Chapter 38

The Fat Man Emerges

The old man, the young man, and the girl rode out of the yard into the Paddock Close.

"Where's Billy Bluff?" asked Silver. He was on Heart of Oak, she high above him, perched like a bird on tall old Silvertail, who looked like a spinster and was one. Almost you expected her to look at you over spectacles and make an acrid comment on men or things.

"In front with his friend," replied Boy.

"Are you going to pace him?" asked Jim.

"I believe so," replied the girl casually. "Dad's going to send him the full course to-day. Jerry and I are to take him over the fences the first time round. And then Stanley's to bring him along the flat the last two miles."

They travelled up the public path past the church amid the sycamores. Mat on his fast-walking cob rode in front, kicking his legs. Boy and Jim followed more soberly.

She rode a little behind him that she might see his profile. Suddenly he reined back and met her face, his own gleaming with laughter. At such moments he looked absurdly young.

"I say, Boy!" he began, dropping his voice.

She snatched her eyes from his face, and then peeped at him warily.

"What?"

He drew up beside her.

"I'm not a gentleman any more."

She looked straight before her. Her fine lips were firm and resisting, but about her eyes the light stole and rippled deliciously.

"I'm not sure," she said, half to herself.

He pressed up alongside her, lifting his face.

"I'm not!" he cried. "I'm not!" eager as a boy in his protestations. "You can't chuck that up at me any more."

Boy refused to face him or to be convinced.

"I don't," she said. "I don't believe in class. It's the man that matters."

"Hear, hear," he cried. "It's the man--not the money. I see it now. I haven't got tuppence to my name."

She turned her eyes down on him, brushing aside his coquetry with the sweep of her steady gaze.

"D'you mind?" she asked in her direct and simple way as they emerged on to the open Downs.

He sobered to her mood.

"Only in this way," he answered, "that it was my father's show, and I don't like to have let it down."

The girl deliberated.

"I don't see that you could have helped it," she said after a pause.

"No, _I_ couldn't," he admitted. "_He_ could have. It was a One Man show. And when the One Man went it was bound to go in time. However, I've let nobody down but myself. And I don't care so much about the stuff."

"No," she said. "You don't want all that. Nobody does; and it's not good for you."

Preacher Joe had bobbed up suddenly in his fair grand-daughter, as he did not seldom. She was deliciously unaware of the old man's presence at her side; but Jim Silver welcomed him as a familiar with lurking laughter.

"Thank you, sir," he said, and touched his hat. Then he covered his daring swiftly. "Except for the horses I wouldn't cuc-care a hang," he said loudly. "They were the only things mum-money gave me."

Gravely she peeped at him again.

"Shall you sell the lot?"

"I shall sell the 'chasers," he answered.

"All but one," she corrected.

"Which one?"

She nodded up the hill.

"The one you share with me."

He laughed his resounding laughter.

"I'll sell you my share," he said.

"I won't buy," she answered firmly.

"Very well. Then I'll sell to Jaggers."

Boy tapped Silvertail with such an increase of emphasis that the old mare snatched resentfully at her bit.

"You won't," she cried with the old fierce, girlish note in her voice which so delighted him.

"_After_ he's won the National," continued the young man calmly.

"We'll see--_after_," replied Boy.

They passed out of the Paddock Close on to the Downs.

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

"Monkey Brand says he's streets better than Cannibal," replied the girl. "We've never had anything to touch him in my time." This was one of few subjects on which the girl sometimes would flow. "Of course he's young for a National horse--only five, and she's in her prime. But he's got the head of an old horse on the body of a young one. Nothing flurries him--once you can get him going."

"And the trouble is there's only one person who can get him going," mused the young man.

"I don't know about that," she answered tartly. "He's only run the once in public. And that time he ran rings round his field. Albert was riding--not me."

They were nearing the brow.

A man was labouring up the hill in front of them.

Old Mat pulled up, and the pair jogged up alongside him. The trainer nodded quietly at the heavy figure in front.

"He's out," he wheezed. "On to it pretty quick, too. Heard we're goin' to gallop Fo'-Pound and he's come to see what he can see."

The man drew to one side to let the riders pass.

It was Joses; and he had changed.

There was less of the sow and more of the wolf about him than of old. His shaggy whiskers were touched with gray, and there was something hard and fierce about his face. The old inflamed and flabby look had been hammered out of him in the hard school from which he had just emerged.

He eyed the riders as they passed.

Boy's grave eyes became graver and more self-contained. At once she was alert and had locked all her doors. In that firm, courageous face of hers there was no curiosity, no unkindness, and least of all no fear. The young man glancing at her thought he had never seen such strength manifest in any face; and it was not the strength that is based on hardness, for she was paler than her wont.

Then she spoke.

Her voice, deep as a bell and very quiet, surprised him in the silence. He had not expected it, and yet somehow it seemed to him beautifully appropriate.

"Good morning, Mr. Joses," said the voice, and that was all; but it wrought a miracle.

"Yes," growled the man in the wayside, "it wasn't you: it was Silver."

The young man's face flashed white. He pulled up instantaneously.

"What's that?" he said.

Boy, riding on, called sharply over her shoulder:

"Come on, Mr. Silver!"

Reluctant as a dog to leave an enemy, the young man obeyed, and caught up the other two.

"Little bit o' bitter," muttered the old man. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "I got him five year for himself," he went on querulously. "And now he ain't satisfied. No pleasin' some folk."