“Where’s the danger?” said our military man, contemptuously twisting
his mustache.
“O, nothing,” said Cronin. “That quadruped in the middle of the field
is a bull, and not a very good-tempered one either. That’s all. I don’t
think that the ladies should be allowed to go.”
“We won’t go,” said the ladies in chorus.
“Then come round by the hedge and get into the road,” suggested Sol.
“You may go as you like,” said Jack rather testily, “but I am going
across the field.”
“Don’t be a fool, Jack,” said my brother.
“You fellows may think it right to turn tail at an old cow, but I
don’t. It hurts my self-respect, you see, so I shall join you at the
other side of the farm.” With which speech Jack buttoned up his coat in
a truculent manner, waved his cane jauntily, and swaggered off into the
ten-acre lot.
We clustered about the stile and watched the proceedings with anxiety.
Jack tried to look as if he were entirely absorbed in the view and in
the probable state of the weather, for he gazed about him and up into
the clouds in an abstracted manner. His gaze generally began and ended,
however, somewhere in the direction of the bull. That animal, after
regarding the intruder with a prolonged stare, had retreated into the
shadow of the hedge at one side, while Jack was walking up the long
axis of the field.
“It’s all right,” said I. “It’s got out of his way.”
“I think it’s leading him on,” said Mr. Nicholas Cronin. “It’s a
vicious, cunning brute.”
Mr. Cronin had hardly spoken before the bull emerged from the hedge,
and began pawing the ground, and tossing its wicked black head in the
air. Jack was in the middle of the field by this time, and affected to
take no notice of his companion, though he quickened his pace slightly.
The bull’s next manœuvre was to run rapidly round in two or three small
circles; and then it suddenly stopped, bellowed, put down its head,
elevated its tail, and made for Jack at the very top of its speed.
There was no use pretending to ignore its existence any longer. Jack
faced round and gazed at it for a moment. He had only his little cane
in his hand to oppose to the half ton of irate beef which was charging
toward him. He did the only thing that was possible, namely, to make
for the hedge at the other side of the field.
At first Jack hardly condescended to run, but went off with a languid
contemptuous trot, a sort of compromise between his dignity and his
fear, which was so ludicrous that, frightened as we were, we burst into
a chorus of laughter. By degrees, however, as he heard the galloping
of hoofs sounding nearer and nearer, he quickened his pace, until
ultimately he was in full flight for shelter, with his hat gone and
his coat-tails fluttering in the breeze, while his pursuer was not ten
yards behind him. If all Ayoub Khan’s cavalry had been in his rear,
our Afghan hero could not have done the distance in a shorter time.
Quickly as he went, the bull went quicker still, and the two seemed to
gain the hedge almost at the same moment. We saw Jack spring boldly
into it, and the next moment he came flying out at the other side as
if he had been discharged from a cannon, while the bull indulged in
a series of triumphant bellows through the hole which he had made. It
was a relief to us all to see Jack gather himself up and start off for
home without a glance in our direction. He had retired to his room by
the time we arrived, and did not appear until breakfast next morning,
when he limped in with a very crestfallen expression. None of us was
hard-hearted enough to allude to the subject, however, and by judicious
treatment we restored him before lunch-time to his usual state of
equanimity.
* * * * *
It was a couple of days after the picnic that our great Derby
sweepstakes was to come off. This was an annual ceremony never omitted
at Hatherley House, where, between visitors and neighbors, there were
generally quite as many candidates for tickets as there were horses
entered.
“The sweepstakes, ladies and gentlemen, comes off to-night,” said
Bob in his character of head of the house. “The subscription is ten
shillings. Second gets quarter of the pool, and third has his money
returned. No one is allowed to have more than one ticket, or to sell
his ticket after drawing it. The drawing will be at seven thirty.” All
of which Bob delivered in a very pompous and official voice, though
the effect was rather impaired by a sonorous “Amen!” from Mr. Nicholas
Cronin.
* * * * *
I must now drop the personal style of narrative for a time. Hitherto my
little story has consisted simply in a series of extracts from my own
private journal; but now I have to tell of a scene which only came to
my ears after many months.
Lieutenant Hawthorne, or Jack, as I cannot help calling him, had been
very quiet since the day of the picnic, and given himself up to
reverie. Now, as luck would have it, Mr. Solomon Barker sauntered into
the smoking-room after luncheon on the day of the sweepstakes, and
found the Lieutenant puffing moodily in solitary grandeur upon one of
the settees. It would have seemed cowardly to retreat, so the student
sat down in silence, and began turning over the pages of the _Graphic_.
Both the rivals felt the situation to be an awkward one. They had been
in the habit of studiously avoiding each other’s society, and now they
found themselves thrown together suddenly, with no third person to act
as a buffer. The silence began to be oppressive. The Lieutenant yawned
and coughed with over-acted nonchalance, while honest Sol felt very hot
and uncomfortable, and continued to stare gloomily at the paper in his
hand. The ticking of the clock, and the click of the billiard balls
across the passage, seemed to grow unendurably loud and monotonous. Sol
glanced across once; but catching his companion’s eye in an exactly
similar action, the two young men seemed simultaneously to take a deep
and all-absorbing interest in the pattern of the cornice.
