Under Two Flags : a Story of the Household and the Desert .  By Ouida ... In Three Volumes  " Coeur Vaillant se fait Royaume . "  TO COLONEL POULETT CAMERON , C .  B .  , K .  C .  T .  + S. , etc. , WHOSE FAMILY HAS GIVEN SO MANY BRILLIANT SOLDIERS TO THE ARMIES OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND , AND MADE THE BATTLE-FIELDS OF EUROPE RING WITH " THE WAR-CRY OF LOCHIEL , " THIS STORY OF A SOLDIER 'SLIFE IS DEDICATED IN SINCERE FRIENDSHIP .  AVIS AU LECTEUR .  This Story was originally written for a military periodical .  It has been fortunate enough to receive much commendation from military men , and for them it is now specially issued in its present form .  For the general Public it may be as well to add , that where translations are appended to the French phrases , those translations follow the idiomatic and special meaning attached to those expressions in the argot of the Army of Algeria , and not the correct or literal one given to such words or sentences in ordinary grammatical parlance .  OUIDA .  VOL. I .  CHAPTER I .  " BEAUTY OF THE BRIGADES .  "  " I do n't say but what he 'sdifficult to please with his Tops , " said Mr. Rake , factotum to the Hon. Bertie Cecil , of the First Life Guards , with that article of hunting toggery suspended in his right hand as he paused , before going up-stairs , to deliver his opinions with characteristic weight and vivacity to the studgroom , " he is uncommon particular about ' em ; and if his leathers ai n't as white as snow he 'llnever touch ' em , tho 'as soon as the pack come nigh him at Royallieu , the leathers might just as well never have been cleaned , them hounds jump about him so ; old Champion 'sat his saddle before you can say Davy Jones .  Tops are trials , I ai n't denying that , specially when you 'vejacks , and moccasins , and moor boots , and Russia-leather crickets , and turf hacks , and Hythe boots , and waterproofs , and all manner of varnish things for dress , that none of the boys will do right unless you look after ' em yourself .  But is it likely that he should know what a worry a Top 'scomplexion is , and how hard it is to come right with all the Fast Brown polishing in the world ?  How should he guess what a piece of work it is to get ' em all of a colour , and how like they are to come mottled , and how a'most sure they 'llten to one go off dark just as they 'regrowing yellow , and put you to shame , let you do what you will to make ' em cut a shine over the country ?  How should he know ?  I do n't complain of that ; bless you , he never thinks .  It 's' do this , Rake , ' ' do that , ' and he never remember ' t is n't done by magic .  But he 'sa true gentleman , Mr. Cecil ; never grudge a guinea , or a fiver to you ; never out of temper neither ; always have a kind word for you if you want ; thoro'-bred every inch of him ; see him bring down a rocketer , or lift his horse over the Broad Water !  He 'sa gentleman — not like your snobs that have nothing sound about ' em but their cash , and swept out their shops before they bought their fine feathers !  — and I 'llbe d — d if I care what I do for him .  "  With which peroration to his born-enemy the studgroom , with whom he waged a perpetual and most lively feud , Rake flourished the tops that had been under discussion , and triumphant , as he invariably was , ran up the back stairs of his master 'slodgings in Piccadilly , opposite the Green Park , and with a rap on the panels entered his master 'sbedroom .  A Guardsman at home is always , if anything , rather more luxuriously accommodated than a young Duchess , and Bertie Cecil was never behind his fellows in anything ; besides , he was one of the " cracks " of the Household , and women sent him pretty things enough to fill the Palais Royal .  The dressing-table was littered with Bohemian glass and gold-stoppered bottles , and all the perfumes of Araby represented by Breidenbach and Rimmel .  The dressing-case was of silver , with the name studded on the lid in turquoises ; the brushes , boot-jacks , boot-trees , whip-stands , were of ivory and tortoiseshell ; a couple of tiger-skins were on the hearth , with a retriever and blue greyhound in possession ; above the mantelpiece were crossed swords in all the varieties of gilt , gold , silver , ivory , aluminum , chiselled and embossed hilts ; and on the walls were a few perfect French pictures , with the portraits of a greyhound drawn by Landseer , of a steeple-chaser by Harry Hall , one or two of Herring 'shunters , and two or three fair women in crayons .  The hangings of the room were silken and rose-coloured , and a delicious confusion prevailed through it pell-mell , box spurs , hunting stirrups , cartridge-cases , curb chains , muzzle-loaders , hunting-flasks , and white gauntlets , being mixed up with Paris novels , pink notes , point-lace ties , bracelets and bouquets to be despatched to various destinations , and velvet and silk bags for bank-notes , cigars , or vesuvians , embroidered by feminine fingers , and as useless as those pretty fingers themselves .  On the softest of sofas , half dressed , and having half an hour before splashed like a water dog out of the bath , as big as a small pond , in the dressing-chamber beyond , was the Hon. Bertie himself , second son of Viscount Royallieu , known generally in the Brigades as " Beauty .  " The appellative , gained at Eton , was in no way undeserved .  When the smoke cleared away that was circling round him out of a great meerschaum-bowl , it showed a face of as much delicacy and brilliancy as a woman 's, handsome , thorough-bred , languid , nonchalant , with a certain latent recklessness under the impassive calm of habit , and a singular softness given to the large dark hazel eyes by the unusual length of the lashes over them .  His features were exceedingly fair — fair as the fairest girl 's; his hair was of the softest , silkiest , brightest chesnut ; his mouth very beautifully shaped ; on the whole , with a certain gentle , mournful love-me look that his eyes had with them , it was no wonder that great ladies and gay lionnes alike gave him the palm as the handsomest man in all the Household Regiments — not even excepting that splendid golden-haired Colossus , his oldest friend and closest comrade , known as " the Seraph .  "  He looked now at the tops that Rake swung in his hand and shook his head .  " Better , Rake , but not right yet .  Ca n't you get that tawny colour in the tiger 'sskin there ?  You go so much to brown .  "  Rake shook his head in turn , as he set down the incorrigible tops beside six pairs of their fellows , and six times six of every other sort of boots that the covert-side , the heather , the flat , or the " sweet shady side of Pall Mall " ever knew .  " Do my best , sir ; but Polish do n't come nigh Nature , Mr. Cecil .  "  " Goes beyond it , the ladies say ; and to do them justice , they favour it much the most , " laughed Cecil to himself , floating fresh clouds of turkish about him .  " Willon up ?  "  " Yes , sir .  Come in this minute for orders .  "  " How 'dForest King stand the train ?  "  " Bright as a bird , sir ; he never mind nothing .  Mother o 'Pearl she worreted a little , he says ; she always do , along of the engine noise ; but the King walked in and out just as if the stations were his own stable-yard .  "  " He gave them gruel and chilled water after the shaking before he let them go to their corn ?  "  " He says he did , sir .  "  Rake would by no means take upon himself to warrant the veracity of his sworn foe the stud-groom ; unremitting feud was between them ; Rake considered that he knew more about horses than any other man living , and the other functionary proportionately resented back his knowledge and his interference , as utterly out of place in a body-servant .  " Tell him I 'lllook in at the stable after duty and see the screws are all right ; and that he 'sto be ready to go down with them by my train to-morrow — noon , you know .  Send that note there , and the bracelets , to St. John 'sWood : and that white bouquet to Mrs. Delamaine .  Bid Willon get some Banbury bits — I prefer the revolving mouths — and some of Wood 'sdouble mouths and Nelson gags ; we want new ones .  Mind that lever-snap breech-loader comes home in time .  Look in at the Commission stables , and , if you see a likely black charger as good as Black Douglas , tell me .  Write about the stud fox-terrier , and buy the blue Dandy Dinmont ; Lady Guenevere wants him .  I 'lltake him down with me .  But first put me into harness , Rake ; it 'sgetting late .  "  Murmuring which multiplicity of directions , for Rake to catch as he could , in the softiest and sleepiest of tones , Bertie Cecil drank a glass of curaçoa , put his tall lithe limbs indolently off his sofa , and surrendered himself to the martyrdom of cuirass and gorget , standing six feet one without his spurred jacks , but light-built and full of grace as a deer , or his weight would not have been what it was in gentleman-rider races from the Hunt steeple-chase at La Marche to the Grand National in the Shires .  " As if Parliament could n't meet without dragging us through the dust !  The idiots write about ' the swells in the Guards , ' as if we had all fun and no work , and knew nothing of the rough of the Service .  I should like to learn what they call sitting motionless in your saddle through half a day , while a London mob goes mad round you , and lost dogs snap at your charger 'snose , and dirty little beggars squeeze against your legs , and the sun broils you , or the fog soaks you , and you sit sentinel over a gingerbread coach till you 'redeaf with the noise , and blind with the dust , and sick with the crowd , and half dead for want of sodas and brandies , and , from going a whole morning without one cigarette !  — not to mention the inevitable apple-woman who invariably entangles herself between your horse 'slegs , and the certainty of your riding down somebody and having a summons about it the next day !  If all that is n't the rough of the Service , I should like to know what is ?  Why , the hottest day in the batteries , or the sharpest rush into Ghoorkahs or Bhoteahs , would be light work compared !  " murmured Cecil , with the most plaintive pity for the hardships of life in the Household , while Rake , with the rapid proficiency of long habit , braced , and buckled , and buttoned , knotted the sash with the knack of professional genius , girt on the brightest of all glittering , polished , silver steel " Cut-and-Thrusts , " with its rich gilt mountings , and contemplated with flattering self-complacency leathers white as snow , jacks brilliant as black varnish could make them , and silver spurs of glittering radiance , until his master stood full harnessed , at length , as gallant a Life Guardsman as ever did duty at the Palace by making love to the handsomest lady-in-waiting .  " To sit wedged in with one 'stroop for five hours , and in a drizzle , too !  Houses ought n't to meet until the day 'sfine ; I 'msure they are in no hurry , " said Cecil to himself , as he pocketed a dainty , filmy handkerchief , all perfume , point , and embroidery , with the interlaced B.C. , and the crest on the corner , while he looked hopelessly out of the window .  He was perfectly happy , drenched to the skin on the moors after a royal , or in a fast thing with the Melton men from Thorpe Trussels to Ranksborough ; but three drops of rain when on duty were a totally different matter , to be resented with any amount of dandy 'slamentations and epicurean diatribes .  " Ah , young one , how are you ?  Is the day very bad ?  " he asked , with languid wistfulness as the door opened .  But indifferent and weary — on account of the weather — as the tone was , his eyes rested with a kindly , cordial light on the new comer , a young fellow of scarcely twenty , like himself in feature , though much smaller and slighter in build , a graceful boy enough , with no fault in his face , except a certain weakness in the mouth , just shadowed only , as yet , with down .  A celebrity , the Zu-Zu , the last coryphée whom Bertie had translated from a sphere of garret bread-and-cheese to a sphere of villa champagne and chicken ( and who , of course , in proportion to the previous scarcity of her bread-and-cheese grew immediately intolerant of any wine less than 90s .  the dozen ) , said that Cecil cared for nothing longer than a fortnight , unless it were his horse , Forest King .  It was very ungrateful in the Zu-Zu , since he cared for her at the least a whole quarter , paying for his fidelity at the tone of a hundred a month ; and also , it was not true , for besides Forest King , he loved his young brother Berkeley : — which , however , she neither knew no guessed .  " Beastly !  " replied that young gentleman , in reference to the weather , which was indeed pretty tolerable for an English morning in February .  " I say , Bertie — are you in a hurry ?  "  " The very deuce of a hurry , little one : why ?  " Bertie never was in a hurry , however , and he said this as lazily as possible , shaking the white horsehair over his helmit , and drawing in deep draughts of Turkish previous to parting with his pipe for the whole of four or five hours .  " Because I am in a hole — no end of a hole — and I thought you 'dhelp me , " murmured the boy , half penitently , half caressingly ; he was very girlish in his face and his ways .  On which confession , Rake retired into the bath-room ; he could hear just as well there , and a sense of decorum made him withdraw , though his presence would have been wholly forgotten by them .  In something the same spirit as the French Countess accounted for her employing her valet to bring her her chocolate in bed — " Est ce que vous appelez cette chose-là un homme ?  " — Bertie had , on occasion , so wholly regarded servants as necessary furniture , that he had gone through a love scene with that handsome coquette , Lady Regalia , totally oblivious of the presence of the groom of the chambers , and the possibility of that person 'sappearance in the witness-box of the Divorce Court .  It was in no way his passion that blinded him — he did not put the steam on like that , and never went in for any disturbing emotion — it was simply habit and forgetfulness that those functionaries were not born mute , deaf , and sightless .  He tossed some essence over his hands , and drew on his gauntlets .  " What 'sup , Berk ?  "  The boy hung his head , and played a little uneasily with an ormolu terrier-pot , upsetting half the tobacco in it ; he was trained to his brother 'snonchalant impenetrable school , and used to his brother 'sset , a cool , listless , reckless , thorough-bred , and impassive set , whose first canon was that you must lose your last thousand in the world without giving a sign that you winced , and must win half a million without showing that you were gratified ; but he had something of girlish weakness in his nature , and a reserve in his temperament that was with difficulty conquered .  Bertie looked at him , and laid his hand gently on the young one 'sshoulder .  " Come , my boy , out with it !  It 'snothing very bad , I 'llbe bound ?  "  " I want some more money ; a couple of ponies , " said the boy , a little huskily ; he did not meet his brother 'seyes , that were looking straight down on him .  Cecil gave a long low whistle , and drew a meditative whiff from his meerschaum .  " Très cher , you 'realways wanting money .  So am I .  So is everybody .  The normal state of man is to want money .  Two ponies .  What 'sit for — eh ?  "  " I lost it at chicken-hazard last night .  Poulteney lent it me , and I told him I would send it him in the morning .  The ponies were gone before I thought of it , Bertie , and I have n't a notion where to get them to pay him again .  "  " Heavy stakes , young one , for you , " murmured Cecil , while his hand dropped from the boy 'sshoulder , and a shadow of gravity passed over his face ; money was very scarce with himself .  Berkeley gave him a hurried appealing glance .  He was used to shift all his anxieties on to his elder brother , and to be helped by him under any difficulty .  Cecil never allotted two seconds 'thought to his own embarrassments , but he would multiply them tenfold by taking other people 'son him as well with an unremitting and thoughtless good nature .  " I could n't help it , " pleaded the lad , with coaxing and almost piteous apology .  " I backed Grosvenor 'splay , and you know he 'salways the most wonderful luck in the world .  I could n't tell he 'dhave such cards as he had .  How shall I get the money , Bertie ?  I dare n't ask the governor ; and besides , I told Poulteney he should have it this morning .  What do you think if I sold the mare ?  But then I could n't sell her in a minute — — "  Cecil laughed a little , but his eyes , as they rested on the lad 'syoung , fair , womanish face , were very gentle under the long shade of their lashes .  " Sell the mare !  Nonsense !  How should anybody live without a hack ?  I can pull you through , I dare say .  Ah !  by George , there 'sthe quarters chiming .  I shall be too late , as I live .  "  Not hurried still , however , even by that near prospect , he sauntered to his dressing-table , took up one of the pretty velvet and gold-filigreed absurdities , and shook out all the bank-notes there were in it .  There were fives and tens enough to count up 45 l .  He reached over and caught up a five from a little heap lying loose on a novel of Du Terrail 's, and tossed the whole across the room to the boy .  " There you are , young one !  But do n't borrow of any but your own people again , Berk .  We do n't do that .  No , no !  — no thanks .  Shut up all that .  If ever you get in a hole , I 'lltake you out if I can .  Good-bye .  Will you go to the Lords '?  Better not — nothing to see , and still less to hear .  All stale .  That 'sthe only comfort for us — we are outside !  " he said , with something that almost approached hurry in the utterance , so great was his terror of anything approaching a scene , and so eager was he to escape his brother 'sgratitude .  The boy had taken the notes with delighted thanks indeed , but with that tranquil and unprotesting readiness with which spoiled childishness , or unhesitating selfishness , accepts gifts and sacrifices from another 'sgenerosity , which have been so general that they have ceased to have magnitude .  As his brother passed him , however , he caught his hand a second , and looked up with a mist before his eyes , and a flush , half of shame , half of gratitude , on his face .  " What a trump you are !  — how good you are , Bertie !  "  Cecil laughed and shrugged his shoulders .  " First time I ever heard it , my dear boy , " he answered , as he lounged down the staircase , his chains clashing and jingling , while pressing his helmet on to his forehead and pulling the chin-scale over his moustaches , he sauntered out into the street where his charger was waiting .  " The deuce !  " he thought , as he settled himself in his stirrups , while the raw morning wind tossed his white plume hither .  " I never remembered !  — I do n't believe I 'veleft myself money enough to take Willon and Rake and the cattle down to the Shires to-morrow .  If I should n't have kept enough to take my own ticket with !  — that would be no end of a sell .  On my word , I do n't know how much there 'sleft on the dressing-table .  Well !  I ca n't help it , Poulteney had to be paid ; I ca n't have Berk 'sname show in anything that looks shady .  "  The 50 l . had been the last remnant of a bill , done under great difficulties with a sagacious Jew , and Cecil had no more certainty of possessing any more money until next pay-day should come round than he had of possessing the moon ; lack of ready money , moreover , is a serious inconvenience when you belong to clubs where " pounds and fives " are the lowest points , and live with men who take the odds on most events in thousands ; but the thing was done , he would not have undone it at the boy 'sloss if he could , and Cecil , who never was worried by the loss of the most stupendous " crusher , " and who made it a rule never to think of disagreeable inevitabilities two minutes together , shook his charger 'sbridle and cantered down Piccadilly towards the barracks , while Black Douglas reared , curvetted , made as if he would kick , and finally ended by " passaging " down half the length of the road , to the prominent peril of all passersby , and looking eminently glossy , handsome , stalwart , and foam-flecked , while he thus expressed his disapprobation of forming part of the escort from Palace to Parliament .  " Home Secretary should see about it ; it 'sabominable !  If we must come among them they ought to be made a little odoriferous first .  A couple of fire-engines now , playing on them continuously with rose-water and bouquet d'Ess , for an hour before we come up , might do a little good .  I 'llget some men to speak about it in the House ; call it 'Bill for the Purifying of the Unwashed , and Prevention of their Suffocating Her Majesty 'sBrigades , ' " murmured Cecil to the Earl of Broceliande , next him , as they sat down in their saddles with the rest of the " First Life " in front of St. Stephen 's, with a hazy fog steaming round them , and a London mob crushing against their chargers 'flanks , while Black Douglas stood like a rock , though a butcher 'stray was pressed against his withers , a mongrel was snapping at his hocks , and the inevitable apple-woman , of Cecil 'sprophetic horror , was wildly plunging between his legs , as the hydra-headed rushed down in insane headlong haste to stare at , and crush on to , that superb body of Guards .  " I would give a kingdom for a soda and brandy .  Bah !  ye gods !  what a smell of fish and fustian , " sighed Bertie , with a yawn of utter famine for want of something to drink and something to smoke , were it only a glass of brown sherry and a little papelito , while he glanced down at the snow-white and jet-black masterpieces of Rake 'sgenius , all smirched , and splashed , and smeared .  He had given fifty pounds away , and scarcely knew whether he should have enough to take his ticket next day into the Shires , and he owed fifty hundred without having the slightest grounds for supposing he should ever be able to pay it , and he cared no more about either of these things than he cared about the Zu-Zu 'sthrowing the half-guinea peaches into the river after a Richmond dinner , in the effort to hit dragon-flies with them ; but to be half a day without a cigarette , and to have a disagreeable odour of apples and corduroys wafted up to him , was a calamity that made him insupportably depressed and unhappy .  Well , why not ?  It is the trifles of life that are its bores after all .  Most men can meet ruin calmly , for instance , or laugh when they lie in a ditch with their own knee-joint and their hunter 'sspine broken over the double-post-and-rails ; it is the mud that has choked up your horn just when you wanted to rally the pack , it 'sthe county member who catches you by the button in the lobby , it 'sthe whip who carries you off to a division just when you 'vesat down to your turbot , it 'sthe ten seconds by which you miss the train , it 'sthe dust that gets in your eyes as you go down to Epsom , it 'sthe pretty little rose-note that went by accident to your house instead of your club , and raised a storm from Madame , it 'sthe dog that always will run wild into the birds , it 'sthe cook who always will season the white soup wrong — it is these that are the bores of life , and that try the temper of your philosophy .  An acquaintance of mine told me the other day of having lost heavy sums through a swindler , with as placid an indifference as if he had lost a toothpick ; but he swore like a trooper because a thief had stolen the steel-mounted hoof of a dead pet hunter .  " Insufferable !  " murmured Cecil , hiding another yawn behind his gauntlet ; " the Line 'snothing half so bad as this ; one day in a London mob beats a year 'scampaigning .  What 'scharging a pah to charging an oyster-stall , or a parapet of fascines to a bristling row of umbrellas ?  "  Which questions as to the relative hardships of the two Arms was a question of military interest never answered , as Cecil scattered the umbrellas right and left , and dashed from the Houses of Parliament full trot with the rest of the escort on the return to the Palace , the afternoon sun breaking out with a brightened gleam from the clouds , and flashing off the drawn swords , the streaming plumes , the glittering breastplates , the gold embroideries , and the fretting chargers .  But a mere sun-gleam just when the thing was over , and the escort was pacing back to the barracks , could not console Cecil for fog , wind , mud , oyster-vendors , bad odours , and the uproar and riffraff of the streets ; specially when his throat was as dry as a limekiln , and his longing for the sight of a cheroot approaching desperation .  Unlimited sodas , three pipes smoked silently over Delphine Demirep 'slast novel , a bath well dashed with eau-de-cologne , and some glasses of anisette after the fatigue-duty of unharnessing , restored him a little ; but he was still weary and depressed into gentler languor than ever through all the courses at a dinner-party at the Austrian Embassy , and did not recover his dejection at a reception of the Duchess of Lydiard-Tregoze , where the prettiest French Countess of her time asked him if anything was the matter ?  " Yes !  " said Bertie , with a sigh , and a profound melancholy , in what the woman called his handsome Spanish eyes , " I have had a great misfortune ; we have been on duty all day !  "  He did not thoroughly recover tone , light and careless though his temper was , till the Zu-Zu , in her diamond-edition of a villa , prescribed Crême de Bouzy and Parfait Amour in succession , with a considerable amount of pine-apple ice at three o'clock in the morning , which restorative prescription succeeded .  Indeed , it took something as tremendous as divorce from all forms of smoking for five hours , to make an impression on Bertie .  He had the most serene insouciance that ever a man was blessed with ; in worry he did not believe , he never let it come near him ; and beyond a little difficulty sometimes in separating too many entangled rose-chains caught round him at the same time , and the annoyance of a miscalculation on the flat or the ridge-and-furrow , when a Maldon or Danebury favourite came " nowhere , " or his book was wrong for the Grand National , Cecil had no cares of any sort or description .  True , the Royallieu Peerage , one of the most ancient and almost one of the most impoverished in the kingdom , could ill afford to maintain its sons in the expensive career on which it had launched them , and the chief there was to spare usually went between the eldest , a Secretary of Legation in that costly and charming city of Vienna , and to the young one , Berkeley , through the old Viscount 'spartiality , so that had Bertie ever gone so far as to study his actual position , he would have probably confessed that it was , to say the least , awkward .  But then he never did this ; certainly never did it thoroughly .  Sometimes he felt himself near the wind when settling-day came , or the Jews appeared utterly impracticable ; but , as a rule , things had always trimmed somehow , and though his debts were considerable , and he was literally as penniless as a man can be to stay in the Guards at all , he had never in any shape realised the want of money .  He might not be able to raise a guinea to go towards that longstanding account , his army tailor 'sbill , and post-obits had long ago forestalled the few hundreds a year that , under his mother 'ssettlements , would come to him at the Viscount 'sdeath ; but Cecil had never known in his life what it was not to have a first-rate stud , not to live as luxuriously as a Duke , not to order the costliest dinners at the clubs , and be amongst the first to lead all the splendid entertainments and extravagances of the Household ; he had never been without his Highland shooting , his Baden gaming , his prize-winning schooner amongst the R .  V. Y .  Squadron , his September battues , his Pytchley hunting , his pretty expensive Zu-Zus and other toys , his drag for Epsom and his trap and hack for the Park , his crowd of engagements through the season , and his bevy of fair leaders of the fashion to smile on him , and shower their invitation-cards on him , like a rain of rose-leaves , as one of their " best men .  "  " Best , " that is in the sense of fashion , flirting , waltzing , and general social distinction ; in no other sense , for the newest of débutantes knew well that " Beauty , " though the most perfect of flirts , would never be " serious , " and had nothing to be serious with , on which understanding he was allowed by the sex to have the run of their boudoirs and drawing-rooms much as if he were a little lion-dog ; they counted him quite " safe , " he made love to the married women to be sure , but he was quite certain not to run away with the marriageable daughters .  Hence , Bertie had never felt the want of all that is bought by and represents money , and imbibed a vague indistinct impression that all these things that made life pleasant came by Nature , and were the natural inheritance and concomitants of anybody born in a decent station , and endowed with a tolerable tact ; such a matter-of-fact difficulty as not having gold enough to pay for his own and his stud 'stransit to the Shires had very rarely stared him in the face , and when it did , he trusted to chance to lift him safely over such a social " yawner , " and rarely trusted in vain .  According to all the canons of his Order he was never excited , never disappointed , never exhilarated , never disturbed , and also of course never by any chance embarrassed .  " Votre imperturbabilité , " as the Prince de Ligne used to designate La Grande Catherine , would have been an admirable designation for Cecil ; he was imperturbable under everything ; even when an heiress , with feet as colossal as her fortune , made him a proposal of marriage , and he had to retreat from all the offered honours and threatened horrors , courteously , but steadily declined them .  Nor in more interesting adventures was he less happy in his coolness .  When my Lord Regalia , who never knew when he was not wanted , came in inopportunely in a very tender scene of the young Guardsman 's( then but a Cornet ) with his handsome Countess , Cecil lifted his lashes lazily , turning to him a face of the most plait-il ? and innocent demureness — or consummate impudence , whichever you like .  " We 'replaying Solitaire .  Interesting game .  Queer fix though , the ball 'sin , that 'sleft all alone in the middle , do n't you think ?  " Lord Regalia felt his own similarity to the " ball in a fix " too keenly to appreciate the interesting character of the amusement , or the coolness of the chief performer in it ; but " Beauty 'sSolitaire " became a synonym thenceforth among the Household to typify any very tender passages " sotto quartr 'occhi .  "  This made his reputation on the town ; the ladies called it very wicked , but were charmed by the Richelieu-like impudence all the same and petted the sinner ; and from then till now he had held his own with them ; dashing through life very fast as became the first riding man in the Brigades , but enjoying it very fully , smoothly , and softly , liking the world , and being liked by it .  To be sure , in the background there was always that ogre of money , and the beast had a knack of gnawing bigger and darker every year ; but then , on the other hand , Cecil never looked at him , never thought about him , knew , too , that he stood just as much behind the chairs of men whom the world accredited as millionaires , and whenever the ogre gave him a cold grip that there was for the moment no escaping , washed away the touch of in a warm fresh draught of pleasure .  CHAPTER II .  THE LOOSE BOX , AND THE TABAGIE .  " How long before the French can come up ?  " asked Wellington , hearing of the pursuit that was thundering close on his rear in the most critical hours of the short , sultry , Spanish night .  " Half an hour at least , " was the answer .  " Very well , then , I will turn in and get some sleep , " said the Commander-in-Chief , rolling himself in a cloak , and lying down in a ditch to rest as soundly for the single half-hour as any tired drummer-boy .  Serenely as Wellington , another hero slept profoundly , on the eve of a great event , of a great contest to be met when the day should break , of a critical victory , depending on him alone to save the Guards of England from defeat and shame ; their honour and their hopes rested on his solitary head , by him they would be lost or saved ; but , unharassed by the magnitude of the stake at issue , unhaunted by the past , unfretted by the future , he slumbered the slumber of the just .  Not Sir Tristram , Sir Calidore , Sir Launcelot , no , nor Arthur himself , was ever truer knight , was ever gentler , braver , bolder , more staunch of heart , more loyal of soul , than he to whom the glory of the Brigades was trusted now ; never was there spirit more dauntless and fiery in the field , never temper kindlier and more generous with friends and foes .  Miles of the ridge and furrow , stiff fences of terrible blackthorn , double posts and rails , yawners and croppers both , tough as Shire and Stewards could make them , awaited him on the morrow ; on his beautiful lean head capfuls of money were piled by the Service and the Talent ; and in his stride all the fame of the Household would be centred on the morrow ; but he took his rest like the cracker he was — standing as though he were on guard , and steady as a rock , a hero every inch of him .  For he was Forest King , the great steeple-chaser , on whom the Guards had laid all their money for the Grand Military — the Soldiers 'Blue Riband .  His quarters were a loose box , his camp-bed a litter of straw fresh shaken down , his clothing a very handsome rug , hood , and quarter-piece buckled on and marked B.C. ; above the manger and the door was lettered his own name in gold , Forest King ; and in the panels of the latter were miniatures of his sire and of his dam : Lord of the Isles , one of the greatest hunters that the grass countries ever saw sent across them ; and Bayadere , a wild-pigeon-blue mare of Circassia .  How farther more he stretched up to his long line of ancestry by The Sovereign , out of Queen of Roses , by Belted Earl , out of Fallen Star , by Marmion , out of Court Coquette , and straight up to the White Cockade blood , etc. etc. , is it not written in the mighty and immortal chronicle , precious as the Koran , patrician as the Peerage , known and beloved to mortals as the " Stud-Book " ?  Not an immensely large or unusually powerful horse , but with race in every line of him ; steel-grey in colour , darkening well at all points , shining and soft as satin , with the firm muscles quivering beneath at the first touch of excitement to the high mettle and finely-strung organisation ; the head small , lean , racer-like , " blood " all over , with the delicate taper ears , almost transparent in full light ; well ribbed-up , fine shoulders , admirable girth and loins ; legs clean , slender , firm , promising splendid knee action ; sixteen hands high , and up to thirteen stone ; clever enough for anything , trained to close and open country , a perfect brook jumper , a clipper at fencing , taking a great deal of riding , as any one could tell by the set-on of his neck , but docile as a child to a well-known hand ; such was Forest King with his English and Eastern strains , winner at Chertsey , Croydon , the National , the Granby , the Belvoir Castle , the Curragh , and all the gentleman-rider steeple-chases and military sweepstakes in the kingdom , and entered now , with tremendous bets on him , for the Gilt Vase .  It was a crisp cold night outside , starry and wintry , but open weather , and clear ; the ground would be just right on the morrow , neither hard as the slate of a billiard-table , nor wet as the slush of a quagmire .  Forest King slept steadily on in his warm and spacious box , dreaming doubtless of days of victory , cub-hunting in the reedy October woods and pastures , of the ringing notes of the horn , and the sweet music of the pack , and the glorious quick burst up-wind , breasting the icy cold water , and showing the way over fence and bullfinch .  Dozing and dreaming pleasantly ; but alert for all that ; for he awoke suddenly , shook himself , had an hilarious roll in the straw , and stood " at attention .  "  Awake only , could you tell the generous and gallant promise of his perfect temper ; for there are no eyes that speak more truly , none on earth that are so beautiful , as the eyes of a horse .  Forest King 'swere dark as a gazelle 's, soft as a woman 's, brilliant as stars , a little dreamy and mournful , and as infinitely caressing when he looked at what he loved , as they could blaze full of light and fire when danger was near and rivalry against him .  How loyally such eyes have looked at me over the paddock fence , as a wild happy gallop was suddenly broken for a gentle head to be softly pushed against my hand with the gentlest of welcomes !  They sadly put to shame the million human eyes that so fast learn the lie of the world , and utter it as falsely as the lips .  The steeple-chaser stood alert , every fibre of his body strung to pleasurable excitation ; the door opened , a hand held him some sugar , and the voice he loved best said fondly , " All right , old boy ?  "  Forest King devoured the beloved dainty with true equine unction , rubbed his forehead against his master 'sshoulder , and pushed his nose into the nearest pocket in search for more of his sweetmeat .  " You 'deat a sugar-loaf , you dear old rascal .  Put the gas up , George , " said his owner , while he turned up the body clothing to feel the firm , cool skin , loosened one of the bandages , passed his hand from thigh to fetlock , and glanced round the box to be sure the horse had been well suppered and littered down .  " Think we shall win , Rake ?  "  Rake , with a stable-lantern in his hand and a forage-cap on one side of his head , standing a little in advance of a group of grooms and helpers , took a bit of straw out of his mouth , and smiled a smile of sublime scorn and security .  " Win , sir ? I should be glad to know as when was that ere King ever beat yet , or you either , sir , for that matter ?  " Bertie Cecil laughed a little languidly .  " Well , we take a good deal of beating , I think , and there are not very many who can give it us ; are there , old fellow ?  " he said to the horse , as he passed his palm over the withers ; " but there are some crushers in the lot to-morrow ; you 'llhave to do all you know .  " Forest King caught the manger with his teeth , and kicked in a bit of play and ate some more sugar , with much licking of his lips to express the nonchalance with which he viewed his share in the contest , and his tranquil certainty of being first past the flags .  His master looked at him once more and sauntered out of the box .  " He 'sin first-rate form , Rake , and right as a trivet .  "  " In course he is , sir ; nobody ever laid leg over such cattle as all that White Cockade blood , and he 'sthe very best of the strain , " said Rake , as he held up his lantern across the stable-yard , that looked doubly dark in the February night after the bright gas glare of the box .  " So he need be , " thought Cecil , as a bull terrier , three or four Gordon setters , an Alpine mastiff , and two wiry Skyes dashed at their chains , giving tongue in frantic delight at the sound of his step , while the hounds echoed the welcome from their more distant kennels , and he went slowly across the great stone yard , with the end of a huge cheroot glimmering through the gloom .  " So he need be , to pull me through .  The Ducal and the October let me in for it enough ; I never was closer in my life .  The deuce , if I do n't do the distance to-morrow , I sha n't have sovereigns enough to play pound-points at night !  I do n't know what a man 'sto do ; if he 'sput into this life he must go the pace of it .  Why did Royal send me into the Guards , if he meant to keep the screw on in this way ; he 'dbetter have drafted me into a marching regiment at once , if he wanted me to live upon nothing .  "  Nothing meant anything under 6000 l .  a year with Cecil , as the minimum of monetary necessities in this world , and a look of genuine annoyance and trouble , most unusual there , was on his face , the picture of carelessness and gentle indifference habitually , though shadowed now as he crossed the courtyard after his after-midnight visit to his steeple-chaser .  