I have mentioned previously the wonderful edibles offered for sale in the town; but those brought on to the Heath are stranger still, the chief of them consisting of acid-drops and butter-scotch. You meet vendors of these everywhere; and, stranger still, actually see grown men buying them. Whether they think they will bring them "luck"—and there is scarcely anything a regular "turfite" would not do if he thought it would bring him luck—or whether they imagine the taste of juvenile luxuries will restore the innocence of their youth, I do not know; but that they buy them and actually eat them is an undoubted fact. Apples, too, are sold; and once I saw a man selling prawns in the stand itself. Now fresh prawns for breakfast are very nice, and so is prawn-curry; but wind- and sun-dried prawns offered for consumption by themselves in the middle of the day are not very inviting, and I did not see anyone buy them. At the railway station also, when you are returning, you find a lot of women hawking ducks and chickens about, but I never saw anybody buy them. Indeed, it would be rather puzzling to know what to do with one if you did purchase it. You could not open your trunk and put it in; and if you did, I do not think it would travel well with your shirts, &c.; and to sit with a dead duck in your lap the whole way back to down would be trying.
Most interesting it is to go in the early morning to the training-grounds, and look at the racers at exercise. Here you see them in every stage, from the yearling just being led about quietly with a lunging rein on to the adult racer taking his final spin, previously to competing for some stake, and a finer spectacle than this last cannot be seen: the magnificent animal in perfect condition, his satin coat, showing the play of the muscles underneath, striding along at his top speed, untouched by whip or spur, is a perfect picture of beauty. You see many people out watching the horses, some merely through fondness for horseflesh, but many of the genus "tout." How people can be found weak enough to believe in their "tips" it is hard to conceive; for if a "trial" is properly managed, and the stable secrets well kept, not even the lads themselves know the weights the horses are run at, or even the exact distance, so the "tips" of these gentry must be the veriest guesses possible. They adopt wonderful disguises, under the fallacious idea that they shall not be detected. There is one constantly to be seen got up as a clergyman of the Church; and really, if you judged him by a passing glance, you would think he was some indefatigable pastor going to visit some sick member of his flock; but if you looked closely at him, you would see that if he had a flock it would be uncommonly closely shorn. He might more correctly be termed "a Baptist," so often has he received the rite by total immersion in a horse-pond, stable-lads being the officiating ministers, and the frogs at the bottom his sponsors.
But there is "a thorn in every rose," and there is a very large one at Newmarket in the shape of a church, with a squat square tower containing a peal of the most abominable bells in England, I should think; they are all about a semitone out of tune, and the effect is aggravating past description—far worse than the ding-dong-spat of the three bells you so often hear in old-fashioned village churches, where two of the bells have no relation in tone to one another, and the third is cracked. These wretched things jangle and clash for, I should think, half an hour every day about eleven; and I find the idea among the aborigines is that they are playing a tune, but the effect of the performance on a musical ear is excruciating. But, apart from this, few pleasanter places can be found at which to pass some days than Newmarket during a fine autumn meeting.
One word in conclusion. If anyone intends to bet at Newmarket, never take a Newmarket "tip" unless it is very strongly corroborated elsewhere; for the true Newmarket man firmly believes, in spite of all facts to the contrary, that no horse can win unless it has been trained there, and would rather back the veriest rip in existence hailing from headquarters than the best possible racer trained elsewhere.
KATE'S DAY WITH THE OLD HORSE
"Yes, Kate, we are as nearly as possible 'stone broke,' as your brother would say. The time seems to have come, my girl, when 'honour may be deemed dishonour, loyalty be called a crime,' at any rate in Ireland; and as we can't make our tenants pay rent, we must go."
The speaker was a massive-looking old gentleman with clean-cut, weather-beaten features, and a heavy white moustache. He had drawn his chair away from the breakfast table, and was still knitting his brows over his morning letters.
Poor old Lowry, like his fathers before him, had lived out of doors amongst his own tenantry all his life, with a joke and a half-crown for anyone who wanted them.
Almost all the harm he had ever done was to win a heart or two which he did not want, or drink a glass or two more than was good for him. For forty years he had paid rates and taxes, acted conscientiously as a magistrate, and filled several other onerous but unpaid offices for his Queen and such as are put in authority under her; he had drunk her health loyally every night since he first learnt to drink strong drink, and would have "knocked sparks out of" anyone who had spoken disrespectfully of her before him; and now the property which his fathers had honestly earned was left at the mercy of a league of avowed rebels, and he himself was branded as an enemy of the people. Had he and such as he been left to defend themselves, they would long ago have put an end to these enemies of honest men and of the State, but their hands were tied. They were bidden to wait for help, but no help came. Lowry was still too loyal to murmur openly against the Government which had ruined him, but he had just realized that their name and their loyalty were almost the only things left to him and Kate, his daughter, who sat playing nervously with an empty envelope and gazing out blankly and sadly upon the old park she loved until her deep blue eyes filled unconsciously with tears.