“Why should I quarrel with him?” thought Sol to himself. “After all, I
want nothing but fair play. Probably I shall be snubbed; but I may as
well give him an opening.”
Sol’s cigar had gone out; the opportunity was too good to be neglected.
“Could you oblige me with a fusee, Lieutenant?” he asked.
The Lieutenant was sorry--extremely sorry--but he was not in possession
of a fusee.
This was a bad beginning. Chilly politeness was even more repulsing
than absolute rudeness. But Mr. Solomon Barker, like many other shy
men, was audacity itself when the ice had once been broken. He would
have no more bickerings or misunderstandings. Now was the time to come
to some definite arrangement. He pulled his armchair across the room,
and planted himself in front of the astonished soldier.
“You’re in love with Miss Nelly Montague,” he remarked.
Jack sprang off the settee with as much rapidity as if Farmer Brown’s
bull were coming in through the window.
“And if I am, sir,” he said, twisting his tawny mustache, “what the
devil is that to you?”
“Don’t lose your temper,” said Sol. “Sit down again, and talk the
matter over like a reasonable Christian. I am in love with her too.”
“What the deuce is the fellow driving at?” thought Jack, as he resumed
his seat, still simmering after his recent explosion.
“So the long and the short of it is that we are both in love with her,”
continued Sol, emphasizing his remarks with his bony forefinger.
“What then?” said the Lieutenant, showing some symptoms of a relapse.
“I suppose that the best man will win, and that the young lady is quite
able to choose for herself. You don’t expect me to stand out of the
race just because you happen to want the prize, do you?”
“That’s just it,” cried Sol. “One of us will have to stand out. You’ve
hit the right idea there. You see, Nelly--Miss Montague, I mean--is,
as far as I can see, rather fonder of you than of me, but still fond
enough of me not to wish to grieve me by a positive refusal.”
“Honesty compels me to state,” said Jack, in a more conciliatory voice
than he had made use of hitherto, “that Nelly--Miss Montague, I
mean--is rather fonder of _you_ than of me; but still, as you say, fond
enough of me not to prefer my rival openly in my presence.”
“I don’t think you’re right,” said the student. “In fact, I know you
are not; for she told me as much with her own lips. However, what you
say makes it easier for us to come to an understanding. It is quite
evident that as long as we show ourselves to be equally fond of her,
neither of us can have the slightest hope of winning her.”
“There’s some sense in that,” said the Lieutenant, reflectively; “but
what do you propose?”
“I propose that one of us stand out, to use your own expression. There
is no alternative.”
“But who is to stand out?” asked Jack.
“Ah, that is the question!”
“I can claim to having known her longest.”
“I can claim to having loved her first.”
Matters seemed to have come to a deadlock. Neither of the young men was
in the least inclined to abdicate in favor of his rival.
“Look here,” said the student, “let us decide the matter by lot.”
This seemed fair, and was agreed to by both. A new difficulty arose,
however. Both of them felt sentimental objections toward risking their
angel upon such a paltry chance as the turn of a coin or the length of
a straw. It was at this crisis that an inspiration came upon Lieutenant
Hawthorne.
“I’ll tell you how we will decide it,” he said. “You and I are both
entered for our Derby sweepstakes. If your horse beats mine, I give up
my chance; if mine beats yours, you leave Miss Montague forever. Is it
a bargain?”
“I have only one stipulation to make,” said Sol. “It is ten days
yet before the race will be run. During that time neither of us must
attempt to take an unfair advantage of the other. We shall both agree
not to press our suit until the matter is decided.”
“Done!” said the soldier.
“Done!” said Solomon.
And they shook hands upon the agreement.
* * * * *
I had, as I have already observed, no knowledge of the conversation
which had taken place between my suitors. I may mention incidentally
that during the course of it I was in the library, listening to
Tennyson, read aloud in the deep musical voice of Mr. Nicholas Cronin.
I observed, however, in the evening that these two young men seemed
remarkably excited about their horses, and that neither of them was in
the least inclined to make himself agreeable to me, for which crime I
am happy to say that they were both punished by drawing rank outsiders.
Eurydice, I think, was the name of Sol’s; while Jack’s was Bicycle. Mr.
Cronin drew an American horse named Iroquois, and all the others seemed
fairly well pleased. I peeped into the smoking room before going to
bed, and was amused to see Jack consulting the sporting prophet of the
_Field_, while Sol was deeply immersed in the _Gazette_. This sudden
mania for the Turf seemed all the more strange, since I knew that if my
cousin could distinguish a horse from a cow, it was as much as any of
his friends would give him credit for.
