Chapter 36

The Bible Class

In the old days, when Mat had been in his prime, there had not seldom been as many as a hundred horses on occasion billeted in and around Putnam's.

At that time Mat had done a bit of dealing in addition to his training, and had kept hunters as well as 'chasers.

The Lads' Barn, as it was called, was at the back of the old hunter-stables, somewhat removed from the yard, and opening on to the Paddock Close.

It was big, black, with red-tiled roof, raftered, and ideal for its purpose; for it served as the Lads' Club, instituted by Mrs. Woodburn when first she came to live at Putnam's. Here in winter they had singsongs, dances, and entertainments; and in the summer they played games, read, and held their committee meetings.

At one end was a mattress, a wooden horse, parallel bars and rings, and the ordinary appurtenances of a Boys' Club; at the other a raised platform, and on it a blackboard and harmonium.

Now some twenty lads were gathered in the barn, waiting for Miss Woodburn to take the Bible Class.

To-day the girl for once was late. And the lads were glad. They had plenty to talk about this morning, and they welcomed an opportunity for misconduct at this time all the more because it rarely offered. There was a delicious relish about wrongdoing in the one hour a week devoted to seeking good and ensuing it.

Some of them were smoking, some playing cards.

Both acts were forbidden--the latter absolutely, the former in the main; for no lad under seventeen years was allowed to smoke in the Putnam stable.

The consequence was that the lads over the age limit bought and owned the cigarettes, and with fine capitalist instinct let them out to the youngsters at a farthing the puff. Albert when under age had instituted the puff, and when over it had organized the tariff. By the puff-a-farthing method the cigarettes could not be confiscated, for they belonged only to those who had a prescriptive right to them, while the puffers, with a little cunning, were able to enjoy illicit smokes.

Jerry, the economist with the corrugated brow, and Stanley the stupid, both with cigarettes in their mouths, were standing apart in lofty isolation, as befitted the fathers of the flock.

A cherub-faced urchin, playing cards, and deep in his play, was humming abstractedly the chorus of a catchy song.

Stanley nudged his pal, strolled up behind the youth, and boxed his ears.

The whistler rose and rubbed his ear, aggrieved.

"What's that for?" he asked.

Stanley scowled down at him.

"Whistlin' that at Putnam's o' Sunday."

"What were I whistlin' then?" asked the aggrieved urchin.

"Mocassin Song," said the haughty Stan. "Now no more of it!"

"I didn't know I were whistlin' it," replied the youth.

"He whistles it in his dreams, Alf does," explained a little pal. "It's got to his head."

"He won't 'ave no 'ead to dream with if he mocassins us," retorted Stan.

The wrong righted, and order restored, Stanley stalked majestically back to his pal with a wink.

"Where's Albert then?" asked Jerry.

"He said he wasn't comin'."

"He's been sayin' that every Sunday these ten year past," answered Jerry with the insolence of the ancient habitué. "Ere, one o' you kids, fetch me a bit o' chalk. I 'ate to see you idlin' your time away, gamblin' and dicin', like the Profligate Son when he broke the bank at Monte Carlo."

He mounted the platform.

"While Ginger's gettin' the chalk I'll ask you a question or two to testify your general knowledge."

He took the cigarette out of his mouth, and wriggled his chin above his high collar.

"Who done Mr. Silver down?" he asked pontifically.

There was a moment's silence. Then a hand went up.

"Chukkers," piped the cherub-faced urchin.

There was a jeer from the other lads, and even the proud Stanley deigned to smile.

"Alf's got Chukkers on the crumpet," Jerry said sardonically. "If there was a nearthquake and they ask Alf who done it, he'd say Chukkers."

"Well, he's up to all sorts," retorted the wise cherub.

Jerry repeated his original question.

"Who done Mr. Silver down?"

"Jews," ventured a sporting youth.

This answer met with more approval.

"That's more like," said Jerry. "Now 'ow can he get back on 'em?"

"Bash 'em," suggested the sportsman, encouraged by his previous success. "He's bigger nor them, I'll lay."

The lecturer on the platform lifted a protesting hand.

"You mustn't bash 'em, boy Jackson," he said. "Tain't accordin' to religion--at least not the religion what I'm here to teach you. No," said the preacher of righteousness, "you mustn't bash 'em. That'd never do."

"What then?" piped the cherub.

"You must lay for him," answered the moralist.

Alf was on his feet in a trice.

"At the Canal Turn," he chirped. "Bump him off and then jump on the flat of his face."

The moralist greeted the suggestion with warm approval.

"One up to Alfie!" he cried. "He'll make a jockey and a Christian yet, Alf will."

Ginger handed up a piece of chalk.

Jerry hushed his audience.

"Quiet now, _if_ you please," said he.

He took the chalk and wrote up in sprawling letters on the board:

_Bible Class._

_First Question. What price Four-Pound-the-Second, Grand National?_

Instantly there was a hub-bub, from which the words "Hundred to one" came with insistent force.

"Hundred to one," said the lecturer. "Thank you, genelmen."

He proceeded to write.

