THE DERBY.
I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will abide the hazard of the die—SHAKESPEARE.
“Oh, it is drizzling! I wonder if it is not always drizzling in this
whimpering climate,” grumbled Anna, as she met Drusilla in their private
parlor very early on the morning of the Derby Day.
“It is but a light drizzle; it will not hurt us and it may clear off,”
suggested Drusilla, hopefully.
“All ready, my darlings? That is right, for we must make an early start
if we wish to get a good position on the hill. I don’t know that
reserved places are ever taken in advance for the Derby; but I do know
that _we_ have not secured any. Ring for breakfast, Anna, my child, and
let us have it over. But where is Dick?” inquired the General, as he
joined his young people.
“He has stepped around to the livery stable to make sure of the barouche
we engaged. He will be back in a few minutes,” replied Anna.
“He might have left that to the servants; but Dick can’t keep out of a
stable, if only he has the faintest shadow of an excuse to go into one.
Well—he might go into worse places,” said the General, just as the
absentee returned.
“A strong, well sprung, capacious barouche and a fine pair of horses!
Altogether as good a turn-out as is to be had for love or money,” said
Dick, as he threw himself into a chair.
“But what is that you have there?” inquired the General, pointing to a
well-sized parcel rolled up in tissue paper which Mr. Hammond carried in
his hands.
“This! Oh, this contains our veils,” answered Dick, unrolling the parcel
and displaying yards of blue, green, mauve, brown and gray barège.
“Our—_what_?”
“Veils for the Derby. I saw other fellows buying veils and they told me
it was the usual thing to keep off the dust, you know. There, Anna,
there’s a blue one for you. Needn’t take the trouble to hem it; nobody
does; it is only to be used for one occasion, and is never fit for
anything else afterwards. Here, Drusa, you may have the green one; and
little Lenny the mauve; and now, uncle, here are two—a gray and a brown,
for you and me. I thought you would like a subdued color best, as I do.
We are to tie them around our hats,” said Dick, offering the choice of
the remaining veils to the General.
The veteran soldier laughed and shook his head.
“But, uncle, every gentleman wears a veil.”
“Nonsense, Dick! somebody has been selling you.”
“Indeed, no, they were all buying veils and fastening them on to their
hats.”
“Then I’ll be hanged if I make myself ridiculous by wearing a veil like
a girl.”
“Well, then, you’ll get yourself blinded, deafened, stupefied and
suffocated by the dust—eyes, ears, nostrils and bronchial tubes will all
be filled.”
“I should like to know where the dust is to come from on such a day as
this? Do you see how it is raining?”
“Don’t know, sir! only know what the fellows here tell me.”
“They are quizzing you, as I said before, that’s my opinion.”
While he spoke the door was opened and Mr. Spencer and Mr. Tredegar were
announced.
These were two young Americans, who had been fellow-students with Dick
Hammond, and whom the General had met on the day before and invited to
breakfast and to go to the Derby with his party.
After bowing to the ladies and shaking hands with the gentlemen, the
new-comers took the seats offered them, and commenced upon the
all-engrossing subject of the hour.
“Fine day for the Derby, sir!” said Mr. Spencer, who had been three
years in London attached to the American Minister’s _suite_, and might
be supposed to be posted on the subject. “Very fine day for the Derby.”
“Fine day! Why, do you see how it is raining?” demanded the General, in
surprise.
“Drizzling, sir, drizzling; just enough to lay the dust.”
“Dust! ah! by the way that reminds me! Here is a lunatic has brought an
assortment of veils, and he says we must each wear one—men and women
both.”
“Oh, yes, sir—the regular thing, you know, like the train at court. It
is to protect the wearer from the smothering dust.”
“But,” said the General, frowning, “as I was just asking my nephew when
you came in, where is the dust to come from on such a day as this?”
“Oh, sir, it may clear up by the time we shall be coming home. And it is
in the home-coming we raise the sirocco. We must be prepared for the
worst.”
“Worst? Do you call clear weather the worst?”
“The worst possible for the Derby, sir. But this is a truth that you
will never be able to believe until you see it demonstrated. And you
will probably see it done to-day.”
As they talked, the waiter came in to lay the cloth for breakfast.
