LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1982, 1 July 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

By Geobgk LakGdon l ,

TWO-FIFTEEN.

p I’ll tell you, sir, the biggest time I ever see made on a race-track—l drove the horse myself, air, too,’ ‘ What was the time ?’ ‘ Well, sir, I drove a mile in two-fifteen — pacing. I beat t’other nag—though he was a good ’nn—and won twenty thousand dollars for the gen’lman I drove for.’ * What horse was it! I never heard of the match, that I know of.’ ‘ No, sir ? It was a little black mare, named Black Diamond. She never did much before, and she never did anything after—that heat killed her.’ ‘ Pity to lose such a crab 1’ ‘ Yes, sir ; but you see I had to do it. ’ * Why so?’ * ’Oanae, sir, I had to beat, Ef I hadn’t a’ won that match, I’d a’ blowed my brains out—that’s all!’ * Blown your brains out ?’ * Yes, sir. I’ll tell you about it ef you’d like to hear. * I should. Here, boy, fill these glasses again.’

‘ Make mine hot an’ a little sweeter, sonny.’

While the barkeeper was mixing our drinks the veteran horse jockey squinted at the flies on the dingy ceiling, inserted his stubby, coarse thumbs in the arm-holes of his corduroy waistcoat, and stretched himself easily back in his chair, riding one leg over the other, with the air of a man who knows a thing or two, and is about to tell a little of what he knows.

The boy brought two bottles of toddy, and the jockey, taking one, held it up between him and the window, as if to look through it, only he shut the wrong eye. Then apparently satisfied with hia counoiaseurship he took a moderate swallow, and again regarded flies that, stiff and torpid with the chill of a November atmosphere, clung inertly to the faded and speckled paper festoonery overhead. ‘ The gentleman as owned that boss was the fust man I worked for when I come over. I was hostler for him five year, an’ all that time he treated me just as good as a man could. There wasn’t nothing that he could do for me to make me comf’able and at home like that he didn’t do. He was a reg’lar brick, sir, and I haven’t never seen nobody else like him.’ I nodded a tacit approval of the character just sketched, and my narrator drank hia former employer’s health with silent respect. ‘Yes, sir. Mr Gaskell was a gen’leman all over. He knowed what a horse was. too, sir, 1 can tell you. He had just the nicest lot of nags in his stable that I ever see in this country, and he won more matches than almost any other genTeman I ever worked for. He had Old Patsy, and Dancin’ Belle, and Gray Feather, all at the same time with Black Diamond. There’s a stable any man might a’ be proud of, sir! ‘ Well, sir, we raced ’em all, more or less, and Mr Gaskell made a heap o’ money. When he was eettin’ along pretty well, says he—‘‘Now, Jeames,’ says he, ‘ef you want to marry—as I suspects you does,” says he, ‘‘l’ll just take and put up a little bouse opposite the carriage-house,” says he, ‘‘and you and Mary can make yourselves comf’able there,” says he. You see, he’d noticed that I was kind o’ sweet on Molly, and so he thought, like a kind old soul as he was, that he’d help me on.” * So I married Molly, and Mr Gaskell put up a sort o’ cottage to match the carriagehouse, just t’other side of the front gate, and we lived there two year as nice as could be, ‘ Well, boys, they say when we are too happy, that grief la bound to come to sort even the thing up. At the end of two year Mollie was taken down sick. Ef it hadn’t a been for Mr Gaskell’a daughter, the Lord only knows what would have become of me. She smoothed the way for my darling wife to the grave. Her presence was like a streak of sunshine in the house when she opened the door. She was just the prettiest, loveliest thing I ever saw, with her great, big, blue eyes and black hair, and her voice, sir, when she spoke, was better’n music. I suppose Heaven’s the right place for angels, sir, but they sometimes get down here, amongst us poor creatures, I believe, and ef Hiss Lottie wasn’t one of ’em, I don’t know nothin’!

‘ When my poor Molly died, I waa pretty much used up, and wasn’t much like a Christian being, for a while. But Miss Lottie, she came and talked to me, sir, and made me feel like a different man, so that I got some sperit and reason into me again. She fetched a young feller to talk with me, too a right, good looking, well-spoken young man, with brown eyes and a high forehead. He waa engaged to her, sir, and a mighty handsome couple they waa too.

‘ Well, sir, it was about that time that Mr Gaakell had a streak o’ bad luck. I s’poao Old Patsy waa the best horse he had, and one night a good for nothing boy let him run away and break his riba, so that he had to be shot. Then Dancin’ Belle lost two matches Jrnnning j and another hoss owned by old Colonel St, Orme lost a match that Mr Gaskell backed him for One way or another he lost about forty thousand dollars that season, and got into as much trouble a’most as I was gettin’ out of. I see it a cornin’ on gradooally. He began to get kind o’ tetchy and quick. Ef you didn’t speak, he wouldn't, and if you did, he’d speak mighty short. Then, when he came out to the stables in the mornin’, at nine o’clock, as he always did, rain or shine, I began to smell brandy on his breath. Before his troubles, he never drank a drop till dinnertime.

