“Well, the way she cut dirt was cautionary; she cleared stumps, ditches, windfalls and every thing, and made a straight track of it for home as the crow flies. Oh, she was a dipper: she fairly flow again, and if ever she flagged, I laid it into her with the ash saplin, and away we started agin, as if Old Nick himself was arter us.
“But afore I reached home, the rest of the cows came a bellowin’, and a roarin’ and a-racin’ like mad arter us, and gained on us too, so as most to overtake us, jist as I come to the bars of the cow yard, over went Mooler, like a fox, brought me whap up agin ‘em, which knocked all the wind out of my lungs and the fire out of my eyes, and laid me sprawlin on the ground, and every one of the flock went right slap over me, all but one—poor Brindle. She never came home agin. Bear nabbed her, and tore her most ridiculous. He eat what he wanted, which was no trifle, I can tell you, and left the rest till next time.
“Don’t talk to me, Squire, about merits. We all want a lift in this world; sunthin’ or another to lay hold on, to help us along—we want the cow’s tail.
“Tell your friend, the female widder, she has got hold of the wrong cow by the tail in gettin’ hold of you, for you are nothin’ but a despisable colonist; but to look out for some patron here, some leadin’ man, or great lord, to clinch fast hold of him, and stick to him like a leach, and if he flags, (for patrons, like old Mooley, get tired sometimes), to recollect the ash saplin, to lay into him well, and keep him at it, and no fear but he’ll carry her through. He’ll fetch her home safe at last, and no mistake, depend on it, Squire. The best lesson that little boy could be taught, is, that of the Patron, or the Cows Tail.”
CHAPTER III. ASCOT RACES.
To-day I visited Ascot. Race-courses are similar every where, and present the same objects; good horses, cruel riders, knowing men, dupes, jockeys, gamblers, and a large assemblage of mixed company. But this is a gayer scene than most others; and every epithet, appropriate to a course, diminutive or otherwise, must be in the superlative degree when applied to Ascot. This is the general, and often the only impression that most men carry away with them.
Mr. Slick, who regards these things practically, called my attention to another view of it.
“Squire,” said he, “I’d a plaguy sight sooner see Ascot than any thing else to England. There ain’t nothin’ like it. I don’t mean the racin’, because they can’t go ahead like us, if they was to die for it. We have colts that can whip chain lightnin’, on a pinch. Old Clay trotted with it once all round an orchard, and beat it his whole length, but it singed his tail properly as he passed it, you may depend. It ain’t its runnin’ I speak of, therefore, though that ain’t mean nother; but it’s got another featur’, that you’ll know it by from all others. Oh it’s an everlastin’ pity you warn’t here, when I was to England last time. Queen was there then; and where she is, of coarse all the world and its wife is too. She warn’t there this year, and it sarves folks right. If I was an angelyferous queen, like her, I wouldn’t go nowhere till I had a tory minister, and then a feller that had a “trigger-eye” would stand a chance to get a white hemp-neckcloth. I don’t wonder Hume don’t like young England; for when that boy grows up, he’ll teach some folks that they had better let some folks alone, or some folks had better take care of some folks’ ampersands that’s all.
“The time I speak of, people went in their carriages, and not by railroad. Now, pr’aps you don’t know, in fact you can’t know, for you can’t cypher, colonists ain’t no good at figurs, but if you did know, the way to judge of a nation is by its private carriages. From Hyde Park corner to Ascot Heath, is twenty odd miles. Well, there was one whole endurin’ stream of carriages all the way, sometimes havin’ one or two eddies, and where the toll-gates stood, havin’ still water for ever so far. Well, it flowed and flowed on for hours and hours without stoppin’, like a river; and when you got up to the race-ground, there was the matter of two or three tiers of carriages, with the hosses off, packed as close as pins in a paper.