
"Flashy thing."
"Yes. He'll give no trouble though. Three mile and a half is his limit."
"Here's Gee-Woa, the Yorkshireman."
"Looks an old-fashioned sort."
"He can jump a haystack and stay all day; but he can't get a move on."
"If there's grief enough he might get home, though."
"There's Kingfisher. The West-country crack. Bay and two white ducks."
Last but one came Four-Pound-the-Second with his little fair jockey up. The horse was so big, and the jockey so small, that a laugh went up as the pair came by.
"What's this in green, then?"
"Old Mat's horse. Four-Pound-the-Second. Ten stun."
"Anything known of him?"
"Won a small race at Lingfield."
"Who's riding?"
"One o' the Putnam lads. Carries his prayer-book in his pocket. Mar makes 'em—for luck!"
"He can foot it."
"I'd like to see a walkin'-race between that mare and the big un. What's his price?" He leaned over to the ring below and asked.
"Twenties," came the answer.
Jaggers heard and nudged Ikey.
The Putnam horse marched by, blowing his nose, and in front of the Grand Stand gave a playful little buck as much as to say: "I would if I could, but I won't."
Then Chukkers swung round and led the horses back to the starting-point.
"Only one thing I wish," muttered Old Mat in his companion's ear. "I wish there'd been rain in the night. Twelve-stun-three'd steady Miss Mustang through the dirt."
"Our horse has got a little bit in hand," replied the young man.
"You're right, sir," answered the other.
The gossip came and went about the pair. Neither heard nor indeed heeded it. The old man was easy, almost nonchalant; the young man quiet and self-contained.
The horses drew up to the right, their backs to the Grand Stand, a long, swaying line of silken jackets shimmering in the sun.
Old Mat's face became quietly radiant.
"Pretty, ain't it?" he said. "Like a bed o' toolups swaying in the wind. I wish Mar could see that. Worst o' principles, they cuts you off so much."
He raised his glasses.
"Where's Chukkers? Oh, I see. In the middle, and his buffer-hosses not too fur on eether side of him. That's lucky for Chukkers. One thing, my little baa-lamb'll take a bit o' knockin' out."
"Where is he?" asked Silver.
"Away on the right there," answered the old man. "Doin' a cake-walk on the next hoss's toes."
There was very little trouble at the post. The starter got his field away well together at the first drop of the flag.
Only one was left, and that was green.
The great horse who had been sparring with the air as the flag fell came down from aloft and got going a long six lengths behind the field.
Neither he nor his rider seemed the least concerned.
"That's my little beauty," muttered Old Mat. "He'll start his own time, he will. Maybe to-day; maybe to-morrow; maybe not at all. One thing, though: hehasstarted."
The brown horse was pulling out to the right to lie on the outside.
The old trainer nodded approvingly.
"That's right, my boy," he said. "You let 'em rattle 'emselves to bits, while you lays easy behind. There'll be plenty o' room in front in a moment or two."
An old hand in a white top-hat just in front turned round.
"That lad o' yours rides cunning, Mr. Woodburn," he said.
"He's a fair card, he is," replied the old man enigmatically.
"Was it deliberate?" asked an ingenious youth.
"Who shall say, my son?" replied the old trainer. "Only the grass-'opper what walketh the tiles by night—same as the Psalmist says."
The scramble and scrimmage at the first few fences resulted in plenty of grief. Jockeys were rising from the ground and running off the course, and loose horses were pursuing their perilous way alone.
Behind the first flight, in the centre of the course, showed conspicuous the Star-spangled Jacket of the favourite.
Chukkers, too, was taking his time, running no risks, his eyes everywhere, calculating his chances, fending off dangers as they loomed up on him one after the other. He was drawing in to the rails on his left flank for security from cannoning horses.
The first few fences behind him, the danger of a knock-out would be greatly lessened. Till then it was most grave. Chukkers was aware of it; so were the tens of thousands watching; so were his stable-mates.
As Chukkers crossed to the rails Jackaroo, who lay in front on the inside, drew away to let the favourite up under his lee. Flibberty-gibbet, on the other hand, the second Dewhurst horse, had been bumped at the first fence, and pecked heavily on landing. Little Boy Braithwaite in the canary jacket had been unshipped, and was scrambling about on his horse's neck. He lay now a distance behind. Chukkers was signalling furiously with his elbow for the boy to come up on his right; and he had cause.
For Kingfisher, the West-country horse, riderless and with trailing reins, was careering alongside him like a rudderless ship in full sail.
For two fences the loose horse and the favourite rose side by side; and the watchers held their breath.
Then the bay began to close in.
Chukkers turned and screamed over his shoulder. Rushton on Jackaroo still two lengths in front looked round and saw he could do nothing.
Little Boy Braithwaite, who had at last recovered his seat, came up like thunder on the quarters of the mare. The lad drove the filly at the loose horse and rammed him in the flank.
A groan went up from the assembled thousands.
"Good boy!" roared the Americans.
"Dead boy, ye mean," muttered Old Mat. "He's got it."
Horse and boy went down together in headlong ruin. Flibberty-gibbet rose with difficulty and limped away with broken leg and nodding head. The boy rolled over on his face and lay still under the heavens, his canary jacket like a blob of mustard on the green.
The women in the crowd caught their breath.
"Yes, he's done," muttered Mat, "Saved the Three J's a quarter of a million, though."
"But she's through," commented Silver.
"Don't you believe it," grumbled the old man.
The sacrifice, indeed, seemed to have been in vain. Kingfisher staggered under the shock, recovered, and came sailing up once more, as it might have been deliberately, alongside the mare.
Chukkers leaned far out and slashed the oncoming bay across the face; and the crowds on the Embankment and in the saloon-carriages on the railway heard distinctly the swish-swish of the falling whip.
A groan of satisfaction went up from the taut onlookers. Chukkers's action had cleared him. Indeed he had killed two birds with one stone, and nearly a third. Kingfisher shied away over the course and crossed the path of Gee-Woa, who was going steady on the right. Both horses went down. Surging along behind the Yorkshireman, calm and unconcerned by the flurry and rush and confusion in front, came a great brown horse, the last of the galloping rout. He flew the ruin of men and horses broadcast before him on the grass, bounced twice, as Old Mat said, and cleared the fence in front with a foot to spare.
