Monkey Brand was nodding on an upturned bucket.

As the fat man entered the loose-box, the great horse turned a shining

eye on him and whinnied.

Monkey blinked, stirred, and grunted:

"'Ello!"

He smelt strongly of whiskey.

The tout, unheeding him, produced a twitch.

But Monkey rose with heavy eyes and jerked it irritably out of the

other's hand.

"None o' that," he said.

He nodded to the open trap-door overhead.

"She sleeps up there, don't she?" whispered the fat man.

"She never sleeps," muttered the other. "Got the stuff?" he asked

drowsily.

Joses produced a bottle from the pocket of his cloak.

Monkey looked around.

"Where's a blurry bucket?" he asked, and with faltering hands inverted

the one on which he had been sitting.

"Put a drop of water in," urged the fat man.

The little man obeyed, moving uncertainly.

"Is he dry?" asked Joses.

"I wish I'd only 'alf his thirst," drowsed the other.

The fat man removed the cork from the bottle. Monkey seized it rudely

and sniffed it.

"What is it?" he asked sullenly.

"Nothing to hurt him," said Joses soothingly. "Just take the shine out

of him for a day or two."

The jockey was so drunk that he needed humouring. The tout cursed his

faulty judgment in having given the little man money to spend before the

deed had been done.

Monkey let his heavy-lidded eyes rest on the other. He was breathing

almost stertorously. Then he pushed the bottle back toward Joses.

"I mush trush you," he said, "same as you trush me. You wouldn't deceive

me, Oxford genelman and all."

"What d'you take me for?" answered Joses.

He poured the stuff into the bucket that Monkey held. It was dark and

sweet-smelling. Four-Pound-the-Second sniffed with inflated nostrils.

"Hist!" cried Monkey.

"What's that?"

"Somebury at the door."

"The door's all right. I locked it."

"He's got a key."

"Who has?"

"Silver."

"Is he on the ramp?"

"Ain't he?" snorted Monkey. "Hundred thousand--and the gal." He added

with a snort: "Thought I were a copper's nark. Good as told me so."

Joses stole down the gangway to the door.

When he came back Monkey was holding the bucket to

Four-Pound-the-Second, who was drinking noisily.

"It was only the cat," he said. "I heard her scuttle."

"Don't it smell funny?" whispered Monkey, swirling the bucket gently

under the horse's muzzle.

Joses patted the drinking horse.

"There's the beauty," he said. "Suck it down. It'll give you pleasant

dreams."

Four-Pound-the-Second had his fill by now and moved away.

Joses picked up his twitch and made for the door.

Monkey placed himself between the fat man and the exit, heavy-lidded,

stertorous, and menacing.

"One thing," he said.

"What's that?"

"Them little bits o' paper there was some talk about."

"Oh, aye, I was forgettin' them."

"Was you, then? I wasn't," said Monkey brutally. "Dole 'em out."

The fat man obeyed with a snigger; then shuffled softly down the passage

and out.

Monkey Brand heard him open the door and cross the yard.

Then a voice called:

"Hi at him!"

There was a scurry of pursuing feet, a scuffle, and a yell.

The jockey rushed out into the yard.

Joses was disappearing over the gate, flinging something behind him, and

Billy Bluff was smothered in a cape which he was worrying.

Jim Silver, racing across the yard, snatched the cape from the dog.

A window flung open.

Boy looked out.

"What is it?" she cried.

"It's all right, Miss," answered Monkey. "No 'arm done."

The girl came swiftly down the ladder in the moonlight. She was in her

wrapper, her short hair massed.

"Is the horse all right?" she cried.

"Yes, Miss."

"Where's Billy Bluff?"

"There."

Silver turned his electric torch on to a far corner of the yard, where

the dog was seen chewing a lump of meat.

Boy flung herself on him and tore it away.

"Hold him!" she cried to Jim. "Between your knees! Force his mouth open!

Mind yourself now."

She brought the stable-hose to bear upon the dog's extended mouth. He

wrestled hugely in the grip of the young man's knees, gasping,

spluttering, whining for mercy. But mercy there was none. The girl

drenched him with the hose, and the man who was holding him.

"Go and get the tandem whip!" she cried.

Monkey ran.

"Now stand at the gates, both of you, and don't let him through."

Boy seized the whip and hunted the dog about the yard. He fled madly.

For five minutes the girl pursued him remorselessly. Then he was

violently sick.

"That's better," panted the girl. "Bring that meat, Brand."

She led the way into Four-Pound-the-Second's horse-box, followed by

Silver, torch in hand.

"_He's_ not taken much harm," she said, patting the horse in her

deliberate way.

A delicious little figure she made in her striped pyjamas, her wrapper

girt about her, her feet bare in shining black pumps, and her short hair

thick and curling about her neck.

Suddenly she was aware of her companion and withdrew into herself as she

felt him watching her.

"Sweetheart honey," he purred, reaching out tender hands toward her.

She put up a warning finger.

"There's no one looking," he answered her.

"Yes, there is."

"Who?"

"Four-Pound."

"He don't matter."

"I'm not sure," she answered gravely. "He's a funny little look in his

eye."

He was making passes close to her face and throat. She restrained him.

"Wait," she said gently.

He dropped his hands.

"I shall go back to bed now," she continued. "You'd better turn in,

too--now you've caught your rat."

"I've cut off his tail anyway," laughed the young man, showing the

cloak.

Swathed in her light wrapper, the little creature shuffled swiftly down

the gangway behind the line of sleeping horses, her pumps, too big for

her bare feet, clacking on the pavement.

He followed her heavily, his eyes brimming laughter and delight.

A few minutes later Silver joined Monkey Brand in the loose-box.

"Good little try-on, sir," said the jockey busily. "Funny smelling stuff

though."

Removing a rug, he produced a bucket hidden beneath and held it to the

other's nose.

"Chuck it down the drain," said the young man.

"'Alf a mo, sir," protested Monkey Brand. "Let me fill me bottle first."

He looked up at the young man with extraordinary cunning.

"Ever know'd a monkey get squiffy?" he asked confidentially. "No. Nor me

neever."

CHAPTER XLIV

Monkey Brand Gets the Sack

Joses was lying on his bed in the gray of dawn, looking curiously livid,

when somebody whistled beneath his window.

He rose and looked out.

Monkey was standing morosely in the garden underneath.

The fat man beckoned him in, and returned to his bed.

The little jockey entered.

He was dark, sullen, dangerous.

"Well?" said the tout, lying in disarray upon the bed.

"I thought you'd done a get-away," said Monkey surlily.

"I've been queer," answered the other. "Has the stuff worked?"

"Worked!" cried the jockey, with smothered fury. "It's worked _my_ trick

all right. Never touched the 'orse. Run through him like so much water.

The chemist who made up that stuff doped you and not the 'orse--and done

me."

"What they done to you?"

"Took the cash off me, and give me the ---- boot instead."

The tout considered.

"He's fit, is he?"

"Fit?" snorted the little man. "He's throwin' back-somersaults in his

box. That's all."

"When do they box him for Liverpool?"

"Twelve-fifteen train."

Joses gathered himself with difficulty.

"See here, Brand," he said. "Are you straight?"

"Straight!" shouted Monkey. "Would I ha' sold the guv'nor I serve for

twenty year if I wasn't straight."

The fat man pulled on his boots.

"Never say die till you're dead," he said. "We must go north, too.

There's the last card and we must play it."

* * * * *

Nobody but those immediately concerned were at Polefax station to see

the local National horse boxed for Liverpool.

Albert was there, and Boy, her collar about her ears, and Billy Bluff

looking unusually dejected.

Old Mat, it was remarked by the porters, was not present; and Monkey

Brand, it was also remarked, though at the station, took no part in the

proceedings, huddling over the fire in the waiting-room, a desolate

little figure of woe.

As the young horse entered his box at a siding, the train from Brighton

came into the station.

Silver stepped out of it, a cloak over his arm.

He did not join the little group busy about the box, but made for the

solitary figure watching from the far end of the platform.

"Your cloak, Mr. Joses," he said pleasantly.

"Thank you," replied the fat man, cold and casual. "I shall want it at

Liverpool."

"You left it behind you last night."

"I did," admitted the other. "I was having a chat with Monkey Brand.

And that brute of a dog came for me as I left."

"The bottle you brought's in the pocket," continued Silver.

"Good," said Joses. "I hope there's something in it."

"Nothing now."

"Ah, shame! You shouldn't hold out false hopes."

Silver's chin became aggressive.

"Doping's a crime, Mr. Joses."

"Is that so, Mr. Silver?"

"Your attempt to dope that horse last night puts you within the grip of

the law."

"Who says I attempted to dope him?"

"I do."

"Any evidence to support your libellous statement?"

"What about the notes you gave Monkey Brand?"

The fat man laughed.

"So Monkey Brand's implicated, is he?" he said. "He took money from me

to settle your horse, and leaked when he was in liquor. That's the

story, is it?" He lifted his voice. "D'you hear that, Brand?"

"I hear," came the little sodden voice from the waiting-room. "And I

says nothing. There's One Above'll see me right."

Joses shook his curls at Silver.

"Won't wash," he said. "Really it won't. What the lawyers call

collusion. You didn't know I was trained for the Bar, did you? Another

little surprise packet for you. Come, Mr. Silver, you must do a little

better than that--an old hand like you."

The young man observed him with slow, admiring eyes.

"Joses," he said deliberately, "you're a clever rogue."

The fat man's eye became almost genial. He looked warily round, and then

came a step closer.

"Ain't I?" he whispered.

Silver, laughing gently, handed him his cloak.

"Here it is," he said. "I'm keeping the little bit of paper that was in

the pocket."

The other's pupils contracted.

"What paper's that?"

"The prescription of the dope mixture you handed in to Burgess and

Williams, the Brighton chemists, yesterday morning. They put their stamp

on it and the date. I've just come back from a chat with them."

The fat man watched the other as a rabbit watches a weasel.

"Are you going to peach?" he said.

"I'll tell you after the National," replied the other.

Joses dropped his voice into his boots.

"Make it a monkey and I'll quit," he muttered. "She's worth it," he

added cunningly.

Silver looked at him.

The tout came a sudden step closer.

"I _know_," he whispered.

BOOK VI

MOCASSIN

CHAPTER XLV

Aintree

The Grand National is always the great event of the chasing year. This

year it was something more. As the American Ambassador in England,

speaking at the Pilgrim's Club a week before the race, said, it was an

international affair fraught with possibilities for two great peoples,

one in blood and tongue and history, whom an unhappy accident had parted

for a moment in the past.

The mare indeed was a magnet. At the time that England is loud with the

voice of lambs, and the arabis in Sussex gardens begins to attract the

bees, she was drawing men to her from all the ends of the earth.

They came hurrying across the seas in their thousands to see the Hope of

the Young Countries triumphant, and above all to compel fair play for

their champion.

Indeed, there was an undeniable touch of defiance about the attitude of

most of them. Last year the old folks at home--God bless em!--John Bull,

the leariest of frank-spoken rogues!--had done her in.

The mare had won and had been disqualified. Those were the simple facts;

and no casuistry by the cleverest of London lawyers could get away from

them.

On the question of Chukkers and the Bully Boys, as the English cheap

press called them, showed themselves eminently reasonable.

As they said themselves not without grimness, "Gee!--Don't we know

Chukkers?--Didn't we riz him? His father was a Frisco Chink, and his

mother a Mexican half-breed. You can tell us nothing about him we don't

know. We admit it all. Wipe it out. If she'd been ridden by the

straightest feller that ever sat in the pigskin the result'd have been

the same. Are you going to give America best in your big race? Is John

Bull a bleatin' baa-lamb?"

