H. De Vere Stacpoole

“ CHAPTER VII
"Where's your spectacles?" asked Effie, after they had conversed for a while, tucking the rug round herself and speaking with the jocularity and familiarity which generally is associated with long acquaintanceship.
"I beg your pardon," said Miss Grimshaw.
"Father said you'd be in spectacles."
"Oh, my spectacles—they are coming by the next train. Also my snuffbox and a birch-rod."
"Get out with you!" said Miss French, moving under the rug, as if someone had tickled her. "Your snuffbox and your birch-rod! Get out with you!" ”

“ Out here on the moors, under the sun on a day like this, you are in the pleasant company of Laziness and Loneliness and Distance and Summer. The scent of the gorse is mixed with the scent of the sea, and the silence of the far-off hills with the sound of the billows booming amidst the coves of the coast.
Except for the sea and the sigh of the wind amidst the heather bells there is not a sound nor token of man except a pale wreath of peat smoke away there six miles towards the hills where lies the village of Drumboyne, and that building away to the west towards the sea, which is Drumgool House. ”

“ Giveen take the young lady out in the dinghy without telling me, you old fool?" asked his master.
"Sure, he tould me not to tell you, sorr," creaked Micky.
"To the devil with you!" cried Mr. French, giving the tin basin a kick that sent the contents flying into Micky's face, spattering it with meal and soaked bread and finely chopped bits of meat till it looked like a new form of pudding. "Off with you, and clean your face, and not another word out of you, or I'll send you flying after the basin. Come on with me, Moriarty, down to the cove, till we see if we can get sight of them." ”

“ On a ledge of rock near the cove mouth something dark moved swiftly and then splashed into the sea and was free.
It was a seal.
"I'll take you into the cave to have a look at it," cried Mr. Giveen, raising his voice to outshout the cormorants. "You needn't be a bit afraid. The devil's not here to-day—it's too fine weather for him."
"Don't go far in," cried Miss Grimshaw, and as she spoke the words the boat, urged by the rower, passed into the gloom beneath the archway. ”

“ The rain beat a tattoo to the words on the zinc roof of outhouse and window-pane. "To-morrow," slobbered the overflowing water-butts, and "Sussex" hissed the schoolroom fire, as the raindrops down the chimney hit the burning coals.
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No one but a woman knows the things to be done in a sudden disruption of a household like this. "Everything must be covered up, and everything must be turned over," is a broad axiom that only just covers the situation when a house is to be left uninhabited for a number of months. ”

“ Miss Grimshaw's room was situated at the back of the house, overlooking the kitchen garden. Any sound from the stable-yard would reach it, and she determined to lie awake and listen. Moriarty's description of the expected desperado, "over six fut and as black as a flue-brush," seemed to promise developments. Like most women, she had a horror of fighting, and, like most women, fighting had a fascination for her. She had no fear of the result. Mr. French, Mr. Dashwood, Moriarty, and the stable helper, not to mention Andy, formed a combination bad to beat, even against a dozen Black Larrys. ”

“ Emmanuel Ibbetson had built the bungalow and stables in a moment of enthusiasm about racing. It was certainly an ideal spot for training. Just here the Downs are level as heart of man could wish. A great sweep of turf, a tableland where nothing moves but the grazing sheep and the shadow of the bird and cloud, extends from the stables due south, ending in an outcrop of chalk and a rise leading to the higher Downs and the sea. The higher Downs shelter it in winter from the wind. ”

“ Bobby Dashwood had youth on his side, and youth appeals to youth; but then French had experience—though it had never done him much good—and personality. There was a lot of sunlight about Michael French; one felt better for his presence, and, though he would knock a man down for two pins, though he made sport out of debt and debts over sport, and drank whisky enough to shock the modern tea-and-toast and barley-water man, he was a Christian when it came to practice, and a friend whom no disaster could alienate. ”

