The air smelt of trodden turf as I lugged my bag (loaded with fourteen one-pound lead weights) into the dressing-room, which was in a farm building under some elms on the crest of the rising ground which overlooked the sparsely flagged course. After dumping the bag in a corner of the dry-mud floored barn, I went out to look for Cockbird and Dixon. They were nowhere to be seen, so I returned to the dressing-room, reminding myself that Dixon had said he wouldn’t bring “our horse” out there any earlier than he was obliged to, since it would only excite him; I also realized that I should get “rattled” myself unless I kept quiet and reserved my energies for three o’clock.
The first race was run at two, and mine was the third event on the card, so I bought that absorbing document and perched myself on an old corn-bin to peruse it. “Riders are requested to return their number-cloths to the Clerk of the Scales immediately after each race.” I had forgotten that number-cloths existed, so that was news to me. “These Steeplechases are held subject to National Hunt Rules as to corrupt and fraudulent practices.” A moment’s reflection convinced me that I need not worry about that admonition; it was sufficiently obvious that I had a clean sheet under National Hunt Rules, though it flattered me to feel that I was at last within their jurisdiction.
After these preliminaries I looked inside the card, at the entries. Good heavens, there were fourteen in my race! Several of the names I didn’t know. Captain Silcock’s “Crumpet.” Mr. F. Duckwith’s “Grasshopper.” Those must be the soldiers who hunted from Downfield. Mr. G. Bagwell’s “Kilgrubbin III.” That might be—yes, of course it was—the fat little man on the weedy chestnut, who was always refusing small timber out hunting. Not much danger from him as long as I kept well out of his way at the first fence; and probably he, and several of the others, wouldn’t go to the post after all. My own name looked nice.
A blue-jowled man in a yellow waistcoat hurried in, exclaiming, “Can anybody lend me a weight-cloth?” I glanced at my bag and resolved that nothing would induce me to lend him mine (which had yet to receive its baptismal instalment of sweat). Several riders were now preparing for the first race, but no one took any notice of me until ginger-haired Roger Pomfret came in. He had been inspecting the fences, and he wiped his fleshy red face with his sleeve as he sat down and started rummaging in his bag. Tentatively I asked him what he thought of the course. I was quite glad to see someone I knew, though I’d have preferred to see someone else. He chucked me a surly nod, which he supplemented with—“Course? I don’t mind telling you, this something course would break the heart of a blank buffalo. It’s nothing but twists and turns, and there isn’t a something fence you could go fast at without risking your something neck, and a nice hope I’ve got on that blank sketchy jumper of Brandwick’s!”
Before I could think of an answer his boon companion in blasphemy, Bill Jaggett, came in (embellished with a brown billycock hat and black and white check breeches). Jaggett began chaffing him about the something unhealthy ride he was going to have in the Heavy Weights. “I’ll lay you a tenner to a fiver you don’t get round without falling,” he guffawed. Pomfret took the bet and called him a pimply faced bastard into the bargain.
I thought I might as well get dressed up: when I had pulled my boots on and was very deliberately tucking the straps in with a boot-hook, Stephen strolled in; he was already wearing his faded pink cap, and the same elongated and anxious countenance which I’d seen a year ago. No doubt my own face matched his. When we’d reassured one another about the superlative fitness of our horses he asked if I’d had any lunch, and as I hadn’t he produced a bar of chocolate and an orange, which I was glad to get. Stephen was always thoughtful of other people.
The shouts of the bookies were now loudening outside in the sunlight, and when I’d slipped on my raincoat we went out to see what we could of the Lightweight Race.
The first two races were little more than the clamour and commotion of a passing procession. The “Open Race” was the main excitement of the afternoon; it was run “in colours,” and there were about a dozen dashing competitors, several of them well-known winners in such events.
But everything connected with this contest reached me as though from a long way off, since I was half-stupefied by yawning nervousness. They appeared to be accomplishing something incredible by galloping round the course. I had got to do it myself in half an hour; and what was worse, Dixon was relying on me to put up a creditable performance. He even expected me to give the others “a shaking-up.” Stephen had ceased to be any moral support at all; in spite of his success last year he was nearly as nervous as I was, and when the field for the Open Race had filed out of the hurdle-guarded enclosure, which did duty as the paddock, he disappeared in the direction of Jerry and I was left to face the future alone.
Also, as far as I knew, my horse hadn’t yet arrived, and it was with a new species of alarm that I searched for him after I had seen the race start; the Paddock and its environs now looked unfriendly and
