Right Royal | Page 2

drew.?A glow, with utter brightness running through;?Most splendid, though I cannot make you see.
His great crest glittered as he looked at me?Criniered with spitting sparks; he stamped the ground?All cock and fire, trembling like a hound,?And glad of me, and eager to declare?His horse's mind.
And I was made aware?That, being a horse, his mind could only say?Few things to me. He said, 'It is my day,?My day, to-day; I shall not have another.'
And as he spoke he seemed a younger brother?Most near, and yet a horse, and then he grinned?And tossed his crest and crinier to the wind?And looked down to the Water with an eye?All fire of soul to gallop dreadfully.
All this was strange, but then a stranger thing?Came afterwards. I woke all shivering?With wonder and excitement, yet with dread?Lest the dream meant that Royal should be dead,?Lest he had died and come to tell me so.?I hurried out; no need to hurry, though;?There he was shining like a morning star.?Now hark. You know how cold his manners are,?Never a whinny for his dearest friend.?To-day he heard me at the courtyard end,?He left his breakfast with a shattering call,?A View Halloo, and, swinging in his stall,?Ran up to nuzzle me with signs of joy.?It staggered Harding and the stable-boy.?And Harding said, 'What's come to him to-day??He must have had a dream he beat the bay.'
Now that was strange; and, what was stranger, this.?I know he tried to say those words of his,?'It is my day'; and Harding turned to me,?'It is his day to-day, that's plain to see.'?Right Royal nuzzled at me as he spoke.?That staggered me. I felt that I should choke.?It came so pat upon my unsaid thought,?I asked him what he meant.
He answered 'Naught.?It only came into my head to say.?But there it is. To-day's Right Royal's day.'
That was the dream. I cannot put the glory?With which it filled my being, in a story.?No one can tell a dream.
Now to confess.?The dream made daily life a nothingness,?Merely a mould which white-hot beauty fills,?Pure from some source of passionate joys and skills.?And being flooded with my vision thus,?Certain of winning, puffed and glorious,?Walking upon this earth-top like a king,?My judgment went. I did a foolish thing,?I backed myself to win with all I had.
Now that it's done I see that it was mad,?But still, I had to do it, feeling so.?That is the full confession; now you know."
SHE?The thing is done, and being done, must be.?You cannot hedge. Would you had talked with me?Before you plunged. But there, the thing is done.
HE?Do not exaggerate the risks I run.?Right Royal was a bad horse in the past,?A rogue, a cur, but he is cured at last;?For I was right, his former owner wrong,?He is a game good chaser going strong.?He and my lucky star may pull me through.
SHE?O grant they may; but think what's racing you,?Think for a moment what his chances are?Against Sir Lopez, Soyland, Kubbadar.
HE?You said you thought Sir Lopez past his best.?I do, myself.
SHE
But there are all the rest.?Peterkinooks, Red Ember, Counter Vair,?And then Grey Glory and the Irish mare.
HE?She's scratched. The rest are giving me a stone.?Unless the field hides something quite unknown?I stand a chance. The going favours me.?The ploughland will be bogland certainly,?After this rain. If Royal keeps his nerve,?If no one cannons me at jump or swerve,?I stand a chance. And though I dread to fail,?This passionate dream that drives me like a sail?Runs in my blood, and cries, that I shall win.
SHE
Please Heaven you may; but now (for me) begin?Again the horrors that I cannot tell,?Horrors that made my childhood such a hell,?Watching my Father near the gambler's grave?Step after step, yet impotent to save.
You do not know, I never let you know,?The horror of those days of long ago?When Father raced to ruin. Every night?After my Mother took away the light?For weeks before each meeting, I would see?Horrible horses looking down on me?Laughing and saying "We shall beat your Father."?Then when the meetings came I used to gather?Close up to Mother, and we used to pray.?"O God, for Christ's sake, let him win to-day."
And then we had to watch for his return,?Craning our necks to see if we could learn,?Before he entered, what the week had been.
Now I shall look on such another scene?Of waiting on the race-chance. For to-day,?Just as I did with Father, I shall say?"Yes, he'll be beaten by a head, or break?A stirrup leather at the wall, or take?The brook too slow, and, then, all will be lost."
Daily, in mind, I saw the Winning Post,?The Straight, and all the horses' glimmering forms?Rushing between the railings' yelling swarms,?My Father's colours leading. Every day,?Closing my eyes, I saw them die away,?In the last strides, and lose, lose by a neck,?Lose by an inch, but lose, and bring