“Five to one, Spotteswood,” a voice answered.
“Ten dollars,” announced the first.
“Good.” And both made memorandum on their cuffs.
A second time the trumpet sounded, and the Knight of Castlewood flashed ingloriously down the roped aisle—a miss.
Again and again the clear note rang out and a mounted figure plunged by, and presently, in a burst of cheering, the herald proclaimed “The Knight of the Black Eagle—one!” and Chilly Lusk, in old-rose doublet and inky plume cantered back with a silver ring upon his pike.
The hazards in the stand multiplied. Now it was Westover’s Knight against him of the Silver Cross; now, the Lord of Brandon to win. The gentlemen wagered coin of the realm; the ladies gloves and chocolates. One pretty girl, amid a gale of chaff, staked a greyhound puppy. The arena swam in a lustrous light, and the greensward glistened in its frame of white and dusky spectators. In the sunshine the horses—every one of them groomed till his coat shone like black, gray or sorrel satin—curveted and whinnied, restive and red-nostriled under the tense rein. The riders sat erect and statuesque, pikes in air, cloaks flapping from their shoulders, waiting the call that sent each in turn tilting against the glittering and elusively breeze-swinging silver circlet.
No simple thing, approaching leisurely and afoot, to send that tapering point straight to the tiny mark. But at headlong gallop, astride a blooded horse straining to take the bit, a deed requiring a nice eye, a perfect seat and an unwavering arm and hand! Those knights who looped back with their pikes thus braceleted had spent long hours in practise and each rode as naturally as he breathed; yet more than once a horse shied in mid-course and at the too-eager thrust of the spur bolted through the ropes. Valiant made his first essay—and missed—with the blood singing in his ears. The ring flew from his pike, catching him a swinging blow on the temple in its rebound, but he scarcely felt it. As he cantered back he heard the major’s bass pitting him against the field, and for a moment again the spot of blue seemed to spread over all the watching stand.
And then, suddenly, stand and field all vanished. He saw only the long level rope-lined lane with its twinkling mid-air point. An exhilaration caught him at the feel of the splendid horse-flesh beneath him—that sense of oneness with the creature he bestrode which the instinctive horseman knows. He lifted his lance and hefted it, seeking its absolute balance, feeling its point as a fencer with his rapier. When again the blood-red sash streamed away the herald’s cry, “Knight of the Crimson Rose—One!” set the field hand-clapping. From the next joust also, Valiant returned with the gage upon his lance. Two had gone to the Champion of Castlewood and two to scattering riders. When Valiant won his fourth the grand stand thundered with applause.
Katherine Fargo was watching with a gaze that held a curious puzzle. After that recognition of the White Knight, Judge Chalmers had told in a few words the story of Damory Court, its ancient history, the unhappy duel that had sent its owner into a Northern exile, and the son’s recent coming. It had more than surprised her. Her father’s appreciative chuckle that “the young vagabond seemed after all to have fallen on his feet” had left her strangely silent. She was undergoing a curious mental bouleversement. Valiant’s passionate defense of his father in that fierce burst of anger in the court room had at first startled her with its sense of unsuspected force. Later, however, she had come to think it theatric and overdrawn, and she had heard of his quixotic surrender of his fortune with a wonder not unmixed with an almost pitying scorn. She despised eccentricity as much as she respected wealth, and the act had seemed a ridiculous impulse or a silly affectation, destined to be repented long and bitterly in cold blood. So she had thought of him since his evanishment with a regret less sharp for being glozed with a certain contempt.
The discovery of him to-day had dissipated this. She had an unerring sense of social values and she made no error in her estimate of the people by whom she was now surrounded. The recital of the Valiant generations, the size of the estate, the position into which its heir had stepped by very reason of being who he was, appealed to her instinct and imagination and respect for blood. She had a sudden conception of new values, beside which money counted little. The last of a line more ancient than the state itself, master of a homestead famous throughout its borders, John Valiant loomed larger in her eyes at the moment than ever before.