He had backed Forest King heavily , and stood to win or lose a cracker on his own riding on the morrow ; and though he had found sufficient to bring him into the Shires , he had barely enough lying on his dressing-table , up in the bachelor suite within , to pay his groom 'sbook , or a notion where to get more , if the King should find his match over the ridge and furrow in the morning !  It was not pleasant : a cynical , savage world-disgusted Timon derives on the whole a good amount of satisfaction from his break-down , in the fine philippics against his contemporaries that it is certain to afford , and the magnificent grievances with which it furnishes him ; but when life is very pleasant to a man , and the world very fond of him ; when existence is perfectly smooth — bar that single pressure of money — and is an incessantly changing kaleidoscope of London seasons , Paris winters , ducal houses in the hunting months , dinners at the Pall Mall Clubs , dinners at the Star and Garter , dinners irreproachable everywhere , cottage for Ascot week , yachting with the R .  V. Y .  Club , Derby handicaps at Hornsey , pretty chorus-singers set up in Bijou villas , dashing rosières taken over to Baden , warm corners in Belvoir , Savernake , and Longeat battues , and all the rest of the general programme , with no drawback to it except the duties at the Palace , the heat of a review , or the extravagance of a pampered lionne , then to be pulled up in that easy swinging gallop for sheer want of a golden shoe , as one may say , is abominably bitter , and requires far more philosophy to endure than Timon would ever manage to muster .  It is a bore , an unmitigated bore , a harsh , hateful , unrelieved martyrdom that the world does not see , and that the world not pity if it did .  " Never mind !  Things will come right .  Forest King never failed me yet ; he is as full of running as a Derby winner , and he 'llgo over the yawners like a bird , " thought Cecil , who never confronted his troubles with more than sixty seconds 'thought , and who was of that light , impassable , half-levity , half-languor of temperament that both throws off worry easily , and shirks it persistently .  " Sufficient for the day , " etc. , was the essence of his creed ; and if he had enough to lay a fiver at night on the rubber , he was quite able to forget for the time that he wanted five hundred for settling-day in the morning , and had not an idea how to get it .  There was not a trace of anxiety on him when he opened a lowarched door , passed down a corridor , and entered the warm full light of that chamber of liberty , that sanctuary of the persecuted , that temple of refuge , thrice blessed in all its forms throughout the land , that consecrated Mecca of every true believer in the divinity of the meerschaum , and the paradise of the narghilé , — the smoking-room .  A spacious easy chamber , too , lined with the laziest of divans , seen just now through a fog of smoke , and tenanted by nearly a score of men in every imaginable loose velvet costume , and with faces as well known in the Park at six o'clock in May , and on the Heath in October , in Paris in January , and on the Solent in August , in Pratts 'of a summer 'snight , and on the Moors in an autumn morning , as though they were features that came round as regularly as the " July " or the Waterloo Cup .  Some were puffing away in calm meditative comfort , in silence that they would not have broken for any earthly consideration ; others were talking hard and fast , and through the air heavily weighted with the varieties of tobacco , from tiny cigarettes to giant cheroots , from rough bowls full of cavendish to sybaritic rose-water hookahs , a Babel of sentences rose together : — " Gave him too much riding , the idiot .  " " Take the field , bar one .  " " Nothing so good for the mare as a little nitre and antimony in her mash .  " " Not at all !  the Regent and Rake cross in the old strain , always was black-tan with a white frill .  " " The Earl 'sas good a fellow as Lady Flora ; always give you a mount .  " " Nothing like a Kate Terry , though , on a bright day for salmon .  " " Faster thing I never knew ; found at twenty minutes past eleven , and killed just beyond Longdown Water at ten to twelve .  " All these various phrases were rushing in among each other , and tossed across the eddies of smoke in the conflicting of tongues loosened in the tabagie and made eloquent , though slightly inarticulate , by pipe-stems ; while a tall , fair man , with the limbs of a Hercules , the chest of a prize-fighter , and the face of a Raphael Angel , known in the Household as Seraph , was in the full flood of a story of whist played under difficulties in the Doncaster express .  " I wanted a monkey ; I wanted monkeys awfully , " he was stating as Forest King 'sowner came into the smoking-room .  " Did you , Seraph ?  The ' Zoo ' or the Clubs could supply you with apes fully developed to any amount , " said Bertie , as he threw himself down .  " You be hanged !  " laughed the Seraph , known to the rest of the world as the Marquis of Rockingham , son of the Duke of Lyonnesse .  " I wished monkeys , but the others wished ponies and hundreds , so I gave in ; Vandeleur and I won two rubbers , and we 'djust begun the third , when the train stopped with a crash ; none of us dropped the cards though , but the tricks and the scores all went down with the shaking .  ' Ca n't play in that row , ' said Charlie , for the women were shrieking like mad , and the engine was roaring like my mare Philippa — I 'mafraid she 'llnever be cured , poor thing !  — so I put my head out and asked what was up ?  We 'drun into a cattle train .  Anybody hurt ?  No , nobody hurt ; but we were to get out .  ' I 'llbe shot if I get out , ' I told ' em , ' till I 'vefinished the rubber .  ' ' But you must get out , ' said the guard ; ' carriages must be moved .  ' ' Nobody says " must " to him , ' said Van ( he 'ddrank more Perles du Rhin than was good for him at Doncaster ) ; ' do n't you know the Seraph ?  ' Man stared .  ' Yes , sir , know the Seraph , sir ; leastways , did sir , afore he died ; see him once at Moulsey Mill , sir ; his " one , two " was amazin '.  Waters soon threw up the sponge .  ' We were all dying with laughter , and I tossed him a tenner .  ' There , my good fellow , ' said I , ' shunt the carriage and let us finish the game .  If another train comes up , give it Lord Rockingham 'scompliments and say he 'llthank it to stop , because collisions shake his trumps together .  ' Man thought us mad — took tenner though — shunted us to one side out of the noise , and we played two rubbers more before they 'drepaired the damage and sent us on to town .  "  And the Seraph took a long-drawn whiff from his silver meerschaum , and then a deep draught of soda and brandy to refresh himself after the narrative ; — biggest , best-tempered , and wildest of men in or out of the Service , despite the angelic character of his fair-haired head , and blue eyes that looked as clear and as innocent as those of a six-year-old child .  " Not the first time , by a good many , that you 've' shunted off the straight , ' Seraph ?  " laughed Cecil , substituting an amber mouthpiece for his half-finished cheroot .  " I 'vebeen having a good-night look at the King .  He 'llstay .  "  " Of course he will , " chorused half a dozen voices .  " With all our pots on him , " added the Seraph .  " He 'stoo much of a gentleman to put us all up a tree ; he knows he carries the honour of the Household .  "  " There are some good mounts , there 'sno denying that , " said Chesterfield of the Blues ( who was called Tom for no other reason than that it was entirely unlike his real name of Adolphus ) , where he was curled up almost invisible , except for the movement of the jessamine stick of his chibouque .  " That brute , Day Star , is a splendid fencer , and for a brook jumper , it would be hard to beat Wild Geranium , though her shoulders are not quite what they ought to be .  Montecute , too , can ride a good thing , and he 'sgot one in Pas de Charge .  "  " I 'mnot much afraid of Monti , he makes too wild a burst first ; he never saves one atom , " yawned Cecil , with the coils of his hookah bubbling among the rose-water ; " the man I 'mafraid of is that fellow from the Twelfth ; he 'sas light as a feather and as hard as steel .  I watched him yesterday going over the water , and the horse he 'llride for Trelawney is good enough to beat even the King if he 'sproperly piloted .  "  " You have n't kept yourself in condition , Beauty , " growled " Tom , " with the chibouque in his mouth , " else nothing could give you the go-by .  Its tempting Providence to go in for the Gilt Vase after such a December and January as you spent in Paris .  Even the week you 'vebeen in the Shires you have n't trained a bit ; you 'vebeen waltzing or playing baccarât till five in the morning , and taking no end of sodas after to bring you right for the meet at nine .  If a man will drink champagnes and burgundies as you do , and spend his time after women , I should like to know how he 'sto be in hard riding condition , unless he expects a miracle .  "  With which Chesterfield , who weighed fourteen stone himself , and was , therefore , out of all but welter-races , and wanted a weight carrier of tremendous power even for them , subsided under a heap of velvet and cashmere , and Cecil laughed : lying on a divan just under one of the gas branches , the light fell full on his handsome face , with its fair hue and its gentle languor on which there was not a single trace of the outre cuidance attributed to him .  Both he and the Seraph could lead the wildest life of any men in Europe without looking one shadow more worn than the brightest beauty of the season , and could hold wassail in riotous rivalry till the sun rose , and then throw themselves into saddle as fresh as if they had been sound asleep all night , to keep up with the pack the whole day in a fast burst or on a cold scent , or in whatever sport Fortune and the converts gave them , till their second horses wound their way homewards through muddy leafless lanes , when the stars had risen .  " Beauty do n't believe in training .  No more do I .  Never would train for anything , " said the Seraph , now , pulling the long tawny moustaches that were not altogether in character with his seraphic cognomen .  " If a man can ride — let him .  If he 'sborn to the pigskin he 'llbe in at the distance safe enough , whether he smoke or do n't smoke , drink or do n't drink .  As for training on raw chops , giving up wine , living like the very deuce and all , as if you were in a monastery , and changing yourself into a mere bag of bones — it 'sutter bosh !  You might as well be in purgatory ; besides , it 'sno more credit to win then than if you were a professional .  "  " But you must have trained at Christ Church , Rock , for the Eight ?  " asked another Guardsman , Sir Vere Bellingham , " Severe , " as he was christened , chiefly because he was the easiest-going giant in existence .  " Did I !  Men came to me ; wanted me to join the Eight ; coxswain came , awful strict little fellow , docked his men of all their fun — took plenty himself , though !  Coxswain said I must begin to train , do as all his crew did .  I threw up my sleeve and showed him my arm ; " and the Seraph stretched out an arm magnificent enough for a statue of Milo .  " I said , ' There , sir , I 'llhelp you thrash Cambridge if you like , but train I wo n't , for you or for all the University .  I 'vebeen Captain of the Eton Eight , but I did n't keep my crew on tea and toast .  I fattened ' em regularly three times a week on venison and champagne at Christopher 's.  Very happy to feed yours , too , if you like ; game comes down to me every Friday from the Duke 'smoors ; they look uncommonly as if they wanted it !  ' You should have seen his face !  — Fatten the Eight !  He did n't let me do that , of course , but he was very glad of my oar in his rowlocks , and I helped him beat Cambridge without training an hour myself except so far as rowing hard went .  "  And Philip , Marquis of Rockingham , made thirsty by the recollection , dipped his fair moustaches into a foaming seltzer .  " Quite right , Seraph !  " said Cecil .  " When a man comes up to the weights , looking like a homonunculus after he 'sbeen getting every atom of flesh off him like a jockey , he ought to be struck out for the stakes , to my mind .  ' Tis n't a question of riding , then , nor yet of pluck , or of management ; it 'snothing but a question of pounds , and of who can stand the tamest life the longest .  "  " Well , beneficial for one 'smorals , at any rate , " suggested Sir Vere .  " Morals be hanged !  " said Bertie , very immorally .  " I 'mglad you remind us of them , Vere , you 'resuch a quintessence of decorum and respectability yourself !  I say — anybody know anything of this fellow of the Twelfth that 'sto ride Trelawney 'schesnut ?  "  " Jimmy Delmar ?  Oh yes ; I know Jimmy , " answered Lord Cosmo Wentworth , of the Scots Fusiliers , from the far depths of an arm-chair .  " Knew him at Aldershot .  Fine rider ; give you a good bit of trouble , Beauty .  Has n't been in England for years ; troop been such a while at Calcutta .  The Fancy take to him rather ; offering very freely on him this morning in the Village ; and he 'sgot a rare good thing in the chesnut .  "  " Not a doubt of it .  The White Lily blood , out of that Irish mare D'Orleans Diamonds , too .  "  " Never mind !  Twelfth wo n't beat us .  The Household will win safe enough , unless Forest King goes and breaks his back over Brixworth — eh , Beauty ?  " said the Seraph , who believed devoutly in his comrade , with all the loving loyalty characteristic of the House of Lyonnesse , that to monarchs and to friends had often cost it very dear .  " You put your faith in the wrong quarter , Rock ; I may fail you , he never will , " said Cecil , with ever so slight a dash of sadness in his words .  The thought crossed him of how boldly , how straightly , how gallantly the horse always breasted and conquered his difficulties — did he himself deal half so well with his own ?  " Well !  you both of you carry all our money and all our credit ; so for the fair fame of the Household do ' all you know .  ' I have n't hedged a shilling , not laid off a farthing , Bertie ; I stand on you and the King , and nothing else .  See what a sublime faith I have in you .  "  " I do n't think you 'rewise , then , Seraph ; the field will be very strong , " said Cecil , languidly .  The answer was indifferent , and certainly thankless ; but under his drooped lids a glance , frank and warm , rested for the moment on the Seraph 'sleonine strength and Raphaelesque head ; it was not his way to say it , or to show it , or even much to think it ; but in his heart he loved his old friend wonderfully well .  And they talked on of little else than of the great steeple-chase of the Service , for the next hour in the Tabâk-Parliament , while the great clouds of scented smoke circled heavily round , making a halo of turkish above the gold locks of the Titanic Seraph , steeping Chesterfield 'svelvets in strong odours of cavendish , and drifting a light rose-scented mist over Bertie 'slong lithe limbs , light enough and skilled enough to disdain all " training for the weights .  "  " That 'snot the way to be in condition , " growled " Tom , " getting up with a great shake as the clock clanged the strokes of five ; they had only returned from a ball three miles off when Cecil had paid his visit to the loose box .  Bertie laughed ; his laugh was like himself , rather languid but very light-hearted , very silvery , very engaging .  " Sit and smoke till breakfast-time if you like , Tom ; it wo n't make any difference to me .  "  But the Smoke-Parliament would n't hear of the champion of the Household over the ridge and furrow risking the steadiness of his wrist and the keenness of his eye by any such additional tempting of Providence , and went off itself in various directions , with good-night iced drinks , yawning considerably like most other Parliaments after a sitting .  It was the old place in the Shires of the Royallieu Family in which he had congregated half the Guardsmen in the Service for the great event , and consequently the bachelor chambers in it were of the utmost comfort and spaciousness , and when Cecil sauntered into his old quarters , familiar from boyhood , he could not have been better off in his own luxurious haunts in Piccadilly .  Moreover , the first thing that caught his eye was a dainty scarlet silk riding jacket broidered in gold and silver , with the motto of his house , " Coeur Vaillant Se Fait Royaume , " all circled with oak and laurel leaves on the collar .  It was the work of very fair hands , of very aristocratic hands , and he looked at it with a smile .  " Ah , my lady , my lady !  " he thought half aloud , " do you really love me ?  Do I really love you ?  "  There was a laugh in his eyes as he asked himself what might be termed an interesting question ; then something more earnest came over his face , and he stood a second with the pretty costly embroideries in his hand , with a smile that was almost tender , though it was still much more amused .  " I suppose we do , " he concluded at last ; " at least , quite as much as is ever worth while .  Passions do n't do for the drawing-room , as somebody says in " Coningsby ; " besides — I would not feel a strong emotion for the universe .  Bad style always , and more detrimental to 'condition , ' as Tom would say , than three bottles of brandy !  "  He was so little near what he dreaded , at present at least , that the scarlet jacket was tossed down again , and gave him no dreams of its fair and titled embroideress .  He looked out , the last thing , at some ominous clouds drifting heavily up before the dawn , and the state of the weather , and the chance of its being rainy , filled his thoughts , to the utter exclusion of the donor of that bright gold-laden dainty gift .  " I hope to goodness there wo n't be any drenching shower .  Forest King can stand ground as hard as a slate , but if there 'sone thing he 'sweak in , it 'sslush !  " was Bertie 'slast conscious thought as he stretched his limbs out and fell sound asleep .  CHAPTER III .  THE SOLDIERS 'BLUE RIBAND .  " Take the Field bar one .  " " Two to one on Forest King .  " " Two to one on Bay Regent .  " " Fourteen to seven on Wild Geranium .  " " Seven to two against Brother to Fairy .  " " Three to five on Pas de Charge .  " " Nineteen to six on Day Star .  " " Take the Field bar one , " rose above the hoarse tumultuous roar of the Ring on the clear , crisp , sunny morning that was shining on the Shires on the day of the famous steeple-chase .  The talent had come in great muster from London ; the great bookmakers were there with their stentor lungs and their quiet quick entry of thousands ; and the din and the turmoil , at the tiptop of their height , were more like a gathering on the Heath or before the Red House , than the local throngs that usually mark steeple-chase meetings , even when they be the Grand Military or the Grand National .  There were keen excitement and heavy stakes on the present event ; the betting had never stood still a second in Town or the Shires ; and even the " knowing ones , " the worshippers of the " flat " alone , the professionals who ran down gentlemen races , and the hypercritics who affirmed that there is not such a thing as a steeple-chaser to be found on earth ( since , to be a fencer , a water-jumper , and a racer , were to attain an equine perfection impossible on earth , whatever it may be in " the happy hunting-ground " of immortality ) — even these , one and all of them , came eager to see the running for the Gilt Vase .  For it was known very well that the Guards had backed their horse tremendously , and the county laid most of its money on him , and the bookmakers were shy of laying off much against one of the first cross-country riders of the Service , who had landed his mount at the Grand National Handicap , the Billesdon Coplow , the Ealing , the Curragh , the Prix du Donjon , the Rastatt , and almost every other for which he had entered .  Yet , despite this , the " Fancy " took most to Bay Regent ; they thought he would " cut the work out ; " his sire had won the Champagne Stakes at Doncaster , and the Drawing-room at " glorious Goodwood , " and that racing strain through the White Lily blood , coupled with a magnificent reputation which he brought from Leicestershire as a fencer , found him chief favour among the Fraternity .  