‘I don’t see the mare!’ said Jasper, looking around.
‘We’re keeping her quiet till the last minute,’ whispered his friend. ‘No use in letting her chafe here, teased by sun and flies. There, though, is the bell for saddling; and here she comes.’
And as Captain Prodgers spoke, a Homeric burst of laughter from the mob, peal upon peal, announced that something had tickled the fancy of the populace. That something was soon seen to be no other than Norah Creina, looking even uglier, as she was led into the inclosure, than she had done in the stable; a lengthy, clumsy, ungainly creature to look upon, and wearing a bridle of a peculiar and cumbrous construction, fitted with a muzzle and blinkers, and somewhat similar to that employed in horse-taming by the late Professor Rarey.
‘There’s a beauty for you!’ cried out, in the midst of ironical cheers and merriment, a scoffer in drab gaiters.
‘Take care of her, gentlemen—she bites!’ bawled another voice; and there was tittering among the spectators in carriages and unrestrained guffaws amidst the populace.
‘Do you mean, seriously, that the mare is to run in that hideous-looking contrivance?’ demanded Jasper sharply and with displeasure in his face, of his ally. ‘I’m not a mountebank, I suppose, that I should be made publicly ridiculous on the back of such a horse. A man might as well stand in the pillory as’——
‘How many hundreds will be in your pocket, Denzil, and thousands in mine, what with bets and stakes, if Norah Creina comes in first?’ interrupted Prodgers earnestly. ‘Let those laugh that win. They are waiting for us yonder in the weighing-stand.’
Of all the candidates for success who, seated in their saddles, took one by one their turn at the scales, the only two who attracted much attention were Jasper Denzil and Captain Hanger; the latter because he was to ride the favourite, the former because he had consented to exhibit himself on so very extraordinary an animal as Norah Creina.
‘I’ve known a dark horse to win a race,’ remarked one veteran, as he booked a trifling wager on the Irish mare.
‘Not with a muzzle though, George!’ replied a contemporary, with twinkling eyes.