CHAPTER XXIX. A MORNING AT OSTEND.
It would never have occurred to the mind of any one who saw Annesley Beecher and Davis, as they sat at breakfast together in Ostend, that such a scene as we have described could have occurred between them. Not only was their tone frank and friendly with each other, but a gay and lively spirit pervaded the conversation, and two seemingly more light-hearted fellows it were hard to find.
As the chemist is able by the minutest drop, an almost imperceptible atom of some subtle ingredient, to change the properties of some vast mass, altering color and odor and taste at once, so did the great artist Grog Davis know how to deal with the complicated nature of Beecher, that he could at any moment hurl him down into the blackest depths of despair, or elevate him to the highest pinnacle of hope and enjoyment. The glorious picture of a race-course, with all its attendant rogueries, betting-stands crammed with “fats,” a ring crowded with “green-horns,” was a tableau of which he never wearied. Now, this was a sort of landscape Grog touched off neatly. All the figures he introduced were life-studies, every tint and shade and effect taken carefully from nature. With a masterly hand he sketched out a sort of future campaign, artfully throwing Beecher himself into the foreground, and making him fancy that he was in some sort necessary to the great events before them.
“Mumps did not touch his hock, I hope, when he kicked there?” asked Beecher.
“Call him Klepper,—never forget that,” remonstrated Grog; “he's remarkably like Mumps, that's all; but Mumps is in Staffordshire,—one of the Pottery fellows has him.”
“So he is,” laughed Beecher, pleasantly. “I know the man that owns him.”
“No, you don't,” broke in Davis; “you've only heard his name,—it is Coulson or Cotton, or something like that. One thing, however, is certain: he values him at twelve hundred pounds, and we 'd sell our horse for eight.”
“So we would, Grog, and be on the right side of the hedge too.”
“He'd be dog cheap for it,” said Davis; “he's one of those lazy beggars that never wear out. I 'd lay an even thousand on it that he runs this day two years as he does to-day, and even when he has n't speed for a flat race he 'll be a rare steeple-chase horse.”
Beecher's eyes glistened, and he rubbed his hands with delight as he heard him.
“I do like an ugly horse,” resumed Davis; “a heavy-shouldered beast, with lob-ears, lazy eyes, and capped hocks, and if they know how to come out a stable with a 'knuckle over' of the pastern, or a little bit lame, they 're worth their weight in gold.”
What a merry laugh was Beecher's as he listened!
“Blow me!” cried Grog, in a sort of enthusiasm, “if some horses don't seem born cheats,—regular legs! They drag their feet along, all weary and tired; if you push them a bit, they shut up, or they answer the whip with a kind of shrug, as if to say, 'It ain't any use punishing me at all,' the while they go plodding in, at the tail of the others, till within five, or maybe four lengths of the winning-post, and then you see them stretching—it ain't a stride, it's a stretch—you can't say how it's done, but they draw on—on—on, till you see half a head in front, and there they stay—just doing it—no more.”
“Mumps is exactly—”
“Klepper,—remember, he's Klepper,” said Grog, mildly.
“Klepper, to be sure,—how can I forget it?”
“I hope that fellow Conway is off,” said Grog.
“Yes, he started by the train for Liege,—third class too,—must be pretty hard up, I take it, to travel that way.”
“Good enough for a fellow that has been roughing it in the ranks these two years.”
“He's a gentleman, though, for all that,” broke in Beecher.
“And Strawberry ran at Doncaster, and I saw him t' other day in a 'bus. Now, I 'd like to know how much better he is for having once been a racer?”
“Blood always tells—”
“In a horse, Beecher, in a horse, not in a man. Have n't I got a deal of noble blood in my veins?—ain't I able to show a thoroughbred pedigree?” said he, mockingly. “Well, let me see the fellow will stand at eight paces from the muzzle of a rifle-pistol more cool, or who'll sight his man more calm than I will.” There was a tinge of defiance in the way these words were said that by no means contributed to the ease of him who heard them.
“When do we go for Brussels, Grog?” asked he, anxious to change the subject.
“Here's the map of the country,” said Davis, producing a card scrawled over with lines and figures. “Brussels, the 12th and 14th; Spa, the 20th; Aix, the 25th. Then you might take a shy at Dusseldorf, I can't; I winged a Prussian major there five years ago, and they won't let me in. I 'll meet you at Wiesbaden, and we 'll have a week at the tables. You 'll have to remember that I 'm Captain Christopher so long as we're on the Rhine; once at Baden, 'Richard's himself again!'”
“Is this for either of you, gentlemen?” said the waiter, presenting an envelope from the telegraph-office.
“Yes; I'm Captain Davis,” said Grog, as he broke the seal.
“'Is the Dean able to preach?—may we have a collection?—Telegraph back.—Tom,'” read? Davis, slowly, aloud; and then added, “Ain't he a flat to be always telegraphing these things? As if every fellow in the office couldn't see his game!”
“Spicer, is it?” asked Beecher.
“Yes; he wants to hear how the horse is,—if there's good running in him, and what he's to lay on; but that's no way to ask it. I mind the day, at Wolverton, when Lord Berrydale got one of these: 'Your mother is better,—they are giving her tonics.' And I whispered to George Rigby, 'It 's about Butterfly his mare, that's in for the York, and that's to say, “She's all safe, lay heavy on it.” And so I hedged round, and backed her up to eight thousand,—ay, and I won my money; and when Berrydale said to me after the race was over, 'Grog,' says he, 'you seem to have had a glimpse of the line of country this time,' says I to him; 'Yes, my Lord,' says I; 'and I 'm glad to find the tonics agree with your Lordship's mother.' Did n't he redden up to the roots of his hair! and when he turned away he said, 'There's no coming up to that fellow Davis!'”