And so _Hands off and no Hanky-Panky_ was the war-chaunt of the young

American bloods whom great Cunarders vomited on to the docks at

Liverpool and P.-and-O.'s landed at Tilbury to join the Ikey's Own, who

had been on watch throughout the winter.

* * * * *

The National always takes place on the Friday of Aintree week.

All the week special trains were running Liverpool-ward from the ends of

the British Isles. London, Glasgow, Cardiff, and Plymouth each sent

their contingents speeding north on the same engrossing errand. All day

and night people were turning out in their thousands, hanging over

bridges, lining railway embankments, to see the great engines with the

Kangaroo bound to their buffer-plates coming through, yes, and cheering

them.

The Boys in the corridor trains stood at the windows with folded arms,

watched the waving crowds grimly, and winked at each other.

They had a profound admiration for John Bull's capacity for roguery, and

an equally profound belief in their own ability to go one better.

Last year J.B. had bested them--and they thought all the better of him

for it. This year they meant to get their own back--and a bit more.

_We are coming, Uncle Ikey, we are coming millions strong,

For to see the haughty English don't do our Ikey wrong,_

they sang out of the windows with provocative enjoyment.

The people waving on the embankments were in fact innocent of crime,

committed or conceived. They had no champion of their own, and with a

certain large simplicity they hailed as theirs the mare who had crossed

the seas to trample on them.

Liverpool made holiday for the occasion.

The Corporation feasted its American visitors, while the big ship-owners

gave a dance at the Wellington Rooms.

The Adelphi Hotel was the headquarters of the Beyond-the-Seas folk, and

it was full to overflowing. In the huge dining-room, where every year

the Waterloo Cup dinner is held, there was an immense muster the night

before the race. Lord Milburn, the Prime Minister, was there, with the

Mayor of Liverpool on his left, and the American Ambassador upon his

right. One famous Ex-President of the Great Republic was present, and

many of the most distinguished citizens of the two countries; Ikey

Aaronsohnn with his eternal twinkle, was there, and Jaggers looking like

a Church of England Bishop. Chukkers alone was absent. And he was lying

low upstairs, it was said, with one of Ikey's Own at his bedside, and

another over his door, to see that no harm befell him before the great

day dawned. America might not like the great jockey, but she meant him

to ride her mare to victory.

Lord Milburn, a somewhat ponderous gentleman, well-known with the Quorn,

a representative Imperialist statesman, was at his best. And if his

best was never very good, at least his references to Mocassin brought

down the house.

"She is something moa than the best steeplechaser that ever looked

through a bridle-ah," he announced in his somewhat portentous way. "She

is--in my judgment--the realization of a dream. In her have met once

more the two great streams of the Anglo-Saxon race. You have every right

to be proud of hah; and so, I venture to say, have we. For we of the old

country claim our share in the mare. She comes, I say, in the last

resort--the last resort--of English thoroughbred stock. (Cheers,

Counter-cheers.) And if she wins to-morrah--as she will (cheers), 'Given

fair play'" came a voice from the back. "_That_ she will get--(cheers

and boos)--the people of this country will rejoice that another edifice

has been laid to the mighty brick--ah of Anglo-Saxon fellowship on which

the hope, and I think I may say, the happiness of the world depends."

The evening ended, as the Liverpool _Herald_ reported, at two in the

morning, when Abe Gideon, the bark-blocks comedian, was hoisted on to

the table and sang the _Mocassin Song_ to a chorus that set the water in

the docks rocking.

CHAPTER XLVI

The Sefton Arms

Old Mat never stopped in Liverpool for the big race.

That was partly because everybody else did, and partly because he always

preferred The Sefton Arms upon the course. When his little daughter

first took to accompanying her dad to the National she used to stay the

night with a Methodist cousin of her mother's and join her father on the

course next morning.

This time she refused point-blank to favour Cousin Agatha, and further

refused to argue the matter. She was going with her father to The Sefton

Arms. Mrs. Woodburn was genuinely distressed, so much so indeed that

Silver heard her hold forth for the first time in his knowledge of her

on the modern mother's favourite theme--the daughter of to-day.

Old Mat gave her little sympathy.

"She's said she's goin', so goin' she is," he grunted matter-of-factly.

"No argifyin's no good when she's said that. You might know that by now,

Mar."

He added, to assuage his wife, that Mr. Silver was going to stop with

them at The Sefton Arms.

"He's better than some," said the old lady almost vengefully.

"Now then, Mar-r-r!" cried the old man, "You're gettin' a reg'lar old

woman, you are."

When his wife had left the room in dudgeon:

"It's silly," grunted the trainer. "'Course she wants to be on the

course. It's only in Natur. It's her hoss, and her race. She ain't goin'

to run no risks. And I don't blame her neether. There's only one way o'

seein' a thing through as I've ever know'd, and that's seein' it through

yourself."

* * * * *

Mrs. Woodburn's good-bye to her daughter was cold as it was wistful.

At the garden-gate Boy turned and waved.

"Cheer, mum!" she cried.

Her mother, standing austerely on the steps of the house, did not

respond.

"I shall be back on Saturday," called the girl as she climbed into the

buggy.

* * * * *

That was on the Monday.

On that day Boy and Albert and Billy Bluff took the young horse north,

travelling all the way in his box.

At Euston it was evident something out of the way was forward. There was

hardly a crowd at the station, but expectant folk were gathered here and

there in knots and there were more police than usual about.

The secret was soon out.

Jaggers, with the air of the Grand Inquisitor, appeared on the platform

with his head-lad, Rushton. The trainer entered into talk with a man

whom Albert informed his mistress was a cop in plain clothes.

"Place swarms with 'em," the youth whispered. "And Ikey's Own. They're

takin' no chances."

In fact, Mocassin and her two stable-companions were travelling on the

same train as the Putnam horse.

As Albert remarked, not without complacency:

"One thing. If there's a smash we're all in it."

At Aintree the crowd, which somehow always knows, had gathered to see

the crack. They didn't see much but four chestnut legs and a long tail;

but what they saw was enough to satisfy them. You could swaddle her like

a corpse from muzzle to hocks, and from withers to fetlock, but the

Queen of Kentucky's walk was not to be mistaken. And as she came out of

her box on to the platform, treading daintily, the little gathering

raised the familiar slogan that told she was betrayed.

Boy let the favourite get well away before she unboxed her horse. There

was nobody about by then but a small urchin who jeered:

"Say, lydy! is yon what they call a camel-leopard?"

The little party had the road to themselves, and passed unheeded.

The Billjim Guard were escorting the favourite to the yard, and the

crowd were escorting the Billjims.

When Four-Pound-the-Second reached the yard with his three satellites

twenty minutes later, the backwash of the crowd still eddied and swirled

about the entrance.

The policeman on the gate made a fuss about admitting Billy Bluff. But

the head yard-man, who knew Mat Woodburn's daughter almost as well as he

knew his own, interfered on her behalf.

"He'll sleep in my horse's box," Boy explained.

"Won't your horse sleep without him, Miss?" grinned the yard-man.

"Not so well," answered the girl.

"Oh, let him in," said the other. "Pity to spoil that horse's beauty

sleep. Might lose his looks."

Boy could never bring herself to titter at the jokes of those whom it

was expedient to placate. Happily Albert was at hand to make amends, and

he, to be sure, had no qualms of conscience.

The little procession entered, Billy Bluff at the heels of the great

horse, striking fire in the dusk from the cobbled yard.

"He's to look after Chukkers, I suppose," said the yard-man grimly,

pleased at his own generosity, well satisfied with his wit, and fairly

so with Albert's tribute to it.

"He's to look after my horse," said Boy resolutely.

"He looks he could look after himself, Miss," replied the witty

yard-man.

"So he can, sir, with you to help him," said the swift and tactful

Albert.

The yard-man, who could tell you stories of Boomerang's National, and

Cannibal's victory, that not even Monkey Brand could surpass, knew of

old the feeling between Putnam's and the Dewhurst stable, and had placed

the boxes of the two horses far apart.

* * * * *

All through the week the excitement grew.

The Sefton Arms was seething; the bar a slowly heaving mass of

racing-men, jockeys, touts, habitués.

Once or twice there were rows between Ikey's Own--the Yankee doodlers,

as the local wits called them--and the English silver-ring bookies; and

the cause of the quarrels was invariably the same--the treatment of the

mare at last year's National.

Throughout the week Boy went her quiet, strenuous way, unconscious of

the commotion about her, or careless of it.

Jim Silver escorted her to and from the yard. Most people knew Old

Mat's daughter and respected her; and those who did not, respected the

grave-faced young giant who was her constant attendant.

When the pair passed swiftly through the bar, an observer would have

noticed that a hush fell on the drinkers, accompanied by surreptitious

elbow-nudgings and significant winks.

It was clear that the young couple were of secret interest to the dingy

crowd. And in fact there were rumours afloat about them--sensational

stories not a few about what they stood to win in love upon the race.

Monkey Brand and Joses were always drinking together in the bar as

Silver walked through. Once he passed quite close to them. The little

jockey's glassy eye rested meaninglessly on the young man's face and

wandered away. When the other had moved on, he dropped his eyelid and

muttered to his pal:

"Wants the ---- kybosh puttin' on him. Good as called me a copper's

nark."

"Hundred thousand in the pot," grinned the fat man. "And a dainty bit o'

white meat. I don't blame him." He licked his lips.

* * * * *

There were few more familiar figures at the bar of The Sefton Arms at

National time than that of Monkey Brand, and this year few more pathetic

ones.

It was soon bruited abroad that Old Mat and his head-lad had parted

after more years of association than many cared to recall. And it was

clear that the little man felt the rupture. He wandered morosely through

the crowd in the train of his fat familiar like a lost soul outside the

gates of Paradise. Usually a merry sprite, the life and soul of every

group he joined, he was under the weather, as the saying went, and what

was still more remarkable he showed it.

Everybody was aware of the facts, though nobody knew the story.

The Duke, who was genuinely fond of the little jockey, and full of

vulgar curiosity, coming upon him two nights before the race, stopped

him.

"I'm sorry to hear you and Mr. Woodburn have parted after all these

years, Brand," he said in his gruff way.

"Thank you, your Grace," said the little jockey, pinching his lips.

The Duke waited. Nothing happened, but Monkey poked his chin in the air,

and swallowed.

"I thought you were set for life," continued the Duke slowly.

"I thought so, too, your Grace," answered the jockey. "But the human

'eart's a funny affair--very funny, as the sayin' is."

Long ago he had acquired the trick of moralizing from his old master.

"What's the trouble, then?" grunted the Duke.

He was greatly curious and honestly concerned.

"Thought I were sellin' him," muttered Monkey.

The Duke bent shaggy brows upon the little man.

"Were you?" he asked.

For a moment the old merry Monkey rose from the dead and twinkled. Then

he stiffened like a dead man, touched his hat, and turned away.

The Duke clung to him.

He, too, had heard a story, and wished to know the rights and wrongs of

it.

"Well, well," he said. "We must all hope the Putnam horse wins--for Mr.

Silver's sake. Eh, what?"

"Yes, your Grace," replied the uncommunicative Monkey.

The night before the race the Duke, still hunting the trail tenaciously,

stumbled, according to his own account, on Old Mat, and reported the

substance of his interview with Monkey in that ingenuous way of his,

half simple, half brutal, and all with an astonishing _savoir-faire_ you

would never have given him credit for.

"One thing," he ended, "he ain't blackguardin' you."

Mat seemed lost in memories.

"I wep' a tear. I did reely," he said at last. Then he shook a sorrowful

head. "I ain't one o' yer whitewings meself," he said. "Not by no means.

But he shock me, Monkey do. He does reely." He dabbed his eye. "Rogues

and rasqueals, yer Grace," he said. "All very well. But there is a

limit, as the Psalmist very proply remarked."