Watching his opportunity, he presently came to General Lyon, and said,
in a low, respectful voice:
“Beg pardon, sir, but would you like to have a luncheon put up to take
with you?”
“Eh? Yes, certainly,” replied the General, at the same time turning
towards his young visitors a comically appealing look, as much as to
say:
“You see even this waiter knows me to be a greenhorn.”
“What would you please order, sir?” inquired John.
“Eh?—oh, anything at all! something nice and tidy.”
“Pigeon-pie, sir, if you please?”
“Spencer, is pigeon-pie the regular thing?” said the General, winking at
his friend.
“I believe it is _one_ of the regular things. Derby Day without
pigeon-pie would be—an incomplete arrangement.”
“Well, Spencer, my dear boy, as you are posted, please receive my carte
blanche to order all the ‘regular things,’ and everything else that is
comfortable.”
Young Spencer nodded and laughed; took from the General’s hand a card
and a pencil, and made out a liberal list which he handed to the waiter,
saying:
“See that all these articles are put into clean hampers, and stowed away
in the boxes of the General’s barouche.”
The man left the room with the list, and returned with the breakfast
tray.
And the family party and their visitors sat down to the table.
Anna presided.
“Where is my godson?” inquired the General, discontented at the absence
of his favorite.
“He had his breakfast in my room, an hour ago, so that he might be got
ready to go with us,” said Drusilla.
“Ah! yes, well, I suppose under the circumstances it was as well,”
admitted the General.
Before they had done breakfast, however, Master Lenny was led in by his
nurse.
He was resplendent in holiday attire and in the anticipation of some
unknown glory that had been promised him, and for which he saw great
preparations going forward, and which he called in his baby babble
“doin’ Dubby.”
“Doin’ Dubby, untle dranpa! Lenny doin’ Dubby, hee hos wun,” he said,
running up to his godfather.
“Lenny is going to the Derby to see the horses run, is he? But Lenny
will be the winning horse, I’ll bet,” said the General, taking the little
fellow up on his knee. “Gentlemen,” he added, turning to his young
visitors, “let me introduce you to Master Leonard Lyon, the latest
representative of old Leonard Lyon, who——”
“‘Came over with the Conqueror,’” suggested Mr. Tredegar.
“Who lived here long before the Conqueror was born,” concluded the
General, quietly. “Leonard, my boy, bow to the gentlemen, and ask them
how they do, and say that you hope they are well.”
“Hope.—_Do Dubby_,” said Lenny, who could not connect his sentences very
well as yet, holding out his chubby hand to Mr. Spencer, who was
nearest.
“Grandpa, we will leave Lenny to help you entertain your friends while
we put on our bonnets and mantles,” said Anna, rising from the table,
followed by Drusilla.
“And so Master Leonard is going to the Derby? He is beginning life
early,—he is a very fast young gentleman,” said Mr. Tredegar, taking the
child upon his knee.
“Lenny doin’ Dubby—hee hos wun,” was the stereotyped answer of the boy.
But he was taken from one by the other, and prattled sociably to all
until the return of the ladies dressed for their drive.
“Now, Mr. Spencer, you are not in earnest about these veils? I am not to
decorate Dick’s and grandpa’s hats with them, am I?” laughed Anna,
lifting the light cloud-like pile of barège.
“Oh, no; not just yet! not until they shall be required. It has ceased
drizzling, but the ground is still too damp for dust. They can be rolled
up and put into their pockets until wanted.”
“Here, grandpa, here is yours,” said Anna, rolling up the gray veil
lightly, and handing it.
“No, thank you, my dear. Dust or no dust, I am not going to wear a veil.
I would just as soon wear a crinoline!”
“Put it in your own pocket, my dear Mrs. Hammond, and have it ready for
him when he will want it. He will be glad enough to get it by-and-by,”
said Francis Tredegar.
Anna took his advice.
“And now are we all quite ready?” inquired the General.
“Quite,” answered everybody else.
“Then, come!”
And he took Drusilla’s hand, and drew it within his arm and led the way
down-stairs.
A large, open barouche, with a fine pair of horses, stood waiting the
General’s family. A jaunty gig with a spirited horse awaited the two
young gentlemen.
