Part 12

One word in conclusion. If anyone intends to bet at Newmarket, never take a Newmarket "tip" unless it is very strongly corroborated elsewhere; for the true Newmarket man firmly believes, in spite of all facts to the contrary, that no horse can win unless it has been trained there, and would rather back the veriest rip in existence hailing from headquarters than the best possible racer trained elsewhere.

KATE'S DAY WITH THE OLD HORSE

"Yes, Kate, we are as nearly as possible 'stone broke,' as your brother would say. The time seems to have come, my girl, when 'honour may be deemed dishonour, loyalty be called a crime,' at any rate in Ireland; and as we can't make our tenants pay rent, we must go."

The speaker was a massive-looking old gentleman with clean-cut, weather-beaten features, and a heavy white moustache. He had drawn his chair away from the breakfast table, and was still knitting his brows over his morning letters.

Poor old Lowry, like his fathers before him, had lived out of doors amongst his own tenantry all his life, with a joke and a half-crown for anyone who wanted them.

Almost all the harm he had ever done was to win a heart or two which he did not want, or drink a glass or two more than was good for him. For forty years he had paid rates and taxes, acted conscientiously as a magistrate, and filled several other onerous but unpaid offices for his Queen and such as are put in authority under her; he had drunk her health loyally every night since he first learnt to drink strong drink, and would have "knocked sparks out of" anyone who had spoken disrespectfully of her before him; and now the property which his fathers had honestly earned was left at the mercy of a league of avowed rebels, and he himself was branded as an enemy of the people. Had he and such as he been left to defend themselves, they would long ago have put an end to these enemies of honest men and of the State, but their hands were tied. They were bidden to wait for help, but no help came. Lowry was still too loyal to murmur openly against the Government which had ruined him, but he had just realized that their name and their loyalty were almost the only things left to him and Kate, his daughter, who sat playing nervously with an empty envelope and gazing out blankly and sadly upon the old park she loved until her deep blue eyes filled unconsciously with tears.

But Kate was not the girl to indulge in tears when a difficulty had to be met, and in ten minutes she had mastered her emotion and was walking with her father to the stables, gravely discussing affairs with the stalwart old man, more like one man with another than like a young girl with her father.

"So the horses are to go up next week, Dad, are they? It is a bit of a wrench to say good-bye to you, Val," said the girl, as she laid her hand lovingly on the neck of a great up-standing chestnut, "but you are good enough to find yourself a situation, my boy. Father, though, what about Joe? We could not let him go into a cab, and he is too old for anything better."

"True, Kate, and I can't bear to shoot the old fellow, and yet what are _we_ to do with a pensioner now?"

"Shoot him! No, father, we'll keep the bullets for other billets. A loyal servant and friend like Joe has as much claim on you as your daughter has; and whilst we have bread and cheese we can find Joe in fodder. Poor old fellow, I believe he would rather eat his litter with us than old oats in a strange stable."

It was a pretty picture, let latter day æsthetes deny it if they will--the tall, strong girl, natural and unaffected, not a bit angelic, but very womanly, caressing the old horse, who lowered his head to meet her caresses, and shoved his honest old nose against her cheek.

And Kate was right. It _is_ a hard thing that a horse who has risked his neck a thousand times for his master, who has never known fear or spared himself in that master's service, should be thought only fit for a bullet when his limbs and wind begin to fail. We pension the half-hearted human servants, we destroy the whole-hearted beasts who have worn out their youth and strength prematurely in our employ.

"How are you going to keep Joe, if I let you try, Kate?"

"Well, father, I ought to be able to make a pound a month by needlework, Christmas cards, and so forth; there is a bit of land at the cottage, so that turned out on that in summer and not much worked in winter, Joe need not cost much to keep, and I'll groom him myself."

"And what would the London aunts say to that, Kate?" laughed the squire.

Kate put a hand trustingly on the old man's shoulder as she answered smiling, "The London aunts say a good many things, Dad, which I don't agree with, and you only pretend to, you know. Aunt Dorothy prefers her carpets to sunshine, at least she keeps her rooms dark all day for fear the sun should spoil their colours."

