Part 21 (1/2)

This news so stunned me that for a moment or two I couldn't reply.

O'Grady perceived it, and, patting me gaily on the shoulder, said--

'Yes, Jack, I am sorry we are to separate. But as for me, no other course was open; and as to you, with all your independence from fortune, and with all your family influence to push your promotion, the time is not very distant when you will begin to feel the life you are leading vapid and tiresome. You will long for an excitement more vigorous and more healthy in its character; and then, my boy, my dearest hope is that we may be thrown once more together.'

Had my friend been able at the moment to have looked into the secret recesses of my heart and read there my inmost thoughts, he could not more perfectly have depicted my feelings, nor pictured the impressions that, at the very moment he spoke, were agitating my mind. The time he alluded to had indeed arrived. The hour had come when I wished to be a soldier in more than the mere garb; but with that wish came linked another even stronger still; and this was, that, before I went on service, I should once more see Louisa Bellew, explain to her the nature and extent of my attachment to her, and obtain, if possible, some pledge on her part that, with the distinction I hoped to acquire, I should look to the possession of her love as my reward and my recompense. Young as I was, I felt ashamed at avowing to O'Grady the rapid progress of my pa.s.sion. I had not courage to confess upon what slight encouragement I built my hopes, and at the same time was abashed at being compelled to listen tamely to his prophecy, when the very thoughts that flashed across me would have indicated my resolve.

While I thus maintained an awkward silence, he once more resumed--

'Meanwhile, Jack, you can serve me, and I shall make no apologies for enlisting you. You've heard me speak of this great Loughrea steeplechase: now, somehow or other, with my usual prudence, I have gone on adding wager to wager, until at last I find myself with a book of some eight hundred pounds--to lose which at a moment like this, I need not say, would almost ruin all my plans. To be free of the transaction, I this morning offered to pay half forfeit, and they refused me. Yes, Hinton, they knew every man of them the position I stood in. They saw that not only my prospects but my honour was engaged; that before a week I should be far away, without any power to control, without any means to observe them. They knew well that, thus circ.u.mstanced, I must lose; and that if I lost, I must sell my commission, and leave the army beggared in character and in fortune.'

'And now, my dear friend,' said I, interrupting, 'how happens it that you bet with men of this stamp? I understood you it was a friendly match, got up at a dinnerparty.'

'Even so, Jack. The dinner was in my own rooms, the claret mine, the men my _friends_. You may smile, but so the world is pleased to call those with whom from day to day we a.s.sociate, with no other bond of union than the similarity of a pursuit which has nothing more reprehensible in it than the character of the intimacies it engenders. Yes, Hinton, these are my sporting friends, sipping my wine while they plot my ruin.

Conviviality with them is not the happy abandonment to good fellows.h.i.+p and enjoyment, but the season of cold and studied calculation--the hour when, unexcited themselves, they trade upon the unguarded and unwary feelings of others. They know how imperative is the code of honour as regards a bet, and they make a virtue to themselves in the unflinching firmness of their exaction, as a cruel judge would seek applause for the stern justice with which he condemns a felon. It is usual, however, to accept half forfeit in circ.u.mstances like these of mine: the condition did not happen to be inserted, and they rejected my offer.'

'Is this possible,' said I, 'and that these men call themselves your friends?'

'Yes, Jack; a betting-book is like Shylock's bond, and the holder of one pretty much about as merciful as the worthy Israelite. But come, come!

it is but boyish weakness in one like me to complain of these things; nor, indeed, would I speak of them now, but with the hope that my words may prove a warning to you, while they serve to explain the service I look for from you, and give you some insight into the character of those with whom you 'll have to deal.'

'Only tell me,' said I, 'only explain, my dear O'Grady, what I can do, and how; it is needless for me to say I 'm ready.'

'I thought as much. Now listen to me. When I made this unlucky match it was, as I have said, over a dinnerparty, when, excited by wine and carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment, I made a proposition which, with a calmer head, I should never have ventured. For a second or two it was not accepted, and Mr. Burke, of whom you 've heard me speak, called out from the end of the table, ”A sporting offer, by Jove! and I'll ride for you myself.” This I knew was to give me one of the first hors.e.m.e.n in Ireland; so, while filling my gla.s.s and nodding to him, accepted his offer, I cried out, ”Two to one against any horse named at this moment!” The words were not spoken when I was taken up, at both sides of the table; and as I leaned across to borrow a pencil from a friend, I saw that a smile was curling every lip, and that Burke himself endeavoured with his wine-gla.s.s to conceal the expression of his face.

I needed no stronger proof that the whole match had been a preconcerted scheme between the parties, and that I had fallen into a snare laid purposely to entrap me. It was too late, however, to retract; I booked my bets, drank my wine, congeed my friends, went to bed, and woke the next morning to feel myself a dupe.

'But come, Jack; at this rate I shall never have done. The match was booked, the ground chosen, Mr. Burke to be my jockey, and, in fact, everything arranged, when, what was my surprise, my indignation, to find that the horse I destined for the race (at the time in possession of a friend) was bought up for five hundred and sent off to England! This disclosed to me how completely I was entrapped. Nothing remained for me then but to purchase one which offered at the moment! and this one, I 've told you already, has the pleasant reputation of being the most wicked devil and the hardest to ride in the whole west; in fact, except Burke himself, n.o.body would mount him on a road, and as to crossing a country with him, even _he_, they say, has no fancy for it. In any case, he made it the ground of a demand which I could not refuse--that, in the event of my winning, he was to claim a third of the stakes. At length the horse is put in training, improves every hour, and matters seem to be taking a favourable turn. In the midst of this, however, the report reaches me, as you heard yourself yesterday morning, that Burke will not ride. However I affected to discredit it at the moment, I had great difficulty to preserve the appearance of calm. This morning settles the question by this letter:--

'”Red House, Wednesday Morning.”