Drusilla and Anna were handed into the back seat. The General sat in
front, and by his side sat Pina with little Lenny. Dick perched himself
up beside the driver. Jacob rode behind. The two young men were in their
gig.
The party started—the General’s barouche taking the lead.
The drizzling rain had ceased and the clouds were dispersing before a
light wind.
The streets of London, always crowded, were now thronged; but with this
difference also,—that nine-tenths of the people’s faces and the horses’
heads were turned in one direction, and everybody,—man, woman, and
child, saint and sinner,—was becoming more and more intoxicated; and not
with spirituous or fermented liquors, but with the Derby Day. Crowded
carriages of all descriptions, saddle-horses, donkeys, and
foot-passengers of all ranks and sexes, thronged the streets; and talk
and laughter, calls and shouts resounded through the air. It looked as
if London were suddenly being evacuated by its whole population, and the
people were making a merry joke of the matter. And all were pouring
towards the south-western suburb.
In such a throng the progress of our party was necessarily very slow,
yet with none of the _tedium_ of a slow progress. The great crowd of
people and of vehicles going all one way; the variety of individuals and
characters; the total abandonment of all reserve; the hailings and the
chaffings; the jests and the snatches of song; the grotesque decorations
of some of the horses and carriages, and even of some of the people; the
perfect novelty of the scene; and the exhilaration of all animated
creatures that composed it, made every step of the progress charming to
the unaccustomed minds and eyes of our new-comers.
Drusilla and Anna were delighted. Little Lenny shouted. Pina was not a
whit behind them in her ecstasies. Old General Lyon’s eyes twinkled and
lips smiled, and sometimes he broke into a good hearty laugh. As for
Dick, the oldest Derby goer on the road could not have got ahead of him
in bandying back the jokes that were bandied at him on the way. Only
that Jacob, hanging on behind, stared with “all his eyes,” and looked as
if he thought he was enjoying a pleasant sort of nightmare.
“I say, you jolly old howl (owl),” called a cockney from a neighboring
carriage to General Lyon, “where did you get that gorilla you’ve got
perched up behind there, heh?”
“From a country where they muzzle monkeys sometimes,” retorted Dick,
answering for the General.
So it went on.
“But this is nothing at all to what it will be when we are out of London
and fairly on to the Epsom road,” shouted Henry Spencer from his gig
behind.
“I never saw the Carnival at Rome; but I should think it was not very
unlike this,” said the General.
“This is the Carnival of London! Old Rome has its Saturnalia; modern
Rome has its Carnival; America has her Independence Day; but England has
her Derby, equal to all these others rolled into one,” said Francis
Tredegar.
“If this is only the beginning it is worth crossing the Atlantic to
see—not the Derby race only, but the Derby Day!” said the General.
“Only wait till you get to Epsom!” exclaimed Henry Spencer.
Once fairly upon the Epsom road, our friends found it as their guests
had predicted. The crowd, great as it had been before, was even greater
now. And it thickened with every mile; the numbers of passengers
increasing twofold, tenfold, a hundred-fold, as they approached the
bourne of their journey.
The road was as one vast river of human beings and brute creatures,
pouring its multitudes towards Epsom. And every cross country road was
as a tributary stream helping to swell the flood.
Every description of wheeled vehicles known to the civilized
world—broughams, barouches, landaus, chaises, buggies, sulkies, gigs,
rockaways, carryalls, omnibuses, stages, brakes, carts, drags, wagons,
jaunting cars, in an endless number and variety, and drawn by every
available species of quadrupeds—horses, mules, donkeys, goats, dogs,
oxen—thronged and crushed and pressed together for miles and miles
behind and before on the main road and up and down every branch
road—crowding toward Epsom.
In this vast, moving mixed multitude the only saving feature was this,
that they were all moving the same way, and all, or nearly all, in high,
good humor.
Pressed on all sides as they were—behind, before, on the right and on
the left, our friends in the barouche and their young guests in the gig,
managed to keep together;—sometimes brought to a standstill, sometimes
moving on at the rate of an inch a minute.
“Now you understand why it was necessary to start so early, though Epsom
is but fourteen miles from London, and though the great race does not
come off before two o’clock,” called out young Spencer.
