patsy kenny, stud-groom to sir shawn o'gara, a quiet man, devoted to his horses and having a wonderful way with them, sometimes allowed his mind to wander back to the night mr. terence comerford was killed and the days that followed.
he could recall the inquest on poor mr. terence, himself, with a bandaged head, keeping the one eye he had available fixed on the gentleman who asked him questions. he knew that sir shawn o'gara was present, his face marble pale and his eyes full of a strange anguish. well, that was not to be wondered at. the gentleman who asked the questions made sympathetic references to the unusual friendship between sir shawn and mr. comerford. patsy had been aware of the nervous tension in sir shawn's face, the occasional quiver of a nostril, "like as if he was a horse, a spirity one, aisy frightened, like spitfire," patsy had thought.
he remembered that tense anguish of sir shawn's face now, as he sat on the trunk of a fallen tree in the paddock of the foals at castle talbot. the foals were running with their mothers, exquisite creatures, of the most delicate slenderness. the paddock was full of the lush grass of june. the mares were contentedly grazing. now and again one lifted her head and sniffed the air with the wind in her mane, as if at the lightest sound she would take fright.
patsy had had a hard tussle that morning with an ill-tempered horse he was breaking, and he felt tired out. he had no idea of compelling a horse with a whip. sir shawn had bought this horse at a fair a short time before. he was jet-black and they had called him mustapha. that was master terry's name for him, a queer heathenish name to patsy's mind, but all master terry did and all the mistress, master terry's mother did, was right in patsy's eyes, so mustapha the horse was called.
he was certainly an ill-tempered brute, with a lot of the devil in him, but patsy kenny was never angry with a horse; it was an invaluable quality in a stud-groom. patsy was wont to say that when he found a horse wicked he looked for the man. there was no evidence of the man so far as their record of mustapha went. he had been bought from a little old man as pink as a baby and with a smiling innocence of aspect, so small that when mustapha tossed his head the little man, hanging on by the rope-bridle, was lifted in the air and dropped again.
"that crathur," said patsy to himself, "would never have done the horse a wrong. i wonder where he got him from an' who had the rearin' of him. i'm surprised the master cared to handle him. he's as like as two pins to spitfire. where was it they said spitfire went? some mountainy man bought her for a five-pound note i've heard tell."
he pulled out a fine red handkerchief and mopped his forehead with it. he'd had two hours of it trying to "insinse some rayson" into mustapha's head. he had not made much progress. mustapha was still kicking and squealing in his loose-box. the sounds reached patsy kenny where he sat on his log and made him sad. gentle as he was he thought he had an understanding of even mustapha. the ears back, the whites of the eyes showing, the wild nostrils, the tense muscles under the skin of black satin, were something of an unhappiness in his mind. some time or other mustapha must have been ill-treated.
he put his head down on his hand. he was really tired out. so he was unaware of the approach over the grass towards him of two people till their shadows fell upon him and he looked up.
"that brute has taken it out of you, patsy," said the elder man, who had a curious elegance of face and figure. years had not coarsened sir shawn o'gara. he was still slight and active. his white hair was in almost startling contrast with the darkly foreign face, the small black moustache, the dark eyes, almost too large and soft and heavily lashed for a man's eyes.
the boy who was with him was very unlike his father. he had taken after his mother, who had once been mary creagh, of whom some one had said she had the colour of the foxes. the boy had his mother's reddish brown eyes and hair, something of the same colour underlying his fair skin as it did hers. he had the white, even teeth, the flashing and radiant smile. mary creagh had been a beautiful girl, with a look of motherliness even in her immature girlhood. as a wife and mother that aspect of her beauty had developed. many a strange confidence had been brought to mary creagh, and later to lady o'gara. she had a way of opening hearts and lips with that soft, steadfast glance of hers. her full bosom looked as though it were made for a child's head or a man's to rest upon.
"he'll come round, he'll come round," said patsy. "he'll have been hurted some time or another. whin he gets to know me he'll be biddable enough."
"oh, i know your theories," sir shawn said, a smile breaking over the melancholy of his face. "you'll never give in that a horse could be cursed with a natural ill-temper. but there are ill-tempered people: why not ill-tempered horses?"
"bedad, i dunno!" said patsy, scratching his head thoughtfully. he stood up with a jerk. it had occurred to him suddenly that he was sitting while the gentlemen were standing. "i never could see inside a human. i don't know how it is at all that i can see the mind of a horse."
"you're a wonderful man, patsy," said the boy gaily. "you are wasted as our stud-groom. the scientific beggars would like to get hold of a man who could see into the mind of a horse. only we couldn't spare you. i'm afraid mustapha would only listen to reason from you, and i've set my heart on riding him this autumn."
"you won't do that, master terry, till i've had a good many more talks with the horse. i'd be sorry to see you ridin' him yet, sir."
terry o'gara, brilliant in white flannels,—he had been playing tennis with his mother's distant young cousin, eileen creagh—seemed to draw the afternoon sun on to his spotlessness. patsy kenny, a little dazed with fatigue, blinked at his whiteness against the green grass.
a mare came trotting up to them with her foal. the mare allowed herself to be fondled, but the little foal was very wild and cantered away when they tried to stroke him.
the big paddock was a pleasant sight with the mares and their foals wandering over the young grass. the trees surrounding the paddock had not yet lost their first fresh green: and the white red-roofed stabling, newly built to accommodate the racing stud, made a vivid high light against the coppices.
the three wandered on from one mare and foal to another. patsy, chewing a straw, offered the opinion that magda's foal was the best of the lot. magda belonged to her ladyship.
