A Great Turf Fraud: a queer story of the St. Leger

Front matter

THE GHOST IN THE BANK OF ENGLAND: AN EXTRAORDINARY, STORY Of £1,000 NOTE. PRICE SHILLING. POST FREE. A RAILWAY ROMANCE. MY ADVENTURE IN THE "FLYING SCOTSMAN": A STORY ABOUT LONDON AND .NORTH-WESTtzRN RAILWAY SHARES. v price one Shilling, post free. LONDON : JAMES HOGG & SONS, 7 LO YELL'S COURT, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C. A GEE AT TURF FRAUD: A QUEER STORY OF 3% St. !€cgcr. By DALRYMPLE J. BELGRAVE Of .the Inner Temple, Besn-hter-cst-Law, yP* AUTHOR OF "LUCK AT THE DIAMOND FIELDS.'' LONDON: JAMES HOGG AND SONS, 7 LOVELL'S court, paternoster row. 1888. All rights reserved. CONTENTS. CHAP. wu» I. ON GLATTOX DOWN ... ... ■•- ••■ 1 II. SIR GEORGE ASKF.'S AFFAIRS ... ... ■•■ 10 III. WHAT MAJOR ASKE THOUGHT ... ... ... 22 IV. A LONG SHOT ... ... ... ... ■•■ 25 V. GLORIOUS GOODWOOD ... ... •■• ■■• 30 VI.

Chapter I. On Glatton Down

Nowhere on the Berkshire Downs, or, for the matter of that, in England, is there turf so sound and springy as on Glatton Down, and there are few places where the air is so sweet and wholesome for man and beast. The gray old house that nestles into the Down is called the Hermitage. It was built, early in the seventeenth century, by an Aske of Glatton, who, sick of the plots and pleasures of the Court of the first and worst of the Stuarts, sought some abiding-place where he could live alone and bitterly chew the cud of his experience more remote from his fellow-men than at his ancestral home over the Downs by Glatton village. Glatton Down rolls towards the old house like a huge wave, and then stretches out beyond it in a flat, fringed on two sides by beech woods and clumps of gorse. The red-brick stables that somewhat disfigure it were built by the late Baronet of Glatton, who saw the capabilities ■2 A GREAT TURF FRAUD. of the place for training purposes, and cared little whether or no he spoilt the picturesqueness of the old house.

Once the Hermitage stable and Glatton Down were names familiar as household words to followers of the Turf; and Tom Parloe of the Hermitage used to be much exercised about those beech woods and gorse clumps, for in those days, when the questions that he asked his charges were of some moment to the general public, they used to. give snug lying to many a horse watcher. But for years those gentry had not troubled with their presence a spot celebrated rather in the annals of the Turf than in the racing record of the day. One might have turned over many a page of Buff's Guide without coming across the name of a horse trained at the Hermitage which had won any thing more important than some selling stakes or small race. And even in Glatton village, where Tom Parloe used to be thought wise above all men in matters relating to the race-horse in training, his fame was waxing dim, and at the ' Aske Arms ' the opinion had been expressed over many a pint of beer that both old Tom and the Hermitage had seen their best days.

Still old Tom Parloe loyally cherished his hope that Glatton would yet have its day; and his fondness for the few horses he had in his charge, and his sanguine beliefs as to what they could do, supplied many of his old cronies with subject for a quiet though not unkindly laugh. One morning in July, an hour or so after sunrise, when the mist still hung heavily on Glatton and over the Downs which stretched far away to the north till they lost themselves in the distance, and when the still morning promised a red-hot summer's day, old Tom Parloe made one of a group on the Down. He stood watching a middle-aged, wiry little man, with a shrewd merry face and a kee._ black eye, who was looking over a big chestnut colt which had just been stripped and was being led about by a boy : he seemed to be waiting somewhat anxiously for the verdict that was about to be passed.

Old race-goers, who had known Tom Parloe twenty-five years before, would not have easily recognized him as the old man he had grown into. The figure that used to look so spry aud active as he bustled about the paddock, looking after his charges, had become feeble and beut ; he leaned heavily on his stick, while the well-remembered ginger hair and short-clipped whiskers had turned snowy white. But as his clear blue eyes rested on the horse something like the light of other days came into them, and he remembered past triumphs and big coups which were once brought off often enough by the Hermitage stable. The horse, a three-year-old colt, Martingale, by Monte Carlo — Prudence, was one which would not have pi everybody. He stood about sixteen hands high, had a long lean head, strong neck, good shoulders, lying well back.

