Whatever the King might prove, however, the Guards, the Flower of the Service, must stand or fall by him; they had not Seraph, they put in Beauty and his gray. But there was no doubt as to the tremendousness of the struggle lying before him. The running ground covered four miles and a half, and had forty-two jumps in it, exclusive of the famous Brixworth: half was grassland, and half ridge and furrow; a lane with very awkward double fences laced in and in with the memorable blackthorn, a laid hedge with thick growers in it and many another teaser, coupled with the yawning water, made the course a severe one; while thirty-two starters of unusual excellence gave a good field and promised a close race. Every fine bit of steeple-chase blood that was to be found in their studs, the Service had brought together for the great event; and if the question could ever be solved, whether it is possible to find a strain that shall combine pace over the flat with the heart to stay over an inclosed country, the speed to race with the bottom to fence and the force to clear water, it seemed likely to be settled now. The Service and the Stable had done their uttermost to reach its solution.
The clock of the course pointed to half-past one; the saddling bell would ring at a quarter to two, for the days were short and darkened early; the Stewards were all arrived, except the Marquis of Rockingham, and the Ring was in the full rush of excitement; some getting on hurriedly to make up for lost time; some peppering one or other of the favorites hotly; some laying off their moneys in a cold fit of caution; some putting capfuls on the King, or Bay Regent, or Pas de Charge, from the great commission stables, the local betting man, the shrewd wiseacres from the Ridings, all the rest of the brotherhood of the Turf were crowding together with the deafening shouting common to them which sounds so tumultuous, so insane, and so unintelligible to outsiders. Amid them half the titled heads of England, all the great names known on the flat, and men in the Guards, men in the Rifles, men in the Light Cavalry, men in the Heavies, men in the Scots Greys, men in the Horse Artillery, men in all the Arms and all the Regiments that had sent their first riders to try for the Blue Ribbon, were backing their horses with crackers, and jotting down figure after figure, with jeweled pencils, in dainty books, taking long odds with the fields. Carriages were standing in long lines along the course, the stands were filled with almost as bright a bevy of fashionable loveliness as the Ducal brings together under the park trees of Goodwood; the horses were being led into the inclosure for saddling, a brilliant sun shone for the nonce on the freshest of February noons; beautiful women were fluttering out of their barouches in furs and velvets, wearing the colors of the jockey they favored, and more predominant than any were Cecils scarlet and white, only rivaled in prominence by the azure of the Heavy Cavalry champion, Sir Eyre Montacute. A drag with four bayswith fine hunting points about themhad dashed up, late of course; the Seraph had swung himself from the roller-bolt into the saddle of his hack (one of these few rare hacks that are perfect, and combine every excellence of pace, bone, and action, under their modest appellative), and had cantered off to join the Stewards; while Cecil had gone up to a group of ladies in the Grand Stand, as if he had no more to do with the mornings business than they. Right in front of that Stand was an artificial bullfinch that promised to treat most of the field to a purler, a deep ditch dug and filled with water, with two towering blackthorn fences on either side of it, as awkward a leap as the most cramped country ever showed; some were complaining of it; it was too severe, it was unfair, it would break the back of every horse sent at it. The other Stewards were not unwilling to have it tamed down a little, but he Seraph, generally the easiest of all sweet-tempered creatures, refused resolutely to let it be touched.
Look here, said he confidentially, as he wheeled his hack round to the Stand and beckoned Cecil down, look here, Beauty; theyre wanting to alter that teaser, make it less awkward, you know; but I wouldnt because I thought it would look as if I lessened it for you, you know. Still it is a cracker and no mistake; Brixworth itself is nothing to it, and if youd like it toned down Ill let them do it
My dear Seraph, not for worlds! You were quite right not to have a thorn taken down. Why, thats where I shall thrash Bay Regent, said Bertie serenely, as if the winning of the stakes had been forecast in his horoscope.
The Seraph whistled, stroking his mustaches. Between ourselves, Cecil, that fellow is going up no end. The Talent fancy him so
Let them, said Cecil placidly, with a great cheroot in his mouth, lounging into the center of the Ring to hear how the betting went on his own mount; perfectly regardless that he would keep them waiting at the weights while he dressed. Everybody there knew him by name and sight; and eager glances followed the tall form of the Guards champion as he moved through the press, in a loose brown sealskin coat, with a little strip of scarlet ribbon round his throat, nodding to this peer, taking evens with that, exchanging a whisper with a Duke, and squaring his book with a Jew. Murmurs followed about him as if he were the horse himselflooks in racing formlooks used up to metoo little hands surely to hold in long in a spintoo much length in the limbs for a light weight; bones always awfully heavydark under the eye, been going too fast for traininga swell all over, but rides no end, with other innumerable contradictory phrases, according as the speaker was on him or against him, buzzed about him from the riff-raff of the Ring, in no way disturbing his serene equanimity.
