Horsley Grange. A sporting story

Chapter II

A Snake in the Grass . . . .15 CHAPTER IIT. L'Homme Propose . . . . . .31 CHAPTER TV. The Trial 47

CHAPTER V.

A Peerage in Abeyance .... 65

CHAPTER VI.

Stolen News '78

CHAPTER VII.

Exchange and Barter Contents. IV

CHAPTER VIII.

The Plot Thickens 119

CHAPTER IX.

The Grand National 146

CHAPTER X.

Breakers Ahead 173

CHAPTER XI.

On the Rocks 191

CHAPTER XII.

Dissolution of the Triumvirate , .. .217

CHAPTER XIII.

Hopes and Fears 236

CHAPTER XIV.

Getting Warm 247

CHAPTER XV.

A Chance Word . . . . . .267

CHAPTER XVI.

Whitewash 2S8 HOBSLEY GRANGE.

CHAPTER I.

A COUNCIL OP WAE. The weights were out for the Grand National, and " the talent " were cudgel ling their brains to pick out the plums. No one paid much attention to Mr. Melton's Squall, 5 years, 10 stone, and yet his owner didn't seem at all dis pleased when he saw the weight which was apportioned to his horse. Charlie Melton was deep in thought. The problem before him was no easy one : how to make the best of the apparently good VOL. II. B thing, which the gods and the handicapper had provided, puzzled him not a Httle. If he backed his horse at once it might cause inquiries to be made about the animal ; moreover, he really could not be sure if it was quite good enough. Then again, if he waited until the horse had been tried, the Ring might get wind of the trial, if it proved satisfactory, and he might fail to get anything Hke a decent price about his horse.

The more he thought about it the less clearly did he see his way. By the time he had reduced a large cigar to dust and ashes, the only conclusion at which he had arrived was, to go over to Dick DayreU's, and talk the matter over with him ; and, if he had thought for a month, he could not have adopted a wiser course. So, throwing the stump of his cigar into the grate, he rang the bell, and gave orders to Straddies to have his hack at the door in ten minutes; and, jumping on his horse's back as soon as the animal came round, he was soon indulging him in a rattling gallop along one of the broad grass sidings, with which the Croppington country abounds. If riding to covert in Leicestershire is as good as hunting any where else, then the Croppington country would take a good second in this respect.

Long may it be so, and, if General Booth ploughs up every acre of waste land in England, let us hope at any rate that the grass sidings may escape the ruthless share ! Half an hour at a hand gallop brings Melton to Dick Dayrell's door, and to his query, " Is Mr. Dayrell at home ? " he receives the answer, " You'll find him in the stables, sir ; " and there, sure enough, he does find him, superintending the b fomentation of a damaged foreleg. Day reU is his own stud groom, and is one of the few gentlemen who make a success of that experiment. What woeful failures most of us prove, when we attempt the ex periment, experience has no doubt proved to more than one sanguine sportsman. " Good morning, Charlie," exclaimed Dick Dayrell. " That," pointing to the foreleg, immersed up to the elbow in the fomenting bucket, " comes of mounting a friend.

What a fool one is to do it ! Might just as well lame them oneself. Nothing difficult about it, eh ? Come into the house and have a glass of sherry before lunch. Give him half an hour more of it," he added to the groom ; " and now come on," he said, turning to Melton. " What brings you over ? Thought you fellows at the Grange always went to the village, when you couldn't hunt ? " "Not to-day, anyhow," laughed Mel ton. " Fact is, old man, I've come over to talk to you about Squall," he said, as they moved off to the house. " What's the matter with him ? Lame, or broke his neck ? " " Neither, thank goodness ! " " Well, then, come on in. Have a glass of sherry ? " asked his host, as they entered the latter's sanctum. " No ? All right, then. Lunch will be ready in half an hour, so fire ahead, and let me know what I can do for you."

If Dick Dayrell liked a man, there was nothing he would not do for him ; but if, on the contrary, he took a dislike to him, woe betide the luckless individual, for Dayrell's tongue was of the sharpest, and he didn't scruple to use it when occasion offered. But it so happened that the Bruiser's reckless style of crossing a country had made a great impression on his hard-riding host, and he felt a warm regard for the man, who seemed to value his neck as little as he did himself. " Get a fall any day for half a crown," was a characteristic remark once heard to fall from Dayrell's lips. " Look here, old man," said Melton, as he plumped himself down in an arm-chair. " I don't see how to work the oracle as regards this confounded chaser of mine. If I wait till after we've tried him, the bookies may get wind of the trial, or the public, which is nearly as bad, and then what sort of a price am I likely to get ?

