Part 18 (1/2)

At all times smouldered in her heart a hatred of racing, even of the horses. ”It's the anger of G.o.d,” Mrs. Porter denounced vehemently. ”This gambling and racing is contrary to His law. Never a night pa.s.ses, Allis, that I do not pray to G.o.d that He may open your father's eyes to the sin of racing. No good can come of it--no good has ever come of it--nothing but disaster and trouble. In a day the substance of a year is wasted.

There never can be prosperity living in sin.”

”Hush, mother,” crooned Allis, softly. This outburst from Mrs. Porter startled the girl; it was so pa.s.sionate, so vehement. When they had talked of racing in the home life the mother had nearly always preserved a reproachful silence; her att.i.tude was understood and respected.

”I must speak, girl,” she said again; ”this sinful life is crus.h.i.+ng me.

Do you think I feel no shame when I sit in meeting and hear our good minister denounce gambling and racing? I can feel his eyes on me, and I cannot raise my voice in protest, for do not I countenance it? My people were all church people,” she continued, almost apologetically, ”tolerating no sin in the household. Living in sin there can be no hope for eternal life.”

”I know, mother,” soothed the girl; ”I know just how you feel, but we can't desert father. He does not look upon it as a sin, as carrying any dishonor; he may be cheated, but he cheats no man. It can't be so sinful if there is no evil intent. And listen, mother; no matter what anybody may say, even the minister, we must both stick to father if he chooses to race horses all his life.”

”Ah, sweetheart!” John Porter cried out in a pleased voice, as he came out to them, ”looking after mother; that's right. Cynthia has helped me fix up Mortimer. He'll be all right as soon as Mike gets back with Rathbone. I think we'd better have a cup of tea; these horses are trying on the nerves, aren't they, little woman?” and he nestled his wife's head against his side. ”How did it happen, Allis? Did Mortimer slip into Diablo's box, or--”

”It was all over that rascally boy, Shandy. Diablo was just paying him back for his ill-treatment, and I went in to rescue him, and Mortimer risked his life to save mine.”

”He was plucky; eh, girl?”

”He fought the Black like a hero, father. But, father, you must never think bad of Lauzanne again; if he hadn't come Mr. Mortimer would have been too late.”

”It's dreadful, dreadful,” moaned the mother.

Allis shot a quick look at her father. He changed the subject, and commenced talking about Alan--wondering where he was, and other irrelevant matters.

Then there was fresh divertis.e.m.e.nt as Mike rattled up, and Doctor Rathbone, who was of a great size, bustled in to where Mortimer lay.

Three smashed ribs and a broken arm was his inventory of the damage inflicted by Diablo's kick, when he came out again with Porter, in an hour.

”I'm afraid one of the splintered ribs is tickling his lung,” he added, ”but the fellow has got such a good nerve that I hardly discovered this unpleasant fact. He'll be all right, however; he's young, and healthy as a peach. Good nursing is the idea, and he'll get that here, of course.

He doesn't want much medicine; that we keep for our enemies,--ha! ha!”

and he laughed cheerily, as if it were all a joke on the battered man.

”Thim docthers is cold-blooded divils,” was Mike's comment. ”Ye'd a thought they'd been throwin' dice, an' it was a horse on the other gintleman. Bot' t'umbs! it was, too. Still, if ould Saw-bones had been in the box yonder wit' Diablo, he wouldn't a-felt so funny.”

”Mortimer behaved well; didn't he, Mike?” asked Porter.

”Behaved well; is it? He was like a live divil; punched thim two big stallions till they took water an' backed out. My word! whin first I see him come to the stable wit' Miss Allis, thinks I, here's wan av thim city chumps; he made me tired. An' whin he talked about Lauzanne's knees, m'aning his hocks, I had to hide me head in a grain bag. But if ye'd seen him handle that fork, bastin' the Black, ye'd a thought it was single sticks he was at, wit' a thousand dollars fer a knock-out.”

”One can't always tell how a colt will shape, can they, Mike?” spoke Porter, for Mike's fanciful description was almost bringing a smile to Mrs. Porter's troubled face.

”Ye can't, sor, an' yer next the trut' there. I've seen a herrin'-gutted weed av a two-year-old--I remember wan now; he was a Lexington. It was at Saratoga; an' bot' t'umbs! he just made hacks av iverythin' in soight--spread-eagled his field. Ye wouldn't a-give two dollars fer him, an' he come out an' cleaned up the Troy Stake, like the great horse he was.”

”And you think Mortimer has turned out something like that; eh, Mike?”

”Well, fer a man that knows no more av horses than I know av the strology av stars, he's a hot wan, an' that's the G.o.d's trut'.”

Mortimer's gallant act had roused the Irishman's admiration. He would have done as much himself, but that would have been expected of a horseman, constantly encountering danger; that an office man, to be pitied in his ignorance, should have fearlessly entered the stall with the fighting stallions was quite a different matter.

Even Allis, with her more highly developed sense of character a.n.a.lyzation, felt something of this same influence. She had needed some such manifestation of Mortimer's integral force, and this had come with romantic intensity in the tragic box-stall scene. This drama of the stable had aroused no polished rhetoric; Mortimer's declamation had been unconventional in the extreme. ”Back, you devils!” he had rendered with explosive fierceness, oblivious of everything but that he must save the girl. The words still rang in the ears of Allis, and also the echo of her own cry when in peril, ”Mortimer!” There must have been a foreshadowing in her soul of the man's reliability, though she knew it not.