Chapter 24

Two on the Downs

Silver came trotting up with Ragamuffin trailing discontentedly behind.

The old roan didn't really mind being caught, but he dearly loved to pretend he did.

Billy Bluff, who had already forgotten his injury, limped along behind, busy and cheerful.

Both man and dog had on their faces the same jolly grin of health and happiness, the result of a sound conscience and still more a sound digestion.

"He didn't take much catching," said the young man. "And Billy Bluff helped."

Boy looked at her dog.

"I saw him helping," she said sternly. "You old scoundrel, you!"

The young dog lay on the ground and gnawed his wounded paw complacently. He loved being scolded by his mistress when she was not too serious.

The girl stuffed her towel and all it contained into the forage bag.

"Shall I give you a leg up?" asked Silver.

"It's all right," she answered.

She mounted and rode alongside him.

"Where's our friend?" he asked.

"Gone to earth."

"What!--down the Gap?" He turned on her with that delightful eagerness which constantly revealed him to her as a boy in spite of that plain, grave face of his. "Shall I draw him?"

She shook her head gravely.

"Poor old thing," she said.

He steadied instantly to her mood.

"Are you sorry for him?" he asked.

Boy looked away, shy and wary.

"Sometimes," she said. "He must have had a pig's time to be so rotten as that."

It was a new view to the young man, and sobered him.

"Perhaps," he said doubtfully. He was thinking out the question in his slow way. "It may be his own fault," he said. "You make yourself, I think."

"Part," answered the girl. "And part you are made by your surroundings. That's the way with young stock anyhow. It's a bit how they are bred--the blood in them; and part the food they get, and the air and liberty and sun they're allowed."

"I suppose so," said Silver quietly. "Certainly our friend's food don't seem to have suited him."

The girl refused to be amused.

"He's come down," she said. "Mr. Haggard says he was once a gentleman."

"Some time since, I should guess," replied Silver. "What!"

They were moving along a narrow cart-track that led across a fallow. He was riding behind her, his eyes on her back. The bathing cap had been stuffed away, and her hair, still dark from the sea, was bare to the sun.

"I'm glad you came," she said casually over her shoulder.

"I was just out for a canter before going to look at the horses," he answered.

She nodded to where against the skyline a string of tall, thin-legged black creatures, each with a blob of jockey on his back, paraded solemnly against the sky.

"See them!" she said. "On the Mare's Back." She watched them critically. "That's Make-Way-There--No. 2 in the string. Now she's playing up." She lifted her voice. "_Don't pull at her, you little goat!_"

"They're going to gallop her this morning, I believe," said Silver. "You hear Chukkers has let me down?"

"No!" cried the girl keenly.

"Yes; he wired last night to say he couldn't ride for me at Paris."

If it was news to the girl, it was by no means unexpected, and she took the blow with philosophical calm.

"That was certain once he knew we were training for you," she said. "I suppose dad's going to see who he'll give the ride to."

"Shall we canter?" said the young man. "I don't want to miss it."

"That's all right," replied the girl. "Father won't set 'em their work till I come."

It was clear she wished to keep him walking at her side, and he was pleased.

The incident on the cliff had brought them closer. For the first time the young man felt the warmth of the girl breaking through the barriers of her reserve. Her eyes, when they met his, were friendly, even affectionate. It was his turn to be pleasantly shy.

"D'you love them?" she asked.

She felt somehow so much older than he that she was free to question him.

"The horses?" he asked. "_Rur-rather_," with that infectious enthusiasm of his.

"You've got some pretty good ones," she told him.

"D'you think so?" keenly.

She nodded.

"Raw, but they'll come on. That's what you want."

"Any up to National form?" he asked.

"Make-Way-There might be good enough in a season or two if she'll stay," she said. "You can never tell. She's only four off."

They began to breast the slope of the Mare's Back.

"I've only had one real ambition in life," he said confidentially.

She looked at him.

"What?"

"To win the Nun-National."

She beamed on him friendly.

"I used to have one," she said--"till last year: tremendously."

"What's that?"

"To ride the National winner."

She peeped to see if he was mocking. He was sober as a judge.

"You may yet."

"Not now."

"Why not?" he asked. "Because it's against the National Hunt Rules?"

"Not that," she said with scorn. "I could get round their rotten rules if I wanted."

"How?" he asked.

She glanced at him warily.

"Eighteen months ago a lad came into our stable who was rather like me."

He laughed merrily.

"Good for you!" he cried. "Now put your idea into practise."

She shook her head.

"Why not?"

"I don't want to win the National now."

"Don't you?"

She looked up into his face.

"I'm too old," she said. "I've got to put my hair up this winter."

The confidence once made frightened her.

She broke into a canter, Heart of Oak striding at her side. The hill steepened against them just under the brow, and they came back into a walk.

"If I was my own master I should farm and breed horses," said the young man.

She glanced at him keenly.

"Aren't you your own master?"

He shook his head.

"I've got to stick to the desk."

"D'you like it?"

He looked away.

"I shall never make a banker," he said. "You see, I'm no good at sums." He flicked at the turf with his thong. "Now my father was a born financier. He could do that--and nothing much else. If there are no banks in heaven I'm afraid he'll be terribly bored. But I'm a farmer--or a fool; I'm not quite sure which. If my father had lived it might have been different. He might have entered me. But he died during my second year at Oxford four years ago, and I had to buckle to and do the best I could for myself."

"Bad luck," said the girl.

"It was, rather," admitted the young man. "But it gave me my head in one way. You see, father didn't approve of horses, though he was a farmer's son himself. He was afraid of the Turf. But he was always very good to me. He let me hunt when I was a boy though he didn't like it." The young man laughed. "But when I grew big he was awfully pleased. 'You'll never make a jockey now,' he used to say. And I never shall."

Boy ran her eye approvingly over his loose, big-limbed figure.

"You play polo, don't you?" she said.

"I do, a bit," he admitted.

"Back for England, isn't it?" she asked.

"This old pony did," Silver answered. "And he used to take me along sometimes."

"Don't you play still?" she inquired.

"I haven't this season, and I sha'n't again," he answered. "To play first-class polo you must be in the top of condition. And they keep my nose too close to the grindstone. Besides, pup-polo's very jolly, but 'chasing's the thing!"

They topped the brow. The crest of the Downs swelled away before them like a great green carpet lifted by the wind.

"There they are!" cried Boy, beginning to canter.