But all the same, I'll be shot if I care to entrust him with much money just at present. It's like buying a pig in a poke. What would you do ? " Dayrell got up, walked to the window and back again, poked the fire, and sat down in his chair, without having apparently solved the difficulty. At last he said, " It's a rum 'un. It looks easy enough on the face of it, but when you come to putting it into practice, why, it's a poser. It might be done — no, that won't do. Wish I smoked sometimes, when a fellow asks me a conundrum. You smoking coves look so preternaturally wise when you are puffing away, with a cigar or a pipe stuck in your heads. Can't say the same for cigarette smokers' though, I hate to see all these young ones with their bits of smoking paper out hunting. Light and puff, light and puff, all day long, and look like owls over it !

No business of mine, though. Well, I don't see my way in this matter of yours. Come and have a look at the gees ; then we'll have lunch, — leg of a cold pheasant and a glass of brown sherry do you, eh? AU right, — then we'll go round to the stables, and be back in twenty minutes. I'll just ring and tell them to lay a place for you, and then we'll be off." Three quarters of an hour afterwards Melton was enjoying a cigar, while his host was propounding his views on the problem before him. "Nothing Hke victualHng the ship, is there ? " he exclaimed. " Low living and high thinking be blowed. May do for those long-haired, pale-faced beggars one used to see about town, but doesn't suit me. I can see now, through the medium of luncheon, what I couldn't on an empty stomach. What I would do in your case is this : tell your commissioner — I will intro duce you to a good man, if you don't know one — to pick up any long shots which he can, to a small amount, say 1000 to 15 or 1000 to 20 ; he ought to be able to get that against an utterly untried horse, for of course his little win down here doesn't count for anything, and his performances on the flat as a two and three year old are not encouraging.

Queer thing, by-the-bye, how well horses who couldn't stay on the flat run in the National. Look at Chandos, for instance. However, that is by the way ; what I was going to say was, that the man I'll introduce to you is a precious clever fellow, and will know how to get a Httle money on for you at a long price, without provoking inquiry about your horse. He will just dribble it on from time to time. Then we will try Squall about a fortnight before the race, and contrive somehow to throw dust in the eyes of the touts, if there are any of those gentry about — and some of them are pretty sure to be there. It is very hard to keep anything quiet now-a-days. Then if Squall answers the question satisfac torily, we will lump the money on, when there are two or three meetings going on at once. There are sure to be men at all of them who want to bet on the National — then the bookies won't have a chance of comparing notes till these meetings are over, and we ought to be able to get a lot of money on at a good price before the public follow our lead, which they are sure to do like a flock of sheep, as soon as they see that the horse is being backed in earnest.

The public are of use in one way to an owner : they give him a chance to hedge at a good price, if he wants to." "Which I don't," interrupted the listener. " No, old man, I will be a man or a mouse over this race. Go a regular perisher, if it looks anything like good enough." " Of course you know your own business best so far as that goes, though for my part I like to be on velvet when I can. I've had enough of ' the man or mouse ' business to last me my time. The worst of it is," he added, getting up from his chair, " the market is so bally sensitive. The moment a horse is backed at all as if someone was in the know, the price shortens pretty quickly, and the Ring contrive to find out whether there is really any cause for the backer's confidence. However, we must play our cards as well as we can.

After all, racing, like politics or anything else, is a game, and the best player wins ; that is, if he only holds anything like a hand ; and if I know anything about a horse, we do hold a hand, and a pretty good one too. I never felt a horse slip it like yours did the other day, and as to his jumping, why, he's a natural chaser. You don't find that sort every day, but when you do, make the most of them. If the handicapper had ridden Squall in the] Hunt Cup here, he wouldn't have got in at any ten stone. Of course there is nothing so uncertain as racing, but, even before he is tried or Gunner has reported, or anything else, I am not afraid to say that I think that whatever beats him will win the Liverpool, if — and it's a big ' If,' mind you — your horse only goes on aU right till the flag falls."

" I'm uncommonly glad to hear it," said Melton getting up, " and thank you no end for your advice, which I shall certainly take. Would you mind giving me a line to your commissioner, and I'll go and see him to-morrow." " Of course I will," said Dayrell. " Excuse me a minute," and sitting down, he wrote a few Hnes, enclosed them in an envelope addressed " George Irons, 13, Grove Road, Fulham," and handed it to Melton, saying, " There, I think that will do ; and now, if you want to save your daylight, you ought to be going, unless you'U stay to dinner." " Should be delighted, old man, but we've got a few Johnnies coming to us. Better come too." " By Jove, I will. Are you going to Byfield Turnpike to-morrow ? " " Yes, and, by-the-bye, why not hack your horse quietly over with me. Have your things sent over, and start from our place to-morrow.