_Second Question. Any takers?_

"Yus," said the lofty Stanley. "I'll do it in dollars--twice over."

"Thank _you_," said the scribe.

_Third Question. What price Mocassin?_

The name was received with groans.

"Sevens--if Chukkers rides," cried the cherub. "Tens if he don't."

The answer was received with jeers.

"Chukkers _not_ ride!"

"O' course he'll ride!"

"He always has ridden her--here and in the States and in Australia!"

Stanley finally deigned to descend from his heights to crush the youth.

"They got a quarter of a million on God Almighty's Mustang, the Three J's 'ave. Think they'd trust anyone up only one of their fat selves? Now then!"

In the middle of the storm Monkey Brand, who had been waiting for the girl in the door, looked in.

He saw the writing on the board and crossed the barn. Monkey himself could neither read nor write, but he was well aware that anything written by the lads should be rubbed out at once.

"Who wrote this?" he asked.

Jerry, who on the other's entrance had descended swiftly from the platform, repeated the question.

"Who wrote this?" he asked authoritatively. "Can't you 'ear Mr. Brand?"

"Albert, I reck'n," answered Stanley, taking his cue from his pal.

The door opened, and a girl stood on the threshold.

"Who said Albert?" she asked.

The lads turned.

The young lady wore a long drab coat and had a fair pig-tail. She was like Boy Woodburn and yet unlike her: the figure much the same, the colouring identical. But if it was Boy, the years had coarsened her and altered the expression in her eyes not for the better.

With swift, decisive steps she made for the platform amid the suppressed giggles of the lads.

Jerry made way for her at once.

The girl proceeded to rub out with the duster all the questions but the first. Then she turned over the leaves of a Bible, wetting her thumb for that purpose, seized the pointer, and took her stand by the blackboard.

"The first question that arises h'out of h'our lesson to-day," she began quietly, "is this 'ere--'_What price Four-Pound-the-Second?_' Now think afore you answers, there's good little fellers."

It was Jerry who held up his hand.

The girl pointed at him.

"You there, Jerry me boy."

"Depends on who rides him, Mrs. Chukkers," he said.

There was a deadly silence. In it the girl let the handle of the pointer fall with the noise of a grounded rifle.

"Mrs. Who?" she asked, fatally quiet.

"Chukkers, ma'am," answered the courteous Jerry.

"Go on then," sneered the girl. "Chukkers ain't married. Nobody won't 'ave him."

Jerry had risen.

"No, ma'am. That he ain't," said the polished little gentleman. "You're his mother--from Sacramento. Anyone could see that by the likeness. You're the spit of each other, if I might make so bold. And I'm sure," said the orator, "speakin' on be'alf of all present, meself included, we feel honoured by the presence in our umble midst of the mother of the famous 'orseman--Chukkers Childers."

In the silence the speaker resumed his seat.

The lady addressed was too busy to reply.

She was taking off her drab coat, her picture hat, and her pig-tail, and she was spitting in her hands.

Soaping them together, she came to the edge of the platform.

"Shall I come down and give it you?" she asked. "Or will you come up and fetch it?"

"Neever, thank you," said Jerry, puffing imperturbably.

Albert jumped down.

"You're for it, Jerry," said Stanley, glad it was his friend's turn this time.

"Not me," Jerry replied. "No scrappin' Sunday. Miss Boy's orders."

Albert, very white, was sparring all round his adversary's head.

"Chukkered me, did ye?" he said. "Put 'em up then, or I'll spoil ye."

The offence was the unforgiveable in the Putnam stable, and the watching lads had every hope of a battle royal when a calm, deep voice stilled the storm.

"That'll do," it said.

The real Boy entered.

The dark blue of her dress showed off her fair colouring and hair.

She was nearly twenty-one now and spiritually a woman, if she still retained the slight, sword-like figure of her girlhood days. Her face was graver than of old and more quiet. The touch of almost aggressive resolution and defiance it once possessed had shaded off into something stiller and more impressive. There was less show of strength and more evidence of it. Her roots were deeper, and she was therefore less moved by passing winds. Something of her mother's calm had invaded her. She got her way just as of old, but she no longer had to battle for it now as then. Or if she had to battle, the fight was invisible, and the victory fought and won in the unseen deeps of her being.

"Who's been smoking here?" the girl asked immediately on entering the barn.

"Me, Miss," said Jerry.

Monkey Brand was fond of affirming that on the whole the lads told the truth to Miss Boy. But whether it was the girl's personality or her horsemanship that accounted for this departure from established rule it was hard to surmise.

"You might leave that to Jaggers's lads," said the girl. "Surely we might keep this one hour in the week clean."

Mr. Haggard had once said that the girl was a Greek. He might have added--a Greek with an evangelical tendency. For this Sunday morning hour was no perfunctory exercise for her. It was a reality, looming always larger with the years, and on horseback, in the train, at stables, was perpetually recurring to the girl throughout the week.

In the struggle between her father and her mother in her blood, the mother was winning the ascendancy.

