“See you to-morrow!” thought Railsford to himself, as he peered down. Suddenly an unwonted excitement manifested itself. This was occasioned by an impromptu race between two omnibuses and a hansom cab, which, having been all temporarily deserted by their rightful Jehus, had been boarded by three amateur charioteers and set in motion. The hero in charge of the hansom cab generously gave his more heavily-weighted competitors a start of fifty yards; and, standing up in his perch, shook his reins defiantly and smacked his whip, to the infinite delight of everyone but the licenced gentleman who was the nominal proprietor of the vehicle. Of the omnibuses, one got speedily into difficulties, owing to the charioteer getting the reins a trifle mixed and thereby spinning his vehicle round in a semicircle, and bringing it up finally in the middle of the lawn, where he abruptly vacated his post and retired into private life.
The other omnibuses had a more glorious career. The horses were spirited, and entered into the fun of the thing almost as much as their driver. Railsford long remembered the picture which this youthful hero presented; with his face flushed, his head bare, his sandy hair waving in the breeze, his body laid back at an obtuse angle, as he tugged with both hands at the reins. The cab behind came on apace, its jaunty Jehu flourishing his whip and shouting loudly to his opponent to keep his right side. The crowd forgot everything else, and flocked across the grass with loud cheers for the champions.
“Wire in, hansom,” shouted some.
“Stick to it, Dig,” cried others.
How the mad career might have ended no one could tell; but at each corner the cab closed in ominously with its clumsy competitor, whose horses were fast getting beyond the control of their driver, while the vehicle they were dragging rocked and yawed behind them like a tug in a gale. Railsford was meditating a descent on to the scene, with a view to prevent a catastrophe, if possible, when a shout of laughter greeted the appearance on the scene of the lawful master of the omnibus, in headlong pursuit of his property. By an adroit cut across the grass this outraged gentleman succeeded in overtaking the vehicle and boarding it by the step behind; and then, amid delighted shouts of “Whip behind, Dig!” the spectators watched the owner skip up the steps and along the top, just as “Dig,” having received timely warning of his peril, dropped the reins and skipped the contrary way along the top and down the back stairs, depositing himself neatly on terra firma, where, with admirable sang-froid, he joined the spectators and triumphed in the final pulling up of the omnibus, and the consequent abandonment of the race by the indignant hero of the hansom cab, who protested in mock heroics that he was winning hand over hand, and would have licked the ’bus to fits if Dig hadn’t funked it.
In the altercation which ensued the company generally took no part, and returned, braced up and fortified by their few minutes’ sport, to the serious business of identifying and extricating their luggage from the general mêlée, and conveying themselves and their belongings into winter quarters.
The new master was impressed by what he had seen—not altogether unfavourably. True, it upset in a moment all his dreams of carrying Grandcourt by the quiet magic of his own influence to the high level he had arranged for it. Still, the race had been a pretty one while it lasted, and both competitors had handled the ribbons well. They would be the sort of boys to take to him—an old ’Varsity Blue; and he would meet them half-way. Railsford’s house should get a name for pluck and esprit de corps; and Railsford and his boys should show the way to Grandcourt! How Dr Ponsford and the “session of masters” would follow their lead it did not at present enter into the head of the vain young man to settle.
A knock came at his door as he stood lost in these pleasing reflections, and Grover entered.
“Here you are, then, old man,” said he—“an old stager already. It was a great disappointment I could not be here when you got down.”
“I wish you had. I have had not exactly a gay time of it.”