She had wriggled and struggled through the rear, with such success that her way to the front row was obstructed only by the bodies of two small children. They were firmly wedged, yet not so firmly but that a determined young woman could detach them by exerting adequate pressure. This she did; and having loosened the little creatures from their foot-hold, she partly lifted, partly shoved them behind her and slipped into their places at the barrier. This high-handed act roused the resentment of a young man, the parent or guardian of the children. He wanted to know what she thought she was doing, shoving there, and told her that the kids had as much right to see the blooming show as she had, and he'd trouble her to give 'em back the place she'd taken. And it was then that the young woman revealed herself as remarkable. For she turned and bent upon that young man a pair of black brows with blue eyes smiling under them, and said to him in a vivid voice that penetrated to the Grand Stand, "Excuse me, but I do so want to see." And the young man, instead of making the obvious retort, took off his hat and begged her pardon and gave her more room than she had taken.
"Well," said Mr. Randall (for he had been observing her for some time with sidelong appreciation), "some people have a way with them."
"Some people have impudence," said Mrs. Randall.
"And if it was you or me, Bessie," Mrs. Ransome said, "it wouldn't have been made so easy for us."
"I see you wanting to shove anybody, Emmy," said her brother.
"If I did, I shouldn't begin with little innocent children. I should shove some one of my own size."
Then they were silent and paid no more attention to the young woman and her ways.
For far down at the end of the course the racers, the winners of the first four heats, were being ranged for the start, four abreast; the two young men from Putney and Wimbledon on the inside of the course, Fred Booty in the middle, and Ransome outside. Booty knew that, starting even with his rival, he hadn't much of a chance. As for the young men from Putney and Wimbledon, they would be nowhere.
Of those four young bodies, Ransome's was by far the finest. Even Booty, with his wild slenderness and faunlike grace, could not be compared with Ransome, so well knit, so perfect in every limb was he. Beside him the two young men from Putney and Wimbledon were distinctly weedy. He stood poised, with head uplifted, his keen mouth tight shut, his nostrils dilated, his eyes gazing forward, intent on the signal for the start. His brown hair, soaked in the sweat of the first heat and then sun-dried, was crisped and curled about his head. Under his white gauze "zephyr" and black running-drawers the charged muscles quivered. His whole body was a quivering vehicle for the leashed soul of speed.
The pistol-shot was fired. They let themselves go. From far up the course by the winning-post, where Winny leaned out over the barrier, it was as if at the first row of hurdles four bodies leaped into the air like one and wriggled there. At the sixth row, well in sight, two bodies, Booty and Ransome, soared clean and dropped together. Putney and Wimbledon rose wriggling close behind their drop. At the seventh row Ransome was in front, divided from Booty by an almost imperceptible interval. Putney and Wimbledon were several yards behind. At the eighth and the ninth hurdles he rose gloriously and alone; Booty dropped with a dull thud a yard behind him. Putney and Wimbledon were nowhere. Nobody looked at them as they went lolloping, unevenly, dejectedly, over their seventh hurdle.