Cotherstone came in amid great applause, and was the winner of the
poorest Derby ever known. Whilst acclamation shook the spheres, and the
corners of mouths were pulled down, and betting-books mechanically
pulled out--while success made some people so benevolent that they did
not believe in the existence of poverty any where, and certainly not in
the distress of the wretched-looking beggar entreating a penny--whilst
all these things were going on, champagne corks flying, the sun shining,
toasts resounding, and a perfect hubbub in full activity on all sides,
Jack Stuart drew me aside towards the carriage, and said, "'Pon my word,
it must be a cross. How the deuce could one horse beat the whole field?"
"Oh, you backed the field, did you?"
"To be sure. I always go with the strongest side."
"And you have lost?"
"A hundred and fifty."
No wonder Jack Stuart looked blue. A fifth part of his yearly income
gone at one smash--and in such a foolish way, too.
"If the excitement could last three or four days, it would almost be
worth the money," he said; "but no sooner do you hear the bell--see the
crush of horses at the starting-post--bang--bang--off they go!--and in a
minute or two all is over, and your money gone. I will have a race of
snails between London and York. It would be occupation for a year. But
come, let us leave the abominable place." He hurried me into the
stanhope, gave the rein to his active grey mare, and making a detour
towards Kingston, we soon left the crowd behind us.
"I will never bet on a horse again," said Jack, ruminating on his loss.
"Why should I? I know nothing about racing, and never could understand
odds in my life; and just at this moment, too, I can't spare the coin."
At the same time he did not spare the whip; for you will always observe,
that a meditative gentleman in a gig is peculiarly impressive on his
horse's shoulder. The grey trotted along, or burst into an occasional
canter.
"I'll back this grey against Cotherstone for fifty pounds."
"To stand flogging? I think you would win."
"No, to jump. See how she springs."
Hereupon Jack touched the mare in a very scientific manner, just under
the fore-arm, and the animal, indignant at this disrespectful manner of
proceeding, gave a prodigious rush forward, and then reared.
"You'll break the shafts," I said.
"I think she is going to run away, but there seems no wall near us--and
I don't think any coaches travel this road. Sit still, for she's off."
The mare, in good truth, resented her master's conduct in a high degree,
and took the bit in her teeth.
"If she doesn't kick, it's all right," said Jack.
"She has no time to kick if she goes at this pace," I answered; "keep
her straight."
The speed continued unabated for some time, and we were both silent. I
watched the road as far in advance as I could see, in dread of some
waggon, or coach, or sudden turn, or even a turnpike gate, for the
chances would have been greatly against an agreeable termination.
"I'll tell you what," cried Jack, turning round to me, "I think I've
found out a way of paying my losses."
"Indeed! but can't you manage in the mean time to stop the mare?"
"Poh! let her go. I think rapid motion is a great help to the intellect.
I feel quite sure I can pay my bets without putting my hand into my
pocket."
"How? Pull the near check. She'll be in the ditch."
"Why, I think I shall publish a novel."
I could scarcely keep from laughing, though a gardener's cart was two
hundred yards in advance.
"You write a novel! Wouldn't you like to build a pyramid at the same
time?"
"We've given that old fellow a fright on the top of the cabbage," said
Jack, going within an inch of the wheels of the cart. "He'll think we've
got Cotherstone in harness. But what do you mean about a pyramid?"
"Why, who ever heard of your writing a novel?"
"I did not say _write_ a novel--I said _publish_ a novel."
"Well, who is to write it?" I enquired.
"That's the secret," he answered; "and if that isn't one of Pickford's
vans, I'll tell you"----
The mare kept up her speed; and, looming before us, apparently filling
up the whole road, was one of the moving castles, drawn by eight horses,
that, compared to other vehicles, are like elephants moving about among
a herd of deer.
"Is there room to pass?" asked Jack, pulling the right rein with all his
might.
"Scarcely," I said, "the post is at the side of the road."
"Take the whip," said Jack, "and just when we get up, give her a cut
over the left ear."
In dread silence we sat watching the tremendous gallop. Nearer and
nearer we drew to the waggon, and precisely at the right time Jack
pulled the mare's bridle, and I cut her over the ear. Within a
hairbreadth of the post on one side, and the van on the other, we cut
our bright way through.