"there won't be a foal in it like that little wan," said patsy, looking at a tall chestnut foal, the slender legs of which seemed as though they might break with a little pressure, so delicate were they. "the filly won't be in it, master terry, wid your mamma's horse. i've never seen a better foal. he'll win the derby yet. woa, magda, woa, my beauty."
he was trying to get close to the mare, she being restive. suddenly she uttered a joyous whinny and started off down the field, the little foal at her heels, the long manes of both flying in the wind.
"she knows her ladyship has sugar for her. an' there's miss eileen. i never knew a young lady as much afraid of a horse as miss eileen. you should tache her better, master terry."
they stood by a gate to look at the horses which at a little distance beyond a small enclosure hung their long sleek noses across a five-foot paling. the points of the horses had to be discussed. patsy had quite forgotten his fatigue. he opened the gate and they crossed the narrow strip between that and the paling. a second gate was opened and they passed through.
while they were looking at the horses they were joined by lady o'gara and miss creagh, the latter, a delicately fair girl with a mass of fine golden hair caught up with many hairpins a-top of her small head, keeping close to lady o'gara.
lady o'gara was laughing. her husband sometimes called her the laughing goddess. she had two aspects to her beauty—one when she was soft and motherly, the other when she rallied those she loved and sparkled with merriment. her still beautiful copper-coloured hair had hardly a white thread in it. she was very charming to look at in her matronly beauty.
"i've had to defend poor eileen from the mares," she said. "they were impudent, crowding around me for sugar and sticking their noses in my pocket. magda and brunette nearly came to blows. i had to push them off with my whip. poor eileen!"
"i'm so sorry you were frightened," terry o'gara said, drawing a little nearer to the girl and looking into her blue eyes.
the others had gone on.
"you won't be afraid with me," said the boy, who had just passed out of sandhurst; and was feeling immensely proud of his commission and his sword and all they betokened, although he talked lazily about "cutlery" and the pleasure of getting into mufti, making his mother's eyes dance.
"if you like, we will keep behind," he said. "if you are not accustomed to it, it is rather alarming to be caught into a herd of horses. my mother is so used to them that she cannot imagine any one being afraid."
the horses were coming in a long string from the other end of the paddock, whinnying and neighing, shaking the ground as they came. the girl drew back towards the hedge.
"it's only rough love," the boy said. "patsy kenny can do anything with the horses. they quarrel if he takes more notice of one than another."
"they won't hurt your mother?" the girl said anxiously. "there she is in the midst of them. is it safe?"
"quite safe. nothing will happen to mother while father and patsy
kenny are there. what a frightened child you are!"
miss creagh's soft red mouth widened into a smile which had amusement in it. she was six years older than the boy who called her a frightened child. the smile was gone before he could see it.
"i'm afraid i'm rather a coward," she said meekly. "father has always said that it was absurd for a soldier's daughter to be alarmed of so many things."
terry o'gara thought at the moment that it was the most beautiful and appealing thing in the world for a girl to be frightened of many things, when the girl happened to be as pretty as eileen creagh, and he was the valiant youth who was to protect her from her terrors. although he liked the feeling of protecting her he fell in with her suggestion that they should go back and talk to the foals. miss creagh was certainly a coward, for she cried out when a horse showed any evidence of friendliness; but when terry suggested that they should go to the garden and look for strawberries she did not fall in with the suggestion.
"let us wait for your mother here," she said, having gained the safe shelter of the space between the palings and the gate. "you are sure she is quite safe? just look at her among those wild horses! there couldn't be … an accident?"
he laughed at her terrors.
"mother was born in a stable, so to speak," he said. "she has a way with the horses. but how fond you are of her! i am so grateful to you for appreciating my mother as she deserves."
"she is an angel," said the girl fervently.
"well, i think so." he laughed rather shyly. "it would not be easy for a boy to have better parents. father is quite unlike mother, of course … but … i have a tremendous admiration for him, all the same. i'll tell you a secret. i believe up to this time i have wanted more than anything else to please my father. when i had to work for exams. i hated, or any stunt of that kind, when i—oh, i oughtn't to be talking about myself. it isn't that i love mother less, but mother is so happy. she would always find something good in my failures. but—to see father's face light up…!"
"he looks rather sad," miss creagh said wistfully.
"yes, though he can be uncommonly jolly. we have had such rags together in london. why, here is shot." he stooped to fondle the head of a beautiful red setter. "he must have got shut up in the garden. what i can't understand about shot is his indifference to you."
"he knows that in my secret heart i'm afraid of dogs,—a dreadful admission, isn't it? i think it was our old nurse. i can always remember her driving a dog out of the nursery. 'nasty thing!' she used to say. 'you shall not come near my baby.' i suppose i got the idea quite in babyhood that a dog was something noxious. not that the others minded. the house was always full of dogs."
"oh, you'll get over that. won't she, shot? do you think his hair and eyes are like my mother's?"
"like?" miss creagh was puzzled. "oh, surely not! how could a dog's hair and eyes be like a person's. your beautiful mother! it seems such an odd comparison."
"oh, well—shot is beautiful too."
despite his infatuation terry felt a little disappointed in miss creagh.
sir shawn and lady o'gara had gone on into the next paddock, which belonged to the young mares. there was a momentary excitement. one of the horses had got through after them and was racing up and down between the hurdles whinnying loudly. by the time he was secured and put back in his proper quarters the young people were out of sight.
