Boy Woodburn Part 30

"No, sir. She's fast," the other answered. "Fair wore out. He wouldn't take the bottle yesterday, and she was up with him all night. I went down to her when it come light. Only where it is she won't allow n.o.body to do nothin' for him only herself." He stole back to his lair in the straw at the far end of the loft. "That's the woman in her, sir," he said in his sagacious way. "Must have her baby all to herself. n.o.body don't know nothin' about it only mother."

Four-Pound-the-Second after the first few perilous weeks throve amazingly. He ceased to be a pretty creature, pathetic in his helplessness, and grew into a gawky hobbledehoy, rough and rude and turbulent.

Old Mat shook his head over the colt.

"Ugliest critter I ever set eyes on," he said, partly in earnest and partly to tease his daughter.

"You'll see," said Boy firmly.

"If he's a Berserk he's worth saving, surely," remarked Silver.

"Berserker--Black Death. Ought to be able to hop a bit."

Everybody at Putnam's knew that the colt was the son of that famous sire, but n.o.body, except Mat Woodburn and Monkey Brand, knew how they knew it.

"Oh! if he's going to win the National--as I think he is, de we--he's worth a little trouble," replied the old man, winking at Monkey Brand.

"D'you think he'll win the National?" cried the young man, simple as a child.

"Certain for sure," replied the other. "When 'e walks on to the course all the other hosses'll have a fit and fall down flat. And I don't blame 'em, neether."

"Father _thinks_ he's funny," said the girl with fine irony.

"I ain't 'alf so funny as that young billy-goat o' yours, my dear,"

replied the old trainer, and lilted on his way. "It's his foster-ma he takes after. The spit of her, he be."

As soon as the foal began to find his legs Boy took him out into the Paddock Close, and later on to the Downs. He followed like a dog, skirmis.h.i.+ng with Billy Bluff up and down the great rounded hills.

The bob-tail at first was inclined to be jealous. He thought the foal was a new kind of dog and a rival. Then when he understood that after all the little creature was only an animal, on a different and a lower plane, to be patronised and bullied and ragged, he resumed his self-complacency. Thoroughly human, a vulgar sense of superiority kept his temper sweet. He accepted Four-Pound-the-Second as one to whom he might extend his patronage and his protection. And once this was understood the relations between the foal and the dog were established on a sound basis, while Maudie watched with a sardonic smile.

That autumn the girl, the foal, and the dog roamed the hillside by the hour together in the cool of dawn and evening. And the colt became as handy as the goat he was alleged by his detractors to resemble.

"Go anywhere Billy Bluff does," said Monkey Brand. "Climb the ladder to the loft soon as look at you."

On these frequent excursions Boy took her hunting-crop with her, and the long-flung lash often went curling round the legs of the unruly foal.

Early she broke him to halter, and when he became too turbulent for unbridled liberty she took him out on a long lounging rein.

The Downs about Cuckmere, which lies half-way between Lewes and Beachy Head, are lonely. Apart from shepherds, you seldom meet on them anyone save a horseman or a watcher. But more than once the three came on Joses on the hillside.

Since the moment she had marked him cowering in the Gap like a hunted creature, Boy had seen the tout with quite other eyes than of old. Never afraid of him, from that time her aversion had turned to pity for one so hopelessly forlorn.

Whether Joses felt the change or not, and reacted to it unconsciously, it was impossible to say. Certainly he showed himself friendly, she thought, almost ashamed. At first she was not unnaturally suspicious, but soon the compa.s.sion in her heart overcame all else.

One brilliant September evening she came upon him on the Mare's Back.

The fat man pulled off his hat shyly.

"You've put him on the chain, I see," he said, referring to the long rein.

Boy stopped.

His face was less bloated, his appearance more tidy than of old. It was clear he had been drinking less.

"What d'you think of him?" she asked.

The tout threw a critical eye over the foal. There was no question that Joses knew a thing or two about a horse.

"Ugly but likely," he said, with the deliberate air of a connoisseur.

"What they call in France a _beau laid_."

The girl demurred to the proposition. Her foal was _not_ bow-legged.

"His legs are all right," she said, somewhat tartly. "He's a bit _on_ the leg; but he's sure to be at that age."

"How's he bred, d'you know?" asked the other thoughtfully.

Boy was on the alert in a moment. That was a stable secret, and not to be disclosed.

"I'm not _quite_ sure," she answered truthfully. "We picked up the dam from a gypsy."

The fat man nodded. He seemed to know all about it. Indeed, it was his business to know all about such things.

"She was a Black Death mare, that, no question," he said, and added slowly, his eye wandering over the colt: "Looks to me like a Berserk somehow." She had a feeling he was drawing her, and kept her face inscrutable in a way that did credit to the teaching of Monkey Brand.

"If so, you've drawn a lucky number," continued the other. "Such things happen, you know."

Boy moved on, and was aware that he was following her.

She turned and saw his face.

There was no mischief in the man, and fluttering in his eyes there was that look of a hunted animal she had noticed in the Gap.

She stopped at once.

"What is it, Mr. Joses?" she asked.

She felt that he was calling to her for help.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Woodburn," he began.

"Yes, Mr. Joses."

Her deep voice was soft and encouraging as when she spoke to a sick creature or a child. Those who knew only the resolute girl, who went her own way with an almost fierce determination, would have been astonished at her tenderness.

"That little mistake of mine on the cliff," muttered the man.

A great impulse of generosity flooded the girl's heart and coloured her cheek.