The Duke turned to go, his curiosity still unsatisfied.

"Where's Boy?" he asked gruffly. "I've seen nothing of her this time."

"She's kep' busy, your Grace--nursin' the baby."

"How is he?"

"Keeps a-crowin'," said the old man, "from all I hears of it."

CHAPTER XLVII

On the Course

Next morning was gray with gleams of sun: an ideal day, old hands said,

for the great race of the year.

Mat found his way to the Paddock early and alone.

At Aintree everything is known about the notables by everybody, and

there were few more familiar figures than that of the old man with the

broad shoulders, the pink face, and the difficulty in drawing breath.

It was twenty odd years since Cannibal had won the big race for him; and

this year it was known that he had only come up to see the sport. True

he had a horse running, down on the card as Four-Pound-the-Second, brown

gelding, five years old, green jacket and cap, ten stone; but he was an

any-price outsider, only entered because for something like fifty years

there had never been a National in which a Putnam horse had not played a

part. And rumour had it that Four-Pound was a rum un even for Putnam's.

As Mat entered the Paddock, he was looking round him--for his missing

daughter, observers said.

Jaggers and Ikey Aaronsohnn marked him from afar and told off a couple

of the Boys to track him from a respectful distance.

The old man's familiar figure, his queer clothes, and reputation as a

character, drew others toward him. He lilted heavily across the Paddock

with a word to one, a nod to another, a wink for a third, talking all

the time and breathing like a grampus, with a little crowd of tittering

nondescripts swirling in his wake and hanging on his words.

"Don't 'ave nothin' to do wi' me. That's my adwice to you. I'm Old Mat.

You oughter know that by this. No, I ain't goin' to walk round the

course this year. As I says, the course don't change, but I does. If the

course wants me to see it, it must walk round me. I've done the proper

thing be the course this sixty year. Now it's the course's turn. _Good

morning, Mr. Jaggers_. Yes, I see him, and he see me--only he look the

other way. Pretty little thing, ain't he? Reminds me of that foreign

chap went on the religious ramp in Italy. I seen his picture at Mr.

Haggard's. Savierollher, wasn't it? They burnt him; and I don't blame

'em. He was Jaggers's father I _'ave_ 'eard. Only you mustn't 'and it

on, else you might get me into trouble."

He crossed the course, looked at the water opposite the Grand Stand, and

examined the first fence lugubriously.

"Time was I could ha' hop it off one foot," he said. "Something's

'appened. Must 'ave."

Then he returned to the Paddock, passing a bookie with uplifted hand of

protest.

"Get away from me, Satan," he said. "Don't tempt an old man what's never

fell yet."

"I know all about that, Mr. Woodburn," grinned the bookie.

"I got my principles same as them as 'asn't," continued the old man,

marching firmly on. "You go and tell that to the Three J's, Mr.

Buckland. There they are be the Grand Stand. No, when I gets back to

Mar there'll be nothin' to show her only a blank bettin' book." He

stopped quite suddenly and dropped his voice to a whisper: "Anything

doin', Mr. Buckland?"

His little following roared.

"Favourite fours. Nothing else wanted, Mr. Woodburn," said the amused

man. "It's just the day for the mare."

"Fours," said the old man. "Price shorter nor ever I remember it since

Cloister's year. It's a cert. for the Three J's. What about my little

ride-a-cock-horse, Mr. Buckland?"

The bookmaker referred to his card.

"Four-Pound-the-Second," he said. "Give you forties."

"Forties!" guffawed Old Mat. "A young giraffe like him, dropped this

spring in the Sarah desert under a cocoanut shy. Four _hundred_ and

forties I thought you was goin' to say. 'Ark to him!" He appealed to the

delighted crowd. "Offers me forties against my pantomime colt, and ain't

ashamed of himself. I'd ha' left him at home in the menadgeree along o'

the two-'eaded calf and the boy with blue hair if I'd known."

"He's a powerful great horse, Mr. Woodburn," smiled the bookie.

"Hoss!" cried the outraged old man. "'Ave you seen him? He ain't a hoss

at all. He's a he-goat. Only I've shave the top of him to took you all

in. He's comin' on at the 'alls to-night after the race. Goin' to sit on

a stool and sing _The Wop 'em Opossum_, specially composed by me and Mar

for this occasion only."

He lilted on his way.

* * * * *

By noon the Paddock was filling, and the Carriage Enclosure becoming

packed.

People began to blacken the railway embankment, to gather in knots all

round the course at likely places, to line the Canal.

In the crowd you could hear the dialects of every county in England

mingling with accents of the young countries beyond the seas.

At noon the Duke and his party crossed the Paddock.

"You won't join us, Mat?" he called. "I've got a saloon on the

Embankment."

"No, sir, thank you," said the old man. "Mat's corner in the Grand

Stand'll find me at home as usual come three o'clock."

The Duke paused. He was still hunting the trail.

"If you see Boy before the race, tell her we'll be glad if she cares to

join us."

The trainer shook his head.

"Thank you kindly, your Grace. She always goes to the Stand by the Canal

Turn when Chukkers is riding."

There was a chuckle from the bystanders.

"He's ridin' this time' all right, from all I hear," said the Duke

grimly.

"You're right, sir," answered the old man. "Last night he was countin'

his dead in his sleep. The policeman what was over his door to see no

lady kidnap him for his looks heard him and tell me."

The jockey, who was passing at the moment, stopped.

"Say it agin," he cried fiercely.

The old trainer was face to face with one of the only two men in the

world to whom he felt unkindly.

"Ain't once enough, then?" he asked tartly.

The jockey walked on his way.

"Ah, you're an old man, Mr. Woodburn," he called back. "_You_ take

advantage."

"I may be old, but I am _white_," called the old man after him, his blue

eye lighting.

"Oh, come, come!" cried the Duke, delighted, as he hurried after his

party. "Where's Mrs. Woodburn?"

Chukkers joined the two J's, who were hobnobbing with some of Ikey's Own

under the Grand Stand.

Monkey Brand and Joses stood together on the outskirts of the group.

Jaggers, austere as the Mogul Emperor, approached the tout.

"You're a monkey down, Joses," he said, cold and quiet. "The Putnam

horse is starting."

The other smiled.

"He's starting, sir," he said. "But he's not winning."

Jaggers blinked at him.

"What d'you mean?"

"I mean the race isn't lost yet, and mayn't be--even if the mare don't

win."

He moved away, and Monkey followed him.

Jaggers joined his colleagues.

"What did he say?" asked Ikey in his eager yet wary way.

The trainer told him.

"Thinks he knows something," muttered the little Levantine, his brown

face thoughtful.

"Kiddin' he do," grunted Chukkers, sucking his charm.

Ikey looked after the retreating fat man.

"He's collared Monkey Brand anyway," he said.

"If Monkey ain't collared him," retorted the jockey.

The moods of the three men were various and characteristic: Jaggers glum

and uncertain, Ikey confident, Chukkers grim.

"Who's riding the Putnam horse?" asked Ikey.

"Albert Edward," Jaggers replied.

Chukkers removed his charm from his mouth.

"I ain't afraid o' him," he said. "He's never rode this course afore.

It'll size him up."

"What's the price o' Four-Pound?" asked Ikey.

"Forties," answered Chukkers, biting home.

The little Levantine was surprised, as those Simian eyebrows of his

revealed.

"Forties!" he said. "I thought he was a hundred to one."

"So he were a week since," answered Chukkers surlily. "Silver's been

plankin' the dollars on."

"Ah, that ain't all," said Jaggers gloomily. "The Ring knows something.

Here, Rushton, go and see what they're layin' Four-Pound."

The head-lad went and returned immediately.

"Thirties offered, sir. No takers."

Jaggers shook his head.

"I don't like it," he said.

* * * * *

All morning, carriages, coaches, silent-moving motorcars, char-à-bancs

with rowdy parties, moke-carts, people on bicycles and afoot, streamed

out of Liverpool.

By one o'clock people were taking their places in the Grand Stand.

Everywhere America was in the ascendant, good-humoured, a thought

aggressive. Phalanxes of the Boys linked arm to arm were sweeping up

and down the course, singing with genial turbulence

_Hands off and no hanky-panky._

To an impartial onlooker the attitude of the two great peoples toward

each other was an interesting study. Both were wary, ironical,

provocative, and perfect tempered. They were as brothers, rivals in the

arena, who having known each other from nursery days, cherish no

romantic and sentimental regard for each other, are aware of each

other's tricks, and watchful for them while still maintaining a certain

measure of mutual respect and even affection.

When the American crowd surged up and down the course roaring

magnificently,

_The star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave,_

the counter-marching Englishmen met them with the challenging,

_The land of Hope and Glory

The Mother of the Free._

With any other peoples rioting and bloodshed would have ensued. Here,

apart from an occasional cut-and-dry battle between two enthusiastic

individuals in the fringes of the crowd, there was never any need for

police interference.

* * * * *

There were two flat races before the National. The horses were gathering

for the first when Albert in his shirt sleeves bustled across the

Paddock.

A whistle stopped him and he turned.

"'Ullo, Mr. Brand!"

"Where are you off to?"

"I'm goin' to dress now."

"You're early."

"First race is starting."

"How's the horse?"

"Keeps a-lingerin' along."

"Who's with him?"

"Mr. Silver."

The fat man chimed in:

"Where's the lady, then?"

Albert looked blank.

"I ain't seen her," he said. "Believe she's walking round the course."

Joses laughed.

"I should have thought you'd have been the one to walk round the

course," he said.

"I been," replied the lad keenly.

"And what d'you think of it?" asked Monkey.

The youth rubbed his stomach with the most delicate consideration.

"Pore Albert," he said. "That's what I think. They're a yard through

some of 'em. You clears 'em clean or--it's amen, so be it, good-bye to

the totties, and no flowers by request."

He bustled on his way.

Monkey nudged his mate.

"Keeps it up," he muttered.

"Proper," the other answered.

* * * * *

The second race was run and won. Two o'clock came and went. The jockeys

began to emerge from the dressing-room under the Grand Stand. Monkey

Brand and Joses watched the door.

"Where's green then?" muttered the tout, as the expected failed to show.

"'Ush!" said Monkey at his elbow.

The fat man turned.

At the far side of the Paddock, by the gate, the looked-for jockey had

appeared out of nowhere.

The green of his cap betrayed him, and the fact that old Mat was in

close conversation with him.

He wore a long racing-coat, and his collar was turned up. Indeed, apart

from his peaked cap drawn down over his eyes and his spurs, little but

coat was to be seen of him.

"Where did he spring from?" asked Joses, and began to move toward the

jockey.

His companion stayed him suddenly.

Billy Bluff, who had evaded the police, and dodged his way into the

Paddock, raced up to the jockey and began to squirm about him, half

triumphant, half ashamed.

The fat man stopped dead and stared, with his bulging eyes.

"Straight!" he cried, and smote his hands together.

The jockey cut at the dog with his whip, and then the police came up and

hunted him back into the road.

At the moment the band struck up the National Anthem, and the Knowsley

party, including the King, the American Ambassador, and Lord Milburn,

crossed the Paddock swiftly toward Lord Derby's box.

Suddenly the strains of the band were drowned by an immense roar of

cheering.

Mocassin was being led into the Paddock.

Nothing could be seen of her. Ikey's Own had formed a close-linked

phalanx about her. No Englishman might penetrate that jealous barrier or

help to form it. Within its sacred circle the mare was being stripped

and saddled.

Then there came another roar.

Chukkers was up in the star-spangled jacket.