His jockey , Jimmy Delmar , too , with his bronzed , muscular , sinewy frame , his low stature , his light weight , his sunburnt , acute face , and a way of carrying his hands as he rode that was precisely like Aldcroft 's, looked a hundred times more professional than the brilliance of " Beauty , " and the reckless dash of his well-known way of " sending the horse along with all he had in him , " which was undeniably much more like a fast kill over the Melton country than like a weight-for-age race anywhere .  " You see the Service in his stirrups , " said an old nobbler who had watched many a trial spin , lying hidden in a ditch or a drain ; and indisputably you did : Bertie 'sriding was superb , but it was still the riding of a cavalryman , not of a jockey .  The mere turn of the foot in the stirrups told it , as the old man had the shrewdness to know .  So the King went down at one time two points in the morning betting .  " Know them flash cracks of the Household , " said Tim Varnet , as sharp a little Leg as ever " got on " a dark thing , and " went halves " with a jock who consented to rope a favourite at the Ducal .  " Them swells , ye see , they give any money for blood .  They just go by Godolphin heads , and little feet , and winners 'strains , and all the rest of it ; and so long as they get pedigree never look at substance ; and their bone comes no bigger than a deer 's.  Now , its force as well as pace that tells over a bit of plough ; a critter that would win the Derby on the flat would knock up over the first spin over the clods ; and that King 'slegs are too light for my fancy , ' andsome as ' t is ondeniable he looks — for a little ' un , as one may say .  "  And Tim Varnet exactly expressed the dominant mistrust of the talent ; despite all his race and all his exploits , the King was not popular in the Ring , because he was like his backers — " a swell .  " They thought him " showy — very showy , " " a picture to frame , " " a lustre to look at ; " but they disbelieved in him , almost to a man , as a stayer , and they trusted him scarcely at all with their money .  " It 'splain that he 's' meant , ' though , " thought little Tim , who was so used to the " shady " in stable matters , that he could hardly persuade himself that even the Grand Military could be run fair , and would have thought a Guardsman or a Hussar only exercised his just privilege as a jockey in " roping " after selling the race , if so it suited his book .  " He 's' meant , ' that 'sclear , ' cause the swells have put all their pots on him — but if the pots do n't bile over , strike me a loser !  " a contingency he knew he might very well invoke , his investments being invariably so matchlessly arranged , that let what would be " bowled over , " Tim Varnet never could be .  Whatever the King might prove , however , the Guards , the Flower of the Service , must stand or fall by him ; they had entered nothing else for the race , so complete was the trust that , like the Seraph , they put in " Beauty " and his grey .  But there was no doubt as to the tremendousness of the struggle lying before him .  The running ground covered four miles and a half , and had forty-two jumps in it , exclusive of the famous Brixworth : half was grassland , and half ridge and furrow ; a lane with a very awkward double , fences laced in and in with the memorable blackthorn , a laid hedge with thick growers in it , and many another " teaser , " coupled with the yawning water , made the course a severe one ; while thirty-two starters of unusual excellence gave a good field and promised a close race .  Every fine bit of steeple-chase blood that was to be found in their studs had been brought together by the Service for the great event ; and if the question could ever be solved , whether it is possible to find a strain that shall combine pace over the flat , with a heart to stay over an enclosed country , the speed to race , with the bottom to fence and the force to clear water , it seemed likely to be settled now .  The Service and the Stable had done their uttermost to reach its solution .  The clock of the course pointed to half-past one ; the saddling-bell would ring at a quarter to two , for the days were short and darkened early ; the Stewards were all arrived , except the Marquis of Rockingham , and the Ring was in the full rush of excitement , some " getting on " hurriedly to make up for lost time , some " peppering " one or other of the favourites hotly , some laying off their moneys in a cold fit of caution , some putting capfuls on the King , or Bay Regent , or Pas de Charge , without hedging a shilling .  The London talent , the agents from the great commission stables , the local betting men , the shrewd wiseacres from the Ridings , all the rest of the brotherhood of the Turf were crowding together with the deafening shouting common to them , which sounds so tumultuous , so insane , and so unintelligible to outsiders .  Amidst them , half the titled heads of England , all the great names known on the flat , and men in the Guards , men in the Rifles , men in the Light Cavalry , men in the Heavies , men in the Scots Greys , men in the Horse Artillery , men in all the Arms and all the Regiments , were backing their horses with crackers , and jotting down figure after figure , with jewelled pencils , in dainty books , taking long odds with the fielders .  Carriages were standing in long lines along the course , the stands were filled with almost as bright a bevy of fashionable loveliness as the Ducal brings together under the park trees of Goodwood ; the horses were being led into the enclosure for saddling , a brilliant sun shone for the nonce on the freshest of February noons ; beautiful women were fluttering out of their barouches in furs and velvets , wearing the colours of the jockey they favoured , and more predominant than any were Cecil 'sscarlet and white , only rivalled in prominence by the azure of the Heavy Cavalry champion , Sir Eyre Montacute .  A drag with four bays — with fine hunting points about them — had dashed up , late of course ; the Seraph had swung himself from the roller-bolt into the saddle of his hack ( one of those few rare hacks that are perfect , and combine every excellence of pace , bone , and action under their modest appellative ) , and had cantered off to join the Stewards , while Cecil had gone up to a group of ladies in the Grand Stand , as if he had no more to do with the morning 'sbusiness than they .  Right in front of that Stand was an artificial bullfinch which promised to treat most of the field to a " purler , " a deep ditch dug and filled with water , with two towering blackthorn fences on either side of it , as awkward a leap as the most cramped country ever showed ; some were complaining of it ; it was too severe , it was unfair , it would break the back of every horse sent at it .  The other Stewards were not unwilling to have it tamed down a little , but the Seraph , generally the easiest of all sweet-tempered creatures , refused resolutely to let it be touched .  " Look here , " said he , confidentially , as he wheeled his hack round to the Stand and beckoned Cecil down — " look here , Beauty , they 'rewanting to alter that teaser , make it less awkward , you know , but I would n't , because I thought it would look as if I lessened it for you , you know .  Still it is a cracker and no mistake ; Brixworth itself is nothing to it , and if you 'dlike it toned down I 'lllet them do it ?  — — "  " My dear Seraph , not for worlds !  You were quite right not to have a thorn taken out .  Why that 'swhere I shall thrash Bay Regent , " said Bertie , serenely , as if the winning of the stakes had been forecast in his horoscope .  The Seraph whistled , stroking his moustaches .  " Between ourselves , Cecil , that fellow is going up no end .  The Talent fancy him so — — "  " Let them , " said Cecil , placidly , with a great cheroot in his mouth , lounging into the centre of the Ring to hear how the betting went on his own mount , perfectly regardless that he would keep them waiting at the weights while he dressed .  Everybody there knew him by name and sight ; and eager glances followed the tall form of the Guards 'champion as he moved through the press , in a loose brown sealskin coat , with a little strip of scarlet ribbon round his throat , nodding to this Peer , taking evens with that , exchanging a whisper with a Duke , and squaring his book with a Jew .  Murmurs followed about him as if he were the horse himself : " Looks in racing form " — " Looks used up , to me " — " Too little hands surely to hold in long in a spin " — " Too much length in the limbs for a light weight , bone 'salways awfully heavy " — " Dark under the eye , been going too fast for trainin " '— " A swell all over , but rides no end ; " with other innumerable contradictory phrases , according as the speaker was " on " him or against him , buzzed about him from the riffraff of the Ring , in no way disturbing his serene equanimity .  One man , a big fellow , " ossy " all over , with the genuine sporting cut-away coat , and a superabundance of showy nectie and bad jewellery , eyed him curiously , and slightly turned so that his back was towards Bertie , as the latter was entering a bet with another Guardsman well known on the Turf , and he himself was taking long odds with little Berk Cecil , the boy having betted on his brother 'sriding as though he had the Bank of England at his back .  Indeed , save that the lad had the hereditary Royallieu instinct of extravagance , and , with a half thoughtless , half wilful improvidence , piled debts and difficulties on his rather brainless and boyish head , he had much more to depend on than his elder ; for the old Lord Royallieu doted on him , spoilt him , and denied him nothing , though himself a stern , austere , passionate man , made irascible by ill-health , and , in his fits of anger , a very terrible personage indeed , no more to be conciliated by persuasion than iron is to be bent by the hand ; so terrible , that even his pet dreaded him mortally , and came to Bertie to get his imprudences and peccadilloes covered from the Viscount 'ssight .  Glancing round at this moment as he stood in the Ring , Cecil saw the betting-man with whom Berkeley was taking long odds on the race ; he raised his eyebrows and his face darkened for a second , though resuming his habitual listless serenity almost immediately .  " You remember that case of welshing after the Ebor St. Leger , Con ?  " he said in a low tone to the Earl of Constantia , with whom he was talking .  The Earl nodded assent , every one had heard of it , and a very flagrant case it was .  " There 'sthe fellow , " said Cecil , laconically , and strode towards him with his long , lounging cavalry-swing .  The man turned pallid under his florid skin , and tried to edge imperceptibly away ; but the density of the throng prevented his moving quickly enough to evade Cecil , who stooped his head , and said a word in his ear .  It was briefly :  " Leave the Ring .  "  The rascal , half bully , half coward , rallied from the startled fear into which his first recognition by the Guardsman ( who had been the chief witness against him in a very scandalous matter at York , and who had warned him that if he ever saw him again in the Ring he would have him turned out of it ) had thrown him , and , relying on insolence and the numbers of his fraternity to back him out of it , stood his ground .  " I 'veas much right here as you swells , " he said , with a horse-laugh .  " Are you the whole Jockey Club that you come it to a honest gentleman like that ?  "  Cecil looked down on him slightly amused , immeasurably disgusted ; — of all earth 'sterrors there was not one so great for him as a scene , and the eager bloodshot eyes of the Ring were turning on them by the thousand , and the loud shouting of the bookmakers was thundering out , " What 'sup ?  "  " My ' honest gentleman , ' " he said , wearily , " leave this , I tell you ; do you hear ?  "  " Make me !  " retorted the " Welsher , " defiant in his stout-built square strength , and ready to brazen the matter out .  " Make me , my cock o 'fine feathers !  Put me out of the Ring if you can , Mr. Dainty-Limbs !  I 'veas much business here as you .  "  The words were hardly out of his mouth , before , light as a deer and close as steel , Cecil 'shand was on his collar , and without any seeming effort , without the slightest passion , he calmly lifted him off the ground as though he were a terrier , and thrust him through the throng ; Ben Davis , as the Welsher was named , meantime being so utterly amazed at such unlooked-for might in the grasp of the gentlest , idlest , most gracefully made , and indolently tempered of his born foes and prey " the swells , " that he let himself be forced along backward in sheer passive paralysis of astonishment .  Bertie , profoundly insensible to the tumult that began to rise and roar about him , from those who were not too absorbed in the business of the morning to note what took place , thrust him along in the single clasp of his right hand , pushed him outward to where the running ground swept past the Stand , and threw him , lightly , easily , just as one may throw a lapdog to take his bath , into the artificial ditch filled with water that the Seraph had pointed out as " a teaser .  " the man fell unhurt , unbruised , so gently was he dropped on his back among the muddy chilly water and the overhanging brambles ; and as he rose from the ducking a shudder of ferocious and filthy oaths poured from his lips , increased tenfold by the uproarious laughter of the crowd , who knew him as " a Welsher , " and thought him only too well served .  Policemen rushed in at all points , rural and metropolitan , breathless , austere , and , of course , too late .  Bertie turned to them with a slight wave of his hand to sign them away .  " Do n't trouble yourselves !  It 'snothing you could interfere in .  Take care that person does not come into the betting-ring again , that 'sall .  "  The Seraph , Lord Constantia , Wentworth , and many others of his set , catching sight of the turmoil and of " Beauty , " with the great square-set figure of Ben Davis pressed before him through the mob , forced their way up as quickly as they could ; but before they reached the spot Cecil was sauntering back to meet them , cool and listless , and a little bored with so much exertion , his cheroot in his mouth , and his ear serenely deaf to the clamour about the ditch .  He looked apologetically at the Seraph and the others ; he felt some apology was required for having so far wandered from all the canons of his Order as to have approached " a row , " and run the risk of a scene .  " Turf must be cleared of these scamps , you see , " he said , with a half sigh .  " Law ca n't do anything .  Fellow was trying to ' get on ' with the young one too .  Do n't bet with those riffraff , Berke .  The great bookmakers will make you dead money , and the little Legs will do worse to you .  "  The boy hung his head , but looked sulky rather than thankful , for his brother 'sinterference with himself and the Welsher .  " You have done the Turf a service , Beauty , a very great service ; there 'sno doubt about that , " said the Seraph .  " Law ca n't do anything , as you say ; opinion must clear the Ring of such rascals ; a Welsher ought not to dare to show his face here , but , at the same time , you ought n't to have gone unsteadying your muscle , and risking the firmness of your hand , at such a minute as this , with pitching that fellow over .  Why could n't you wait till afterwards ?  Or have let me do it ?  "  " My dear Seraph , " murmured Bertie , languidly , " I 'vegone in to-day for exertion ; a little more or less is nothing .  Besides , Welshers are slippery dogs , you know .  "  He did not add that it was having seen Ben Davis taking odds with his young brother which had spurred him to such instantaneous action with that disreputable personage , who , beyond doubt , only received a tithe part of his deserts , and merited to be double-thonged off every course in the kingdom .  Rake at that instant darted panting like a hot retriever out of the throng .  " Mr. Cecil , sir , will you please come to the weights — the saddling-bell 'sa-going to ring , and — — "  " Tell them to wait for me ; I shall only be twenty minutes dressing , " said Cecil , quietly , regardless that the time at which the horses should have been at the starting-post was then clanging from the clock within the Grand Stand .  Did you ever go to a gentleman-rider race where the jocks were not at least an hour behind time , and considered themselves , on the whole , very tolerably punctual ?  At last , however , he consented to saunter into the dressing-shed , and was aided by Rake into tops that had at length achieved a spotless triumph , and the scarlet gold-broidered jacket of his fair friend 'sart with white hoops , and the " Coeur Vaillant Se Fait Royaume " on the collar , and the white gleaming sash to be worn across it , fringed by the same fair hands with silver .  Meanwhile , the " Welsher , " driven off the course by a hooting and indignant crowd , shaking the water from his clothes , with bitter oaths , and livid with a deadly passion at his exile from the harvest-field of his lawless gleanings , went his way , with a savage vow of vengeance against the " d — d dandy , " the " Guards 'swell , " who had shown him up before his world as the scoundrel he was .  The bell was clanging and clashing passionately , as Cecil at last went down to the weights , all his friends of the Household about him , and all standing " crushers " on their champion , for their stringent esprit du corps was involved , and the Guards are never backward in putting their gold down , as all the world knows .  In the enclosure , the cynosure of devouring eyes , stood the King , with the sang froid of a superb gentleman , amidst the clamour raging round him , one delicate ear laid back now and then but otherwise indifferent to the din , with his coat glistening like satin , the beautiful tracery of vein and muscle like the veins of vine-leaves standing out on the glossy clear-carved neck that had the arch of Circassia , and his dark antelope eyes gazing with a pensive earnestness on the shouting crowd .  His rivals , too , were beyond par in fitness and in condition , and there were magnificent animals among them .  Bay Regent was a huge raking chesnut , upwards of sixteen hands , and enormously powerful , with very fine shoulders , and an all-over-like-going head ; he belonged to a Colonel in the Hussars , but was to be ridden by Jimmy Delmar of the Twelfth Lancers , whose colours were violet with orange hoops .  Montacute 'shorse , Pas de Charge , which carried most of the money of the English Heavy Cavalry , Montacute himself being in the Dragoon Guards , was of much the same order , a black hunter with racing-blood in him , loins and withers that assured any amount of force , and no fault but that of a rather coarse head , traceable to a slur on his 'scutcheon on the distaff side from a plebeian great-grandmother , who had been a cart mare , the only stain in his otherwise faultless pedigree .  However , she had given him her massive shoulders , so that he was in some sense a gainer by her after all .  Wild Geranium was a beautiful creature enough , a bright bay Irish mare , with that rich red gloss that is like the glow of a horse-chesnut , very perfect in shape , though a trifle light perhaps , and with not quite strength enough in neck or barrel ; she would jump the fences of her own paddock half a dozen times a day for sheer amusement , and was game to anything .  1 .  She was entered by Cartouche of the Royal Irish Dragoons , to be ridden by " Baby Grafton , " of the same corps , a feather-weight , and quite a boy , but with plenty of science in him .  These were the three favourites ; Day Star ran them close , the property of Durham Vavassour , of the Inniskillings , and to be ridden by his owner , a handsome flea-bitten-grey sixteen-hander , with ragged hips , and action that looked a trifle string-halty , but noble shoulders , and great force in the loins and withers ; the rest of the field , though unusually excellent , did not find so many " sweet voices " for them , and were not so much to be feared : each starter was of course much backed by his party , but the betting was tolerably even on these four : — all famous steeple-chasers ; — the King at one time , and Bay Regent at another , slightly leading in the Ring .  