an' I could bate his horse aisy, he'd have the word for me with Janey,
an' before Shrove so that we'd settle."
Rourke was a long, lean youth, with shifty eyes and a battered
complexion; he was loose of joint and given to wearing the long coats
and over-baggy breeches of the horse-coper. His friends said that he
was one that knew daylight when he saw it, and his enemies that there
was no roguery that he had not a masthery of, exceptin' maybe the little
he'd forgotten. He drank and was not attractive.
"Make Rourke do the dacent, Mr. Dillon, to make up for the way ye
thrated me, an' I'll say no more."
Darby rubbed his nose thoughtfully; this long, lean youth could do a
great deal to spoil fox hunting; there were two coverts on his land, and
several others on those of his relations and friends.
"We'll ride over to Rourke's," said Darby to Andy. "I'll see what I can
do, Rooney."
Darby crippled down the steps, swinging out more easily on the gravel
with his crutch under his arm. The twisted leg was growing so strong
that the crutch would soon be discarded for a stick, and Darby was
looking forward with a child's zest to throwing it away. They were
making him a new boot which would support the foot and help him greatly.
Yet the very flush of partial strength, the brightness of the cool
winter's day, brought a sigh quickly on the heels of elation. It was
hard to be able to feel young, and yet have all youth's possessions
placed well out of reach. He was a mere piece of flotsam cast up on
Life's beach, riddled and battered, never to float lightly on the
grey-blue salt waters.
Darby clambered on to the back of his pet chestnut. Once in the saddle
he was upright, sitting easily, a cripple no longer. Riper plunged
lightly and came down to the firm, light touch on the bits and the
pressure of a heel. Andy scrambled on to his second mount, a stumpy and
dogged roan cob, rejoicing in the stable name of Go Aisy--because "go
aisy" he would except under stress of the sharpest spurs--though he had
been christened Dobbin.
Rourke's house lay inland, snug in a hollow. There were signs of good
farming over the carefully kept fences, the fields free of weeds, the
heaps of manure out ready for top-dressing; the house was substantial
and the yard clean.
Jamesey himself was ringing a young horse at the back. He was a
fresh-faced, squarely-built fellow, unpretentious and good-humoured.
In answer to Darby's questions, he put in the lumpy youngster and put a
bridle on the dun horse, pulling him out.
"Look at him! An', in God's name, sir, is it likely he'd ever bate that
great stridin' horse again?" he said, grinning. "They are schooling
That's the Boy now, an' without a crowd likely he wouldn't fall. An'
why would I be out to be a laffin' sthock to please Masther Dan Rooney?"
Darby explained further in low tones.
James Rourke's face fell a little. He replied that he was really
attached to Jennie once, and that all was going well until the war and
the buying of remounts.
"An' then ye see me bit comes gradual, bein' honest airnin's; but Dan
Rooney med a rich man of himself sellin' misfortunes to the
soldiers--buyin' here an' there, he havin' a friend in the barracks.
Well, before Hivin, Mr. Darby, one blind as a sthone, an' one a runaway
that no man could manage, but he drugged him carryin' him in; an' one
with staggers, an' a kicker that it never let ye up, an' a craythur with
spavins. I couldn't be goin' to say me prayers thinkin' of some poor
felly wantin' to make a boult with Slattery's grey kicker to try to get
on; but Rooney bought the dhregs of the counthry-side, an' drew out more
than ye'd believe, and now he has Jennie's father tormented with the
show of money. A new side-car no less, with green cushions, an' silver
spoons to stir tay with--he bought thim above at an auction--an' two
yelly an' red china vases for the parlour table. He has the ould man
mismerized, while poor Janey----"
Just then Jane O'Dea herself, on her greatly galled black horse, rode
shyly into the yard, and seeing Darby there, asked behind hot blushes
for the lend of a bridle, hers being unsteady. She had really come to
see the cup.
With a great many protests she got down, folding a modestly unsafe habit
skirt about her gaitered ankles, and was welcomed by Jamesey's mother.
Darby knew now that tea, eggs and blackberry jam were things he could
not escape from. He admired the silver cup which he had purchased, and
grinned as he looked--the reflection of Jamesey silently kissing Miss
O'Dea being clearly mirrored in the polished surface. Later on, when the
room had lost its earthly smile and grown tropical in temperature, he
removed the young people to the yard, where Jane, growing truthful in
her sadness, said her Dada was set upon Dan Rooney, had been shaken by
the beating of the big horse and the unpleasant loss of five shillings,
but now inclined, bribed by libations of whisky, to Rooney again.
