CHAPTER XLIV.—LORD ALFRED COURTLAND SOWS A FEW WILD OATS.
Captain O’Brien, having finished his glass of Claret, and turned up the points of his carroty moustaches, thus resumed his story:—
“At first it was as much as I was able to do to track the fellow by the sound of his horse’s hoofs upon the soft turf, but I trusted a good deal to the mare’s instinct to follow the horse before her; fortunately we had not very far to go before we got upon the hard village road, and then there was nothing to do but ride him down, for the grey light that precedes the dawn enabled me to see his figure distinctly. But that same riding him down was easier to talk about than to do, for the scoundrel had obtained a long start of us, and though I was well mounted, I soon perceived that he was equally so. Away we rattled at a slashing pace, and for about a mile the two troopers managed to keep up pretty tolerably; but by the time we had ridden rather more than twice that distance, I found my friend was gradually drawing ahead, and that if I waited for my men, I should soon have seen my last of him; so giving the mare her head, and a trifling reminder with the spur besides, I left them, and they gradually tailed off in the distance, until a turn of the road hid them altogether. In my time, I’ve ridden steeple-chases, hurdle-races, and every species of race that the divil ever invented, but a faster thing than that morning’s ride I never saw nor heard of. The horses were well matched as to speed, mine was rather the freshest, but then the Carlist was the lighter weight; the thing could not have been fairer. However, after a couple of miles or so more, I was glad to perceive that I was gradually creeping up to him; and I suppose he began to suspect it too, for, as the light increased, I saw him every now and then look round suspiciously, and urge his horse still faster at each successive glance. About a mile from the village, I had gained upon him so decidedly that it was evident I must overtake him before he could reach its friendly shelter. Apparently he was of the same opinion, for, before I was aware of his intention, he unslung a carbine he carried, pulled up suddenly, and turning in his saddle, levelled it, and took a deliberate aim at me. Everybody that knows Terence O’Brien, knows he’s no coward, but ’pon my conscience, at that moment, I wouldn’t have been sorry to have turned my horse’s head, and cried quits with him; however, a bullet is a style of article that doesn’t allow a man much time for deliberation, so seeing it was a case of hit or miss, I only rammed in the spurs harder, bent down my head, couched my lance, and galloped on. Bang went the carbine; and almost before the report reached me, a bullet whistled through the air; I heard a sort of ‘thud,’ as when an arrow strikes a straw target, and felt my throat-strap suddenly tightened,—the messenger of death had passed through my cap, severing a lock of hair and just raising the skin, without doing me the slightest injury; but it was a close shave in every sense of the word. Well, as soon as the scoundrel perceived that his shot had failed, he felt that his only chance was to exert every nerve to reach the village before I overtook him; so, flinging away his discharged carbine, he dashed on, urging his failing steed with voice and spurs, and even, as I gained upon him, with the point of his dagger. Another minute brought us in sight of the village, where a sleepy sentinel was pacing up and down the road in front of a sort of toll-house. Astonished at the sight of two men riding like lunatics, he first attempted to close the bar fixed there to defend the entrance to the village, then, recognising my companion, he paused, and before he had come to any decision, we had dashed past him—my friend obligingly desiring him to ‘shoot the dog of a Christino,’ as we flew by; an order which, fortunately for me, he was too much confused to execute, discharging his firelock harmlessly into the air. As we passed the toll-house, I was not above two horse-lengths from my antagonist, and gaining upon him at every stride. Any feelings of compunction I might have had at the thought of slaying a fellow-creature, had been effectually put to flight by the shot he had so deliberately fired at me; thus when I found myself at length coming up with him, I grasped my lance more firmly, set my teeth, drove the spurs into the mare, and dashed at him. In another moment I had overtaken him, the point of my lance entered his back between the shoulder-blades, and by the mere impetus of my onward career I drove it through him. As the weapon transfixed him, the poor wretch uttered a yell of agony, and fell forward on his horse’s neck a corpse. If you’ll believe me, gentlemen, it wasn’t till I’d thus squared accounts with the rascal for our sentries that he’d murdered in cold blood, that the idea ever struck me how I was to get back again, with the Carlist village between me and our camp. The