"Deuce of a good-looking girl," Potts could now afford to say; and he sang out: "Feel fit, lucky dog?"
"Concert pitch!" was the declaration of Kit Ives.
"How about Lord Brailstone"s man?"
"Female partner in a quadrille, sir."
"Ah!" Potts doated on his limbs with a butcher"s eye for prize joints.
"c.o.c.k-sure has crowed low by sunset," Mallard observed.
Fleetwood offered him to take his bets.
"You"re heavy on it with Brailstone?" said Mallard.
"Three thousand."
"I"d back you for your luck blindfold."
A ruffle of sourness shot over the features of the earl, and was noticed by both eager betters, who exchanged a glance.
Potts inspected his watch, and said half aloud: "Liver, ten to one! That never meant bad luck--except bad to act on. We slept here last night, you know. It "s a mile and a quarter from the Royal Sovereign to the field of glory. Pretty well time to start. Brailstone has a drive of a couple of miles. Coaches from London down by this time. Abrane"s dead on Ben Todds, any odds. Poor old Braney! "Steady man, Todds." Backs him because he"s a "respectable citizen,"--don"t drink. A prize-fighter total abstainer has no spurts. Old Braney"s branded for the losing side.
You might bet against Braney blindfold, Mallard. How long shall you take to polish him off, Kit Ines?"
The opponent of Ben Todds calculated.
"Well, sir, steady Benny ought to be satisfied with his dose in, say, about forty minutes. Maybe he won"t own to it before an hour and ten.
He"s got a proud English stomach."
"Shall we be late?" Potts asked.
"Jump in," Fleetwood said to his man. "We may be five minutes after time, Chummy. I had a longer drive, and had to get married on the way, and--ah, here they are!"
"Lady coming?"
"I fancy she sticks to the coach; I don"t know her tastes. Madge must see her through it, that"s positive."
Potts deferred his astonishment at the things he was hearing and seeing, which were only Fleetwood"s riddles. The fight and the bets rang every other matter out of his head. He beheld the lady, who had come down from the coach like a columbine, mount it like Bean-stalk Jack. Madge was not half so clever, and required a hand at her elbow.
After, giving hurried directions to Rundles, the landlord of the Royal Sovereign, Fleetwood took the reins, and all three gentlemen touched hats to the curtseying figure of Mrs. Rundles.
"You have heard, I dare say--it"s an English scene," he spoke, partly turning his face, to Carinthia; "particularly select to-day. Their Majesties might look on, as the Caesars did in Rome. Pity we can"t persuade them. They ought to set the fashion. Here we have the English people at their grandest, in prime condition, if they were not drunk overnight; and dogged, perfectly awake, magnanimous, all for fair play; fine fellows, upon my word. A little blood, of course."
But the daughter of the Old Buccaneer would have inherited a tenderness for the sight of blood. She should make a natural Lady Patroness of England"s National Sports. We might turn her to that purpose; wander over England with a tail of shouting riff-raft; have exhibitions, join in them, display our accomplishments; issue challenges to fence, shoot, walk, run, box, in time: the creature has muscle. It"s one way of crowning a freak; we follow the direction, since the deed done can"t be undone; and a precious poetical life, too! You may get as royally intoxicated on swipes as on choice wine; win a name for yourself as the husband of such a wife; a name in sporting journals and shilling biographies: quite a revival of the Peerage they have begun to rail at!
"I would not wish to leave you," said Carinthia.
"You have chosen," said Fleetwood.
CHAPTER XVI. IN WHICH THE BRIDE FROM FOREIGN PARTS IS GIVEN A TASTE OF OLD ENGLAND
Cheers at an open gate of a field saluted the familiar scarlet of the Earl of Fleetwood"s coach in Kentish land. They were chorister cheers, the spontaneous ringing out of English country hearts in homage to the n.o.bleman who brightened the heaviness of life on English land with a spectacle of the n.o.ble art distinguishing their fathers. He drove along over m.u.f.fling turf; ploughboys and blue butcher-boys, and smocked old men, with an approach to a hundred-weight on their heels, at the trot to right and left; all hoping for an occasional sight of the jewel called Kitty, that he carried inside. Kitty was there.
Kitty"s eyes are shut. Think of that: cradled innocence and angels"
dreams and the whole of the hymn just before ding-dong-bang on noses and jaws! That means confidence? Looks like it. But Kitty"s not asleep you try him. He"s only quiet because he has got to undergo great exertion.
