Page:The Berkeleys and their neighbors.djvu/25

 unhappy youngster, "to make the running—to make the running, hay?"

"M—m—marster, I 'clar to Gord, I thot' Dashaway wuz gw'in' to drap 'fo I git him to de half-mile pos'—"

"Drap—you scoundrel, drap! The blood of Sir Henry drap! You confounded rascal, you pulled that horse," etc., etc., etc.

Mrs. Peyton laughed. "It does my heart good to hear Tom Berkeley raging like that. It reminds me that we are not all dead or changed, as it seems to me sometimes. Your father and I have had passages-at-arms in my time, I can tell you, Olivia."

Clang! presently again. It is the saddling bell once more. But there is no Dashaway in this race. Nevertheless it is very exciting. There are half a dozen horses, and after the start is made it looks to be anybody's race. Even as they come pounding down the straight sweep of the last two furlongs, it would be hard to pick out the probable winner. The people on the grand stand have gone wild—they are shouting names, the men waving their hats, the women standing up on benches to see as two or three horses gradually draw away from the others, and a desperate struggle is promised within the last thirty lengths. And just at this moment, when everybody's attention is fixed on the incoming horses, French Pembroke has slipped across the track and is speaking to the blonde woman in the victoria. His face does not look pleasant. He has chosen this moment, when all