Boy Woodburn Part 78

Throughout the week Boy went her quiet, strenuous way, unconscious of the commotion about her, or careless of it.

Jim Silver escorted her to and from the yard. Most people knew Old Mat's daughter and respected her; and those who did not, respected the grave-faced young giant who was her constant attendant.

When the pair pa.s.sed swiftly through the bar, an observer would have noticed that a hush fell on the drinkers, accompanied by surrept.i.tious elbow-nudgings and significant winks.

It was clear that the young couple were of secret interest to the dingy crowd. And in fact there were rumours afloat about them--sensational stories not a few about what they stood to win in love upon the race.

Monkey Brand and Joses were always drinking together in the bar as Silver walked through. Once he pa.s.sed quite close to them. The little jockey's gla.s.sy eye rested meaninglessly on the young man's face and wandered away. When the other had moved on, he dropped his eyelid and muttered to his pal:

"Wants the ---- kybosh puttin' on him. Good as called me a copper's nark."

"Hundred thousand in the pot," grinned the fat man. "And a dainty bit o'

white meat. I don't blame him." He licked his lips.

There were few more familiar figures at the bar of The Sefton Arms at National time than that of Monkey Brand, and this year few more pathetic ones.

It was soon bruited abroad that Old Mat and his head-lad had parted after more years of a.s.sociation than many cared to recall. And it was clear that the little man felt the rupture. He wandered morosely through the crowd in the train of his fat familiar like a lost soul outside the gates of Paradise. Usually a merry sprite, the life and soul of every group he joined, he was under the weather, as the saying went, and what was still more remarkable he showed it.

Everybody was aware of the facts, though n.o.body knew the story.

The Duke, who was genuinely fond of the little jockey, and full of vulgar curiosity, coming upon him two nights before the race, stopped him.

"I'm sorry to hear you and Mr. Woodburn have parted after all these years, Brand," he said in his gruff way.

"Thank you, your Grace," said the little jockey, pinching his lips.

The Duke waited. Nothing happened, but Monkey poked his chin in the air, and swallowed.

"I thought you were set for life," continued the Duke slowly.

"I thought so, too, your Grace," answered the jockey. "But the human 'eart's a funny affair--very funny, as the sayin' is."

Long ago he had acquired the trick of moralizing from his old master.

"What's the trouble, then?" grunted the Duke.

He was greatly curious and honestly concerned.

"Thought I were sellin' him," muttered Monkey.

The Duke bent s.h.a.ggy brows upon the little man.

"Were you?" he asked.

For a moment the old merry Monkey rose from the dead and twinkled. Then he stiffened like a dead man, touched his hat, and turned away.

The Duke clung to him.

He, too, had heard a story, and wished to know the rights and wrongs of it.

"Well, well," he said. "We must all hope the Putnam horse wins--for Mr.

Silver's sake. Eh, what?"

"Yes, your Grace," replied the uncommunicative Monkey.

The night before the race the Duke, still hunting the trail tenaciously, stumbled, according to his own account, on Old Mat, and reported the substance of his interview with Monkey in that ingenuous way of his, half simple, half brutal, and all with an astonis.h.i.+ng _savoir-faire_ you would never have given him credit for.

"One thing," he ended, "he ain't blackguardin' you."

Mat seemed lost in memories.

"I wep' a tear. I did reely," he said at last. Then he shook a sorrowful head. "I ain't one o' yer whitewings meself," he said. "Not by no means.

But he shock me, Monkey do. He does reely." He dabbed his eye. "Rogues and rasqueals, yer Grace," he said. "All very well. But there is a limit, as the Psalmist very proply remarked."

The Duke turned to go, his curiosity still unsatisfied.

"Where's Boy?" he asked gruffly. "I've seen nothing of her this time."

"She's kep' busy, your Grace--nursin' the baby."

"How is he?"

"Keeps a-crowin'," said the old man, "from all I hears of it."

CHAPTER XLVII

On the Course

Next morning was gray with gleams of sun: an ideal day, old hands said, for the great race of the year.

Mat found his way to the Paddock early and alone.

At Aintree everything is known about the notables by everybody, and there were few more familiar figures than that of the old man with the broad shoulders, the pink face, and the difficulty in drawing breath.

It was twenty odd years since Cannibal had won the big race for him; and this year it was known that he had only come up to see the sport. True he had a horse running, down on the card as Four-Pound-the-Second, brown gelding, five years old, green jacket and cap, ten stone; but he was an any-price outsider, only entered because for something like fifty years there had never been a National in which a Putnam horse had not played a part. And rumour had it that Four-Pound was a rum un even for Putnam's.

As Mat entered the Paddock, he was looking round him--for his missing daughter, observers said.

Jaggers and Ikey Aaronsohnn marked him from afar and told off a couple of the Boys to track him from a respectful distance.

The old man's familiar figure, his queer clothes, and reputation as a character, drew others toward him. He lilted heavily across the Paddock with a word to one, a nod to another, a wink for a third, talking all the time and breathing like a grampus, with a little crowd of t.i.ttering nondescripts swirling in his wake and hanging on his words.