“I go down on a drag which leaves the Pandemonium at twelve. I’ll take care to keep a seat for you, if you really are kind enough to go with me. I am really quite ashamed to avail myself of your kindness, when I know how anxious you must be to get back, and calm Mrs. Coverdale’s fears; but I feel your presence and your knowledge of the right way in which to deal with these people will be so invaluable to me, that I have not sufficient self-denial to deprive myself of them.”
“All serene! don’t make fine speeches about it,” rejoined Harry. “I’ve one or two places to call at, and I’ll meet you at the Frying Pan, as they call that diabolically named club of yours, five minutes before twelve; and, above all, don’t look so woe-begone, or you’ll have the odds against Don Pasquale increased to a frightful degree; put on a cool nonchalant air, like your precious friend and adviser, D’Almayne, who may thank his stars that the German Ocean lies between him and me just now, for I’d have horsewhipped him, as sure as I stand here, so that he should have spent the next fortnight in his bed at all events, and it would have been a mercy if I hadn’t broken some of his bones for him; but I’m glad he’s away, for, after all, I suppose one has no right to take the law into one’s own hands. Well, I must be off, but depend upon my meeting you, and in the meantime look alive, and don’t sit poring over that stupid betting-book; you’re in a mess, that I don’t deny, but that is no reason why you should lose heart: on the contrary, you’ll have need of all your pluck to get you through it. Never despond, man! when things come to the worst, they’re sure to mend. Look at me: since I received that letter from my little wife, and read your notable composition, I’m a different creature.” So saying, Coverdale resumed his hat, and was about to quit the room, when glancing at his companion’s countenance, he suddenly stopped.
“Alfred, my poor boy,” he said kindly, “I can’t leave you with such a face as that! listen to me, I’ll do all I can for you, to get you out of this scrape to-day, and very likely things may turn out better than we expect; but if the worst come to the worst, you have only to promise me two things, viz., to give up your intimacy with Horace D’Almayne, and not to enter a gambling-house again for the next ten years; and whatever money you require, shall be placed in your banker’s hands before settling-day.”
As he spoke, Lord Alfred grasped his hand, endeavoured to falter forth a few words of gratitude, but, utterly breaking down in the attempt, burst into tears.
Harry, nearly as much affected at the sight of his friend’s emotion, muttered, “Pshaw! there’s nothing to make a fuss about,” wrung his hand cordially, and hastily quitted the room.
At ten minutes to twelve a well-appointed drag, with four slapping greys, excited the admiration of street boys in the vicinity of the Pandemonium, by drawing up at the door of that fastest of clubs, and five minutes later, Harry Coverdale, habited in a loose dust-coloured wrapper, made his appearance, and tossing a small carpet-bag to one of the grooms, desired him to put it in the boot. Lord Alfred was eagerly waiting to receive him, and introduced him to sundry noble sportsmen, or men desiring so to be considered, who were to compose the live freight of the drag; one or two of them were old acquaintances of Coverdale’s, amongst them being the facetious Jack Beaupeep, who appeared in his usual charming spirits, and took an early opportunity of informing Coverdale, in the strictest confidence, that a certain young man, with pale and swollen features, who, he declared, lived only to play on the cornopean, might be expected to produce new and startling effects upon his next performance, he (Jack Beaupeep) having already contrived to insinuate percussion crackers into all three valves of his victim’s instrument. One minute before twelve a tall, good-looking man, attired in a white hat, and a wonderful driving cape, whose Christian name was William, and his patronymic Barrington, but who, from his passion for driving, was more commonly known by the sobriquet Billy Whipcord, descended the steps of the Pandemonium, and, arranging the reins scientifically between his fingers, mounted the box and assumed his seat, at the same time not taking, but bestowing, the oaths for the benefit of an obtuse helper, who had “presumed to buckle the off leader’s billet in the check, instead of the lower bar, when he knew the mare pulled like——” well, suppose we say, “like a steam-engine!” As the first stroke of twelve pealed from the high church steeple of St. Homonovus, which, as everybody knows, stands exactly opposite the Pandemonium, the aforesaid Billy Whipcord obligingly made his team a present of their respective heads, the attendant helpers seized the corners of the horsecloths which had hitherto guarded their thorough-bred loins from whatever may be the equine equivalent for lumbago, and jerked them off with a degree of energy which threatened to take hide and all together, with a bound and a plunge the denuded quadrupeds sprang forward, the boys cheered, the club servants performed pantomimic actions, indicative of admiration and respect, and the drag started.