'”Dear Sir,--A friendly hint has just reached me that I am to be arrested on the morning of the Loughrea race for a trifle of a hundred and eighteen pounds and some odd s.h.i.+llings. If it suits your convenience to pay the money, or enter into bail for the amount, I'll be very happy to ride your horse; for, although I don't care for a double ditch, I've no fancy to take the wall of the county jail, even on the back of as good a horse as Moddiridderoo.--Yours truly, Ulick Burke.”'

'Well,' said I, as, after some difficulty, I spelled through this ill-written and dirty epistle, 'and what do you mean to do here?'

'If you ask me,' said Phil, 'what I 'd like to do, I tell you fairly it would be to horsewhip my friend Mr. Burke as a preliminary, pay the stakes, withdraw my horse, and cut the whole concern; but my present position is, unhappily, opposed to each of these steps. In the first place, a rencontre with Burke would do me infinite disservice at the Horse Guards, and as to the payment of eight hundred pounds, I don't think I could raise the money, unless some one would advance five hundred of it for a mortgage on Corny Delany. But to be serious, Jack--and, as time pa.s.ses, I must be serious--I believe the best way on this occasion is to give Burke the money (for as to the bill, that's an invention); yet as I must start to-night for England, and the affair will require some management, I must put the whole matter into your hands, with full instructions how to act.'

'I am quite ready and willing,' said I; 'only give me the _carte du pay_.'

'Well, then, my boy, you'll go down to Loughrea for me the day before the race, establish yourself as quietly as you can in the hotel, and, as the riders must be named on the day before the running, contrive to see Mr. Burke, and inform him that his demand will be complied with. Have no delicacy with him---it is a mere money question; and although by the courtesy of the turf he is a gentleman, yet there is no occasion to treat him with more of ceremony than is due to yourself in your negotiation. This letter contains the sum he mentions. In addition to that, I have inclosed a bank cheque for whatever you like to give him; only remember one thing, Hinton--_he_ must ride, and _I_ must win.'

All the calmness with which O'Grady had hitherto spoken deserted him at this moment; his face became scarlet, his brow was bent, and his lip quivered with pa.s.sion, while, as he walked the room with hurried steps he muttered between his teeth--

'Yes, though it cost my last s.h.i.+lling, I'll win the race! They thought to ruin me; the scheme was deeply laid and well planned too, but they shall fail. No, Hinton,' resumed he in a louder tone--'no, Hinton; believe me, poor man that I am, this is not with me a question of so many pounds: it is the wounded _amour propre_ of a man who, all through his life, held out the right hand of fellows.h.i.+p to those very men who now conspire to be his ruin. And such, my dear boy, such, for the most part, are the dealings of the turf. I do not mean to say that men of high honour and unblemished integrity are not foremost in the encouragement of a sport which, from its bold and manly character, is essentially an English one; but this I would a.s.sert, that probity, truth, and honour are the gifts of but a very small number of those who make a traffic of the turf, and are, what the world calls, ”racing men.”

And oh how very hard the struggle, how nice the difficulty, of him who makes these men his daily companions, to avoid the many artifices which the etiquette of the racecourse permits, but which the feelings of a gentleman would reject as unfair and unworthy! How contaminating that laxity of principle that admits of every stratagem, every trick, as legitimate, with the sole proviso that it be successful! And what a position is it that admits of no alternative save being the dupe or the blackleg! How hard for the young fellow entering upon life with all the ardour, all the unsuspecting freshness of youth about him, to stop short at one without pa.s.sing on to the other stage! How difficult, with offended pride and wounded self-love, to find himself the mere tool of sharpers! How very difficult to check the indignant spirit, that whispers retaliation by the very arts by which he has been cheated! Is not such a trial as this too much for any boy of twenty? and is it not to be feared that, in the estimation he sees those held in whose blackguardism is their pre-eminence, a perverted ambition to be what is called a sharp fellow may sap and undermine every honourable feeling of the heart, break down the barriers of rigid truth and scrupulous fidelity, teaching him to exult at what formerly he had blushed, and to recognise no folly so contemptible as that of him who believes the word of another? Such a career as this has many a one pursued, abandoning bit by bit every grace, every virtue, and every charm of his character, that, at the end, he should come forth a ”sporting gentleman.”'

He paused for a few seconds, and then, turning towards me, added, in a voice tremulous from emotion, 'And yet, my boy, to men like this I would now expose you! No, no, Jack; I' ll not do it. I care not what turn the thing may take; I 'll not embitter my life with this reflection.' He seized the letter, and crus.h.i.+ng it in his hand, walked towards the window.

'Come, come, O'Grady,' said I, 'this is not fair; you first draw a strong picture of these men, and then you deem me weak enough to fall into their snares. That would hardly say much for my judgment and good sense; besides, you have stimulated my curiosity, and I shall be sadly disappointed if I'm not to see them.'