The famous jockey sat above the heads of the crowd, and indulged in the

little piece of swagger he always permitted himself. Very deliberately

he tied the riband of his cap over the peak while the eyes of thousands

watched him. As he did so the crowd about him stirred and parted. A girl

passed through. It was the American Ambassador's daughter. She handed

the jockey a tricolour cockade, which he fixed gallantly in front of his

cap. It was clear that he was in the best of humours, for he exchanged

chaff with his admirers, adding a word to Jaggers as he gathered his

reins.

Settling in the saddle, he squeezed the mare.

She reared a little as though to gratify the desire of those at the back

for a peep at her.

As she left the Paddock and entered the course, the people rose to her

_en masse_. Storms of cheers greeted her and went bellowing round the

course. The Canal tossed them back to the Grand Stand, and the

Embankment was white with waving handkerchiefs.

_Mocassin! Mocassin! Mocassin!_

All eyes were on the mare, and the great brown horse, in the far corner

of the Paddock, was stripped, and his jockey astride, before half a

dozen people were aware of his presence.

By the time Jaggers and Ikey had observed him, he was on the move.

The two J's, Monkey Brand and Joses, crossed toward him, but there was

no getting near that tumultuous earth-shaker in brown. Jim Silver was at

his head, and, strong as the young man was, he had all his work cut out

to hold the horse as he bounced across the Paddock, scattering his crowd

with far-reaching heels.

"'Ware horse!" rose the cry.

"Give him room!"

"Look out for his heels!"

"Steady the beauty!"

Plunging across the Paddock, to the disturbance of everybody but the

little jockey with the fair hair, who swung to his motions as a flower,

fast in earth, swings to the wind, he tore out of the Paddock amid the

jeers and laughter of some and the curses of others.

"Smart!" said Joses.

"My eye!" answered Monkey Brand.

* * * * *

Jim Silver, panting after his run, joined Old Mat.

The two made toward the Grand Stand.

In front of them a middle-aged man, soberly dressed, and a tall girl

were walking.

"That's the American Ambassador," muttered the old man as they passed.

"Come with Lord Derby's party. Great scholar, they say. That's his

daughter."

The tall Ambassador with the stoop paused to let the other couple go by.

Then he nodded at the young man's back.

"Mr. Silver," he murmured in his daughter's ear. "And the old

gentleman's _her_ father."

The girl was alert at once. She, too, had heard the tales.

"Is it?" she cried. "Where's she?"

"I don't know," the other answered.

"I _hope_ they win," said the girl--"in some ways."

Her father smiled.

"You're no American," he scoffed. "You're a woman. That's all you are."

CHAPTER XLVIII

The Star-Spangled Jacket

As the two men took their places, the parade in front of the Grand Stand

was in full swing.

There was a big field: some thirty starters in all.

The favourite, as the top weight, led them by at a walk.

She was quite at her ease, yet on fire as always, snatching at her bit

in characteristic style. Chukkers rode her with long and easy rein, as

though to show he trusted her. As she came by, the Grand Stand began to

sing with one voice:

_The maid of our mountains--

Mocassin's her name!

The speed of the panther;

The heart of the flame;

The Belle of the Blue Ridge,

The hope of the plain,

The Queen of Kentucky,

O, lift her again--_

Chanted thus by tens of thousands of voices, singing round the course

and up into the heavens, and culminating in the roaring slogan--

_Mocassin! Mocassin! Mocassin!_

the simple song became for the moment clothed in vicarious majesty.

Jim Silver felt the thrill of it, as did his companion.

"Mar'd like that," said Old Mat sentimentally. "She's same as me. She

likes hymns."

The object of the enthusiasm seemed unconscious of it.

She came by at that swift pattering walk of hers--like a girl going

marketing as her lovers said--amid the comments of her admirers.

"She's all right, sure!"

"Don't she nip along?"

"He looks grim, Chukkers do."

"Yes; he's for it this time."

"They've injected her--American style."

"Never!"

"They have, my son. Trust Jaggers. Can't leave it to Nature. Must always

go one better."

"Ikey's got two other horses in."

"Which?"

"There's old Jackaroo--in the purple and gold, Rushton riding."

"Which is the second Dewhurst horse?"

"This in the canary. Flibberty-gibbet. Little Boy Braithwaite."

"He's only a nipper."

"He can ride, though."

"They're to nurse the crack through the squeeze."

"She'll want nursing."

"She's all right if she stands up till Beecher's Brook."

"She'll stand up. Trust Chukkers."

"He's got nothing to beat."

"Only Moonlighter."

"Which _is_ the Irish horse?"

"The gray there. Cerise and white."

"Flashy thing."

"Yes. He'll give no trouble though. Three mile and a half is his limit."

"Here's Gee-Woa, the Yorkshireman."

"Looks an old-fashioned sort."

"He can jump a haystack and stay all day; but he can't get a move on."

"If there's grief enough he might get home, though."

"There's Kingfisher. The West-country crack. Bay and two white ducks."

Last but one came Four-Pound-the-Second with his little fair jockey up.

The horse was so big, and the jockey so small, that a laugh went up as

the pair came by.

"What's this in green, then?"

"Old Mat's horse. Four-Pound-the-Second. Ten stun."

"Anything known of him?"

"Won a small race at Lingfield."

"Who's riding?"

"One o' the Putnam lads. Carries his prayer-book in his pocket. Mar

makes 'em--for luck!"

"He can foot it."

"I'd like to see a walkin'-race between that mare and the big un. What's

his price?" He leaned over to the ring below and asked.

"Twenties," came the answer.

Jaggers heard and nudged Ikey.

The Putnam horse marched by, blowing his nose, and in front of the Grand

Stand gave a playful little buck as much as to say: "I would if I could,

but I won't."

Then Chukkers swung round and led the horses back to the

starting-point.

"Only one thing I wish," muttered Old Mat in his companion's ear. "I

wish there'd been rain in the night. Twelve-stun-three'd steady Miss

Mustang through the dirt."

"Our horse has got a little bit in hand," replied the young man.

"You're right, sir," answered the other.

The gossip came and went about the pair. Neither heard nor indeed heeded

it. The old man was easy, almost nonchalant; the young man quiet and

self-contained.

The horses drew up to the right, their backs to the Grand Stand, a long,

swaying line of silken jackets shimmering in the sun.

Old Mat's face became quietly radiant.

"Pretty, ain't it?" he said. "Like a bed o' toolups swaying in the wind.

I wish Mar could see that. Worst o' principles, they cuts you off so

much."

He raised his glasses.

"Where's Chukkers? Oh, I see. In the middle, and his buffer-hosses not

too fur on eether side of him. That's lucky for Chukkers. One thing, my

little baa-lamb'll take a bit o' knockin' out."

"Where is he?" asked Silver.

"Away on the right there," answered the old man. "Doin' a cake-walk on

the next hoss's toes."

There was very little trouble at the post. The starter got his field

away well together at the first drop of the flag.

Only one was left, and that was green.

The great horse who had been sparring with the air as the flag fell came

down from aloft and got going a long six lengths behind the field.

Neither he nor his rider seemed the least concerned.

"That's my little beauty," muttered Old Mat. "He'll start his own time,

he will. Maybe to-day; maybe to-morrow; maybe not at all. One thing,

though: he _has_ started."

The brown horse was pulling out to the right to lie on the outside.

The old trainer nodded approvingly.

"That's right, my boy," he said. "You let 'em rattle 'emselves to bits,

while you lays easy behind. There'll be plenty o' room in front in a

moment or two."

An old hand in a white top-hat just in front turned round.

"That lad o' yours rides cunning, Mr. Woodburn," he said.

"He's a fair card, he is," replied the old man enigmatically.

"Was it deliberate?" asked an ingenious youth.

"Who shall say, my son?" replied the old trainer. "Only the grass-'opper

what walketh the tiles by night--same as the Psalmist says."

The scramble and scrimmage at the first few fences resulted in plenty of

grief. Jockeys were rising from the ground and running off the course,

and loose horses were pursuing their perilous way alone.

Behind the first flight, in the centre of the course, showed conspicuous

the Star-spangled Jacket of the favourite.

Chukkers, too, was taking his time, running no risks, his eyes

everywhere, calculating his chances, fending off dangers as they loomed

up on him one after the other. He was drawing in to the rails on his

left flank for security from cannoning horses.

The first few fences behind him, the danger of a knock-out would be

greatly lessened. Till then it was most grave. Chukkers was aware of it;

so were the tens of thousands watching; so were his stable-mates.

As Chukkers crossed to the rails Jackaroo, who lay in front on the

inside, drew away to let the favourite up under his lee.

Flibberty-gibbet, on the other hand, the second Dewhurst horse, had been

bumped at the first fence, and pecked heavily on landing. Little Boy

Braithwaite in the canary jacket had been unshipped, and was scrambling

about on his horse's neck. He lay now a distance behind. Chukkers was

signalling furiously with his elbow for the boy to come up on his right;

and he had cause.

For Kingfisher, the West-country horse, riderless and with trailing

reins, was careering alongside him like a rudderless ship in full sail.

For two fences the loose horse and the favourite rose side by side; and

the watchers held their breath.

Then the bay began to close in.

Chukkers turned and screamed over his shoulder. Rushton on Jackaroo

still two lengths in front looked round and saw he could do nothing.

Little Boy Braithwaite, who had at last recovered his seat, came up like

thunder on the quarters of the mare. The lad drove the filly at the

loose horse and rammed him in the flank.

A groan went up from the assembled thousands.

"Good boy!" roared the Americans.

"Dead boy, ye mean," muttered Old Mat. "He's got it."

Horse and boy went down together in headlong ruin. Flibberty-gibbet rose

with difficulty and limped away with broken leg and nodding head. The

boy rolled over on his face and lay still under the heavens, his canary

jacket like a blob of mustard on the green.

The women in the crowd caught their breath.

"Yes, he's done," muttered Mat, "Saved the Three J's a quarter of a

million, though."

"But she's through," commented Silver.

"Don't you believe it," grumbled the old man.

The sacrifice, indeed, seemed to have been in vain. Kingfisher staggered

under the shock, recovered, and came sailing up once more, as it might

have been deliberately, alongside the mare.

Chukkers leaned far out and slashed the oncoming bay across the face;

and the crowds on the Embankment and in the saloon-carriages on the

railway heard distinctly the swish-swish of the falling whip.

A groan of satisfaction went up from the taut onlookers. Chukkers's

action had cleared him. Indeed he had killed two birds with one stone,

and nearly a third. Kingfisher shied away over the course and crossed

the path of Gee-Woa, who was going steady on the right. Both horses went

down. Surging along behind the Yorkshireman, calm and unconcerned by the

flurry and rush and confusion in front, came a great brown horse, the

last of the galloping rout. He flew the ruin of men and horses broadcast

before him on the grass, bounced twice, as Old Mat said, and cleared the

fence in front with a foot to spare.

"Double!" roared the crowd, applauding horse and horseman alike.

Jim Silver sighed.

"Nearly bounced you, Mr. Woodburn," said the White Hat in front. "That

lad of yours can ride."

"Bounce is the boy," answered the old man. "Nothing like it. Now there's

more room."

"Where's Miss Woodburn?" asked the garrulous White Hat.

"In heaven, my lord, I 'opes," answered the other, wiping his eye.

The old gentleman looked foolish and made a face.

"Oh, dear. I'm sorry. I hadn't heard."

"No 'arm done, sir," replied the trainer gently. "These things will

'appen. Seems we're most of us mortal when our time comes." He adjusted

his glasses. "Yes. Mare's through now. Layin' down to it nice."

Indeed, the troubles of the favourite were over for the present. Either

Jackaroo was coming back to her, or she was coming up with the old

horse. The star-spangled jacket and the purple and gold were together,

the mare lying between the rails and her stable-companion.