"Double!" roared the crowd, applauding horse and horseman alike.
Jim Silver sighed.
"Nearly bounced you, Mr. Woodburn," said the White Hat in front. "That lad of yours can ride."
"Bounce is the boy," answered the old man. "Nothing like it. Now there's more room."
"Where's Miss Woodburn?" asked the garrulous White Hat.
"In heaven, my lord, I 'opes," answered the other, wiping his eye.
The old gentleman looked foolish and made a face.
"Oh, dear. I'm sorry. I hadn't heard."
"No 'arm done, sir," replied the trainer gently. "These things will 'appen. Seems we're most of us mortal when our time comes." He adjusted his glasses. "Yes. Mare's through now. Layin' down to it nice."
Indeed, the troubles of the favourite were over for the present. Either Jackaroo was coming back to her, or she was coming up with the old horse. The star-spangled jacket and the purple and gold were together, the mare lying between the rails and her stable-companion.
As the field swung left-handed and passed parallel to the Grand Stand on the far side of the course, the light-weights were still well together in front and bunched like a covey of partridges. Then came the favourite and her stable-companion, rising fence for fence; after them a chain of stragglers; and bringing up the rear, rollicking along with his head in his chest, revelling in his work, the twenty-to-one outsider.
"So far so good," said Mat, "as the man said when he was 'alf-way through cuttin' his throat."
The American contingent breathed afresh, and the bookies were looking glum. Once over Beecher's Brook the first time round, with half the field down, the chance of a knock-out reduced, and Gee-Woa and Kingfisher grazing peacefully under the Embankment, the favourite's chances had greatly increased.
True, the gray Moonlighter in the cerise and white was in the lead and going like a snowstorm; but not a man among the tens of thousands on the course who did not know that four miles and a half was a mile too much for the Irishman.
"What price the favourite?" roared the Boys.
"Threes," said the bookies, and gave them grudgingly.
"They're settlin' down to it now," muttered Old Mat. "Favourite's goin' strong. Gallops like a engine, don't she? I like to see her."
Those who were watching through their glasses marked that a fence before the Canal Turn the star-spangled jacket and the purple and gold seemed to be taking council together.
"Goin' to turn on the tap now, you'll see," said the old man.
He was right.
Chukkers, indeed, never varied the way he rode his races on the mare. In truth, part of his greatness as a jockey lay in the fact that he adapted his methods to his horse. Very early in his connection with Mocassin he had discovered the unfailing way to make the most of her. It was said of him that he always won his victories on her in the first half-mile. That was an exaggeration; but it was the fact that he invariably sat down to race at a time when other jockeys were just settling in their saddles. At Liverpool he always began to ride the mare after Valentine's Brook first time round, and had beaten his field and won his race long before he began the second lap.
As it chanced, too, the mare's fiery spirit suited exactly the daring temperament of the great horseman. The invincible couple waited behind till the ranks began to thin and then came through with the hurricane rush that had become famous. A consummate judge of pace, sure of himself, sure of his mount, Chukkers never feared to wait in front; and the mare, indeed, was never happy elsewhere. Once established in the pride of place, the fret and fever left her, she settled down to gallop and jump, and jump and gallop, steady as the Gulf Stream, strong as a spring-tide, till she had pounded her field to pieces.
The thousands waiting for the Mocassin rush were not disappointed.
The turn for home once made, and Valentine's Brook with its fatal drop left behind, the mare and her stable-mate came away like arrows from the bow.
She lay on the rails, her guardian angel hard on her right.
Jackaroo might be old, but he was still as good a two-miler as any in England.
The pair caught their horses one after one and left them standing; and the roar of the multitude was like that of the sea as the defeated host melted away behind.
At last only the Irish horse refused to give place to the importunate pair. Twice they challenged, and twice the gray shook them off. They came again; and for a while the star-spangled jacket, the purple and gold, the cerise and white, rose at their fences like one.
The Irish division were in screaming ecstasies.
Then the roar of New England, overwhelming all else, told that the mare was making good.
Moonlighter's jockey saw he was beaten for the moment at least and took a pull.
As Mocassin's swift bobbing head swung round the corner on to the straight, she was alone save for her stable-companion, and his work was done.
"He's seen her through," muttered Old Mat. "Now he can go home to bed."
Indeed, as Jackaroo sprawled down the straight, still hanging to the quarters of the mare, he looked like a towel-rail on which wet clothes had been hung, and Rushton had ceased to ride.
The mare, fresh as the old horse was failing, came along in front of the Grand Stand, clipping the grass with that swift, rhythmical stroke of hers and little fretful snatch at the reins, neat and swift and strong as a startled deer.
Chukkers sat still and absorbed as a cat waiting over a mouse's hole.
All eyes were on him. Nothing else was seen. His race was won. Last year's defeat had been avenged. America had made good. A roar as of an avalanche boomed and billowed about him. The thousands on the stands yelled, stamped and cooeyed.
"Hail, Columbia!" bellowed the triumphant Boys.
"Stand down, England!"
"What price the Yankee-doodlers?"
"Who gives the Mustang best?"
In that tumult of sound, individual voices were lost. The yells of the bookies were indistinguishable. Men saw things through a mist, and more than one woman fainted.
Then through the terrific boom came the discordant blare of a megaphone, faint at first but swiftly overbearing the noise of the tempest.
"Watch it, ye ——!" it screamed. "He's catchin' ye!"
It was the voice of Jaggers.
The thousands heard and hushed. They recognised the voice and the note of terror in it.
Chukkers heard, too, turned, and had a glimpse of a green jacket surging up wide on his right.
There was the sound of a soughing wind as the crowd drew its breath.
What was this great owl-like enemy swooping up out of nowhere?
Chukkers, his head on his shoulders, took the situation in.
What he saw he didn't like.