He was somewhat flat-sided and narrow; take him altogether he would be much more likely to please a good judge than a tyro, though fco no one would he be a taking horse. " Well, he's big enough, ami if he aint good-looking he looks as if he might belong to the ' hansom' is as ' hansom ' does division," was the judgment delivered by the little man, who was Torn Parloe's son-in-law, Bill Gibling the jockey ; " but I will tell you more about him after we have seen what he can do. It's a pity we haven't anything better to gallop him with than Glamis ; it's even money that brute will stop dead," he said, as he looked round at a black four-year old who was being ridden by Tom Parloe's head lad, Jem Pitcher, a Glatton boy, who was gazing with much awe and admiration at the jockey. The black seemed a race-horse all over, but had a shifty ugly look in his eye, which would have prevented any one from being surprised to hear that he had as ill a reputation as any animal on four legs, and had dis tinguished himself by an exhibition of savage temper whenever he had appeared in public.

" Well, he can go if he likes, and he generally does like at home. It's my opinion he'd have been in the first three in last year's Derby if he had only just taken it into his head to try." "Dare say, but he didn't; and it's waste of time talking about what that kind can do," Bill Gibling answered, with a note of malice ; for he had ridden Glamis in public, and nourished much ill-will towards that most untrustworthy customer. It was more to humour his father-in-law than any thing else that Bill Gibling had proposed to ride the chestnut in a gallop with Glamis and find out what he was like. Besides Glamis, the only other horse to take part in the gallop was Billy Pitt, a five-year-old : a corky-looking little bay who had won a race or two at small meetings, but had never shown anything like class.

While the horses were being stripped of their clothing two equestrians had ridden across the Down, and had taken up their position on the rise near the old house. One of them was a man of about sixty, whose brown face looked as if it had been tanned in distant sunny climes. That he had been a soldier any one would have known at first sight; yet there was something about his manner which suggested that he had had a more varied experience of .life than generally falls to the lot of an officer of the British army. The tiuth was, that it was a good ina_ny years since Jim Aske had held the Queen's commission. After the Crimea he had sold out, partly out of restlessness, partly because the greater portion of his younger son's patrimony had been spent in those merry old days which, though they cost him dear, he has looked back to many a time with pleasure and never with much remorse.

Since then he had spent years wandering about the world, generally finding himself where there were hard knocks and taking to his old trade of soldiering whenever he had a chance, serving first under one flag and then under another, and leading the soldier of fortune's life which many a younger son of the Askes of Glatton followed in the old days. As he looked at his companion a soft light came into his honest brown eyes, for he loved the pretty fair girl who was with him — his nieie, Maud Aske, the daughter of his brother, Sir George — better than anything on earth. She was a girl of twenty-two, grown into womanhood, but still with the look of girlhood in her bright young face. She looked perhaps at her Best on horseback — at all events, if you had seen her so for the first time you would have thought so; and the Bush on her face from her gallop over tin down becami hei well.

"Good morning, Miss Maud; good morning, < Glad to see you have come out so early, as 1 think we will show you something worth turning out early to see," Tom Parloe said as he walked up to them. " Not a very trustworthy trial horse that, eh, Tom ! " said Major Aske, as he liked to be called, for thai was the rank he had held in the English Lrmy, bhough he had held much higher rank in clivers foreign sei where there was plenty of light i in lone, ami scope for a bold soldier of fortune. "You're right, Uncle Jim," said Maud Aske; i shall ne\er forget, seeing him stop dead at Ascot the other day just when we all hoped he was going to win easily. Iliad been boasting all day about, our Glatton horse, and was terribly chaffed when he turned out such a wretch. Well, Mr. Parloe, I hope Martingale will mat up for it."

"I hope he will, Miss; and I believe he will too, if only Sir George would let me have my way and send him to Doncaster. He will turn the laugh againsl some of them if he is as good as I think ; and as fora trial horse, we have nothing else. Billy Pitt is honest enough; but he's a long way from heiug a second class horse, and there is no getting a line through him. Now if Glamis does take it into his head to try he will tell us how we are, fast enough, and it's a case of H choice. Things are very different from what the to be in the old d Jim Aske's face had just a shade of pity in it as he 1 at the old trainer. It seemed to him to be nothing less than absurd to believe that the Glatton .ould have any chance at Doncaster, and yet the old man sec-med to be so much in earnest. Though Maud was to a certain extent conscious that it was absurd to believe that old Tom Parloe had much ground for his sanguine expectations, still, out of sym pathy for her old friend, she was somewhat infected with his enthusiasm.

