She could not but perceive that the commercial morality of the house she was going to was of an old-fashioned type, dating from somewhere in the times of the buccaneers, and she felt keenly interested in the probable personality of Mr. French.
Moriarty she liked unreservedly; and in Mr. Dashwood, her fellow-stranger in this unknown land, she felt an interest which he was returning as he lay in bed, pipe in mouth, and his head on a pillow stuffed presumably with brickbats.
CHAPTER V
Andy Meehan was a jockey who had already won Mr. French three races. He was a product of the estate, and a prodigy, though by no means an infant.
Nobody knew his age exactly. Under five feet, composed mostly of bone with a little skin stretched tightly over it, with a face that his cap nearly obliterated, Andy presented a problem in physiology very difficult of solution. That is to say, in Mr. French's words, the more he ate the lighter he grew. In the old days, before Mr. French took him into his stable as helper, when food was scarce and Andy half-starved, he was comparatively fat. Housed and fed well, he waxed thin, and kicked. Kicked for a better job, and got it. He was a Heaven-born jockey. He possessed hands, knees, and head. He was made to go on a horse just as a limpet is made to go on a rock. Nothing on the ground, he was everything when mounted. He was insight, dexterity, coolness, courage, and judgment.
Several owners had tried to lure Andy away from his master. Prospects of good pay and advancement, however, had no charm for Andy. French was his master, and to all alien offers Andy had only one reply. "To h—l wid them." I doubt if Andy's vocabulary had more than two hundred words. Except to Mr. French or Moriarty he was very speechless. "Yes" and "No" for ordinary purposes, and when he was vexed, "To h—l wid you," served his almost everyday needs.
Last night he had single-handed taken Nip and Tuck to the station, and entrained them, returning on foot, and this morning he was mending an old saddle in the sunshine of the stableyard when Mr. French appeared at the gate. Mr. French had come out of the house without his hat. He had a cigar in his mouth, and his hands in his pockets. He gave some directions to Andy to be handed on to Moriarty when that personage arrived, and then with his own hand opened the upper door of a loose-box.
A lovely head was thrust out. It was Garryowen's. The eye so full of kindliness and fire, the mobile nostrils telling of delicate sensibilities and fine feeling, the nobility and intelligence that spoke in every line of that delicately-cut head—these had to be seen to be understood.