"Danny sayin' he'll be aisy on me fortin'," she said tearfully, "an' not
on this horse even that is me own; an' he swearin' that if Jamesey here
does not run off the race, he is a coward and had no right to win; an',
agen, that the raison is that Jamesey has not twinty pound to lay down
ready money."
The course of true love was not running smooth. It was Andy coming over
and whispering in Rourke's ear who seemed to oil the machinery. A slow
smile broke across Jamesey's face, and an expression of dubious anxiety
gradually gave way to one of hope.
He told Darby that he'd say in a day or two if he could run the match,
and then hoisted Janey to her saddle with many "Lord, save us!" and
"Have a cares!" from the unagile damsel.
Darby rode a little way with her, telling Andy to keep behind. Coyly,
since it is not maidenly to express affection, she told him how she
disliked Mr. Rooney, and how her heart was set on Jim.
"An' what is a few pounds extra if it goes on check ridin' trousers an'
whisky," said Miss Janey shrewdly, "which is both poor value, Mr.
Dillon!"
Darby said "Undoubtedly."
"An' he no farmer, but all for buyin' bad horses an' sellin' them on. A
stable full there now on him, with the greenest buyers beginnin' to look
at more than just that a horse is alive, as they did at first. A pianny
he promised me, an' I scalded from musical pieces at the convent,
pullin' out with your fingers what a musical box'd tune for you for the
twist of a handle. An' if it's up there I goes, it will be with the
heart broke in me," concluded Janey tearfully, as she pointed to a bleak
house upon a hill. "An' go I will if poor Jamesey cannot beat that ould
thoroughbred in a match."
Darby rode on to Castle Freyne. He found Gheena leaning over one of the
horses' doors, her face set gravely and time of gay youth fled.
"It's Dearest, Darby," she said. "He has taken to sticking little
pin-pricks into me, refusing white oats for the horses, stopping fires,
keeping in the motor. He would dismiss my two new old men but mother
considers their employment charity. And Lancelot is staying on for a
month, and I--wish there had never been a war. It seems to upset
everyone so"--Gheena's busy unskilful fingers clicked at her
knitting--"now they talk of submarines coming along in herds and our
having supply bases for them. And if they have, Crabbit and I will find
them," said Gheena emphatically.
"I am afraid I cannot come along the rocks to help, Gheena."
Her face softened suddenly.
"You could motor me," she said, "to points and places. As petrol is too
dear to use now we are to have out the wagonette and drive the farm
horses. But wait until Dearest misses the first train to Cortra," said
Gheena hopefully, "and mother takes his advice as to hiring a car to go
on in, because she must have supplies for the week and the curry powder
is out."
Darby put his horse up and accepted a drive to the village in Gheena's
pony-trap. The pony was a creature of moods which occasionally rattled
along at a gallop, and more often walked and grazed. It had a hard side
to its mouth, a failing which made traffic a difficulty, and it
occasionally kicked when beaten.
As they drove, Gheena explained that she had strong hopes of Whitebird
being returned to her. She had written to her uncle, telling of the
horse's little accomplishment, which was lying down flat at a certain
signal. The grey had been brought up in a circus. He had done it once
out hunting at the sound of a whistle.
"And ... Uncle Tony has learnt the whistle," said Gheena softly and with
meaning.
Darby observed that he understood the sixty pounds had been carefully
spent, so the money would have to be returned, and a bump stopped
further conversation.
"If they won't pick up their legs in time I can't help them doing it too
late and overbalancing," she said severely. "It's your own fault, Ned
Kavanagh, you know Topsy."
The aggrieved Kavanagh remarked sourly that he was greatly hurted where
he met the road, and that it was to fall or the loss of two good legs.
He mounted his cart again, glaring balefully at the pony.
Topsy having declined to come over, they had grazed a donkey cart, and
the driver's wild swoop to save his dangling limbs had resulted in his
overbalancing.
They skated off a large heap of stones and pulled up in the village,
when they saw two motors outside Mrs. Weston's cottage.
"Is Stafford the latest?" Darby asked.
Gheena did not reply, but was snappish to Topsy when the pony would not
stand. The old Professor was in the shop--a crowded place, smelling of
cheese and bacon and flannelette, where you could purchase a reel of
cotton with a salted pig's head brushing your hat, and pull the
flannelette of your choice out from under lumps of butter and loaves of
bread. The window rejoiced in an array of Peggy's leg firmly adhering
to its glass bottles, some tins of tomatoes, an array of match-boxes and
the day's bread; the far end of the shop was the post-office, smelling
of damp gum and dust.