first thing I tried, was to pull my lance out of the dead assassin, as he lay on his face in the middle of the road; but the more I pulled, the more it wouldn’t come—I’d driven it in with such force; and, at last, with a wrench I gave it, I snapped the staff in two. Seeing there was no time to lose, I was about to turn my mare’s head in a homeward direction, when it occurred to me that they’d never believe in the regiment that I’d killed the fellow;”—(“Not an improbable thing,” soliloquised Beaupeep)—“so I jumped down, secured the scoundrel’s sash and dagger, remounted, and rode off. As I expected, the sentinel’s shot had roused the village, and just as I got back, a company of soldiers were turning out, half-awake and in great confusion, and the lieutenant contrived to draw a file across the road to stop me. There was nothing for it but impudence; so, drawing my sabre, I waved it in the air, then looking round, as if I’d got a regiment at my back, I sang out, ‘Come on, boys!—trot, gallop, charge!’ and dashed at ’em, cut down the lieutenant, and what between their fright and their confusion, broke their line, rode slap through ’em, escaped by good luck half-a-dozen bullets that were sent after me, and should have got clear away but for a patrol of dragoons that came up on hearing the firing, and who, learning how the matter stood, gave chase. As their horses were fresh, while the race she’d won had pumped every puff of wind out of my mare, they soon overtook me; and after two or three minutes’ hard fighting, a cut in the sword-arm disabled me, and I was forced to give in. Well, they carried me back to the village, settled that I was a spy, besides having killed Don Pedrillo Velasquez de Hatadoro, or some such jargon; for which double crime I was to be hung at noon. Owing to the fortunate arrival of my lancers and a regiment of rifles, however, that event was indefinitely postponed, but I’ll mercifully spare you the recital of the scrimmage, which ended in our taking the village; and, as talking is dry work, I’ll just thank you for the Claret, D’Almayne, me boy!”
Much cheering and acclamation followed the conclusion of the Captain’s story, under cover whereof Jack Beaupeep insinuated to Lord Alfred his opinion that the history in question was better suited to the capacity of the marines than to that of able-bodied seamen, to which his Lordship, quoting Horace, replied, that “Judaeus Apella” might believe it, but that he did not; which, as he said it in the original language of the Roman poet, elicited from his companion the remark that it sounded very pretty, and he wished that he understood Dutch.
“But about this said race; what is it to be, and when is it to come off?” inquired the heavy cornet, who possessed every requisite except brains to become a first-rate blackleg.
“Do you really mean that you’ve a horse you’d like to enter for, say a hurdle-race, Captain O’Brien?” observed the first guardsman, thinking the gallant Hibernian had been rhapsodising, and desirous of exposing the fact.
“Indeed then an’ I have, if you’re plucky enough to enter any horse against him,” was the confident reply. “Broth-of-a-boy will show ’em the way home in style; but there may be a very pretty race for second, nevertheless.”
A laugh followed this slightly gasconading assertion, and the “Heavy” continued: “Suppose we try and make a good race of it, and each of us here enter a horse, and do the thing well.”
“Mais que diable—vot shall he mean?” inquired Monsieur Guillemard, completely out of his depth; “to entaire, to valk into!—how shall ve valk into a horse?”
“Oh, it’s a mere façon de parler,” returned Beaupeep, delighted at an opportunity of mystifying a foreigner; “it’s merely a term used in this kind of game; it is a sort of lottery, in which each person thinks of—invents, in fact—some horse’s name, Jaques-bon-Homme, or Mart-de-ma-Vie, or any other name that occurs to him; then, some day that may be agreed on, these names are written on slips of paper, and drawn out of a hat or cap, and those that don’t lose, win; but there’s very little chance of losing—almost everybody wins; it’s a pretty game, and very simple when you’re used to it. Do you quite understand, or shall I say it again?”
“Mais oui, you are polite, not at all. I shall apprehend him one day, when I shall have played at him: vive la bagatelle! long live zie rubbish!” was the cheerful rejoinder.
While this little conversation had been proceeding, the dark, handsome young man, yclept Phil Tirrett, receiving a hint from O’Brien, conveyed in a contraction of the eyelid, so slight that no one but himself perceived it, wrote a few words on a scrap of paper, and tossed it to Horace D’Almayne. Having read it, D’Almayne crushed it in his hand; then, turning to Lord Alfred, he said—
“Do you know who my left hand neighbour is?”
“What, the good-looking, gipsy-like party?—no; you will surprise me if you tell me he’s a gentleman,” was the sarcastic reply.