"I thought it was her colour which the sun spoilt, Kate?"

Kate laughed, and with a squeeze of her father's arm and a saucy nod, flitted off to see to some member of her animal kingdom.

Luckily for the Irish, they take trouble well, and though skinning is an unpleasant process, they soon get used to it.

* * * * *

Three months after the events recorded in the preceding paragraphs, Kate and her father were living at what had been their agent's cottage, a tiny house with stabling for one horse. The Lowry's agent was now Colonel Lowry himself, and his daughter (the best and straightest lady rider in Gonaway) had laid aside her habit as a souvenir of happier days.

At the Hall a rich Londoner had replaced the old squire (as his tenant), and a London young lady inflicted agony on the mouths of such horses as she rode, and never disgraced her sex by an after-breakfast visit to the stables.

Instead of the laughter of that tom-boy Kate, highly finished performances on the piano frightened the blackbirds off the lawn, and instead of jokes and half-crowns from a poor but warm-hearted native, the peasantry now received pamphlets on market gardening and threepenny pieces from an alien millionaire.

* * * * *

"Molly says they have just shot 'the Laurels' for the seventh time this year, and there's not a hen pheasant left on the estate."

"Never mind, father, it won't matter to us. Mr Preece will have some more down from Leadenhall Market or some such place next year; and, after all, they pay our rent for us, and we couldn't live without them."

"Pay the rent," grumbled the squire; "I could have done that myself, if I'd sold all the game, and never given a head to man or woman on the place."

"Then why didn't you, Dad?"

"Why didn't I, girl? Well then, it's just because I suppose I've always belonged to 'the stupid party,' thank God for it."

Poor old Lowry was a red-hot Tory, without any Liberal instincts whatever, a fact which sufficiently accounted for the mess he had made of his life. And yet, somehow, the men who dared still to touch their hats to this reprehensible old robber of the public lands, did so with a smile in their eyes more hearty than the smirk they gave to his successor, Mr Preece.

Since the first day we met her, a change has come over Kate. The grey-blue eyes are just as beautiful, but there is less sparkle in them; the lips are just as sweet, sweeter it may be, but the dimple has gone. In the last few months she has seen more of the seamy and shabby side of life than she had even guessed at in the twenty sunny years which went before.

I don't think the squire has any suspicion of it, and Kate has neither mother nor sister to tell it to, but her poor little heart has had its stoutness tried a good deal of late. When Kate was queen at the Hall, gallant George Vernon, somewhile captain of Hussars, and at present master of the hounds and Kate's very distant cousin, had remembered the tie of kinship to the bright young beauty quite as often as duty required. Now his visits were like angel's visits in number and, to the proud Kate, far less welcome.

George Vernon was no snob, but then Kate, the hostess at the Hall, the reigning queen in the hunting-field, and Kate without a horse to her name, in a cottage and out of the world altogether, were very different persons, and George unconsciously showed that he felt the change. Though man is fickle, perhaps George would not have allowed his admiration for his cousin to cool so suddenly had there not been attractions elsewhere.

Miss Preece (the daughter of the new tenant at the Hall) would have passed as a pretty woman anywhere. If lemon-coloured locks, an abundant fringe, bright colour, and the full, tempting figure of a young Juno, make beauty, then Polly Preece was a belle. If reckless riding and a smart habit make a horsewoman, Polly Preece was a very Amazon.

True she had never had a fall; true her horses cost three hundred guineas apiece, and were clever enough to jump through hoops at a circus, even though they had ten stone of fair humanity hung on to their tortured mouths; and true, too, that though Polly laughed often (and showed in doing so as dazzling a set of teeth as ever disappointed a dentist), few people owed even a smile to any wit of hers.

But the Bruisers (as the men of the Gonaway hounds were called) voted her a right good sort, if only she would give them a little more time at their fences and not always pick the tenderest part of a man to jump upon.