Monsieur de Saulcy, Mr. Kinglake, and other travellers, French, English, and American, who take pleasure in going to the East to make mistakes about the site of Sodom and Gomorrah, hazard a futile hypothesis in regard to the Holy Sepulchre, or, in some similar fashion, exert themselves to prove that other than wise men come from the West in these latter days, inform us, that when a camel dies, vultures and other strange fowl suddenly congregate around the body, though in what way the intelligence (for those birds can have no Bell’s Life) reaches them, is a point on which no savant has yet been found wise enough to enlighten us—wherefore, in general terms, the fact is stated to result from instinct. By a like instinct do strange creatures mysteriously appear on the face of the earth, when a steeple-chase, or other sporting event, is arranged to come off in any given locality: human vultures, hawks, carrion-crows, bats, and owls, all (singular as an ornithologist may deem it) with very black legs, attracted by the fascinations of horse-flesh, assemble from the four quarters of—heaven, we were going to say, but, on second thoughts, we cannot so conclude the paragraph. Still, from whatever locality they come, come they do in flocks, and gather at certain points, whence they may witness the start, or, “the jump into the lane,” or, “crossing the brook,” or the “awkward place,” over which the horse that leaps, tumbles, or scrambles first, is safe to win, as their various tastes may lead them.
There is one feature in these affairs, for which we have never been able to account, viz., the mysterious presence of a certain average amount of babies; they invariably arrive in taxed carts, and entirely engross the mental and bodily faculties of one mother and one female and sympathetic friend each, so that every ten babies necessitate the presence of twenty women, who, from the moment they set out, to the time at which they return, never appear conscious of the race-course, the company, the jockeys, the horses, or, indeed, of anything save their infant tyrants. That these women can have brought the babies for their own pleasure, is an hypothesis so absurd, that no one who had seen the goings on of these young Pickles towards their parents and guardians, can for a moment entertain it; a more, perhaps the most, probable one is, that the infants come to please themselves, for, although we have never observed that they pay much attention to the strict business of the race, yet, in their own way, they appear to enjoy themselves very thoroughly. Their manners and customs are marked by an easy conviviality, and absence from the restraints which usually fetter society, which we can conceive must render their babyhood one epicurean scene of gay delight. Thus, monopolizing the best place in the cart, shaded by the family umbrella, and dressed in the latest fashion from Lilliput, these young Sybarites recline languidly on the maternal bosom, or sit erect, “mooing,” crowing, and “wa wa-ing” in the faces of the company generally, roaring at the sight of family friends whose acquaintance they do not desire to cultivate, or clawing at the eyes and hair of the select few whose homage they are willing graciously to receive. Then, wildly reckless of appearances, and consulting only their own ungoverned appetites, they not only resolve to dine in public, at the maternal expense, but when their desire has been gratified by their self-sacrificing parents, betray a thankless indifference to the safe custody of the good things afforded them, which renders their vicinity dangerous to all decently attired Christians (those only excepted, who consider a “milky way” the way in which they should go), during the remainder of the festivities. Thus (we say it boldly, though we know we are provoking the enmity of all our female readers, who consider a darling baby can never be de trop), we hereby declare our opinion, that by the laws of the Jockey Club, all dogs and infants found unmuzzled on any race-course, should be seized by the police, and instantly—————we leave the minds’ eyes of the anxious mothers of England to supply the blank. But we are slightly digressing.
As they reached the field whence the start was to take place, in which a booth or two and a very mild specimen of a grand stand had been erected, Harry found an opportunity to whisper to Lord Alfred——
“Now, remember what I told you; appear as cool as if you hadn’t sixpence depending on this race; if long odds are offered against the horse, take ’em; I’ll stand the risk up to a fifty-pounder; if it has transpired that Tirrett won’t ride for you, say quietly that you are provided with an efficient substitute—as soon as I see clearly how the land lies, I’ll tell you more.”