Here Miss Carty, the postmistress, had at first been greatly put out
because every man in the Army, no matter what regiment they jined, good
Munsthers or not, was all put into the same lot--the Expeditionary
Force--where, for all they knew, they might be dyin' and fightin' with
misfortunate furriners, Scotch and English. Explanation having proved
vain, she gave it up and accepted the injustice. Mrs. Carty, who rolled
to and fro deftly amid boxes and barrels, was a person of superior
intelligence, greatly shocked just then at the hobnobbing of the English
soldiers with the German thraitors at Christmas-tide.
"If it was rooses to get them over to their ditches and doctor them
quietly, I could understand," declaimed Mrs. Carty; "but--but to be
handin' out smhokes and dhrinks an' carryin' on pleasantly without an
objec'! I have the sardines in, Miss Gheena. Thruppence a box extry,
seein' the ways them under-minded boats has all the fish swhep from the
say. Aisy for them to get a catch down below with the fish to be cot
an' they slheepin'."
Gheena placed the sardines in the trap and got in gloomily.
They were hailed passing Mrs. Weston's door. Violet really brilliant in
pale blue with a wide sailor hat on her toupee, and wearing purple shoes
and stockings, was at it with Stafford.
"Watching for you," she said to Gheena, "to bring you in to tea."
Gheena observed with care how Stafford kept close to Violet as they went
up the path, and looked really admiringly at her brilliant colouring and
bright face.
"If she'd only let her feet out," said Darby, hobbling in.
Mrs. Weston did not excel in giving tea. It came up upon a brass tray,
and was generally both stewed and chilly. Two bought cakes, crumbly and
dry, and a plate of thick bread and butter were the eatables.
Mrs. Weston said frankly that tea was washy stuff, and called for the
forgotten sugar.
Old Berthe, in frilled cap with banded grey hair, hobbled off rapidly.
She was enveloped by many petticoats, and was a taciturn old woman,
never going out or making friends.
"Poor Berthe is so anxious about her precious Switzerland," said Violet,
"for fear it would go to war, and all her relations in France, and no
way of hearing."
Gheena was still gloomy. She could not understand why her stepfather
had grown suddenly unpleasant and niggardly, and why they seemed to
collide so often. Lancelot, the wounded hero, rather interested her--she
was kind-hearted enough to like waiting on him, and was even a little
pleased at his dependence upon her.
After a cup of tepid tea and a prolonged period of Mr. Keefe glaring at
Mr. Stafford, Gheena got up to go home. Darby having taken the lid off
the teapot looked into it critically.
"Made with cold water and let heat, foreign fashion," he said. "Why
not, Mrs. Weston, teach your old lady the English way?"
Violet said, "Imagine you knowing the other!" in a curious way.
"And some of you have left your pipe," called out Gheena. She had
dropped a glove and stayed to hunt for it. She brought out an ornate
carved pipe, lately used.
Violet said she thought it must be the Professor's as no one else
claimed it, and took it back.
The Professor, whom they met toddling back from his walk, stopped to
speak, and got asked in to Castle Freyne for tea. He thought the pipe
was probably that wild Mrs. Weston's. "But her garden is tidier. She
did rave at the man Guinane when she came back a few evenings ago, so
high that I heard her scolding. Carefully, Darby; stand still, Topsy,
you beast!"
The hurt of helplessness came back to Darby; he should have been helping
Gheena out. It reminded him of what he was to see her spring to the
pony's head and stop the little beast going on.
"You take care of the poor cripple, Gheena," he said gently.
Gheena's eyes filled with tears as she muttered denial. Darby swung up
the shallow steps, his leg was undoubtedly growing stronger.
Later on he told Gheena all about the dispute over the race.
At the next meet, two days afterwards, Rourke rode up on the little dun.
"They have me shamed, Mr. Darby," he said, "with 'Afraid ye are,' and
'How many mile would ye be left behind in two?'"
Darby wondered.
"An' 'If ye're horse is good, pull him out.' So the match it will have
to be--or Juliana Carty above at the farm, an' I have no great wish for
her for a wife."
Janey rode up at the moment, her cheeks polished with soap, her tie well
ironed, and her pretty face looking out under a fringe of brown hair,
and James sighed.
"I have a wish for Janey," he said shyly. "An' so will ye settle all
for the match, sir, I'll risk it."
Darby said hopefully that the thoroughbred might fall.
"Or he might not gallop as fast as he'd think," said Jamesey softly.
"Ye'd niver know. Ye'd niver know."