George Vernon did the civil at first as Master. In a week's time he was her pilot, and in a month half a dozen of the Bruisers were sadly afraid that he would ere long be her husband, thereby robbing them of the greatest prize in the local market of matrimony and of the merriest bachelor in the hunt. As for George himself, he thought honestly enough that the Preece girl was "very good fun," but if he could have had her dollars without her he would have been a happy man. Unfortunately, circumstances, especially the bills connected with the maintenance of a crack pack of fox-hounds, were beginning to impress upon him more and more the necessity for converting Miss Preece into a connecting link between himself and her papa's money bags.

This was, roughly, the state of affairs on Monday, November 2nd, 1885, the first regular meet of the Bruisers for the season.

It was a time-honoured custom that the first meet should be held at the Hall, and though the master of the house who had entertained them so often was there no longer, still the house stood and the custom remained.

* * * * *

"I suppose you would hardly care to go to the meet to-day, Dad?" queried Kate at breakfast.

"Not go to the meet, girl, after keeping the old tryst so many years, why not?"

"Oh, I don't know, only I thought you might not."

"What, because another fellow provides the sherry and is master at the Hall? Of course I don't like it, but providing he does not give the men Hamburg stuff, I'll go and be thankful to him for doing what I can no longer afford to do. Put on a leather petticoat, little woman, and we'll run with them since we can't ride."

I think the old man struck the match to light his pipe a shade more viciously than was necessary, but he never winced, though he was perhaps remembering another 2nd of November when the little woman was yet unborn, and he himself on the best horse in the country was as good a man "as ever holloaed to a hound," and in one fair woman's eyes the best.

Suddenly he put down his pipe and called, "Kate."

"Yes, father."

"Come down again for a minute."

"All right, in half a second;" and almost as soon as she had promised Kate was in the room again.

"What is your will, sir?" said she with a little mocking courtesy.

"Why, child, I was thinking that you at any rate might ride to the meet. Your habit is packed away somewhere; Joe looked yesterday as fit as paint, and, as Tim expressed it, 'is brimful of consate.' I declare he has waxed fat and kicks, to the serious detriment of his old tumble-down box."

"No, father, if you don't ride, I shan't. If you run, so shall I."

"Do as you are bid, Kate, or rather, since you never do that, ride if it is only half-a-dozen fences, just to please your old father, and to show that young woman at the Hall the difference between riding and being carried, between hands and paws."

Those who loved Kate best would always have been the first to admit that she had just "the laste bit of the divvle in her, God bless her," and hence it was perhaps that her father's diplomatic suggestion as to the eclipse of her rival brought the colour to her cheek and the light to her eyes.

"Do you really want me to, father?"

"Really, really, Kate, and now let us go and have a look at Joe."

* * * * *

I am ashamed to say how old Joe was. Like ladies, horses don't care to have their ages published on every house-top, and though they cannot lie for themselves on this important point, they have no difficulty in finding many to lie for them.

Joe was said to have been eight when the Lowrys bought him, and they had ridden the gallant brown for seven years. But eight is a queer age in a horse, as expansive and uncertain as the adjective "young" when applied to spinsters. At the lowest computation Joe was not less than fifteen, and a "vet." who wanted to buy him once pledged his professional credit that he was twenty-six at least. Be this as it may, when an hour later he walked out of his loose box, he looked the very type and _beau idéal_ of a twelve-stone hunter. From the carriage of his lean game head and trimly-docked tail, from the cheery snort with which he welcomed the fresh air, from the muscle on his square and massive quarters, from his hard, clean legs and full, bold eye, you might have fancied he was a six-year-old. A veteran strapper who had followed the squire from the Hall to the cottage, had spent an hour in dressing the old horse, and the squire's own hands had put the finishing touches to his toilette. Proud and gay the old rascal looked before his mistress mounted, but when she was in the saddle he gave one wild kick from mere exuberance of spirits and then trotted out of the yard, as old Tim expressed it, "for all the world as if he was tridding on eggs."

