Thoroughbreds Part 18

At all times smouldered in her heart a hatred of racing, even of the horses. "It's the anger of G.o.d," Mrs. Porter denounced vehemently. "This gambling and racing is contrary to His law. Never a night pa.s.ses, Allis, that I do not pray to G.o.d that He may open your father's eyes to the sin of racing. No good can come of it--no good has ever come of it--nothing but disaster and trouble. In a day the substance of a year is wasted.

There never can be prosperity living in sin."

"Hush, mother," crooned Allis, softly. This outburst from Mrs. Porter startled the girl; it was so pa.s.sionate, so vehement. When they had talked of racing in the home life the mother had nearly always preserved a reproachful silence; her att.i.tude was understood and respected.

"I must speak, girl," she said again; "this sinful life is crushing me.

Do you think I feel no shame when I sit in meeting and hear our good minister denounce gambling and racing? I can feel his eyes on me, and I cannot raise my voice in protest, for do not I countenance it? My people were all church people," she continued, almost apologetically, "tolerating no sin in the household. Living in sin there can be no hope for eternal life."

"I know, mother," soothed the girl; "I know just how you feel, but we can't desert father. He does not look upon it as a sin, as carrying any dishonor; he may be cheated, but he cheats no man. It can't be so sinful if there is no evil intent. And listen, mother; no matter what anybody may say, even the minister, we must both stick to father if he chooses to race horses all his life."

"Ah, sweetheart!" John Porter cried out in a pleased voice, as he came out to them, "looking after mother; that's right. Cynthia has helped me fix up Mortimer. He'll be all right as soon as Mike gets back with Rathbone. I think we'd better have a cup of tea; these horses are trying on the nerves, aren't they, little woman?" and he nestled his wife's head against his side. "How did it happen, Allis? Did Mortimer slip into Diablo's box, or--"

"It was all over that rascally boy, Shandy. Diablo was just paying him back for his ill-treatment, and I went in to rescue him, and Mortimer risked his life to save mine."

"He was plucky; eh, girl?"

"He fought the Black like a hero, father. But, father, you must never think bad of Lauzanne again; if he hadn't come Mr. Mortimer would have been too late."

"It's dreadful, dreadful," moaned the mother.

Allis shot a quick look at her father. He changed the subject, and commenced talking about Alan--wondering where he was, and other irrelevant matters.

Then there was fresh divertis.e.m.e.nt as Mike rattled up, and Doctor Rathbone, who was of a great size, bustled in to where Mortimer lay.

Three smashed ribs and a broken arm was his inventory of the damage inflicted by Diablo's kick, when he came out again with Porter, in an hour.

"I'm afraid one of the splintered ribs is tickling his lung," he added, "but the fellow has got such a good nerve that I hardly discovered this unpleasant fact. He'll be all right, however; he's young, and healthy as a peach. Good nursing is the idea, and he'll get that here, of course.

He doesn't want much medicine; that we keep for our enemies,--ha! ha!"

and he laughed cheerily, as if it were all a joke on the battered man.

"Thim docthers is cold-blooded divils," was Mike's comment. "Ye'd a thought they'd been throwin' dice, an' it was a horse on the other gintleman. Bot' t'umbs! it was, too. Still, if ould Saw-bones had been in the box yonder wit' Diablo, he wouldn't a-felt so funny."

"Mortimer behaved well; didn't he, Mike?" asked Porter.

"Behaved well; is it? He was like a live divil; punched thim two big stallions till they took water an' backed out. My word! whin first I see him come to the stable wit' Miss Allis, thinks I, here's wan av thim city chumps; he made me tired. An' whin he talked about Lauzanne's knees, m'aning his hocks, I had to hide me head in a grain bag. But if ye'd seen him handle that fork, bastin' the Black, ye'd a thought it was single sticks he was at, wit' a thousand dollars fer a knock-out."

"One can't always tell how a colt will shape, can they, Mike?" spoke Porter, for Mike's fanciful description was almost bringing a smile to Mrs. Porter's troubled face.

"Ye can't, sor, an' yer next the trut' there. I've seen a herrin'-gutted weed av a two-year-old--I remember wan now; he was a Lexington. It was at Saratoga; an' bot' t'umbs! he just made hacks av iverythin' in soight--spread-eagled his field. Ye wouldn't a-give two dollars fer him, an' he come out an' cleaned up the Troy Stake, like the great horse he was."

"And you think Mortimer has turned out something like that; eh, Mike?"

"Well, fer a man that knows no more av horses than I know av the strology av stars, he's a hot wan, an' that's the G.o.d's trut'."

