“Ah, to be sure. Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. You know the proverb: ‘If the mountain will not come to Mahomet, why, Mahomet must go to the mountain,’ of course,” said Cleek. “I’ll just slip round to the dairy and have a glass of milk to brace me up for the business and then—in one hour—in just one by the watch—you shall have the answer to the riddle—here.”
Then, with a bow to Lady Mary, he walked out of the stable and went round the angle of the building after Maggie McFarland.
CHAPTER XIV
He lived up to the letter of his promise.
In an hour he had said when he walked out, and it was an hour to the very tick of the minute when he came back.
Mr. Narkom knowing him so well, knowing how, in the final moments of his coups, he was apt to become somewhat spectacular and theatrical, looked for him to return with a flourish of trumpets and carry all before him with a whirlwind rush; so that it came in the nature of a great surprise, when with the calmness of a man coming in to tea he entered the stable with a large stone bottle in one hand and an hostler’s sponge in the other.
“Well, gentlemen, I am here, you see,” he said with extreme calmness. “And”—indicating the bottle—“have brought something with me to do honour to the event. No, not to drink—it is hardly that sort of stuff. It is Spirit of Wine, Major. I found it over in Farrow’s cottage and have brought it with me—as he, poor chap, meant to do in time himself. There are some wonderful things in Tom Farrow’s cottage, Major; they will pay for looking into, I assure you. Pardon, Mr. Narkom? A criminal? Oh, no, my friend—a martyr!”
“A martyr?”
“Yes, your ladyship; yes, Major—a martyr. A martyr to his love, a martyr to his fidelity. As square a man and as faithful a trainer as ever set foot in a stable-yard—that’s Tom Farrow. I take off my hat to him. The world can do with more of his kind.”