THE GAMBLER

CHAPTER I


An eight-mile drive over rain-washed Irish roads in the quick-falling
dust of autumn is an experience trying to the patience, even to the
temper, of the average Saxon. Yet James Milbanke made neither comment
nor objection as mile after mile of roadway spun away like a ribbon
behind him, as the mud rose in showers from the wheels of the
old-fashioned trap in which he sat, and the half-trained mare between
the shafts swerved now to the right, now to the left--her nervous
glance caught by the spectral shapes of the blackthorn hedges or the
motionless forms of the wayside donkeys, lying asleep in the ditches.
Perhaps this stoicism was the outcome of an innate power to endure;
perhaps it was a merely negative quality, illustrating the lack of that
doubtful blessing, imagination. But whatever its origin, it stood him
in good stead as he covered the long stretch of flat country that links
the south-eastern seaport of Muskeere with the remote fishing village
of Carrigmore and its outlying district of Orristown.

His outlook upon Ireland, like his outlook upon life, was untinged by
humour. He had seen no ground for amusement in the fact that he had
been the only passenger to alight from the train at the Muskeere
terminus, and consequently no ground for loneliness in the sight of the
solitary vehicle, dimly silhouetted against the murky sky, that had
awaited his coming. The ludicrous points of the scene: the primitive
railway station with its insufficient flickering lights, its little
knot of inquisitive idlers, its one porter--slovenly, amiable,
incorrigibly lazy--all contributing the unconscious background to his
own neat, conventional, totally alien personality, had left him
untouched.