Chapter XI · CHESTERS' "MILD PLAY."

Like many other apartments—even the bedrooms—at Chesterhaugh, the little parlour was hung with pictures of lean, bony, gaunt horses, with little particoloured jockies perched on them; and Cyril, as he cast a glance at them, thought by contrast of the soft and tender works by Greuze, the sombre Titians, the Raphaels, the Canalettis, and Correggios, which adorned the walls of Willowdean, interspersed with stately and creditable looking portraits of his forefathers, who had been all good men and true in the times of old.

Several packs of new cards, a dice-box, &c. were produced, and while carefully selecting a cigar each, cutting the ends thereof, and so forth, Cyril reverted to the subject of his favourite new horse.

"And so you like my bay hunter?"

"Amazingly! he has all the fine points of thoroughbred—an ample chest, compact body, broad loins, a small head and thin neck, the legs all bone and muscle; if with these he has the requisites of courage and temper——"

"I am sure he has both, though I have never tried him yet; but what the deuce shall I do with him if we go on foreign service?"

"You should have thought of that before buying him; but as the night is so cold, I would give him a warm mash with some nitre in it."

"A warm mash—why?"

"You came here at a rasping pace, and the animal may cool too much. I would have his eyes and nose spunged too, after your return."

"Do you think such necessary?" asked Cyril, with great simplicity. "I know you are a judge."

"Rather."

"I am somewhat ignorant of horses."

"Shall I ring for Trayner?"

"If you please."

Chesters lit his cigar and rang the bell, but on hearing steps approaching, he rose, and said—

"I'll speak to Trayner myself about it: excuse me for a moment," and quitting the room he gave some instructions to the groom in an undertone. Cyril afterwards remembered hearing an expression of surprise escape the man, but little suspecting the vile trickery to which his horse and himself were about to be subjected; he began to think, that could he reconcile or explain away the affair of the bill, Chesters was perhaps "not such a bad style of fellow, after all;" and no doubt the brandy-and-water he was imbibing went far to strengthen this conclusion.

"I've made it all right about your nag," said Chesters, reseating himself at the table and fixing his glass in his right eye; "and now for a little mild play—what is it to be, écarté or casino, or five-card cribbage?"

"What say you to écarté?"

"Well, Wedderburn, écarté be it—the regular gambler's game."

Chesters arranged the pack into thirty-two cards, withdrawing the twos, threes, fours, fives, and sixes.

"How many points shall we have?" asked Chesters.

"Five. Cut for the deal."

They did so, and it fell to Chesters.

"Take another jorum of the brandy-and-water. Do you like those cigars? I could spare you a hundred or so. Oh, no thanks at all: they are quite at your service. Three cards to you, and three to me."

While Chesters chatted thus, to throw the victim off his guard, the latter played in a careless manner that was usual with him, talking and smoking all the time, and quite unaware how the whole faculties of Chesters were absorbed in the game, which is one of a nature wherein foresight and nice calculation are of a necessity so requisite, and thus he was no match for his host, who, after permitting him to win two or three games at guinea points, proposed to increase the stakes to five guineas.

Now flushed with play, Cyril rashly assented, and the game went on.

"I mark the king!" said he. "By the way, that ring of yours, Chesters, is a splendid one."

"An onyx."

"So I see. Are those arms yours?"

"No; it belonged to that Frenchman, Louis De la Fosse, whom your father befriended. We played for it, and I won it."

"Did you actually take the poor fellow's ring? A family relic, perhaps!"

"Well, I might have lost mine but for my superior play. Bravo! that card plays out the four tricks."

"The world is apt to shake its head at such gaming as yours and his was."

"Pass the decanter. Deuce take the world and its head too; though it shake till palsied, what is it to me!" cried Chesters, laughing bitterly.

"But the world is censorious."

"So are all one's goodnatured friends—'d—d goodnatured friends,' as Scott, I think, calls them. The Frenchman, De la Fosse, lost some thousands to me by backing no less than three losing horses at the Derby."

Cyril found that he had rapidly lost nearly two hundred pounds, and declined to play more.

"Not even to have your revenge?" asked Chesters, with feigned surprise, in which something of disdain was mingled.

"No," was the curt reply.

"Why, man alive, what do you mean?" asked Chesters, in a slightly bullying tone, with his glass shining in his eye.

"Simply that somehow, Captain Chesters, I do not like your mode of playing."

"Then we'll drop this and try casino: it is a good game for two."

"Agreed—five guinea stakes, as before."

They cut for the deal, which fell to Cyril; but though he won several games, which only served still further to flush and excite him, in the end he found that he had no better luck than before; and ere long, instead of getting up Mr. Lennox's bill, he rose from the table minus two hundred and fifty pounds and had given his IOU for three hundred more. The time was close on midnight then, and he insisted on having his horse brought from the stables; so once more the acute Mr. William Trayner was summoned.

Already repenting deeply the extreme folly into which he had been lured by a man for whom he felt at heart only contempt, and resolving never more to pass the threshold of Chesterhaugh, Cyril—already pondering whether he would get the money lost from Robert or his doting mother—put on his riding gloves, took his whip, and descended the steps to where his bay horse stood in the starlight, champing on the bit and pawing the gravel with impatience.

Had he looked round at that moment, he might have detected a strange and unfathomable smile on the face of Chesters.

The horse seemed very restive, swaying away when he put his foot in the stirrup, so that he mounted with difficulty, and gathered up and shortened the reins.

"Allow me, for a moment," said Chesters; "there is something wrong about the curb chain, I think."

"The bridle's all right, sir," urged Trayner, who still held it in his hand, while Chesters very deliberately lengthened the straps a hole or two. "You'll do now, Wedderburn. Touch him with the spur. Good night."

"Good night; thanks," cried Cyril, and away his horse went like the wind; and he was barely clear of the lodge-gate before he found that the animal was totally unmanageable, and moreover had got the bit firmly between its teeth!