United States or Canada ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Ever as the day's routine business closed, and he retired to the dull solitude of his chamber, the last mind-picture which faded on his waking sense was the scene on the crowded race-course, with all its exasperating accessories the merciless exultation of the triumphant adversary the jibes and laughter of his companions the hootings of the mob to be again repeated with fantastic exaggeration in the dreams which troubled and perplexed his broken sleep.
Five minutes after I had hung my harp on the wall, I was telling them all what had happened the night before, how we had hoped to sleep on the race-course, when I heard a scratching on the door which opened onto the garden; then there was a plaintive whine. "Capi! Capi!" I cried, jumping up quickly. But Lise was before me; she had already opened the door. Capi sprang upon me.
"Call yourself a woman!" he cried. "I'm all right," answered the girl, seating herself critically on a mound, the pony in one hand, the dog in the other. "Don't hit him over the heart," she advised out of some experience of race-course scraps. "There might be trouble." "I sha'n't hit him at all," replied the young man. He seized the fat man by the shoulder and spun him round.
When the goal is in sight, do we dwell on the hazard, the strained muscles, the blistered feet, and the fierce thirst the long race-course cost us? Who know that they are weary and spent, while the prize brightens, nears as they stretch panting to grasp it?
They took her to a great house near the race-course, and there, assisted by one of the young ladies, dressed her in flowing silks, and so passed her through the gate of the enclosure interdicted to bare feet. There they led her to groups of fashionable ladies, and got themselves into pretty scrapes. They said she was an Indian. Heriot lost his wagers and called her a witch.
However, a last idea came to his bewildered mind: it was to run on in this wise as far as the shady spots around Madrid, and then, by stealing from copse to copse, attempt to reach the Seine. To proceed thither across the bare expanse of the race-course and training ground was not for a moment to be thought of. So Salvat still ran on and on.
James Hornby, it was quite true, had been publicly horsewhipped twenty-three years before by Henry Burton on the Doncaster race-course, ostensibly on account of the sudden withdrawal of a horse that should have started, a transaction with which young Hornby was in some measure mixed up; but especially and really for having dared, upon the strength of presumptive heirship to his uncle's wealth, to advance pretensions to the fair hand of Elizabeth Gainsford, the eldest daughter of Mr.
He loved the strong effects produced by great masses; and being on the race-course, the wrestlers and boxers, the runners and discus- throwers, could give proof of their strength, dexterity, and endurance. It occurred to him at the moment that among these youths and men there might be some of the descendants of the warriors who, under the command of the great Alexander, had conquered the world.
The great attraction was the races, held outside the city, on the Nankin Road, near which is an extensive race-course. Of the native city well perhaps the less said the better. It is full of the foulest filth and abominations in which it is possible for even a Chinaman to exist. I will not afflict my readers with a description of its horrors; it would scarcely be fit reading for our friends.
On one side are the tea-gardens. There was a race-course behind the hotel on the Heath, but the races have been suppressed. In a paper contributed to Baines' book on Hampstead a correspondent says: "The Castle Hotel is associated with the meetings of the Courts Leet, and in the old days during the Middlesex Parliamentary elections the house was a famous rendezvous for candidates and voters."
Word Of The Day