The Black Lion Inn

by Alfred Henry Lewis

For fear of discovery and woe to follow, I put my tickets in the hands of one who, while as poor as I, could yet be trusted. He was, if the Belle won, to cash them; and should I be observed at my sleight of hand work and made to fly, he would meet me in a near-by village with the proceeds.

At prompt two o’clock the race was called. There were bustling crowds of spectators; but none came near my hiding place, as Surething Pete had foreseen. The horses got off with the second trial. They trotted as steadily as clockwork. As the pair rounded the second curve they were coming like the wind; drivers leaning far forward in their sulkies, eagle of glance, steady of rein, soothing with encouraging words, and “sending them,” as the phrase is, for every inch. It was a splendid race and splendidly driven, with Rupert on the pole and a half length to the good. They flashed by my post like twin meteors.

As they passed I stepped free of my buttonwood; and then, as unerringly as one might send a bullet—for I had not been long enough from school to forget how to throw—my first pebble, full two ounces, caught the hurrying Rupert in mid-rib.

Mighty were the results. Prince Rupert leaped into the air—stumbled—came almost to a halt—then into the air a second time—and following that, went galloping and pitching down the course, his driver sawing and whipping in distracted alternation. Meanwhile, Creole Belle slipped away like a spirit in harness and finished a wide winner. I took in results from my buttonwood. There was no untoward excitement about the grandstand or among the judges. Good; I was not suspected!

There ensued a long wait; planted close to my tree I wearied with the aching length of it. Then Rupert and the Belle were on the track again. The gong sounded; I heard the word “Go!” even in my faraway hiding; the second heat was on. It was patterned of the first; the two took the curve and flew for the head of the stretch as they did before; Rupert on the pole and leading with half a length. I repeated the former success. The stone struck poor Rupert squarely. He shot straight toward the skies and all but fell in the sulky when he came down. It was near to ending matters; for Rupert regained his feet in scantiest time to get inside the distance flag before the Belle streamed under the wire.

Creole Belle! two straight heats! What a row and a roar went up about the pools! What hedging was done! From five to three on Rupert the odds shifted to seven to two on Creole Belle. I could hear the riot and interpret it. I clung closely to the protecting buttonwood; there was still a last act before the play was done.

It was the third heat. The pace, comparatively, was neither hot nor hard; the previous exertions of both Rupert and the Belle had worn away the wire edge and abated their appetites for any utmost speed. Relatively, however, conditions were equal and each as tired as the other; and as Rupert was the quicker in the get-away and never failed of the pole in the first quarter, the two as they neared me offered the old picture of Rupert on the rail and leading by half his length.

Had I owned a better chance of observation, I might have noted as Prince Rupert drew near the buttonwood that his mind was not at ease. He remembered those two biting flints; they were lessons not lost on him. As I stepped from concealment to hurl my last stone, it is to be believed that Rupert—his alarmed eyes roving for lions in his path—glimpsed me. Certain it is that as the missile flew from my hand, Rupert swerved across the track, the hub of his sulky narrowly missing the shoulder of the mare.

The sudden shift confused my markmanship, and instead of Rupert, the stone smote the driver on the ear and all but swept him from his seat. It did the work, however; whether from the stone, the whip, or that state of general perturbation wherein his fell experiences had left his nerves, Rupert went fairly to pieces. Before he was on his feet again and squared away, the Belle had won.

Peeping from my hiding place I could tell that my adroit interference in the late contest was becoming the subject of public concern. Rupert’s driver, still sitting in his sulky, was holding high his whip in professional invocation of the judges’ eyes. And that ill-used horseman was talking; at intervals he pointed with the utmost feeling towards my butonwood. Nor was his oratory without power; he had not discoursed long when amid an abundance of shouts and oaths and brandished canes, one thousand gentlemen of the turf were under head in my direction.