The mare was going strong beneath him, but the brown horse on his quarter was only beginning: so much his expert eye told him at a glance. Four-Pound-the-Second was coming along like a cataract, easy as an eagle in flight; his great buffeting shoulders were sprayed with foam, his gaping nostrils drinking in oceans of air and spouting them out again with the rhythmical regularity of a steam-pump; and his little jockey sat on his back still as a mouse—a pale face, a gleam of fair hair, and two little brown fists that gave and took with each stride of the galloping horse.
Chukkers was not the only one who seized the situation.
The bookies absorbed it in a flash—the outsider's form, the jockey's colours, the significance of both. It was Old Mat's horse—Old Mat who had sprung surprises on the ring so often in his time. Rumour had always said that the horse was by Berserker. Then they had disbelieved. Now—well, he looked it.
Suddenly the ring went mad.
"Six to four the favourite!" the bookies roared. "Seven to four on the field!"
The English, too, woke to the fact that they had a champion at last. A thirst for vengeance, after all they had endured at the hands of the contumelious foe, carried them away. They stood up and howled. The Americans, who had seen the cup of victory brought to their lips and snatched away again, roused by the threat to their favourite, responded wrathfully. Roar answered roar; New England thundered against Old.
Chukkers, as always, had steadied the mare after her rush. Now he changed his tactics to meet the new situation. As the horses made for the water, the mare on the rails, and the outsider wide on the right, Chukkers began to nibble at her. The action was faint, yet most significant.
"He ain'tridin'," muttered Old Mat, watching closely through his glasses—"not yet. I won't say that. But he's spinnin' her."
Indeed it was so. The crowd saw it; the Boys, gnawing their thumbs, saw it; the bookies, red-faced from screaming, saw it, too.
The crowd bellowed their comments.
"She's held!"
"The mare's beat!"
"Brown's only cantering!"
"She's all out!"
In all that riot of voices, and storm of tossing figures, two men kept calm.
Old Mat was genial; Silver still, his chest heaving beneath his folded arms.
"Like a hare and a greyhound," muttered the old man, apt as always.
"Got it all to themselves now," said Silver. "And the best horse wins."
"Bar the dirty," suggested the trainer.
The warning was timely.
aintree
AINTREE: Plan of Course
Just before the water Rushton pulled out suddenly right across the brown horse.
It was a deliberate foul, ably executed.
The crowd saw it and howled, and the bookmakers screamed at the offending jockey as he rode off the course into the Paddock.
"Plucky little effort!" shouted Old Mat in Silver's ear. "He deserved to pull it off."
No harm, in fact, had been done.
Four-Pound-the-Second had missed Jackaroo's quarters by half a length; but the big horse never faltered in his stride, charging on like a bull-buffalo, and rising at the water as the mare landed over it.
The old man dropped his glasses, and settled back on his heels.
"What next?" he said.
"Can't do much now, I guess," answered Silver comfortably.
Old Mat turned in his lips.
"Watch it, sir," he said. "There's millions in it."
As the favourite and the outsider swept away for the second round in a pursuing roar, the width of the course lay between them. The mare hugged the rails; the brown horse swung wide on the right.
"You're giving her plenty of room, Mr. Woodburn," said the White Hat in front.
"Yes, my lord," Mat answered. "'Don't crowd her,' I says. 'She likes a lot o' room. So do Chukkers.'"
Just clear of the course outside the rails, under the Embankment, a little group of police made a dark blue knot about the stretcher on which Boy Braithwaite had been taken from the course. As the brown horse swept hard by the group a blob of yellow thrust up suddenly above the rails amid the blue. It was too much even for Four-Pound. He shied away and crashed into his fence. Only his weight and the speed at which he was travelling carried him through. A soughing groan went up from the Grand Stand, changing to a roar, as the great horse, quick as a goat, recovered himself and settled unconcernedly to his stride again.
"Riz from the dead to do us in," muttered Old Mat. "Now he's goin' 'ome again," as the blob of yellow collapsed once more. "P'raps he'll stop this time."
"I think it was an accident," said Silver.
"I know them accidents," answered Old Mat. "There's more to come."
For the moment it seemed to the watchers as if the mare was forging ahead; and the Americans took heart once again. But the green jacket and the star-spangled rose at Beecher's Brook together; and the young horse, as though chastened by his escape, was fencing like a veteran.
As the horses turned to the left at the Corner, something white detached itself from the stragglers on the Embankment and shot down the slope at the galloping horses like a scurry of foam.
"Dog this time," grunted Old Mat, watching through his glasses. "Lurcher, big as a bull-calf."
Whatever it was, it missed its mark and flashed across the course just clear of the heels of the Putnam horse. He went striding along, magnificently unmoved.
Old Mat nodded grimly.
"You can't upset my little Fo'-Pound—bar only risin's from the dead, which ain't 'ardly accordin' not under National Hunt Rules anyway," he said. "If a tiger was to lep in his backside and chaw him a nice piece, it wouldn't movehimany."
Many on the Grand Stand had not marked the incident. They were watching now with all their eyes for a more familiar sensation.
Chukkers was leaving the rails to swing for the Canal Turn.
The Englishmen and bookies, their hands to their mouths, were screaming exhortations, warnings, advice, to the little fair jockey far away.
"Canal Turn!"
"Dirty Dago!"
"The old game!"
"Watch him, lad!"
"His only chance!"
"Riding for the bump!"
Old Mat paid no heed.
"Mouse bump a mountain," he grunted. "But Chukkers won't get the chance."
And it seemed he was right.
The fence before the Turn the brown horse was leading by a length and drawing steadily away, as the voices of the triumphant English and the faces of the Americans proclaimed.
Mat stared through his glasses.
"Chukkers is talkin'," he announced. "And he's got somefin to talk about from all I can see of it."
Any danger there might have been had, in fact, been averted by the pressing tactics of the Putnam jockey.
The two horses came round the Turn almost together, the inside berth having brought the mare level again.
Side by side they came over Valentine's Brook, moving together almost automatically, their fore-legs shooting out straight as a cascade, their jockeys swinging back together as though one; stride for stride they came along the green in a roar so steady and enduring that it seemed almost natural as a silence.
Old Mat shut his glasses, clasped his hands behind him, and steadied on his feet.