It's only three miles from there." " Not half a bad idea ! I'll ring and order my horse. But you must let me off sitting up aU night. I can't stand that sort of thing ; neither will you when you are as old as I am." So the two friends hacked quietly over to the Grange, had a rare day from Byfield on the morrow, and Charlie Melton went to town by the night mad.

CHAPTER II.

A SNAKE IN THE GEASS. " ' Confound all stipple-chaces ! ' as Mr. Jorrocks would say," remarked Sinnington a few days after the Byfield run. " Here's the Bruiser everlastingly running up to town, or scooting off to Gunner's at a moment's notice, and leaving me to mind the Baby all by myself." " Bother that old joke, General," ex claimed the Honourable. " It's getting staler than your old crock's legs. I think chasing is a deuced good amusement, especially as the Bruiser gives me the chance of using up what is left of his horses. Why don't you bant, old chap," he added, turning to the General, " and then I would give you a ride now and then." The reason of the above remarks is obvious. Charlie Melton had got racing on the brain, and was away from the Grange half his time on business con nected with his horse, and Sinnington didn't Hke it.

Like all men in love, when things don't go entirely to their liking, he was getting fractious, and inclined to take offence at things which would not have troubled him in the least when in his normal condition, and just at present he chose to resent Melton's frequent absences. As for the Boy, he was always happy, and would, I honestly believe, have been per fectly contented, if he had been left entirely to his own devices. Unfor tunately, however, Sinnington looked on the Boy as the cause of all his troubles, and certainly since his rejection by Miss Chievely, that mercurial youth had given Sinnington no little cause for jealousy. No one particularly likes a favoured rival, and consequently Sinnington very much disliked being left alone with his goddess' professed adorer. Meanwhile, Mr. Straddles was getting hopelessly entangled with the fair Josephine.

Whatever his astuteness in equine matters, he was a perfect fool in the hands of the maid. She got every scrap of information out of him about Melton's horse, by professing a great interest in the animal, on account of her admirer having discovered his merits. It is true Straddles didn't know a great deal ; still he read the training reports, and occasionally inquired of Melton whether the horse was well. Of course, the trial with Monte Video had very soon been con fided to the lady of his affections. Armed VOL. II. o with these confidences, Josephine thought it was time to strike ; so one afternoon, when her mistress was out, she abstracted a few sheets of her cream-laid, scented note paper, with Albury Towers stamped on it, and proceeded to indite the following letter : — " Dear Joe, — You pretends to know all about racing, so I am writing to you from a good shop, were I am lady's maid to a Amerikin girl.

There is lots of perquisits and I am doing well. I don't think much of my missus, though that is neither here nor there. She don't know how to behave to servants, and is sometimes that familiar that I can hardly stand it. But what I have to say is this, as how there's an old fool of a groom, as comes courting me. He says his master has a horse as will win the Liverpool Grand National. Its name is Squall, and it is trained at Gunner's, wherever that may be. I think you could find out all about him, and we could win some money, which I have known gentle men in the servants' hall do before on a race, so let me have a share if you make money out of it, as I have twenty pounds laid by out of cloths of my missus which I have sold, and should like to lay on this horse if you think it will win. What a spree we will have if it do, and so no more at present, from your loving cousin, " Josephine.

"P.S. Mr. Straddles, the gentleman as told me about the horse, his master's name is Melton.' This noble literary production she addressed to Joseph Riley, Esq., Red Lion, Epsom. When Mr. Riley received it in due course at the Red Lion, where he called every now and then for letters, when he was c what he called at home, he was not at first inclined to pay much attention to it. But, when he came to the postscript, somehow or another the name sounded familiar to him. Where had he heard it before ? Suddenly, with a savage oath, he brought his hand down on his thigh with a slap, and exclaimed, " Why, that was the name of the cuss who knocked me down on the road near Leckhampstead. Why," as he examined the post-mark, "of coorse hit's the same. 'Ere's the Leckampstead postmark on Joey's letter."

