Run to Earth, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [epub ebook reader .TXT] 📗

>conspired against me last time; but the day will come when I shall have

the devil on my side. It is yet on the cards for you to become owner of

ten thousand a-year; and it shall be my business to make you owner of

that income.”

 

“Stay, Carrington, do you think I would permit—?”

 

“I ask your permission for nothing: I know you to be a weak and

wavering coward, who of your own volition would never rise from the

level of a ruined spendthrift and penniless vagabond. You forget,

perhaps, that I hold a bond which gives me an interest in your

fortunes. I do not forget. When my own wisdom counsels action, I shall

act, without asking your advice. If I am successful, you will thank me.

If I fail, you will reproach me for my folly. That is the way of the

world. And now let us change the subject. When do you go down to

Dorsetshire with your cousin, Douglas Dale?”

 

“Why do you ask me that question?”

 

“My curiosity is only prompted by a friendly interest in your welfare,

and that of your relations. You are going to hunt with Lionel Dale, are

you not?”

 

“Yes; he has invited me to spend the remainder of the hunting season

with him?”

 

“At his brother’s request, I believe?”

 

“Precisely. I have not met Lionel since—since my uncle’s funeral—as

you know.” Sir Reginald pronounced these last words with considerable

hesitation. “Douglas spends Christmas with his brother, and Douglas

wishes me to join the party. In order to gratify this wish, Lionel has

written me a very friendly letter, inviting me down to Hallgrove

Rectory, and I have accepted the invitation.”

 

“Nothing could be more natural. There is some talk of your buying a

hunter for Lionel, is there not, by-the-bye?”

 

“Yes. They know I am a tolerable judge of horseflesh, and Douglas

wishes me to get his brother a good mount for the winter.”

 

“When is the animal to be chosen?” asked Victor, carelessly.

 

“Immediately. We go down to Hallgrove next week, I shall select the

horse whenever I can get Douglas to go with me to the dealer’s, and

send him down to get used to his new quarters before his hard work

begins.”

 

“Good. Let me know when you are going to the horse-dealer’s: but if you

see me there, take no notice of me beyond a nod, and be careful not to

attract Douglas Dale’s attention to me or introduce me to him.”

 

“What do you mean by that?” asked Reginald, looking suspiciously at his

companion.

 

“What should I mean except what I say? I do not see how even your

imagination can fancy any dark meaning lurking beneath the common-place

desire to waste an afternoon in a visit to a horse-dealer’s yard.”

 

“My dear Carrington, forgive me,” exclaimed Reginald. “I am irritable

and impatient. I cannot forget the misery of those last days at

Raynham.”

 

“Yes,” answered Victor Carrington: “the misery of failure.”

 

No more was said between the two men. The sway which the powerful

intellect of the surgeon exercised over the weaker nature of his friend

was omnipotent. Reginald Eversleigh feared Victor Carrington. And there

was something more than this ever-present fear in his mind; there was

the lurking hope that, by means of Carrington’s scheming, he should yet

obtain the wealth he had forfeited.

 

The conversation above recorded took place on the day after Mr.

Larkspur’s interview with Honoria.

 

Three days afterwards, Reginald Eversleigh and his cousin met at the

club, for the purpose of going together to inspect the hunters on sale

at Mr. Spavin’s repository, in the Brompton Road.

 

Dale’s mail-phaeton was waiting before the door of the club, and he

drove his cousin down to the repository.

 

Mr. Spavin was one of the most fashionable horse-dealers of that day. A

man who could not afford to give a handsome price had but a small

chance of finding himself suited at Mr. Spavin’s repository. For a poor

customer the horse-dealer felt nothing but contempt.

 

Half a dozen horsey-looking men came out of stables, loose boxes, and

harness-rooms to attend upon the gentlemen, whose dashing mail-phaeton

and stylish groom commanded the respect of the whole yard. The great

Mr. Spavin himself emerged from his counting-house to ask the pleasure

of his customers.

 

“Carriage-horses, sir, or ‘acks?” he asked. “That’s a very fine pair in

the break yonder, if you want anything showy for a mail-phaeton.

They’ve been exercising in the park. All blood, sir, and not an ounce

too much bone. A pair of hosses that would do credit to a dook.”

 

Reginald asked to see Mr. Spavin’s hunters, and the grooms and keepers

were soon busy trotting out noble-looking creatures for the inspection

of the three gentlemen. There was a tan-gallop at the bottom of the

yard, and up and down this the animals were paraded.

 

Douglas Dale was much interested in the choice of the horse which he

intended to present to his brother; and he discussed the merits of the

different hunters with Sir Reginald Eversleigh, whose eye had lighted,

within a minute of their entrance, upon Victor Carrington. The surgeon

stood at a little distance from them, absorbed by the scene before him;

but it was to be observed that his attention was given less to the

horses than the men who brought them out of their boxes.

 

At one of these men he looked with peculiar intensity; and this man was

certainly not calculated to attract the observation of a stranger by

any personal advantages of his own. He was a wizened little man, with

red hair, a bullet-shaped head, and small, rat-like eyes.

 

This man had very little to do with the display of the horses; but

once, when there was a pause in the business, he opened the door of a

loose-box, went in, and presently emerged, leading a handsome bay,

whose splendid head was reared in a defiant attitude, as the fiery

eyeballs surveyed the yard.

