“All right!” said I with a sort of impulse, “I’ll take it.” And so I did.
I had to start just under the arch of the Cashmere gate, by a pistol shot, fired from overhead. I didn’t quite care for the look of the pony’s ears while I was waiting for it—the crowd had frightened him a bit I think. By Jove, when the bang came he reared straight up, dropped down again and stuck his forelegs out, reared again when I gave him the whip, every second of course telling against me.
“Here, let me help you,” shouted Biddy, jumping into the trap. His weight settled the business, down came the pony, and we went away like blazes.
The three umpires rode with us, one each side and one behind, at least that was the way at first, but I found the clattering of their hoofs made it next to impossible to hold the pony. I got them to keep back, and after that he went fairly steadily, but it was anxious work. The noise and excitement had told on him a lot, he had a tendency to break during all that six miles out, and he was in a lather before we got to Sufter Jung’s tomb. There were a lot of people waiting for me out there, some ladies on horseback, too, and there was a coffee-shop going, with drinks of all kinds. As I got near they began to call out, “You’re done, Paddy, thirty-four minutes gone already, you haven’t the ghost of a chance. Come and have a drink and look pleasant over it.”
I turned the pony, and Biddy and I jumped out. I went up to the table, snatched up a glass of brandy and filled my mouth with it, then went back to the pony, took him by the head, and sent a squirt of brandy up each nostril; I squirted the rest down his throat, went back to the table, swallowed half a tumbler of curaçoa or something, and was into the trap and off again, the whole thing not taking more than twenty seconds.
The business began to be pretty exciting after that. You can see four miles straight ahead of you on that road; and that day the police had special orders to keep it clear, so that it was a perfectly blank, white stretch as far as I could see. You know how one never seems to get any nearer to things on a road like that, and there was the clock hanging opposite to me on the splash board; I couldn’t look at it, but I could hear its beastly click-click through the trotting of the pony, and that was nearly as bad as seeing the minute hand going from pip to pip. But, by George, I pretty soon heard a worse kind of noise than that. It was a case of preserve me from my friends. The people who had gone out to Sufter Jung’s tomb on horseback to meet me, thought it would be a capital plan to come along after me and see the fun, and encourage me a bit—so they told me afterwards. The way they encouraged me was by galloping till they picked me up, and then hammering along behind me like a troop of cavalry till it was all I could do to keep the pony from breaking.
“You’ve got to win, Paddy,” calls out Mrs. Harry Le Bretton, galloping up alongside, “you promised you would!”
Mrs. Harry and I were great friends in those days—very sporting little woman, nearly as keen about the match as I was—but at that moment I couldn’t pick my words.
“Keep back!” I shouted to her; “keep back, for pity’s sake!”
It was too late—the next instant the pony was galloping. The penalty is that you have to pull up, and make the wheels turn in the opposite direction, and I just threw the pony on his haunches. He nearly came back into the cart, but the tremendous jerk gave the backward turn to the wheels and I was off again. Not even that kept the people back. Mrs. Le Bretton came alongside again to say something else to me, and I suddenly felt half mad from the clatter and the frightful strain of the pony on my arms.