The Reckoning Part 8

"What cruelty, Carus? You mean the rigor Cunningham uses?"

"Rigor!" I said, laughing, and my laugh was unpleasant.

He looked at me narrowly. We rode past Warren Street and the Upper Barracks in silence, saluting an officer here and there with preoccupied punctiliousness. Already I was repenting of my hardiness in mixing openly with politics or war--matters I had ever avoided or let pa.s.s with gay indifference.

"Carus," he said, patting his horse's mane, "you will lay a bet for the honor of the family this time--will you not?"

"I have no money," I replied, surprised; for never before had he offered to suggest an interference into my own affairs--never by word or look.

"No money!" he repeated, laughing. "Gad, you rake, what do you do with it all?" And as I continued silent, he said more gravely, "May I speak plainly to a kinsman and dear friend?"

"Always," I said uneasily.

"Then, without offense, Carus, I think that, were I you, I should bet a little--now and again--fling the guineas for a change--now and then--if I were you, Carus."

"If you were I you would not," I said, reddening to the temples.

"I think I should, nevertheless," he persisted, smiling. "Carus, you know that if you need money to bet with----"

"I'll tell you what I need, Sir Peter," said I, looking him in the eye.

"I need your faith in me that I am not by choice a n.i.g.g.ard."

"G.o.d forbid!" he cried.

"Yet I pa.s.s among many for that," I said hotly. "I know it, I suffer.

Yet I can not burn a penny; it belongs to others, that's all."

"A debt!" he murmured.

"Call it as you will. The money you overpay me for my poor services is not even my own to enjoy."

Sir Peter dropped his bridle and slapped his gloved hands together with a noise that made his horse jump. "I knew it," he cried, "I knew it, and so I told Elsin when she came to me, troubled, because in you this one flaw appeared; yet though she questioned me, in the same breath she vowed the marble perfect, and asked me if you had parents or kin dependent. She is a rare maid, my pretty kinswoman--" He hesitated, glancing cornerwise at me.

"Do you know Walter Butler well?" I asked carelessly.

"No, only a little. Why, Carus?"

"Is he married?"

"I never heard it. He is scarcely known to me save through Sir John Johnson, and that his zeal led him to what some call a private reprisal."

"Yes, he burned our house, or his Indians did, making pretense that they did not know who lived there, but thought the whole Bush a rebel hotbed. It is true the house was new, built while Sir John lay brooding there in Canada over his broken parole. Perhaps Walter Butler did not know the house was ours."

"You are very generous, Carus," said Sir Peter gravely.

"No, not very. You see, my father and my mother were in France, and I here, and Butler's raiders only murdered one old man--a servant, all alone there, a man too old and deaf to understand their questions. I know who slew that ancient body-servant to my father, who often held me on his knees. No, Sir Peter, I am not generous, as you say. But there are matters which must await the precedence of great events ere their turn comes in the mills which grind so slow, so sure, and so exceeding fine."

Sir Peter looked at me in silence, and in silence we rode on until we came to the tavern called the Coq d'Or.

They were there, the early risers of the Fifty-fourth--a jolly, noisy crowd, all scarlet and gold; and they set up a cheer, which was half welcome, half defiance, when we rode into the tavern yard and dismounted, bowing right and left; and the landlord came to receive us, and servants followed with champagne-cup, iced; and there was old Horrock, too, hat in hand, to attend Sir Peter, with a shake of his wise old head and a smile on his furrowed face--Horrock, the prince of handlers, with his chicken-men, and his scales, and his Flatbush birds a-crowing defiance to the duck-wings, spangles, pyles, and Lord knows what, that his Majesty's Fifty-fourth Regiment of Foot had backed to win with every penny and farthing they could sc.r.a.pe to lay against us.

I heard old Horrock whisper to Sir Peter, who was reading over the match-list, "They're the best we can do, sir; combs low-cut, wings rounded, hackle and saddle trimmed to a T, and the vanes perfect." He laughed: "What more can I do, sir? They had aniseed in their bread on the third day, and on the weighing-day sheep-heart, and not two teacups of water in the seven. They came from the walks in prime condition, and tartar and jalap did the rest. They sparred free in the boots and took to the warm ale and sweet-wort, and the rooms were dark except at feeding. What more can I do, sir, except heel them to a hair's-breadth?"

"You have no peer, Horrock, and you know it," said Sir Peter, kindly, and the old man's furrowed face shone as he trotted off to the covert-room.

Meanwhile I had been hailed by a dozen friends of a dozen different regiments, good fellows all: Major Jamison of the Partisans; Ensign Halvar, young Caryl of the Fortieth Foot; Helsing of the Artillery, and apparently every available commissioned officer of the Fifty-fourth, including Colonel Eyre, a gentleman with a scientific taste for the pit that gained him the t.i.tle of "The Game 'Un" from saucy subalterns, needless to say without his knowledge.

"A good bird, well handled, freely backed--what more can a gentleman ask?" said Major Neville, waddling beside Sir Peter as we filed into the tavern. "My wife calls it a shameful sport, but the c.o.c.kpit is a fas.h.i.+onable pa.s.sion, damme! and a man out o' fas.h.i.+on is worse than an addled cluck-egg! Eh, Renault? Good gad, sir! Do not c.o.c.ks fight unurged, and are not their battles with nature's spurs more cruel than when matched by man and heeled with steel or even silver, which mercifully ends the combat in short order? And so I tell my wife, Sir Peter, but she calls me brute," he panted plaintively.