"Now," he said comfortably. "Ding-dong. 'Ammer and tongs. 'Ow I likes to see it."
He peeped up at the young man, who did not seem to hear. Silver stood unmoved by the uproar all around him, apparently unconscious of it. He was away, dwelling in a far city of pride on heights of snow. His spirit was in his eyes, and his eyes on that bobbing speck of green flowing swiftly toward him with sudden lurches and forward flings at the fences.
All around him men were raging, cheering, and stamping. What the bookies were yelling nobody could hear; but it was clear from their faces that they believed the favourite was beat.
And their faith was based upon reality, since Chukkers for the first time in the history of the mare was using his whip.
Once it fell, and again, in terrible earnest. There was a gasp from the gathered multitudes as they saw and understood. That swift, relentless hand was sounding the knell of doom to the hopes of thousands.
Indeed, it was clear that Chukkers was riding now as he had never ridden before.
And the boy on the brown never moved.
Three fences from home Chukkers rallied the mare and called on her for a final effort.
Game to the last drop, she answered him.
But the outsider held his own without an effort.
Then the note of the thundering multitudes changed again with dramatic suddenness. Hope, that had died away, and Fear, that had vanished utterly, were a-wing once more. In the air they met and clashed tumultuously. America was soaring into the blue; England fluttering earthward again. And the cause was not far to seek.
The boy on the brown was tiring. He was swaying in his saddle.
A thousand glasses fixed on his face confirmed the impression.
"Nipper's beat for the distance!" came the cry.
"Brown horse wins! Green jacket loses!"
The Grand Stand saw it. Chukkers saw it, too. His eyes were fixed on his rival's face like the talons of a vulture in his prey. They never stirred; they never lifted. He came pressing up alongside his enemy—insistent, clinging, ruthless as a stoat. Silver could have screamed. That foul, insistent creature was the Evil One pouring his poisonous suggestions into the ears of Innocence, undoing her, fascinating her, thrusting in upon her virgin mind, invading the sanctuary, polluting the Holy of Holies, seizing it, obsessing it.
And the emotion roused was not peculiar to the young man alone. It seemed to be contagious. Swift as it was unseen, it ran from mind to mind, infecting all with a horror of fear and loathing.
"He's swearing at him!" cried the White Hat, aghast.
"B—— shame!" shouted another.
"Tryin' to rattle the lad!"
And a howl of indignation went up to the unheeding heavens.
To Silver it was no longer a race: it was the world-struggle, old as time—Right against Wrong, Light against Dark. He was watching it like God; and, like God, he could do nothing. His voice was lost in his throat. Outwardly calm, he was dumb, tormented, and heaving like a sea in travail. A tumult of waters surged and trampled and foamed within him.
Then the nightmare passed.
The boy on the brown rallied; and, it seemed, a fainting nation rallied with him.
He steadied himself, sat still as a cloud for a moment, and then stirred deliberately and of set purpose.
He was asking his horse the question. There was no doubt of the reply.
Four-Pound shot to the front like a long-dammed stream.
His vampire enemy clung for a desperate moment, and then faded away behind amid the groans of his maddened supporters and the acclamations of the triumphant Englishmen.
"Got her dead to the world!" cried Old Mat, a note of battle resounding deeply through his voice. "What price Putnam's now!" And he thumped the rail.
But the end was not even yet. The great English horse came moving like a flood round the corner and swooped gloriously over the last fence.
The roar that had held the air toppled away into a sound as of a world-avalanche, shot with screams.
The jockey in green had pitched forward as his horse landed.
He scrambled for a moment, and somehow wriggled back into his seat—short of his whip.
The Grand Stand became a maelstrom.
Men were fighting, women fainting. The Americans were screaming to Chukkers to press; the English yelling to the nipper to ride—for the Almighty's sake.
The brown horse and his jockey came past the Open Ditch and down the straight in a hurricane that might not have been, so little did either heed it.
The little jockey was far away, riding as in a death-swoon, his face silvery beneath his cap. His reins were in both hands, and he was stirring with them faintly as one who would ride a finish and cannot.
"That's a little bit o' better," said Old Mat cheerfully, preparing to move. "My little Fo'-Pound'll see us 'ome."
And indeed the young horse, with the judgment of a veteran who knows to a yard when he may shut up, had eased away into a canter, and broke into a trot as he passed the post.
Chukkers was beaten out of sight. The Oriental in him blurted to the top. He lost his head and his temper and began to butcher his mount.
As he drove the mare down the run home, foaming and bloody, he was flaying her.
The Americans had all lost money, some of them fortunes: that didn't matter so much. Their idol had been beaten fair and square: that mattered a great deal. But she was still their idol, and Chukkers had butchered her before their eyes.
And he was Chukkers!—the greaser!
They rose up in wrath like a vast, avenging cloud, and went raving over the barrier on to the course in tumultuous black flood. The ruck of beaten horses, bobbing home one by one, crashed into them. The mob, without regard for its shattered atoms, moved on like one. A roaring sea of humanity swung on its blind way. Above the dark waters jockeys in silken jackets and on sweating thoroughbreds drifted to and fro like helpless butterflies. While in contrast to these many-coloured creatures of faerie, the great-coated and helmeted police in blue, on horses, hairy and solid as themselves, butted their way through the clamorous deeps, as they made for the rock round which the angry waves were breaking.
They had their work cut out, and used their bludgeons with a will.
Round the man upon the beaten favourite the mob swirled and screamed like a hyena-pack at the kill.
Chukkers was a brute; but to do him justice he was not a coward.
The high-cheeked Mongolian, yellow with anger and chagrin, was using his whip without mercy.
The hub-bub was as of a battle the most horrible, for there were women in it, screaming for blood.
"Lynch him!" came the roar.
"Pull him off!"
"Trample him!"
"Stick him with this!"
Monkey Brand, who had suddenly come to life, had hold of the winner, sweating, amiable, entirely unmoved by the pandemonium around, and was leading him away into the Paddock through the outskirts of the howling mob.
The crowd was too maddened to pay attention to the little man and his great charge. Those who were not bent on murdering Chukkers were absorbed in watching those who were.