* * * * *

"Ye gods! she is a dazzler! Quite takes my breath away," said a shiny-hatted, faultlessly-breeched stranger from Dublin to a young local Nimrod; "why, there are not half-a-dozen girls, even with the Meath, who have ventured out yet in Busvine's scarlet array, and here is a young lady in the wilds of Gonaway with a seat like a sack of potatoes and raiment more magnificent than Solomon in all his glory."

"Fits her well for all that, and suits her style, milk and roses and that sort of thing, you know," replied the local, himself rather a captive to the fair equestrienne.

"Milk and roses! Milk and fiddlestick! Lemon and white I should describe her if she was in the setter class; but tell me, who is she, and has she any money?"

Needless, perhaps, to explain that poor Polly Preece was the subject of this irreverent banter, which in a measure perhaps she had deserved, for though a pretty woman in "the lady's pink" is a fair picture in a showy frame, she must not be hurt if she is a little stared at on her first appearance. And, indeed, Polly was not hurt. On the contrary she was flattered and in high spirits. Her new jacket fitted her to perfection; her horse was well-mannered and easy to ride; she had drawn the attention of every one to her sweet self, and she felt for the moment that "blues" or fear had for her neither existence nor meaning.

A large group of late comers was still standing in the doorway and on the broad steps of the hall, chaffing each other or pledging their host in a last stirrup cup.

"What is that madcap daughter of mine about now?" exclaimed old Preece, as Polly broke from the throng and sent her horse along over the turf at a rattling gallop, followed by two or three of her admirers.

From the steps to the line of elms no fence was visible to the spectators, and yet before reaching the avenue, three of the horses rose at something, and the fourth and his rider seemed to be swallowed up.

"Good heavens! young Voyle is down in the Park fence," cried Preece; and sure enough the exquisite from Dublin shortly after emerged from the abyss, his hat crushed, his breeches smirched, and his temper somewhat soured by the loss of a good horse.

"Really, Mr Preece, you must curb that young lady's pluck; she will break her neck some day if you don't take care," suggested an elderly friend.

"Break her neck," growled old Preece; "it isn't pluck, it is folly; wait until she has had a fall; you'll see she will learn better."

Kate had been sitting a quiet spectator of this little episode, though the old horse had backed and fidgetted with impatient desire to join in the fun.

As Polly rode back from the fence she caught sight of Kate, and with that sweetness which women show to rivals they detest, wreathed her face in smiles and laid a caressing hand on Joe's mane.

"Oh, Kate, how glad I am to see you out! I wish, dear, you had let me know that you meant to come. You might have ridden Dennis or my bay. I am afraid your dear old horse is almost past work now!"

"Doesn't look like it, does he, Miss Preece?" retorted Kate, as Joe champed his bit and pawed the velvet turf. Polly hated to be called Miss Preece by Kate, and would fain have passed for her bosom friend; but Kate unfortunately chose her own friends for herself, and Polly was not of them.

"Cousin Kate is a rare believer in the old horse," remarked George Vernon as he joined the two girls.

"Yes," assented Polly, "your cousin is a very antiquary; she likes everything that is old, and only what is old. She has even spoken slightingly of this miracle of Mr Busvine's. From politics to petticoats, Miss Lowry is a Tory, like her father!"

"I admit all you say, Miss Preece, and glory in it. I do prefer old habits, sartorial and otherwise, to any others."

There was a deepening in the blue of Kate's eyes as this word-play went on, which looked as if she was more than half in earnest.

"Well, I don't agree with you, and for the sake of example I will back my young chestnut against your veteran in the field to-day," quoth Polly.

"Oh, come, Miss Preece, that's hardly fair," broke in George; six against twenty-six, isn't it, Kate?"

"It may be, Cousin George, but the old horse can quite take care of himself, thank you. Yes, I'll match my old one against your chestnut, owners up; who is to be judge?"

"Would you mind, Captain Vernon?" pleaded Polly.

"No, certainly. What are the stakes?"

"Oh, say a pair of gloves; I am too much of a pauper to make the bet in dozens," replied Kate, and so the bet was made.