Mortimer's gallant act had roused the Irishman's admiration. He would have done as much himself, but that would have been expected of a horseman, constantly encountering danger; that an office man, to be pitied in his ignorance, should have fearlessly entered the stall with the fighting stallions was quite a different matter.

Even Allis, with her more highly developed sense of character a.n.a.lyzation, felt something of this same influence. She had needed some such manifestation of Mortimer's integral force, and this had come with romantic intensity in the tragic box-stall scene. This drama of the stable had aroused no polished rhetoric; Mortimer's declamation had been unconventional in the extreme. "Back, you devils!" he had rendered with explosive fierceness, oblivious of everything but that he must save the girl. The words still rang in the ears of Allis, and also the echo of her own cry when in peril, "Mortimer!" There must have been a foreshadowing in her soul of the man's reliability, though she knew it not.

Even without the doctor's orders, it was patent that Mortimer must remain at Ringwood for a few days.

It was as if Philip Crane, playing with all his intense subtlety, had met his master in Fate; the grim arbiter of man's ways had pushed forward a chessman to occupy a certain square on the board for a time.

Mortimer had been most decisively smashed up, but his immense physique had wonderful recuperative powers. The bone-setting and the attendant fever were discounted by his vitality, and his progress toward recovery, was marvelous.

XII

Crane heard of the accident on one of his visits to Brookfield a couple of days later, and of course must hurry to Ringwood to see his employee.

It happened that the Reverend Mr. Dolman graced the Porter home with his presence the same evening that Crane was there.

Naturally the paramount subject of interest was the narrow escape of Miss Allis; but the individuality of discussion gradually merged into a crusade against racing, led by the zealous clergyman. John Porter viewed this trend with no little trepidation of feeling.

It was Mrs. Porter who precipitated matters by piously attributing Allis's escape to Providence.

"Undoubtedly, undoubtedly!" Mr. Dolman said, putting the points of his fingers together in front of his lean chest. He paused a moment, and Porter groaned inwardly; he knew that att.i.tude. The fingers were rapiers, stilettos; presently their owner would thrust, with cutting phrase, proving that they were all indeed a very bad lot. Perhaps John Porter would have resented this angrily had he not felt that the Reverend Inquisitor was really honest in his beliefs, albeit intolerably narrow in his conclusions.

Dolman broke the temporary silence. "But we shouldn't tempt Providence by worshiping false images. Love of animals is commendable--commendable"--he emphasized this slight concession--"but race horses always appeal to me as instruments of the Evil One."

"It wasn't the horse's fault at all, Mr. Dolman," Allis interposed, "but just a depraved human's. It was the boy Shandy's fault."

"I wasn't thinking of one horse," continued the minister, airily; "I meant race horses in general."

"I think Mr. Dolman is right," ventured Mrs. Porter, hesitatingly; "it's flying in the face of Providence for a girl to go amongst those race horses."

"Bad-tempered men make them vicious, mother," Allis said; "and I believe that Shandy's punishment was the visitation of Providence, if there was any."

The Reverend Dolman's face took on an austere look. It was an insult to the divine powers to a.s.sert that they had taken the part of a race horse. But he turned the point to his own ends. "It's quite wrong to abuse the n.o.ble animal; and that's one reason why I hold that racing is contrary to the Creator's intentions, quite apart from the evil effect it has on morals."

"Are all men immoral who race, Mr. Dolman?" John Porter asked.

His question forced Dolman to define his position. Porter always liked things simplified; racing was either wrong in principle or right. Dolman found him rather a difficult man to tackle. He had this irritating way of brushing aside generalization and forcing the speaker to get back to first principles.

The reverend gentleman proceeded cautiously. "I should hardly care to go so far as that--to make the rule absolute; a very strong man might escape contamination, perhaps."

Mrs. Porter sighed audibly. The minister was weakening most lamentably, giving her husband a loophole to escape.

"I hardly think racing quite so bad as it is generally supposed to be,"

interposed Crane, feeling that Porter was being pilloried somewhat. He received a reproachful look from Mrs. Porter for his pains.

"I've never seen any good come of it," retorted Dolman. "A Christian man must feel that he is encouraging gambling if he countenances racing, for they contend that without betting racing is impossible."

"Everything in life is pretty much of a gamble," Porter drawled, lazily; "there aren't any such things. The ships that go to sea, the farmer's crop--everything is more or less a matter of chance. If a man goes straight he has a fairly easy time with his conscience, no matter what he's at; but if he doesn't, well, he'd better go hungry."

"A great many very honorable men are racing today," added Crane; "men who have built up large fortunes through honest dealing, and wouldn't be racing if they felt that it was either unchristian or dishonorable."

"They can't be Christians if they countenance gambling," a.s.serted the minister, doggedly.