Old Mat, trotting at Silver's side, was chuckling and cooing to himself like a complacent baby, as the pair descended the Grand Stand and made for the Paddock.
"Yes," he was saying, "my bankers'll be please—very please, they will. And good cause why. That's a hundud thousand quid, Mr. Silver, in my pocket—all a-jinglin' and a-tinglin'. 'Ark to em!—like 'erald angels on the go." He paused, touched the other's arm, and panted huskily: "Funny thing! A minute since it was in the h'air—ewaporated, as the sayin' is. Now it's here—froze tight." He slapped his pocket. "Makes the 'ead to think and the 'eart to rejoice, as the Psalmist said on much a similar occasion. Only we'd best not tell Mar. Wonderful woman, Mar, Mr. Silver, and grows all the while more wonderfulerer. Only where it is is—there it is." He lifted his rogue-eye to the young man's face and cried in an ecstasy of glee. "Oh, how glorioushly does the wicked flourish—if only so be they'll keep their eyeballs skinned!"
At the gate the White Hat stopped him.
"So you've got up on 'em again, Mr. Woodburn," he said. "Congratulations, Mr. Silver."
On the course the pair ran into Monkey Brand, leading the winner home.
"Here, sir!" he cried, seeming excited for the first time in his life. "All O.K. Bit giddified like. That's all. Take the horse. The Three J's mean business, I tell ye. I must be moving."
Silver looked up at the little jockey perched aloft upon the brown.
"All right?" he asked keenly.
The other, whose peaked cap was drawn far over his eyes, nodded down through the tumult, saying no word.
At the moment Jaggers ran past, trying to get at his jockey. Joses, slobbering at the mouth, was shouting in the trainer's ear.
Both men plunged into the vortex.
"Easy all!" came Jaggers's priest-like voice. "Give him a chance, boys. We aren't beat yet."
"Win, tie, or wrangle!" muttered Old Mat. "That's the Three J's all right."
The mounted police were shepherding Chukkers off the course into the Paddock. There was murder in his face. He swung about and showed his yellow fangs like a mobbed wolf at the pack baying at his heels.
Once inside the Paddock he was just going to dismount, when Jaggers, Joses, and Ikey Aaronsohnn rushed at him and held him on.
"Stick to her!" screamed Joses.
The little group drifted past Old Mat and Jim Silver, who was holding the winner. Four-Pound-the Second's jockey had already disappeared into the weighing-room.
"Ain't done yet," screamed the jockey vengefully as he passed.
"You're never done," said Silver quietly, as he stroked the muzzle of the reeking brown. "Never could take a licking like a gentleman!"
The jockey, beside himself, leaned out toward the other.
"Want it across the —— mug, do ye, Silver?" he yelled. "One way o' winnin'!"
"Come, then, Mr. Woodburn. This won't do!" cried Jaggers austerely as he passed.
"Of course it won't," answered Old Mat. "Dropped a rare packet among you, ain't you? Think you're goin' to let that pass without tryin' on the dirty?"
The White Hat leaned down from the Grand Stand.
"What's the trouble, Mr. Jaggers?" he cried.
"Miss Woodburn rode the winner, my lord," answered the trainer at the top of his voice.
The words ran like a flame along the top of the crowd.
They leapt from mouth to mouth, out of the Paddock, on to the course, and round it. And where they fell there was instant hush followed by a roar, in which a new note sounded:All was not lost.The Americans, cast down to earth a moment since, rose like a wild-maned breaker towering before it falls in thunder and foam upon the beach. There was wrath still in their clamour; but their cry now was for Justice and not for Revenge.
John Bull had been at it again. The fair jockey was a girl. Some had known it all along. Others had guessed it from the first. All had been sure there would be hanky-panky.
As they came shoving off the course into the Paddock, and heaved about the weighing-room, the howl subdued into a buzz as of a swarm of angry bees.
The thousands were waiting for a sign, and the growl that rose from them was broken only by groans, cat-calls, whistles, and vengeful bursts of
Hands off and no hanky-panky!
Old Mat, Jim Silver, and the great horse stood on the edge of the throng, quite unconcerned.
Many noticed them; not a few essayed enquiries.
"Is your jockey a gal, Mr. Woodburn?"
"So they says," answered Old Mat.
"Where's Miss Woodburn then?"
"Inside, they tell me."
He nodded to the door of the weighing-room, which opened at the moment.
In it, above the crowd, appeared the jockey with the green jacket, his cap well over his eyes.
There was an instant hush. Then English and Americans, bookies and backers, began to bawl against each other.
"Are you a gal?" screamed some one in the crowd.
"No, I ain't," came the shrill, defiant answer.
The voice did not satisfy the crowd.
"Take off your cap, Miss!" yelled another.
"Let's see your face!"
Joses, who was standing by the steps that led up to the weighing-room, leapt on to them and snatched the cap from the jockey's head.
He stood displayed before them, fair-haired, close-cropped, shy, and a little sullen.
There was a moment's pause. Then divergent voices shot heavenward and clashed against each other.
"It is!"
"It's her!"
"That's Miss Woodburn!"
"No, it ain't!"
Words were becoming blows, and there were altercations everywhere, when the Clerk of the Scales appeared on the steps and held up his hand for silence.
"WhereisMiss Woodburn?" he called.
The words confirmed suspicion, and brought forth a roar of cheering from the Americans.
"Here, sir!" panted a voice.
Monkey Brand was forcing his way through the crowd, heralded by the police. Behind him followed a slight figure in dark blue.
"Is that Miss Woodburn?" called the Clerk.
"Yes," replied a deep voice. "Here I am."
"Would you step up here?"
The girl ran up the steps, and took her place by the little jockey. Whoever else was disconcerted, it was not she.
A sound that was not quite a groan rose from the watching crowd and died away.
The girl gave her hand to the jockey.
"Well ridden, Albert," she said, and in the silence her words were heard by thousands.
The lad touched his forehead, and took her hand sheepishly.
"Thank you, Miss," he answered.
Then the storm broke, and the bookies who had made millions over the defeat of the favourite led the roar.
