|WHEN Derrick and the captain met at the breakfast-table upon that Derby
morning, there was a note for the latter waiting by his plate. It had
been brought over from the _Turf Hotel_ with apologies, having been
detained there by mistake, “through everybody being so busy,” for at
least a week. As he turned it moodily over without opening it, Ralph saw
that it had the Mirk postmark.
“You have a letter from home, I see, lad; lucky dog!”
“Yes, very lucky,” replied the young man cynically, as he ran his eye
over the contents; “worse than my infernal luck of last night, and only
less than the misfortune I am looking for to-day is the news in this
letter.”
“How is that, lad?”
“Well, you will hear some day.”--Here he took the note, and slowly tore
it lengthways into thin strips, and then across, so that it lay in a
hundred fragments.--“But it's a secret, at least it was until a week
ago, but being in a woman's hands, of course she let it slip;” and
Master Walter looked as near to “ugly” as it was possible for his
handsome face to go.
“I fancied your folks at home were unaware of your having intended to
be at the _Turf Hotel_, and rather thought you were with your regiment,
like a good boy.”
The captain returned no answer; but Derrick, who was in excellent
spirits notwithstanding the anxieties of the coming day, continued
to address him in that healthy and cheerful strain which is the most
intolerable of all manners to one who is melancholy, and what is worse,
in dread suspense. “Now, for my part, Walter, any letter in a woman's
hand, as I think yours is--nay, you foolish lad, if you hadn't stuffed
it into your breast-pocket so quickly, I protest I should have thought
it had come from your mother or your sister. Why, you don't mean to
say that that pretty little gate-keeper down at Mirk writes letters to
handsome Master Walter?”
“And why not?” asked the captain defiantly. “If it had come from
Mistress Forest, then, indeed, you might have taken upon yourself to
object, although I understand that even there, you have not yet obtained
the position of bridegroom-elect.”
“No,” returned Derrick drily. “I was about to say that _I_ should have
welcomed any letter in a woman's hand, especially if it began: 'My
dearest '“----
“What the devil do you mean by looking over my letter?” exclaimed Master
Walter, starting up in a fury.
“Nothing,” answered the other, purple with laughter and muffin; “I
never dreamed of such a thing. But since you said it came from the
gate-keeper's daughter, I thought I'd make a shot. The idea of my
wanting to read all the pretty things the little fool writes to a wicked
young dog like you; it's no fun to me to watch a moth at a candle. But
what a spoiled lad it is! Why, here I have had no letter at all from
Mirk, and yet I am content. Silence gives consent, they say; and
particularly in this case, when I know nothing but your lady-mother
prevents Mary writing 'My dearest Ralph' to me. Indeed, if she wrote
'Dear sir, I can have no more to do with you,' it would not have the
smallest effect. What I have made up my mind to do, generally comes
to pass. Where there's a _will_--that is, supposing it is strong
enough--there is most times a _way_.”
“I know you're a devil of a fellow,” sneered Master Walter, rising and
gazing out of window at the bustling street already astir with the Derby
vehicles; “but I am afraid your _will_ can't win me this race.”
“It's done a great deal towards it, Captain Lisgard. It brought about
the trial-race with the 'crack,' although my Lord did give himself such
cursed airs, and not only let you in for a good thing, but lent you the
money to take advantage of it to the uttermost.”
“That's true,” said Walter frankly, and holding out his thin white hand.
“I daresay you think me an ungrateful beast, but I'm worried by a matter
that you know nothing of; besides”----
“Not another word, lad--not another word; I am a rude rough creature,
and I said some unpleasant things myself.--Here is our Hansom, and with
light-green curtains of gauze. I'm cursed if I go down to Epsom with the
colours of _The King_ on my cab. Why, the beggar must have done it to
insult us.”
“Stuff and nonsense, Ralph; it's only to keep off the dust. If you have
no curtains, you must wear a veil, that's all. Look there, in yonder
barouche-and-four, every man has a green veil on. By Heaven! that
Wobegon's one of 'em. He's got my I.O.U. for fifteen hundred pounds in
his waistcoat-pocket; and there's that ugly devil Beamish, too.--Well,”
muttered the captain to himself, “I'm glad I didn't go with _that_
party, at all events.”
Master Walter, who was as popular in town as elsewhere, had been asked
to take a seat for that day in half-a-dozen “drags” and barouches,
but he had preferred to go alone with Derrick; not that he enjoyed his
companionship, but because, as I have before said, he gathered some
comfort from his society under the present cloud of anxiety and
apprehension.
“I say, Walter, you are a pretty fellow; you forgot all about the
provisions, but see here!” cried Derrick triumphantly, pulling a hamper
from under the sofa; “a pigeon-pie, a fowl, two bottles of champagne,
and one of brandy!”
