“It bean’t narra mossel o’ use for we chaps to start along wi’ thay light-heeled gentry,” said one,—“Whoy, look ’ee here, zur’s one, and yander’s another, wi’ a kind o’ dancin’ pumps on, and that ’un at tother end wi’ a cricketin’ waistcut.”
“And there’s two o’ them little jockey chaps amongst ’em, sumweres, Zur,” said another, looking about for these young gentlemen, who dodged behind some of the bigger candidates.
“How can we help that?” said the umpire.
“Auh, Zur, thay be all too nimble by half for we to be of any account to ’em,” persisted the first speaker. “If twur for the sticks now, or wrastling—”
“Well, but what shall we do then?” interrupted the umpire.
“Let I pick out ten or a dozen on ’em to run by theirselves.” The umpires proposed this to the rest, and, no one objecting, told Giles, the protester, to pick out the ten he was most afraid of. This Giles proceeded to do with a broad grin on his face, and generally seemed to make a good selection. But presently he arrived at, and after a short inspection passed over, a young fellow in his blue shirt-sleeves and a cloth cap, who to the umpire’s eye seemed a dangerous man.
“Why, Giles,” said he, “you’re never going to pass him over?”
“Auh, ees, Zur,” said Giles, “let he ’bide along wi’ we chaps. Dwont’ee zee, he’s a tipped and naayled ’un?”
When Giles had finished his selection, the first lot were started, and made a grand race; which was won by a Hampshire man from Kingsclere, the second man, not two feet behind, being a young Wiltshire farmer, who, having never been beaten in his own neighbourhood, had come to lose his laurels honourably at the Scouring.