Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/311

Rh during the Afghan war many of our troops perished in it.

But I must now draw these papers to a close. From Pesháwar there was only the long drive across the Panjab to Lahore, and from Lahore the railway to Bombay. This was in the end of December; and all across the country of the five rivers, afar off, high above the golden dust-haze, there gleamed the snowy summits of the giant mountains whose whole line I had traversed in their central and loftiest valleys. The next snow I beheld was on the peak of Cretan Ida; but I had seen the great Abode of the Gods, where,

 

 From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.

 

morning was the first of the race-meeting, and Yorke, who had never seen any races in India, or indeed anywhere else, would fain have been present, but duty forbade. Devotion must have a final canter, and moreover Spragge had discovered hard by a neighbouring village a wall almost a facsimile of that put up on the course, stiffer if anything, but with a good take-off. "The very thing to practise the little horse at; he'll do everything else all right enough, the game little beggar! but there is no saying how he might behave if he came across a new kind of jump for the first time. Nothing like practice." And accordingly, while all the rest of the station were driving down to the race-course, which was at the extreme end of the station, on the flank of the native-cavalry parade, Yorke and Spragge (for the good-natured fellow had given up the races to accompany his friend) cantered across the plain in the other direction in quest of the exemplar which the latter had discovered, a rare form of enclosure in those parts. In truth, in the early morning, with no hounds to follow or excitement of any sort, it looked a formidable thing to face. Yorke, however, did not stop to think, but cantered straight at it; and the little horse, feeling the rider's purpose in his firm hand and steady grip, swerved not to right or left, but cleared the wall without touching.

"Bravo!" called out Jerry to his friend on the other side; "four feet six, if it's an inch, and looks five, and that one on the course is barely as much. Well done, again!" he cried, as Yorke, cantering back, took the wall a second time. "What a good-plucked little horse it is, to be sure, and he not fourteen three! If the pace does not get forced too much, but he has time to take his fences quietly, I don't believe there's one of them can come near him. Now then, Arty, pop him over just once more and back again, so that he may know what a mud wall is like when he sees it, and then that will be enough for the old boy." Which feat accomplished, and the grey having had his gallop in a circuit over the neighbouring fields of young corn, while Spragge looked on approvingly, the two young officers returned slowly home. "Oh, by Jove!" said Spragge, "I wish I weighed a stone less than you, Arty, then you'd have to let me ride, instead of you; but these long legs of mine will never be of any use for racing," he continued, looking down ruefully at the members referred to, which indeed the diminutive pony he bestrode barely kept from touching the ground.

Yorke had the satisfaction of hearing casually at mess that evening that the commissioner and his daughter were not at the morning's races, but were expected to be present the next day.

At last came the eventful morning, with a sky cloudless as usual at that season of the year, and a pleasant fresh air, although it was the middle of February, so that overcoats and shawls came not amiss at first to the occupants of the grand stand. A few of the spectators were on horseback, being thus able to see the start for the short races, and by cutting across to come in at the finish; but the majority took up their places in the grand stand, sheltered by the roof and by a clump of trees on one side from the rays of the rising sun. That spacious edifice, which could accommodate a hundred persons with ease, yet was pretty full on this occasion, was raised on pillars a few feet above the ground, with space underneath for the scales and for the servants engaged in making tea for the ladies. A small space on the left enclosed by hurdles was reserved as a paddock for the stewards and jockeys and for the saddling. Besides the greater part of the gentry, a considerable number of the European soldiers at the station were present, the men on foot, the sergeants