The crowd, however, were loud in their praises, patting me on the back, shaking my hand, and loading me with gifts of fruit and sweets.
When we came out for the third and last heat the sun was near setting, long shadows stretched over the dry grass, and a cool south-westerly breeze fanned our faces and blew the scraps of paper in which luncheons had been wrapped hither and thither among the crowd.
Barmaid had been well rubbed down and a couple of buckets of water poured over her, so that, barring an ugly mark on her stifle where she had struck, she looked almost as fresh as paint. She was led up to the humpy and I weighed out for the last time. Lean was not yet ready, and while we waited for him a man, more than half-tipsy, staggered up to the booth, leading his horse with a rein hung over his arm. The animal, evidently unused to a crowd, hung back, and only by dint of much persuasion was he at last brought close; then his liquor-soaked owner hooked the rein over the steelyard on which I had just weighed in and staggered to the counter for a drink.
The horse, already nervous and fidgety, was almost frightened to death by the noise of popping corks, breaking glass, and the mingled voices of the now noisy crowd. Suddenly, without warning, he started back, gave one, two, three desperate tugs at the rein—and down came the whole humpy, bringing with it, of course, those who had been sitting on the roof to enjoy the last heat of the steeplechase!
The bridle of stout plaited greenhide held, and after a few wild plunges the horse went careering madly away over the plain towards the acacia scrub, the steelyard still dangling from the rein.
The scene that ensued is entirely beyond me to describe. Beneath the boughs and rafters of the fallen humpy—kicking, cursing, and shouting—struggled forty or fifty men, fighting wildly to release themselves.
"Who the dickens done that?" "Get orf my 'ed, whoever you are!" "Here, pull us out o' this, somebody!"—all sorts of weird cries and exclamations floated out from the mix-up, until at last, with many oaths, they emerged one by one from their captivity.
Meanwhile the crowd, whooping excitedly, were trailing over the plain in the wake of the flying horse. Talk about "two souls with but a single thought," here were two hundred in similar case. Their thought, of course, was the scales, without which the steeplechase could not be decided.
There were men riding, men running, men in carts, men in buggies, men with coats and men without, all laughing, cursing, and calling, while off in front went the runaway. Away they all sailed helter-skelter, some spreading out to the right and left to head the horse off before he reached the scrub.
Fortunately for all of us the fugitive's progress was hampered by the dangling scales, and so he was ultimately turned back, caught, and led triumphantly to the scene of the wrecked humpy, where the scales were hung to the bough of a tree, Lean weighed, and all was once more ready for the final.