THE DEAD HEAT 133 



" Ah, Alice ! " said he, " I told you I should carry 

 your colours to the fore." 



" Thank God you did so ! This is your first and 

 last race, promise me." 



The Captain went back to Clough-bally-More 

 Castle ; but in a day or two he was non est, and his 

 creditors were done. 



The regiment had a jovial night of it. Fortescue's 

 health was drunk in bumper after bumper ; but he 

 was not there to acknowledge the compliment ; some 

 one else had him in charge. 



A short time after the Stiffshire were quartered 

 in Manchester, and the Colonel one day encountered 

 no less a person than Captain O'Eooney. 



" See now. Colonel," said the latter, " you must 

 bear me no ill-will. I did a shabby trick, I'll 

 allow, at the wall, but I was a ruined man. I'm 

 all right now. I've married a rich cotton-spinner's 

 widow with some three thousand a year ; but it's all 

 settled on her." 



Fortescue and Miss Gwynne are long ago 

 married ; and at the different race meetings that 

 they attended they often saw the celebrated Captain 

 O'Eooney performing ; but in all the numerous races 

 he was engaged in, he never rode — at any rate in a 

 steeple-chase — another dead heat. 



