Confessions Of Con Cregan Part 9

The crowd at last became so dense that hors.e.m.e.n were fain to desert the high road, and take short cuts wherever an open gate or an easily crossed fence opened the way. Following a group of well-mounted gentlemen, I cleared a low wall into a s.p.a.cious gra.s.s field, over which we cantered, and beyond this, by leaping an easy ditch, into another of the same kind, till at length we saw the vast crowds that blackened a hill in front, and, beneath them, could distinguish the fluttering flags that marked the course, and the large floating standard of the winning-post.

What a grand sight was that! For what is so imposing a spectacle as vast myriads of people stirred by one interest, and animated by one absorbing pa.s.sion? Every one has nowadays seen something of the kind, therefore I shall not linger to tell of the impression it made upon my youthful senses. The first race had already come off; but the second, and the great event of the day, was yet to take place.

It was a steeplechase by "gentlemen riders" over a very severe line of country; several fences of most break-neck character having been added to the natural difficulties of the ground.

Mounted on my splendid barb, I rode boldly forward till I reached the field through which the first ditch ran,--a deep and wide trench, backed by a low rail,--a very formidable leap, and requiring both stride and strength to clear it.

"Some of 'em will tail off, when they sees that!" said an English groom, with a knowing wink; and the words were only out when, at a "slapping canter," the riders were seen coming down the gently sloping hill. Three rode nearly abreast; then came a single horseman; and, after him, an indiscriminate ma.s.s, whose bright and party-colored jackets glowed like a rainbow.

I watched them with a breathless interest; as they came nearer they widened the s.p.a.ce between them, and each cast a rapid but stealthy glance at his neighbor. One--he rode a powerful black horse--took the lead, and, dashing at the leap, his horse rose too soon, and fell, chested against the opposite bank, the rider under him; the next swerved suddenly round and balked; the third did the same; so that the leading horseman was now he who rode alone at first. Quickening his speed as he came on, he seemed actually to fly; and when he did take the fence, it was like the bound of a cannon-shot,--up, and over at once! Of the rest, some two or three followed well; others pulled short up; while the larger share, in various forms of accident and misfortune, might be seen either struggling in the brook, or endeavoring to rescue their horses from the danger of broken legs and backs.

I did not wait to watch them; my interest was in those who gallantly led onward, and who now, some four in number, rode almost abreast. Among these, my favorite was the sky-blue jacket who had led the way over the d.y.k.e; and him did I follow with straining eyes and palpitating heart.

They were at this moment advancing towards a wall,--a high and strong one, and I thought, in the slackened pace and more gathered-up stride, I could read the caution a difficult leap enforced.

A brown jacket with white sleeves was the first to charge it; and after a tremendous scramble, in which the wall, the horse, and the rider were all tumbling together, he got over; but the animal went dead lame, and the rider, dismounting, led him off the ground.

Next came blue-jacket; and just at the very rise his mare balked, and, at the top of her speed, ran away along the side of the wall. A perfect roar of angry disappointment arose from the mult.i.tude, for she was the favorite of the country people, who were loudly indignant at this mischance.

"The race is sold!" cried one.

"Beatagh"--this was the rider--"pulled her round himself! the mare never was known to refuse a fence!"

"I say you're both wrong!" cried a third, whose excited manner showed he was no indifferent spectator of the scene. "She never will take her first wall fairly; after that she goes like a bird!"

"What a confounded nuisance to think that no one will lead her over the fence! Is there not one here will show her the way?" said he, looking around.

"There's the only fellow I see whose neck can afford it!" said another, pointing to me. "He, evidently, was never born to be killed in a steeplechase."

"Devilish well mounted he is, too!" remarked some one else.

"Hallo, my smart boy!" said he who before alluded to the mare as a bolter, "try your nag over that wall yonder,--go boldly. Let her have her head, and give her a sharp cut as she rises. Make way there, gentlemen!

Let the boy have fair play, and I 'll wager a five-pound note he does it! You shall have half the stakes too, if you win!" added he. These were the last words I heard; for the crowd, clearing in front, opened for me to advance, and without a moment's hesitation of any kind, I dashed my heels to the mare's flanks, and galloped forward. A loud shout, and a perfect shower of whips on the mare's quarter from the bystanders, put all question of pulling up beyond the reach of possibility. In a minute more I was at the wall, and, ere I well knew, over it. A few seconds after, the blue-jacket was beside me. "Well done, my lad! You've earned twenty guineas if I win the race! Lead the way a bit, and let your mare choose her ground when she leaps." This was all he said; but such words of encouragement never fell on my ears before.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 0089]

Before us were the others, now reduced to three in number, and evidently holding their stride and watching each other, never for a moment suspecting that the most feared compet.i.tor was fast creeping up behind them. One fence separated us, and over this I led again, sitting my mare with all the composure of an old steeplechaser. "Out of the way, now!"

cried my companion, "and let _me_ at them!" and he tore past me at a tremendous pace, shouting out, as he went by the rest, "Come along, my lads! I 'll show the way!"

