The ruin that those six words have so often postulated, rank, raw, cold, and brutal, rose before her. Horses, cards, dice, wine, tobacco—one's dislike of the Pipers who cry these down is accentuated by the truth that underlies their piping.
They are the prophets of the awful telegram which heralds the misery, the pinching, and the poverty that will grip you and your wife and your children till you are in your coffins. They are the prophets of the white dawn that shines into your rooms at Oxford when the men are gone, shines on the card-strewn floor where, like a fallen house of cards, lies the once fair future of a man. They are the physicians who prognose inefficiency, failure, old-age at forty—mental death.
Effie would have two hundred a year. Nothing could touch that. But what of the jovial French? She knew enough of his financial affairs to know that he would be absolutely and utterly ruined.
Tears welled to her eyes for a moment; then she brushed them away, and her colour heightened. Enthusiasm suddenly filled her; the desperate nature of the adventure appealed to her adventurous soul. Never did a doubter do any great work or carry any high adventure to a successful close. Garryowen would win! She felt that to doubt it would be the act of a traitor, and to believe it would help the event.
Shortly after three the dog-cart hired at the inn for the purpose of bailing out Mr. Piper arrived with Mr. Dashwood and his charge.
Mr. Piper looked literally as though he had been bailed out. The unfortunate man, besides receiving a severe rebuke from the magistrates, had been fined two pounds, which Mr. Dashwood had paid.
In Mr. Piper's morning reflections, conducted in the police cell at Crowsnest, he had recognised his false position, and the uselessness of kicking against the pricks.
He knew full well the ridicule that attends the unfortunate who tries to explain away the reason of his drunkenness; to say that he had been made tipsy by force would, even if it obtained his discharge, be so noticeable a statement that the London Press would be sure to seize upon it. If the horses had been taken away, it would be far better to put the fact down to the evasion having been effected whilst he was asleep, and as he had some money about him, he felt sure of being able to pay any fine that might be inflicted on him. He was unconscious of the fact that he had kicked the constable.
Mr. Dashwood, having released him, paid his fine, and given him some soda-water at the Hollborough inn, sketched for him the true position of affairs, making him understand that the horse, once the race was over, would be religiously brought back, and that the only course for him in the midst of these circumstances was to return to The Martens, accept its hospitality, and wait.
Having left him there, the young man, after a short interview with Miss Grimshaw, returned to London.