One man, a big fellow, ossy all over, with the genuine sporting cut-away coat, and a superabundance of showy necktie and bad jewelry, eyed him curiously, and slightly turned so that his back was toward Bertie, as the latter was entering a bet with another Guardsman well known on the turf, and he himself was taking long odds with little Berk Cecil, the boy having betted on his brothers riding, as though he had the Bank of England at his back. Indeed, save that the lad had the hereditary Royallieu instinct of extravagance, and, with a half thoughtless, half willful improvidence, piled debts and difficulties on this rather brainless and boyish head, he had much more to depend on than his elder; old Lord Royallieu doted on him, spoilt him, and denied him nothing, though himself a stern, austere, passionate man, made irascible by ill health, and, in his fits of anger, a very terrible personage indeedno more to be conciliated by persuasion than iron is to be bent by the hand; so terrible that even his pet dreaded him mortally, and came to Bertie to get his imprudences and peccadilloes covered from the Viscounts sight.
Glancing round at this moment as he stood in the ring, Cecil saw the betting man with whom Berkeley was taking long odds on the race; he raised his eyebrows, and his face darkened for a second, though resuming its habitual listless serenity almost immediately.
You remember that case of welshing after the Ebor St. Leger, Con? he said in a low tone to the Earl of Constantia, with whom he was talking. The Earl nodded assent; everyone had heard of it, and a very flagrant case it was.
Theres the fellow, said Cecil laconically, and strode toward him with his long, lounging cavalry swing. The man turned pallid under his florid skin, and tried to edge imperceptibly away; but the density of the throng prevented his moving quickly enough to evade Cecil, who stooped his head, and said a word in his ear. It was briefly:
Theres the fellow, said Cecil laconically, and strode toward him with his long, lounging cavalry swing. The man turned pallid under his florid skin, and tried to edge imperceptibly away; but the density of the throng prevented his moving quickly enough to evade Cecil, who stooped his head, and said a word in his ear. It was briefly:
Leave the ring.
The rascal, half bully, half coward, rallied from the startled fear into which his first recognition by the Guardsman (who had been the chief witness against him in a very scandalous matter at York, and who had warned him that if he ever saw him again in the Ring he would have him turned out of it) had thrown him, and, relying on insolence and the numbers of his fraternity to back him out of it, stood his ground.
Ive as much right here as you swells, he said, with a hoarse laugh. Are you the whole Jockey Club, that you come it to a honest gentleman like that?
Cecil looked down on him slightly amused, immeasurably disgustedof all earths terrors, there was not one so great for him as a scene, and the eager bloodshot eyes of the Ring were turning on them by the thousand, and the loud shouting of the bookmakers was thundering out, Whats up?
My honest gentleman, he said wearily, leave this. I tell you; do you hear?
Make me! retorted the welsher, defiant in his stout-built square strength, and ready to brazen the matter out. Make me, my cock o fine feathers! Put me out of the ring if you can, Mr. Dainty Limbs! Ive as much business here as you.
The words were hardly out of his mouth before, light as a deer and close as steel, Cecils hand was on his collar, and without any seeming effort, without the slightest passion, he calmly lifted him off the ground, as though he were a terrier, and thrust him through the throng; Ben Davis, as the welsher was named, meantime being so amazed at such unlooked-for might in the grasp of the gentlest, idlest, most gracefully made, and indolently tempered of his born foes and prey, the swells, that he let himself be forced along backward in sheer passive paralysis of astonishment, while Bertie, profoundly insensible to the tumult that began to rise and roar about him, from those who were not too absorbed in the business of the morning to note what took place, thrust him along in the single clasp of his right hand outward to where the running ground swept past the Stand, and threw him lightly, easily, just as one may throw a lap-dog to take his bath, into the artificial ditch filled with water that the Seraph had pointed out as a teaser. The man fell unhurt, unbruised, so gently was he dropped on his back among the muddy, chilly water, and the overhanging brambles; and, as he rose from the ducking, a shudder of ferocious and filthy oaths poured from his lips, increased tenfold by the uproarious laughter of the crowd, who knew him as a welsher, and thought him only too well served.
Policemen rushed in at all points, rural and metropolitan, breathless, austere, and, of course, too late. Bertie turned to them, with a slight wave of his hand, to sign them away.
Dont trouble yourselves! Its nothing you could interfere in; take care that person doesnt come into the betting ring again, thats all.
The Seraph, Lord Constantia, Wentworth, and may others of his set, catching sight of the turmoil and of Beauty, with the great square-set figure of Ben Davis pressed before him through the mob, forced their way up as quickly as they could; but before they reached the spot Cecil was sauntering back to meet them, cool and listless, and a little bored with so much exertion; his cheroot in his mouth, and his ear serenely deaf to the clamor about the ditch.
He looked apologetically at the Seraph and the others; he felt some apology was required for having so far wandered from all the canons of his Order as to have approached a row, and run the risk of a scene.