* * * * *

The morning was a bright one, with a touch of hoar frost on the grass, which none but the early risers saw.

At 11.15 the rime had all gone, and the air was as "balmy as May," the sun shone brightly, and men's spirits were as brilliant as the weather.

But the first draw was a long one, and a blank. The second was like it, and again no noisy note replied to what Captain Pennell Elmhirst calls "the huntsman's tuneful pleading."

Faces began to lengthen. A blank at Tod Hall had never been heard of in the memory of man. The gentlemen in velveteen who had taken a somewhat prominent part in the morning's proceedings had disappeared by noon, and men spoke disparagingly of the race which some sportsmen aver is a compound of policeman and poacher.

It was easy by two o'clock to tell the men who rode horses from those who only "talked horse."

The "customers" were all looking grim and silent; the men of the road were brightly conversational, and sat in groups discussing their cigars and whisky flasks at every point from which they could not possibly see, should the hounds slip quietly and suddenly away.

The little group near the corner of the covert had grown weary of waiting. The glow which follows a sharp trot to covert on your favourite hack, and the consumption of "just one glass" of orange brandy, had worn off, and the damp chill of a November afternoon had begun to pierce through the stoutest of pinks and to chill the gayest of hearts.

The horses had fretted themselves into a white lather with impatience, or stood with drooping heads and staring coats, mute witnesses to the chill which had come with afternoon and hope deferred. Everything suggested that fox-hunting was an overrated amusement.

Little by little the hounds had drawn away from the Hall and its overstocked coverts, until now, at 2 P.M., they were thrown into a small outlying wood, where pheasants were never reared and rarely shot.

At last there was a doubtful whimper; then a hard-looking man in mufti (a local horse dealer) stood up in his stirrups and held his hat high above his head. A dozen keen pair of eyes saw the signal, and though no foolish halloa imperilled their chance of a run, the light and colour came back into the men's faces, and they forgot in a moment the miseries of the morning as they marked the lithe red form of reynard steal out of covert, and with a whisk of his grey-tagged brush, make off leisurely, with his head set straight for the stiffest line in the county.

By this time the first doubtful whimper had been caught up and repeated in fuller and more certain tones, and there was little need of the horn to call loiterers from covert.

One after another the beauties tumbled out in hot haste, hackles up. For one moment each seemed to dwell as he cleared the brakes, and then with a rush they gathered to where old Monitor had the line under the lee of a grey stone wall, along which the whole pack glanced, swift and close packed as wild fowl on the wing, while the keen November air thrilled with the maddest, merriest music that ever made a sportsman's blood tingle in his veins.

The wild freshness of the morning, with its bright sunshine, had given place to frost, and men settled grimly down to their work with the conviction that with such a burning scent and an afternoon fox few would live with hounds to the finish.

The field was never a large one from the start. None but those who got away at once had a chance of seeing the run, for the first mile was ridden at racing pace over a lovely grass country, with nothing to stop hounds or men save low stone walls, over which they slipped without a rattle like the phantoms of a dream. Amongst those still with hounds at the end of the first mile were the two ladies and the master. Polly's red jacket had followed George Vernon as the needle follows the magnet--a little too closely, perhaps, for the comfort of the magnet. Kate had been in trouble on the right, her old horse, fresh and mad with excitement and out of temper with the long restraint of the morning, had got his ears laid flat back and the bit in his teeth.

For the moment the temperate habits of past years were forgotten, and poor Kate, with arms aching and powerless, felt herself flashing over stout stone walls at a pace which would have been dangerous over sheep hurdles.

Polly's chestnut, on the contrary, was behaving in a manner which would have done credit to the best horse in Galway or with the Heythrop, steadying himself at every wall and popping over with the least possible exertion to himself or risk to his rider.

And now five of the "pursuers" were in one field, grass beneath their feet and a fair stone wall without a gap in it in front.

All except Polly probably noticed the rushes which grew in tiny bunches beneath the wall, and guessed from them and from the sudden dip of the land that the take-off would be a boggy one.