"I thought the rule was we might smoke if you was late, Miss," said Jerry, in the subdued voice he always adopted when speaking to his young mistress.

"It's not the rule, Jerry," the girl replied quietly, "as you're perfectly well aware. And even if it was the rule it would be bad manners. Alfred, give me those cards."

"What cards, Miss?"

"The cards you were playing with when I came in."

The cherub produced a dingy pack.

"They're only picture cards, Miss," he said.

The girl's gray eyes seemed to engulf the lad, friendly if a little stern.

"Have you been gambling?" she asked.

"No, Miss," with obvious truthfulness.

"He's got nothin' to gamble with," jeered the brutal Stanley. "His mother takes it all."

The girl mounted swiftly on to the platform, saw the writing on the blackboard, and swept it away with a duster.

Then she turned to her little congregation, feeling their temper with sure and sensitive spirit.

They were out of hand, and it was because she had been late through no fault of her own. The kitchenmaid had fainted, and Boy had, of course, been sent for.

There was one hope of steadying them.

"We'll start with a hymn," she said, taking her seat at the harmonium. "Get your hymn-books. What hymn shall we have? Alfred, it's your turn, I think."

Alfred, after some hesitation, gave _The Day Thou Gavest Lord Is Ended_, amid the jealous murmurs of his friend.

"That's a nevenin nymn, fat-'ead," cried Jerry in a loud whisper.

"I don't care if it is," answered Alf stoutly. "It's nice."

"'E likes it because it makes him cry," jeered Stanley.

The girl started to play, her back to the congregation.

They sang two verses with round mouths, Jerry and Stanley shouting against each other aggressively and wagging their heads. The third verse went less well. There were interruptions. The voices grew ragged. Jerry spoke; somebody whistled; and the singing ran away into giggles.

Boy swung round.

The cause of the merriment was sufficiently obvious.

A lop-eared Belgian rabbit was hopping across the floor, entirely self-complacent and smug. As the sound of singing, which had covered him like a garment, died away in smothered titters, he sat up on his hind-legs and stared about him.

The girl descended from the platform, caught the rabbit by the ears and suspended him.

Tame as a cow, he made no resistance.

"Who's is this hare?" she asked.

"Mrs. Woodburn's, Miss," answered Jerry brightly. "That's Abe Lincoln. Queen Victoria's his wife. They lives together in a nutch."

"How did he come in?"

"Through the window," said the muffled voice of Albert from the back. "Flow'd."

The rabbit, which had been hanging placidly suspended, was now seized with spasms and began to twitch and contort violently.

The reason was not far to seek. A red-eyed ferret, tied by a string to the foot of a chair, was making strenuous efforts to get at him.

"Who's is that ferret?" asked Boy.

"That genelman's," replied the voice from the back.

The girl looked up and saw Silver standing in the door.

Coldly she dismissed the class.

"That'll do," she said. "You can all go now." The lads shuffled away, rejoicing. "There'll be no sing-song this evening," continued their cruel mistress. "Jerry, put that rabbit back in the hutch you took it from. Stanley, I don't want to see that ferret of yours at Bible Class again."

The lads trooped out, injured and innocent.

Albert was left in his shirt-sleeves and without a collar.

"What is it?" asked the girl.

"Can I 'ave me things, Miss?"

His face was stiff and impenetrable.

She handed him the long drab coat on the platform.

"And me 'at, Miss."

"Is this yours?"

"Yes, Miss."

She passed him the picture-hat. Albert received it with immobile face.

"And me pig-tail."

"You don't deserve it," said Boy.

Silver approached.

"Put 'em on, will you?" he said.

Albert obeyed without demur and without a symptom of emotion. In a moment he had become a coarse caricature of his young mistress, ludicrously alike and yet worlds away.

"Not so bad," commented the young man. "You could act, Albert?"

"Yes, sir," said Albert, in whom diffidence was not a defect.

The lad made for the door in his hat and pig-tail, and as though to manifest his quality gave a little coquettish flirt to the skirt of his coat as he went out.

"You'll be wanted this morning, Albert, you and Brand," the girl called after him.

"Yes, Miss."

"Mare's Back. Twelve-thirty. Make-Way-There and Lollypop, trial horses. Stanley and Jerry know. Silvertail for me."

"Yes, Miss."

He closed the door behind him.

Silver came toward the girl slowly and took her hand.

"How are you, Boy?" he asked.

The girl laid her firm, cool little hand lightly on his and let it rest there. Her eyes were soft in his, still and steady. She felt herself surrounded by his love as by a cloud, and dwelt in it with quiet enjoyment and content.

It was a while before she answered.

"I'm all right," she said. "You're through, aren't you?"

"Yes; I'm free."

"That's right," she said. "The rest doesn't matter."

Together they went out into the sunshine of the Paddock Close.

He stood a moment, filling his chest, and looking up toward the green wall of the Downs.

"Let's go slow," he said.

She accommodated herself to his stroll.

"By Jove," he said slowly. "It _is_ a delight to get down here again. And I don't feel anything's changed really."

"Nor has it _really_," replied the girl.