"No, thank you," said I; "I won't interfere with either of your performances."—"And if Hurst does drive home," was my mental determination, expressed to Leicester as far as a nod could do it, "I'll walk."
There was no difficulty in finding out the localities: the field in which the winning-flag was fixed was not far from the turnpike road, and conspicuous enough by the crowd already there collected. Of course, pretty nearly all the sporting characters among the gownsmen were there, the distance from the University being so trifling. Mounted on that seedy description of animal peculiar to Oxford livery-stables, which can never by any possibility be mistaken for anything but a hired affair, but will generally go all day, and scramble through almost anything; with showily mounted jockey-whips in their hands, bad cigars (at two guineas a-pound) in their mouths, bright blue scarfs, or something equivalent, round their necks—their neat white cords and tops (things which they did turn out well in Oxford) being the only really sportsmanlike article about them; flattering themselves they looked exceedingly knowing, and, in nine cases out of ten, being deceived therein most lamentably; clustered together in groups of four or five, discussing the merits of the horses, or listening, as to an oracle, to the opinion of some Oxford horse-dealer, delivered with insolent familiarity—here were the men who drank out of a fox's head, and recounted imaginary runs with the Heythrop. Happy was he amongst them, and a positive hero for the day, who could boast a speaking acquaintance with any of those anomalous individuals, at present enshrouded in great-coats, but soon to appear in all the varieties of jockey costume, known by the style and title of "gentlemen riders;" who could point out, confidentially, to his admiring companions, "Jack B——," and "Little M——," and announce, from authority, how many ounces under weight one was this morning, and how many blankets were put upon the other the night before, to enable him to come to the scales at all. Here and there, more plainly dressed, moving about quickly on their own thorough-breds, or talking to some neighbouring squire who knew the ground, were the few really sporting men belonging to the University; who kept hunters in Oxford, simply because they were used to keep them at home, and had been brought up to look upon fox-hunting as their future vocation. Lolling on their saddles, probably voting it all a bore, were two or three tufts, and their "tail;" and stuck into all sorts of vehicles, lawful and unlawful, buggies, drags, and tandems, were that ignoble herd, who, like myself, had come to the steeple-chase, just because it was the most convenient idleness at hand, and because other men were going. There were all sorts of people there besides, of course: carriages of all grades of pretension, containing pretty bonnets and ugly faces, in the usual proportion; "all the beauty and fashion of the neighbourhood," nevertheless, as the county paper assured us; and as I may venture to add, from personal observation, a very fair share of its disreputability and blackguardism besides.
After wandering for a short time among these various groups, Leicester halted us at last in front of one of those old-fashioned respectable-looking barouches, which one now so seldom sees, in which were seated a party, who turned out to consist of an uncle and aunt, and the pair of cousins before alluded to. Hurst and I were duly introduced; a ceremony which, for my own part, I could have very readily excused, when I discovered that the only pair of eyes in the party worth mentioning bestowed their glances almost exclusively on Horace, and any attempt at cutting into the conversation in that quarter was as hopeless, apparently, as ungracious. Our friend's taste in the article of cousins was undeniably correct; Flora Leicester was a most desirable person to have for a cousin; very pretty, very good-humoured, and (I am sure she was, though I pretend to no experience of the fact) very affectionate. If one could have put in any claim of kindred, even in the third or fourth degree, it would have been a case in which to stickle hard for the full privileges of relationship. As matters stood, it was trying enough to the sensibilities of us unfortunate bystanders, whose cousins were either ugly or at a distance; for the rest of our new acquaintances were not interesting. The younger sister was shy and insipid; the squire like ninety-nine squires in every hundred; and the lady-mother in a perpetual state of real or affected nervous agitation, to which her own family were happily insensible, but which taxed a stranger's polite sympathies pretty heavily. Though constantly in the habit, as she assured me, of accompanying her husband to race-courses, and enjoying the sport, she was always on the look-out for an accident, and was always having, as she said, narrow escapes; some indeed so very narrow, that, according to her own account, they ought to have had, by every rule of probability, fatal terminations. In fact, her tone might have led one to believe that she looked upon herself as an ill-used woman in getting off so easily—at least she was exceedingly angry when the younger daughter ventured to remark, en pendant to one of her most thrilling adventures, that "there was no great danger of an upset when the wheel stuck fast." Not content with putting her head out of the carriage every five minutes, to see if her own well-trained bays were standing quiet, as they always did, there was not a restive horse or awkward rider on the ground but attracted the good lady's ever watchful sense of danger. "He'll be thrown! I'm sure he will! foolish man, why don't he get off!" "Oh, oh! there they go! they're off, those horrid horses! they'll never stop 'em!" Such were the interjections, accompanied with extraordinary shudderings and drawings of the breath, with which Mrs John Leicester, her eyes fixed on some distant point, occasionally broke in upon the general conversation, sometimes with a vehemence that startled even her nephew and eldest daughter, though, to do them justice, they paid very little attention to any of us.
