CHAPTER XVII
THE RELIGIOUS JOCKEY
ONE afternoon the middle-aged man with bushy whiskers emerged from Huey’s lodgings, and walking to Elizabeth Street, took the tram to Randwick. And he was about that horsey suburb that night and several following nights, frequenting bars and billiard-rooms, listening to the talk, and being taken down at pool as a new chum.
The ears of the bushy-whiskered man were always quick to catch any reference to the Vandy stable, and one night from a groom in a garrulous state of drunkenness, and at the trumpery cost of supplying him with beer, he gained a most minute list of all and every particular of that racing interior. It was a tedious job to a casual listener, this long rambling statement of the hostler, and he would not answer leading questions, but dilated at length about horses at the stable who years ago had lost races they should have won, because his advice was not followed, and won races they might very well have lost, owing to a quiet tip given by him to the boss.
But the bushy-whiskered man was not impatient. He listened to it all, with an occasional interjection, and when at eleven o’clock the landlord turned them out, he started to walk back to Sydney, disdaining a conveyance, for he had much to think about, and the walk helped him.
“This John Vandy seems to be a straight goer,” said the bushy-whiskered man to himself, as he strode along, “and as proud as a peacock of his new charge. He hopes to make a pot out of her himself, so it’s hardly worth bothering with him. And he is too careful, curse him, to make it worth while fixing it up with a stable hand. He or his son feed and groom the mare themselves, and she is always under lock and key when not at exercise. Added to which, she is a vile-tempered brute for a stranger to go near at any time, so I must look in another direction. The light weight will not give them much choice in the way of a jockey. Only a lad can ride at that, and, of course, it will be a lad that Vandy knows and has employed before. He would not be likely to trust this great coup to a stranger if one he knew was to his hand. Proceeding so far, I have only to refer to the horses racing from this stable at or about this weight, and if I find one name more often mentioned than another I’ve got the article sought for.”
Next morning Huey was busy looking up the racing records in a file of the Referee. The search appeared to give him satisfaction, for he metaphorically patted himself on the back as he muttered, “Jack Butt’s the lad, not a doubt of it. Let me only find him and have five minutes’ plain English on the quiet, and the trick is done.”
Another interview by the bushy-whiskered man who, needless to say, was Huey himself with the beer-imbibing groom at Randwick, and he learned all he sought about Jack Butt.
“Yes, Jack Butt was in the stable—one of the boss’s apprentices—a stuck-up prig of a fellow—no good at the work at all, but was the best light-weight they had, so got a mount now and then—a lad with no spunk in him, a regular milksop, going to Sunday-school and all that kind of cat-lap. Why, I heard him ask Old Jack to-day for a day off to-morrow, so that he could go to one of these religious picnics they hold down the harbour.”
“And did the boss let him go?”
“Let him go? Of course he did. He thinks a lot of that lad, which is more than I do. Them white-livered chickens don’t agree with me.”
* * * * *
The committee of the Sons and Daughters of the Holy Brotherhood had chartered that commodious ferry steamer the Lord Nelson for an excursion to Middle Harbour, and the Sons and Daughters were invited to combine a day’s sea-air and virtue for the modest sum of eighteenpence.
When Huey stepped on board this craft at Circular Quay, arrayed in his bushy whiskers, a long black coat and white tie, he found the steamer crammed. Evidently the Sons and Daughters had rolled up in strong force, and brought their parents with them. And each and every one was decorated with a pink rosette, as though, having assumed a virtue, they wished to put a brand on it, so that the error should not be fallen into by the unregenerate of classing them with common people.
Amidst this concourse it took Huey some little time to find what he sought, but a pale young man, very thin and lanky, met his eye, seated in the bow. Huey turned his steps thither, and by a little bit of manoeuvring managed to place himself as though by chance next to the lad.
Jack Butt was the first to speak—
“Isn’t this beautiful, sir? To see all these Holy Brothers and Sisters coming out to enjoy themselves? I think everybody ought to be a Holy Brother, don’t you?”
Huey did. He even went so far as to buy a pink rosette of an obliging female close at hand and pin it on his coat, amidst general approval.
“I wish I could always be with the Brothers,” continued Butt, when they were well out in mid-harbour. “I am in a hateful business.”
“What is that?” asked Huey.
“My father bound me to a horse-trainer, and I’m a jockey; but my time is nearly up, and I want to leave it. So does mother want me; but what am I to do? Even if I tried to stop at my business I am growing too fast, and shall soon be too heavy, though I starve myself.”
“That is very sad,” responded Huey. “And what would you like to be?”
“Oh! I should like to go into the ministry; it’s such a beautiful life! No work to do, and eat as much as you like! There is nothing like it! I often wonder, don’t you, sir, that everybody isn’t a parson. So respectable and comfortable a life. But there’s the expense.”
“What expense?” said Huey, his eyes sparkling in spite of him.
“One has to go to college and study, and do nothing for two or three years but learn out of books, and that wants money, you know, sir.”
“How much?”
“Perhaps two or three hundred pounds; I don’t know exactly.”
“But don’t you earn money at your trade. I thought jockeys were well paid.”
“The fees, you mean? They are good enough. Only you see that as I am still serving my time, Mr. Vandy takes all the fees, and I only get my wages.”
“That is a shame,” said Huey.
“Yes, it’s very wrong; very unchristian, I often think.”
“Did you not say your master’s name was Vandy?”
“Yes.
“Jack Vandy, of Randwick, the trainer?”
“Yes, that’s his name, and where he lives.”
“And you have a mare in the stable named Bertha entered for the Sydney Cup?”
“Yes, we have; a vicious, bad-tempered brute, and I know, for I have to ride her every day.”
“That’s very singular,” mused Huey aloud. “I was only thinking of that mare this morning, and what a pity it would be if she should win.”
“Why a pity, sir?”
“Why, don’t you know her owner is a bookmaker? Alec Booth he is called, and he is not only that, which is bad enough, but he is an outrageous Freethinker, and has promised all his winnings in this race to build them a new hall.”
“How dreadful! Has he really?”
Allowing a little time for the full gravity of this statement to duly soak into the young man, Huey continued—
“I am not a very rich man myself, but I would rather lose £200 than this should take place. Think of the hundreds of poor souls who may be lost for ever!”
“Two hundred pounds!” repeated Butt slowly, “two hundred pounds! Would you really?”
“If I was sure it would serve a good cause, I would do so cheerfully.”
“Do you think my joining the ministry would be a good cause?”
“Nothing could be more worthy, and I take such an interest in your pious wish, that I will go further. If Bertha should happen to lose the Cup, which, of course, she is likely to, with so many horses running, I shall be so pleased that I will give you that £200, and, perhaps, a little more, if required for your studies. For I love to help young men, Christian young men, of course.”
Jack Butt surveyed his companion with a certain doubt. Though not a smart lad, he had not been several years at Randwick for nothing. This was very much like an offer to pull the horse, and that would be wicked. But he reflected, would it not be more wicked to aid this Freethinker in his horrible design? Had he not frequently pulled horses by the order of his master, and might he not pull one for such a good cause as his own entrance into the ministry? His mother would be so pleased, and he could eat what he liked. But a cautious scruple of prudence occurred to him.
“Would you mind putting that in writing, sir? Of course, as a Holy Brother, I trust you, but while it’s not in writing I can hardly believe it.”
“I will do more than that,” said Huey. “I will give you a post-dated cheque—that is, a cheque dated for payment after the race, and should the horse lose you can cash it, and should it win it might be stopped. At any rate, I could not do so much for you, but depend on me, I shall always take an interest in you. There are too few young men with your good sense.”