Right Royal Part 6

Look, he's cut right across now, we'll meet him again.

Well, I hope someone knocks him and kicks out his brain.

Well, I'll never be last, though I can't win the Cup.

No sense lolling here, man, you'd better pull up."

Then he roused Cimmeroon, and was off like a swallow.

Charles watched, sick at heart, with a longing to follow.

"Better follow," he thought, "for he knows more than I, Since he rode here before, and it's wiser to try: Would my horse had but wings, would his feet would but lift; Would we spun on this speedway as wind spins the drift.

There they go out of sight, over fence, to the Turn; They are going still harder, they leave me astern.

They will never come back, I am lost past recall."

So he cried for a comfort and only gat gall.

In the glittering branches of the world without end, Were the spirits, Em's Helper and Charles Cothill's Friend, And the Force of Right Royal with a crinier of flame There they breathed the bright glory till the summoning came.

From the Stand where Em watched, from the field where Charles rode, From the mud where Right Royal in solitude strode, Came the call of three spirits to the spirits that guard, Crying, "Up now, and help him, for the danger bears hard."

There they looked, those immortals, from the boughs dropping balm, But their powers were stirred not, and their grave brows were calm, For they said, "He's despairing and the horse is still vext."

Charles cleared Channing's Blackthorn and strode to the next.

The next was the Turn in a bogland of rushes; There the springs of still water were trampled to slushes; The peewits lamented, flapping down, flagging far, The riders dared deathwards each trusting his star.

The mud made them slither, the turn made them close, The stirrup steels clinked as they thrust in their toes, The brown horse Exception was struck as he rose, Struck to earth by the Rocket, then kicked by the grey, Then Thunderbolt smote him and rolled him astray.

The man on Exception, Bun Manor, fell clear With Monkery's shoes half an inch from his ear, A drench of wet mud from the hoofs struck his cheek, But the race was gone from him before he could speak.

There Exception and Thunderbolt ended their race, Their bright flanks all smeared with the mud of the place; In the green fields of Tencombe and the grey downs of Churn Their names had been glories till they fell at the Turn.

Em prayed in her place that her lover might know Not to hurry Right Royal but let him go slow; White-lipped from her praying, she sat, with shut eyes, Begging help from her Helper, the deathless, the wise.

From the gold of his branches her Helper took heed, He sent forth a thought to help Charles in his need.

As the white, gleaming gannet eyes fish in the sea, So the thought sought a mortal to bring this to be.

By the side of Exception Bun Manor now stood Sopping rags on a hock that was dripping bright blood.

He had known Charles of old and defeat made him kind, The thought from the Helper came into his mind.

So he cried to Charles Cothill, "Go easy," he cried, "Don't hurry; don't worry; sit still and keep wide.

They flowed like the Severn, they'll ebb like the tide.

They'll come back and you'll catch them." His voice died away.

In front lay the d.y.k.e, deep as drowning, steel grey.

Charles felt his horse see it and stir at the sight.

Again his heart lifted to the dream of the night; Once again in his heart's blood the horse seemed to say, "I'll die or I'll do it. It's my day to-day."

He saw the grey water in shade from its fence, The rows of white faces all staring intense; All the heads straining forward, all the shoulders packt dense.

Beyond, he saw Thankful, the riderless brown, s.n.a.t.c.hing gra.s.s, dodging capture, with reins hanging down.

Then Thankful stopped eating and c.o.c.ked up his head, He eyed the swift horses that Kubbadar led, His eye filled with fire at the roll of their tread; Then he tore down the course with a flash of bright shoes, As the race's bright herald on fire with news.

As Charles neared the water, the Rocket ran out By jumping the railings and kicking a clout Of rotten white woodwork to startle the trout.

When Charles cleared the water, the gra.s.s stretcht before And the glory of going burned in to the core.

Far over his head with a whicker of wings Came a wisp of five snipe from a field full of springs; The gleam on their feathers went wavering past-- And then some men booed him for being the last.

