Boy Woodburn Part 8

"Delighted, I'm sure," laughed the artist.

"Thank you," said the young man, with a brevity the girl herself could not have surpa.s.sed. His shyness had left him, and with it his tendency to stammer.

Boy felt herself snubbed, and was nettled accordingly.

"I'm going home by the wood," she said.

"I'll come with you," said the artist.

The two moved away down the hill together toward the wood that thrust like a spear into the heart of the Paddock Close.

Silver watched them with steady eyes. As usual he had been left. That swift and slimy artist-chap had chipped in while he was thinking what he should do.

Silver hated artists--not as the result of experience, for he had never met one in the flesh before, but from instinct, conviction, and knowledge of the race acquired from books. Artists and poets: they were all alike--dirty beggars, all manners and no morals, who could talk the hind-leg off a she-a.s.s.

And Silver, being dumb himself and very human, hated men who were articulate.

He watched the pair walking away from him down the hillside. An ill-matched couple they seemed to him: the slight, strenuous girl, her plait of hair like a spear of gold between her shoulders, her slim black legs, and air of a cold flame; and that loose, fat thing who gave the young man the impression of a suet pudding that had taken to drink.

The beast seemed disgustingly fatherly, too, rubbing shoulders with the girl, and fawning on her.

Silver sat down on a log and took out the cigarette-case, which was his habitual comforter.

The old mare grazed beside him in the dusk, and he began to laugh as he looked at her. Her laziness tickled and appealed to him. There was something great about it. She was indolent as was Nature, and for the same reason--that she was aware of immense reserves of power on which she could fall back at any moment.

A rabbit came out of the gorse to feed near by. The owl whooped and swooped and hovered behind her. The sea wind, fresh and crisp, came blowing up the valley; and the young stock, bursting with the ecstasy of life, thundered by in the dusk with downward heads and arched backs and far-flung heels.

Silver sat and smoked.

There was a funny feeling at his heart.

Some vast, deep, silent-running river of Life, of whose presence within him he had only become aware within the last few hours, had been thwarted for the moment, thrust back upon itself, and was tugging and tuzzling within him as it sought to pursue its majestic way toward the Open Sea.

CHAPTER VIII

The Great Beast

Joses had been haunting the village off and on for some time past.

Boy Woodburn knew nothing of him except that Monkey Brand disliked him.

Herself she had been given no chance of forming an opinion till lately, when Joses had asked permission of her father to paint some of the horses. Old Mat had given leave, and Joses had gained the entree to the stables. He had made the most of his chance, haunting the yard, dogged by Monkey Brand, who resented his presence, watched him jealously, and made things as uncomfortable and precarious for the artist as he could.

Joses, to do him justice, stuck to his self-imposed task with astonis.h.i.+ng pertinacity in spite of opposition. He did not give up indeed until Flaminetta, a lengthy mare with an astonis.h.i.+ng reach, suddenly exploded without warning and missed his head with a steel-shod heel by a short foot.

Joses tumbled backward off his stool and crawled out of danger on his hands and knees with astonis.h.i.+ng alacrity for so gross a man.

Monkey Brand, an interested witness of the catastrophe, came limping up full of the tenderest solicitude.

"Oh, my, Mr. Joses!--my!" he cried. "I never knew her to do that afore.

_Ah, yer! what ye up to?_"

Joses, still on his hands and knees, looked up at the little jockey, his eyes aghast with anger and fear.

"Ginger!" he snorted. "You put it there."

Monkey Brand eyed him with bland interest.

"You know a wunnerful deal about 'orses for a hartist, Mr. Joses," he remarked, not troubling to deny the soft impeachment.

Joses got to his feet and began to talk volubly.

Monkey Brand listened in respectful silence, waving to the lads to keep in the background.

When the orator had finished, the little jockey went in to report to Old Mat.

"He knows altogether too much that Mr. Joses do," he ended.

The trainer nodded.

"I guessed as much," he said. "I'll make inquiries."

Two days later Old Mat called his head-lad into the office. He was in his socks and shut the door with precautions.

Mystery was the breath of life to both men, who were at heart but children.

"Seen Joses lately?" began the old man cautiously.

"Not since then, sir," the other answered in the same tone.

Old Mat went to the window and drew down the blind. There was n.o.body but Maudie in the yard outside, and no human being within fifty yards. But such considerations must not come between the princ.i.p.al actors and the correct ritual for such occasions.

"I was over at Lewes yesterday," he panted huskily. "I see that tall inspector chap--him I put on to Flaminetta for the Sefton."

Monkey was all alert.

"What did he say, sir?"

"Not much," muttered the other. "Enough, though."

Monkey drooped his eyelids and tilted his chin. His face became a masterpiece of secrecy and cunning.

Old Mat turned his lips inward.