There was no mistaking the matter now. The Boys had been sold again.
The rougher elements amongst Ikey's Own sought a scape-goat.
They found him in Joses.
Chukkers came out of the weighing-room and deliberately struck the fat man. That started it: the crowd did the rest.
Old Mat and Jim Silver waited on the outskirts of the hub-bub.
The American Ambassador and his tall dark daughter stood near by.
"What stories they tell," said the great man in his gentle way.
"Don't they, sir?" answered Old Mat, wiping an innocent blue eye. "And they gets no better as the years go by. They saddens me and Mar. They does reelly."
Boy Woodburn, making her way through the crowd, joined the little group.
"Congratulations, Miss Woodburn," said the Ambassador's daughter shyly. "The best horse won."
The fair girl beamed on the dark.
"Thank you, Miss Whitney," she answered. "A good race. You were giving us a ton of weight."
Perhaps the girl was a little paler than her wont; but there was no touch of lyrical excitement about her. Outwardly she was the least-moved person in the Paddock.
Jim Silver's eyes were shining down on her.
"Well," he said.
She led away. He followed at her shoulder, the horse's bridle over his arm.
"You've won your hundred thousand," she said.
His eyes were wistful and smiling as they dwelt upon her figure that drooped a little.
"Hadn't a bean on," he said.
She did not seem surprised.
Her hand was on the wet neck of the horse, her eyes on her hand.
Then she raised them to his, and they were shining with rainbow beauty.
"I know you hadn't," she said.
Her hand touched his.
Close by them a black mass was seething round something upon the ground.
"That's Joses," she said. "Stop the worry, will you?—and send Monkey Brand to take the horse."
Jim Silver turned. Somewhere in the middle of that tossing mass was a human being.
Using his strength remorselessly, the young man broke his way through. By the time he reached the centre of the maelstrom the police had cleared a space round the fallen man.
He lay panting in the mud, a desolate and dreadful figure, his waistcoat burst open, and shirt protruding, his shock of red hair a-loose on the ground.
Jim was not the first to get to the fallen man.
Monkey Brand was already kneeling at his side, bottle in hand.
"Oh, my! Mr. Joses, my!" the little jockey was saying. "What you want is just a drop o' comfort out o' me bottle. Open a little, and I'll pour."
Silver was just in time.
"That'll do, Brand," he said. "I'll see to this. Give me the bottle. You go to Miss Boy."
A doctor was called in and reported that the fat man's condition was serious. An ambulance was brought, and Joses removed.
Silver saw it off the ground.
As it came to the gate, Chukkers, on his way to his motor, passed it.
"He deserves all he's got," he said. "He's a bad un."
"He's served you pretty well, anyway," answered Jim angrily.
In Cuckmere, that quiet village between the Weald and the sea, in which there was the normal amount of lying, thieving, drunkenness, low-living, back-biting, and slander, there dwelt two souls who had fought steadfastly and unobtrusively for twenty years to raise the moral and material standards of the community.
One was the vicar of the parish, and the other Mrs. Woodburn. The two worked together for the common end unknown except to each other and those they helped.
Mr. Haggard was something of a saint and something of a scholar. Mrs. Woodburn had been born among the people, knew them, their family histories, and failings; was wise, tolerant, and liberal alike in purse and judgment. Her practical capacity made a good counterpoise to the other's benevolence and generous impetuosity.
When the vicar was in trouble about a case, he always went to Mrs. Woodburn long before he went to the Duke; and he rarely went in vain.
The parlour at Putnam's had seen much intimate communion between these two high and tranquil spirits over causes that were going ill and souls reluctant to be saved. The vicar always came to Putnam's: Mrs. Woodburn never went to the Vicarage. That was partly because the vicar's wife was a stout and strenuous churchwoman who cherished a genuine horror of what she called "chapel" as the most insidious and deadly foe of the spirit, and still more because Mrs. Haggard was a woman, and a jealous one at that.
It was a few days after the National that the vicar made one of his calls at Putnam's.
"What is it?" asked Mrs. Woodburn in her direct and simple way after the first greeting.
She knew he never came except on business.
"It's that wretched fellow Joses," he answered. "He's been in some scrape at the National, I gather, and got himself knocked about. Somehow he crawled back to his earth. I rather believe Mr. Silver paid his train-fare and saw him through."
"Is he dying?" asked Mrs. Woodburn.
The vicar replied that the parish nurse thought he was in a very bad way.
"Is she seeing to him?"
"She's doing what she can."
"We'd better ask Dr. Pollock to go round and look at him," said Mrs. Woodburn. "Don't you bother any more, Mr. Haggard. I'll see that the best is done."
She telephoned to the Polefax doctor.
That afternoon he called at Putnam's and made his report.
"He's in a very bad way, Mrs. Woodburn," he said. "Advanced arterial deterioration. And the condition is complicated by some deep-seated fear-complex."
The doctor was young, up-to-date, and dabbling in psycho-therapy.
"Fear of death?" asked Mrs. Woodburn.
"Fear of life, I think," the other answered. "He wouldn't talk to me. And I can't, of course, attempt a mental analysis."
Mrs. Woodburn had no notion what he meant, and believed, perhaps rightly, that he did not know himself.
"He's been unfortunate," she said.
"So I guessed," answered the young man. "He asked me who sent me, and when I told him said he'd be grateful if you'd call on him."
"I'll go round."
Toward evening she called at the cottage.
Mrs. Boam showed her up.
Joses lay on a bed under the slope of the roof, his head at the window so that he could look out.
His face was faintly livid, and he breathed with difficulty.
Mrs. Woodburn's heart went out to him at the first glance.
"I'm sorry to see you like this, Mr. Joses," she said gently. "You wanted to see me?"
"Well," he answered, "it wasMissWoodburn I wanted to see." He looked at her wistfully out of eyes that women had once held beautiful. "D'you think she'd come?"
"I'm sure she will," the other answered reassuringly.
Joses lay with his mop of red hair like a dingy and graying aureole against the pillow.
"D'you mind?" he asked.
Her eyes filled with kindness. He seemed to her so much a child.
"What! Her coming to see you here?"