"Pooh!" said Sir Peter, laughing, "I can always find a reason for any transgression in the list from theft to murder, and justify each crime by logic--if I put my mind to do so. But my mind is not partial to logic. I fight game-fowl and like it, be the fas.h.i.+on and the ethics what they may."

He was unjust to himself as usual; to him there was no difference between the death of a pheasant afield and the taking off of a good bird in the pit.

Seated around the pit, there was some delay in showing, and Dr. Carmody of the brigade staff gave me, unsolicited, his mature opinions upon game-fowl:

"Show me a bird of bold carriage, comb bright red and upright, eye full and bright, beak strong and in good socket, breast full, body broad at shoulder and tapering to tail, thigh short, round, and hard as a nail, leg stout, flat-footed, and spur low--a bird with bright, hard feathers, strong in a quill, warm and firm to the hand--and I care not what breed he be, spangle or black-red, I'll lay my last farthing with you, Mr. Renault, if it shall please you."

"And what am I to back?" said I, laughing--"a full plume, a long, soft hackle, a squirrel-tail, a long-thighed, in-kneed, weak-beaked, coa.r.s.e-headed henning-fowl selected by you?"

The little doctor roared with laughter; the buzz and hum of conversation increased around us--bits of banter, jests tossed from friend to friend.

"Who dubs your birds for you. Sir Peter?" cried Helsing--"the Bridewell barber?"

"Ten guineas to eight with you on the first battle," retorted Sir Peter, courteously; and, "Done with you, sir!" said Helsing, noting the bet, while Sir Peter booked his memorandum and turned to meet a perfect shower of offers, all of which he accepted smilingly. And I--oh, I was sick to sit there without a penny laid to show my loyalty to Sir Peter.

But it must be so, and I bit my lip and strove to smile and parry with a jest the well-meant offers which now and then came flying my way. But O'Neil and Harkness backed the Flatbush birds right loyally, cautioned by Sir Peter, who begged that they wait; but they would not--and one was Irish--so nothing would do but a bold front and an officer snapped with, "Done, sir!"

The judges and the referee had been chosen, the color-writers selected, and Sir Peter had won the draw, choosing, of course, to weigh first, the main being governed by rules devised by the garrison regiments, partly Virginian, partly New York custom. Matches had been made in camera, the first within the half-ounce, and allowing a stag four ounces; round heels were to be used; all cutters, twists, and slashers barred; the metal was steel, not silver.

And now the pitters had taken station, Horrock and a wall-eyed Bat-man of the Train, and the birds had billed three times and had been fairly delivered on the score--a black bra.s.s-back of ours against a black-red of the Fifty-fourth. Scarcely a second did they eye one another when crack! slap! they were at it, wing and gaffle. Suddenly the black-red closed and held, struck like lightning five or six times, and it was all over with Sir Peter's Flatbush bra.s.s-back, done for in a single heat.

"Fast work," observed Sir Peter calmly, taking snuff, with a pleasant nod to the enemy.

Then odds on the main flew like lightning, all taken by Sir Peter and O'Neil and a few others of ours, and I biting my lip and fixing my eyes on the roof. Had I not dreaded to hurt Sir Peter I should never, never have come.

We again showed a bra.s.s-back and let him run in the pit before cutting a feather, whereupon Sir Peter rashly laid ten to five and few takers, too, for the Fifty-fourth showed a pyle of five-pounds-three--a shuffler which few fancied. But Lord! the shuffler drummed our bra.s.s-back to the tune of Sir Daniel O'Day, and though two ounces light, took just eight minutes to crow for victory.

Again we showed, this time a duck-wing, and the Fifty-fourth a blue hackle, heavily backed, who proved a wheeler, but it took twenty minutes for him to lay the duck-wing upon the carpet; and we stood three to the bad, but game, though the odds on the main were heavily against us. Our fourth, a blinker, blundered to victory; our fifth hung himself twice to the canvas and finally to the heels of a bewildered spangle; our sixth, a stag, and a wheeling lunatic at that, gave to the Fifty-fourth a bad quarter of an hour, and then, when at the last moment our victory seemed certain, was sent flying to eternity in one last feathered whirlwind, leaving us four to split and four to go, with hopeless odds against us, and Sir Peter calmly booking side-bets on anything that anybody offered.

When the call came we all rose, leaving the pit by the side-entrance, which gave on the cherry garden, where tables were spread for luncheon and pipes fetched for all who cared not to scorch their lips with Spanish cigars.

Sir Peter, hard hit, moved about in great good humor, a seed-cake in one hand, a mug of beer in t'other; and who could suppose he stood to lose the thousand guineas he had such need of--and more besides!--so much more that it turned me cold to think of Duke Street, and how on earth I was to find funds for the bare living, luxuries aside.

As for O'Neil, the crazy, warm-hearted Irishman went about bl.u.s.tering for odds--pure, generous bravado!--and the Fifty-fourth, to their credit, let him go unharmed, and Harkness, too. As for me, I was very quiet, holding my peace and my opinions to myself, which was proper, as I had laid not one penny on a feather that day.

Sir Peter, seeing me sitting alone under a cherry-tree, came strolling over, followed by Horrock.

"Well, Carus," he said, smiling blandly, "more dealing with Duke Street, eh? Pooh! There's balm in Gilead and a few s.h.i.+llings left still in the Dock-Ward!" He laughed, but I said nothing. "Speak out, man!" he said gaily; "what do you read by the p.r.i.c.king of your thumbs?"