“ It was Bobby Dashwood.
"Hullo!" said French. "Good! When did you arrive?"
"Last train," said Mr. Dashwood. "I say it's all right. I paid that chap's fine, and lugged him back to The Martens, and he's there now, as peaceable as pie, waiting for the horse to come back."
"Heavens, Dashwood," said French, "inside this hour, I'll be either a rich man or broke to the world, and I feel just as cool as if I hadn't a penny on the race. Funny, that, isn't it?"
"Not a bit," said Bobby. "I always feel that way myself when it comes to the scratch. By Jove, there's Garryowen, and isn't he looking fit!" ”

“ Moriarty hit the donkey a blow on the ribs with his blackthorn stick just as a drummer strikes a drum, with somewhat of the same result as to sound, and the vehicle started.
Mr. French had trained a good many winners, and Moriarty was Mr. French's factotum in stable matters; what Moriarty did not know about horses would be scarcely worth mentioning.
Very few men know the true inwardness of a horse—what he can do under these circumstances and under those, his spirit, his reserve force, his genius.
A horse is much more than an animal on four legs. ”

“ It is this intuitive knowledge of the psychology of a horse that makes a great trainer or a great jockey.
Moriarty was possessed of this knowledge, but he was possessed of many other qualities as well. He could turn his hand to anything—rabbit catching, rearing pheasants, snaring birds, doctoring dogs, carpentry.
"Moriarty!" said Miss French, when they were out of earshot of the house. ”

“ It was a good-humoured, easy-going, happy-go-lucky voice, and it matched his face, or as much of his face as could be seen in the moonlight.
"It's awfully good of you," he said. "I'm dead beat, been on my legs since six, had good luck, too, only I lost all my fish tumbling into one of those bog holes. Just escaped with my life and my rod." He mounted on the same side of the car as the girl and continued to address his remarks to her as Moriarty drove on. "I believe I ought to introduce myself. Dashwood is my name. I came over for some fishing, and the more I see of Ireland, the more I like it. ”

“ Believing himself in the power of a lunatic, he had adapted himself to the situation, feigning unconcern as a beetle feigns death. Besides gloomy forebodings as to the ultimate issue of his illegal proceedings, Mr. Dashwood had to face the immediate prospect of Giveen's close companionship for ten days or so. But, as a set-off to these undesirabilities, he had the pleasant vision of French liberated from his difficulties, Garryowen passing the winning-post with a beaten favourite behind him, and last, but not least, Violet Grimshaw's face when he told her all. ”

“ Dashwood.
"Botherations!" replied Miss Grimshaw. "Look at this."
She handed him a neatly-printed card, folded in the middle. It looked like a ball programme. Nearly four months had passed. The Frenches had settled down at The Martens. The whole neighbourhood had called; there had been several small dinner parties at the bungalow, and Garryowen was turning out a dream. Training a horse is just like painting a picture; the thing grows in spirit and in form; it has some of you in it; the pride of the artist is not unallied to the pride of the trainer. ”

“ Nothing important came by the post, only a few circulars and a postcard effusively thanking Miss Grimshaw for some flowers which she had sent to a female friend. As the day wore on, and as nothing appeared in the form of a bailiff, the hopes of the party rose steadily. Mr. Dashwood had suggested that the horse should be taken right away to Epsom, but French was too old a practitioner to make such a false move as that. For, if a bailiff arrived and found the horse gone, it would be the easiest thing in the world to track him. You cannot entrain a racehorse without the fact being known. ”

“ French contemplated his horse as it galloped up the course following Wheel of Fortune. He could not but admire the favourite, but at the moment Garryowen dominated his every thought, and the extraordinary thing was he had almost forgotten money in connection with the race; a mad longing to win for the sake of winning possessed his whole soul. It pleased him Garryowen was so well matched. To beat Wheel of Fortune would be a triumph.
And now that adjustment of prices which always takes place just before starting was evidenced in the price of Garryowen. "Listen!" cried Dashwood. ”

“ You are too fond of listening at doors, and only for you, you naughty child——"
She checked herself. Only for Effie and her mischievous letter they might have been in security now, and not threatened like this.
"Only for me, what?" asked Effie.
Miss Grimshaw had no time to reply, for at that moment Mr. French re-entered the room. His face was flushed; he shut the door; and then, "May the divil fly away with Dick Giveen!" he said. "He's got me at last, confound him! It's the bailiff."
"Oh, heavens!" said Bobby.
"What's he like?" asked Miss Grimshaw the practical.
"Like!" cried French. ”