“By no means,” returned D’Almayne, helping himself to Claret, and pushing the bottle to Lord Alfred; “but, although he would pass with less discriminating critics than ourselves, what I like about him is, that he never pretends to anything of the kind—he knows perfectly well his position, and the terms on which he gets admitted to society such as the present. His father is a great Yorkshire horse-breeder—a man who supplies half the London market, and exports largely into the bargain; there’s not a year in which old Tirrett does not turn over his ten or fifteen thousand pounds, and bag four or five of ’em clear profit by the end of it. This lad is his eldest son, and comes up to town every season with a lot of young horses; some are bought by the dealers, others, generally two or three of the best, he shows himself, and keeps back till he finds an opportunity of placing them to advantage. This is his third season in town; and from his manner and appearance, not to mention the chance of picking up first-rate horse from him, he has acquired a sort of standing among turf-men.”
“And this brief biography comes à propos to what?” inquired Lord Alfred, languidly, filling his glass.
“A propos to his handing me this bit of paper,” rejoined D’Almayne.
Lord Alfred unrolled the mysterious billet-doux; it ran as follows:—
“If your friend Lord A. C. has a fancy to enter a horse, I can show him one to-morrow no one in London has yet seen, or heard of; it can beat any animal that will be named to-night, I know; and, for its stamp, the figure is not a high one. If he likes the idea, let him name Don Pasquale.”
Lord Alfred pondered: during his life in London his money had been making itself wings, and using them also with alarming assiduity. For a peer, his father was not a rich man, and his own allowance, although enough for a gentleman to live upon carefully, was by no means calculated to withstand such reckless inroads as had lately been made upon it. As yet he was not in debt, and had a virtuous horror of becoming so; but to purchase a racehorse, with such a name as Don Pasquale—an animal with a reputation which would ensure its beating any horse likely to be entered by cavalry cornets, real live guardsmen, or captains of lancers, who had speared Carlist spies, was an idea equally fearful and fascinating, which, even the mystical information that (for such an unparalleled quadruped) the figure was not to be a high one, was unable to divest of its equal powers of terror and temptation. He glanced at the cornet and at the guardsmen; the cornet might be about his own standing, but he felt a proud consciousness that if the prejudices of his benighted country had allowed him to wear a moustache, he could have grown a much more imposing style of article. One guardsman was a noble adult, endowed by nature with unimpeachable black whiskers, and impregnable in the sang froid of three decimals; but the other, the fastest and punningest of the party, was a mere boy apparently his lordship’s junior by a year or more: yet this precocious young warrior talked of entering racehorses, and betting cool hundreds, as though such pursuits were analogous to playing marbles for stakes payable in the copper coinage sacred to the effigy of Britannia, of wave-ruling celebrity. And should he, the knowing man-about-town, the friend and favourite pupil of Horace D’Almayne, should he be deterred by prudential considerations which even that boy had the spirit to ignore and disregard?
D’Almayne’s eyes looked through him as if he had been made of plate-glass, perceived his hesitation and its cause, and hastened to put an end to it. “Have nothing to do with it, mon cher,” he said, sotto voce; “you’ve been spending money pretty fast lately, and we shall have your noble father cutting up rough, and refusing the supplies.”
“You seem to think I am a baby!” was Lord Alfred’s piqued reply, as he filled a large Claret-glass to the brim, having already partaken of that liquor and others freely; “you fancy I am to go through life in leading-strings; but you will learn better some of these days;” then, with a confidential nod to Phil Tirrett, which that accomplished young scoundrel acknowledged with a significant smile, he continued aloud, “Captain O’Brien, I am curious to test your assertion, and beg to enter a horse of mine, Don Pasquale, in order to discover whether Broth-of-a-boy can show him the way home, as that is a feat which I have yet to seek the animal able to perform.”
At this challenge, so boldly thrown down, everybody grew clamorous and excited, with the exception of Jack Beaupeep, who, for the delectation of himself and the younger guardsman, went through a pantomimic representation of first hanging himself, then, with a dessert-knife, severing his carotid artery,—regarding Lord Alfred the while with a smile of mock commiseration, as though to signify his conviction that the young nobleman was metaphorically performing a similar suicide operation on his own account. Horace D’Almayne, with a face indicative of deep concern, vainly endeavoured to dissuade Lord Alfred from having anything to do with horse-racing, which he described as a snare and a delusion, with such pathetic earnestness that his Lordship, bent on vindicating his enfranchisement from parental or morel leading-strings, even if he were necessitated to throw himself over a precipice in order to do so, became more than ever determined to have his own way. Accordingly, he made an appointment to meet the guardsman and Captain O’Brien on the following morning at the “Pandemonium,” and settle all the preliminaries of the race. This interesting and important matter being thus put properly in train, much “turf” conversation followed; and too much wine was drunk by the party generally, and Captain O’Brien in particular; until somebody suggesting that they had a longish drive before them, the meeting broke up, and D’Almayne retired with the head-waiter, to undergo that uncomfortable operation yclept “paying the bill.” As he did so, Tirrett drew Lord Alfred into a corner, and inquired in a low tone—
“How early may I call on your Lordship, and take you to see Don Pasquale?”