Besides she had an instinctive knowledge of a good horse, inherited from generations of sportsmen and soldiers: and she noticed how well Martingale moved. The progeny of Monte Carlo had done much to establish their sire's fame, while Prudence had gone through all sorts of vicissitudes before she came into the sion of a certain Jack Stadgate, a Glatton farmer, who kept some racin: on his farm. Martingale had been trained by Tom Parloe, and was, so Sir George Aske said, one of the geese which the old man thought swans. So it hap pened that when Jack Stadgate — who was a good deal on the turf, and had been known as the lucky farmer for one season and had been broke the next — was sold up at the beginning of the year, Tom persuaded Sir _•_• to bid a few pounds for him. I _ . It had never won anything as a two-year-old, and had not been got fit that year, but Tom Parloe had taken a fancy to the son of Monte Carlo, and Sir George hai been persuaded into humouring the old man.

As the horses came up to a clump of gorse about fifty yards from the point of vantage where they had taken ...al from Tom Parloe they broke away into a gallop. "Billy Pitt is ou _:ther; we have h stuff than our only public performer. See there now, Major, that begirar G - showing how h gallop," the old trainer said, after they had galloped about three quarters of a mile, as the blaek led from Martiugale. while Billy Pitt began to fall to the rear. " He has uot got rid of Martingale yet. by the Lord he's not," he added. id and the Major seemed not so confident. the first mile G - - ned to increase his lead. After that however he appeared to come kick to the three-year-old. •' Is Pitcher taking a pull at Glamis . " said Maud, half under her breath. " Glamis can gallop away Cram him if he likes. the Major : but it was evident that he was beginning to think a good deal more of the Hermitage three-year-old.

" I am none so sure of that," said the old man. Then after a breathless silence a bright light came into his old eyes, aud lifting his old white billycock hat he waved it above his head. " By heavens .' Glamis is doing his best, but the colt wins, the colt wins." Aud without an effort from the accomplished horseman, Martingale swept by the hillock where they stood, and held a good half-dozen lengths in front of the black. • Will the Leger come to the Hermitage now, eh, Major?" the old man asked, with triumph in his voice. " Well, after all, Tom, I don't see that it comes to more than Martingale having the best of it in a gallop with a horse that has never shown himself to be worth his keep," answered the Major, who was still inclined to take things very calmly, and to look with considerable incredulity on the trainer's somewhat extravagant hopes.

" Look here, Major, the four-year-old hasn't given the young 'un any weight, and he's been well beaten; and, mark my words, if it could come off on Glatton Down, I'd match Glamis against any horse of his age, barring the winner of last year's Derby." "There are too many 'ifs' about it, Tom; one hasn't enough to go by," said the Major. ' Well, wait till after Goodwood, for it's Sir George's fancy to send him there. Why, is just beyond me ; but there, the horse belongs to him. Maybe, after Good wood he will get to know that it's a St. Leger winner he is fooling, with. Yes, and be glad enough to take short odds about him." " It's little enough I or my brother either do in that way, now-a-days." " No, he don't ; maybe he's right not to ; I ain't blaming him for that. Still, if any one did want by chance to have a long shot on the Leger they might do a deal worse than Martingale.

But there, if Sir George did back anything at all he would not back our horse, you maybe sure," said Tom, bitterly. " Why, when I told him we had a good 'un he wouldn't hear of it. ' A colt by Monte Carlo out of Prudence couldn't have any chance of winning anything better than a selling stakes,' he said, and there will be no talking him out of that." " Never mind, Mr. Parloe, I am going to believe in Glatton again, and I hope Martingale will win at Goodwood and at Doncaster too. I am sure that I never enjoyed watching any race more than I did seeing that gallop," said Maud. "That's it, Miss, stick to the old Hermitage; there are a deal more empty stalls than full 'uns up yonder, but a good time is coming, unfashionably bred horses aud unfashionable trainers sometimes win big races. The names of Tom Parloe and the Hermitage stable will be in a good many mouths before they part company for ever, see if they ain't." " Hope you're right, Tom," said the Major, as the}" took leave of the old man, who rode off to the stables to look after his horses, and hear what Bill Gibling had to say.