"Yes."
She smiled at him in her large and loving way.
"Of course I don't," she said, and added almost archly: "And if I did I'm not sure it would make much difference."
He found himself laughing.
She moved about the room, ordering it.
Then she returned to Putnam's to seek her daughter.
After the National Boy had emerged from the cloud which had long covered her.
She returned home, radiant and impenitent.
"I've been thinking things over," she said on the morning after her return. "And I'll forgive you, mother, for your lack of faith."
"Thank you, my dear," replied the other laconically.
"This once," added Boy firmly. "Now, mind!"
Mrs. Woodburn now gave her daughter Joses's message.
The girl said nothing, but visited the cottage next morning.
She stood in the door, firm and fresh, the colour in her hair, the bloom on her cheeks, and looked at that mass of decaying man upon the bed.
"Are you bad?" she asked, anxious as a child.
"I suppose I'm not very good," he answered.
She snatched her eyes away.
"Well, I congratulate you," he said at last, quietly.
She sought for irony in his voice and eyes, and detected none.
"What on?"
"Your victory."
Her face softened.
"Thank you."
"You deserved to win," continued the other, with genuine admiration. "You rode a great race. I couldn't have believed a girl could have got the course if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes." His gaze met hers quite honestly. "You see I didn't count on the double fake. I knew you were going to ride as Albert, but I'd quite forgotten the corollary—that Albert might dress as you. That's where you beat me."
The girl's chest was rising and falling.
"Mr. Joses," she said, "I didn't ride the horse."
His eyes sought hers, dissatisfied, and then wandered to the window.
"Well, well," he said. "We won't argue about it. Anyway, you won."
Boy looked out of the window.
"Ididtry and deceive you into thinking I was going to ride," she said with a quake in her voice. "That was partly deviltry and partly to put you off. I thought if you believed you could get back on usafterthe race you'd not try it on before. Besides, I could never ride the course. Three miles was my limit over fences at racing speed when I was at my best, and that's some years since."
He was quite unconvinced.
"I give you best, Miss Woodburn," he said. "But Albert could never have ridden that race. Never! It was a good win. And you deserved it. But it wasn't that I wanted to see you about." He looked round the little room. "It's not much of a place perhaps, you may think. But there's the window, and the sight of grass, and cows grazing and folks passing on the path. And in this house there's Mrs. Boam, and Jenny, and the pussy-cat. I should miss it." He lifted those suffering eyes of his. "I don't want to pass what little time I've left in the cage."
"But they won't hurt you now," cried Boy. "They couldn't."
The other laughed his dreadful laughter.
"Couldn't they?" he said. "You don't know 'em. It's the cat-and-mouse business all the time. I'm the mouse. I've been there."
"But you've done nothing," said Boy.
Joses moved his head on the pillow.
"There's just one thing," he said, dropping his voice. "Mr. Silver's got a little bit of paper that might make trouble for me."
"But he shall give it up!" cried the girl.
"Will he?" grunted the other.
"Of course he will. He's as kind as kind."
Joses shook a dubious head.
"Men are men," he said. "And when men get across each other they are tigers."
"He's a tame one," said the girl. "I'll see to that."
"He might be," muttered the other. "In the hands of the right tamer."
Boy went straight back to Putnam's and discovered Mr. Silver smoking in the saddle-room.
She told him what had passed.
"I know," he said. "Here it is." He produced the bit of paper. "I'll burn it," and he held it to the bowl of his pipe.
"No!" cried the girl. "Give it me."
She took it straight back to the sick man.
He lit a match and watched it burn with eyes that were almost covetous.
"That's the last of 'em," he said. "Now I shall die in the open like a gentleman."
He was, in fact, dying very fast.
It did not need Dr. Pollock's assurance to make the girl aware of that.
She longed to help him.
"Would you like to see Mr. Haggard?" she asked awkwardly.
He shook his head, amused.
"He'd come the parson over me."
"I don't think he would."
"He couldn't help it if he was true to his cloth."
"I'm not sure he is," said Boy doubtfully.
"You're the same," he said.
She glanced up at him swiftly.
His eyes were mischievous, almost roguish.
"What d'you mean?"
"You want me to repent."
She coloured guiltily, and he laughed like a boy, delighted with his own cleverness.
"There's one thing Mr. Haggard might do for me," he said. "Lend me Clutton Brock'sShelley, if he would. He's got it, I know."
The girl made a mental note, wrinkling her brow.
"Shelley'sClutton Brock," she said. "I'll remember."
She sat beside his bed. His eyes dwelt on her keen, earnest young face, and the blue eyes gazing thoughtfully out of the window.
"You're a Philistine," he said at last. "But you're clean. Philistines are. That's the best of them."
"What's a Philistine?" she asked.
He did not answer her.
"You're the cleanest thing I've met," he continued. "There's a flame burning in you all the time that devours all your rubbish. Mine accumulates and corrupts."
"I don't like you to talk like that," said the girl, withdrawing.
"There's only one thing that'll purge me," the other continued.
"What's that?"
"Fire."
The girl's eyes darkened.
"Are you afraid?" she asked swiftly.
"Of Hell with a large H?"
She nodded, and he laughed.
"What I've had I've paid for across the counter and got the receipt stamped and signed by the Almighty. No, it's not the fires of Hell; it's the power of the old sun working on my vile body through the ages that'll renew me with beauty and youth in time. Life's eternal, sure enough; but not on the lines the parsons tell us."
A little later she rose to go.
He detained her.
"Shall you come and see me again?" he asked her.
She gave him a shy and brilliant smile.
"Rather," she said. "So'll mother."
He kissed her hand, and there was beauty in his eyes.
Next day she called with the book from Mr. Haggard.
Dr. Pollock was coming down the path.
"He's out of pain," he said gravely.
Boy returned to Putnam's and picked some violets.
Then she came back to the cottage.
Mrs. Boam was weeping as she opened.
"May I see him?" said the girl.
"Yes, Miss," answered the other. "We shall miss him, Jenny and me. He were that lovable."
Boy went upstairs and entered.
Joses was at peace: the dignity of death upon him.
