"I dare say not."

"I wondher who your lordship'll put up?"

"That must depend on Scott, and what sort of a string he has running.

He's nothing, as yet, high in the betting, except Hardicanute."

"Nothing, my lord; and, take my word for it, that horse is ownly jist run up for the sake of the betting; that's not his nathural position.

Well, Pat, you may take the saddle off. Will your lordship see the mare out to-day?"

"Not to-day, Grady. Let's see, what's the day she runs?"

"The fifteenth of May, my lord. I'm afraid Mr Watts' Patriot 'll be too much for her; that's av' he'll run kind; but he don't do that always.

Well, good morning to your lordship."

"Good morning, Grady;" and Frank rode back towards Handicap Lodge.

He had a great contest with himself on his road home. He had hated the horses two days since, when he was at Grey Abbey, and had hated himself, for having become their possessor; and now he couldn't bear the thought of parting with them. To be steward of the Curragh--to own the best horse of the year--and to win the Derby, were very pleasant things in themselves; and for what was he going to give over all this glory, pleasure and profit, to another? To please a girl who had rejected him, even jilted him, and to appease an old earl who had already turned him out of his house! No, he wouldn't do it. By the time that he was half a mile from Igoe's stables he had determined that, as the girl was gone it would be a pity to throw the horses after her; he would finish this year on the turf; and then, if f.a.n.n.y Wyndham was still her own mistress after Christmas, he would again ask her her mind. "If she's a girl of spirit," he said to himself--"and n.o.body knows better than I do that she is, she won't like me the worse for having shown that I'm not to be led by the nose by a pompous old fool like Lord Cashel," and he rode on, fortifying himself in this resolution, for the second half mile. "But what the deuce should he do about money?" There was only one more half mile before he was again at Handicap Lodge.--Guinness's people had his t.i.tle-deeds, and he knew he had twelve hundred a year after paying the interest of the old inc.u.mbrances. They hadn't advanced him much since he came of age; certainly not above five thousand pounds; and it surely was very hard he could not get five or six hundred pounds when he wanted it so much; it was very hard that he shouldn't be able to do what he liked with his own, like the Duke of Newcastle. However, the money must be had: he must pay Blake and Tierney the balance of what they had won at whist, and the horse couldn't go over the water till the wind was raised. If he was driven very hard he might get something from Martin Kelly. These unpleasant cogitations brought him over the third half mile, and he rode through the gate of Handicap Lodge in a desperate state of indecision.

"I'll tell you what I'll do, Dot," he said, when he met his friend coming in from his morning's work; "and I'm deuced sorry to do it, for I shall be giving you the best horse of his year, and something tells me he'll win the Derby."

"I suppose 'something' means old Jack Igoe, or that blackguard Grady,"

said Dot. "But as to his winning, that's as it may be. You know the chances are sixteen to one he won't."

"Upon my honour I don't think they are."

"Will you take twelve to one?"

"Ah! youk now, Dot, I'm not now wanting to bet on the horse with you. I was only saying that I've a kind of inward conviction that he will win."

"My dear Frank," said the other, "if men selling horses could also sell their inward convictions with them, what a lot of articles of that description there would be in the market! But what were you going to say you'd do?"

"I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll agree to your terms providing you'll pay half the expenses of the horses since the last race each of them ran. You must see that would be only fair, supposing the horses belonged to you, equally with me, ever since that time."

"It would be quite fair, no doubt, if I agreed to it: it would be quite fair also if I agreed to give you five hundred pounds; but I will do neither one nor the other."

"But look here, Dot--Brien ran for the Autumn Produce Stakes last October, and won them: since then he has done nothing to reimburse me for his expense, nor yet has anything been taken out of him by running.

Surely, if you are to have half the profits, you should at any rate pay half the expenses?"

"That's very well put, Frank; and if you and I stood upon equal ground, with an arbiter between us by whose decision we were bound to abide, and to whom the settlement of the question was entrusted, your arguments would, no doubt, be successful, but--"

"Well that's the fair way of looking at it."

"But, as I was going to say, that's not the case. We are neither of us bound to take any one's decision; and, therefore, any terms which either of us chooses to accept must be fair. Now I have told you my terms--the lowest price, if you like to call it so,--at which I will give your horses the benefit of my experience, and save you from their immediate pecuniary pressure; and I will neither take any other terms, nor will I press these on you."