“Eh? early did you say?—do you mean really and positively early, or early for London? I seldom breakfast before eleven,” was the “about-townish” reply.
“I did mean really early,” rejoined Tirrett. “Don Pasquale is at a stable a little way out of town, where I would advise your Lordship to keep him quiet till after the race; and, as there is no good in letting too many people into the secret of his whereabouts, I was going to propose to meet you at Hyde Park Corner, at eight o’clock to-morrow morning, and drive you down; in which case you might be in town again by your usual breakfast hour, and no one any the wiser for our expedition.”
“Yes—you know best, of course; but really it’s an alarming sacrifice of ‘nature’s sweet restorer;’ still I’m game for the exertion—a—eight o’clock did you say? ’Gad, I’d better book it, for my memory is not my strong point,” and as he spoke Lord Alfred produced a knowing little betting-book, which he considered it the correct thing to carry, and, in the portion thereof, dedicated to memoranda, entered “Mr. Tirrett, H. P. C., 8 a.m.;” then, replacing it in his pocket, joined a group, in the centre whereof Jack Beaupeep was spinning a dessert-plate on the point of his forefinger, and performing various feats of legerdemain. The drag being reported in readiness, this facetious young gentleman was obliged summarily to discontinue his performance, or, as he expressed it, “shut up shop, in consequence of the early closing movement;” and, after an agreeable moonlight drive, they reached town without adventure about eleven o’clock.
“D’Almayne, my boy, what are we to do with ourselves?” inquired the punning guardsman; “I’m open to anything—except, of course, going quietly to bed.”
“Sure and can’t we get into a row anywhere, now?—is there any gentleman’s head handy that we could punch for a little harmless divarsion?” asked O’Brien.
“What do you say to kidnapping a policeman, charter a cab, convey him to a gin-palace in some obscure locality, fill him blind drunk, shave off his whiskers, blacken his face, and then deposit him at the door of the nearest station-house, to be punished for insobriety, riotous conduct, and neglect of duty?” suggested Beaupeep, with the air of a philanthropist proposing some plan for the benefit of his species.
“Sure, an’ its a great idea intirely, and a thing that should be done forthwith,” observed O’Brien, meditatively and approvingly.
“You can, of course, please yourselves, gentlemen,” replied D’Almayne; “but such valorous achievements are scarcely in my line, or in that of my friend Lord Courtland; n’est-ce pas, Alfred, mon cher?”
“Yes, decidedly. I was going to propose that we should look in at J———— Street for an hour or so, and then go quietly to bed—I don’t want to be late to-night.”
“I’m with you,” chimed in the first guardsman, “what say you, Fred?”
“All serene; though I was in a position to vocalise in the teeth of a footpad—‘vacuus canit,’ &c., you know—regularly cleaned out, the last time I quitted those realms of enchantment; but never mind, faint heart never succeeded with lovely woman, eh? Go in and win, that’s about the time of day!”
“Of night, rather,” suggested Beaupeep, critically; then, assuming a severe tone and manner, he continued, “I’ll tell you what it is, you’re a set of very dissipated young men, and gambling is a vice of which all your anxious parents most strongly disapprove!”
“Faith, and if mine should happen to do that same it won’t cost me any overpowering amount of remorse thin; for me father died some years before I came into this wicked world, and my mother was so cut up by the catastrophe that she did not survive him many days,” remarked O’Brien, with drunken gravity.
And having by this time reached the door of the mysterious club in J———— Street, D’Almayne knocked a peculiar knock, and the whole party entered, with the exception of Jack Beaupeep, who, observing that he had to write a private despatch to the Pope, and a confidential note to Abd-el-Kader, before he went to bed, excused himself on the score of his official duties. As he turned to depart, he glanced at Lord Alfred Courtland, who, with flashing eyes and heightened colour, was the first to enter:—“If that poor boy has not fallen into the hands of the Philistines, it’s a pity!” was his mental comment, and he shook his head with the ominous profundity of a second Lord Burleigh.