As the field swung left-handed and passed parallel to the Grand Stand on

the far side of the course, the light-weights were still well together

in front and bunched like a covey of partridges. Then came the favourite

and her stable-companion, rising fence for fence; after them a chain of

stragglers; and bringing up the rear, rollicking along with his head in

his chest, revelling in his work, the twenty-to-one outsider.

"So far so good," said Mat, "as the man said when he was 'alf-way

through cuttin' his throat."

The American contingent breathed afresh, and the bookies were looking

glum. Once over Beecher's Brook the first time round, with half the

field down, the chance of a knock-out reduced, and Gee-Woa and

Kingfisher grazing peacefully under the Embankment, the favourite's

chances had greatly increased.

True, the gray Moonlighter in the cerise and white was in the lead and

going like a snowstorm; but not a man among the tens of thousands on the

course who did not know that four miles and a half was a mile too much

for the Irishman.

"What price the favourite?" roared the Boys.

"Threes," said the bookies, and gave them grudgingly.

"They're settlin' down to it now," muttered Old Mat. "Favourite's goin'

strong. Gallops like a engine, don't she? I like to see her."

Those who were watching through their glasses marked that a fence before

the Canal Turn the star-spangled jacket and the purple and gold seemed

to be taking council together.

"Goin' to turn on the tap now, you'll see," said the old man.

He was right.

Chukkers, indeed, never varied the way he rode his races on the mare. In

truth, part of his greatness as a jockey lay in the fact that he adapted

his methods to his horse. Very early in his connection with Mocassin he

had discovered the unfailing way to make the most of her. It was said of

him that he always won his victories on her in the first half-mile. That

was an exaggeration; but it was the fact that he invariably sat down to

race at a time when other jockeys were just settling in their saddles.

At Liverpool he always began to ride the mare after Valentine's Brook

first time round, and had beaten his field and won his race long before

he began the second lap.

As it chanced, too, the mare's fiery spirit suited exactly the daring

temperament of the great horseman. The invincible couple waited behind

till the ranks began to thin and then came through with the hurricane

rush that had become famous. A consummate judge of pace, sure of

himself, sure of his mount, Chukkers never feared to wait in front; and

the mare, indeed, was never happy elsewhere. Once established in the

pride of place, the fret and fever left her, she settled down to gallop

and jump, and jump and gallop, steady as the Gulf Stream, strong as a

spring-tide, till she had pounded her field to pieces.

The thousands waiting for the Mocassin rush were not disappointed.

The turn for home once made, and Valentine's Brook with its fatal drop

left behind, the mare and her stable-mate came away like arrows from the

bow.

She lay on the rails, her guardian angel hard on her right.

Jackaroo might be old, but he was still as good a two-miler as any in

England.

The pair caught their horses one after one and left them standing; and

the roar of the multitude was like that of the sea as the defeated host

melted away behind.

At last only the Irish horse refused to give place to the importunate

pair. Twice they challenged, and twice the gray shook them off. They

came again; and for a while the star-spangled jacket, the purple and

gold, the cerise and white, rose at their fences like one.

The Irish division were in screaming ecstasies.

Then the roar of New England, overwhelming all else, told that the mare

was making good.

Moonlighter's jockey saw he was beaten for the moment at least and took

a pull.

As Mocassin's swift bobbing head swung round the corner on to the

straight, she was alone save for her stable-companion, and his work was

done.

"He's seen her through," muttered Old Mat. "Now he can go home to bed."

Indeed, as Jackaroo sprawled down the straight, still hanging to the

quarters of the mare, he looked like a towel-rail on which wet clothes

had been hung, and Rushton had ceased to ride.

The mare, fresh as the old horse was failing, came along in front of the

Grand Stand, clipping the grass with that swift, rhythmical stroke of

hers and little fretful snatch at the reins, neat and swift and strong

as a startled deer.

Chukkers sat still and absorbed as a cat waiting over a mouse's hole.

All eyes were on him. Nothing else was seen. His race was won. Last

year's defeat had been avenged. America had made good. A roar as of an

avalanche boomed and billowed about him. The thousands on the stands

yelled, stamped and cooeyed.

"Hail, Columbia!" bellowed the triumphant Boys.

"Stand down, England!"

"What price the Yankee-doodlers?"

"Who gives the Mustang best?"

In that tumult of sound, individual voices were lost. The yells of the

bookies were indistinguishable. Men saw things through a mist, and more

than one woman fainted.

Then through the terrific boom came the discordant blare of a megaphone,

faint at first but swiftly overbearing the noise of the tempest.

"Watch it, ye ----!" it screamed. "He's catchin' ye!"

It was the voice of Jaggers.

The thousands heard and hushed. They recognised the voice and the note

of terror in it.

Chukkers heard, too, turned, and had a glimpse of a green jacket surging

up wide on his right.

There was the sound of a soughing wind as the crowd drew its breath.

What was this great owl-like enemy swooping up out of nowhere?

Chukkers, his head on his shoulders, took the situation in.

What he saw he didn't like.

The mare was going strong beneath him, but the brown horse on his

quarter was only beginning: so much his expert eye told him at a glance.

Four-Pound-the-Second was coming along like a cataract, easy as an eagle

in flight; his great buffeting shoulders were sprayed with foam, his

gaping nostrils drinking in oceans of air and spouting them out again

with the rhythmical regularity of a steam-pump; and his little jockey

sat on his back still as a mouse--a pale face, a gleam of fair hair, and

two little brown fists that gave and took with each stride of the

galloping horse.

Chukkers was not the only one who seized the situation.

The bookies absorbed it in a flash--the outsider's form, the jockey's

colours, the significance of both. It was Old Mat's horse--Old Mat who

had sprung surprises on the ring so often in his time. Rumour had always

said that the horse was by Berserker. Then they had disbelieved.

Now--well, he looked it.

Suddenly the ring went mad.

"Six to four the favourite!" the bookies roared. "Seven to four on the

field!"

The English, too, woke to the fact that they had a champion at last. A

thirst for vengeance, after all they had endured at the hands of the

contumelious foe, carried them away. They stood up and howled. The

Americans, who had seen the cup of victory brought to their lips and

snatched away again, roused by the threat to their favourite, responded

wrathfully. Roar answered roar; New England thundered against Old.

Chukkers, as always, had steadied the mare after her rush. Now he

changed his tactics to meet the new situation. As the horses made for

the water, the mare on the rails, and the outsider wide on the right,

Chukkers began to nibble at her. The action was faint, yet most

significant.

"He ain't _ridin'_," muttered Old Mat, watching closely through his

glasses--"not yet. I won't say that. But he's spinnin' her."

Indeed it was so. The crowd saw it; the Boys, gnawing their thumbs, saw

it; the bookies, red-faced from screaming, saw it, too.

The crowd bellowed their comments.

"She's held!"

"The mare's beat!"

"Brown's only cantering!"

"She's all out!"

In all that riot of voices, and storm of tossing figures, two men kept

calm.

Old Mat was genial; Silver still, his chest heaving beneath his folded

arms.

"Like a hare and a greyhound," muttered the old man, apt as always.

"Got it all to themselves now," said Silver. "And the best horse wins."

"Bar the dirty," suggested the trainer.

The warning was timely.

[Illustration: AINTREE: Plan of Course]

Just before the water Rushton pulled out suddenly right across the brown

horse.

It was a deliberate foul, ably executed.

The crowd saw it and howled, and the bookmakers screamed at the

offending jockey as he rode off the course into the Paddock.

"Plucky little effort!" shouted Old Mat in Silver's ear. "He deserved to

pull it off."

No harm, in fact, had been done.

Four-Pound-the-Second had missed Jackaroo's quarters by half a length;

but the big horse never faltered in his stride, charging on like a

bull-buffalo, and rising at the water as the mare landed over it.

The old man dropped his glasses, and settled back on his heels.

"What next?" he said.

"Can't do much now, I guess," answered Silver comfortably.

Old Mat turned in his lips.

"Watch it, sir," he said. "There's millions in it."

As the favourite and the outsider swept away for the second round in a

pursuing roar, the width of the course lay between them. The mare hugged

the rails; the brown horse swung wide on the right.

"You're giving her plenty of room, Mr. Woodburn," said the White Hat in

front.

"Yes, my lord," Mat answered. "'Don't crowd her,' I says. 'She likes a

lot o' room. So do Chukkers.'"

Just clear of the course outside the rails, under the Embankment, a

little group of police made a dark blue knot about the stretcher on

which Boy Braithwaite had been taken from the course. As the brown horse

swept hard by the group a blob of yellow thrust up suddenly above the

rails amid the blue. It was too much even for Four-Pound. He shied away

and crashed into his fence. Only his weight and the speed at which he

was travelling carried him through. A soughing groan went up from the

Grand Stand, changing to a roar, as the great horse, quick as a goat,

recovered himself and settled unconcernedly to his stride again.

"Riz from the dead to do us in," muttered Old Mat. "Now he's goin' 'ome

again," as the blob of yellow collapsed once more. "P'raps he'll stop

this time."

"I think it was an accident," said Silver.

"I know them accidents," answered Old Mat. "There's more to come."

For the moment it seemed to the watchers as if the mare was forging

ahead; and the Americans took heart once again. But the green jacket and

the star-spangled rose at Beecher's Brook together; and the young horse,

as though chastened by his escape, was fencing like a veteran.

As the horses turned to the left at the Corner, something white detached

itself from the stragglers on the Embankment and shot down the slope at

the galloping horses like a scurry of foam.

"Dog this time," grunted Old Mat, watching through his glasses.

"Lurcher, big as a bull-calf."

Whatever it was, it missed its mark and flashed across the course just

clear of the heels of the Putnam horse. He went striding along,

magnificently unmoved.

Old Mat nodded grimly.

"You can't upset my little Fo'-Pound--bar only risin's from the dead,

which ain't 'ardly accordin' not under National Hunt Rules anyway," he

said. "If a tiger was to lep in his backside and chaw him a nice piece,

it wouldn't move _him_ any."

Many on the Grand Stand had not marked the incident. They were watching

now with all their eyes for a more familiar sensation.

Chukkers was leaving the rails to swing for the Canal Turn.

The Englishmen and bookies, their hands to their mouths, were screaming

exhortations, warnings, advice, to the little fair jockey far away.

"Canal Turn!"

"Dirty Dago!"

"The old game!"

"Watch him, lad!"

"His only chance!"

"Riding for the bump!"

Old Mat paid no heed.

"Mouse bump a mountain," he grunted. "But Chukkers won't get the

chance."

And it seemed he was right.

The fence before the Turn the brown horse was leading by a length and

drawing steadily away, as the voices of the triumphant English and the

faces of the Americans proclaimed.

Mat stared through his glasses.

"Chukkers is talkin'," he announced. "And he's got somefin to talk about

from all I can see of it."

Any danger there might have been had, in fact, been averted by the

pressing tactics of the Putnam jockey.

The two horses came round the Turn almost together, the inside berth

having brought the mare level again.

Side by side they came over Valentine's Brook, moving together almost

automatically, their fore-legs shooting out straight as a cascade, their

jockeys swinging back together as though one; stride for stride they

came along the green in a roar so steady and enduring that it seemed

almost natural as a silence.

Old Mat shut his glasses, clasped his hands behind him, and steadied on

his feet.

"Now," he said comfortably. "Ding-dong. 'Ammer and tongs. 'Ow I likes to

see it."

He peeped up at the young man, who did not seem to hear. Silver stood

unmoved by the uproar all around him, apparently unconscious of it. He

was away, dwelling in a far city of pride on heights of snow. His spirit

was in his eyes, and his eyes on that bobbing speck of green flowing

swiftly toward him with sudden lurches and forward flings at the fences.

All around him men were raging, cheering, and stamping. What the bookies

were yelling nobody could hear; but it was clear from their faces that

they believed the favourite was beat.

And their faith was based upon reality, since Chukkers for the first

time in the history of the mare was using his whip.

