CHAPTER XIV

"A GOOD THING"

Poor Daisy! Everybody was sorry for him, everybody except the owner and a few friends who won largely on Shaneen, regretted his disappointment, and shrugged their shoulders at the heavy losses it was known to have entailed. His brother-officers looked grave, but bestirred themselves, nevertheless, for the next race. His trainer shook his head, glancing wistfully at the spur marks on the mare's reeking sides. The very crowd condoled with him, for he had ridden to admiration, and the accident that discomfited him was patent to all. Even Mr. Sullivan, whose own hopes had been blighted by the defeat of the chestnut, expressed an opinion that "Av' it could be run again, though there wasn't a pound between them, it was his belief the mare would win!"

Mr. Walters, however, true to his nature, kept a bold face over a troubled heart, yet had a difficult task to control his feelings, when he emerged from the enclosure after weighing, and found his hand seized by the Roscommon farmer in a grip that inflicted no slight physical pain.

"Ah! now, Captain," exclaimed Denis, who had flung himself on a horse, and galloped back from the Big Double, just too late to witness the finish. "Sure ye rode it beautiful! An' the mare, I seen her myself, come out from them all in wan blaze, like a sky-rocket! Bate, says they, by a neck? I'll niver believe it! Annyways, ye'll need to pay the wagers. See, now, Captain, I parted a score o' heifers, only last Friday was it, by good luck, and I've got the money here--rale Dublin notes--inside my coat-tail pocket. Take as much as ye'd be likely to want, Captain. What's a trifle like that betwixt you an' me? Oh! the mare would have wan, safe enough, av' she had fair play. See to her now, she's got her wind back. Begorra! She's ready to go again!"

Daisy was no creature of impulse,--the last man in the world to be fooled by any sentiment of the moment,--yet tears filled his eyes, and he could scarce find a voice to thank his humble friend, while he declined an offer that came straight from the farmer's warm and generous heart.

Denis looked disappointed, wrung "the Captain's" hand hard, and vanished in a convenient booth to console himself with another "dandy" of punch.

Patting the mare fondly, and even laying his cheek against her warm, wet neck, the losing jockey retired to change silk and doeskin for his usual dress, in which, with his usual easy manner, he swaggered up to the stand. Here, as has been said, his defeat excited considerable sympathy, and, indeed, in one quarter, positive consternation. Two young ladies had accompanied him through the race, with their hearts as with their eyes. When his efforts ended in defeat, both were deeply affected, though in different ways. Norah Macormac could not refrain from tears, but conscious that mamma was on the watch, hid her face in a ridiculously small pocket-handkerchief, pretending to sneeze and blow her nose, as if she had caught cold. Blanche Douglas, on the contrary, looked round fierce, wistful, and defiant, like a wild creature at bay. Even Daisy, approaching jauntily to receive his friends' condolences could not but observe how pale she was, yet how collected and composed.

"I've not punished her much," said he, addressing himself, in the first instance, to the real owner of the vanquished mare. "She's as good as I told you, Miss Douglas. It was no fault of hers. If I hadn't been a muff I'd have killed the old woman, and won in a canter! Never mind; your favourite, at least, has not disgraced her name, and I'm very glad I called her Satanella."

She laid her hand softly on his arm, and looked straight into his eyes. "Did you stand it all?" said she. "Is it as bad as you said? Tell me! Quick! I cannot bear suspense."

"Never laid off a shilling," he answered lightly. "Never even backed her for a place. I swore I'd be a man or a mouse, as you know, and it's come up--mouse!"

"In two words, Mr. Walters, you're ruined!" She spoke almost angrily in her effort at self-control.

"That's the way to say it!" was his careless reply. "General break up--horse, foot, and dragoons. No reason, though, you should call me _Mr. Walters_."

"Well, _Daisy_, then," she murmured, with a loving, lingering tenderness on those syllables she was resolved never to utter above her breath again. "You know how I hoped you'd win. You know how vexed I am. You know--or rather you don't, and never _shall_ know--that it's worse for _me_ than for _you_!"

The last sentence she spoke so low he did not catch its purport, but thinking she regretted the loss of her own wagers, he began to express sorrow for having advised her so badly.

She stopped him angrily. "I would have backed her for thousands," she exclaimed. "I would have laid my life on her. I believe I _have_!"

"Then you don't owe the mare a grudge!" he answered cheerily. "I thought you wouldn't. She's not a pin the worse for training. You'll take her back, won't you?--and--and--you'll be kind to her for her own sake?"

She seemed to waver a moment, as if she weighed some doubtful matter in her mind. Presently with cleared brow, and frank, open looks, she caught his hand.

"And for _yours_!" said she. "I'll never part with her. So long as we three are above ground, Satanella--my namesake--will be a--a--remembrance between you and me!"

Then she beckoned the General, who was talking to some ladies behind her, and asked for information about the next race, with a kindness of tone and manner that elevated the old soldier to the seventh heaven.

Meanwhile, Miss Macormac had found time to recover her composure. Turning to Mr. Walters she showed him a bright and pretty face, with just such traces of the vexation that had clouded it as are left by passing showers on an April sky. Her eyes looked deeper and darker for their late moisture, her little nose all the daintier that its transparent nostrils were tinged with pink.

She gave him her hand frankly, as though to express silent sympathy and friendship. Sinking into a seat by her side, Daisy embarked on a long and detailed account of the race, the way he had ridden it, the performances of St. George, Leprauchan, Shaneen, and his own black mare.

