Everybody seemed to think this was a very good idea, but when the Semi-drunk attempted to rise for the purpose of carrying it out, he was thrown down by a sudden lurch of the carriage on the top of the prostrate figure of the bugle man and by the time the others had assisted him back to his seat they had forgotten all about their plan of getting rid of Crass.
Meantime the speed of the vehicle had increased to a fearful rate.
Rushton and the other occupants of the little wagonette in front had been for some time shouting to them to moderate the pace of their horses, but as the driver of Crass’s brake was too drunk to understand what they said he took no notice, and they had no alternative but to increase their own speed to avoid being run down. The drunken driver now began to imagine that they were trying to race him, and became fired with the determination to pass them. It was a very narrow road, but there was just about room to do it, and he had sufficient confidence in his own skill with the ribbons to believe that he could get past in safety.
The terrified gesticulations and the shouts of Rushton’s party only served to infuriate him, because he imagined that they were jeering at him for not being able to overtake them. He stood up on the footboard and lashed the horses till they almost flew over the ground, while the carriage swayed and skidded in a fearful manner.
In front, the horses of Rushton’s conveyance were also galloping at top speed, the vehicle bounding and reeling from one side of the road to the other, whilst its terrified occupants, whose faces were blanched with apprehension, sat clinging to their seats and to each other, their eyes projecting from the sockets as they gazed back with terror at their pursuers, some of whom were encouraging the drunken driver with promises of quarts of beer, and urging on the horses with curses and yells.
Crass’s fat face was pallid with fear as he clung trembling to his seat. Another man, very drunk and oblivious of everything, was leaning over the side of the brake, spewing into the road, while the remainder, taking no interest in the race, amused themselves by singing—conducted by the Semi-drunk—as loud as they could roar:
“Has anyone seen a Germin band,
Germin Band, Germin Band?
I’ve been lookin’ about,
Pom—Pom, Pom, Pom, Pom!
“I’ve searched every pub, both near and far,
Near and far, near and far,
I want my Fritz,
What plays tiddley bits
On the big trombone!”
The other two brakes had fallen far behind. The one presided over by Hunter contained a mournful crew. Nimrod himself, from the effects of numerous drinks of ginger beer with secret dashes of gin in it, had become at length crying drunk, and sat weeping in gloomy silence beside the driver, a picture of lachrymose misery and but dimly conscious of his surroundings, and Slyme, who rode with Hunter because he was a fellow member of the Shining Light Chapel. Then there was another paperhanger—an unhappy wretch who was afflicted with religious mania; he had brought a lot of tracts with him which he had distributed to the other men, to the villagers of Tubberton and to anybody else who would take them.
Most of the other men who rode in Nimrod’s brake were of the “religious” working man type. Ignorant, shallow-pated dolts, without as much intellectuality as an average cat. Attendants at various PSAs and “Church Mission Halls” who went every Sunday afternoon to be lectured on their duty to their betters and to have their minds—save the mark!—addled and stultified by such persons as Rushton, Sweater, Didlum and Grinder, not to mention such mental specialists as the holy reverend Belchers and Boshers, and such persons as John Starr.