Chapter II. Sir George

ASKE's AFFAIRS. When you have come to the top of the Down from the Hermitage you can see Glatton Court, the old home of the Askes. It was built in the rei<rn of O Henry VIII. by an Aske of Glatton, who got a good slice of Church land ; but there was a house there SIR G} - AFFAIRS. 11 before liis time, and the Askes have been lor - the manor of Glatton. since the time of the Doonisdav book. The house st_rthe head of the valley among fine old - la grand avenue stretches down " ~ old church and the village of Glatton. T^. again, there are more Downs shaded with hangers of beech. In the foreground there are meadows, ti which a stream flows famous for the wary old trout iurk in its deep pools. Anglers who have had te day there fish in it often in their dreams. As they rode bacs: from the Hermitage that morning Jim Aske found himself looking at the familiar home and thinking of how often he had pictured it to himself during the roving life he had had all over the world.

It seemed to him that he used to see the old house most vividly in his mind's eye when the chances appeared to be rather against than in favour of his ever seeing it again. Though he was only a younger son, and did not own a square foot of land at Glatton, he loved the place as if it were his own. He had held his own in parts of the world where gentle blood was not held in much account, and had lived " hail fellow well met " with men who did not know or care whether their family archives were to be found in registers of jails, or the memoirs of courts. Still he had retained a superstition that to be born an A~ke of Glatton was to start in life with an advantage over r men. hought that mv father was looking tired and ill vesterlay when he came back from London," Maud said after they had ridden in silence for some time- "I hate that business in the city; it always se au to knock him up so."

" So do I, Maud. Confound business ! What's an Aske of Glatton got to do with business ? We might as well leave business in the city to city men," Jim Aske answered, and there was a tone of bittern his voice which rather startled Maud. The truth was, that Jim Aske had a very strong opinion as to the folly of his brother's proceedings in the city of London. About ten years before, Sir George Aske had 'discovered that he was not a rich man. He had sold most of his racing stud, and had determined that it was necessary for him to decrease his expenses. That was wise enough ; unfortunately, however, he had got into his head the notion that he might increase his income as well. About that time a Company took over some tin mines which Sir George had on a small estate in Cornwall which he owned, paying him a certain sum in cash and the greater part of the price in scrip.

He was made a Director of the Company,* and, strange to say, though the Company was not over-prosperous, his experiences in its board-room gave him a taste for similar speculations. Sir George Aske, Bart., of Glatton Court, Berkshire, became after a time a name very familiar to the investing public. He became a Director of all sorts of mining companies. The city began to have a fascination for him. Jim Aske heard his brother talking learnedly and positively about the mineral resources of divers gold-bearing countries. He once saw him in London walking with a man whom he had known as a professional gambler in San Francisco, and who, so his brother told him, had become one of the great men of the mining world. Jim Aske did not like it. He thought that certain courts and alleys in the neighbourhood of the Royal Ex change were far more dangerous resorts for a man like his brother than Tattersall's. But Sir George laughed at the notion of a rolling stone like his younger brother being able to give him good advice.

Nor did he pay much attention when Jim pointed out that he had been in some of the amazingly rich countries which he was helping to develop, or when he expressed his opinion of some of the pioneers of mining enterprise in whom he placed considerable confidence. Of late the Major had come to the conclusion that things were going very badly. Sir George's countenance had begun to wear an ominous expression of gloom. Maud's words, therefore, started a very unpleasant train of thoughts in her uncle's mind, which occupied it for the rest of the ride home, and for some time afterwards. He wondered how bad things were. On this point he was destined to be enlightened before many hours. When Maud left the room after luncheon that day, Sir George began to talk to his brother on the subject that had been troubling the latter.

Sir George was little more than a year the elder, and of the two he was perhaps the better preserved. One of the best looking young men of his day, he was supposed to have kept his good looks. That day, however, there was a look of weakness and worry in his face, and his brother thought he appeared curiously old and worn. B "You were right about those infernal Companies. I've been hard hit by them, harder than you would thought possible. Things have gone from bad Tse, and yesterday I found out that I was a ruined man" Jim Aske was not the sort of man to say, " I told you so. ' bv wav of giving comfort. He seldom was guided by second-hand experience himself, and did not expect other people to follow his advice. Well, things are not as bad as that, I hope ; how, you have this place. You can always let it and economize.' "No; it's worse than that.

