The filly had preceded her from Craffroe by a couple of days, under the charge of Patsey Crimmeen, lent by Freddy for the occasion.
“I don’t expect a prize, you know,” Fanny had said loftily to Mr. Gunning, “but she has improved so tremendously, every one says she ought to be an easy mare to sell.”
The sun came filtering through the high roof down on to the long rows of stalls, striking electric sparks out of the stirrup-irons and bits, and adding a fresh gloss to the polish that the grooms were giving to their charges. The judging had begun in several of the rings, and every now and then a glittering exemplification of all that horse and groom could be would come with soft thunder up the tan behind Fanny and her squires.
“We’ve come up through the heavy weights,” said Captain Spicer; “the twelve-stone horses will look like rats—” He stopped.
They had arrived at the section in which figured “No. 548. Miss F. Fitzroy’s ‘Gamble,’ grey mare; 4 years, by Grey Dawn,” and opposite them was stall No. 548. In it stood the Connemara filly, or rather something that might have been her astral body. A more spectral, deplorable object could hardly be imagined. Her hind quarters had fallen in, her hips were standing out; her ribs were like the bars of a grate; her head, hung low before her, was turned so that one frightened eye scanned the passers-by, and she propped her fragile form against the partition of her stall, as though she were too weak to stand up.
To say that Fanny Fitz’s face fell is to put it mildly. As she described it to Mrs. Spicer, it fell till it was about an inch wide and five miles long. Captain Spicer was speechless. Freddy alone was equal to demanding of Patsey Crimmeen what had happened to the mare.
“Begor, Masther Freddy, it’s a wonder she’s alive at all!” replied Patsey, who was now perceived to be looking but little better than the filly. “She was middlin’ quiet in the thrain, though she went to lep out o’ the box with the first screech the engine give, but I quietened her some way, and it wasn’t till we got into the sthreets here that she went mad altogether. Faith, I thought she was into the river with me three times! ’Twas hardly I got her down the quays; and the first o’ thim alecthric thrams she seen! Look at me hands, sir! She had me swingin’ on the rope the way ye’d swing a flail. I tell you, Masther Freddy, them was the ecstasies!”
Patsey paused and gazed with a gloomy pride into the stricken faces of his audience.
“An’ as for her food,” he resumed, “she didn’t use a bit, hay, nor oats, nor bran, bad nor good, since she left Johnny Connolly’s. No, nor drink. The divil dang the bit she put in her mouth for two days, first and last. Why wouldn’t she eat is it, miss? From the fright sure! She’ll do nothing, only standing that way, and bushtin’ out sweatin’, and watching out all the time the way I wouldn’t lave her. I declare to God I’m heart-scalded with her!”
At this harrowing juncture came the order to No. 548 to go forth to Ring 3 to be judged, and further details were reserved. But Fanny Fitz had heard enough.