"This is rather pleasant than otherwise," said Jack, breathing freely;
"don't you think so?"
"I can't say it altogether suits my taste," I answered.
"Do you think she begins to tire?"
"Oh, she never tires; don't be the least afraid of that!"
"It's the very thing I wish; but there's a hill coming."
"She likes hills; and at the other side, when we begin to descend,
you'll see her pace. I'm very proud of the mare's speed."
"It seems better than her temper; but about the novel?" I enquired.
"I shall publish in a fortnight," answered Jack.
"A whole novel? Three volumes?"
"Six, if you like--or a dozen. I'm not at all particular."
"But on what subject?"
"Why, what a simpleton you must be! There is but one subject for a
novel--historical, philosophical, fashionable, antiquarian, or whatever
it calls itself. The whole story, after all, is about a young man and a
young woman--he all that is noble, and she all that is good. Every
circulating library consists of nothing whatever but Love and Glory--and
that shall be the name of my novel."
"But if you don't write it, how are you to publish it?"
"Do you think any living man or any living woman ever wrote a novel?"
"Certainly."
"Stuff, my dear fellow; they never did any thing of the kind. They
published--that's all. Is that a heap of stones?"
"I think it is."
"Well, that's better than a gravel-pit. Cut her right ear. There, we're
past it. Amazing bottom, has't she?"
"Too much," I said; "but go on with your novel."
"Well, my plan is simply this--but make a bet, will you? I give odds. I
bet you five to one in fives, that I produce, in a week from this time,
a novel called 'Love and Glory,' not of my own composition or any body
else's--a good readable novel--better than any of James's--and a great
deal more original."
"And yet not written by any one?"
"Exactly--bet, will you?"
"Done," I said; "and now explain."
"I will, if we get round this corner; but it is very sharp. Bravo, mare!
And now we've a mile of level Macadam. I go to a circulating library and
order home forty novels--any novels that are sleeping on the shelf. That
is a hundred and twenty volumes--or perhaps, making allowance for the
five-volume tales of former days, a hundred and fifty volumes
altogether. From each of these novels I select one chapter and a half,
that makes sixty chapters, which, at twenty chapters to each volume,
makes a very good-sized novel."
"But there will be no connexion."
"Not much," replied Jack, "but an amazing degree of variety."
"But the names?"
"Must all be altered--the only trouble I take. There must be a countess
and two daughters, let them be the Countess of Lorrington and the Ladies
Alice and Matilda--a hero, Lord Berville, originally Mr Lawleigh--and
every thing else in the same manner. All castles are to be Lorrington
Castle--all the villains are to be Sir Stratford Manvers'--all the
flirts Lady Emily Trecothicks'--and all the benevolent Christians,
recluses, uncles, guardians, and benefactors--Mr Percy Wyndford, the
younger son of an earl's younger son, very rich, and getting on for
sixty-five."
"But nobody will print such wholesale plagiarisms."
"Won't they? See what Colburn publishes, and Bentley, and all of them.
Why, they're all made up things--extracts from old newspapers, or
histories of processions or lord-mayor's shows. What's that coming down
the hill?"
"Two coaches abreast"--I exclaimed--"racing by Jupiter!--and not an inch
left for us to pass!"
"We've a minute yet," said Jack, and looked round. On the left was a
park paling; on the right a stout hedge, and beyond it a grass field.
"If it weren't for the ditch she could take the hedge," he said. "Shall
we try?"
"We had better"--I answered--"rather be floored in a ditch than dashed
to pieces against a coach."
"Lay on, then--here goes!"
I applied the whip to the left ear of the mare; Jack pulled at the right
cheek. She turned suddenly out of the road and made a dash at the hedge.
Away she went, harness, shafts, and all, leaving the stanhope in the
ditch, and sending Jack and me flying, like experimental fifty-sixes in
the marshes at Woolwich, halfway across the meadow. The whole incident
was so sudden that I could scarcely comprehend what had happened. I
looked round, and, in a furrow at a little distance, I saw my friend
Jack. We looked for some time at each other, afraid to enquire into the
extent of the damage; but at last Jack said, "She's a capital jumper,
isn't she? It was as good a flying leap as I ever saw. She's worth two
hundred guineas for a heavy weight."