The candle has been burning at both ends. I've been borrowing money to pay my liabilities iu the city, and land is so bad. The old tenants go, and you can't let the farms — till, by George, the end's come ! I never knew how bad things were till this morning, when a man i issack was talking to me. I don't know whether you know him _ " " Knew a man of that name in the old days, when I was in the regiment ; he was in the sixty per cent. line, and some of us youngsters used to haw a good deal too much to say to him for our own and our fathers' peace of mind. He used to live and carry on his trade in a dusty, cobwebby house in a street running off the Strand. They say he used to have any amount of property stowed away in it." " Yes, I remember the Mossack you mean. He v. as the father of the one I saw to-day, v. bo's a very different sort of character — by way of being a gentleman, and that sort of thing," said Sir George; aud he came to a stop with the expression of one struggling against himself to get something out that he found particularly unpleasant to tell.

Yes, I know the sort well enough, and don't like 'em — the concealed Jew, a damned venomous type. ' " Well, I don't know anything against him, he goes into society, and all that sort of thing. He is a friend of Cecil ! " " She knows one or two pretty queer customers, does Cecil. She is always pushing and scheming to get on in smart society, and to live at about twice the rate of her income. When I go to her place in town, which is seldom enough, I am reminded of a new mining camp, for every one is on the move, and no one knows much about any one else." " Well, we won't discuss her circle of friends. What I want to tell you is, that this man Mossack has met Maud at Cecil's house, and he wanted to tell me tins morning that — that — confound him ! — that he wanted to marry her." Jim Aske stared at his brother in blank amazement.

He expected to hear of his embarrassments, and he could not see what the cursed cheek of that fellow Mossack, as he put it, had to do with them. " I hope you kicked him out of the room ! A son of old Soloman Mossack, ' the Spider,' as we used to call him, wanting to marry an Aske of Glatton ! " No, I didn't kick him out of the room, it was in his office in the city, and we had some other business to talk about. I admit at first I was astonished at his daring to think of such a thing, but he has a way of B making you listen to what he wants to say ; and what he had to say was that he held all the mortgages on Glatton. Then he asked me if I had noticed how much, or rather how little, Great Ditching property went for the other day. ' Take a line by that,' he said, ' and see what would be the consequence if Glatton was driven into the market.' He supposed that my lawyers had not let me know my position.

Then he went back to what he began with, and said that if he could persuade Maud to marry him, everything could be arranged in the settlements, and I could go on here for the rest of my life. Well, I went to Lincoln's Inn and saw Twodly, and I am inclined to think that what that fellow Mossack says is right, and that if he likes to push me I must go, and that Aske of Glatton will be a name of the past." " But, confound it, George ! you can't stand the idea of a fellow like that marrying Maud— no, it's too sickening." " He is not such a bad fellow as you seem to think, Jim ; and he is most attached to Maud. After all, as he pointed out, there are a good many noble houses who would not refuse to accept him as a son-in-law." " Dare say there are, but I don't see that their not being particular should make any difference to us.

But what's the good of talking about it ? Maud would as soon think of marrying the sweep — in fact, sooner, for the sweep is a decent Englishman, and not a half bred 'un like Mossack, a son of that old money-lendino miser ' the Spider.' " "But what will Maud do without a roof over her head when I'm gone ? After all, it would be better for her if she could only manage to persuade herself to accept him. She is even more fond of the old place than we are, and would hate to see it go away from us." " Maybe some man will make a home for her, and she will be happy enough, and forget all about Glatton ; and happy she will never be here, or anywhere else, if she is persuaded into marrying that chap, the son of the old Spider." " It's all very well for you to talk so coolly about Glatton going, but then it never belonged to you.

You don't know what it is to have had a place like this, and to feel that you have to lose it." " Can't anything be done ? Didn't Twodly see his way to save anything ? " asked the Major, after a minute or two's silence. " Nothing. He said that if a certain sum of money — about thirty thousand pounds — could be raised, some of the property might be sold, and the house and what was left cleared of mortgages ; but he did not see how a tenth of that sum could be raised. No, it's no good thinking about it. That fellow Mossack was right." Jim said no more : discussion was painful and useless. There was no way that he could see of raising so much money as the sum named. He had brought no fortune back with him after wandering over the world, and he was only able to support his very modest domicile, which consisted of two rooms at the top of a house on the Adelphi Terrace, by contributions to magazines and newspapers, having changed the sword for the pen A GREAT TURF I'l.ACI.. late in life.