 

“Isn’t that ‘Wild Buffalo?’” asked Mr. Spavin.

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“Then you ought to know better than to bring him out,” exclaimed the

horse-dealer, angrily. “These gentlemen want a horse that a Christian

can ride, and the ‘Buffalo’ isn’t fit to be ridden by a Christian; not

yet awhile at any rate. I mean to take the devil out of him before I’ve

done with him, though,” added Mr. Spavin, casting a vindictive glance

at the horse.

 

“He is rather a handsome animal,” said Sir Reginald Eversleigh.

 

“Oh, yes, he’s handsome enough,” answered the dealer. “His looks are no

discredit to him; but handsome is as handsome does—that’s my motter;

and if I’d known the temper of that beast when Captain Chesterly

offered him to me, I’d have seen the captain farther before I consented

to buy him. However, there he is; I’ve got him, and I must make the

best of him. But Jack Spavin is not the man to sell such a beast to a

customer until the wickedness is taken out of him. When the wickedness

is taken out of him, he’ll be at your service, gentlemen, with Jack

Spavin’s best wishes.”

 

The horse was taken back to his box. Victor watched the animal and the

groom with an intensely earnest gaze as they disappeared from his

sight.

 

“That’s a curious-looking fellow, that groom of yours,” Sir Reginald

said to the horse-dealer.

 

“What, Hawkins—Jim Hawkins? Yes; his looks won’t make his fortune.

He’s a hard-working fellow enough in his way; but he’s something like

the horse in the matter of temper. But I think I’ve taken the devil out

of him,” said Mr. Spavin, with an ominous crack of his heavy riding-whip.

 

More horses were brought out, examined, discussed, and taken back to

their boxes. Mr. Spavin knew he had to deal with a good customer, and

he wished to show off the resources of his stable.

 

“Bring out ‘Niagara,’” he said, presently, and in a few minutes a groom

emerged from one of the stables, leading a magnificent bay. “Now,

gentlemen,” said Mr. Spavin, “that animal is own brother to ‘Wild

Buffalo,’ and if it had not been for my knowledge of that animal’s

merits I should never have bought the ‘Buffalo.’ Now, there’s apt to be

a good deal of difference between human beings of the same family; but

perhaps you’d hardly believe the difference there can be between horses

of the same blood. That animal is as sweet a temper as you’d wish to

have in a horse—and ‘Buffalo’ is a devil; yet, if you were to see the

two horses side by side, you’d scarcely know which was which.”

 

“Indeed!” exclaimed Sir Reginald; “I should like, for the curiosity of

the thing, to see the two animals together.”

 

Mr. Spavin gave his orders, and presently Jim Hawkins, the queer-looking groom, brought out “Wild Buffalo.”

 

The two horses were indeed exactly alike in all physical attributes,

and the man who could have distinguished one from the other must have

had a very keen eye.

 

“There they are, gents, as like as two peas, and if it weren’t for a

small splash of white on the inner side of ‘Buffalo’s’ left hock,

there’s very few men in my stable could tell one from the other.”

 

Victor Carrington, observing that Dale was talking to the horse-dealer,

drew near the animal, with the air of an interested stranger, and

stooped to examine the white mark. It was a patch about as large as a

crown-piece.

 

“‘Niagara’ seems a fine creature,” he said.

 

“Yes,” replied a groom; “I don’t think there’s many better horses in

the place than ‘Niagara.’”

 

When Douglas Dale returned to the examination of the two horses, Victor

Carrington drew Sir Reginald aside, unperceived by Dale.

 

“I want you to choose the horse ‘Niagara’ for Lionel Dale,” he said,

when they were beyond the hearing of Douglas.

 

“Why that horse in particular?”

 

“Never mind why,” returned Carrington, impatiently. “You can surely do

as much as that to oblige me.”

 

“Be it so,” answered Sir Reginald, with assumed carelessness; “the

horse seems a good one.”

 

There was a little more talk and consultation, and then Douglas Dale

asked his cousin which horse he liked best among those they had seen.

 

“Well, upon my word, if you ask my opinion, I think there is no better

horse than that bay they call ‘Niagara;’ and if you and Spavin can

agree as to price, you may settle the business without further

hesitation.”

 

Douglas Dale acted immediately upon the baronet’s advice. He went into

Mr. Spavin’s little counting-house, and wrote a cheque for the price of

the horse on the spot, much to that gentleman’s satisfaction. While

Douglas Dale was writing this cheque, Victor Carrington waited in the

yard outside the counting-house.

 

He took this opportunity of addressing Hawkins, the groom.

 

“I want a job done in your line,” he said, “and I think you’d be just

the man to manage it for me. Have you any spare time?”

 

“I’ve an hour or two, now and then, of a night, after my work’s over,”

answered the man.

 

“At what time, and where, are you to be met with after your work?”

 

“Well, sir, my own home is too poor a place for a gentleman like you to

come to; but if you don’t object to a public—and a very respectable

public, too, in its way—there’s the ‘Goat and Compasses,’ three doors

down the little street as you’ll see on your left, as you leave this

here yard, walking towards London.”

 

“Yes, yes,” interrupted Victor, impatiently; “you