Guy Livingstone | Page 8

and
men backed their opinions pretty freely. The venue was fixed at B----;

the time, the beginning of the Easter vacation.
The old town was crowded like Vanity Fair. There was a railway in
progress near, and the navvies and other "roughs" came flocking in by
hundreds, so that the municipal authorities, justly apprehensive of a
row, concentrated the cohorts of their police, and swore in no end of
specials as a reserve.
The great event came off duly, a fair instance of the "glorious
uncertainty" which backers of horses execrate and ring-men adore. All
the favorites were out of the race early. Our best man, Barlowe, the
centre of many hopes, and carrying a heavy investment of Oxford
money, was floored at the second double post-and-rail. The Cambridge
cracks, too, by divers casualties, were soon disposed of. At the last
fence, an Oxford man was leading by sixty yards; but it was his maiden
race, and he lost his head when he found himself looking like a winner
so near home. Instead of taking the stake-and-bound at the weakest
place, he rode at the strongest; his horse swerved to the gap, took the
fence sideways, and came down heavily into the ditch of the winning
field. The representative of Cambridge, who came next, riding a good
steady hunter, not fast, but safe at his fences, cantered in by himself. I
remember he was so bewildered by his unexpected victory that one of
his backers had to hold him fast in the saddle, or he would have
dismounted before riding to scale, and so lost the stakes.
Well, the race was over and the laurels lost, so we had nothing to do
but pay and look pleasant, and then adjourn to the inevitable banquet at
"The George." There was little to distinguish the proceedings from the
routine of such festivals. The winners stood Champagne, and the losers
drank it--to any amount. The accidents of flood and field were
discussed over and over again; and, I believe, every man of the
twenty-three who had ridden that day could and did prove, to his own
entire satisfaction, that he must have won but for some freak of fortune
totally unavoidable, and defying human calculation.
About nine o'clock I went out with another man to get some fresh air,
and something I wanted in the town. At the corner of every street there
was a group of heavy, sullen faces, looking viciously ready for a row,

while out of the windows of the frequent public houses gushed bursts
of revelry hideously discordant, from the low-browed rooms where the
wild Irish sat howling and wrangling over their liquor. However, we
got what we wanted, and were returning, when, in a street on our left,
we heard cries and a trampling of many feet. Two figures, looking like
University men, passed us at speed, and, throwing something down
before us, dived into an alley opposite, and were lost to sight. My
companion picked up the object; and we had just time to make out that
it was a bell-handle and name-plate, when the pursuers came up--six or
seven "peelers" and specials, with a ruck of men and boys. We were
collared on the instant. The fact of the property being found in our
possession constituted a _flagrans delictum_--we were caught
"red-handed." It was vain to argue that, had we been the delinquents,
we should scarcely have been standing there still, awaiting discovery.
The idea of arguing with a rural policeman, when, by a rare
coincidence, popular feeling is with him! The mob regarded our capture,
exulting like the Romans over Jugurtha in chains. It was decided "we
were to go before the Inspector." We were placed in the centre of a
phalanx of specials, each guarded by two regulars; and so the triumph,
followed by a train that swelled at every turning, moved slowly along
the Sacred Way toward the temple of the station-house, where the
municipal Jupiter Capitolinus sat in his glory.
Before we had proceeded three hundred yards there was a shout from
the crowd, "Look out! here come the 'Varsity!" and down a cross street
leading from the inn, two hundred gownsmen, wild with wrath and
wassail, came leaping to the rescue.
In the van of all I caught sight of two figures--one that I knew very well,
towering, bareheaded, a hand's-breadth above the throng; the other,
something below the middle height, but shaggy, vast-chested, and
double-jointed as a red Highland steer--M'Diarmid of Trinity, glory of
the Cambridge gymnasium, and "5" in the University eight. They were
not shouting like the rest, but hitting out straight and remorselessly; and
before those two strong Promachi, townsman and navvy, peeler and
special, went down like blades of corn. Close at their shoulder I
distinguished Lovell, his