“Yes; and I begin to see the wisdom of those who went down to Epsom last
night to avoid all this,” answered the general.
“Ah, but they were either old stagers who had experienced this sort of
thing many times before, or else individuals who had some deep stake in
the races to come off to-day. For my own part, I enjoy the going and
returning—the ‘road,’ in short, quite as much as anything else
appertaining to the great Derby Day.”
“It is a novel and interesting sight, in its contrasts if in nothing
else,” replied the General, glancing from the handsome barouche
decorated with a duke’s coronet painted on its panels, and occupied by
an aristocratic party of stately men and elegant women, in splendid
apparel, that crowded him on the right—to the old dilapidated omnibus,
filled within and without with the ragged refuse of the London streets
and alleys, which pressed him on the left.
But truth to tell, the ragamuffins seemed the merrier, if not the richer
party of the two.
And many jests flew over General Lyon’s head between the Bohemians in
the old omnibus and a young member of the ducal family who occupied a
seat on the box beside the coachman. For that one day “free-born
Britons” of every rank enjoyed something like liberty and equality—not
to say unbridled license.
“Hey day! What’s the matter now?” exclaimed the General, as the whole
immense march, with much rearing and plunging of quadrupeds, came to a
dead halt.
“There’s a lock at the turnpike gate, sir,” called out a vagrant from
the old ‘bus.
“A lock on the toll-gate! It’s a shame,” replied the innocent old
gentleman; “the gate should never be locked in the daytime, and most
especially on such a day as this, when they must keep such a vast
multitude of people waiting while they unlock it.”
This speech was greeted by a burst of ironical applause from all the
occupants of the old omnibus, as well as from all others who heard it.
They laughed at the speaker and chaffed him.
“You change all that when you get into parliament,” sang out one.
“I say! what’s your name, you jolly old soul? Is it old King Cole?”
inquired another.
Then all in the old omnibus sang out together:
“Old King Cole was a jolly old soul,
And a jolly old soul was he—
He called for his bottle, and he called for his bowl,
And he called for his comrades three!”
“Dick, what the deuce have I said wrong? What do they mean?” inquired
the General, much annoyed at finding himself the center of observation.
“You have said nothing wrong, and they mean nothing offensive. It is the
Derby Day! That accounts for all, don’t you see?” answered Dick,
laughing.
“But about the lock. They were chaffing me about _that_.”
“Oh, you know that there is _now_ more than one lock at every turnpike
gate. There is the legitimate lock under the charge of the keeper; and
there is a lock of interlocked carriage wheels, reaching, perhaps, for
ten miles along the road.”
“I knew once a lock of fourteen miles long, all caused by an ill
conditioned fellow in a brougham, who stopped the way at the toll-gate
for twenty minutes, disputing about his change,” said the young
gentleman who was seated beside the coachman on the right-hand carriage;
for on this latitudinarian day English reserve was laid aside, and
strangers spoke together as familiar friends.
But the General’s fine barouche was the center of observation just now,
and all on account of the General’s “gorilla footman,” as the Bohemians
called young Jacob.
Unluckily for his peace to-day, Jacob, with one of the best hearts in
the world, and a tolerably good brain, possessed all the peculiar
features of his race. He had the low, receding forehead, broad, flat
nose, wide, full lips, and small, retiring chin, jet black skin, and
crisp, woolly hair of the pure Guinea negro—all of which was likely to
render him an object of great amusement to the malicious crowd, and
annoyance to his master and friends.
“I say, old cove, you show it free now, like the circus men do the
clowns when they go in procession; but how much are you going to charge
a head to see it when you get it in a booth on Epsom Heath?” called out
one.
“Marster!” cried Jacob, half crying and ready to swear—“Marster! only
let me, and I’ll jump down and lick the lot of ’em!”
“Oh, I say, fellows, it can talk!” cried another.
“Let me at ’em!” begged Jacob.
“Nonsense, my boy! You’d get trampled to death under the horses’ feet
before you could grapple with any of them. They mean no harm. It is the
Derby Day. Give them back as good as they send.”
“But I haven’t got it in me,” sobbed Jake.
“Oh! yes you have. Let ’em have it!”