Once it fell, and again, in terrible earnest. There was a gasp from the

gathered multitudes as they saw and understood. That swift, relentless

hand was sounding the knell of doom to the hopes of thousands.

Indeed, it was clear that Chukkers was riding now as he had never ridden

before.

And the boy on the brown never moved.

Three fences from home Chukkers rallied the mare and called on her for a

final effort.

Game to the last drop, she answered him.

But the outsider held his own without an effort.

Then the note of the thundering multitudes changed again with dramatic

suddenness. Hope, that had died away, and Fear, that had vanished

utterly, were a-wing once more. In the air they met and clashed

tumultuously. America was soaring into the blue; England fluttering

earthward again. And the cause was not far to seek.

The boy on the brown was tiring. He was swaying in his saddle.

A thousand glasses fixed on his face confirmed the impression.

"Nipper's beat for the distance!" came the cry.

"Brown horse wins! Green jacket loses!"

The Grand Stand saw it. Chukkers saw it, too. His eyes were fixed on his

rival's face like the talons of a vulture in his prey. They never

stirred; they never lifted. He came pressing up alongside his

enemy--insistent, clinging, ruthless as a stoat. Silver could have

screamed. That foul, insistent creature was the Evil One pouring his

poisonous suggestions into the ears of Innocence, undoing her,

fascinating her, thrusting in upon her virgin mind, invading the

sanctuary, polluting the Holy of Holies, seizing it, obsessing it.

And the emotion roused was not peculiar to the young man alone. It

seemed to be contagious. Swift as it was unseen, it ran from mind to

mind, infecting all with a horror of fear and loathing.

"He's swearing at him!" cried the White Hat, aghast.

"B---- shame!" shouted another.

"Tryin' to rattle the lad!"

And a howl of indignation went up to the unheeding heavens.

To Silver it was no longer a race: it was the world-struggle, old as

time--Right against Wrong, Light against Dark. He was watching it like

God; and, like God, he could do nothing. His voice was lost in his

throat. Outwardly calm, he was dumb, tormented, and heaving like a sea

in travail. A tumult of waters surged and trampled and foamed within

him.

Then the nightmare passed.

The boy on the brown rallied; and, it seemed, a fainting nation rallied

with him.

He steadied himself, sat still as a cloud for a moment, and then stirred

deliberately and of set purpose.

He was asking his horse the question. There was no doubt of the reply.

Four-Pound shot to the front like a long-dammed stream.

His vampire enemy clung for a desperate moment, and then faded away

behind amid the groans of his maddened supporters and the acclamations

of the triumphant Englishmen.

"Got her dead to the world!" cried Old Mat, a note of battle resounding

deeply through his voice. "What price Putnam's now!" And he thumped the

rail.

But the end was not even yet. The great English horse came moving like a

flood round the corner and swooped gloriously over the last fence.

The roar that had held the air toppled away into a sound as of a

world-avalanche, shot with screams.

The jockey in green had pitched forward as his horse landed.

He scrambled for a moment, and somehow wriggled back into his

seat--short of his whip.

The Grand Stand became a maelstrom.

Men were fighting, women fainting. The Americans were screaming to

Chukkers to press; the English yelling to the nipper to ride--for the

Almighty's sake.

The brown horse and his jockey came past the Open Ditch and down the

straight in a hurricane that might not have been, so little did either

heed it.

The little jockey was far away, riding as in a death-swoon, his face

silvery beneath his cap. His reins were in both hands, and he was

stirring with them faintly as one who would ride a finish and cannot.

"That's a little bit o' better," said Old Mat cheerfully, preparing to

move. "My little Fo'-Pound'll see us 'ome."

And indeed the young horse, with the judgment of a veteran who knows to

a yard when he may shut up, had eased away into a canter, and broke into

a trot as he passed the post.

CHAPTER XLIX

The Last Card

Chukkers was beaten out of sight. The Oriental in him blurted to the

top. He lost his head and his temper and began to butcher his mount.

As he drove the mare down the run home, foaming and bloody, he was

flaying her.

The Americans had all lost money, some of them fortunes: that didn't

matter so much. Their idol had been beaten fair and square: that

mattered a great deal. But she was still their idol, and Chukkers had

butchered her before their eyes.

And he was Chukkers!--the greaser!

They rose up in wrath like a vast, avenging cloud, and went raving over

the barrier on to the course in tumultuous black flood. The ruck of

beaten horses, bobbing home one by one, crashed into them. The mob,

without regard for its shattered atoms, moved on like one. A roaring sea

of humanity swung on its blind way. Above the dark waters jockeys in

silken jackets and on sweating thoroughbreds drifted to and fro like

helpless butterflies. While in contrast to these many-coloured creatures

of faerie, the great-coated and helmeted police in blue, on horses,

hairy and solid as themselves, butted their way through the clamorous

deeps, as they made for the rock round which the angry waves were

breaking.

They had their work cut out, and used their bludgeons with a will.

Round the man upon the beaten favourite the mob swirled and screamed

like a hyena-pack at the kill.

Chukkers was a brute; but to do him justice he was not a coward.

The high-cheeked Mongolian, yellow with anger and chagrin, was using his

whip without mercy.

The hub-bub was as of a battle the most horrible, for there were women

in it, screaming for blood.

"Lynch him!" came the roar.

"Pull him off!"

"Trample him!"

"Stick him with this!"

Monkey Brand, who had suddenly come to life, had hold of the winner,

sweating, amiable, entirely unmoved by the pandemonium around, and was

leading him away into the Paddock through the outskirts of the howling

mob.

The crowd was too maddened to pay attention to the little man and his

great charge. Those who were not bent on murdering Chukkers were

absorbed in watching those who were.

Old Mat, trotting at Silver's side, was chuckling and cooing to himself

like a complacent baby, as the pair descended the Grand Stand and made

for the Paddock.

"Yes," he was saying, "my bankers'll be please--very please, they will.

And good cause why. That's a hundud thousand quid, Mr. Silver, in my

pocket--all a-jinglin' and a-tinglin'. 'Ark to em!--like 'erald angels

on the go." He paused, touched the other's arm, and panted huskily:

"Funny thing! A minute since it was in the h'air--ewaporated, as the

sayin' is. Now it's here--froze tight." He slapped his pocket. "Makes

the 'ead to think and the 'eart to rejoice, as the Psalmist said on much

a similar occasion. Only we'd best not tell Mar. Wonderful woman, Mar,

Mr. Silver, and grows all the while more wonderfulerer. Only where it is

is--there it is." He lifted his rogue-eye to the young man's face and

cried in an ecstasy of glee. "Oh, how glorioushly does the wicked

flourish--if only so be they'll keep their eyeballs skinned!"

At the gate the White Hat stopped him.

"So you've got up on 'em again, Mr. Woodburn," he said.

"Congratulations, Mr. Silver."

On the course the pair ran into Monkey Brand, leading the winner home.

"Here, sir!" he cried, seeming excited for the first time in his life.

"All O.K. Bit giddified like. That's all. Take the horse. The Three J's

mean business, I tell ye. I must be moving."

Silver looked up at the little jockey perched aloft upon the brown.

"All right?" he asked keenly.

The other, whose peaked cap was drawn far over his eyes, nodded down

through the tumult, saying no word.

At the moment Jaggers ran past, trying to get at his jockey. Joses,

slobbering at the mouth, was shouting in the trainer's ear.

Both men plunged into the vortex.

"Easy all!" came Jaggers's priest-like voice. "Give him a chance, boys.

We aren't beat yet."

"Win, tie, or wrangle!" muttered Old Mat. "That's the Three J's all

right."

The mounted police were shepherding Chukkers off the course into the

Paddock. There was murder in his face. He swung about and showed his

yellow fangs like a mobbed wolf at the pack baying at his heels.

Once inside the Paddock he was just going to dismount, when Jaggers,

Joses, and Ikey Aaronsohnn rushed at him and held him on.

"Stick to her!" screamed Joses.

The little group drifted past Old Mat and Jim Silver, who was holding

the winner. Four-Pound-the Second's jockey had already disappeared into

the weighing-room.

"Ain't done yet," screamed the jockey vengefully as he passed.

"You're never done," said Silver quietly, as he stroked the muzzle of

the reeking brown. "Never could take a licking like a gentleman!"

The jockey, beside himself, leaned out toward the other.

"Want it across the ---- mug, do ye, Silver?" he yelled. "One way o'

winnin'!"

"Come, then, Mr. Woodburn. This won't do!" cried Jaggers austerely as he

passed.

"Of course it won't," answered Old Mat. "Dropped a rare packet among

you, ain't you? Think you're goin' to let that pass without tryin' on

the dirty?"

The White Hat leaned down from the Grand Stand.

"What's the trouble, Mr. Jaggers?" he cried.

"Miss Woodburn rode the winner, my lord," answered the trainer at the

top of his voice.

The words ran like a flame along the top of the crowd.

They leapt from mouth to mouth, out of the Paddock, on to the course,

and round it. And where they fell there was instant hush followed by a

roar, in which a new note sounded: _All was not lost._ The Americans,

cast down to earth a moment since, rose like a wild-maned breaker

towering before it falls in thunder and foam upon the beach. There was

wrath still in their clamour; but their cry now was for Justice and not

for Revenge.

John Bull had been at it again. The fair jockey was a girl. Some had

known it all along. Others had guessed it from the first. All had been

sure there would be hanky-panky.

As they came shoving off the course into the Paddock, and heaved about

the weighing-room, the howl subdued into a buzz as of a swarm of angry

bees.

The thousands were waiting for a sign, and the growl that rose from them

was broken only by groans, cat-calls, whistles, and vengeful bursts of

_Hands off and no hanky-panky!_

Old Mat, Jim Silver, and the great horse stood on the edge of the

throng, quite unconcerned.

Many noticed them; not a few essayed enquiries.

"Is your jockey a gal, Mr. Woodburn?"

"So they says," answered Old Mat.

"Where's Miss Woodburn then?"

"Inside, they tell me."

He nodded to the door of the weighing-room, which opened at the moment.

In it, above the crowd, appeared the jockey with the green jacket, his

cap well over his eyes.

There was an instant hush. Then English and Americans, bookies and

backers, began to bawl against each other.

"Are you a gal?" screamed some one in the crowd.

"No, I ain't," came the shrill, defiant answer.

The voice did not satisfy the crowd.

"Take off your cap, Miss!" yelled another.

"Let's see your face!"

Joses, who was standing by the steps that led up to the weighing-room,

leapt on to them and snatched the cap from the jockey's head.

He stood displayed before them, fair-haired, close-cropped, shy, and a

little sullen.

There was a moment's pause. Then divergent voices shot heavenward and

clashed against each other.

"It is!"

"It's her!"

"That's Miss Woodburn!"

"No, it ain't!"

Words were becoming blows, and there were altercations everywhere, when

the Clerk of the Scales appeared on the steps and held up his hand for

silence.

"Where _is_ Miss Woodburn?" he called.

The words confirmed suspicion, and brought forth a roar of cheering from

the Americans.

"Here, sir!" panted a voice.

Monkey Brand was forcing his way through the crowd, heralded by the

police. Behind him followed a slight figure in dark blue.

"Is that Miss Woodburn?" called the Clerk.

"Yes," replied a deep voice. "Here I am."

"Would you step up here?"

The girl ran up the steps, and took her place by the little jockey.

Whoever else was disconcerted, it was not she.

A sound that was not quite a groan rose from the watching crowd and died

away.

The girl gave her hand to the jockey.

"Well ridden, Albert," she said, and in the silence her words were heard

by thousands.

The lad touched his forehead, and took her hand sheepishly.

"Thank you, Miss," he answered.