Thirty-two starters were hoisted up on the telegraph board , and as the field got at last under weigh , uncommonly handsome they looked , while the silk jackets of all the colours of the rainbow glittered in the bright noon-sun .  As Forest King closed in , perfectly tranquil still , but beginning to glow and quiver all over with excitement , knowing as well as his rider the work that was before him , and longing for it in every muscle and every limb while his eyes flashed fire as he pulled at the curb and tossed his head aloft , there went up a general shout of " Favourite !  " His beauty told on the populace , and even somewhat on the professionals , though the Legs still kept a strong business prejudice against the working powers of " the Guards 'crack .  " The ladies began to lay dozens in gloves on him ; not altogther for his points , which , perhaps , they hardly appreciated , but for his owner and rider , who , in the scarlet and gold , with the white sash across his chest , and a look of serene indifference on his face , they considered the handsomest man of the field .  The Household is usually safe to win the suffrages of the Sex .  In the throng on the course Rake instantly bonneted an audacious dealer who had ventured to consider that Forest King was " light and curby in the ' ock .  " " You 'rea wise ' un , you are !  " retorted the wrathful and ever eloquent Rake ; " there 'smore strength in his clean flat legs , bless him !  than in all the round thick mill-posts of your half-breds , that have no more tendon than a bit of wood , and are just as flabby as a sponge !  " Which hit the dealer home just as his hat was hit over his eyes ; Rake 'sarguments being unquestionably in their force .  The thorough-breds pulled and fretted , and swerved in their impatience ; one or two over-contumacious bolted incontinently , others put their heads between their knees in the endeavour to draw their riders over their withers ; Wild Geranium reared straight upright , fidgeted all over with longing to be off , passaged with the prettiest wickedest grace in the world , and would have given the world to neigh if she had dared , but she knew it would be very bad style , so , like an aristocrat as she was , restrained herself ; Bay Regent almost sawed Jimmy Delmar 'sarms off , looking like a Titan Bucephalus ; while Forest King , with his nostrils dilated till the scarlet tinge on them glowed in the sun , his muscles quivering with excitement as intense as the little Irish mare 's, and all his Eastern and English blood on fire for the fray , stood steady as a statue for all that , under the curb of a hand light as a woman 's, but firm as iron to control , and used to guide him by the slightest touch .  All eyes were on that throng of the first mounts in the Service ; brilliant glances by the hundred gleamed down behind hothouse bouquets of their chosen colour , eager ones by the thousand stared thirstily from the crowded course , the roar of the Ring subsided for a second , a breathless attention and suspense succeeded it ; the Guardsmen sat on their drags , or lounged near the ladies with their race-glasses ready , and their habitual expression of gentle and resigned weariness in no wise altered , because the Household , all in all , had from sixty to seventy thousand on the event ; and the Seraph murmured mournfully to his cheroot , " That chesnut 'sno end fit , " strong as his faith was in the champion of the Brigades .  A moment 'sgood start was caught — the flag dropped — off they went sweeping out for the first second like a line of Cavalry about to charge .  Another moment , and they were scattered over the first field , Forest King , Wild Geranium , and Bay Regent leading for two lengths , when Montacute , with his habitual " fast burst , " sent Pas de Charge past them like lightning .  The Irish mare gave a rush and got alongside of him ; the King would have done the same , but Cecil checked him and kept him in that cool swinging canter which covered the grassland so lightly ; Bay Regent 'svast thundering stride was Olympian , but Jimmy Delmar saw his worst foe in the " Guards 'crack , " and waited on him warily , riding superbly himself .  The first fence disposed of half the field , they crossed the second in the same order , Wild Geranium racing neck to neck with Pas de Charge ; the King was all athirst to join the duello , but his owner kept him gently back , saving his pace and lifting him over the jumps as easily as a lapwing .  The second fence proved a cropper to several , some awkward falls took place over it , and " tailing " commenced ; after the third field , which was heavy plough , all knocked off but eight , and the real struggle began in sharp earnest : a good dozen who had shown a splendid stride over the grass being done up by the terrible work on the clods .  The five favourites had it now all to themselves ; Day Star pounding onward at tremendous speed , Pas de Charge giving slight symptoms of distress owing to the madness of his first burst , the Irish mare literally flying a-head of him , Forest King and the chesnut waiting on one another .  In the Grand Stand the Seraph 'seyes strained after the Scarlet and White , and he muttered in his moustaches , " Ye Gods , what 'sup !  The world 'scoming to an end !  — Beauty 'sturned cautious !  "  Cautious indeed — with that giant of Pytchley fame running neck to neck by him ; cautious — with two-thirds of the course unrun , and all the yawners yet to come ; cautious — with the blood of Forest King lashing to boiling heat , and the wondrous greyhound stride stretching out faster and faster beneath him , ready at a touch to break away and take the lead : but he would be reckless enough by-and-by ; reckless , as his nature was , under the indolent serenity of habit .  Two more fences came , laced high and stiff with the Shire thorn , and with scarce twenty feet between them , the heavy ploughed land leading to them black and hard , with the fresh earthy scent steaming up as the hoofs struck the clods with a dull thunder .  Pas de Charge rose to the first : distressed too early , his hind feet caught in the thorn , and he came down rolling clear of his rider ; Montacute picked him up with true science , but the day was lost to the English Heavy Cavalry .  Forest King went in and out over both like a bird and led for the first time ; the chesnut was not to be beat at fencing and ran even with him ; Wild Geranium flew still as fleet as a deer ; true to her sex she would not bear rivalry ; but little Grafton , though he rode like a professional , was but a young one , and went too wildly ; her spirit wanted cooler curb .  And now only , Cecil loosened the King to his full will and his full speed .  Now only , the beautiful Arab head was stretched like a racer 'sin the run-in for the Derby , and the grand stride wept out till the hoofs seemed never to touch the dark earth they skimmed over ; neither whip nor spur was needed ; Bertie had only to leave the gallant temper and the generous fire that were roused in their might to go their way and hold their own .  His hands were low ; his head a little back ; his face very calm , the eyes only had a daring , eager , resolute will lighting in them ; Brixworth lay before him .  He knew well what Forest King could do ; but he did not know how great the chesnut Regent 'spowers might be .  The water gleamed before them , brown and swollen , and deepened with the meltings of winter snows a month before ; the brook that has brought so many to grief over its famous banks , since cavaliers leapt it with their falcon on their wrist , or the mellow note of the horn rang over the woods in the hunting days of Stuart reigns .  They knew it well , that long dark line , shimmering there in the sunlight , the test that all must pass who go in for the Soldiers 'Blue Riband .  Forest King scented water , and went on with his ears pointed , and his greyhound stride lengthening , quickening , gathering up all its force and its impetus for the leap that was before — then like the rise and the swoop of a heron he spanned the stream , and , landing clear , launched forward with the lunge of a spear darted through air .  Brixworth was passed — the Scarlet and White , a mere gleam of bright colour , a mere speck in the landscape , to the breathless crowds in the Stand , sped on over the brown and level grassland ; two and a quarter miles done in four minutes and twenty seconds .  Bay Regent was scarcely behind him ; the chesnut abhorred the water , but a finer trained hunter was never sent over the Shires , and Jimmy Delmar rode like Grimshaw himself .  The giant took the leap in magnificent style , and thundered on neck and neck with the " Guards 'crack .  " The Irish mare followed , and with miraculous gameness landed safely ; but her hind-legs slipped on the bank , a moment was lost , and " Baby " Grafton scarce knew enough to recover it , though he scoured on nothing daunted .  Pas de Charge , much behind , refused the yawner ; his strength was not more than his courage , but both had been strained too severely at first .  Montacute struck the spurs into him with a savage blow over the head ; the madness was its own punishment ; the poor brute rose blindly to the jump , and missed the bank with a reel and a crash ; Sir Eyre was hurled out into the brook , and the hope of the Heavies lay there with his breast and fore-legs resting on the ground , his hindquarters in the water , and his back broken .  Pas de Charge would never again see the starting-flag waved , or hear the music of the hounds , or feel the gallant life throb and glow through him at the rallying notes of the horn .  His race was run .  Not knowing , or looking , or heeding what happened behind , the trio tore on over the meadow and the plough ; the two favourites neck by neck , the game little mare hopelessly behind , through that one fatal moment over Brixworth .  The turning-flags were passed ; from the crowds on the course a great hoarse roar came louder and louder , and the shouts rang , changing every second : " Forest King wins " — " Bay Regent wins " — " Scarlet and White 'sahead " — " Violet 'sup with him " — " Violet 'spast him " — " Scarlet recovers " — " Scarlet beats " — " A cracker on the King " — " Ten to one on the Regent " — " Guards are over the fence first " — " Guards are winning " — " Guards are losing " — " Guards are beat !  !  "  Were they !  As the shout rose , Cecil 'sleft stirrup-leather snapped and gave way ; at the pace they were going most men , ay , and good riders too , would have been hurled out of their saddle by the shock ; he scarcely swerved ; a moment to ease the King and to recover his equilibrium , then he took the pace up again as though nothing had chanced .  And his comrades of the Household when they saw this through their race-glasses , broke through their serenity and burst into a cheer that echoed over the grasslands and the coppices like a clarion , the grand rich voice of the Seraph leading foremost and loudest — a cheer that rolled mellow and triumphant down the cold bright air like the blast of trumpets , and thrilled on Bertie 'sear where he came down the course a mile away .  It made his heart beat quicker with a victorious head-long delight , as his knees pressed closer into Forest King 'sflanks , and , half stirrupless like the Arabs , he thundered forward to the greatest riding feat of his life .  His face was very calm still , but his blood was in tumult , the delirium of pace had got on him , a minute of life like this was worth a year , and he knew that he would win , or die for it , as the land seemed to fly like a black sheet under him , and , in that killing speed , fence and hedge and double and water all went by him like a dream , whirling underneath him as the grey stretched stomach to earth over the level , and rose to leap after leap .  For that instant 'spause , when the stirrup broke , threatened to lose him the race .  He was more than a length behind the Regent , whose hoofs as they dashed the ground up sounded like thunder , and for whose herculean strength the ploughed lands had no terrors ; it was more than the lead to keep now , there was ground to cover , and the King was losing like Wild Geranium .  Cecil felt drunk with that strong keen west wind that blew so strongly in his teeth , a passionate excitation was in him , every breath of winter air that rushed in its bracing currents round him seemed to lash him like a stripe : — the Household to look on and see him beaten !  Certain wild blood that lay latent in him under the tranquil gentleness of temper and of custom woke and had the mastery ; he set his teeth hard , and his hands clenched like steel on the bridle .  " Oh !  my beauty , my beauty !  " he cried , all unconsciously , half aloud , as they cleared the thirty-sixth fence .  " Kill me if you like , but do n't fail me !  "  As though Forest King heard the prayer and answered it with all his heart , the splendid form launched faster out , the stretching stride stretched farther yet with lightning spontaneity , every fibre strained , every nerve struggled , with a magnificent bound like an antelope the grey recovered the ground he had lost , and passed Bay Regent by a quarter-length .  It was a neck to neck race once more , across the three meadows with the last and lower fences that were between them and the final leap of all ; that ditch of artificial water with the towering double hedge of oak rails and of blackthorn which was reared black and grim and well-nigh hopeless just in front of the Grand Stand .  A roar like the roar of the sea broke up from the thronged course as the crowd hung breathless on the even race ; ten thousand shouts rang as thrice ten thousand eyes watched the closing contest , as superb a sight as the Shires ever saw while the two ran together , the gigantic chesnut , with every massive sinew swelled and strained to tension , side by side with the marvellous grace , the shining flanks , and the Arab-like head of the Guards 'horse .  Louder and wilder the shrieked tumult rose : " The chesnut beats !  " " The grey beats !  " " Scarlet 'sahead !  " " Bay Regent 'scaught him !  " " Violet 'swinning , Violet 'swinning !  " " The King 'sneck by neck !  " " The King 'sbeating !  " " The Guards will get it .  " " The Guards 'crack has it !  " " Not yet , not yet !  " " Violet will thrash him at the jump !  " " Now for it !  " " The Guards , the Guards , the Guards !  " " Scarlet will win !  " " The King has the finish !  " " No , no , no , No !  "  Sent along at a pace that Epsom flat never eclipsed , sweeping by the Grand Stand like the flash of electric flame , they ran side to side one moment more , their foam flung on each other 'swithers , their breath hot in each other 'snostrils , while the dark earth flew beneath their stride .  The blackthorn was in front behind five bars of solid oak , the water yawning on its farther side , black and deep , and fenced , twelve feet wide if it were an inch , with the same thorn wall beyond it ; a leap no horse should have been given , no Steward should have set .  Cecil pressed his knees closer and closer , and worked the gallant hero for the test ; the surging roar of the throng , though so close , was dull on his ear ; he heard nothing , knew nothing , saw nothing but that lean chesnut head beside him , the dull thud on the turf of the flying gallop , and the black wall that reared in his face .  Forest King had done so much , could he have stay and strength for this ?  Cecil 'shands clenched unconsciously on the bridle , and his face was very pale — pale with excitation — as his foot where the stirrup was broken crushed closer and harder against the grey 'sflank .  " Oh , my darling , my beauty — now ! "  One touch of the spur — the first — and Forest King rose at the leap , all the life and power there were in him gathered for one superhuman and crowning effort ; a flash of time , not half a second in duration , and he was lifted in the air higher , and higher , and higher in the cold , fresh , wild winter wind ; stakes and rails and thorn and water lay beneath him black and gaunt and shapeless , yawning like a grave ; one bound , even in mid-air , one last convulsive impulse of the gathered limbs , and Forest King was over !  And as he galloped up the straight run-in he was alone .  Bay Regent had refused the leap .  As the grey swept to the Judge 'schair , the air was rent with deafening cheers that seemed to reel like drunken shouts from the multitude .  " The Guards win , the Guards win ; " — and when his rider pulled up at the distance with the full sun shining on the scarlet and white , with the gold glisten of the embroidered " Coeur Vaillant Se Fait Royaume , " Forest King stood in all his glory , winner of the Soldiers 'Blue Riband , by a feat without its parallel in all the annals of the Gold Vase .  But as the crowd surged about him , and the mad cheering crowned his victory , and the Household in the splendour of their triumph and the fulness of their gratitude rushed from the drags and the stands to cluster to his saddle , Bertie looked as serenely and listlessly nonchalant as of old , while he nodded to the Seraph with a gentle smile .  " Rather a close finish , eh ?  Have you any Moselle Cup going there ?  I 'ma little thirsty .  "  Outsiders would much sooner have thought him defeated than triumphant ; no one , who had not known him , could possibly have imagined that he had been successful ; an ordinary spectator would have concluded that , judging by the resigned weariness of his features , he had won the race greatly against his own will to his now infinite ennui .  No one could have dreamt that he was thinking in his heart of hearts how passionately he loved the gallant beast that had been victor with him , and that , if he had followed out the momentary impulse in him , he could have put his arms round the noble bowed neck and kissed the horse like a woman !  The Moselle Cup was brought to refresh the tired champion , and before he drank it Bertie glanced at a certain place in the Grand Stand and bent his head as the cup touched his lips : it was a dedication of his victory to his Queen of Beauty .  Then he threw himself lightly out of saddle , and , as Forest King was led away for the after ceremony of bottling , rubbing , and clothing , his rider , regardless of the roar and hubbub of the course , and of the tumultuous cheers that welcomed both him and his horse from the men who pressed round him , into whose pockets he had put thousands on thousands , and whose ringing hurrahs greeted the " Guards 'crack , " passed straight up towards Jimmy Delmar and held out his hand .  " You gave me a close thing , Major Delmar .  The Vase is as much yours as mine ; if your chesnut had been as good a water jumper as he is a fencer we should have been neck to neck at the finish .  "  The browned Indian-sunned face of the Lancer broke up into a cordial smile , and he shook the hand held out to him warmly ; defeat and disappointment had cut him to the core , for Jimmy was the first riding man of the Light Cavalry , but he would not have been the frank campaigner that he was if he had not responded to the graceful and generous overture of his rival and conqueror .  " Oh !  I can take a beating , " he said , good humouredly ; " at any rate , I am beat by the Guards , and it is very little humiliation to lose against such riding as yours and such a magnificent brute as your King .  I congratulate you most heartily , most sincerely .  "  And he meant it , too .  Jimmy never canted , nor did he ever throw the blame , with paltry savage vindictiveness , on the horse he had ridden .  Some men there are — their name is legion — who never allow that it is their fault when they are " nowhere ; " — oh no !  it is the " cursed screw " always , according to them .  But a very good rider will not tell you that .  Cecil , while he talked , was glancing up at the Grand Stand , and when the others dispersed to look over the horses , and he had put himself out of his shell into his sealskin in the dressing-shed , he went up thither without a moment 'sloss of time .  