Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/316

304 his heart, but at that instant Mrs. Polwheedle and some other ladies emerged from the back of the stand.

"Oh, here is our gallant rider, safe and sound!" she exclaimed. "Colonel Tartar says you rode really very well, so you ought to feel proud; but upon my word you gave us ladies a regular fright. I declare I thought I should have fainted. You might have heard me scream right across the course. Really you young men ought to be more careful and not ride in this harum-scarum way."

"Here is the carriage, Olivia," called out the commissioner from the bottom of the steps; and almost before he knew how it happened, Yorke found himself driving away by the side of Mr. Cunningham, with his daughter, who insisted on taking the back seat, sitting opposite him.

"Knew the old girl would do the trick, if she didn't founder in the middle of the race," observed M'Intyre to Egan, as the two were engaged in bandaging Maid Marian's legs under a tree behind the stand.

"It's about the last job she's good for though, I expect," replied Egan, who now, his work accomplished, was refreshing himself with a No. 1 cheroot. "I felt uncommon nervous at starting, for she was as lame as a tree, but she got all right when she warmed up."

"I was in a funk too, I can tell you," replied the other, "when I saw Yorke going so well at the finish. It would have been uncommon awkward if he hadn't come to grief."

"Awkward! bless you, I could have passed him at any time; it was Gowett who had the race if the old horse hadn't bolted. I didn't think he could have gone such a bat. But Yorke would have done well if he had had something better under him. I didn't think he could ride like that; "I always thought him a muff."

"There, old lady," continued Mr. Egan, the bandaging completed, apostrophizing the winner, "now you'll do for the present. It don't much matter, though, if you have to be shot to-morrow; you have done our job for us this time at any rate." And, indeed, each of these gentlemen had won what is called a hatful on the transactions of the meeting — enough to enable them to take up all their promissory notes, and to keep them clear of the court of requests for some time to come. Nor was the result wonderful when the rumour now floating about the course was confirmed, due to the observation of a chance visitor from Bengal who happened to be present, that Maid Marian was no other than the celebrated Miranda, changed only by time and in name, winner of everything she had run for at Calcutta and Sonepore about eight years before, and which, after retiring from the turf, and thence running a downward career of hunter and hack, culminating in the inglorious office of drawing the deputy-collector of Hajeepore daily to and from cutchery in his buggy, and the deputy-collector's family for their evening airing in a palanquin carriage, had emerged from her retirement to earn one more victory — an event brought about by the circumstance of Mr. M'Intyre having chanced to pay a visit to his uncle, the judge of Hajeepore, during the previous cold season, and discovering there the old animal's retreat.

 

felt as if in a trance as he drove away from the race-course, sitting opposite to Miss Cunningham in the carriage he had been accustomed to view reverentially from a distance as if the chariot of a goddess; and when the young lady, declaring that he would catch cold in his thin silk jacket, insisted on wrapping her spare shawl over his shoulders, even the presence of the commissioner and the mounted orderlies behind could hardly restrain him from seizing one of the slender hands which performed the office and carrying it to his lips. Withal he could not help feeling a sense of the incongruity of his position. Had he broken a couple of legs there might have been some excuse; but when, in fact, there was nothing the matter with him, was he not an impostor to allow himself to be petted in this way? Still it was inexpressibly delightful.

It seemed as if hardly a few seconds had passed when the swift-trotting horses turned off the road, through the hole in the mud wall which did duty for a gateway, and were pulled up before the veranda of Yorke's bungalow. Must then this vision of paradise end so quickly? Then a sudden fit of boldness seized the young man. It was getting late, and they had still a long way to go; would not Mr. and Miss Cunningham stop and breakfast? The commissioner said something about having to be early in court, and that Colonel Falkland, who was to ride back, would be waiting breakfast for them. Well, then, pleaded Yorke, they