The young man angled for the story that was waiting to be caught.
"Yet Chukkers wins," he said. "He"s headed the list for five seasons now."
"He wins," said Monkey grimly. "Them as has rode against him knows "ow."
Silver edged his pony up along the other.
"You"ve ridden against him?" he inquired with cunning innocence.
The little jockey"s eyes became dreamy.
"My ole pal Chukkers," he mused. "Him and me. Yes, I"ve rode agin" him twenty year now. He was twelve first time we met, and I was turned twenty. The Mexican Kid they called him in them days. Kid he was; but wise to the world?--not "alf!" ...
"Was that his first race?" asked Silver.
"It was so, sir--this side. Ikey"d just brought him across the Puddle to ride that Austrian mare, Laria Louisa. Same old stunt it was then as now--_Down the Englishman, don"t matter how._ Yes, it was my first smell of the star-spangled jacket."
"Was that when you got your leg?"
"No, sir. That was eight years later. Boomerang"s year. He was the first waler Ikey brought over this side to do the trick. My! he were a proper great "orse, too. I was riding Chittabob--like a pony alongside him. At the Ca.n.a.l Turn Chukkers ran me onto the rails." He told the tale slowly, rolling it in the mouth, as it were. "Chukkers went on by himself.
n.o.body near him. Thought he"d done it that time. Only where it was Boomerang snap his leg at the last fence. Yes, sir," mystically, "there"s One above all right--sometimes, "tall events."
"And you?" said Silver.
The little jockey thrust out his left leg.
"I was in "orspital three months.... Howsomever, it come out in the wash next year."
"That was Cannibal"s year, wasn"t it?" asked Silver.
"Ah!" said Monkey. "Cannibal!--his name and his nature, too. He was a man-eater, that "orse was. Look like a camel and lep like a h"earthquake. It was just the very reverse that year. Chukkers was on Jezebel, Chukkers was. She was a varmint little thing enough--Syrian bred, I have "eard "em say. And he was out to win all right that journey. There was only us two in it when we come to Beecher"s Brook second time round." He came a little closer. "So when we got to the Ca.n.a.l Turn I rides up alongside. "That you, Mr. Childers?" I says, and b.u.mps him. That shifted him for Valentine"s Brook. There"s a tidy drop there, sir, as you may remember. Chukkers lost his stirrup, and was crawling about on her withers. I hove up alongside agin". He saw me comin" and made a shockin" face. "Clear!" he screams, "or I"ll welt you across the ---- monkey mug!" And just then, blest if old Cannibal didn"t make another mistake and cannon into him agin". That spilt him proper!
Oh, my, Mr. Silver!--my! And I sail "ome alone. Oh, he was a reg"lar outrageous "orse, Cannibal was." He dropped his voice. "When he come out of "orspital of course he made a fuss about it, he and Jaggers and Jew-boy Aaronsohnn. But of course I knew nothin" about it; nor did n.o.body else. See, they all knew Chukkers. He"d tried it on "em all one time or another. And I told the Stewards I was very sorry the fall had gone to "is "ead. Only little Bertie Butler--him with the squint, what won the Sefton this year, you know--who"d been following Chukkers--he says to me: "Next time you"re goin" to play billiards with Chukkers, Mr.
Brand, tip us the wink, will you?""
CHAPTER XX
The Paddock Close
The girl"s voice broke in on them.
"I"m going home now," she cried abruptly.
"Right," answered Silver. "May I come along?"
As he swung round, he saw the girl already jogging away. He pursued leisurely, anxious to talk about Make-Way-There, the Paris Meeting, and Chukkers and Monkey Brand"s gossip. But she flitted away in front of him. As he drew up to her she broke into a canter, and the young man took a pull.
His intuitions, like those of most slow-brained men, were unusually swift and sure. It was as though Nature, the Dispenser of Justice, to compensate him for an apparent dearth in one direction, had endowed him richly in another.
"Woa, my little lad, woa then!" he murmured as Heart of Oak bounced and fretted to catch the retreating roan.
He realised that the girl had withdrawn within herself again. On the cliff, in the excitement of action, she had forgotten herself for the moment. Now she was cold and shy once more, retreating behind her barriers, closing her visor. It was as though she had admitted him too close; and to recover herself must now swing to the other extreme.
Obedient to her will, he kept several lengths behind her. When she found he did not draw up alongside, she slackened her pace. He felt her resistance was dying down in answer to his non-resistance. She was shoving against emptiness, and getting no good from it.
As they came to the crest of the Downs and began the descent of the hill, Boy dropped into a walk.
Below them the long roofs of Putnam"s showed, weathered among the sycamores.
As the girl pa.s.sed into the Paddock Close he was riding at her side again.
The Paddock Close was a vast enclosure, fenced off from the Downs, an ideal nursery and galloping ground for young stock.
There was hill and valley; here and there a group of trees for shade in the dog-days; a great sheltered bottom fringed by a wood that ran out into the Close like a peninsula; and the wall of the Downs to give protection from the east.
As they walked together down the hill, Boy was looking about her.
"Where"s the mare?" she asked.
They were the first words she had spoken.
"Which mare?" asked Silver
"Four Pound."
He glanced round. The young stock were standing lazily under the trees, swishing their tails, and stamping off the flies. But the old mare had forsaken her usual haunt.
Then far away on the edge of a bed of bracken in the bottom, something like a piece of brown paper caught his eye. It rose and fell and flapped in the wind.
Boy saw it, too, and darted off.
"Call Billy Bluff!" she cried over her shoulder; but Billy had already trotted off to the yard to renew the pleasant task of tormenting Maudie and the fan-tails.
The girl made at a canter for the brown paper struggling on the edge of the bracken.
As she came closer she raised a swift hand to steady the man pounding behind her.
The brown paper was a new-born foal, woolly, dun of hue, swaying on uncertain legs. The little creature, with the mane and tail of a toy horse, looking supremely pathetic in its helplessness, wavered ridiculously in the wind. It was all knees and hocks, and fluffy tail that wriggled, and jelly-like eyes. Its tall, thin legs were stuck out before and behind like those of a wooden horse. It stood like one dazed, staring blankly before it, absorbed in the new and surprising action of drawing breath through widespread nostrils; quavered and then collapsed, only to attempt to climb to its feet again.
Close beside her child lay the mother, her neck extended along the green, her eyes blood-shot.
As the girl rode up, the old mare raised her gaunt, well-bred head and snorted, but made no effort to rise.
Boy dismounted.
"Hold Ragam.u.f.fin, will you?" she said.