But Jake’s idea of “letting ’em have it” was of a more substantial sort
than mere words. Stooping down, he armed himself with a couple of ale
bottles, and flourishing one in each hand, he threatened one and all of
his aggressors.
“Eh! eh! is it growing vicious?” called out some one with a shout of
laughter.
The ale bottle flew from Jake’s right hand and knocked off the hat of
the speaker.
“Oh, I say! look here! none of that now, you know! that’s carrying
things a little too far even for the Derby Day!” exclaimed the
bare-headed individual, groping in vain for his hat, but keeping his
good humor.
“Oh! see here, governor! Here’s your ape getting dangerous! chain it hup
before it ’urts some un!” sang out another.
Away flew the other ale bottle and struck this counsellor in the chest
and knocked him heels over head.
“Hi! ho! here! where’s the police!” called out a half score of voices.
But the police were not forthcoming, and the floored man picked himself
up, laughing merrily and saying good-humoredly:
“Boys, we’re getting the worst of it! Better let the gorilla alone!”
But the General turned to his coachman, frowning.
“Jacob. I am ashamed of you! Here’s a set of poor fellows out for their
rare holiday chaffing you a little with harmless words, and you answer
them with hard blows!”
“You told me to ‘let ’em have it,’” muttered Jake.
“But not in _blows_; in _words_, you stupid fellow!”
“I couldn’t answer ’em so.”
“But suppose they retorted in kind? They can throw missiles as well as
you can.”
“They are welkim!” grumbled Jake.
“What, and hurt and maybe kill the ladies? Jake I’m more ashamed of you
than ever.”
A commotion in the crowd ahead, a gradual unloosening of the lock of
wheels, warned our travelers that the way was clear, and carriages of
all sorts moved on, at first slowly, and then as the throng thinned more
rapidly, until it began to look like the multitudinous race of fast
trotting horses in harness on the Bloomingdale Road.
And the quiet “chaffing” became hilarious shouting as one after another
of fast drivers distanced all competitors. And now indeed the Derby dust
arose in clouds like the sirocco of the desert until every man and
mother’s son had to put on a veil.
Old General Lyon resisted the fate as long as he could, until, as Harry
Spencer had predicted, his eyes, ears nostrils and bronchial tubes were
all so much obstructed that he was nearly blinded, deafened, suffocated
and overwhelmed. Then he let Anna dust off his face and head with an
extra pocket-handkerchief, and tie a gray veil about his hat, as they
drove on.
“I wish some sort of a veil could be contrived to protect these hedges,”
said Anna, pointing to the boundaries of the road on the right and left.
“It is a sin to cover these lovely green hedges with a thick coat of
dust. But, oh, grandpa! look, there’s poetry for you! look at that
sign!”
The old gentleman turned and smiled to see a rural looking wayside inn,
embowered in creeping vines and running roses, and overshadowed by
trees, and bearing the inscription in two lines of rhyme:
“Good Beer
Sold Here.”
A little group of foot passengers to the Derby were sitting on a bench
under a spreading tree, testing the qualities of the said “good beer.”
This and many other simple little way sidescenes, illustrative of
English rural roadside life, which the occasional opening of the crowd
allowed them to catch a glimpse of, remained as pleasant pictures in the
gallery of memory to contemplate in after-days.
They were now ascending a graduated hill; when they reached its summit
they were comparatively free from the crowd. The carriages before them
had gone rapidly on downward; the carriages behind them were coming
slowly up.
“Order your coachman to draw up here, General. We are near Epsom, and
from this rising ground, by standing up in your carriage and using your
field-glass, you may take a bird’s-eye view of Epsom Hill and Heath,
with its surroundings,” said Mr. Tredegar, adding example to precept by
stopping his own horse.
The General gave orders in accordance with this advice, and then mounted
on his seat, and levelled his field-glass.
“Good Heavens!” he exclaimed, in his unbounded amazement.
Under his eyes lay a scene of its kind not to be equalled in this world.
There were from four to five hundred thousand people of all ranks,
sexes, ages, and conditions,—some with their horses, carriages, and
liveried servants; others with their donkey-carts, and tents, and wares
for sale; others again with only their own weary limbs and haggard
faces, and fluttering rags,—all gathered together on the hill and heath
of Epsom, or pressing thither by every highway leading from every point
of the compass.