Though he seldom got excited, he could not but break into a glowing description, as he warmed with his narrative. "When I came to the wall," he declared, "I was as sure of winning as I am of sitting by you now. St. George had been disposed of, and he was the only horse in the race whose form I did not know to a pound. Leprauchan, I felt satisfied, could never live the pace, if I made it hot enough. And as for little Shaneen, the mare's stride would be safe to beat _him_, if we finished with a set-to, in the run-in. Everything had come off exactly to suit me, and when we rounded the last turn but one I caught hold of Satanella, and set her going down the hill like an express train!"

"Did ye now?" she murmured, her deep grey eyes looking earnestly into his, her sweet lips parted as though with a breathless interest that drank in every syllable he spoke.

"_Did ye now?_" Only three words, yet carrying with them a charm to convince the most practical of men that the days of spells and witchcraft are not yet gone by. An Englishwoman would have observed, "Really!" "Oh, indeed!" "You don't say so!" or made use of some such cold conventional expression to denote languid attention, not thoroughly aroused; but the Irish girl's "_did ye now?_" identified her at once with her companion and his doings, started them both incontinently on that path of congenial partnership, which is so seductive to the traveller, smooth, pleasant all down hill, and leading--who knows where?

Perhaps neither deep liquid eyes, nor dark lashes, nor arched brows, nor even smiles and blushes, and shapely graceful forms, would arm these Irish ladies with such unequalled and irresistible powers, were it not for their kindly womanly nature that adapts itself so graciously to those with whom it comes in contact--their encouraging "Did ye now?" that despises no trifle, is wearied with no details, and asks only for his confidence whom they honour with their regard. Perhaps, also, it is this faculty of sympathy and assimilation, predominant in both sexes, that makes Irish society the pleasantest in the world.

Thus encouraged, Daisy went off again at score, described each fence to his eager listener, dwelt on every stride, and explained the catastrophe of the woman and child, observing, in conclusion, with a philosophy all his own, that it was "hard lines to be done just at the finish, and lose a hat-full of money, by three-quarters of a yard!"

She looked up anxiously. "Did ye make such heavy bets now?" she said in a tone of tender reproach. "Ah! Captain Walters, ye told me ye never meant to run these risks again!"

"It was for the last time," he answered rather mournfully. "If the old woman had been at home and in bed, I should have been my own master at this moment, and then--never mind what _then_! It's no use bothering about that now!"

She blushed to the very roots of her hair--why she would have been at a loss to explain,--crumpled her race-card into a hundred creases, and observed innocently--

"Why should it make any difference now? Do ye think we'd like you better for being a hundred times a winner? I wouldn't then, for one!"

He was sitting very close, and nobody but herself heard the whisper, in which he asked--

"Then you don't despise a fellow for losing, Miss Macormac, do you?"

"Despise him?" she answered with flashing eyes. "Never say the word! If I liked him before, d'ye think I wouldn't like him ten times better after he'd been vexed by such a disappointment as that! Ye're not understanding what I mean, and maybe I'm not putting it into right words, but it seems to me----Yes, dear mamma, I'm minding what you say! Sure enough, it is raining in here fit to drown a fish! I'm obliged to ye, Captain. Will ye kindly shift the cloak and cushions to that dry place yonder by Lady Mary. How wet the poor riders will be in their silk jackets! I'm pleased and thankful now--indeed I am--that ye're sheltered safe and dry in the stand."

The last remark in a whisper, because of Lady Mary's supervision, who thinking the _tête-à-tête_ between Daisy and her daughter had lasted long enough, took advantage of a driving shower and the state of the roof to call pretty Miss Norah into a part of the stand which she considered in every respect more secure.

The sky had again darkened, the afternoon promised to be wet. Punchestown weather is not proverbial for sunshine, and Mrs. Lushington, who had done less execution than she considered rightly due to a new toilette of violet and swansdown, voted the whole thing a failure and a bore. The last race was run off in a pelting shower, the Lord Lieutenant's carriages and escort had departed, people gathered up their shawls and wrappings with little interest in anything but the preservation of dry skins. Ladies yawned and began to look tired, gentlemen picked their way through the course ankle-deep in mud, to order up their several vehicles, horse and foot scattered themselves over the country in every direction from a common centre, the canvas booths flapped, wind blew, the rain fell, the great day's racing was over, and it was time to go home.

Norah Macormac's ears were very sharp, but they listened in vain for the expected invitation from Lady Mary, asking Daisy to spend a few days with them at the castle. Papa, whose hospitality was unbounded and uncontrollable, would have taken no denial, under any circumstances; but papa was engaged with the race committee, and intended, moreover, to gallop home across country by himself. There seemed nothing for it but to put as much cordiality into her farewell as was compatible with the presence of bystanders and the usages of society.

Miss Norah no doubt acquitted herself to Daisy's satisfaction--and her own.

Mr. Sullivan, whose experience enabled him to recover his losses on the great handicap by a judicious selection of winners in two succeeding races, did not, therefore, depart without a final glass of comfort, which he swallowed in company with the Roscommon farmer. To him he expounded his views on steeple-chasing, and horses in general, at far greater length than in the forenoon. It is a matter of regret that, owing to excitement, vexation, and very strong punch, Denis should have been much too drunk to understand a word he said. The only idea this worthy seemed clearly to take in, he repeated over and over again in varying tones of grief and astonishment, but always in the same terms:--

"The mare can do it, I tell ye! an' the Captain rode her beau-tiful! Isn't it strange, now, to see little Shaneen comin' in like that at the finish, an' givin' her a batin' by a neck!"