“ In the crisis of a complex and fantastic tragedy such as that of French's, the most galling thing is the inability to seize the whole situation and meet it philosophically. A bank smash which sweeps away one's fortune is a four-square disaster, seizable if stunning; but this business of Garryowen's was ungraspable, and unmeasureable, and unfightable as a nightmare. ”

“ Miss Grimshaw was in the frame of mind to receive a visitor, more especially when that visitor took the form of Bobby Dashwood.
Bobby and his irresponsibilities had found a place in her heart—not the place that women keep for lovers, but the place they keep for cats, stray dogs, and other people's children; a place, all the same, that opens into the real place, an ante-room where, if a man can obtain a footing, he has a chance of being shown into the boudoir. Unfortunately for Bobby, French had a place there, too ”

“ The bed she was lying in was the bed that once had supported Dan O'Connell's portly person. The tent-like curtains had been removed, so that one could breathe in it, but the pillars remained, and the headpiece and the carvings. It was less a bed than a coign of history, and more conducive to thought than sleep.
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From this bed and its suggestions, from Drumgool, from Ireland, the delightful Tartarin led Miss Grimshaw to the land of plane-trees and blue sky. Mock heroics are the finest antidote for tragic thoughts, and they fitted the situation now, had she known it, to a charm. ”

“ Giveen was now at open enmity with his kinsman, and spoiling with all the bitterness of his petty nature to do him an injury.
And Giveen was not French's only enemy just now. The United Irish League was against him. He had let farms on the eleven months' system, and he had let farms for grazing, two high offences in the eyes of the league.
"The time has come to put an end to the big grazing ranches and to plant the people on the soil," says the league, as though the people were seed potatoes. ”

“ Then that unpleasant candid friend who lives in the brain of every man had his say.
"Oh, what a fool you have made of yourself! Oh, what a fool you have made of yourself!" said the friend who only speaks after an error has been committed, and then in a gloating voice.
"What will she think of you?" went on the tormentor. "You have acted like a hooligan. But that wouldn't matter, for passionate men are apt to be hooligans, and women don't mind that—but to run away! To run like a rabbit! She does not know about your absurd compact with French. ”

“ Dashwood had in his mind for the moment was to cling to his companion. If the worst came to the worst, he would, at least, have the satisfaction of kicking the traitor into the street out of Lewis' office, where he determined to accompany him. But he felt dimly there was a chance between this and to-morrow morning of doing something to save French.
If Giveen had only been a drinker, the path would have been clearer. The man who gets jolly has always soft spots one can work on. But Mr. Giveen had no soft spots. ”

“ Mr. French has only one little daughter, an invalid. I'm not a real governess. I don't take a salary, and all that. I've just come over to—— Well, I want a home for a while, and I want to see Ireland."
"Strikes me you'll see a lot of it here," said Mr. Dashwood, looking out at the vast solitudes to the east, where the hills stood ranged like armed men guarding a country where the bird shadow and the cloud shadow were the only moving things.
"Yes," said Miss Grimshaw, and yawned. She liked Mr. Dashwood, but his light-hearted conversation just now rather palled upon her. ”

“ When this desirable and faithful servitor had vanished round the corner, Miss Grimshaw passed through the kitchen-garden towards the stables. She wanted to find Moriarty. The news had shocked her, but as yet she could scarcely believe in its truth. Susie Gallagher was not a person to bear conviction, however easily she might bear tales, but Moriarty would be able to decide. ”

“ Giveen, called up in her mind by the sea, brought French and his troubles before her, [Pg 119] the league and its pettiness, and old Ryan and his cows' tails. Before the tremendous seascape all these things shrank to their true proportions, and the booming of the billows seemed like a voice commenting on it all, yet indifferent to the doings, the hopes, and aims of man as Death. ”

