Chapter 31

The Black Bird

The last meet of the season was, as always, at Folkington Green, close enough to Lewes to draw the townsfolk out on bicycles and in char-à-bancs.

The morning was fine after rain, and there was a full attendance on the green under the swinging sign of _The Beehive_.

Old Mat sat by the muddy pond on his three-cornered cob. He was dressed, as always, in flat-topped hat, trousers, and elastic-sided boots; and he swung his legs mechanically against Ichabod's hardened sides.

About him was gathered the usual group of admiring ladies. They liked Old Mat as much as they disliked his daughter.

"I don't come 'ere to 'unt," the old man was saying wearily; "I come 'ere to putest. Yes, you can persecute me if you like, same as you do the fox, but if I live through it, as I 'ave before, I shall go 'ome to Mar, and next time you comes out I shall be there givin' my witness, de we." His face was firm and nobly resolute. "Crool, I calls it," he said. "Such a lot of you, too. Hosses and dogs, men and women, not to say perambylators. All on his back at once; and he'll beat the lot yet, you'll see. That's because he's got religion in him, little red fox has. His conscience is clear, same as mine." He looked about him. "Now there's Mr. Haggard there be the elm. He thinks just the very same as me--only he ain't got the spirit in him to stand up and say so. I'd 'a' wep a tear--only I ain't got one."

The Duke in his hunting cap sat close by on his cobby chestnut, which looked as if it had come out of an old hunting print, and the hounds sprawled about it in the sunshine on the green.

Silver rode up to the Duke, who greeted him ironically.

"Late as usual, Silver," he said. "We've been waiting for you since Christmas."

"Very good of you, sir," replied the young man. "I only came down from town this morning."

"Glad you could get away," grunted the Duke. "Hope you've done 'em down all right."

Silver walked his horse away across the green.

The inspector, who had drawn up in the road, got down from his trap, and came toward Silver.

"I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "You've nothing against that chap?"

He knew very well who Silver was, and was obsequious accordingly.

"Nothing," said Silver shortly.

"Excuse me, won't you, sir?" continued the inspector. "I wouldn't trouble you only we know him. He's been in trouble before. And we have to watch him. He's a bit funny in the temper. And when he's on the boil there's not a great deal he'll stop at."

"I've nothing against him," repeated Silver, and rode on to join Monkey Brand, who was nursing a youngster by the pond.

The little jockey greeted him with a drop of one eyelid.

"He's watchin' you, sir," he said quietly.

"Who is?" asked the young man.

"Joses, sir. Through the window of _The Beehive_."

"Never mind him," replied Silver, keeping his broad scarlet back turned on the public-house and the face peering at him over the half-blind.

"He's got some friends here," continued Monkey, in the same hushed monotone. "That's why he's gone inside. That tall genelman you was talkin' with. Very close they was at one time. Too close in a manner o' speakin'. See, you can be _too_ close friends. Then you gets to know too much about each other. Then there's trouble and a kickin'-match."

The Duke waved his arm, and hounds moved off.

Horsemen, carriages, and pedestrians followed them in straggling procession.

Monkey Brand and Silver kept together. In front of them Boy Woodburn and Albert Edward rode side by side.

Viewed from the rear, they were ridiculously alike in shape and size and bearing.

The little jockey pointed out the resemblance to his companion. He clucked and winked and joggled with his elbow.

"Not much atween 'em seen from behind, sir," he said.

"How's he coming on?" asked Silver.

"Why, not bad, sir," replied the jockey. "He's the pick of our bunch anyway. If he wasn't so puffed up wiv himself, he'd do."

"I saw he did Chukkers down at Sandown in the International," said the young man.

"He did, sir. He did so," replied the little man. "One more up to Putnam's, that was." And he gave the story of how the Putnam's lad had beaten the crack in the big race.

It seemed that Chukkers, who was riding Jackaroo for Ikey Aaronsohnn, had thought he was well through, and was sitting down to idle home, when two fences from the finish Albert Edward, riding an any-price outsider, came up on his right out of the blue and challenged the star-spangled jacket.

Chukkers, who was on the favourite, with orders to win, had drawn his whip and ridden for his life.

"'E could draw whip and draw blood, too," chuckled Monkey Brand. "But it weren't no manner o' good. Took up his whip and stopped his 'orse. Albert, 'e never stir. Sat there and goes cluck-cluck and got home on the post. Rode a pretty race, he did. Miss Boy was ever so please."

"And what about Chukkers?" asked Jim.

Monkey Brand sniggered.

"He was foamin'-mad, bloody-yellin' all over the place. I was glad Mrs. Woodburn wasn't there to hear. Jaggers had him out on the mat afore 'em all. Said he'd been caught nappin'--by a boy with a face like a girl, too. Putnam 'orse and all. That got ole Chukkers' tail up. He made trouble in the weighin'-room. Said Albert had done him a dirty dish; but you can't go to the Stewards on that. And Albert he told Miss Boy--'I never done nothin' to him, only beat him.' And he told the truth that time if he never told it afore. 'Never you mind,' says Miss Boy. 'You won and you'll win again--if your head don't get so swelled you can't get the weight. We all know Chukkers,' says she, 'and Jaggers, too.'"

* * * * *

The last day was never taken very seriously by the regular followers of the Duke's hounds. All those to whom hunting was the one worthy occupation in life kept religiously aloof.