“But I wonder you let him see that you were in his secret,” said Beecher.
“That was the way to treat him. If it was Baynton or Berries, I'd not have said a word; but I knew Berrydale was sure to let me have a share in the first good thing going just out of fear of me, and so he did; that was the way I came to back Old Bailey.”
It was now Beecher's turn to gaze with admiring wonder at this great intelligence, and certainly his look was veneration itself.
“Here's another despatch,” cried Davis, as the waiter presented another packet like the former one. “We 're like Secretaries of State to-day,” added he, laughing, as he tore open the envelope. This time, however, he did not read the contents aloud, but sat slowly pondering over the lines to himself.
“It's not Spicer again?” asked Beecher.
“No,” was the brief reply.
“Nor that other fellow,—that German with the odd name?”
“No.”
“Nothing about Mumps,—Klepper, I mean,—nothing about him?”
“Nothing; it don't concern him at all. It's not about anything you ever heard of before,” said Davis, as he threw a log of wood on the fire, and kicked it with his foot. “I 'll have to go to Brussels to-night. I 'll have to leave this by the four o'clock train,” said he, looking at his watch. “The horse is n't fit to move for twenty-four hours, so you 'll remain here; he must n't be left without one of us, you know.”
“Of course not. But is there anything so very urgent—”
“I suppose a man is best judge of his own affairs,” said Davis, rudely.
Beecher made no reply, and a long and awkward silence ensued.
“Let him have one of the powders in a linseed mash,” said Davis, at last, “and see that the bandages are left on—only a little loose—at night. Tom must remain with him in the box on the train, and I 'll look out for you at the station. If we shouldn't meet, come straight to the Hôtel Tirlemont, where all will be ready for you.”
“Remember, Grog, I've got no money; you haven't trusted me with a single napoleon.”
“I know that; here's a hundred francs. Look out sharp, for you 'll have to account for every centime of it when we meet. Dine upstairs here, for if you go down to the ordinary you 'll be talking to every man Jack you meet,—ay, you know you will.”
“Egad! it's rather late in the day to school me on the score of manners.”
“I 'm not a-talking of manners, I 'm speaking of discretion,—of common prudence,—things you 're not much troubled with; you 're just as fit to go alone in life as I am to play the organ at an oratorio.”
“Many thanks for the flattery,” said Beecher, laughing.
“What would be the good of flattering you?” broke out Grog. “You ain't rich, that one could borrow from you; you haven't a great house, where one could get dinners out of you; you 're not even the head of your family, that one might draw something out of your rank,—you ain't anything.”
“Except your friend, Grog Davis; pray don't rob me of that distinction,” said Beecher, with a polished courtesy the other felt more cutting than any common sarcasm.
“It's the best leaf in your book, whatever you may think of it,” said Davis, sternly; “and it will be a gloomy morning for you whenever you cease to be it.”
“I don't intend it, old fellow; I 'll never tear up the deed of partnership, you may rely upon that. The old-established firm of Beecher and Davis, or Davis and Beecher—for I don't care which—shall last my time, at least;” and he held out his hand with a cordiality that even Grog felt irresistible, for he grasped and shook it heartily.
“If I could only get you to run straight, I 'd make a man of you,” said Grog, eying him fixedly. “There's not a fellow in England could do as much for you as I could. There's nobody knows what's in you as I do, and there's nobody knows where you break down like me.”
“True, O Grog, every word of it.”
“I 'd put you in the first place in the sporting world,—I 'd have your name at the top of the list at 'the turf.' In six months from this day—this very day—I 'd bind myself to make Annesley Beecher the foremost man at Newmarket. But just on one condition.”
“And that?”
“You should take a solemn oath—I 'd make it a solemn one, I promise you—never to question anything I decided in your behalf, but obey me to the letter in whatever I ordered. Three months of that servitude, and you 'd come out what I 've promised you.”
“I 'll swear it this moment,” cried Beecher.
“Will you?” asked Davis, eagerly.
“In the most solemn and formal manner you can dictate on oath to me. I 'll take it now, only premising you 'll not ask me anything against the laws.”
“Nothing like hanging, nor even transportation,” said Grog, laughing, while Beecher's face grew crimson, and then pale. “No,—no; all I 'll ask is easily done, and not within a thousand miles of a misdemeanor. But you shall Just think it over quietly. I don't want a 'catch match.' You shall have time to reconsider what I have said, and when we meet at Brussels you can tell me your mind.”
“Agreed; only I hold you to your bargain, remember, if I don't change.”
“I'll stand to what I've said,” said Davis. “Now, remember, the Hotel Tirlemont; and so, good-bye, for I must pack up.”
When the door closed after him, Annesley Beecher walked the room, discussing with himself the meaning of Davis's late words. Well did he know that to restore himself to rank and credit and fair fame was a labor of no common difficulty. How was he ever to get back to that station, forfeited by so many derelictions! Davis might, it is true, get his bills discounted,—might hit upon fifty clever expedients for raising the wind,—might satisfy this one, compromise with that; he might even manage so cleverly that racecourses and betting-rooms would be once more open to him. But what did—what could Grog know of that higher world where once he had moved, and to which, by his misdeeds, he had forfeited all claim to return? Why, Davis did n't even know the names of those men whose slightest words are verdicts upon character. All England was not Ascot, and Grog only recognized a world peopled with gentlemen riders and jocks, and a landscape dotted with flagstaffs, and closed in with a stand-house.
“No, no,” said he to himself; “that's a flight above you, Master Davis. It 's not to be thought of.”