He returned to the public, took up the Sportsman, which lay on the bar, and, turning to the training reports, soon found the name of Squall, in Gunner's string. Calling for four of gin, he swallowed the liquor at a gulp, and then, lighting a short clay pipe, retired into the billiard-room to digest the news which he had received. After much thought, and the consumption of another four of gin and several pipes of strong tobacco, he called for a sheet of paper, a stamp and an envelope, and penned the following letter : — " Dere Joey, — Yoors to and theer mai bee sum thin hin hit but yoors treuly asnt ha mag to is name send me too quid han i wil goo han see the oss hat Gunners han rite to you hagain i leuks forrard to avin ha gran spree with you his we coders the swag hover this raice wot ha time we did ave wen you was barmade hat the bel yoors turly "Joe Riley."

Joe Riley had the misfortune, common to many great men, of having been born before his time. With the advantages of School Board education, what a financial agent he might have made ! As it was, he eked out a precarious existence by means of advertisements in the sporting papers, and professed himself willing, for the small sum of one shilling in postage stamps, to inform the remitter, with absolute certainty, what would win any of the great gambling races. His advertise ments generally read : "Another great out sider for the Great Western Handicap. We predicted the winners of the Cesare witch, Cambridgeshire, Great Ebor, etc., and, for the sum of one shilling in postage stamps, will send an absolute certainty at long odds for the Great Western Handi cap." Competition affected his business, as it does most others in these days, and Mr. Riley was often heard, when in his cups, to complain bitterly of bad times, or, in other words, of the multiplicity of sporting prophets.

How they must grin, these augurs of the racing world, when they meet one another in the street. For the rest, he was not unknown to the habitues of the Pelican Club, and might have risen to fame in that department, could he have left fours of gin and strong tobacco alone. But, alas ! drink, that curse of the lower classes — for of course, no gentleman suc cumbs to the debasing vice now-a-days — three bottle men are happily a thing of the past — proved too strong a temptation for Joe Riley. You cannot fight, any more than you can row, run, or ride, if you don't put the muzzle on. It is only a question of time in either department. But, strangely enough, this ruffian was the only human being who had ever in terested Josephine Merry, Miss Flaherty's maid — the only being she cared for more than herself.

Oh, strange complexity of female nature, what man will ever under stand it ? Here was Josephine, as fair a specimen of her class as you will often meet with, for whom many a good, honest, man — such fools are men — would have been willing to give himself and all he possessed — willing to give herself to this gin-besotted ruffian, who would willingly have bartered her for unlimited gin and tobacco, and having both, would probably have treated her to boot-heel into the bar gain. For all which mercies she would probably have smiled and been thank ful, so long as she had her " Joe." Oh, man, or woman, which is the biggest fool ? Man before marriage, woman afterwards. So the cynics tell us, and, as lookers-on at the game, they are probably right. So Josephine sent the " two quid " to Joe Riley, and the latter, armed with a sufficiency of gin, betook himself to the vicinity of Gunner's training quarters, with a view to seeing, as he expressed it, " which way the cat jumped."

Meanwhile the sporting papers noted occasionally that 1000 to 15 or 1000 to 20 was taken and offered against Squall, and, while the racing fraternity were busy with the favourites, no one paid • very much attention to the obscure outsider. This state of things didn't at all suit Joe Riley. He had seen the horse gallop, and, being a very fair judge of such matters, was rather taken with the way the horse moved. Still he couldn't see much in it for him either way as yet, and on the whole dislike, not to say hatred, of Melton at present governed his actions. If what Josephine said were true, it was probable that Melton would back his horse. In that case he would of course want the longest price obtainable. The best way to put a spoke in his wheel was to shorten the price, if possible. Turning these things over in his mind, Joe Riley bethought him of a certain prominent member of the Ring, for whom he had once done a good turn, and promptly dropped him a line : " Look out for Squall for National.

He may do you harm ! " " There's the first nail in Mister Melton's coffin," he said to himself ; " it may shorten the odds a little. The boss will look out for himself. Maybe I'll drive another before long, and a longer one." It was not to be supposed that an old practitioner like Riley would confine his attention to the doings of one horse, and it was not long before he noticed a likely looking brown horse doing good work in Gunner's string. Riley was not the only one of his fraternity watching the work of the horses in the morning, and he soon made the acquaintance of two others engaged in the same laudable enterprise. " What is that brown horse doing a two mile gallop ? " he muttered to the other two, who were ensconced in a dry ditch, watching the gallops one chilly morning. " What, don't you know you fool.