She laid the violets on his breast.
When Old Mat returned home from Liverpool he hung his hat on the peg and informed Silver that he had undergone conversion—for good this time.
"Nebber no more," he announced solemnly. "I done with bettin'—now I got the cash. Always promised Mar I'd be God's good man soon as I could afford it. Moreover, besides I might lose some o' what I made. And then I might have another backslide." He settled himself in his leather chair, drew his feet out of his slippers, and his pass-book out of his pocket.
"It's cash spells conwersion, Mr. Silver," he panted. "I've often seen it in others, and now I knows it for meself. A noo-er, tru-er and bootifler h'outlook upon life, as Mr. 'Aggard said last Sunday—hall the houtcome o' cash in 'and. Yes, sir, if you wants to conwert the world, the way's clear—Pay cash down.That's why these 'ere Socialists are on the grow; because they talks common-sense. 'It's dollars as does it,' they says. 'Give every chap a bankin'-account, and you'll see.' What's Church h'up and h'answer to that? Church says: 'It's all in conwersion. Bank on conwersion. Cash is but wrath and must that corrupts,' says the clergy. 'Leave the cash to us,' they says. 'We'll see to that for you, while you keeps out o' temptation and saves your souls alive.'"
When Mrs. Woodburn told the old man the news about Joses, he received it gravely.
"Moved on, has he?" he said. "I'm sorry. I shall miss him. I always misses that sort. Shouldn't feel at home like without some of them around. Well, Mar, we shall all meet in the yappy yappy land, plea Gob in his goodness." He burst into a sort of chaunt, wagging his head, and beating time with his fist—
"Ho, won't that be jiy-ful?Jam for the fythe-ful.
I wouldn't miss that meetin', Mar, not for all the nuts on Iceland's greasy mountains, the Psalmist made the song about. I sees it all like in a wision." His eyes closed, and his hands and feet swam vaguely. "Me and Monkey o' the one side, and the Three J's o' tother, pitchin' the tale a treat at tops of our voices." He opened his eyes slowly, ogled Ma, tapped her knee, winked, and ended confidentially: "One thing, old dear. I'll lay they'll give Putnam's best same there as here. Now then!"
It was Sunday morning at Putnam's, and in Maudie's estimation things were morecomme il fautthan they had been for long past.
About a fortnight since there had been trouble in the yard during the night, and after it, for some hours before he went away, the Monster-without-Manners had been subdued almost to gentlemanliness.
Then two of the fan-tails had been taken ill. Maudie from the top of the ladder had watched their dying contortions with the cynical interest of a Roman matron criticizing the death-agonies of a gladiator in the arena. When after staggering about the fan-tails turned over on their backs and flopped, Maudie descended from her perch and toyed with them daintily during their last moments, finally carrying their corpses up into the loft.
After that, Maudie felt queer herself, and not only from the results of a stricken conscience. Indeed, but for the urgent and instant ministrations of Putnam's Only Gentleman she would have followed where the good fan-tails had gone.
Thereafter, for a space of a week, there had fallen on the yard a hallowed time of peace very different from the period of oppression and irritable energy which had preceded it. Maudie attributed the change to the absence of the Monster-without-Manners who had departed quietly with the Four-legs there was all the fuss about.
True, both had now returned, but in chastened mood, the result perhaps of well-deserved affliction experienced in foreign lands.
This morning things were much as of old. The fan-tails puffed and pouted and sidled on the roofs. Across the Paddock Close came the sound of church-bells, and from the Lads' Barn the voices of the boys singing a hymn.
The Bible Class was in full swing.
All the lads were there but one. That one was Albert. He stood in lofty isolation in the door of the stable, a cigarette in his mouth, his arms folded and his face stiff with the self-consciousness that had obsessed him since his ride in the National. Jerry and Stanley, once the friends of Albert, and now his critics, swore that he never took that look off even when he went to bed.
"Wears it in his sleep," said Jerry, "same as his pidgearmours."
But the loftiest of us cannot live forever on the Heights of Make-Believe. And Albert, as he breathed the Spring, and remembered that no one was by to see, relaxed, became himself, and began to warble not unmelodiously—
"When the ruddy sun-shineBeats the ruddy rain,Then the ruddy sparrow'Gins to chirp again."
Mr. Silver came out of the house.
Albert straightway resumed his air of a Roman Emperor turned stable-boy.
The other listened to the singing that came from the barn.
"Not inside, then, Albert?" he said.
"No, sir," answered the other. "I leave that to the lads."
Mr. Silver looked at his watch.
"You'd better do a bolt before Miss Boy catches you," he said.
Albert redoubled his frozen Emperor mien.
The other passed into the saddle-room; and Albert revealed the bitterness of his soul to Maudie on the ladder.
"He's all right now," he told his confidante. "Goin' to start the Bank again, and all on what I won him. And all the return he can make is to insultify me. That's the way of 'em, that is."
A door opened at the back, and a rush of sound emerged.
The lads were tumbling out of the Barn.
Boy Woodburn came swiftly into the yard, her troop at her heels.
She marked the truant in the door.
"Well, Albert," she said. "We missed you."
"He's too stuck up wiv 'isself to pray to Gob any more," mocked Jerry, stopping while the girl went on into the stable.
"He thinks he can do it all on his own wivout no 'elp from no one," sneered Stanley. "Albert does."
Albert swaggered forward.
"Say!" he said to Jerry. "Was it you or me won the National?"
"Neever," answered Jerry. "It was Miss Boy."
"Did she ride him, then?" asked Albert.
Jerry shot his face forward. All the other lads were at his back.
"She did then," he said.
Albert was white and blinking, but in complete control of himself.
"Who says so?"
"Everyone. You're a plucky fine actor and a mighty pore 'orseman, Albert Edward," continued the tormentor.
Albert was a lad of character. He had sworn to his mistress that if he won the race he would henceforth drop the boy and don the man. And the sign of his emancipation was to be that never again would he use his dukes except in self-defence. Now in the hour of trial he was true to his word.
Happily the strain was relieved, for at the moment Boy, scenting trouble, came out into the yard. Monkey Brand with her.