But last though he was, all his blood was on fire With the rush of the wind and the gleam of the mire, And the leap of his heart to the skylarks in quire, And the feel of his horse going onward, on, on, Under sky with white banners and bright sun that shone.

Like a star in the night, like a spring in the waste, The image of Emmy rose up as he raced, Till his mind was made calm, and his spirit was braced.

For the prize was bright Emmy; his blood beat and beat As her beauty made music in that thunder of feet.

The wind was whirled past him, it hummed in his ears, Right Royal's excitement had banished his fears, For his leap was like singing, his stride was like cheers, All his blood was in glory, all his soul was blown bare, They were one, blood and purpose, they strode through the air.

"What is life if I lose her, what is death if I win?

At the end of this living the new lives begin.

Whatever life may be, whatever death is, I am spirit eternal, I am this, I am this!"

Girls waved, and men shouted, like flashes, like shots, Out of pale blurs of faces whose features were dots; Two fences with toppings were cleared without hitch, Then they ran for Lost Lady's, a fence and dry ditch.

Here Monkery's rider, on seeing a chance, Shot out beyond Soyland to lead the advance.

Then he steadied and summed up his field with a glance.

All crossed the Lost Lady's, that dry ditch of fear, Then a roar broke about them, the race-course was near.

Right and left were the swing-boats and merry-go-rounds, Yellow varnish that wavered, machines making sounds, Rifles cracking like cork-pops, fifes whining with steam, "All hot," from a pieman; all blurred as in dream.

Then the motors, then cheering, then the bra.s.s of a band, Then the white rails all crowded with a mob on each hand.

Then they swerved to the left over gorsebush and hurdle And they rushed for the Water where a man's blood might curdle.

Charles entered the race-course and prayed in his mind That love for the moment might make Emmy blind, Not see him come past half a distance behind; For an instant he thought, "I must shove on ahead, For to pa.s.s her like this, Lord, I'd rather be dead."

Then, in crossing the hurdle the Stand arose plain, All the flags, horns and cheers beat like blows on his brain, And he thought, "Time to race when I come here again, If I once lose my head, I'll be lost past appeal."

All the crowd flickered past like a film on a reel.

Like a ribbon, whirled past him, all painted with eyes.

All the real, as he rode, was the horse at his thighs, And the thought "They'll come back, if I've luck, if I'm wise."

Some banners uncrumpled on the blue of the skies, The cheers became frantic, the blur of men shook, As Thankful and Kubbadar went at the brook.

Neck and neck, stride for stride, they increased as they neared it, Though the danger gleamed greyly, they galloped to beard it; And Kubbadar dwelt on his jump as he cleared it, While Thankful went on with a half a length lead.

Charles thought, "Kubbadar, there, is going to seed."

Then Monkery took it, then Soyland, then two, Muscatel and Sir Lopez, who leaped not but flew, Like a pair of June swallows going over the dew, Like a flight of bright fishes from a field of seas blue, Like a wisp of snipe wavering in the dusk out of view.

Then Red Ember, Path Finder, Gavotte and Coranto, Then The Ghost going level by Syringa a-taunto, Then Peterkinooks, then the Cimmeroon black, Who had gone to his horses, not let them come back; Then Stormalong rousing, then the Blowbury crack, Counter Vair, going grandly beside Cross-Molin, All charged the bright brook and Coranto went in.

Natuna, Grey Glory and Hadrian followed, Flying clear of the water where Coranto now wallowed; Cannonade leaped so big that the lookers-on holloed.

Ere the splash from Coranto was bright on the gra.s.s, The face of the water had seen them all pa.s.s.

But Coranto half scrambled, then slipped on his side, Then churned in the mud till the brook was all dyed; As Charles reached the water Coranto's man cried, "Put him at it like blazes and give him a switch; Jump big, man, for G.o.d's sake, I'm down in the ditch."

Right Royal went at it and streamed like a comet, And the next thing Charles knew, he was twenty yards from it; And he thought about Em as he rushed past her place, With a prayer for G.o.d's peace on her beautiful face.