At the Budgeree Hotel a desultory conversation was kept up for another hour between such choice spirits who stood in need of the ultimate refreshment of a glass of grog and a quiet pipe; but the wonders and experiences of the day had so taxed the energies of Mr. Effingham and his sons that the latter fell asleep before Fred Churbett had time to offer six to four on St. Andrew for the steeplechase, or Hamilton to qualify young Beanstalk’s rapturous declaration that Christabel Rockley looked like a real thorough-bred angel, and that there wasn’t a girl from here to Sydney fit to hold a candle to her.
CHAPTER XI
MR. BOB CLARKE SCHOOLS KING OF THE VALLEY
The eventful day at length arrived. How many hundreds would have been disappointed if it had rained! From the sporting squatters, who looked out of window to see if the weather was favourable for Harlequin or Vivandière, to the farmer’s son, busy at sunrise grooming his unaccustomed steed, and pulling the superfluous hair from that grass-fed charger’s mane and tail, while his sister or cousin danced with joy, even before she donned the wide straw hat and alpaca skirt, with the favourably disposed bow of pink or blue ribbon, in which to be beautiful for the day.
And what more innocent pleasure? So very seldom comes it in the long months of inland farming life, that no moralist need grudge it to his fellow-creatures for whom fate has not provided the proverbial silver spoon. That brown-cheeked youngster believes that his bay Camerton colt, broken in by himself, will make a sensation on the course; perhaps pull off a ten-pound sweep in the Hurry-scurry Hack-race (post entry), and he looks forward with eager anticipation to the running for the Town Plate and the steeplechase. Besides, he has not been in town since he took in the last load of wheat. It is slow at home sometimes, though there is plenty of work to do; and he has not seen a new face or heard a new voice since he doesn’t know when.
In sister Jane’s heart, whose cheek owns a deeper glow this morning, what unaccustomed thoughts are contending for the mastery.
‘Will it not be a grand meeting, with ever so many more people there than last year? And the gentlefolks and the young ladies, she does like so to see how they dress and how they look. It is worth a dozen fashion books. Such fun, too, is a sweeping gallop round the course, and to feel the breeze blow back her hair. Everything looks splendid, and the lunch in the pavilion is grand, and every one so polite. Besides, there is Ben Anderson that she knows “just to speak to”; she saw him at a school feast last year, and he is certainly very nice looking; he said he would be sure to be at the Yass races. She wonders whether he will be there; nobody wants him, of course, if he likes to stay away—but still he might come; his father has a farm away to the westward.’
So the rhythm of human life, hope or fear, love or doubt, curiosity or sympathy, chimes on, the same and invariable in every land, in every age.
Thanks to the occasionally too fine climate of Australia, ‘the morning rose, a lovely sight,’ and if the sun flashed not ‘down on armour bright,’ he lit up a truly animated scene. Grooms, who long before day had fed and watered their precious charges, were now putting on the final polish, as if the fate of Europe depended upon the delicate limbs and satin-covered muscles. Owners, backers, jockeys, gentlemen riders, all these were collecting or volunteering information; while the ordinary business of the town—commercial, civil, or administrative—was suffered to drift, as being comparatively unimportant.
At an hour not far from nine o’clock the guests under the hospitable roof of the Budgeree Hotel were assembled at the breakfast-table. What a meal! What a feast for the gods was that noble refection! What joyous anticipation of pleasure was on all sides indulged in! What mirthful conversation, unchecked, unceasing! There had been, it would seem, a dinner and a small party at Horace Bower’s, and, strange to say, every one had there enjoyed themselves much after the same fashion as at Rockley’s. Bower had been in great form—was really the cleverest, the most amusing fellow in the world. Mrs. Bower was awfully handsome, and her sister, just arrived from Sydney, was a regular stunner, would cut down all before her. Mrs. Snowden had been there too—smartest woman in the district; seen society everywhere—and so on.
A race day owns no tremendous possibilities, yet is there a savour of strife and doom mingled with the mimic warfare. Many a backer knows that serious issues hang upon the favourite’s speed and stamina; on even less, on chance or accident. The steeplechase rider risks life and limb; it may be that ‘darkness shall cover his eyes,’ that from a crushing fall he may rise no more.