He knew them all ; those dainty beauties with their delicate cheeks just brightened by the western winterly wind , and their rich furs and laces glowing among the colours of their respective heroes ; he was the pet of them all ; " Beauty " had the suffrages of the sex without exception ; he was received with bright smiles and graceful congratulations , even from those who had espoused Eyre Montacute 'scause , and still fluttered their losing azure , though the poor hunter lay dead , with his back broken , and a pistolball mercifully sent through his brains — the martyr to a man 'shot haste , as the dumb things have ever been since creation began .  Cecil passed them as rapidly as he could for one so well received by them , and made his way to the centre of the Stand , to the same spot at which he had glanced when he had drunk the Moselle .  A lady turned to him ; she looked like a rose camellia in her floating scarlet and white , just toned down and made perfect by a shower of Spanish lace ; a beautiful brunette , dashing yet delicate , a little fast yet intensely thorough-bred , a coquette who would smoke a cigarette , yet a peeress who would never lose her dignity .  " Au coeur vaillant rien d'impossible ! " she said , with an envoi of her lorgnon , and a smile that should have intoxicated him — a smile that might have rewarded a Richepanse for a Hohenlinden .  " Superbly ridden !  I absolutely trembled for you as you lifted the King to that last leap .  It was terrible !  "  It was terrible ; and a woman , to say nothing of a woman who was in love with him , might well have felt a heart-sick fear at sight of that yawning water and those towering walls of blackthorn , where one touch of the hoofs on the topmost bough , one spring too short of the gathered limbs , must have been death to both horse and rider .  But as she said it , she was smiling , radiant , full of easy calm and racing interest , as became her ladyship , who had had " bets at even " before now on Goodwood , and could lead the first flight over the Belvoir and the Quorn countries .  It was possible that her ladyship was too thoroughbred not to see a man killed over the oak-rails without deviating into unseemly emotion , or being capable of such bad style as to be agitated .  Bertie , however , in answer , threw the tenderest eloquence into his eyes ; very learned in such eloquence .  " If I could not have been victorious while you looked on , I would at least not have lived to meet you here !  "  She laughed a little , so did he ; they were used to exchange these passages in an admirably artistic masquerade , but it was always a little droll to each of them to see the other wear the domino of sentiment , and neither had much credence in the other .  " What a preux chevalier !  " cried his Queen of Beauty .  " You would have died in a ditch out of homage to me .  Who shall say that chivalry is past ?  Tell me , Bertie , is it so very delightful that desperate effort to break your neck ?  It looks pleasant , to judge by its effects .  It is the only thing in the world that amuses you !  "  " Well — there is a great deal to be said for it , " replied Cecil , musingly .  " You see , until one has broken one 'sneck , the excitement of the thing is n't totally worn out ; ca n't be , naturally , because the — what-do-you-call-it ?  — consummation is n't attained till then .  The worst of it is , it 'sgetting common-place , getting vulgar , such a number break their necks , doing Alps and that sort of thing , that we shall have nothing at all left to ourselves soon .  "  " Not even the monopoly of sporting suicide !  Very hard , " said her ladyship , with the lowest , most languid laugh in the world , very like " Beauty 's" own , save that it had a considerable inflection of studied affectation , of which he , however much of a dandy he was , was wholly guiltless .  " Well !  you won magnificently ; that little black man , who is he ?  — Lancers , somebody said — ran you so fearfully close .  I really thought at one time that the Guards had lost .  "  " Do you suppose that a man happy enough to wear Lady Guenevere 'scolours could lose ?  An embroidered scarf given by such hands has been a gage of victory ever since the days of tournaments !  " murmured Cecil with the softest tenderness , but just enough laziness in the tone and laughter in the eye to make it highly doubtful whether he was not laughing both at her and at himself , and was not wondering why the deuce a fellow had to talk such nonsense .  Yet she was Lady Guenevere , with whom he had been in love ever since they had stayed together at Belvoir for the Croxton Park week last autumn ; and who was beautiful enough to make their " friendship " as enchanting as a page out of the " Decamerone .  " And while he bent over her , flirting in the fashion that made him the darling of the drawing-rooms , and looking down into her superb Velasquez eyes , he did not know , and , if he had known , would have been careless of it , that afar off , white with rage , and with his gaze straining on to the course through his race-glass , Ben Davis , " the Welsher , " who had watched the finish — watched the " Guards 'crack " landed at the distance — muttered , with a mastiff 'ssavage growl :  " He wins , does he ?  Curse him !  The d — d swell — he sha n't win long .  "  CHAPTER IV .  LOVE A LA MODE .  Life was very pleasant at Royallieu .  It lay in the Melton country , and was almost equally well placed for Pytchley , Quorn , and-Belvoir , besides possessing its own small but very perfect pack of " little ladies , " or the " demoiselles , " as they were severally nicknamed ; the game was closely preserved , pheasants were fed on Indian corn till they were the finest birds in the country , and in the little winding paths of the elder and bilberry coverts thirty first-rate shots , with two loading-men to each , could find flock and feather to amuse them till dinner , with rocketers and warm corners enough to content the most insatiate of knickerbockered gunners .  The stud was superb ; the cook a French artist of consummate genius , who had a brougham to his own use , and wore diamonds of the first water ; on the broad beech-studded grassy lands no lesser thing than doe and deer ever swept through the thick ferns in the sunlight and the shadow ; a retinue of powdered servants filled the old halls , and guests of highest degree dined in its stately banqueting-room , with its scarlet and gold , its Vandykes and its Vernets , and yet — there was terribly little money at Royallieu with it all .  Its present luxury was purchased at the cost of the future , and the parasite of extravagance was constantly sapping , unseen , the gallant old Norman-planted oak of the family-tree .  But then who thought of that ?  Nobody .  It was the way of the House never to take count of the morrow .  True , any one of them would have died a hundred deaths rather than have had one acre of the beautiful green diadem of woods felled by the axe of the timber contractor , or passed to the hands of a stranger ; but no one among them ever thought that this was the inevitable end to which they surely drifted with blind and unthinking improvidence .  The old Viscount , haughtiest of haughty nobles , would never abate one jot of his accustomed magnificence ; and his sons had but imbibed the teaching of all that surrounded them ; they did but do in manhood what they had been unconsciously moulded to do in boyhood , when they were sent to Eton at ten , with gold dressing-boxes to grace their Dame 'stables , embryo-Dukes for their co-fags , and tastes that already knew to a nicety the worth of the champagnes at the Christopher .  The old , old story — how it repeats itself !  Boys grow up amidst profuse prodigality , and are launched into a world where they can no more arrest themselves , than the feather-weight can pull in the lightning-stride of the two-year old , who defies all check , and takes the flat as he chooses .  They are brought up like young Dauphins and tossed into the costly whirl to float as best they can — on nothing .  Then , on the lives and deaths that follow ; on the graves where a dishonoured alien lies forgotten by the dark Austrian lake-side , or under the monastic shadow of some crumbling Spanish crypt ; where a red cross chills the lonely traveller in the virgin solitudes of Amazonian forest aisles , or the wild scarlet creepers of Australia trail over a nameless mound above the trackless stretch of sun-warmed waters — then at them the world " shoots out its lips with scorn .  " Not on them lies the blame .  A wintry , watery sun was shining on the terraces as Lord Royallieu paced up and down the morning after the Grand Military ; his step and limbs excessively enfeebled , but the carriage of his head and the flash of his dark hawk 'seyes as proud and untameable as in his earliest years .  He never left his own apartments ; and no one , save his favourite " little Berke , " ever went to him without his desire ; he was too sensitive a man to thrust his age and ailing health in amongst the young leaders of fashion , the wild men of pleasure , the good wits and the good shots of his son 'sset ; he knew very well that his own day was past , that they would have listened to him out of the patience of courtesy , but that they would have wished him away as " no end of a bore .  " He was too shrewd not to know this ; but he was too quickly galled ever to bear to have it recalled to him .  He looked up suddenly and sharply ; coming towards him he saw the figure of the Guardsman .  For " Beauty " the Viscount had no love ; indeed , well-nigh a hatred , for a reason never guessed by others , and never betrayed by him .  Bertie was not like the Royallieu race ; he resembled his mother 'sfamily .  She , a beautiful and fragile creature whom her second son had loved , for the first years of his life , as he would have thought it now impossible that he could love any one , had married the Viscount with no affection towards him , while he had adored her with a fierce and jealous passion that her indifference only inflamed .  Throughout her married life , however , she had striven to render loyalty and tenderness towards a lord into whose arms she had been thrown , trembling and reluctant ; of his wife 'sfidelity he could not entertain a doubt , though that he had never won her heart he could not choose but know .  He knew more , too ; for she had told it him with a noble candour before he wedded her ; knew that the man she did love was a penniless cousin , a cavalry officer , who had made a famous name among the wild mountain tribes of Northern India .  This cousin , Alan Bertie — a fearless and chivalrous soldier , fitter for the days of knighthood than for these — had seen Lady Royallieu at Nice , some three years after her marriage ; accident had thrown them across each other 'spath ; the old love , stronger , perhaps , now than it had ever been , had made him linger in her presence , had made her shrink from sending him to exile .  Evil tongues at last had united their names together ; Alan Bertie had left the woman he idolised lest slander should touch her through him , and fallen two years later under the dark dank forests on the desolate moorside of the hills of Hindostan , where long before he had rendered " Bertie 'sHorse " the most famous of all the wild Irregulars of the East .  After her death , Lord Royallieu found Alan 'sminiature among her papers , and recalled those winter months by the Mediterranean till he cherished , with the fierce , eager , self-torture of a jealous nature , doubts and suspicions that , during her life , one glance from her eyes would have disarmed and abashed .  Her second and favourite child bore her family name , her late lover 'sname ; and , in resembling her race , resembled the dead soldier .  Moreover , Bertie had been born in the spring following that Nice winter , and it sufficed to make the Viscount hate him with a cruel and savage detestation which he strove indeed to temper , — for he was by nature a just man , and , in his better moments , knew that his doubts wronged both the living and the dead , — but which coloured , too strongly to be dissembled , all his feelings and his actions towards his son , and might both have soured and wounded any temperament less nonchalantly gentle and supremely careless than Cecil 's.  As it was , Cecil was sometimes surprised at his father 'sdislike to him ; but never thought much about it , and attributed it , when he did think of it , to the caprices of a tyrannous old man .  To be envious of the favour shown to his boyish brother could never for a moment have come into his imagination .  Lady Royallieu , with her last words , had left the little fellow , a child of three years old , to the affection and the care of Bertie — himself then a boy of twelve or fourteen — and little as he thought of such things now , the trust of his dying mother had never been wholly forgotten .  A heavy gloom came now over the Viscount 'sstill handsome saturnine aquiline face as his second son approached up the terrace ; Bertie was too like the cavalry soldier whose form he had last seen standing against the rose light of a Mediterranean sunset .  The soldier had been dead eight-and-twenty years ; but the jealous hate was not dead yet .  Cecil took off his hunting-cap with a certain courtesy that sat very well on his habitual languid nonchalance ; he never called his father anything but " Royal ; " rarely saw , still less rarely consulted him , and cared not a straw for his censure or opinion , but he was too thorough-bred by nature to be able to follow the under-bred indecorum of the day which makes disrespect to old age the fashion .  " You sent for me ?  " he asked , taking the cigarette out of his mouth .  " No , sir , " answered the old Lord , curtly , " I sent for your brother .  The fools ca n't take even a message right now , it seems .  "  " Should n't have named us so near alike ; it 'soften a bore !  "  " I did n't name you , sir , your mother named you , " answered his father , sharply ; the subject irritated him .  " It 'sof no consequence which !  " murmured Cecil , with an expostulatory wave of his cigar .  " We 'renot even asked whether we like to come into the world ; we ca n't expect to be asked what we like to be called in it .  Good day to you , sir .  "  He turned to move away to the house ; but his father stopped him ; he knew that he had been discourteous , a far worse crime in Lord Royallieu 'seyes than to be heartless .  " So you won the Vase yesterday ?  " he asked , pausing in his walk with his back bowed , but his stern , silver-haired head erect .  " I did n't ; — the King did .  "  " That 'sabsurd , sir , " said the Viscount , in his resonant and yet melodious voice .  " The finest horse in the world may have his back broke by bad riding , and a screw has won before now when it 'sbeen finely handled .  The finish was tight , was n't it ?  "  " Well — rather .  I have ridden closer spins , though .  The fallows were light .  "  Lord Royallieu smiled grimly .  " I know what the Shire 'plough 'is like , " he said , with a flash of his falcon eyes over the landscape , where , in the days of his youth , he had led the first flight so often , George Rex , and Waterford , and the Berkeleys , and the rest following the rally of his hunting-horn .  " You won much in bets ?  "  " Very fair .  Thanks .  "  " And wo n't be a shilling richer for it this day next week !  " retorted the Viscount , with a rasping , grating irony ; he could not help darting savage thrusts at this man who looked at him with eyes so cruelly like Alan Bertie 's.  " You play 5 l .  points , and lay 500 l .  on the odd trick , I 'veheard , at your whist in the Clubs — pretty prices for a younger son !  "  " Never bet on the odd trick ; spoils the game ; makes you sacrifice play to the trick .  We always bet on the game , " said Cecil , with gentle weariness ; the sweetness of his temper was proof against his father 'sattacks upon his patience .  " No matter what you bet , sir ; you live as if you were a Rothschild while you are a beggar !  "  " Wish I were a beggar : fellows always have no end in stock , they say ; and your tailor ca n't worry you very much when all you have to think about is an artistic arrangement of tatters !  " murmured Bertie , whose impenetrable serenity was never to be ruffled by his father 'sbitterness .  " You will soon have your wish , then , " retorted the Viscount , with the unprovoked and reasonless passion which he vented on every one , but on none so much as the son he hated .  " You are on a royal road to it .  I live out of the world , but I hear from it , sir .  I hear that there is not a man in the Guards — not even Lord Rockingham — who lives at the rate of imprudence you do ; that there is not a man who drives such costly horses , keeps such costly mistresses , games to such desperation , fools gold away with such idiocy as you do .  You conduct yourself as if you were a millionaire , sir , and what are you ?  A pauper on my bounty , and on your brother Montagu 'safter me — a pauper with a tinsel fashion , a gilded beggary , a Queen 'scommission to cover a sold-out poverty , a dandy 'sreputation to stave off a defaulter 'sfuture !  A pauper , sir — and a Guardsman !  "  The coarse and cruel irony flashed out with wicked scorching malignity , lashing and upbraiding the man who was the victim of his own unwisdom and extravagance .  A slight tinge of colour came on his son 'sface as he heard ; but he gave no sign that he was moved , no sign of impatience or anger .  He lifted his cap again , not in irony , but with a grave respect in his action that was totally contrary to his whole temperament .  " This sort of talk is very exhausting , very bad style , " he said , with his accustomed gentle murmur .  " I will bid you good morning , my Lord .  "  And he went without another word .  Crossing the length of the old-fashioned Elizabethan terrace , little Berk passed him ; he motioned the lad towards the Viscount .  " Royal wants to see you , young one .  "  The boy nodded and went onward ; and as Bertie turned to enter the low door that led out to the stables he saw his father meet the lad — meet him with a smile that changed the whole character of his face , and pleasant kindly words of affectionate welcome , drawing his arm about Berkeley 'sshoulder , and looking with pride upon his bright and gracious youth .  More than an old man 'spreference would be thus won by the young one ; a considerable portion of their mother 'sfortune , so left that it could not be dissipated , yet could be willed to which son the Viscount chose , would go to his brother by this passionate partiality ; but there was not a tinge of jealousy in Cecil ; whatever else his faults he had no mean ones , and the boy was dear to him , by a quite unconscious yet unvarying obedience to his dead mother 'swish .  " Royal hates me as game birds hate a red dog .  Why the deuce , I wonder ?  " he thought , with a certain slight touch of pain despite his idle philosophies and devil-may-care indifference .  " Well — I am good for nothing , I suppose .  Certainly I am not good for much , unless it 'sriding and making love .  "  With which summary of his merits , " Beauty , " who felt himself to be a master in those two arts , but thought himself a bad fellow out of them , sauntered away to join the Seraph and the rest of his guests .  His father 'swords pursuing him a little despite his carelessness , for they had borne an unwelcome measure of truth .  " Royal can hit hard , " his thoughts continued .  " A pauper and a Guardsman !  By Jove !  it 'strue enough ; but he made me so .  They brought me up as if I had a million coming to me , and turned me out among the cracks to take my running with the best of them ; — and they give me just about what pays my groom 'sbook !  Then they wonder that a fellow goes to the Jews .  Where the deuce else can he go ?  "  And Bertie , whom his gains the day before had not much benefited , since his play-debts , his young brother 'sneeds , and the Zu-Zu 'sinsatiate little hands were all stretched ready to devour them without leaving a sovereign for more serious liabilities , went , for it was quite early morning , to act the M .  F .  H .  in his father 'sstead , at the meet on the great lawns before the house , for the Royallieu " lady-pack " were very famous in the Shires , and hunted over the same country alternate days with the Quorn .  They moved off ere long to draw the Holt Wood , in as open a morning , and as strong a scenting wind , as ever favoured Melton Pink .  A whimper and " gone away !  " soon echoed from Beeby-side , and the pack , not letting the fox hang a second , dashed after him , making straight for Scraptoft .  