"It's the people's day," they said. "They don't want us."

To-day was no exception to the rule.

Before lunch hounds chopped a mangy fox outside Prior's Wood; and it was not till the afternoon was getting on that they found a rover lying out in a field of mangolds.

He must have been a hill-fox, who had been caught raiding in the lowlands, for he made a straight point for the Downs.

There was the usual scurry. Boy Woodburn was, as always, the last away, with Silver in close attendance.

They threaded the ragged fringes of pedestrians, who still clung to the skirts of the horsemen, turned to the right through an open gate, and leisurely pursued the cavalcade disappearing furiously before them in the distance.

The girl nursed her baby, who showed himself as unconcerned by the fuss and flurry of the vanguard as his young mistress; while Banjo fretted and fumed to get away.

They crossed a big grass field at a canter. Lollypop was young and raw as a calf, and Jim Silver rode well behind, giving him and his rider plenty of room.

Before them was a low stake-and-bound with a drop on the far side. Lollypop flopped along toward it like a boat in a swell, flapping his long ears, bridling, and pondering whether he would have it or not. On the whole, he thought he would. To lift over it would probably mean less trouble in the end than to fight the quiet and resolute creature who cooed so softly in his ears, and rode him with such iron resolution. Moreover, he knew now as the result of experience that if it came to a struggle he would be worsted in the end if it took all day. It would certainly be less irksome, and more gracious, to get the thing behind you. To jump, and to pretend you liked it, was the generous and the politic thing to do. Moreover, it was all in the direction of home and bran-mash; while there was Banjo golly-woshing through the mud close behind him. And Lollypop not only had to live up to his reputation and set his elder an example, which he loved to do, but he also wished to show the gray what he could do himself when he tried.

The young horse had just made up his mind in the right way, cocked his ears, gathered himself, and passed the thrill to his responsive and expectant mistress, when a huge and black bird, vaster and far more hideous than anything the young horse had ever seen upon the Downs, rose suddenly underneath his nose on the far side of the hedge, flapped its wings obscenely, spread them wide, and then twirled round insanely at astonishing speed.

* * * * *

Joses, nursing his wounds, sat on in the parlour of _The Beehive_ long after the cavalcade had moved off, and comforted himself in the usual way.

When at length he rose with a drained tankard and paid his shot at the counter, he gave his views on society to the landlord in such coloured terms as genuinely to shock that worthy, who had been brought up respectably in the shadow of a Duke.

"They're patriots and imperialists, they are," said the fat man. "Never think of themselves. They hunt the fox, and shoot the pheasant, and keep you and me under, not because they enjoy it and want all the fun to themselves. Oh, no!--don't make that mistake. But because it's their bounden duty to God and man so to do!"

The landlord gave him his change.

"Are you a Socialist?" he asked.

"No," laughed Joses. "I'm a ---- aristocrat. You might know it from me language--let alone me looks. With a stake in the country, a pew in the church, and a seat in the House of Mammon. Goodbye! God bless our gracious King! And to hell with the rights of You and Me!"

He went out and made for the hills, churning his grievances into mud within him.

He had walked for an hour across the fields, blind and deaf to all about him, when an insistent sound from the outer world penetrated the outworks of his disturbed spirit.

He stopped and listened.

Hounds were running. Yes. No. Yes. That musical tow-row, passionate, terrible, and never-to-be-forgotten, was not to be mistaken.

Hounds were running, and they were coming in his direction at speed. Joses, always something of a sportsman, came out of himself in his own despite. He hurried down a bridle-path toward the line of the hunt.

Before him, some fields away, he saw hounds toppling over a hedge like a breaker curling before it fell. There followed in line horsemen and horsewomen, singly, straggling, and in groups.

Joses stayed and watched them sweep by some distance from him. The mutter of horses' feet close at hand struck his ear. He turned and looked over the hedge. A man and a girl were cantering leisurely toward him. The man was on a gray, and it was clear from the way the girl handled her horse that he was young and uncertain of himself.

An imp of malignant deviltry, born of spite and alcohol, bobbed up in Joses's heart. He ducked behind the hedge, opened his umbrella suddenly, and twirled it overhead.

Lollypop's nerves were of the very best, but this was altogether too much for him. He refused suddenly and with a snort, whipped about, swift as a top, slid up, and collapsed on his side.

Boy was flung forward on her head and shoulder.

A moment she stayed where she was on her hands and knees, clutching at the bridle. Lollypop floundered to his feet, and tugged to get away, staring with wide-flung nostrils and trembling flanks at the hedge.

The girl rose slowly to her feet. Her hat was muddy and battered, and she looked before her foolishly and with dazed eyes.

Silver had galloped up and was on his feet in a minute at her side.

"Are you hurt?" he asked anxiously.

"I'm all right," she replied sleepily.

Joses was peering over the hedge. It was difficult to say what was in those shining eyes of his.

"Nasty shy," he said.

Silver looked up.

"I'm coming round to you in a minute, my friend," he said deeply.

Joses's face darkened.

"Why, you don't think it was deliberate?" he cackled.

"I'll let you know what I think later," replied the young man.

"You frighten me!" mocked the other, rumbling his dreadful laughter. "Mind you tell your friends the police!" he added, and was gone.