The result of this was that after a good hunt and a kill, Darby took the
two men home with him to settle matters.
"We will write it out proper," said Rourke, "so as to be sure."
Darby was familiar with matches. He wrote out that Mr. D. Rooney's
That's the Boy, five years, by Barcol Lise, would be matched against Mr.
J. Rourke's--here he lifted his pen.
"I have no right name for him," said Jamesey vaguely; "put me little dun
horse, sir, five years."
"Dun horse, five years," wrote on Darby, "twenty pounds a side--over a
natural course of three miles."
"An' let all have good coats on to keep warm waitin' for Rourke here,"
sneered Rooney.
"Yerself an' ye're dirty boastin'," returned Rourke, without the
animosity which seemed natural.
"Will ye bet me five pounds I'm not in five minnits before ye cross the
last fince?" stormed Rooney.
"I will so," said Jamesey firmly, pulling out some greasy notes which he
handed to Darby.
Darby had a great deal to say to the match, and saw Janey, who was
racked by doubt and fears.
"For he'd be the slithery class of a husband, that Dan," she said
fretfully; "one that does no credit to the good bit he'd get, an' he
takes drink terrible. An' Jamesey cannot win, an' yet he has a smilin'
face on him; an' he ordthered two new cushions for his side-car at
Carey's yesterday to drive home from chapel on. He says he'd stand me
three days in Dublin straight away if I'd fancy it, too. An' he without
a chance!"
The date of the match was fixed for the second Thursday in January at
one o'clock, until Rooney wrote to say that he must go to the big town,
and could not get back until three, so it must be run then.
Now the hours after three early in January begin to get chill and dark,
but it had to be.
Everyone related to the Rourkes and Rooneys poured in from all sides to
see the match; the hillside was black with cars and carts; there was
even a stall laden with glutinous leathery buns dotted with pink sugar,
and surreptitious porter sold and consumed behind a flapping tent. The
one bookmaker had returned, to close almost immediately up That's the
Boy and take all he could get for Rourke's dun.
At a quarter-past three Rourke trotted up, his mount veiled in a
brand-new American rug of superlative smartness, and bandaged all round
with linen bandages.
"If it's racin' I am, it's racin' I may as well look," he said
good-humouredly when chaffed.
Old Mr. O'Dea, who was stout and slow of movement, came up to say
querulously that he heard it was childthers' nonsense putting out that
dun at all. And that now maybe they'd hear no more boasting and chat.
James replied that with luck he might not, looking fixedly at the
flushed countenance of his opponent.
Janey's father, coming to superintend, remarked to Rourke that if it was
an accident his taking the cup, there was no call to make so much boast
of it afther Mass, Janey listening with tears in her eyes.
Here Mr. Rooney broke in with, "An' he not able to win until Miss
Gheena's pony had to be pulled off. An' the gibin' before all with
'Where was ye're racehorse?' or 'Will ye have a drink out of silver?'"
James Rourke's complete good-humour as he stood by the sheeted dun
roused his opponent to further eloquence. Bitterly he informed the
interested listeners that when Cup-winner James inquired where was the
racehorse to-day, it was gone home, they could tell him, if any friends
waited on in the could to see the thrickster come in.
Here Darby thought that if the matter was to be put to the proof, it
might be better to start while there was a little light, and he looked
thoughtfully at Rourke's reserved smile.
When Dan Rooney emerged from the chrysalis of his coat, as a butterfly
in a pink jacket, dirty breeches and papery boots, his glitter wrought a
groan of admiration from the crowd.
Old O'Dea, falling back to admire, suggested that he was the Boyo
himself, the fine figure of a man, what there was of him. When James,
quietly arrayed in his hunting kit, slipped the rug from his horse,
leaving on the bandages, and it was observed that its tail was plaited
up, fresh pleasantries broke forth.
Someone wished to know if Rourke imagined he owned The Tetrarch. A
large Rooney cousin asked hilariously if Danny thought maybe that if he
foxed the horse he was a racehorse he'd run faster, to which James
replied pleasantly that he might, and backed himself for another pound.
Darby had laid out a fair course, over easy banks, and presenting no
difficulties for a striding horse.
That's the Boy looked overtrained and tucked up. He lashed out irritably
when mounted.
From the start Rooney adopted the hurricane-like tactics which he meant
to win with. He tore away at racing pace, taking the first fence in his
stride.
There were no horses to confuse the big youngster. He fled along at a
pace which no one could possibly hope the dun to keep up with.