Then the storm broke, and the bookies who had made millions over the

defeat of the favourite led the roar.

There was no mistaking the matter now. The Boys had been sold again.

The rougher elements amongst Ikey's Own sought a scape-goat.

They found him in Joses.

Chukkers came out of the weighing-room and deliberately struck the fat

man. That started it: the crowd did the rest.

Old Mat and Jim Silver waited on the outskirts of the hub-bub.

The American Ambassador and his tall dark daughter stood near by.

"What stories they tell," said the great man in his gentle way.

"Don't they, sir?" answered Old Mat, wiping an innocent blue eye. "And

they gets no better as the years go by. They saddens me and Mar. They

does reelly."

Boy Woodburn, making her way through the crowd, joined the little group.

"Congratulations, Miss Woodburn," said the Ambassador's daughter shyly.

"The best horse won."

The fair girl beamed on the dark.

"Thank you, Miss Whitney," she answered. "A good race. You were giving

us a ton of weight."

Perhaps the girl was a little paler than her wont; but there was no

touch of lyrical excitement about her. Outwardly she was the

least-moved person in the Paddock.

Jim Silver's eyes were shining down on her.

"Well," he said.

She led away. He followed at her shoulder, the horse's bridle over his

arm.

"You've won your hundred thousand," she said.

His eyes were wistful and smiling as they dwelt upon her figure that

drooped a little.

"Hadn't a bean on," he said.

She did not seem surprised.

Her hand was on the wet neck of the horse, her eyes on her hand.

Then she raised them to his, and they were shining with rainbow beauty.

"I know you hadn't," she said.

Her hand touched his.

* * * * *

Close by them a black mass was seething round something upon the ground.

"That's Joses," she said. "Stop the worry, will you?--and send Monkey

Brand to take the horse."

Jim Silver turned. Somewhere in the middle of that tossing mass was a

human being.

Using his strength remorselessly, the young man broke his way through.

By the time he reached the centre of the maelstrom the police had

cleared a space round the fallen man.

He lay panting in the mud, a desolate and dreadful figure, his waistcoat

burst open, and shirt protruding, his shock of red hair a-loose on the

ground.

Jim was not the first to get to the fallen man.

Monkey Brand was already kneeling at his side, bottle in hand.

"Oh, my! Mr. Joses, my!" the little jockey was saying. "What you want is

just a drop o' comfort out o' me bottle. Open a little, and I'll pour."

Silver was just in time.

"That'll do, Brand," he said. "I'll see to this. Give me the bottle. You

go to Miss Boy."

A doctor was called in and reported that the fat man's condition was

serious. An ambulance was brought, and Joses removed.

Silver saw it off the ground.

As it came to the gate, Chukkers, on his way to his motor, passed it.

"He deserves all he's got," he said. "He's a bad un."

"He's served you pretty well, anyway," answered Jim angrily.

CHAPTER L

The Fat Man Takes His Ticket

In Cuckmere, that quiet village between the Weald and the sea, in which

there was the normal amount of lying, thieving, drunkenness, low-living,

back-biting, and slander, there dwelt two souls who had fought

steadfastly and unobtrusively for twenty years to raise the moral and

material standards of the community.

One was the vicar of the parish, and the other Mrs. Woodburn. The two

worked together for the common end unknown except to each other and

those they helped.

Mr. Haggard was something of a saint and something of a scholar. Mrs.

Woodburn had been born among the people, knew them, their family

histories, and failings; was wise, tolerant, and liberal alike in purse

and judgment. Her practical capacity made a good counterpoise to the

other's benevolence and generous impetuosity.

When the vicar was in trouble about a case, he always went to Mrs.

Woodburn long before he went to the Duke; and he rarely went in vain.

The parlour at Putnam's had seen much intimate communion between these

two high and tranquil spirits over causes that were going ill and souls

reluctant to be saved. The vicar always came to Putnam's: Mrs. Woodburn

never went to the Vicarage. That was partly because the vicar's wife was

a stout and strenuous churchwoman who cherished a genuine horror of

what she called "chapel" as the most insidious and deadly foe of the

spirit, and still more because Mrs. Haggard was a woman, and a jealous

one at that.

* * * * *

It was a few days after the National that the vicar made one of his

calls at Putnam's.

"What is it?" asked Mrs. Woodburn in her direct and simple way after the

first greeting.

She knew he never came except on business.

"It's that wretched fellow Joses," he answered. "He's been in some

scrape at the National, I gather, and got himself knocked about. Somehow

he crawled back to his earth. I rather believe Mr. Silver paid his

train-fare and saw him through."

"Is he dying?" asked Mrs. Woodburn.

The vicar replied that the parish nurse thought he was in a very bad

way.

"Is she seeing to him?"

"She's doing what she can."

"We'd better ask Dr. Pollock to go round and look at him," said Mrs.

Woodburn. "Don't you bother any more, Mr. Haggard. I'll see that the

best is done."

She telephoned to the Polefax doctor.

That afternoon he called at Putnam's and made his report.

"He's in a very bad way, Mrs. Woodburn," he said. "Advanced arterial

deterioration. And the condition is complicated by some deep-seated

fear-complex."

The doctor was young, up-to-date, and dabbling in psycho-therapy.

"Fear of death?" asked Mrs. Woodburn.

"Fear of life, I think," the other answered. "He wouldn't talk to me.

And I can't, of course, attempt a mental analysis."

Mrs. Woodburn had no notion what he meant, and believed, perhaps

rightly, that he did not know himself.

"He's been unfortunate," she said.

"So I guessed," answered the young man. "He asked me who sent me, and

when I told him said he'd be grateful if you'd call on him."

"I'll go round."

Toward evening she called at the cottage.

Mrs. Boam showed her up.

Joses lay on a bed under the slope of the roof, his head at the window

so that he could look out.

His face was faintly livid, and he breathed with difficulty.

Mrs. Woodburn's heart went out to him at the first glance.

"I'm sorry to see you like this, Mr. Joses," she said gently. "You

wanted to see me?"

"Well," he answered, "it was _Miss_ Woodburn I wanted to see." He looked

at her wistfully out of eyes that women had once held beautiful. "D'you

think she'd come?"

"I'm sure she will," the other answered reassuringly.

Joses lay with his mop of red hair like a dingy and graying aureole

against the pillow.

"D'you mind?" he asked.

Her eyes filled with kindness. He seemed to her so much a child.

"What! Her coming to see you here?"

"Yes."

She smiled at him in her large and loving way.

"Of course I don't," she said, and added almost archly: "And if I did

I'm not sure it would make much difference."

He found himself laughing.

She moved about the room, ordering it.

Then she returned to Putnam's to seek her daughter.

* * * * *

After the National Boy had emerged from the cloud which had long covered

her.

She returned home, radiant and impenitent.

"I've been thinking things over," she said on the morning after her

return. "And I'll forgive you, mother, for your lack of faith."

"Thank you, my dear," replied the other laconically.

"This once," added Boy firmly. "Now, mind!"

* * * * *

Mrs. Woodburn now gave her daughter Joses's message.

The girl said nothing, but visited the cottage next morning.

She stood in the door, firm and fresh, the colour in her hair, the bloom

on her cheeks, and looked at that mass of decaying man upon the bed.

"Are you bad?" she asked, anxious as a child.

"I suppose I'm not very good," he answered.

She snatched her eyes away.

"Well, I congratulate you," he said at last, quietly.

She sought for irony in his voice and eyes, and detected none.

"What on?"

"Your victory."

Her face softened.

"Thank you."

"You deserved to win," continued the other, with genuine admiration.

"You rode a great race. I couldn't have believed a girl could have got

the course if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes." His gaze met hers

quite honestly. "You see I didn't count on the double fake. I knew you

were going to ride as Albert, but I'd quite forgotten the

corollary--that Albert might dress as you. That's where you beat me."

The girl's chest was rising and falling.

"Mr. Joses," she said, "I didn't ride the horse."

His eyes sought hers, dissatisfied, and then wandered to the window.

"Well, well," he said. "We won't argue about it. Anyway, you won."

Boy looked out of the window.

"I _did_ try and deceive you into thinking I was going to ride," she

said with a quake in her voice. "That was partly deviltry and partly to

put you off. I thought if you believed you could get back on us _after_

the race you'd not try it on before. Besides, I could never ride the

course. Three miles was my limit over fences at racing speed when I was

at my best, and that's some years since."

He was quite unconvinced.

"I give you best, Miss Woodburn," he said. "But Albert could never have

ridden that race. Never! It was a good win. And you deserved it. But it

wasn't that I wanted to see you about." He looked round the little room.

"It's not much of a place perhaps, you may think. But there's the

window, and the sight of grass, and cows grazing and folks passing on

the path. And in this house there's Mrs. Boam, and Jenny, and the

pussy-cat. I should miss it." He lifted those suffering eyes of his. "I

don't want to pass what little time I've left in the cage."

"But they won't hurt you now," cried Boy. "They couldn't."

The other laughed his dreadful laughter.

"Couldn't they?" he said. "You don't know 'em. It's the cat-and-mouse

business all the time. I'm the mouse. I've been there."

"But you've done nothing," said Boy.

Joses moved his head on the pillow.

"There's just one thing," he said, dropping his voice. "Mr. Silver's got

a little bit of paper that might make trouble for me."

"But he shall give it up!" cried the girl.

"Will he?" grunted the other.

"Of course he will. He's as kind as kind."

Joses shook a dubious head.

"Men are men," he said. "And when men get across each other they are

tigers."

"He's a tame one," said the girl. "I'll see to that."

"He might be," muttered the other. "In the hands of the right tamer."

Boy went straight back to Putnam's and discovered Mr. Silver smoking in

the saddle-room.

She told him what had passed.

"I know," he said. "Here it is." He produced the bit of paper. "I'll

burn it," and he held it to the bowl of his pipe.

"No!" cried the girl. "Give it me."

She took it straight back to the sick man.

He lit a match and watched it burn with eyes that were almost covetous.

"That's the last of 'em," he said. "Now I shall die in the open like a

gentleman."

He was, in fact, dying very fast.

It did not need Dr. Pollock's assurance to make the girl aware of that.

She longed to help him.

"Would you like to see Mr. Haggard?" she asked awkwardly.

He shook his head, amused.

"He'd come the parson over me."

"I don't think he would."

"He couldn't help it if he was true to his cloth."

"I'm not sure he is," said Boy doubtfully.

"You're the same," he said.

She glanced up at him swiftly.

His eyes were mischievous, almost roguish.

"What d'you mean?"

"You want me to repent."

She coloured guiltily, and he laughed like a boy, delighted with his own

cleverness.

"There's one thing Mr. Haggard might do for me," he said. "Lend me

Clutton Brock's _Shelley_, if he would. He's got it, I know."

The girl made a mental note, wrinkling her brow.

"Shelley's _Clutton Brock_," she said. "I'll remember."

She sat beside his bed. His eyes dwelt on her keen, earnest young face,

and the blue eyes gazing thoughtfully out of the window.

"You're a Philistine," he said at last. "But you're clean. Philistines

are. That's the best of them."

"What's a Philistine?" she asked.

He did not answer her.

"You're the cleanest thing I've met," he continued. "There's a flame

burning in you all the time that devours all your rubbish. Mine

accumulates and corrupts."

"I don't like you to talk like that," said the girl, withdrawing.

"There's only one thing that'll purge me," the other continued.

"What's that?"

"Fire."

The girl's eyes darkened.

"Are you afraid?" she asked swiftly.

"Of Hell with a large H?"

She nodded, and he laughed.

"What I've had I've paid for across the counter and got the receipt

stamped and signed by the Almighty. No, it's not the fires of Hell; it's

the power of the old sun working on my vile body through the ages

that'll renew me with beauty and youth in time. Life's eternal, sure

enough; but not on the lines the parsons tell us."

