Right Royal | Page 3

the wreck?A day's march nearer. Now begins again?The agony of waiting for the pain.?The agony of watching ruin come?Out of man's dreams to overwhelm a home.
Go now, my dear. Before the race is due,?We'll meet again, and then I'll speak with you.
In a race-course box behind the Stand?Right Royal shone from a strapper's hand.?A big dark bay with a restless tread,?Fetlock deep in a wheat-straw bed;?A noble horse of a nervy blood,?By O Mon Roi out of Rectitude?Something quick in his eye and ear?Gave a hint that he might be queer.?In front, he was all to a horseman's mind,?Some thought him a trifle light behind.?By two good points might his rank be known,?A beautiful head and a Jumping Bone.?He had been the hope of Sir Button Budd,?Who bred him there at the Fletchings stud,?But the Fletchings jockey had flogged him cold?In a narrow thing as a two-year-old.?After that, with his sulks and swerves,?Dread of the crowd and fits of nerves,?Like a wastrel bee who makes no honey?He had hardly earned his entry money.
Liking him still, though he failed at racing,?Sir Button trained him for steeple-chasing.?He jumped like a stag, but his heart was cowed;?Nothing would make him face the crowd;?When he reached the Straight where the crowds began?He would make no effort for any man.
Sir Button sold him, Charles Cothill bought him,?Rode him to hounds and soothed and taught him.?After two years' care Charles felt assured?That his horse's broken heart was cured,?And the jangled nerves in tune again.
And now, as proud as a King of Spain,?He moved in his box with a restless tread,?His eyes like sparks in his lovely head,?Ready to run between the roar?Of the stands that face the Straight once more;?Ready to race, though blown, though beat,?As long as his will could lift his feet,?Ready to burst his heart to pass?Each gasping horse in that street of grass.?John Harding said to his stable-boy,
"Would looks were deeds, for he looks a joy.?He's come on well in the last ten days."?The horse looked up at the note of praise,?He fixed his eye upon Harding's eye,?Then he put all thought of Harding by,?Then his ears went back and he clipped all clean?The manger's well where his oats had been.
John Harding walked to the stable-yard,?His brow was worried with thinking hard.?He thought, "His sire was a Derby winner,?His legs are steel, and he loves his dinner,?And yet of old when they made him race,?He sulked or funked like a real disgrace;?Now for man or horse, I say, it's plain,?That what once he's been, he'll be again.
For all his looks, I'll take my oath?That horse is a cur, and slack as sloth.
He'll funk at a great big field like this,?And the lad won't cure that sloth of his,?He stands no chance, and yet Bungay says?He's been backed all morning a hundred ways.?He was twenty to one, last night, by Heaven:?Twenty to one and now he's seven.?Well, one of these fools whom fortune loves?Has made up his mind to go for the gloves;?But here's Dick Cappell to bring me news."
Dick Cappell came from a London Mews,?His fleshless face was a stretcht skin sheath?For the narrow pear of the skull beneath.?He had cold blue eyes, and a mouth like a slit,?With yellow teeth sticking out from it.?There was no red blood in his lips or skin,?He'd a sinister, hard, sharp soul within.?Perhaps, the thing that he most enjoyed?Was being rude when he felt annoyed.?He sucked his cane, he nodded to John,?He asked, "What's brought your lambkin on?"
John said, "I had meant to ask of you,?Who's backing him, Dick, I hoped you knew."
Dick said, "Pill Stewart has placed the money.?I don't know whose."
John said, "That's funny."
"Why funny?" said Dick; but John said naught;?He looked at the horse's legs and thought.?Yet at last he said, "It beats me clean,?But whoever he is, he must be green.?There are eight in this could give him a stone,?And twelve should beat him on form alone.?The lad can ride, but it's more than riding?That will give the bay and the grey a hiding."
Dick sucked his cane and looked at the horse?With "Nothing's certain on Compton Course.?He looks a peach. Have you tried him high?"
John said, "You know him as well as I;?What he has done and what he can do.?He's been ridden to hounds this year or two.?When last he was raced, he made the running,?For a stable companion twice at Sunning.?He was placed, bad third, in the Blowbury Cup?And second at Tew with Kingston up.?He sulked at Folkestone, he funked at Speen,?He baulked at the ditch at Hampton Green,?Nick Kingston thought him a slug and cur,?'You must cut his heart out to make him stir.'?But his legs are iron; he's fine and fit."
Dick said, "Maybe; but he's got no grit.?With to-day's big field, on a course like this,?He will