“What confounded nonsense!” returned the young man peevishly. “There are
dozens of parties who would have given us lunch. The idea of a hamper on
the top of a Hansom!”
“Well, come, you are wrong anyway, _there_, lad, for I have seen a dozen
going by this morning.”
“Very likely, and you have also seen plenty of vans, each with a barrel
of ale. However, it's of no consequence. If the Frenchman wins, I
could eat periwinkles out of a hand-barrow with a hair-pin; and if he
loses--why, then, I shall not have much appetite.”
“Look here, lad,” replied Derrick gravely, “this sort of thing won't do.
Never be down on your luck, until, at all events, your luck is down upon
you. You are not cut out for this work, _I_ can see. A man ought to be
sanguine, yet cool; hopeful of gain--yet quite prepared for loss, who
goes in for such a stake as you have got upon to-day's race. A gambler
should be all brain, and no heart: let me suggest, before we start, that
you should just take a little brandy.”
“No, no!” ejaculated the captain impatiently. “If I am a funk, as you so
delicately hint, I am not a fool. Come, let's be off. The next, time I
see this room again, I shall be a made man--or a beggar.”
To any man, who risks by betting more than he can conveniently spare,
the going to the Derby is by no means a cheerful expedition, whatever
his coming home may chance to be; and further, it may be observed, that
of all professional persons, those who take up the Turf as their line in
life, are the most sombre and unlively.
Many of them are clever fellows enough, and one or two are honest men,
but there is no such thing as fun among them. The Ring would never take
to the snow-balling one another, as the stock-brokers have been known
to do when 'Change was dull. They have only a certain grim and cruel
humour, such as the Yankees use, the point of which lies always in
overreaching one another.
Derrick was right when he said that Master Walter was not fit for such
a calling, but the same thing might, almost with equal force, have been
said of himself. He was not, indeed, of an anxious disposition, but
his temper, when once roused, was almost demoniacal, and he could never
stand being cheated. Now, Cheating, in some form or other, is the soul
of the turf.
Whenever it is possible to trot in that vast procession down to Epsom,
the appearance of which is so gay, and the pace so funereal, the
large-wheeled Hansom does it. Many a pretentious four-in-hand did the
captain and Derrick pass, and many a wicked-looking brougham with its
high stepping-steeds; and the occupants of each had often a word to say
about “the fellow with the beard that Lisgard had picked up, and was
carrying about with him everywhere.” For the manly growth that fringed
Ralph Derrick's chin was something portentous, even in these days of
beards, and his appearance was rendered still more striking from the
fact of his wearing an infinite number of wooden dolls in the band of
his hat, where Louis XI. used to stick the images of his patron saints.
In vain Walter had informed him that this was a weakness only indulged
in by snobs. Ralph rejoined (but not without an extra tinge of red in
his weatherbeaten cheek), that being a snob himself, it was therefore
only natural that he (Ralph) should take pleasure in thus adorning
himself. He had rather be a snob than a nob, by a precious sight; he
knew that. As for making an exhibition of himself, if that was really
the case, it was only right that the public should be advertised of the
matter, so he purchased a penny trumpet, and executed thereon the most
discordant flourishes. “Say another word, lad,” added he, with cheerful
malice, “and blessed if I don't buy a false nose!”
Walter made no further remonstrance; he leaned back in the Hansom as far
he could, and as much behind the green gauze curtain, until they reached
the course, when his companion divested himself of the objectionable
ornaments, and made a present of a live tortoise, which he had also
acquired on the way, to an importunate gipsy woman, instead of crossing
her palm as requested “with a piece of silver.” They could hear by this
time the hum and the roar of the great human sea which surged about the
railings in front of the Grand Stand, and in a few minutes more they
were within them. They pushed their way through the babbling throng
towards a certain corner that had been agreed upon, and there was Mr
Tite Chifney waiting for them, with a very pale face indeed.
“Nothing wrong with the horse, is there?” cried Ralph in a loud and
menacing voice, which caused not a few sharp eyes to glance cunningly
towards them, and set not a few sharp ears to listen to what might come
next.
“No, sir, nothing,” returned the trainer. “For Heaven's sake, speak low.
I never saw him looking better in my life. We will see him now, if you
like.”
“Where's Blanquette?” continued Ralph, a little reassured by this, as
they moved away towards the Paddock.
“Mr Blanquette is not here, Mr Derrick.”
“Not here? Why, he was to join you the day before yesterday, otherwise I
would have come myself.”
“He _has_ been here, sir, but he's gone away again?”
“What! Is he not coming back to-day?”