Why, that's Miltiades who won the Liverpool two years ago. Very well he is too, and well in too. They're making him favourite, and he'll take a lot of beating, I can tell you. Don't you mind seeing 'im win at Aintree two years ago. You must be a dandy 'oss watcher, if you didn't know 'im again." " Oh," was Joe's response. But the information set him thinking, and it began to dawn on him that there was something in it, if he could only puzzle it out. Here was the horse which the public were backing down to 10 to 1, and the horse which his owner was backing at to 20, in the same stable. A queer go, he thought, and surely something in it for the man who could get to the bottom of it, Meanwhile the papers noticed that, of the outsiders, Squall seemed to be fancied, and in the quotations he stood at 33 to 1 off., 40 to 1 wanted.

" Odds shortening a'ready," muttered Riley to himself, as he scanned the paragraph. " I've put one spoke in your wheel, Mister Melton, and I'll shove in some more afore I've done with you, my gentle man, see if I don't." He would not have been quite so well satisfied if he had known that Melton, thanks to the astute ness of his commissioner, already stood to win several thousands, with very little risk to his own pocket. Meanwhile Straddles was not havino altogether a good time of it at Albury. Josephine began twitting him with the meagre amount of information supplied. " It's all very well, Mr. Straddles," she would say, " you come here and tell me the 'oss is well and the Guvnor's very sweet on his chance," — mimicking the stud groom's voice and attitude to perfection — " but that doesn't tell me anything.

Why, a man like you, with your knowledge of horses, ought to be in Melton's confidence and know all about it. If I was him, I should consult you. What can a young man like him know compared with what you know about it all. Not that anyone would think, from your looks, that you were any older than he is. You must have been about horses when you was very young. Why, I'm told that dukes and duchesses tell things to their trainers and jockey boys, that they don't tell, not even to their wives and husbands. If I was you I'd know all about this horse, or know the reason why." And Straddles, riding soberly home, vowed that he would know too, by fair means or foul, before the lack of know ledge should lower him in the estimation of his lady-love. " Beware of muslin," was an old trainer's admonition to a rising jockey, and, depend upon it, he was right.

Chapter III

l'homme propose. But, while the doings of the redoubtable Squall were furnishing the chief interest in the lives of some of the personages in this story, the horse was proving the truth of the adage, that a prophet is without honour in his own country. The burly farmers, and hard-riding, sporting yeomen of the Croppington country knew little about him, except the fact that he had won the Hunt Cup, and many of them were apt to think that "Muster Melton had tried to be a leettle too sharp on that occasion," while the story of the sporting bet with Tom Easton, an even pony that he beat Emperor, first pasi the, post, had leaked out, and had met with a good deal of adverse criticism amongst hunting men in the country. Lady Mildred was inclined to wince, when she heard any such imputations on the honour of the man whom, in her heart of hearts, she considered to be sans peur et sans reproche.

And in the main Lady Mildred was right. Whatever his faults, crooked dealing was not one of them. However, the impression gradually gained ground that Charlie Melton was not quite straight, and had tried to win a smaU local race, and put a few paltry pounds into his pocket, under false pretences. If anything could have shaken Lady Mildred's faith, this report would have done it. A man who was capable of such conduct might very weU be suspected of playing fast and loose with a girl's affections ; but her faith never wavered. Sore as was the trial of L'Homme Propose. 33 hearing her " man amongst men " lightly spoken of, yet to her it made no difference. Some day, she felt certain, everything would be explained — his conduct towards her, and the false impression which had got about with regard to the race.

In fact, to the latter she paid but little attention, excepb in so far as it pained her to hear the thing discussed. However, whatever happens, idle people must be amused, and the next event of any importance was the annual Leckham stead ball. If there is an unmitigated nuisance to the genuine hunting man, it is the Hunt Ball. Strangers come down by the dozen ; most of them have to be mounted, and many of them know no more about riding than the man in the moon. After the ball there must needs be a hunt breakfast somewhere, and a lawn meet. Hounds do not throw off till twelve, and i> vol. good, valuable hunting time is wasted accordingly. Men, even good men, who have been dancing and drinking dubious champagne till daylight, are off their ride, " and throng the gaps and gateways, and ride in circles round the fields, and any way but straight ways."

Everywhere are observed slackness, funking, shirking riders and refusing horses, and general con fusion worse confounded. If there is a bad scent, and a good supply of gates and gaps, the ball-going strangers ride on the backs of the hounds to show their courage, and it is good luck if some good hound isn't kicked or ridden over — what care they for hounds, if doughty deeds my lady please, and some partner of the night before is looking on from a trap in the road ? But all evils have an end, and, should hounds chance to run over a stiff line of country, the ball-goers give little If Homme Propose. 35 further trouble. " A man wot does much dancin' won't do much 'untin'." Still, hunt balls, like many other things, are a necessary evil, and the Croppington country could not hope to prove an excep tion.