The ten succeeding days were voted very slow by various members of
the household. I cannot say that I found them so. Perhaps that was
because I discovered something very unexpected and pleasing in the
course of that period. It was a relief to be free of any fear of
wounding the susceptibilities of either of my former lovers. I could
say what I chose and do what I liked now; for they had deserted me
completely, and handed me over to the society of my brother Bob and
Mr. Nicholas Cronin. The new excitement of horse-racing seemed to
have driven their former passion completely out of their minds. Never
was a house so deluged with special tips and every vile print which
could by any possibility have a word bearing upon the training of the
horses or their antecedents. The very grooms in the stable were tired
of recounting how Bicycle was descended from Velocipede, or explaining
to the anxious medical student how Eurydice was by Orpheus out of
Hades. One of them discovered that her maternal grandmother had come
in third for the Ebor Handicap; but the curious way in which he stuck
the half-crown which he received into his left eye, while he winked at
the coachman with his right, throws some doubt upon the veracity of
his statement. As he remarked in a beery whisper that evening, “The
bloke’ll never know the differ, and it’s worth ’arf a dollar for him to
think as it’s true.”
As the day drew nearer the excitement increased. Mr. Cronin and I used
to glance across at each other and smile as Jack and Sol precipitated
themselves upon the papers at breakfast, and devoured the list of the
betting. But matters culminated upon the evening immediately preceding
the race. The Lieutenant had run down to the station to secure the
latest intelligence, and now he came rushing in, waving a crushed paper
frantically over his head.
“Eurydice is scratched!” he yelled. “Your horse is done for, Barker!”
“What!” roared Sol.
“Done for--utterly broken down in training--won’t run at all!”
“Let me see,” groaned my cousin, seizing the paper; and then, dropping
it, he rushed out of the room, and banged down the stairs, taking four
at a time. We saw no more of him until late at night, when he slunk
in, looking very dishevelled, and crept quietly off to his room. Poor
fellow, I should have condoled with him had it not been for his recent
disloyal conduct toward myself.
Jack seemed a changed man from that moment. He began at once to pay me
marked attention, very much to the annoyance of myself and of some one
else in the room. He played and sang and proposed round games, and, in
fact, quite usurped the _rôle_ usually played by Mr. Nicholas Cronin.
I remember that it struck me as remarkable that on the morning of the
Derby-day the Lieutenant should have entirely lost his interest in the
race. He was in the greatest spirits at breakfast, but did not even
open the paper in front of him. It was Mr. Cronin who unfolded it at
last and glanced over its columns.
“What’s the news, Nick?” asked my brother Bob.
“Nothing much. O yes, here’s something. Another railway accident.
Collision, apparently. Westinghouse brake gone wrong. Two killed,
seven hurt, and--by Jove! listen to this: ‘Among the victims was one
of the competitors in the equine Olympiad of to-day. A sharp splinter
had penetrated its side, and the valuable animal had to be sacrificed
upon the shrine of humanity. The name of the horse is Bicycle.’ Hullo,
you’ve gone and spilled your coffee all over the cloth, Hawthorne! Ah!
I forgot, Bicycle was your horse, wasn’t it? Your chance is gone, I
am afraid. I see that Iroquois, who started low, has come to be first
favorite now.”
Ominous words, reader, as no doubt your nice discernment has taught you
during, at the least, the last three columns. Don’t call me a flirt and
a coquette until you have weighed the facts. Consider my pique at the
sudden desertion of my admirers, think of my delight at the confession
from a man whom I had tried to conceal from myself even that I loved,
think of the opportunities which he enjoyed during the time that Jack
and Sol were systematically avoiding me, in accordance with their
ridiculous agreement. Weigh all this, and then which among you will
throw the first stone at the blushing little prize of the Derby Sweep?
Here it is as it appeared at the end of three short months in the
_Morning Post_: “August 12th.--At Hatherley Church, Nicholas Cronin,
Esq., eldest son of Nicholas Cronin, Esq., of the Woodlands, Cropshire,
to Miss Eleanor Montague, daughter of the late James Montague, Esq.,
J.P., of Hatherley House.”
Jack set off with the declared intention of volunteering for a
ballooning expedition to the North Pole. He came back, however, in
three days, and said that he had changed his mind, but intended to
walk in Stanley’s footsteps across Equatorial Africa. Since then he
has dropped one or two gloomy allusions to forlorn hopes and the
unutterable joys of death; but on the whole he is coming round very
nicely, and has been heard to grumble of late on such occasions as the
under-doing of the mutton and the over-doing of the beef, which may be
fairly set down as a very healthy symptom.
Sol took it more quietly, but I fear the iron went deeper into his
soul. However, he pulled himself together like a dear brave fellow as
he is, and actually had the hardihood to propose the bridesmaids, on
which occasion he became inextricably mixed up in a labyrinth of words.
He washed his hands of the mutinous sentence, however, and resumed
his seat in the middle of it, overwhelmed with blushes and applause.
I hear that he has confided his woes and his disappointments to Grace
Maberley’s sister, and met with the sympathy which he expected. Bob
and Gracie are to be married in a few months, so possibly there may be
another wedding about that time.