CHAPTER VIII.

A CROWD of roughs, a lesser crowd of third-rate spectators, and a lesser gathering of fashionable ones were assembled on the Blankhampton racecourse, for it was the day of the Scarlet Lancer Steeple-chases.

On the Grand Stand were to be seen most of the rank and fashion of the neighborhood, and a goodly show of that class of people who are always to be found about towns which are also military stations—the class of people who have daughters to marry, and not much money to marry them with.

There were all the Scarlet Lancer ladies in full force, from the colonel’s wife in blue velvet and sables, to the quartermaster’s lady in a hard felt hat, with long diamond and pearl ear-rings. There were officers in cords and boots, their silken finery hidden by Newmarket coats. And there was the bride, Mrs. Allardyce, in pink and gray, the major’s racing colors—oh lor! as the fellows said when they saw her. And there was Miss Mignon, a little three-year-old belle, got up in Bootles’s colors—scarlet, purple, and gold—adapted in her small case to a warm frock of purple velvet, braided with scarlet and gold, and on her golden curls a jockey-cap to match it. Utterly absurd, most people said, but Bootles didn’t seem to see it. Nor, for the matter of that, did Miss Mignon herself. Held by Bootles, or, when Bootles was riding, by Lacy, she sat on the broad ledge of the balcony and surveyed the world, like a queen in miniature.

It was a fine place for seeing; yes, and a fine place for hearing too, as Lacy testified afterwards in his own peculiar style of delivery.

“Er—I and Miss Mignon were waiting for Bootles to come down the lawn, when—er—a laday next to us—er—a little unpwrepossessing person—I found out afterwards that her name is Berwry—with a nose like a teapot-spout, and a mouth of the bull-dog ordah—little daughter, by-the-bye, pretty much of the same type, but just a shade less hideous—suddenly electwrified us by pulling out a huge pair of gold eye-glasses, and holding the wrace-card at arm’s-length.

“‘Ow!’ said she, in a mincing voice, when Miles came down the lane looking like a sack of flour in a purple satin jacket—‘Ow, CAP-tain Ferwrahs! Ow, Dorothy, my deah, CAP-tain Ferwrahs! _Vewry_ handsome—and how _beau_-tifully he wrides! Ow, I’m shaw he’ll win, and what a _lovely_ horse! CAP-tain Ferwrahs! He’s vewry handsome.’

“Well—er—I gave Miss Mignon a gwreat squeeze to hold her tongue—and she did. This Mrs.—er—Berwry went on expatiating on Miles’s great beauty of person, and on the absolute certainty of his winning. ‘And his pet name is Bootles,’ she informed us. His _pet_ name! Well, pwresently Bootles came sailing down the lawn in all his glowry, and Miss Mignon quite forgot the old girl, and shouted out to him. ‘Bootles,’ she called—‘Bootles.’

“Bootles glanced up, and waved his hand, and—er—the old party called Berwry turned wound and eyed her sharply, saw the scarlet, purple, and gold of her dwress, looked at her card, and said, witheringly, ‘Ow, I don’t know _him_,’ as if there were a dozen Captain Ferwers knocking about, and this was one of the eleven she didn’t know.

“Well, when the wrace was over—er—who should come up but Miles.

“‘Ah, Miles,’ said I, ‘I—er—heard a laday expatiating just now on your extrwreme beauty and gwrace and elegance of person—was shaw you’d win. What a pity you didn’t!’

“‘Bless my soul!’ said Miles; ‘was she pretty?”

“‘Oh, don’t be flattered; she took you for Bootles,’ said I, ignoring the question.

“‘Bootles’s money again!’ cwried Miles, with a gwreat wroar of laughter.

“Well, in two twos up comes Bootles. ‘See me win, Mignon?’” said he.

“So I—er—told him the stowry too, and Bootles laughed that absurd ‘Ha! ha!’ of his. ‘Come along and have some lunch, Mignon, my sweetheart,’ said he, ‘_and let’s be out of this_.’”

But it was after this incident that the most important event of that bright May day occurred—one of those fearful struggles to win, when half a dozen horses show well for the post, and all the field finds tongue and shouts its hardest.