“I never expected to see such a crowd this side of the Judgment-day!”
said General Lyon, as he resigned the glass to Anna and assisted her to
rise on the seat.
Anna gazed long and thoughtfully at the wonderful scene, and then she
said:
“But it reminds one of the Judgment-day in something else beside its
great crowd—here, as on that coming day, saint and sinner, prince and
beggar stand together as they will stand there! It is an exciting and a
depressing scene, grandpa,” she said, as she restored the glass and
resumed her seat.
Drusilla next arose to take a view. And she was no doubt as deeply
impressed by the vastness of the multitude assembled before her as her
uncle and cousin had been, but her chief thought was still,
“How shall I ever be able to catch a glimpse of my Alick in such a
boundless crowd as this?”
Dick was standing by her side, using his own field-glass.
“Worth crossing the ocean to see, is it not, Drusa?” he asked.
“Yes; even though we know little of horses, and less of races, and least
of all which is likely to win the Derby.”
“‘Fairy Queen,’ is the favorite, I believe.”
“What did you say, Dick?”
“I say Mr. Chisholm Cheke’s ‘Fairy Queen’ is the favorite!”
“What favorite? Whose favorite?”
“Tut, Drusa! Why the favorite of the turf, of the stables, and of the
betting men! The horse upon whose success the most money is staked, the
one that is expected to win the Derby!”
“But if everybody knows which horse is likely to win the Derby, why does
any one ever bet on any other?”
“Ah! that I can’t tell,” said Dick, shrugging his shoulders. “Only
this,—the favorite does not _always_ win, in fact _seldom_ does, I
think; it is generally some dark horse that wins the race.”
“Dark horse? Do the dark ones run better than the light ones?”
“Oh, Drusa, what a novice you are, my child! I don’t mean a dark-colored
horse; I mean a horse kept dark, _perdu_, in retirement, that nobody
talks about or hears about, except certain knowing ones.”
“And does the dark horse always win?”
“No, not always, but often; sometimes some intermediate, honest horse,
that is neither bragged about on the one hand, nor ‘kept dark’ on the
other, surprises everybody by winning the race, and also occasionally
the favorite wins.”
“Well, we will not bet; we are all conscientiously opposed to betting;
but if we were not, we should stake our money upon the dark horse. But
how would we know him?”
“We shouldn’t know him at all; none but the few in the secret would know
him.”
“Come, come, my children, we are being left behind,” said the General,
impatiently.
“And I do not care much for the winning horse, and that is the truth.
But I care a great deal for the human interest in this vast scene! Will
the Derby ever go down and pass away, like the other glories of this
world? And will we say to our great grandchildren in the Derby of their
days: ‘Ah, you should have seen the Derby as it was when we were young!’
Shall we talk so to our descendants, Dick?”
“Goodness knows! The Derby may continue to increase in importance; it
ought to do so; I hope it may,” replied Dick, as he resumed his seat.
Jacob started his horses and they drove down the hill at a very rapid
rate.
On each side of the road were now to be seen the dustbrown tents of the
gypsy wanderers; the decorated booths of the showmen; the tempting
fruit-stalls of the costermongers; and among them all, groups of country
people and knots of cockneys, and all the heterogeneous assembly of
bipeds and quadrupeds that on the Derby Day infest the neighborhood of
Epsom.
Slowly making their way through all these, our party reached and passed
the first barrier (for Epsom Heath is divided off into circles, the
entrance to each succeeding one towards the hill or the Grand Stand,
commanding a higher and higher price).
Our friends found themselves upon the heath, that was occupied by very
much the same sort of crowd which had obstructed the roads leading
hither. It was dotted all over by gipsies’ tents, fruit-stalls,
refreshment-stands, costermongers’ carts, and so forth, and so forth,
and animated by idlers, loafers, peddlers, ballad-singers, image-boys,
fortune-tellers, “confidence” men, and women, thieves, gamblers, and, in
short, every variety of the lower order of human nature.
Passing through all these—passing barrier after barrier, and circle
after circle, our party at last found themselves upon the fine breezy
and commanding hill, which was comparatively free from the crowd, and
occupied only by the carriages of the nobility and gentry, filled with
fair women and well-behaved men.