"A flying leap!"--I said; "it was a leap to be sure, but the flying, I
think, was performed by ourselves."
"Are you hurt?" enquired Jack.
"Not that I know of," I replied; "you're all right?"
"Oh! as for me, I enjoy a quiet drive, like this, very much. I'm certain
it gives a filip to the ideas, that you never receive in a family coach
at seven miles an hour. I believe I owe the mare a great sum of money,
not to mention all the fame I expect to make by my invention. But let us
get on to the next inn, and send people after the stanhope and the mare.
We shall get into a car, and go comfortably home."
We did not go to the Oaks on Friday. We were both too stiff: for though
a gentleman may escape without breaking his bones, still an ejectment so
vigorously executed as the one we had sustained, always leaves its mark.
In the mean time Jack was busy. Piles of volumes lay round him, scraps
of paper were on the table, marks were put in the pages. He might have
stood for the portrait of an industrious author. And yet a more
unliterary, not to say illiterate, man than he had been before the
runaway, did not exist in the Albany. "Curriculo collegisse juvat"--are
there any individuals to whom their curricle has been a college, and who
have done without a university in the strength of a fast-trotting horse?
Jack was one of these. He had never listened to Big Tom of Christchurch,
nor punned his way to the bachelor's table of St John's, and yet he was
about to assume his place among the illustrious of the land, and have
his health proposed by a duke at the literary fund dinner, as "Jack
Stuart, and the authors of England;" and perhaps he would deserve the
honour as well as some of his predecessors; for who is more qualified to
return thanks for the authors of England than a person whose works
contain specimens of so many? Your plagiarist is the true
representative.
Jack's room is rather dark, and the weather, on the day of the Oaks, was
rather dingy. We had the shutters closed at half-past seven, and sat
down to dinner; soused salmon, perigord pie, iced champagne, and
mareschino. Some almonds and raisins, hard biscuit, and a bottle of cool
claret, made their appearance when the cloth was removed, and Jack
began--"I don't believe there was ever such a jumper as the grey mare
since the siege of Troy, when the horse got over the wall."
"Is she hurt?"
"Lord bless you," said Jack, "she's dead. When she got over the hedge
she grew too proud of herself, and personal vanity was the ruin of her.
She took a tremendous spiked gate, and caught it with her hind legs; the
spikes kept her fast, the gate swung open, and the poor mare was so
disgusted that she broke her heart. She was worth two hundred guineas;
so that the Derby this year has cost me a fortune. The stanhope is all
to atoms, and the farmer claims compensation for the gate. It's a very
lucky thing I thought of the book."
"Oh, you still go on with the novel?"
"It's done, man, finished--perfect."
"All written out?"
"Not a word of it. That isn't the way people write books now; no, I have
clipped out half of it with a pair of scissors, and the half is all
marked with pencil."
"But the authors will find you out."
"Not a bit of it. No author reads any body's writings but his own; or if
they do, I'll deny it--that's all; and the public will only think the
poor fellow prodigiously vain, to believe that any one would quote his
book. And, besides, here are the reviews?"
"Of the book that isn't published?"
"To be sure. Here are two or three sentences from Macauley's 'Milton,'
half a page from Wilson's 'Wordsworth,' and a good lump from Jeffrey's
'Walter Scott.' Between them, they made out my book to be a very fine
thing, I assure you. I sha'n't sell it under five hundred pounds."
"Do you give your name?"
"Certainly not--unless I were a lord. No. I think I shall pass for a
woman: a young girl, perhaps; daughter of a bishop; or the divorced wife
of a member of parliament."
"I should like to hear some of your work. I am interested."
"I know you are. We have a bet, you know; but I have found out a strange
thing in correcting my novel--that you can make a whole story out of any
five chapters."
"No, no. You're quizzing."
"Not I. I tell you, out of any five chapters, of any five novels, you
make a very good short tale; and the odd thing is, it doesn't the least
matter which chapters you choose. With a very little sagacity, the
reader sees the whole; and, let me tell you, the great fault of
story-writing is telling too much, and leaving too little for the reader
to supply to himself. Recollect what I told you about altering the names
of all the characters, and, with that single proviso, read chapter
fifteen of the first volume of this----"
Jack handed me a volume, turned down at the two-hundredth page, and I
read what he told me to call the first chapter of "Love and Glory."