Turf must be cleared of these scamps, you see, he said, with a half sigh. Law cant do anything. Fellow was trying to get on with the young one, too. Dont bet with those riff-raff, Berk. The great bookmakers will make you dead money, and the little Legs will do worse to you.
The boy hung his head, but looked sulky rather than thankful for his brothers interference with himself and the welsher.
You have done the Turf a service, Beautya very great service; theres no doubt about that, said the Seraph. Law cant do anything, as you say; opinion must clear the ring of such rascals; a welsher ought not to dare to show his face here; but, at the same time, you oughtnt to have gone unsteadying your muscle, and risking the firmness of your hand at such a minute as this, with pitching that fellow over. Why couldnt you wait till afterward? or have let me do it?
My dear Seraph, murmured Bertie languidly, Ive gone in to-day for exertion; a little more or less is nothing. Besides, welshers are slippery dogs, you know.
He did not add that it was having seen Ben Davis taking odds with his young brother which had spurred him to such instantaneous action with that disreputable personage; who, beyond doubt, only received a tithe part of his deserts, and merited to be double-thonged off every course in the kingdom.
Rake at that instant darted, panting like a hot retriever, out of the throng. Mr. Cecil, sir, will you please come to the weightsthe saddling bells a-going to ring, and
Tell them to wait for me; I shall only be twenty minutes dressing, said Cecil quietly, regardless that the time at which the horses should have been at the starting-post was then clanging from the clock within the Grand Stand. Did you ever go to a gentleman-rider race where the jocks were not at least an hour behind time, and considered themselves, on the whole, very tolerably punctual? At last, however, he sauntered into the dressing-shed, and was aided by Rake into tops that had at length achieved a spotless triumph, and the scarlet gold-embroidered jacket of his fair friends art, with white hoops and the Coeur Vaillant se fait Royaume on the collar, and the white, gleaming sash to be worn across it, fringed by the same fair hands with silver.
Meanwhile the welsher, driven off the course by a hooting and indignant crowd, shaking the water from his clothes, with bitter oaths, and livid with a deadly passion at his exile from the harvest-field of his lawless gleanings, went his way, with a savage vow of vengeance against the dd dandy, the Guards swell, who had shown him up before the world as the scoundrel he was.
The bell was clanging and clashing passionately, as Cecil at last went down to the weights, all his friends of the Household about him, and all standing crushers on their champion, for their stringent esprit de corps was involved, and the Guards are never backward in putting their gold down, as all the world knows. In the inclosure, the cynosure of devouring eyes, stood the King, with the sangfroid of a superb gentleman, amid the clamor raging round him, one delicate ear laid back now and them, but otherwise indifferent to the din; with his coat glistening like satin, the beautiful tracery of vein and muscle, like the veins of vine-leaves, standing out on the glossy, clear-carved neck that had the arch of Circassia, and his dark, antelope eyes gazing with a gentle, pensive earnestness on the shouting crowd.
His rivals, too, were beyond par in fitness and in condition, and there were magnificent animals among them. Bay Regent was a huge raking chestnut, upward of sixteen hands, and enormously powerful, with very fine shoulders, and an all-over-like-going head; he belonged to a Colonel in the Rifles, but was to be ridden by Jimmy Delmar of the 10th Lancers, whose colors were violet with orange hoops. Montacutes horse, Pas de Charge, which carried all the money of the Heavy Cavalry,Montacute himself being in the Dragoon Guards,was of much the same order; a black hunter with racing-blood in his loins and withers that assured any amount of force, and no fault but that of a rather coarse head, traceable to a slur on his scutcheon on the distaff side from a plebeian great-grandmother, who had been a cart mare, the only stain on his otherwise faultless pedigree. However, she had given him her massive shoulders, so that he was in some sense a gainer by her, after all. Wild Geranium was a beautiful creature enough: a bright bay Irish mare, with that rich red gloss that is like the glow of a horse chestnut; very perfect in shape, though a trifle light perhaps, and with not quite strength enough in neck or barrel; she would jump the fences of her own paddock half a dozen times a day for sheer amusement, and was game for anything1. She was entered by Cartouche of the Enniskillens, to be ridden by Baby Grafton, of the same corps, a feather-weight, and quite a boy, but with plenty of science in him. These were the three favorites. Day Star ran them close, the property of Durham Vavassour, of the Scots Greys, and to be ridden by his owner; a handsome, flea-bitten, gray sixteen-hander, with ragged hips, and action that looked a trifle string-halty, but noble shoulders, and great force in the loins and withers; the rest of the field, though unusually excellent, did not find so many sweet voices for them, and were not so much to be feared; each starter was, of course, much backed by his party, but the betting was tolerably even on these fourall famous steeple-chasersthe King at one time, and Bay Regent at another, slightly leading in the Ring.