The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

I.--An Officer of the Guards

A Guardsman at home is always luxuriously accommodated, and the Hon. Bertie Cecil, second son of Viscount Royallieu, was never behind his fellows in anything; besides, he was one of the crack officers of the 1st Life Guards, and ladies sent him pretty things enough to fill the Palais Royal.

Then Hon. Bertie was known generally in the brigade as "Beauty," and the appellative, gained at Eton, was in no way undeserved. His face, with as much delicacy and brilliancy as a woman's, was at once handsome, thoroughbred, languid, nonchalant with a certain latent recklessness, under the impassive calm of habit.

Life petted him and pampered him; lodged him like a prince, dined him like a king, and had never let him feel the want of all that is bought by money. How could he understand that he was not as rich a man as his oldest and closest comrade, Lord Rockingham, a Colossus, known as "the Seraph," the eldest son of the Duke of Lyonesse?

A quarrel with his father (whom he always alluded to as "Royal") reminded him that he was ruined; that he would get no help from the old lord, or from his elder brother, the heir. He was hopelessly in debt; nothing but the will of his creditors stood between him and the fatal hour when he must "send in his papers to sell," and be "nowhere" in the great race of life.

An appeal for money from his young brother, Berkeley, whom he really loved, forced Cecil to look, for the first time, blankly in the face of ruin that awaited him.

Berkeley, a boy of twenty, had been gambling, and came to Cecil, as he had come often enough before, with his tale of needs. It was £300 Berkeley wanted, and he had already borrowed £100 from a friend--a shameless piece of degradation in Cecil's code.

"It is no use to give you false hopes, young one," said Cecil gently. "I can do nothing. If the money were mine it should be yours at a word. But I am all downhill, and my bills may be called in at any moment."

"You are such chums with Rockingham, and he's as rich as all the Jews put together. What harm could there be if you asked him to lend you some money for me?"

Cecil's face darkened.

"You will bring some disgrace on us before you die, Berkeley," he said. "Have you no common knowledge of honour? If I did such a thing I should deserve to be hounded out of the Guards to-morrow. The only thing for you to do is to go down and tell Royal, he will sell every stick and stone for your sake."

"I would rather cut my throat," said the boy. "I have had so much from him lately."

But in the end he promised to go.

It was hard for Bertie to get it into his brain that he really was at the end of his resources. There still seemed one chance open to him. He was a fearless rider, and his horse, Forest King, was famous for its powers. He entered him for a great race at Baden, and piled on all he could, determined to be sunk or saved by the race. If he won he might be able to set things right for a time, and then family influence ought to procure him an advance in the Guards.

Forest King had never failed its master hitherto, and Bertie would have been saved by his faithful steed, but for the fact that a blackguardly turf welcher doctored the horse's mouth, and Forest King was beaten, and couldn't finish the course.

"Something ails King," said Cecil calmly, "he is fairly knocked off his legs. Some vet must look to him; ridden a yard further he will fall."

II "A Mystery--An Error"

Cecil knew that with the failure of Forest King had gone the last plank that saved him from ruin, perhaps the last chance that stood between him and dishonour. He had never looked on it as within the possibilities of hazard that the horse could be defeated, and the blow fell with crushing force; the fiercer because his indolence had persisted in ignoring his danger, and his whole character was so accustomed to ease and to enjoyment.

He got away from his companions, and wandered out alone into the gardens in the evening sunlight, throwing himself on a bench beneath a mountain-ash.

Here the little Lady Venetia, the eight-year-old sister of the colossal Seraph, found him, and Cecil roused himself, and smiled at her.

"They say you have lost all your money," said the child, "and I want you to take mine. It is my very own. Papa gives it to me to do just what I like with it. Please do take it."