"Why, Blake, I'd sooner deal with all the Jews of Israel--"

"Stop, Frank: one word of abuse, and I'll wash my hands of the matter altogether."

"Wash away then, I'll keep the horses, though I have to sell my hunters and the plate at Kelly's Court into the bargain."

"I was going to add--only your energy's far too great to allow of a slow steady man like me finishing his sentence--I was going to say that, if you're pressed for money as you say, and if it will be any accommodation, I will let you have two hundred and fifty pounds at five per cent. on the security of the horses; that is, that you will be charged with that amount, and the interest, in the final closing of the account at the end of the year, before the horses are restored to you."

Had an uninterested observer been standing by he might have seen with half an eye that Blake's coolness was put on, and that his indifference to the bargain was a.s.sumed. This offer of the loan was a second bid, when he found the first was likely to be rejected: it was made, too, at the time that he was positively declaring that he would make none but the first offer. Poor Frank!--he was utterly unable to cope with his friend at the weapons with which they were playing, and he was consequently most egregiously plundered. But it was in an affair of horse-flesh, and the sporting world, when it learned the terms on which the horses were transferred from Lord Ballindine's name to that of Mr Blake, had not a word of censure to utter against the latter. He was p.r.o.nounced to be very wide awake, and decidedly at the top of his profession; and Lord Ballindine was spoken of, for a week, with considerable pity and contempt.

When Blake mentioned the loan Frank got up, and stood with his back to the fire; then bit his lips, and walked twice up and down the room, with his hands in his pockets, and then he paused, looked out of the window, and attempted to whistle: then he threw himself into an armchair, poked out both his legs as far as he could, ran his fingers through his hair, and set to work hard to make up his mind. But it was no good; in about five minutes he found he could not do it; so he took out his purse, and, extracting half-a-crown, threw it up to the ceiling, saying,

"Well, Dot--head or harp? If you're right, you have them."

"Harp," cried Dot.

They both examined the coin. "They're yours," said Frank, with much solemnity; "and now you've got the best horse--yes, I believe the very best horse alive, for nothing."

"Only half of him, Frank."

"Well," said Frank; "it's done now, I suppose."

"Oh, of course it is," said Dot: "I'll draw out the agreement, and give you a cheque for the money to-night."

And so he did; and Frank wrote a letter to Igoe, authorizing him to hand over the horses to Mr Blake's groom, stating that he had sold them--for so ran his agreement with Dot--and desiring that his bill for training, &c., might be forthwith forwarded to Kelly's Court. Poor Frank! he was ashamed to go to take a last look at his dear favourites, and tell his own trainer that he had sold his own horses.

The next morning saw him, with his servant, on the Ballinasloe coach, travelling towards Kelly's Court; and, also, saw Brien Boru, Granuell, and Finn M'Goul led across the downs, from Igoe's stables to Handicap Lodge.

The handsome sheets, hoods, and rollers, in which they had hitherto appeared, and on which the initial B was alone conspicuous, were carefully folded up, and they were henceforth seen in plainer, but as serviceable apparel, labelled W. B.

"Will you give fourteen to one against Brien Boru?" said Viscount Avoca to Lord Tathenham Corner, about ten days after this, at Tattersall's.

"I will," said Lord Tathenham.

"In hundreds?" said the sharp Irishman.

"Very well," said Lord Tathenham; and the bet was booked.

"You didn't know, I suppose," said the successful viscount, "that Dot Blake has bought Brien Boru?"

"And who the devil's Dot Blake?" said Lord Tathenham.

"Oh! you'll know before May's over," said the viscount.

XVII. MARTIN KELLY'S COURTSHIP

It will be remembered that the Tuam attorney, Daly, dined with Barry Lynch, at Dunmore House, on the same evening that Martin Kelly reached home after his Dublin excursion; and that, on that occasion, a good deal of interesting conversation took place after dinner. Barry, however, was hardly amenable to reason at that social hour, and it was not till the following morning that he became thoroughly convinced that it would be perfectly impossible for him to make his sister out a lunatic to the satisfaction of the Chancellor.

He then agreed to abandon the idea, and, in lieu of it, to indict, or at any rate to threaten to indict, the widow Kelly and her son for a conspiracy, and an attempt to inveigle his sister Anty into a disgraceful marriage, with the object of swindling her out of her property.