“Ferrers wins! Blue and fawn—yellow and black! Miles wins—Miles wins! No, no; Ferrers in front—fawn and blue! Hartog—Hartog—Hartog wins! Miles in front! Ah, he’s down! Ferrers—Miles—blue and fawn—Gilchrist gains—Miles—Gilchrist—Ferrers wins—Ferrers wins! All up with the others! Ferrers WINS!”

And then the company, good, bad, and indifferent, had time to remember that a man was down—no, not one man, but two. To find out that Hartog was bruised and stunned, but able with help to get to the dressing-room and recover himself, to learn that the swarming crowd around the other was watching a more exciting race than that which they had just witnessed with shouts and applause, that they were watching with awe and in silence a race between life and death—for Gilchrist, the “odd” man of the regiment, the man who had been nobody’s friend, nobody’s chum, was lying in the midst of them with his back broken, waiting for a hurdle.

They were all as sorry as men could be who had never been moved by feelings of friendship. The proceedings were stopped at once, and they went gravely back to barracks, those who had ridden, to get into morning-clothes, and all of them to hang about waiting for news.

But there was no hope, absolutely no hope whatever. With all his faults, failings, and peculiarities, Gavor Gilchrist was passing away from their midst by exchange, as Hartog had once wished—the exchange, not of one regiment for another, but of this world for the next.

[Picture: The swarming crowd round the other was watching a more exciting race than that which they had just witnessed]

It was about six o’clock that the senior of the two surgeons in attendance on Gilchrist entered the anteroom, and, looking around, beckoned for Bootles.

“What news?” asked several voices.

“He won’t last the night. Bootles, he wants you.”

“I’ll come,” said Bootles, rising.

“Sure to want Bootles,” observed Preston.

“Oh yes; I should myself,” returned another.

“Won’t last the night,” remarked a third. “Well, I never did like Gilchrist—never; but, all the same, I’m deuced sorry for him now, poor chap. For oh, by Jove! it’s a fearful thing when you come to that.”

And then they fell into silence again, waiting for Bootles to come back. Half an hour passed—three-quarters; then Bootles did not come. An hour; then Bootles appeared—came with a white face and a scared look in his blue eyes, followed by the doctor who had fetched him. Every man in the room was roused from a lounging attitude to one of expectation and surprise.

“Bootles,” said Lacy, moving towards him.

But Bootles did not even look at him. He turned to the doctor and uttered words the like of which none of his hearers had ever heard from him before.

“I kept my temper, doctor—you think I did? I know the man’s dying. Yes, I know, and I shouldn’t like to think I lost my temper with a poor chap who was dying, but—but—No; I won’t say a word. I’ll go away and keep to myself until I’ve got over it a little. If I stop here I shall say something I shall be sorry for all the rest of my life.”

“What is it, Bootles?” broke in Lacy, in his soft voice.

But Bootles did not reply for a moment. He stood still, trying hard to control himself; but Lacy, who had laid his hand upon his sleeve, felt that he was shaking from head to foot, and his very lips were trembling.

“Tell us,” said Lacy, persuasively. “What is it?”

“He is Mignon’s father!” Bootles answered. And then he broke from Lacy’s grasp and fled.

“Impossible!” Lacy cried.

“Not at all; it is true,” the doctor answered. “He is making his will now, leaving Bootles sole guardian and trustee to the child.”

“The brute,” burst out Preston, indignantly, remembering Gilchrist’s words—not so long ago.

[Picture: A race between life and death]

“Hush, hush! The man is dying, and death alters everything,” the doctor cried.

“And Bootles kept his temper? Said nothing?”

“Not one word—of reproach.”

“Has he seen her?”

“No. He would not, though Bootles asked him.”

“His own child—and she Miss Mignon!”

“All the better. She cannot endure him.”

“By Jove! But what a blow for Bootles!”

“How will he take it? Will it make any difference?”

“As wregards Miss Mignon? What wrot you talk. As if Bootles—” But there Lacy broke off in disgust, and the babel of surmises, questions, and answers went on.

And that night Gavor Gilchrist died.