* Things went on from bad to wuss, and by the fust of t v e year Mr Gaskell was just ready to kill hisself. He got to drinking a good deal too much of this era stuff, and I swear it made me quite bad to see how he went down—gettin’ old and gloomy like. Finally, when spring commenced to open, he came to me, and says he —" James, we’ve got to make a big strike,” says he, “ this season, or we’ve got to bust;” and he showed me what he laid out to do. I thought to myself that he’d calc’lated pretty high on Gray Feather, but I didn’t say nothin’, cause there was a kind o’ cold-blooded look in bis eyo that made me think it wasn’t no use to talk with him.

‘ He lost two or three small races, and had to sell Dancin’ Bello and two other horses, but they didn’t fetch anything much. Then he drank more, and went off for a week with old St. Orme and old Tadem and a lot of fellers. All this time Miss Lottie was just as gentle, and kind, and thonghtfnl as ever, but her father’s goin’s-on troubled her. She got pale and thin, and had a kind o’ melancholy expression that made me feel awful chicken hearted when I saw her.

‘ Well, 'one morning a little yaller-faced man come to me and says he— ‘‘ Loofc-a-here, my good friend.’ says he, “ ia your marster agoin’ to do any more racin’ soon ? ’ I told that he was agoin’ to try Black Diamond the next day follerin’ agin a big Southern horse. “ Which is agoin’ to beat ?’ says he. “Well,” says I, “my marster owns Blaok Diamond, and of course,’ says I, “ she’s got to heat ” “You needn be anyways afeard o’ me,’ says the little yaller man, says he, “I aint agoin’ to bet on no boss race,” says he, “but I want to know about it, ’cause Miss Charlotte may lose something.” ‘ When he said that name I wanted to hear the whole, and he told me. It ’peared that he was a lawyer, and had done all Mr Gaskcll’s business for ever so long. He told me that Mr Gaskell was badly concerned, and in debt I don’t know how much. Ef he made a big thing on a race now it might save him, but ef he lost, it’s a bad go, cause he’d got all Miss Lottie’s money put on the match. Ef Black Diamond was beat, father and daughter'was both beggars. The young feller that was engaged to Mies Lottie had come down like a trump. He had shoved up all he could raise to save his sweetheart’s money, but that had gone long ago. “ Now. Jeames,” says the littlej lawyer, says he, “I rely on yon to do something, for 1 can’t do anything more,” says he. “Ef Gaskell loses he pays, and ef he- pays he’s ruined, and then he dies,” says he. Says I, “ You needn’t be scared,” says I. “I can do something. ” * So I just laid myself out from that minute to the time for the race on Black Black Diamond. Ef a boss was ever groomed well it was her. I took as much care of her as I had of poor Molly when she was sickest, and determined that I would take the responsibility of that race on my own shoulders. • When I led her out and took off her blanket says I: ‘Now, Diamond your winnin’ depends a good deal.’ She wbinnsd

as et she knowed what I was saying. * Yon**" owner,’’ says I. “ will dif if he loses. That dear dsrlin’, Miss Lottie, will be left without a penny, and I shall be a poor shoat anyway e£ I drive you into ruinin’ email.” She looked mighty knowia’ and smart did that little mare, and It is my belief, sir, that she knowed what 1 meant just as well as any human. * Just before the start Mr Gaatell coma i around to look at the mare. Ha was pretty well soaked, sir, for he’d been a-drinkin’ like a fish all the morning. “ Jeames,” says ho, ‘be careful. Drive just as good as yon can, and win at all hazards. In oaae you should fail,” says he, “good-bye. I shan’t live to sea you again ef that other horse comes in fust I” and he showed me a revolver in his breast pocket. I just took and lifted up the cushion on the sulkey, and showed him an old pistol I’d tucked in there myself. When I thought of the effects a beat would have, I couldn’t abcar to face meetin* Miss Lottie after it, so I’d just loaded up that pistol and thought I'd make a clean job of it ef I lost ‘Mr Gaskell couldn’t speak when ho understood me, but he squeezed my hand, with tears drippin’ down his cheeks into hia moustaches, and I kind o’ felt certain then, cf winnin’ I got up on the sulky, and recollect bearin’ the word for startin’, but that’t all. They say that the people hollered like mad, an’ didn’t know how to behave themselves, but I didn’t hear nor see nothin’. I just put that mare around the track twice in two minutes and fifteen seconds—the biggest time that had ever been made then. It’s been done in less time since, I’ve heard, but I’d like to a’ seen it. * Well, sir, when I got around I fell off my seat. Mr Gaskell was as pale as a ghost, but perfectly sober whan 1 come to my senses, an’ just as cool as a cucumber. He took twenty thousand dollars and quit the whole business. He sold out all hia horses except Black Diamond—she didn’t live & week longer—paid his debts, and settled down quiet, with Miss Lottie and her husband—the young feller I mentioned. They wanted me to step with them, bat when there wasn’t no bosses about there wasn’t nothin’ for mo to do. When I git kind o’ queer, as I do wunac in a while, Igo and visit ’em. _ I’m proud to tell you, sir, that Miss Lottie’s oldest boy is named Jeames, and when I go up there this Chria’mas, I’m goin to learn him to ride Now, sir, e£ your glares is empty, I shall esteem it an honour to have yon take a little something with me.’