Boy Woodburn Part 67

"And that's the Putnam horse," put in Jaggers.

"How's he comin' along?" asked the jockey.

"Great guns," the fat man replied.

"Think he's a Berserk?" asked Jaggers.

"I know it," said Joses. "Stolen jump. The stable-lads let him out on that old man for a lark. He's the spit of the old horse, only bigger."

"He must be a big un then," said Jaggers.

"He is," Chukkers answered. "And he's in at ten stun. The mare's givin'

him a ton o' weight. And weight is weight at Liverpool."

"She'll do it," said Jaggers confidently. "I'll back my Iroquois against their Berserk--if Berserk he is."

"He's Berserk," said Chukkers doggedly. "A blind man at midnight could tell that from his fencing. Goes at 'em like a lion. Such a lift to him, too! Is Monkey Brand goin' to ride him?" he asked Joses.

"No. Turned down. Too old."

"Then the lad as rode him at Lingfield will," said Chukkers. "Sooner him than Monkey anyway. If Monkey couldn't win himself he'd see I didn't.

Ride me down and ram me. The lad wouldn't 'ave the nerve. Face like a girl."

"Monkey ain't the only one," muttered Joses. "Silver's in it, too--up to the neck."

When Joses left to catch his train Jaggers accompanied him across the yard.

"Yes," he said, "if she wins there'll be plenty for all."

The tout hovered in the gate.

"I'm glad to hear it," he said, with emphasis. "_Very_ glad."

Jaggers threw up his head in that free, frank way of his.

"What, Joses?" he said. "You're not short?"

"Things aren't too flush with me, Mr. Jaggers," muttered the fat man.

Jaggers stared out over the Downs.

"If that Putnam horse was not to start it would be worth a monkey to you," he said, cold and casual.

The other shot a swift and surrept.i.tious glance at him.

Jaggers had on his best pulpit air.

"Don't start," mused Joses. "That's a tall order."

The trainer picked his teeth.

"A monkey's money," he said.

The fat man sn.i.g.g.e.red.

"It's worth money, too," he remarked.

"Give you a new start in a new country," continued Jaggers. "Quite the capitalist."

Joses's eyes wandered.

"I don't say it mightn't fix it," he said at last cautiously. "But it'd mean cash. Could you give me something on account?"

His Reverence was prepared.

He took a leather case out of his pocket and handed over five bank-notes.

"There's a pony," he said. "Now I don't want to see you till after the race. You know me. Me word's me bond. It's all out this time."

With a proud and priestly air he strode back to the house.

CHAPTER XL

Man and Woman

Silver and Joses went back to Cuckmere by the same train from Brighton.

The young man was well-established in a first-cla.s.s smoker, and the train was about to start when the fat man came puffing along the platform. He was very hot; and out of his pocket bulged a brown paper parcel. The paper had burst and the head of a wooden mallet was exposed.

Silver, quiet in his corner, remarked that mallet.

That night he took a round of the stable-buildings before he went to bed, as his custom had been of late. There was n.o.body stirring but Maudie, meandering around like a ghost who did not feel well.

He went to the back of the Lads' Barn, and looked across the Paddock Close. A light in the window of a cottage shone out solitary in the darkness.

It was the cottage in which Joses lived, and the light came from an upper window.

Silver strolled along the back of the stable-buildings toward it.

Under Boy's window he paused, as was his wont.

A light within showed that the girl was in her eyrie. Then the light went out, and the window opened quietly.

Shyness overcame the young man. He moved away and went back to the corner in the saddle-room he had made his own--partly because he could smoke there undisturbed, and far more because it was directly under the girl's room, and he loved to hear her stirring above him.