A little later she rose to go.

He detained her.

"Shall you come and see me again?" he asked her.

She gave him a shy and brilliant smile.

"Rather," she said. "So'll mother."

He kissed her hand, and there was beauty in his eyes.

Next day she called with the book from Mr. Haggard.

Dr. Pollock was coming down the path.

"He's out of pain," he said gravely.

Boy returned to Putnam's and picked some violets.

Then she came back to the cottage.

Mrs. Boam was weeping as she opened.

"May I see him?" said the girl.

"Yes, Miss," answered the other. "We shall miss him, Jenny and me. He

were that lovable."

Boy went upstairs and entered.

Joses was at peace: the dignity of death upon him.

She laid the violets on his breast.

CHAPTER LI

Old Mat on Heaven and Earth

When Old Mat returned home from Liverpool he hung his hat on the peg and

informed Silver that he had undergone conversion--for good this time.

"Nebber no more," he announced solemnly. "I done with bettin'--now I got

the cash. Always promised Mar I'd be God's good man soon as I could

afford it. Moreover, besides I might lose some o' what I made. And then

I might have another backslide." He settled himself in his leather

chair, drew his feet out of his slippers, and his pass-book out of his

pocket.

"It's cash spells conwersion, Mr. Silver," he panted. "I've often seen

it in others, and now I knows it for meself. A noo-er, tru-er and

bootifler h'outlook upon life, as Mr. 'Aggard said last Sunday--hall the

houtcome o' cash in 'and. Yes, sir, if you wants to conwert the world,

the way's clear--_Pay cash down._ That's why these 'ere Socialists are

on the grow; because they talks common-sense. 'It's dollars as does it,'

they says. 'Give every chap a bankin'-account, and you'll see.' What's

Church h'up and h'answer to that? Church says: 'It's all in conwersion.

Bank on conwersion. Cash is but wrath and must that corrupts,' says the

clergy. 'Leave the cash to us,' they says. 'We'll see to that for you,

while you keeps out o' temptation and saves your souls alive.'"

When Mrs. Woodburn told the old man the news about Joses, he received it

gravely.

"Moved on, has he?" he said. "I'm sorry. I shall miss him. I always

misses that sort. Shouldn't feel at home like without some of them

around. Well, Mar, we shall all meet in the yappy yappy land, plea Gob

in his goodness." He burst into a sort of chaunt, wagging his head, and

beating time with his fist--

"_Ho, won't that be jiy-ful?

Jam for the fythe-ful._

I wouldn't miss that meetin', Mar, not for all the nuts on Iceland's

greasy mountains, the Psalmist made the song about. I sees it all like

in a wision." His eyes closed, and his hands and feet swam vaguely. "Me

and Monkey o' the one side, and the Three J's o' tother, pitchin' the

tale a treat at tops of our voices." He opened his eyes slowly, ogled

Ma, tapped her knee, winked, and ended confidentially: "One thing, old

dear. I'll lay they'll give Putnam's best same there as here. Now

then!"

CHAPTER LII

Putnam's Once More

It was Sunday morning at Putnam's, and in Maudie's estimation things

were more _comme il faut_ than they had been for long past.

About a fortnight since there had been trouble in the yard during the

night, and after it, for some hours before he went away, the

Monster-without-Manners had been subdued almost to gentlemanliness.

Then two of the fan-tails had been taken ill. Maudie from the top of the

ladder had watched their dying contortions with the cynical interest of

a Roman matron criticizing the death-agonies of a gladiator in the

arena. When after staggering about the fan-tails turned over on their

backs and flopped, Maudie descended from her perch and toyed with them

daintily during their last moments, finally carrying their corpses up

into the loft.

After that, Maudie felt queer herself, and not only from the results of

a stricken conscience. Indeed, but for the urgent and instant

ministrations of Putnam's Only Gentleman she would have followed where

the good fan-tails had gone.

Thereafter, for a space of a week, there had fallen on the yard a

hallowed time of peace very different from the period of oppression and

irritable energy which had preceded it. Maudie attributed the change to

the absence of the Monster-without-Manners who had departed quietly with

the Four-legs there was all the fuss about.

True, both had now returned, but in chastened mood, the result perhaps

of well-deserved affliction experienced in foreign lands.

This morning things were much as of old. The fan-tails puffed and pouted

and sidled on the roofs. Across the Paddock Close came the sound of

church-bells, and from the Lads' Barn the voices of the boys singing a

hymn.

The Bible Class was in full swing.

All the lads were there but one. That one was Albert. He stood in lofty

isolation in the door of the stable, a cigarette in his mouth, his arms

folded and his face stiff with the self-consciousness that had obsessed

him since his ride in the National. Jerry and Stanley, once the friends

of Albert, and now his critics, swore that he never took that look off

even when he went to bed.

"Wears it in his sleep," said Jerry, "same as his pidgearmours."

But the loftiest of us cannot live forever on the Heights of

Make-Believe. And Albert, as he breathed the Spring, and remembered that

no one was by to see, relaxed, became himself, and began to warble not

unmelodiously--

"_When the ruddy sun-shine

Beats the ruddy rain,

Then the ruddy sparrow

'Gins to chirp again._"

Mr. Silver came out of the house.

Albert straightway resumed his air of a Roman Emperor turned stable-boy.

The other listened to the singing that came from the barn.

"Not inside, then, Albert?" he said.

"No, sir," answered the other. "I leave that to the lads."

Mr. Silver looked at his watch.

"You'd better do a bolt before Miss Boy catches you," he said.

Albert redoubled his frozen Emperor mien.

The other passed into the saddle-room; and Albert revealed the

bitterness of his soul to Maudie on the ladder.

"He's all right now," he told his confidante. "Goin' to start the Bank

again, and all on what I won him. And all the return he can make is to

insultify me. That's the way of 'em, that is."

A door opened at the back, and a rush of sound emerged.

The lads were tumbling out of the Barn.

Boy Woodburn came swiftly into the yard, her troop at her heels.

She marked the truant in the door.

"Well, Albert," she said. "We missed you."

"He's too stuck up wiv 'isself to pray to Gob any more," mocked Jerry,

stopping while the girl went on into the stable.

"He thinks he can do it all on his own wivout no 'elp from no one,"

sneered Stanley. "Albert does."

Albert swaggered forward.

"Say!" he said to Jerry. "Was it you or me won the National?"

"Neever," answered Jerry. "It was Miss Boy."

"Did she ride him, then?" asked Albert.

Jerry shot his face forward. All the other lads were at his back.

"She did then," he said.

Albert was white and blinking, but in complete control of himself.

"Who says so?"

"Everyone. You're a plucky fine actor and a mighty pore 'orseman, Albert

Edward," continued the tormentor.

Albert was a lad of character. He had sworn to his mistress that if he

won the race he would henceforth drop the boy and don the man. And the

sign of his emancipation was to be that never again would he use his

dukes except in self-defence. Now in the hour of trial he was true to

his word.

Happily the strain was relieved, for at the moment Boy, scenting

trouble, came out into the yard. Monkey Brand with her.

Albert approached her.

"Beg pardon, Miss, was it you or me won the National?" he asked. "These

'ere genelmen say it was you."

"It was neither," replied the girl. "It was Four-Pound-the-Second. Come

in with me, Albert. I want to change his bandages."

She reëntered the stable.

Albert followed at a distance, slow and sullen.

Boy entered the loose-box, and Billy Bluff rose to greet her with a

yawn.

The door of the loose-box closed.

The girl bent to her task.

A hand was laid upon her shoulder.

She looked up sharply.

Jim Silver was standing above her, and the door was shut.

"It's you, is it?" she said.

He took her quivering life into his arms.

"Now," she sighed.

She raised her lips, and he laid his own upon them.

"Again," she said with closed eyes.

His own drank in her face.

"You've been a patient old man," she whispered.

"It was worth it," he answered.

"I'll make it so," she said. "Please God!" she added with delightful

inconsequence. "I'm glad you didn't bet."

The great brown horse turned his head and breathed on them.

Boy disengaged, patting her hair. "I'm glad you didn't bet," she

repeated.

"We shall have enough to farm on without that," he said. "And to breed a

few 'chasers."

Her hand was moving up and down the horse's smooth, hard neck.

"I don't want to breed 'chasers," she said.

He laughed softly.

"Don't you?"

"No," she said. "I'm tired of it. I'm like mother. It's all right when

you're quite young. But it doesn't last--if you've got anything in you.

It's froth."

He nodded.

"You're right," he said. "What shall we breed?"

"Shire horses," the girl replied. "Great, strong, useful creatures

that'll work all day and every day--"

"Bar Sunday," he said. "Remember grand-pa, please."

"--without a fuss," she continued, ignoring his impertinence, "shifting

trucks, drawing the plough, and carrying the wheat, and come home tired

of evenings with wet coats and healthy appetites."

"My old love," he said. "You're right, my dear, of course. But he's a

beauty all the same."

"He is that," replied Boy, with a friendly slap.

They left the loose-box, Billy Bluff attending them.

Monkey Brand, his back ostentatiously toward them, was on watch at the

door.

He heard them coming down the gangway and turned shyly.

Then he touched his hat.

The girl took his hand and shook it with a will.

Jim Silver followed suit.

"Very please, Miss, I'm sure," gulped the old jockey.

The little man drew Silver mysteriously aside.

"Only one thing, sir," he said. "That little mistake o' yours about the

copper's nark. I'm goin' to forget _all_ about that now."

"Thank you, Brand," answered Jim earnestly. "We all make mistakes, don't

we?"

"That's right, sir," said Monkey. "Only that's a mistake I never

made--and never would."

Some of the lads were still hanging about the yard. They knew, too.

Maudie knew. Even the fan-tails, splashing in mid-air, were not

deceived.

Albert came forward and ventured a shy and sullen word of

congratulation.

"That hundred thousand you won for me made it possible, no doubt,"

replied Silver gravely.

Albert was still on his pinnacle.

"Very glad to 'elp in such a good cause, sir," he answered. "Only one

thing, if I might make so bold: I 'ope you won't forget young Jerry's

alf-dollar come Christmas. Means a lot to a little feller like that."

The pair passed out into the Paddock Close.

Old Mat and his missus were coming down the hill from church.

The young couple strolled to meet them.

"He's been making amends for what he did amiss at Liverpool, dad has,"

said Mrs. Woodburn comfortably.

Mat lifted a dull eye to the blue.

"Yes," he said. "I put a sovereign in the plate. That should square the

account, de we, accordin' to my reckonin'."

He pursed his lips firmly, almost defiantly, as he looked the heavens in

the face.

A sudden shyness fell on the little group.

Then Boy went to her mother, lifted the old lady's veil, and kissed her.

"Mother," she said.

Mrs. Woodburn took Jim Silver's hand in both of hers, and kneaded it in

just the way her daughter would do in moments of deep emotion.

She said nothing, but her eyes were beautiful.

Old Mat swallowed, touched his hat, and looked away.

"That's a little bit o' better," he muttered to himself.

* * * * *

A minute later the old man was walking down the hill, Mrs. Woodburn on

his arm.

The young couple strolled on up the slope.

Boy looked across the Paddock Close to Joses's window.

Mrs. Boam was pulling up the blind, and the sun was pouring in splendid

torrents on to the dead man within.

The girl was glad.

They came to the quiet church.

"Shall we go in?" she said.

"Let's," he answered.

Together they entered the silence and stood looking up toward the Figure

in the dim east window.

Mr. Haggard, in his cassock, was arranging the narcissi on the altar.

As he saw them, he turned and came slowly down the aisle in the quiet.

For Boy it was almost as if the Figure in the window had come to life

and was drawing near to her and Jim.

THE END

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS GARDEN CITY, N.Y.