Just as I was meditating something desperate, in order to relieve myself from the office of soother-general of Mrs Leicester's imaginary terrors, and to bring Flora's sunny face once more within my line of vision (she had been turning the back of her bonnet upon me perseveringly for the last ten minutes), a general commotion gave us notice that the horses were started, and the race begun. The hill on which we were stationed was close to the winning-post, and commanded a view of pretty nearly the whole ground from the start. The race was, I suppose, pretty nearly like other steeple-chases, and there is the less need for me to describe it, because a very full and particular account appeared in the Bell's Life next ensuing. The principal impressions which remain on my mind, are of a very smart gentleman in black and crimson, mounted on a very powerful bay, who seemed as if he had been taking it easy, who came in first, and after having been sufficiently admired by an innocent public, myself among the number, as the winner, turned out to have gone on the right hand instead of the left of some flag or other, and to have lost the race accordingly; and of a very dirty-looking person, who arrived some minute or two afterwards without a cap, whose jacket was green and his horse grey, so far as the mud left any colour visible, and who, to the great disappointment of the ladies especially, turned out to be the real hero after all.
We had made arrangements to have an independent beefsteak together after the race, in preference to joining the sporting ordinary announced as usual on such occasions; but the squire insisted on Leicester bringing us both to dine with his party at five. After a few modest and conscientious scruples on my part, at intruding on the hospitality of comparative strangers, and a strong private remonstrance from Hurst, on the impropriety of sitting down to dinner with ladies in a surtout and white cords, we accepted the invitation, and betook ourselves to kill the intervening hour or so as we best could.
"Well, Horace," said I, as Hurst went off to make his apology for a toilette—"how are you going to settle about the driving home?"
"Oh! never fear; I'll manage it: I have just seen Miller and Fane; they've got a drag over here, and there's lots of room inside; so they've promised to take Hurst home with them, if we can only manage to leave him behind: they are going to dine here, and are sure not to go home till late; and we must be off early, you know, because I have some men coming to supper; so we'll leave our friend behind, somehow or other. A painful necessity, I admit; but it must be done, even if I have to lock him up in the stable."
Leicester seemed to have more confidence in his own resources than I had; but he was in too great a state of excitement to listen to any demurrers of mine on the point, and hurried us off to join his friends. Ushered into the drawing-room A.1. of the Saracen's Head, we found la bella Flora awaiting us alone, the rest of the family being not as yet visible. There was not the slightest necessity for inquiring whether she felt fatigued, for she was looking even more lovely than in the morning; or whether she had been amused or not, for if the steeple-chase had not delighted her, something else had, for there was a radiant smile on her face which could not be mistaken. Hurst was cut short rather abruptly in a speech which appeared tending towards a compliment, by Leicester's inquiring—"My good fellow, have you seen the horses fed?"
"No, upon my word," said Hurst, "I"——
"Well, I have then; but I wish you would just step across the yard, and see if that stupid ostler has rubbed them dry, as I told him. You understand those things, I know, Hurst—the fellows won't humbug you very easily; as to Hawthorne, I wouldn't trust him to see to anything of the sort. Flora here knows more about a horse than he does."