One of the fastest things up wind that hounds ever ran took them straight through the Spinnies , past Hamilton Farm , away beyond Burkby village , and down into the valley of the Wreake without a check , where he broke away , was headed , tried earths , and was pulled down scarce forty minutes from the find .  The pack then drew Hungerton foxholes blank , drew Carver 'sspinnies without a whimper ; and lastly , drawing the old familiar Billesden Coplow , had a short quick burst with a brace of cubs , and returning , settled themselves to a fine dog fox that was raced an hour and half , hunted slowly for fifty minutes , raced again another hour and quarter , sending all the field to their " second horses ; " and , after a clipping chase through the cream of the grass country , nearly saved his brush in the twilight when scent was lost in a rushing hailstorm , but had the " little ladies " laid on again like wildfire , and was killed with the " who-whoop !  " ringing far and away over Glenn Gorse , after a glorious run — thirty miles in and out — with pace that tried the best of them .  A better day 'ssport even the Quorn had never had in all its brilliant annals , and faster things the Melton men themselves had never wanted : both those who love the " quickest thing you ever knew ; thirty minutes without a check ; such a pace !  " and care little whether the finale be " killed " or " broke away , " and those of older fashion , who prefer " long day , you know , steady as old time , the beauties stuck like wax through fourteen parishes as I live ; six hours if it were a minute ; horses dead beat ; positively walked , you know , no end of a day !  " but must have the fatal " who-whoop " as conclusion — both of these , the " new style and the old , " could not but be content with the doings of the Demoiselles from start to finish .  Was it likely that Bertie remembered the caustic lash of his father 'sironies while he was lifting Mother of Pearl over the posts and rails , and sweeping on , with the halloo ringing down the wintry wind as the grasslands flew beneath him ?  Was it likely that he recollected the difficulties that hung above him while he was dashing down the Gorse happy as a king , with the wild hail driving in his face , and a break of stormy sunshine just welcoming the gallant few who were landed at the death as twilight fell ?  Was it likely that he could unlearn all the lessons of his life , and realise in how near a neighbourhood he stood to ruin , when he was drinking Regency sherry out of his gold flask as he crossed the saddle of his second horse , or , smoking , rode slowly homeward , chatting with the Seraph through the leafless muddy lanes in the gloaming .  Scarcely ; — it is very easy to remember our difficulties when we are eating and drinking them , so to speak , in bad soups and worse wines in continental impecuniosity , sleeping on them as rough Australian shake-downs , or wearing them perpetually in Californian rags and tatters , it were impossible very well to escape from them then ; but it is very hard to remember them when every touch and shape of life is pleasant to us — when everything about us is symbolical and redolent of wealth and ease — when the art of enjoyment is the only one we are called on to study , and the science of pleasure all we are asked to explore .  It is well-nigh impossible to believe yourself a beggar while you never want sovereigns for whist ; and it would be beyond the powers of human nature to conceive your ruin irrevocable , while you still eat turbot and terrapin with a powdered giant behind your chair daily .  Up in his garret a poor wretch knows very well what he is , and realises in stern fact the extremities of the last sou , the last shirt , and the last hope ; but in these devil-may-care pleasures — in this pleasant , reckless , velvet-soft rush down-hill — in this club-palace , with every luxury that the heart of man can devise and desire , yours to command at your will — it is hard work , then , to grasp the truth that the crossing-sweeper yonder , in the dust of Pall Mall , is really not more utterly in the toils of poverty than you are !  " Beauty " was never , in the whole course of his days , virtually or physically , or even metaphorically , reminded that he was not a millionaire ; much less still was he ever reminded so painfully .  Life petted him , pampered him , caressed him , gifted him , though of half his gifts he never made use ; lodged him like a prince , dined him like a king , and never recalled to him by a single privation or a single sensation that he was not as rich a man as his brother-in-arms , the Seraph , future Duke of Lyonnesse .  How could he then bring himself to understand , as nothing less than truth , the grim and cruel insult his father had flung at him in that brutally bitter phrase — " A Pauper and a Guardsman " ?  If he had ever been near a comprehension of it , which he never was , he must have ceased to realise it when — pressed to dine with Lord Guenevere , near whose house the last fox had been killed , while grooms dashed over to Royallieu for their changes of clothes — he caught a glimpse , as they passed through the hall , of the ladies taking their pre-prandial cups of tea in the library , an enchanting group of lace and silks , of delicate hue and scented hair , of blonde cheeks and brunette tresses , of dark velvets and gossamer tissue ; and when he had changed the scarlet for dinner-dress , went down amongst them to be the darling of that charmed circle , to be smiled on and coquetted with by those soft , languid aristocrats , to be challenged by the lustrous eyes of his châtelaine , and to be spoiled as women will spoil the privileged pet of their drawing-rooms whom they have made " free of the guild , " and endowed with a flirting commission , and acquitted of anything " serious .  "  He was the recognised darling , and permitted property , of the young married beauties ; the unwedded knew he was hopeless for them , and tacitly left him to the more attractive conquerors ; who hardly prized the Seraph so much as they did Bertie , to sit in their barouches and opera boxes , ride and drive and yacht with them , conduct a Boccaccio intrigue through the height of the season , and make them really believe themselves actually in love while they were at the Moors or down the Nile , and would have given their diamonds to get a new distraction .  Lady Guenevere was the last of these , his titled and wedded captors ; and perhaps the most resistless of all of them .  Neither of them believed very much in their attachment , but both of them wore the masquerade dress to perfection .  He had fallen in love with her as much as he ever fell in love , which was just sufficient to amuse him , and never enough to disturb him .  He let himself be fascinated , not exerting himself either to resist or to advance the affair , till he was , perhaps , a little more entangled with her than it was according to his canons expedient to be ; and they had the most enchanting — friendship .  Nobody was ever so indiscreet as to call it anything else ; and my Lord was too deeply absorbed in the Alderney beauties that stood knee-deep in the yellow straw of his farm-yard , and the triumphant conquests that he gained over his brother Peers 'Short-horns and Suffolks , to trouble his head about Cecil 'sattendance on his beautiful Countess .  They corresponded in Spanish ; they had a thousand charming cyphers ; they made the columns of the Times and the Post play the unconscious rôle of medium to appointments ; they eclipsed all the pages of Calderon 'sor Congreve 'scomedies in the ingenuities with which they met , wrote , got invitations together to the same country-houses , and arranged signals for mute communication : but there was not the slightest occasion for it all .  It passed the time , however , and went far to persuade them that they really were in love , and had a mountain of difficulties and dangers to contend with ; it added the " spice to the sauce , " and gave them the " relish of being forbidden .  " Besides , an open scandal would have been very shocking to her brilliant ladyship , and there was nothing on earth , perhaps , of which he would have had a more lively dread than a " scene ; " his present " friendship , " however , was delightful , and presented no such dangers , while his fair " friend " was one of the greatest beauties and the greatest coquettes of her time .  Her smile was honour ; her fan was a sceptre ; her face was perfect ; and her heart never troubled herself or her lovers : if she had a fault , she was a trifle exacting , but that was not to be wondered at in one so omnipotent , and her chains , after all , were made of roses .  As she sat in the deep ruddy glow of the library fire , with the light flickering on her white brow and her violet velvets ; as she floated to the head of her table , with opals shining amongst her priceless point laces , and some tropical flower with leaves of glistening gold crowning her bronze hair ; as she glided down in a waltz along the polished floor , or bent her proud head over écarté in a musing grace that made her opponent utterly forget to mark the king or even play his cards at all ; as she talked in the low music of her voice of European imbrogli , and consols and coupons , for she was a politician and a speculator ; when she lapsed into a beautifully-tinted study of la femme incomprise , when time and scene suited , when the stars were very clear above the terraces without , and the conservatory very solitary , and a touch of Musset or Owen Meredith chimed in well with the light and shade of the oleanders and the brown lustre of her own eloquent glance ; — in all these various moments how superb she was !  And if in truth her bosom only fell with the falling of Shares and rose with the rising of Bonds , if her soft shadows were only taken up like the purple tinting under her lashes to embellish her beauty ; if in her heart of hearts she thought Musset a fool , and wondered why Lucille was not written in prose , in her soul far preferring Le Follet ; why — it did not matter , that I can see ; all great ladies gamble in stock now-a-days under the rose ; and women are for the most part as cold , clear , hard , and practical as their adorers believe them the contrary ; and a femme incomprise is so charming when she avows herself comprehended by you , that you would never risk spoiling the confidence by hinting a doubt of its truth .  If she and Bertie only played at love , if neither believed much in the other , if each trifled with a pretty gossamer soufflet of passion much as they trifled with their soufflets at dinner , if both tried it to trifle away ennui much as they tried staking a Friedrich d'Or at Baden , this light , surface , fashionable , philosophic form of a passion they both laughed at in its hot and serious follies , suited them admirably .  Had it ever mingled a grain of bitterness in her ladyship 'sSouchong before dinner , or given an aroma of bitterness to her lover 'sNaples punch in the smoking-room , it would have been out of all keeping with themselves and their world .  Nothing on earth is so pleasant as being a little in love ; nothing on earth so destructive as being too much so ; and as Cecil , in the idle enjoyment of the former gentle luxury , flirted with his liege lady that night , lying back in the softest of lounging-chairs , with his dark dreamy handsome eyes looking all the eloquence in the world , and his head drooped till his moustaches were almost touching her laces , his Queen of Beauty listened with charmed interest , and to judge by his attitude he might have been praying after the poet — " How is it under our control To love or not to love ?  " In real truth he was gently murmuring ,  " Such a pity that you missed to-day !  Hounds found directly ; three of the fastest things I ever knew , one after another ; you should have seen the ' little ladies 'head him just above the Gorse !  Three hares crossed us and a fresh fox ; some of the pack broke away after the new scent , but old Bluebell , your pet , held on like death , and most of them kept after her — you had your doubts about Silver Trumpet 'sshoulders ; they 'renot the thing , perhaps , but she ran beautifully all day , and did n't show a symptom of rioting .  "  Cecil could , when needed , do the Musset and Meredith style of thing to perfection , but on the whole he preferred love à la mode ; it is so much easier and less exhausting to tell your mistress of a ringing run , or a close finish , than to turn perpetual periods on the lustre of her eyes , and the eternity of your devotion .  Nor did it at all interfere with the sincerity of his worship , that the Zu-Zu was at the prettiest little box in the world , in the neighbourhood of Market Harborough , which he had taken for her , and had been at the meet that day in her little toy trap ( with its pair of snowy ponies and its bright blue liveries , that drove so desperately through his finances ) , and had ridden his hunter Maraschino with immense dash and spirit for a young lady , who had never done anything but pirouette till the last six months , and a total and headlong disregard of " purlers , " very reckless in a white-skinned bright-eyed illiterate avaricious little beauty , whose face was her fortune , and who most assuredly would have been adored no single moment longer had she scarred her fair tinted cheek with the blackthorn , or started as a heroine with a broken nose like Fielding 'scherished Amelia .  The Zu-Zu might rage , might sulk , might pout , might even swear all sorts of naughty Mabille oaths , most villanously pronounced , at the ascendancy of her haughty unapproachable patrician rival ; she did do all these things ; but Bertie would not have been the consummate tactician , the perfect flirt , the skilled and steeled campaigner in the boudoirs that he was , if he had not been equal to the delicate task of managing both the Peeress and the Ballet-dancer with inimitable ability , even when they placed him in the seemingly difficult dilemma of meeting them both with twenty yards between them on the neutral ground of the gathering to see the Pytchley or the Tailby throw off — a task he had achieved with victorious brilliance more than once already this season .  " You drive a team , Beauty — never drive a team , " the Seraph had said on occasion over a confidential " sherry-peg " in the mornings , meaning by the metaphor of a team , Lady Guenevere , the Zu-Zu , and various other contemporaries in Bertie 'saffections .  " Nothing on earth so dangerous : your leader will bolt , or your off-wheeler will turn sulky , or your young one will passage and make the very deuce of a row ; they 'llnever go quiet till the end , however clever your hand is on the ribbons .  Now , I 'lldrive six-in-hand as soon as any man , — drove a ten-hander last year in the Bois , — when the team comes out of the stables ; but I 'mhanged if I 'drisk my neck with managing even a pair of women .  Have one clean out of the shafts before you trot out another !  "  To which salutary advice Cecil only gave a laugh , going on his own ways with the " team " as before , to the despair of his fidus Achates ; the Seraph , being a quarry so incessantly pursued by dowager-beaters , chaperone-keepers , and the whole hunt of the Matrimonial Pack , with those clever hounds Belle and Fashion ever leading in full cry after him , that he dreaded the sight of a ball-room meet ; and , shunning the rich preserves of the Salons , ran to earth persistently in the shady woods of St. John 's, and got — at some little cost and some risk of trapping , it is true , but still efficiently — preserved from all other hunters or poachers by the lawless Robin Hoods aux yeux noirs of those welcome and familiar coverts .  CHAPTER V. UNDER THE KEEPER 'STREE .  " You 'rea lad o 'wax , my beauty !  " cried Mr. Rake , enthusiastically , surveying the hero of the Grand Military with adoring eyes as that celebrity , without a hair turned or a muscle swollen from his exploit , was having a dressing-down after a gentle exercise .  " You 'vepulled it off , have n't you ?  You 'vecut the work out for ' em !  You 'veshown ' em what a lustre is !  Strike me a loser , but what a deal there is in blood .  The littlest pippin that ever threw a leg across the pigskin knows that in the stables ; then why the dickens do the world run against such a plain fact out of it ?  "  And Rake gazed with worship at the symmetrical limbs of the champion of the " First Life , " and plunged into speculation on the democratic tendencies of the age as clearly contradicted by all the evidences of the flat and furrow , while Forest King drank a dozen go-downs of water , and was rewarded for the patience with which he had subdued his inclination to kick , fret , spring , and break away throughout the dressing by a full feed thrown into his crib , which Rake watched him with adoring gaze eat to the very last grain .  " You precious one !  " soliloquised that philosopher , who loved the horse with a sort of passion since his victory over the Shires .  " What a lot o 'enemies you 'vebeen and gone and made !  — that 'swhere it is , my boy ; nobody ca n't never forgive Success .  All them fielders have lost such a sight of money by you ; them book-makers have had such a lot of pots upset by you ; bless you !  if you were on the flat you 'dbe doctored or roped in no time .  You 'vewon for the gentlemen , my lovely — for your own cracks , my boy — and that 'sjust what they 'llnever pardon you .  "  And Rake , rendered almost melancholy by his thoughts ( he liked the " gentlemen " himself ) , went out of the box to get into saddle and ride off on an errand of his master 'sto the Zu-Zu at her tiny hunting-lodge , where the snow-white ponies made her stud , and where she gave enchanting little hunting-dinners , at which she sang equally enchanting little hunting-songs , and arrayed herself in the Fontainebleau hunting-costume , gold-hilted knife and all , and spent Cecil 'swinnings for him with a rapidity that threatened to leave very few of them for the London season .  She was very pretty ; sweetly pretty ; with fair hair that wanted no gold powder , the clearest , sauciest eyes , and the handsomest mouth in the world ; but of grammar she had not a notion , of her aspirates she had never a recollection , of conversation she had not an idea , of slang she had , to be sure , a répertoire , but to this was her command of language limited .  She dressed perfectly , but she was a vulgar little soul ; drank everything , from Bass 'sale to rum-punch , and from cherry-brandy to absinthe ; thought it the height of wit to stifle you with cayenne slid into your vanille ice , and the climax of repartee to cram your hat full of peach-stones and lobster-shells ; was thoroughly avaricious , thoroughly insatiate , thoroughly heartless , pillaged with both hands and then never had enough ; had a coarse good nature when it cost her nothing , and was " as jolly as a grig , " according to her phraseology , so long as she could stew her pigeons in champagne , drink wines and liqueurs that were beyond price , take the most dashing trap in the Park up to Flirtation Corner , and laugh and sing and eat Richmond dinners , and show herself at the Opera with Bertie or some other " swell " attached to her , in the very box next to a Duchess .  The Zu-Zu was perfectly happy ; and as for the pathetic pictures that novelists and moralists draw , of vice sighing amidst turtle and truffles for childish innocence in the cottage at home where honeysuckles blossomed and brown brooks made melody , and passionately grieving on the purple cushions of a barouche for the time of straw pallets and untroubled sleep , why , — the Zu-Zu would have vaulted herself on the box-seat of a drag , and told you to " stow all that trash ; " her childish recollections were of a stifling lean-to with the odour of pigsty and straw-yard , pork for a feast once a week , starvation all the other six days , kicks , slaps , wrangling , and a general atmosphere of beer and wash-tubs : she hated her past , and loved her cigar on the drag .  The Zu-Zu is fact ; the moralists 'pictures are moonshine .  The Zu-Zu is an openly acknowledged fact , moreover , daily becoming more prominent in the world , more brilliant , more frankly recognised , and more omnipotent .  