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As the appointed hour was fast approaching, it was proposed that we should enter the race-ground at a point close to the stand-house a measure which would save us a ride of nearly two miles, over a broken road; at which distance there was an open entrance into the race-ground.
Well, it flowed and flowed on for hours and hours without stoppin', like a river; and when you got up to the race-ground, there was the matter of two or three tiers of carriages, with the hosses off, packed as close as pins in a paper. "It costs near hand to twelve hundred dollars a-year to keep up a carriage here.
But he happened to be in uncommon good humor, and readily gave his consent; and away I went, "as happy as a lark." When I reached the race-ground, they were just preparing to run the horses. Seeing me, they knew me to be a poor friendless little slave boy, helpless and unprotected, and they could therefore do with me as they pleased, and have some fine sport at my expense.
Clavering was too near poor old Fairoaks; and that was too full of sad recollections for the young man. We have lost sight of the Claverings, too, until their reappearance upon the Epsom race-ground, and must give a brief account of them in the interval.
It was not until they were quite exhausted and could no longer maintain the pace at which they had fled from the race-ground, that the old man and the child ventured to stop, and sit down to rest upon the borders of a little wood. Here, though the course was hidden from their view, they could yet faintly distinguish the noise of distant shouts, the hum of voices, and the beating of drums.
Never see any thing like it out of a race-ground," and Farmer Paine strode on, still following with his eye the figures that went thundering over the bridge, up the hill, out of sight, leaving a cloud of cloud of dust behind.
The word shaster was given to me very distinctly by a Gipsy, who further volunteered the information, that it not only meant the Scriptures, but also any written book whatever, and somewhat marred the dignity of the sublime association of the Bible and Shaster, by adding that "any feller's bettin'-book on the race-ground was a shasterni lil, 'cos it's written."
The street is on fire with it all the way up, now in mid-winter; while at the street end opens out a green park, fringed with noble trees all in full leaf; underneath them more pleasant little suburban villas; and behind all, again, a background of steep wooded mountain a thousand feet in height. That is the Savannah, the public park and race-ground; such as neither London nor Paris can boast.
Now, Jack Giles! and Now, Tom Hand! resounded on all sides. The gentlemen on the race-ground were all on tiptoe in their stirrups. The ladies in the stand stretched their necks of snow, and nobody looked at them. Two men were run over, and nobody took them up. Two ladies fainted, and two gentlemen betted across them.
He himself gave up the visit; but a little time after, when Sophy fell into a tranquil sleep, he thought he might venture to canter across the country to the race-ground, and return to dinner. Days nay, a whole week passed, the races were over, but Caroline had not returned.
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