Part 5 (1/2)

”I'll keep a holt o' the rope, Miss f.a.n.n.y,” said Johnny, a.s.siduously fondling his pupil; ”it might be she'd be strange in herself for the first offer. I'll lead her on a small piece. Come on, gerr'l! Come on now!”

The pupil, thus adjured, made a hesitating movement, and f.a.n.n.y settled herself down into the saddle. It was the s.h.i.+fting of the weight that seemed to bring home to the grey filly the true facts of the case, and with the discovery she shot straight up into the air as if she had been fired from a mortar. The rope whistled through Johnny Connolly's fingers, and the point of the filly's shoulder laid him out on the ground with the precision of a prize-fighter.

”I felt, my dear,” as f.a.n.n.y Fitz remarked in a letter to a friend, ”as if I were in something between an earthquake and a bad dream and a churn. I just _clamped_ my legs round the crutches, and she whirled the rest of me round her like the lash of a whip. In one of her flights she nearly went in at the hall door, and I was aware of William O'Loughlin's snow-white face somewhere behind the geraniums in the porch. I think I was clean out of the saddle then. I remember looking up at my knees, and my left foot was nearly on the ground. Then she gave another flourish, and swung me up on top again. I was hanging on to the reins hard; in fact, I think they must have pulled me back on to the saddle, as I _know_ at one time I was sitting in a bunch on the stirrup! Then I heard most heart-rending yells from the poor old Aunts: 'Oh, the begonias! O f.a.n.n.y, get off the gra.s.s!' and then, suddenly, the filly and I were perfectly still, and the house and the trees were spinning round me, black, edged with green and yellow dazzles. Then I discovered that some one had got hold of the cavesson rope and had hauled us in, as if we were salmon; Johnny had grabbed me by the left leg, and was trying to drag me off the filly's back; William O'Loughlin had broken two pots of geraniums, and was praying loudly among the fragments; and Aunt Harriet and Aunt Rachel, who don't to this hour realise that anything unusual had happened, were reproachfully collecting the trampled remnants of the begonias.”

It was, perhaps unworthy on f.a.n.n.y Fitz's part to conceal the painful fact that it was that distinguished fisherman, Mr. Rupert Gunning, who had landed her and the Connemara filly. Freddy Alexander, however, heard the story in its integrity, and commented on it with his usual candour.

”I don't know which was the bigger fool, you or Johnny,” he said; ”I think you ought to be jolly grateful to old Rupert!”

”Well, I'm not!” returned f.a.n.n.y Fitz.

After this episode the training of the filly proceeded with more system and with entire success. Her nerves having been steadied by an hour in the lunge with a sack of oats strapped, Mazeppa-like, on to her back, she was mounted without difficulty, and was thereafter ridden daily. By the time f.a.n.n.y's muscles and joints had recovered from their first attempt at rough-riding, the filly was taking her place as a reasonable member of society, and her nerves, which had been as much _en evidence_ as her bones, were, like the latter, finding their proper level, and becoming clothed with tranquillity and fat. The Dublin Horse Show drew near, and, abetted by Mr. Alexander, f.a.n.n.y Fitz filled the entry forms and drew the necessary cheque, and then fell back in her chair and gazed at the attentive dogs with fateful eyes.

”Dogs!” she said, ”if I don't sell the filly I am done for!”

The mother scratched languidly behind her ear till she yawned musically, but said nothing. The daughter, who was an enthusiast, gave a sudden bound on to Miss Fitzroy's lap, and thus it was that the cheque was countersigned with two blots and a paw mark.

None the less, the bank honoured it, being a kind bank, and not desirous to emphasise too abruptly the fact that f.a.n.n.y Fitz was overdrawn.

In spite of, or rather, perhaps, in consequence of this fact, it would have been hard to find a smarter and more prosperous-looking young woman than the owner of No. 548, as she signed her name at the season-ticket turnstile and entered the wide soft aisles of the cathedral of horses at b.a.l.l.sbridge. It was the first day of the show, and in token of f.a.n.n.y Fitz's enthusiasm be it recorded, it was little more than 9.30 A.M.

f.a.n.n.y knew the show well, but hitherto only in its more worldly and social aspects. Never before had she been of the elect who have a horse ”up,” and as she hurried along, attended by Captain Spicer, at whose house she was staying, and Mr. Alexander, she felt magnificently conscious of the importance of the position.

The filly had preceded her from Craffroe by a couple of days, under the charge of Patsey Crimmeen, lent by Freddy for the occasion.

”I don't expect a prize, you know,” f.a.n.n.y had said loftily to Mr.

Gunning, ”but she has improved so tremendously, every one says she ought to be an easy mare to sell.”

The sun came filtering through the high roof down on to the long rows of stalls, striking electric sparks out of the stirrup-irons and bits, and adding a fresh gloss to the polish that the grooms were giving to their charges. The judging had begun in several of the rings, and every now and then a glittering exemplification of all that horse and groom could be would come with soft thunder up the tan behind f.a.n.n.y and her squires.

”We've come up through the heavy weights,” said Captain Spicer; ”the twelve-stone horses will look like rats--” He stopped.

They had arrived at the section in which figured ”No. 548. Miss F.

Fitzroy's 'Gamble,' grey mare; 4 years, by Grey Dawn,” and opposite them was stall No. 548. In it stood the Connemara filly, or rather something that might have been her astral body. A more spectral, deplorable object could hardly be imagined. Her hind quarters had fallen in, her hips were standing out; her ribs were like the bars of a grate; her head, hung low before her, was turned so that one frightened eye scanned the pa.s.sers-by, and she propped her fragile form against the part.i.tion of her stall, as though she were too weak to stand up.

To say that f.a.n.n.y Fitz's face fell is to put it mildly. As she described it to Mrs. Spicer, it fell till it was about an inch wide and five miles long. Captain Spicer was speechless. Freddy alone was equal to demanding of Patsey Crimmeen what had happened to the mare.

”Begor, Masther Freddy, it's a wonder she's alive at all!” replied Patsey, who was now perceived to be looking but little better than the filly. ”She was middlin' quiet in the thrain, though she went to lep out o' the box with the first screech the engine give, but I quietened her some way, and it wasn't till we got into the sthreets here that she went mad altogether. Faith, I thought she was into the river with me three times! 'Twas hardly I got her down the quays; and the first o' thim alecthric thrams she seen! Look at me hands, sir! She had me swingin'

on the rope the way ye'd swing a flail. I tell you, Masther Freddy, them was the ecstasies!”

Patsey paused and gazed with a gloomy pride into the stricken faces of his audience.

”An' as for her food,” he resumed, ”she didn't use a bit, hay, nor oats, nor bran, bad nor good, since she left Johnny Connolly's. No, nor drink.

The divil dang the bit she put in her mouth for two days, first and last. Why wouldn't she eat is it, miss? From the fright sure! She'll do nothing, only standing that way, and bushtin' out sweatin', and watching out all the time the way I wouldn't lave her. I declare to G.o.d I'm heart-scalded with her!”

At this harrowing juncture came the order to No. 548 to go forth to Ring 3 to be judged, and further details were reserved. But f.a.n.n.y Fitz had heard enough.

”Captain Spicer,” she said, as the party paced in deepest depression towards Ring 3, ”if I hadn't on a new veil I should cry!”

”Well, I haven't,” replied Captain Spicer; ”shall I do it for you? Upon my soul, I think the occasion demands it!”