Ravenshoe. By Henry Kingsley.

THE DERBY. 217
"Dead, they say, or dying. He is in a fit."
"I ought to go to him, Welter, in common decency."
" Go home, I tell you. Get the things you know of packed,
and taken to one of the hotels at London Bridge. Any name will
do. Be at home to-night, dressed, in a state of jubilation; and
keep a couple of hundred pounds in the house. Here, you fellows! her ladyship's horses, - look sharp! "
Poor little Dicky Ferrers had heard more than he intended;
but Lord Welter'in his madness had not noticed him. He did n't
use his pea-shooter going home, and spoke very little. There
was a party of all of them in Hornby's rooms that night, and
Dicky was so dull at first, that his brother made some excuse to
get him by himself, and say a few eager, affectionate words to
him.
"Dick, my child, you have lost some money. How much?
You shall have it to-morrow."
"Not half a half-penny, Bob; but I was with Lady Welter
just after the race, and I heard more than I ought to have
heard."
" You could n't help it, I hope."
I ought to have helped it; but it was so sudden, I could n't
help it. And now I can't ease my mind by telling anybody."
" I suppose it was some rascality of Welter's," said Sir Robert,
laughing. "It don't much matter; only don't tell any one, you
know." And then they went in again, and Dicky never told any
one till every one knew.
For it came out soon that Lord Ascot had been madly betting,
by commission, against his own horse, and that forty years' rents
of his estates would n't set my lord on his legs again. With his
usual irresolution, he had changed his policy, partly owing, I
fear, to our dear old friend Lady Ascot's perpetual croaking
about " Ramoneur blood," and its staying qualities. So, after
betting such a sum on his own horse as gave the betting world
confidence, and excusing himself by pleading his well-known
poverty from going further, he had hedged, by commission; and
could his horse have lost, he would have won enough to set
matters right at Ranford. He dared not ask a great jockey to
ride for him under such circumstances, and so he puffed one of
his own lads to the world, and broke with Wells. The lad had
sold him like a sheep. Meanwhile, thinking himself a man of
honor, poor fool, he had raised every farthing possible on his
estate to meet his engagements on the turf in case of failure,in case of.his horse winning by some mischance, if such a thing
could be. And so it came about that the men of the turf were
all honorably paid, and he and his tradesmen were ruined. The
estates were entailed; but for thirty years Ranford must be in
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