In a mighty hurry.
"He wor in a mighty hurry," grumbled the man, as he stood listening for a few moments to the fast dying sounds of the horse's feet, and then stooped down to grope by the light of the lantern swinging to the sign-post, after the coin which Lee had flung down in discharge of the reckoning for the refreshment he had not stayed to enjoy. "Well, he must be a woundly wittol be sure, or his business is such a rare pressing one, that he can spare to pass by this;" and he gazed affectionately into the ale's clear amber deeps, "as if 'twere no more'n a cup o' fleet milk. Didn't the king's own self say, but t'other day, last time he comed by, and drinked his nippet o't, that naught o' the stuff in his Whitehall cellars don't hold a rushlight to't? Maaster'd be monsus put about, ef he comed to know of its being scorned so. Naa, Naa," he went on, putting the jack to his lips. "I shudn't dare let him knaw as my fine young gen'leman didn't drink so much as his neckum out o't;" and the charitable creature, to conceal the traveller's shortcoming, took a draught, so long and deep, that it absorbed two-thirds of the liquor, "there goes Sinkum—and," he said, drawing a long breath of satisfaction, and again contemplating the interior of the jug, "an' seein' as him as doan't knaa how to finish a job when he's begun't, but a poor sort o' creetur, why," and tipping up the jack, he emptied the remainder of its contents down his throat, "there goes Swankum after 'em." And having thus vindicated the honour of the house, he turned in to renew his interrupted slumbers.
The day dawns.
The rain had long ceased; the air smelt warm and fragrant, as, soon after daybreak, Lawrence Lee came in sight of the roof-tops of Newmarket showing sharp and dark against the clear gray sky, just rose-tinted with the hues of the rising sun, whose rays were gilding the smooth turfy down, till it gleamed like richest velvet. Very soft and pleasant it must have felt to the weary feet of Stars and Garters; though indeed as she alighted from the flinty road on to the elastic grass of the course, she carried herself so bravely, that none of the critical eyes she was now encountering could have guessed she had been an hour out of her stall. Who knows but that she was conscious that her laurels were at stake; for already, though it was barely six o'clock, the course was dotted with knots of gentlemen and trainers, and a host of hangers-on and loungers engaged in keen discussion of the pros and cons of their ventures, or watching the jockeys as they breathed their magnificent barbs and racers in a morning gallop.
The horseman.
"Who be he, I wunner?" enviously growled a mounted jockey as Lee dashed past. "Happen you caught sight of his colours, my lord?"
"Black," laughingly replied the gentleman thus addressed, a handsome man richly attired in a becoming morning suit. "By my faith, black as the very mischief's self, for aught I could see besides. Black as Old Nick and his nag. Eh, Master Alworth, was it not so?"
"Nay," replied the somewhat elderly, grizzled, beperiwigged gentleman to whom the other had appealed, as he leaned with one hand on his silver-knobbed ebony stick, and shaded his eyes with the other, to gaze after the strange horse and his rider. "Black to a certainty. But in my poor judgment the animal was such a Pegasus of grace and vigour, and his rider's countenance looked such a goodly one, that if ever our patron George of England wore a suit of sables."
"And bestrode a black charger?" gaily interrupted the other.
"Even so," bowed the elder man, with a twinkle in his kindly brown eyes; "why, I should have guessed him to be our champion saint in the flesh."