And so he did! With all their efforts, and they were bold ones, they never overtook him afterwards. His mare took each fence flying, and as her speed was much greater than the others', she came in full half a minute in advance. The others arrived all together, crest fallen and disappointed, and, like all beaten men, receiving the most insulting comments from the mob, who are somewhat keen critics on misfortune. I came last, for I had dropped behind when I was ordered; but, unable to extricate my mare from the crowd, was compelled to ride the whole distance with the rest. If the losing hors.e.m.e.n were hooted and laughed at, _my_ approach was a kind of triumphal entry. "There's the chap that led over the wall! That little fellow rode the best of them all!" "See that ragged boy on the small mare; he could beat the field this minute!"

"'T is fifty guineas in goold ye ought to have, my chap!" said another,--a sentiment the unwashed on all sides seemed most heartily to subscribe to.

"Be my soul, I 'd rather be lookin' at him than the gentlemen!" said a very tattered individual, with a coat like a transparency. These, and a hundred similar comments, fell like hail-drops around; and I believe that in my momentary triumph I actually forgot all the dangers and perils of my offence.

It is a great occasion for rejoicing among the men of rags and wretchedness when a member of their own order has achieved anything like fame. The a.s.sertion of their ability to enter the lists with "their betters" is the very pleasantest of all flatteries. It is, so to say, a kind of skirmish, before that great battle which, one day or other, remains to be fought between the two cla.s.ses which divide mankind,-- those who have, and those who have not.

I little suspected that I was, to use the cant so popular at present, "the representative of a great principle" in my late success. I took all the praises bestowed, most literally, to myself, and shook hands with all the dirty and tattered mob, fully convinced that I was a very fine fellow.

"Mister Beatagh wants to see the boy that led him over the ditch,"

shouted out a huge, wide-shouldered, red-faced ruffian, as he shoved the crowd right and left to make way for the approach of the gentleman who had just won the race.

"Stand up bowld, avic!" whispered one in my ear, "and don't be ashamed to ax for your reward."

"Say ten guineas!" muttered another.

"No; but twenty!" growled out a third.

"And lashings of drink besides, for the present company!" suggested a big-headed cripple about two feet high.

"Are you the lad that took the fence before me?" cried out a smart-looking, red-whiskered young man, with a white surtout loosely thrown over his riding costume.

"Yes, sir," I replied, half modestly and half a.s.sured.

"Who are you, my boy, and where do you come from?"

"He's one of Betty Cobbe's chickens!" shouted out an old savage-faced beggar-man, who was terribly indignant at the great misdirection of public sympathy; "and a nice clutch they are!"

"What is it to you, Dan, where the crayture gets his bread?" rejoined an old newsvender, who, in all likelihood, had once been a parlor boarder in the same seminary.

"Never mind _them_, but answer me, my lad!" said the gentleman. "If you are willing to take service, and can find any one to recommend you--"

"Sure, we'll all go bail for him--to any amount!" shouted out the little crippled fellow, from his "bowl;" and certainly a most joyous burst of laughter ran through the crowd at the sentiment.

"Maybe ye think I'm not a householder," rejoined the fellow, with a grin of a.s.sumed anger; "but have n't I my own sugar hogshead to live in, and devil receave the lodger in the same premises!"

"I see there 's no chance of our being able to settle anything here,"

said the gentleman. "These good people think the matter more their own than ours; so meet to-morrow, my lad^at Dycer's, at twelve o'clock, and bring me anything that can speak for your character." As he said these few words he brushed the crowd to one side with his whip, and forcing his way, with the air of a man who would not be denied, left the place.

"And he 's laving the crayture without givin' him a farden!" cried one of the mob, who suddenly saw all the glorious fabric of a carouse and a drunken bout disappear like a mirage.

"Oh, the 'tarnal vagabond" shouted another, more indignantly; "to desart the child that a-way,--and he that won the race for him!"

"Will yez see the little crayture wronged?" said another, who appeared by his pretentious manner to be a practised street orator. "Will yez lave the dissolute orphan--" he meant "desolate"--"to be chayted out of his pater money? Are yez men at all? or are yez dirty slaves of the b.l.o.o.d.y 'stokessy' that's murderin' ould Ireland'?"

"We'll take charge of the orphan, and of you too, my smart fellow, if you don't brush off pretty lively!" said a policeman, as, followed by two others, he pushed through the crowd with that cool determination that seems to be actually an instinct with them. Then, laying a strong hand on my collar, he went on: "How did you come by that mare, my lad?"

"She belongs to Captain De Courcy, of the Royal Hospital," said I, doing my utmost to seem calm and collected.

"We know that already; what we want to hear is, what brought you here with her? It was n't Captain De Courcy's orders?"

"No, sir. I was told to hold her for him, and--and--"

"And so you rode off with her,--out with it, it saves time, my lad. Now, let me ask you another question: Have you any notion of the crime you have just committed? Do you know that it amounts to horse-stealing? And do you know what the penalty is for that offence?"

"No, sir; I know neither one nor the other," said I, resolutely; "and, if I did, it doesn't matter much. As well to live upon prison diet as to starve in the streets!"

"He's a bad 'un; I told ye that!" remarked another of the policemen.

"Take him off, Grimes!" and so, amid a very general but subdued murmur of pity and condolence from the crowd, I was dragged away on one side, while the mare was led off on another.