Last fight he was knocked out of time, because he went into it honest drunk, they tell. And the earl took him up, to give him a chance of recovering his good name, and that"s Christian. But the earl, he knows a man as well as a horse. He"s one to follow. Go to a fayte down at Esslemont, you won"t forget your day. See there, he"s brought a lady on the top o" the coach. That seems for to signify he don"t expect it"s going to be much of a b.l.o.o.d.y business. But there"s no accounting.
Anyhow, Broadfield "ll have a name in the papers for Sunday reading. In comes t" other lord"s coach. They"ve timed it together closes they have.
They were p.r.o.nounced to be both the right sort of n.o.blemen for the country. Lord Brailstone"s blue coach rattled through an eastern gate to the corner of the thirty-acre meadow, where Lord Fleetwood had drawn up, a toss from the ring. The meeting of the blue and scarlet coaches drew forth Old England"s thunders; and when the costly treasures contained in them popped out heads, the moment was delirious. Kit Ines came after his head on a bound. Ben Todds was ostentatiously deliberate: his party said he was no dancing-master. He stepped out, grave as a barge emerging from a lock, though alive to the hurrahs of supporters and punctilious in returning the formal portion of his rival"s too roguish nod. Their look was sharp into the eyes, just an instant.
Brailstone and Fleetwood jumped to the gra.s.s and met, talking and laughing, precise upon points of business, otherwise cordial: plenipotentiaries of great powers, whom they have set in motion and bind to the ceremonial opening steps, according to the rules of civilized warfare. They had a short colloquy with newspaper reporters;--an absolutely fair, square, upright fight of Britons was to be chronicled.
Captain Abrane, a tower in the crowd, registered bets whenever he could.
Curricles, gigs, carts, pony-traps, boys on ponies, a swarm on legs, flowed to the central point and huddled there.
Was either champion born in Kent? An audacious boy proclaimed Kit Ines a man of Kent. Why, of course he was! and that was why the Earl of Fleetwood backed our c.o.c.ky Kitty, and means to land him on the top of his profession. Ben Todds was shuffled aside; as one of their Londoners, dest.i.tute of county savour.
All very well, but have a spy at Benny Todds. Who looks the square man? And hear what that big gentleman of the other lord"s party says.
A gentleman of his height and weight has a right to his opinion. He "s dead against Kit Ines: it"s fists, not feet, he says, "ll do it to-day; stamina, he says. Benny has got the stamina.
Todds" possession of the stamina, and the grand voice of Captain Abrane, and the Father Christmas, roast-beef-of-Old England face of the umpire declared to be on the side of Lord Brailstone"s colour blue, darkened the star of Kit Ines till a characteristic piece of behaviour was espied. He dashed his cap into the ring and followed it, with the lightest of vaults across the ropes. There he was, the first in the ring: and that stands for promise of first blow, first blood, first flat knock-down, and last to cry for quarter. His pair of seconds were soon after him. Fleetwood mounted his box.
"Is it to fight?" said Carinthia.
"To see which is the master."
"They fight to see?"
"Generally until one or the other can"t see. You are not obliged to see it; you can be driven away if you wish."
"I will be here, if you are here."
"You choose it."
Fleetwood leaned over to Chumley Potts on the turf. "Abrane"s ruining himself."
Potts frankly hoped that his friend might be doing so. "Todds is jolly well backed. He"s in prime condition. He"s the favourite of the knowing ones."
"You wouldn"t have the odds, if he weren"t."
"No; but the odds are like ten per cent.: they conjure the gale, and be hanged," said Potts; he swore at his betting mania, which destroyed the pleasure of the show he loved.
All in the ring were shaking hands. Shots of a desire to question and comment sped through Carinthia"s veins and hurt her. She had gathered that she spoke foolishly to her husband"s ear, so she kept her mouth shut, though the unanswered of her inquisitive ignorance in the strange land p.r.i.c.ked painfully at her bosom. She heard the girl behind her say: "Our colours!" when the colour scarlet unwound with Lord Brailstone"s blue was tied to the stake: and her husband nodded; he smiled; he liked to hear the girl.
Potts climbed up, crying: "Toilets complete! Now for paws out, and then at it, my hearties!"
Choice of corners under the leaden low cloud counted for little. A signal was given; a man outside the ring eyed a watch, raised a hand; the two umpires were on foot in their places; the pair of opposing seconds hurried out cheery or bolt-business words to their men; and the champions advanced to the scratch. Todds first, by the courtesy of Ines, whose decorous control of his legs at a weighty moment was rightly read by his party.