“ The horses were leaving the paddock. Wheel of Fortune was first out—a bad omen, according to racing men; after Wheel of Fortune came White Moth, Royal George, Satiety, and Garryowen. They were a beautiful picture in the bright April sunlight.
"It's Wheel of Fortune or Garryowen," said Dashwood, who was half-mad with excitement. "French, I'd put my last penny on Garryowen, but the Wheel's a wonder. Ain't they beauties, the pair of them! Make the rest look like dowagers!" ”

“ Even now, in the woods, here and there, you will find primroses. In a week or two you will find a million. My doors are just about to open, the cuckoo is just preening for flight, the swallows at Luxor and Carnac are dreaming of the pine trees and the north. I am Spring."
Mr. Dashwood was not given to poetical interpretations of Nature's moods, but there was that in the air to-day which raised to an acute stage the chronic disease he had been suffering from for months. He had seen a lot of his companion during the last ten weeks or so, but he had played the game like a man. ”

“ Well, I got an inkling from a letter that Michael French himself and his daughter and his governess and his horses were down here, and here I've come to find out; and here he is, and it's to-morrow morning I'm going to see Lewis, and it's to-morrow night the bailiffs will be in at French's."
"Gloats!" cried Bobby. "Oh, this is too much of a good thing all at once. Why, it will crack French up and ruin him! All the people here will cut him. He'll be done for, utterly done for!"
"He'll get such a twisting he'll never get over it," said Giveen. ”

“ He strayed into a bazaar that was going on there, and I met him. He was acting like a cad, refusing to pay for a cup of tea. Miss Grimshaw, French's governess, pointed him out to me, and told me who he was, and I froze on to him. I said my name was Smith, and I told him I hated French, and he unbosomed himself to me. Well, here's the position now. To-morrow morning he's going down to Lewis, the moneylender, and is going to put Lewis on to French. Now, you see the position I'm in. For Heaven's sake, try to think of what's to be done."
"When is the race?" asked Miss Hitchen. ”

“ Miss Grimshaw, inasmuch as she knew nothing of the gossoon Moriarty had despatched to his master earlier in the evening, with a succinct message stating his plan against the bailiff, and the absolute necessity of taking the governess along, lest the said bailiff, seeing the governess and luggage left behind at the inn, might smell a rat.
"And what'll you be plazed to have for supper, miss?" asked Biddy.
"What can you give us?" asked Mr. Dashwood.
"Anything you like, sorr."
"Well, get us a cold roast chicken and some ham. I'm sure you'd like chicken, wouldn't you?" turning to the girl. ”

“ French, "the only question is where could I take the horse? Faith! and I have it. Todd Mead—he's a man you've never heard of—has an old shanty down in Sligo. He uses it for breeding polo ponies, and there's a hundred square mile of heath that you could train a dromedary on and not a soul to see. He lives in Dublin, and keeps a manager there, and he'd give me stabling there, maybe, for nothing, for he has more room than he wants. It's a big streeling barn of a place."
"You say the debt to Mr. Lewis only comes due a few weeks before the race?" asked Miss Grimshaw. ”

“ Giveen was still snoring, and Mr. Dashwood, who had no desire for his company, left him to his slumbers while he proceeded to the business of lighting the fire. Then he undid the package of provisions, and spread the contents on the dresser. Tinned meat and biscuits formed the store—nothing else, unless we include two small jars of olives, and as Mr. Dashwood looked at the row of biscuit bags and tins, he came to the conclusion that, however learned in eugenics and sociology, Miss Hitchen was somehow deficient in her knowledge of household management. ”

“ Besides, just imagine, if a man in [Pg 207] possession came down, and if the fact leaks out, how all these Crowsnest society people will snub us and sneer at us! You don't know them. I do."
"There are an awful lot of old cats here," conceded Mr. Dashwood, not knowing what else to say.
"Makes one feel one would like to put out poisoned milk for them," said the girl. "Well, here we are, and there's Mr. French."
They had reached the top of the path, and French, who was standing in the verandah of the bungalow, like a watchman on the look-out for enemies, hailed them. ”