“I hope so, sir; I most sincerity hope so; but the fact is--now take 'it
quietly, for it's none of my fault--he's gone after Jack Withers.”
In an instant, while Walter ejaculated a smothered cry of agony and
wrath, Derrick had seized the trainer by the throat. “You know me, sir,”
cried he. “As I swore to treat that tout on the Downs at Mirk, so will I
treat you, if that jockey”----
But two blue-coated men had thrust themselves between the strong man and
his victim; a gentleman in a tight-buttoned frock-coat was coming up,
too, in plain clothes, with that swift determined stride peculiar to
members of “the force,” and the crowd grew very thick about them, and
a thousand eyes were being concentrated upon Ralph's furious face, he
knew. If his temper was lost now, he felt that all was lost. With an
effort that almost cost him a fit of apoplexy--“I am sorry,” said he,
“that I laid my hand upon you, Mr Chifney.”
“That will do,” returned the trainer quietly, arranging his neckcloth.
“Mr Inspector, you know me, and there is no occasion for your services.”
“All right, Mr Chifney, but you have got a rummish customer to deal with
there,” replied the guardian of the law, stroking his chin, and looking
at Derrick, much as a vice-president of the Zoological Society might
regard a novelty in wild beasts, that had been half-promised to the
establishment, and then withdrawn.
“I have never been treated thus,” complained the trainer, as the three
moved away, and the gaping crowd gathered round some other object of
attraction, “and have never deserved such treatment from any employer of
mine, although I have kept racing-stables these thirty years. I can make
some allowance for one who has so much money on this horse, as I know
_you_ have, Mr Derrick, but I give you my honour and word that I was as
astounded as Mr Blanquette himself, when I heard the news that Jack had
skedaddled. He was your own jockey, remember, not mine: no boy in my
stables has ever played such a scurvy trick as this.”
“Have you any boy that can take this scoundrel's place?” asked Captain
Lisgard impatiently.
“I have got as good riders as can be got, Master Walter, upon so short a
notice; and _Menelaus_ shall have the pick of them. But you know what a
devil of a temper the horse has; and this Withers was the only lad who
understood him.”
“How comes it that Blanquette has gone to look for him?” asked Derrick
thoughtfully. “Does he know where he is likely to be found?”
“Not as I know of, sir,” returned the trainer gravely, “He said he would
bring him back Dead or Alive--those were his words.”
“Stop a moment, Chifney,” ejaculated Ralph. “I can scarcely find breath
to utter even the suspicion of it; and the certainty would, I verily
believe, choke me; but do you think it possible that all is not quite on
the square with Blanquette himself?”
“Well, Mr Derrick, I'd rather not say. Mr Blanquette is as much the
owner of the horse as yourself. He's my employer too--and nobody ever
heard Tite Chifney breathe a word”----
“Thousand devils!” cried Derrick, stamping his foot so that the print
of it was left in the yielding turf; “is this a time for your senseless
scruples? I ask you, do you think it possible that this man--my pal
for years, one that has oftentimes faced death in my company, and once
shared the last scanty meal that stood between us and starvation--do you
think it possible, I say, that this man has sold the race?”
“Well, sir,” replied Mr Chifney frankly, “about victuals eaten under the
circumstances you describe, of course I'm no judge; but as to friendship
and that, I've known a son play his own father false upon the turf
before now; and what an Englishman will do in the way of smartness, you
may take your oath a Frenchman will do--and a deuced sight worse too.
Moreover, since you press this question, I may say that your partner has
been seen talking with Wiley--Lord Stonart's agent--more than once.”
“And why, in the devil's name, was I not told?”
“That was not my business, Mr Derrick; you might not have thanked me for
interfering with your affairs. I thought that you and Mr Blanquette were
one. Besides, to confess the truth, I thought it was _The King_ who was
being nobbled. And since Lord Stonart has chosen to withdraw his
horses from my keeping--chiefly, by the by, through his disgust at that
trial-race in which his crack was beaten--I, of course, was no longer
bound to look after his interests; no, indeed, quite the reverse,” added
the trainer with an offended air.
“Did this Frenchman say he would be here to-day, if he did not find the
boy?” inquired Captain Lisgard sharply, with an unpleasant look in his
fine eyes.
“I can answer that question for him,” returned the gold-digger grimly.
“If he has played me false, he will not only not be _here_; he will have
put the sea--and not the narrow one either--between himself and Ralph
Derrick; for he knows me very well. But now”--here he drew a long
breath, and made a motion with his mighty arms as though he would
dismiss that matter for the present, tempting as it was to dwell
upon--“let us see the boy that is to take this rascal's place. We may
pull through still with luck.”