"All over," said Darby, putting up a pair of totally useless glasses,
for it was growing quite dusk. "Poor Rourke won't see the way the other
is going in half a mile."
But to everyone's astonishment the dun horse and quietly-dressed rider
clung obstinately close to the comet-like flash of Dan Rooney's pink
jacket. The rider of That's the Boy shook up the big horse to a pace
which set him sprawling, and all but resulted in disaster at a bank.
Sobered by this, he looked back angrily and pulled his horse together;
he was a fine rider. Still going quite easily and slugging hard against
his bit, the dun was close behind. Rooney sat forward, using as much
jockey fashion as he could master, bumping uncomfortably at his jumps.
"Did ye dhrug him?" hurled Rooney over an irate shoulder, "that I can
hear him so long?"
"Three gallons of whisky. Was it cloryform yours got?" was Rourke's
reply, his tone preoccupied, for they were nearing the nasty little
scramble in and out of the boreen.
Gheena and Darby had cut the two racers off at this point, and listened,
smiling, to them.
"But I never saw Rooney adopt Tod Sloan's style before," said Darby;
"and if he can't get the horse together, he'll fall at the boreen."
That's the Boy, consummately handled, dropped in and out just without a
fall; the dun struck the far fence hard, grunted, and bundled somehow
into the far field, shooting his rider off. With the boreen behind him
and Rourke down, Rooney cheered as he galloped on.
But the fall took little more time than a clean jump would have done.
James Rourke was up again as soon as his horse and sat back suddenly.
"Be dam to where the weight is! How can he win if it is not there at
all!" he stormed as he changed his seat.
Next moment, in the fast falling dusk, the spectators roared to see the
despised dun closing the gap, fighting his way to the big horse's
quarters, to his girth, forging ahead.
At this stage Jane O'Dea fell upon her father's neck, clasping him
closely as she wailed, "It was no boastin', Pappy, it was no boastin',"
into the displeased ear of a man who had invested five pounds at evens
on Rooney, and who thirsted for liberty of action to get something
speedily on the other.
"If he wasn't boastin', then wasn't he lyin', to pretend to let the Rat
up lasht time?" roared O'Dea, when his proffered crown on the dun had
been promptly refused.
An enthusiastic cousin of Rooney's offered an even crown, hotly
declaring, "It's cantherin' the man is, so as to make a race of it, and
shame the other."
"If he is, he is beltin'," shrilled Janey, letting her parent go.
"Beltin'!"
"He has the sphur out too," grunted her progenitor. "I'll make the crown
double, if ye like, Tom Rooney."
The big, bewildered youngster sprang forward to the drub of the stick
and the bite of the steel in his flanks. He gave of his best, but the
little dun was a length ahead, striding along, pulling double, and his
rider had not moved.
They landed over the last fence, the bay closed the gap, the dun surged
forward. The crowd swayed and roared, leaping into traps which gave way
and upset them, hurling up hats, jumping to get a better view. The one
bookmaker, seeing the dun ahead, wondered if he had got straight to
Heaven through the laxity of the authorities, and looked at his book
with breath held hard. As they dashed up the long slope, Rooney dropped
his reins a little, so that just at the post the bay closed upon him,
and the dun's head was barely half a length in front.
"It was one of them hippodromic sirringes," gasped Rooney, dropping his
tired right hand. "Nothin' less. Ye dam thraitor of a spy!" He rolled
off, panting. "I protest, Mister Dillon. He has an artificial horse med
with one of them hippodromic doses, an' it was near out of him an' he
finishing."
There was no weighing in, catch-weights had been the order. Little Andy
led off the panting dun, and Darby himself saw to the exhausted That's
the Boy. A few more gruellings of this type would break any horse's
spirit.
Mr. Rooney, bewildered, took consolation in liquid form, agreed with
several people that he was hardly treated, then his pink coat gleaming
in the dusk, he squared up to Mr. James Rourke to demand satisfaction.
"I'll show ye, ye Germin thraitor," he said bitterly, rolling the word
on his tongue. "I'll show ye to drug horses!"
"Will some friend counsel Dan Rooney not to put up a fight?" said Rourke
with reserve. "Seein' that he has more dhrink taken than I have meself,
an' that his faytures will be concayled on him for a week if he thries
it on."
Further pleasantries concerning the fact that James was afraid, and a
rider to the effect that "Perhaps if Daniel Rooney's present features
were hidden he would look all the better" from Rourke being exchanged,
Rooney broke loose from restraining friends and rushed forward, his arms
going like windmills and his face aflame. Rourke shortened matters by
knocking him down scientifically.