Yet not a mistake was made at the first fence. To lookers-on from the Stand, all the horses seemed to charge it abreast, as their tails went up simultaneously, while they kicked the bank like lightning, and darted off again faster than before, but turning a little to the right, though the ground sloped in their favour, half-a-dozen were seen lengthening out in front of the rest, and it seemed as if the pace was already beginning to tell.
"Fandango still leading," said the General, scanning the race through his glasses, and thinking aloud as people always do on such occasions. "St. George and Satanella close behind, and—yes—by Jove it is! the little mud-coloured horse, Shaneen, lying fourth. Over you go! Ah, one down—two—another! I fear that poor fellow's hurt! Look at the loose horse galloping on with them! Well done! They're all over the brook! St. George second! What a fine goer he is! And now they're coming to the Big Double!"
But the Big Double is so far from the Stand that we will place ourselves by the Roscommon farmer on a knoll that commands it, and watch with him the gallant sight offered by such a field of horses charging a fence like the side of a house at racing pace.
"Augh, Captain! keep steady now, for the love of the Virgin!" roared Denis, as if Daisy, a quarter of a mile off, and going like the wind, could possibly hear him. "More power to the little harse! He's leading them yet! Nivir say it! the Englishman has the fut of him! Ah, catch hoult of his head, ye omadawn![5] He'll never see to change av' you're loosin' him off that way! Now, let the mare at it, Captain! She's doin' beautiful! An' little Shaneen on her quarters! It's keepin' time, he is, like a fiddler! Ah, be aisy, you in scarlet! By the mortial, there's a lep for ye! Whooroo!!! Did ever man see the like of that?"
It was indeed a heavy and hideous fall. St. George—whose education in the country of his adoption had been systematically carried out—could change his footing with perfect security on the narrowest bank that was ever thrown up with a spade. To the astonishment of his own and every other jockey in the race, his "on and off" at all the preceding fences had been quick and well-timed as that of Shaneen himself; but his blood got up when he had taken the brook in his stride. He could pull hard on occasion. Ten lengths from the Big Double he was out of his rider's hand, and going as fast as he could drive. Therefore Denis desired that gentleman to "catch hoult;" but with all his skill—for never was man less "an omadawn" in the saddle—his horse had broke away, and was doing with him what it liked.
Seeing the enormous size of the obstacle before him, St. George put on a yet more infuriated rush, and with a marvellous spring, that is talked of to this day, cleared the whole thing—broad-topped bank, double ditches, and all—in his stride, covering nearly eleven yards, by an effort that carried him fairly over from field to field: nothing but consummate horsemanship in his jockey—a tact that detects the exact moment when it is destruction to interfere—enabled the animal to perform so extraordinary a feat. But, alas! where he landed the surface was poached and trodden. His next stride brought him on his head; the succeeding one rolled him over with a broken thigh, and the gallant, generous, high-couraged St. George never rose again!
The appearance of the race was now considerably altered. Fandango dropped into the rear at once—there was nothing more for him to do in the absence of his stable-companion, and indeed he had shot his bolt ere half the distance was accomplished. The pace decreased slightly after the accident to St. George, and as they bounded over the wall, nearly together, not a man on the course doubted but that the contest lay between the first three—Satanella, Leprauchan, and Shaneen. Of these, the mare so far as could be judged by spectators in the stand, seemed freshest and fullest of running. Already they were laying a trifle of odds on her in the Ring.
Now Daisy had planned the whole thing out in his own mind, and hitherto all had gone exactly as he wished. In Satanella's staying powers he had implicit confidence, and he intended, from the first, that if he could have the race run to suit him, he would win it about a mile from home. After crossing the wall, therefore, he came away faster than ever, the leaps were easy, the ground inclined in his favour, and he rattled along at a pace that was telling visibly on Leprauchan, who nevertheless kept abreast of him, while little Shaneen, lying four lengths behind, neither lessened nor increased his distance from the leaders, but galloped doggedly on, in exactly the same form as when he started.
"Never saw a steeple-chase run so fast!" said everybody in the stand. "Why, the time will be as good as the Liverpool."