Whether this will ultimately prove for the better or the worse , it would be a bold man who should dare say ; there is at least one thing left to desire in it — i.e. that the synonyme of " Aspasia , " which serves so often to designate in journalistic literature these Free Lances of life , were more suitable in artistic and intellectual similarity , and that when the Zu-Zu and her co-brigands plunge their white arms elbow-deep into so many fortunes , and rule the world right and left as they do , they could also sound their H 'sproperly , and know a little orthography , if they could not be changed into such queens of grace , of intellect , of sovereign mind and splendid wit as were their prototypes when she whose name they debase held her rule in the City of the Violet Crown , and gathered about her Phidias the divine , haughty and eloquent Antipho , the gay Crates , the subtle Protagorus , Cratinus so acrid and yet so jovial , Damon of the silver lyre , and the great who are poets for all time .  Author and artist , noble and soldier , court the Zu-Zu order now as the Athenians courted their brilliant έταιραι ; but it must be confessed that the Hellenic idols were of a more exalted type than are the Hyde Park goddesses !  However , the Zu-Zu was the rage , and spent Bertie 'smoney when he got any just as her wilful sovereignty fancied , and Rake rode on now with his master 'snote , bearing no very good will to her ; for Rake had very strong prejudices , and none stronger than against these pillagers who went about seeking whom they should devour , and laughing at the wholesale ruin that they wrought , while the sentimentalists babbled in " Social Science " of " pearls lost " and " innocence betrayed .  "  " A girl that used to eat tripe and red herring in a six-pair back , and dance for a shilling a night in gauze , coming it so grand that she 'llonly eat asparagus in March , and drink the best Brands with her truffles !  Why , she ai n't worth sixpence thrown away on her , unless it 'sworth while to hear how hard she can swear at you !  " averred Rake , in his eloquence ; and he was undoubtedly right for that matter , but then — the Zu-Zu was the rage , and if ever she should be sold up , great ladies would crowd to her sale , as they have done ere now to that of celebrities of her sisterhood , and buy with eager curiosity , at high prices , her most trumpery pots of pomatum , her most flimsy gewgaws of marqueterie !  Rake had seen a good deal of men and manners , and , in his own opinion at least , was " up to every dodge on the cross " that this iniquitous world could unfold .  A bright , lithe , animated , vigorous , yellow-haired , and sturdy fellow , seemingly with a dash of the Celt in him that made him vivacious and peppery , Mr. Rake polished his wits quite as much as he polished the tops , and considered himself a philosopher .  Of whose son he was he had not the remotest idea ; his earliest recollections were of the tender mercies of the workhouse ; but even that chill foster-mother , the parish , had not damped the liveliness of his temper or the independence of his opinions , and as soon as he was fifteen , Rake had run away and joined a circus , distinguishing himself there by his genius for standing on his head , and tying his limbs into a porter 'sknot .  From the circus he migrated successively into the shape of a comic singer , a tapster , a navvy , a bill-sticker , a guacho in Mexico ( working his passage out ) , a fireman in New York , a ventriloquist in Maryland , a vaquero in Spanish California , a lemonade-seller in San Francisco , a revolutionist in the Argentine ( without the most distant idea what he fought for ) , a boatman on the Bay of Mapiri , a blacksmith in Santarem , a trapper in the Wilderness , and finally , working his passage home again , took the Queen 'sshilling in Dublin , and was drafted into a light cavalry regiment .  With the — th he served half a dozen years in India , a rough-rider , a splendid fellow in a charge or a pursuit , with an astonishing power over horses , and the clearest backhanded sweep of a sabre that ever cut down a knot of natives ; but — insubordinate .  Do his duty whenever fighting was in question , he did most zealously , but to kick over the traces at other times was a temptation that at last became too strong for that lawless lover of liberty .  From the moment that he joined the regiment , a certain Corporal Warne and he had conceived an antipathy to one another , which Rake had to control as he might , and which the Corporal was not above indulging in every petty piece of tyranny that his rank allowed him to exercise .  On active service Rake was , by instinct , too good a soldier not to manage to keep the curb on himself tolerably well , though he was always regarded in his troop rather as a hound that will " riot " is regarded in the pack ; but when the — th came back to Brighton and to barracks , the evil spirit of rebellion began to get a little hotter in him under the Corporal 's" Idées Napoliennes " of justifiable persecution .  Warne indisputably provoked his man in a cold , iron , strictly lawful sort of manner , moreover , all the more irritating to a temper like Rake 's.  " Hanged if I care how the officers come it over me ; they 'regentlemen , and it do n't try a fellow , " would Rake say in confidential moments over purl and a penn'orth of bird's-eye , his experience in the Argentine Republic having left him with strongly aristocratic prejudices ; " but when it comes to a duffer like that , that knows no better than me , what ai n't a bit better than me , and what is as clumsy a duffer about a horse 'splates as ever I knew , and would a'most let a young ' un buck him out of his saddle , why then I do cut up rough , I ai n't denying it , and I do n't see what there is in his Stripes to give him such a license to be aggravating .  "  With which Rake would blow the froth off his pewter with a puff of concentrated wrath , and an oath against his non-commissioned officers that might have let some light in upon the advocates for " promotion from the ranks " had they been there to take the lesson .  At last , in the leisure of Brighton , the storm broke .  Rake had a Scotch hound that was the pride of his life , his beer-money often going instead to buy dainties for the dog , who became one of the channels through which Warne could annoy and thwart him .  The dog did no harm , being a fine , well-bred deerhound ; but it pleased the Corporal to consider that it did , simply because it belonged to Rake , whose popularity in the corps , owing to his good nature , his good spirits , and his innumerable tales of American experiences and amorous adventures , increased the jealous dislike which his knack with an unbroken colt and his abundant stable science had first raised in his superior .  One day in the chargers 'stables the hound ran out of a loose box with a rush to get at Rake , and upset a pailful of warm mash .  The Corporal , who was standing by in harness , hit him over the head with a heavy whip he had in his hand ; infuriated by the pain , the dog flew at him , tearing his overalls with a fierce crunch of his teeth .  " Take the brute off , and string him up with a halter ; I 'veput up with him too long !  " cried Warne to a couple of privates working near in their stable dress .  Before the words were out of his mouth , Rake threw himself on him with a bound like lightning , and wrenching the whip out of his hand , struck him a slashing , stinging blow across the face .  " Hang my hound , you cur !  If you touch a hair of him I 'lldouble-thong you within an inch of your life !  "  And assuredly he would have kept his word had he not been made a prisoner , and marched off to the guard-room .  Rake learnt the stern necessity of the law , which , for the sake of morale , must make the soldiers , whose blood is wanted to be like fire on the field , patient , pulseless , and enduring of every provocation , cruelty , and insolence in the camp and the barrack , as though they were statues of stones , — a needful law , a wise law , an indispensable law , doubtless , but a very hard law to be obeyed by a man full of life and all life 'spassions .  At the court-martial on his mutinous conduct which followed , many witnesses brought evidence , on being pressed , to the unpopularity of Warne in the regiment , and to his harshness and his tyranny to Rake .  Many men spoke out what had been chained down in their thoughts for years ; and , in consideration of the provocation received , the prisoner , who was much liked by the officers , was condemned to six months 'imprisonment for his insubordination and blow to his noncommissioned officer , without being tied up to the triangles .  At the court-martial , Cecil , who chanced to be in Brighton after Goodwood , was present one day with some other Guardsmen , and the look of Rake , with his cheerfulness under difficulties , his love for the hound , and his bright , sunburnt , shrewd , humorous countenance , took his fancy .  " Beauty " was the essence of good nature .  Indolent himself , he hated to see anything or anybody worried ; lazy , gentle , wayward , and spoilt by his own world , he was still never so selfish and philosophic as he pretended , but what he would do a kindness if one came in his way ; it is not a very great virtue , perhaps , but it is a rare one .  " Poor devil !  struck the other because he would n't have his dog hanged .  Well , on my word I should have done the same in his place , if I could have got up the pace for so much exertion , " murmured Cecil to his cheroot , careless of the demoralising tendency of his remarks for the Army in general .  Had it occurred in the Guards , and he had " sat " on the case , Rake would have had one very lenient judge .  As it was , Bertie actually went the lengths of thinking seriously about the matter ; he liked Rake 'sdevotion to his dumb friend , and he heard of his intense popularity in his troop ; he wished to save , if he could , so fine a fellow from the risks of his turbulent passion , and from the stern fetters of a trying discipline ; hence , when Rake found himself condemned to his cell , he had a message sent him by Bertie 'sgroom that when his term of punishment should be over Mr. Cecil would buy his discharge from the Service and engage him as extra body-servant , having had a good account of his capabilities : he had taken the hound to his own kennels .  Now the fellow had been thoroughly devil-me-care throughout the whole course of the proceedings , had heard his sentence with sublime impudence , and had chaffed his sentinels with an utterly reckless nonchalance ; but somehow or other , when that message reached him , a vivid sense that he was a condemned and disgraced man suddenly flooded in on him ; a passionate gratitude seized him to the young aristocrat who had thought of him in his destitution and condemnation , who had even thought of his dog ; and Rake , the philosophic and the undauntable , could have found it in his heart to kneel down in the dust and kiss the stirrup-leather when he held it for his new master , so strong was the loyalty he bore from that moment to Bertie .  Martinets were scandalised at a Life-Guardsman taking as his private valet a man who had been guilty of such conduct in the Light Cavalry ; but Cecil never troubled his head about what people said ; and so invaluable did Rake speedily become to him , that he had kept him about his person wherever he went from then until now , two years after .  Rake loved his master with a fidelity very rare in these days ; he loved his horses , his dogs , everything that was his , down to his very rifle and boots , slaved for him cheerfully , and was as proud of the deer he stalked , of the brace he bagged , of his innings when the Household played the Zingari , or his victory when his yacht won the Cherbourg Cup , as though those successes had been Rake 'sown .  " My dear Seraph , " said Cecil himself once on this point to the Marquis , " if you want generosity , fidelity , and all the rest of the cardinal what-d'ye-call-ems — sins , ai n't it ?  — go to a noble-hearted Scamp ; he ' ll stick to you till he kills himself .  If you want to be cheated , get a Respectable Immaculate ; he 'll swindle you piously , and decamp with your Doncaster Vase .  "  And Rake , who assuredly had been an out-and-out scamp , made good Bertie 'screed ; he " stuck to him " devoutly , and no terrier was ever more alive to an otter than he was to the Guardsman 'sinterests .  It was that very vigilance which made him , as he rode back from the Zu-Zu 'sin the twilight , notice what would have escaped any save one who had been practised as a trapper in the red Canadian woods , namely , the head of a man almost hidden among the heavy though leafless brushwood and the yellow gorse of a spinney which lay on his left in Royallieu Park .  Rake 'seyes were telescopic and microscopic ; moreover , they had been trained to know such little signs as a marsh from a hen harrier in full flight , by the length of wing and tail , and a widgeon or a coot from a mallard or a teal , by the depth each swam out of the water .  Grey and foggy as it was , and high as was the gorse , Rake recognised his born-foe , Willon .  " What 'she up to there ?  " thought Rake , surveying the place , which was wild , solitary , and an unlikely place enough for a head groom to be found in .  " If he ai n't a rascal , I never see one ; it 'smy belief he cheats the stable thick and thin , and gets on Mr. Cecil 'smounts to a good tune — ay , and would nobble ' em as soon as not , if it just suited his book ; that blessed King hates the man : how he lashes his heels at him !  "  It was certainly possible that Willon might be passing an idle hour in potting rabbits , or be otherwise innocently engaged enough ; but the sight of him there among the gorse was a sight of suspicion to Rake .  Instantaneous thoughts darted through his mind of tethering his horse , and making a reconnaissance safely and unseen with the science at stalking brute or man that he had learnt of his friends the Sioux .  But second thoughts showed him this was impossible .  The horse he was on was a mere colt just breaking in , who had barely had so much as a " dumb jockey " on his back , and stand for a second the colt would not .  " At any rate , I 'llunearth him , " mused Rake , with his latent animosity to the head groom , and his vigilant loyalty to Cecil overruling any scruple as to his right to overlook his foe 'smovements ; and with a gallop that was muffled on the heather 'dturf he dashed straight at the covert unperceived till he was within ten paces .  Willon started and looked up hastily ; he was talking to a square-built man very quietly dressed in shepherds 'plaid , chiefly remarkable by a red-hued beard and whiskers .  The groom turned pale and laughed nervously as Rake pulled up with a jerk .  " You on that young ' un again ?  Take care you do n't get bucked out o 'saddle in the shape of a cocked-hat .  "  " I ai n't afraid of going to grass , if you are !  " retorted Rake , scornfully ; boldness was not his enemy 'sstrong point .  " Who 'syour pal , old fellow ?  "  " A cousin o 'mine , out o 'Yorkshire , " vouchsafed Mr. Willon , looking anything but easy , while the cousin aforesaid nodded sulkily on the introduction .  " Ah !  looks like a Yorkshire tyke , " muttered Rake , with a volume of meaning condensed in these innocent words .  " A nice dry , cheerful sort of place to meet your cousin in , too ; uncommon lively ; hope it 'llraise his spirits to see all his cousins a grinning there ; his spirits do n't seem much in sorts now , " continued the ruthless inquisitor , with a glance at the " keeper 'stree " by which they stood , in the middle of dank undergrowth , whose branches were adorned with dead cats , curs , owls , kestrels , stoats , weasels , and martens .  To what issue the passage of arms might have come it is impossible to say , for at that moment the colt took matters into his own hands , and bolted with a rush , that even Rake could not pull in till he had had a mile-long " pipe opener .  "  " Something up there , " thought that sagacious rough-rider ; " if that red-haired chap ai n't a rum lot , I 'lleat him .  I 'veseen his face , too , somewhere : where the deuce was it ?  Cousin ; yes , cousins in Queer-street , I dare say !  Why should he go and meet his ' cousin ' out in the fog there , when if you took twenty cousins home to the servants 'hall nobody 'dever say anything ?  If that Willon ai n't as deep as Old Harry — — "  And Rake rode into the stable-yard , thoughtful and intensely suspicious of the rendezvous under the keeper 'stree in the outlying coverts .  He would have been more so had he guessed that Ben Davis 'sred beard and demure attire , with other as efficient disguises , had prevented even his own keen eyes from penetrating the identity of Willon 's" cousin " with the Welsher he had seen thrust off the course the day before by his master .  CHAPTER VI .  THE END OF A RINGING RUN .  " Tally-ho ! is the word , clap spurs and let 'sfollow , The world has no charm like a rattling view-halloa ! "  Is hardly to be denied by anybody in this land of fast bursts and gallant M .  F .  H .  s , whether they " ride to hunt , " or " hunt to ride , " in the immortal distinction of Assheton Smith 'sold whip : the latter class , by-the-by , becoming far and away the larger , in these days of rattling gallops and desperate breathers .  Who cares to patter after a sly old dog-fox , that , fat and wary , leads the pack a tedious interminable wind in and out through gorse and spinney , bricks himself up in a drain , and takes an hour to be dug out , dodges about till twilight , and makes the hounds pick the scent slowly and wretchedly , over marsh and through water ?  Who would not give fifty guineas a second for the glorious thirty minutes of racing that shows steam and steel over fence and fallow in a clipping rush without a check from find to finish ?  So be it ever !  The riding that graces the Shires , that makes Tedworth and Pytchley , the Duke 's, and the Fitzwilliam 's, household words and " names beloved , " that fills Melton and Market Harborough , and makes the best flirts of the ball-room gallop fifteen miles to covert , careless of hail or rain , mire or slush , mist or cold , so long as it is a fine scenting wind , is the same riding that sent the Six Hundred down into the blaze of the Muscovite guns , that in their fathers 'days gave to Grant 'sHussars their swoop , like eagles , on to the rear-guard at Morales , and that in the grand old East and the rich trackless West makes exiled campaigners with high English names seek and win an aristeia of their own at the head of their wild Irregular Horse , who would charge hell itself at their bidding .  Now in all the Service there was not a man who loved hunting better than Bertie .  Though he was incorrigibly lazy , and inconceivably effeminate in every one of his habits , though he suggested a portable lounging-chair as an improvement at battues so that you might shoot sitting , drove to every breakfast and garden party in the season in his brougham with the blinds down lest a grain of dust should touch him , thought a waltz too exhaustive , and a saunter down Pall Mall too tiring , and asked to have the end of a novel told him in the clubs because it was too much trouble to read on a warm day , — though he was more indolent than any spoiled Creole , " Beauty " never failed to head the first flight , and adored a hard day cross country , with an east wind in his eyes , and the sleet in his teeth .  The only trouble was to make him get up in time for it .  " Mr. Cecil , sir , if you please , the drag will be round in ten minutes , " said Rake , with a dash of desperation for the seventh time into his chamber , one fine scenting morning .  " I do n't please , " answered Cecil , sleepily , finishing his cup of coffee , and reading a novel of La Demirep 's.  " The other gentlemen are all down , sir , and you will be too late .  "  " Not a bit .  They must wait for me , " yawned Bertie .  Crash came the Seraph 'sthunder on the panels of the door , and a strong volume of Turkish through the keyhole : " Beauty , Beauty , are you dead ?  "  " Now , what an inconsequent question !  " expostulated Cecil , with appealing rebuke .  " If a fellow were dead , how the devil could he say he was ?  Do be logical , Seraph .  "  " Get up !  " cried the Seraph with a deafening rataplan , and a final dash of his colossal stature into the chamber .