LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 256, 29 June 1882, Page 4

LITERATURE.

OUR DERBY SWEEPSTAKES. ( Continued,) i'ol seemed mildly surprised at my l aving sol- ctecl him as my companion, but accepted th« offer with a grateful smile. His mind seemed to have keen vastly relieved. ‘ So I haven’t lost you yet, AVI!,’ ho mar mured, as wa branched off among tho great t ea-trunks and heard tho voices oi tho party growing fainter in tho distance. ‘ Nobody esn lose ms,’ said I, ‘ for nol-ody has won mo yet. For goodness’ sake don’t talk about it any more, Why can’t you talk like your old self two years ago, and not bo co dreadfully sentimental ?’ ‘ You’ll know why some day, Nell,’ said the student reproachfully. 1 Walt until you are in love yonrsolf, and you will understand it.’ I give a little incredulous sail!. < ait here, Nell,’ said cousin Sol. manceavring me Into a little bank of wild strawberries and mosses, and parching himself upon a stump of a tree besido me. * Now all I ask you to do is to answer one or two questions, and I’ll never bother you any more.’ I sat resignedly, with my hands m my lap. , ‘Are you engaged to Lieutenant Hawthorne ?’

‘ No !’ said I energetically. ‘ Are you fonder of him than of mo ?’

‘ No, I'm not,’ Sol’s thermometer of happiness up to a hundred in the shade at the least. • Are you fonder of me than of him, Nelly?’ in a very tender voics.

• No,’ Thermometer down below zero again. • Bo you mean to say that we are exactly tqua! In your eyes ?’ • Yea.’

1 But you must choose between ua some time, you know” said cou ia Sol with mild reproach in his voice. ‘ I do wish yon wouldn’t bother me so !’ I cried, getting angry, aa women usually do when they are in the wrong. ' You don't care for me much or yon wouldn’t plague me. I believe the two cf you will drive me mad between you,’ Hero there were symptoms of sobs on my part, and utter consternation and defeat among tho Barker faction. ‘ Can’t you see how it is, Sol ?’ said I, laughing through my tears at his woe begone appearance. ‘Suppose you were brought np with two girls and had got to like them both very much, but had never preferred one to the other and never dreamed of marrying cither, and then all of a sudden yon are told you must choose one, and s > make the other very unhappy, you wouldn’t find it an easy thing to do, would you ?' ‘ I suppose not,’ said the student. ‘ Then you can’t blame me 1 ‘ I don’t blame you, Nelly,’ he answered, attacking a great purple toadstool with his stick. ‘ I think you are quite light to be sure of your own mind. It seems to mo, he continued, speaking rather gaspily, but saying hia mind like the true English gentleman that he was, 4 it seems to me that Hawthorne la an excellent fellow. He has seen more of tho world than I have, and always does and soys the right thing in the right p’aee, which certainly isn’t one of my characteristics. Then he is well bom, and has good prospeots. I think I should be vary grateful to you for your hesitation, Nell, and look upon it as a sign of your good-heartedness. ’ •We won’t talk about it any more,’ said I, thinking in my heart what a very much finer fellow he was than the man ho was praising. ‘Look here, my jacket is all stained with horrid fungi and thing*. We’d batter go after the rest of the party, hadn’t wo ? I wonder where they are by this time V

It didn’t take very long to find that out. At first we heard shouting aad laughter come echoing through the long glades, and then, as wa made our way In that direction, wo were astonished to meet the usually phlegmatic Elsie careering through the wood at the very top of her speed, her hat oft’, and her hair streaming in the wind. My first idea was that soma frightful catastrophe had occurred—brigands possibly, or a mad dog—and I saw my companion’s big hand close round his stick ; bnt on meeting the fusitive lb proved to bo nothing mere tragic than a game of hide-and-seek, which the indefatigable Mr Cronin had organised. What fun we had, crouching and running and dodging among the ttatherley oaks, and how horrified the prim old abbot who planted them would have been, and the long aeries of black-coated brethren who have muttered their orisons beneath the welcome shade 1 Jack refused t» play on account of his weak ankle, and lay smoking under a tree in high dudgeon, glaring in n baleful and gloomy fashion at Mr Solomon Barker ; while the latter gentleman entered enthusiastically into the game, and distinguished himself by always getting caught, and never by any possibility catching anybody eke. Poor Jack ! He was certainly unfortunate that day. Even an accepted lover would been rather put cut. I think, by an incident which occurred during our return home. It was agreed that all of ua should walk, as the trap had been already sent off with the empty basket, so we started down Thorny Lane and through the fields. We were just getting over a stile to cross old Brown’s tenaero lot, whan Mr Cronin palled up, and remarked that he thought wa had batter get into the road. ‘Hoad?’ said Jaok. * Nonsense! We save a quarter of a mile by the Sold.’ ‘ Yes, but it’s rather dangerous. We’d better go round.’ ‘ Where’s ths danger ?’ oaid our military man, contemptuously twisting his moustache.

‘O, nothing,’said Cronin. 1 That quadruped fn tho middle of the field is a bull, and not a very good-tempered one either. That’s all. I don’t think that the ladle •> ehonld be allowed to go.’ ‘ We won’t go,' said tho ladies in chorus. ‘Then oomo round by tho hedge and get into the road,’ suggested Sol. ’You may go as yon like,' said Jack, rather testily j * but I am going across the field.’

< Don’t be a fool, Jack,’ said my brother. ‘You fellows may think it right to turn tail at an old cow, but I don’t It hurts my self-respect, you see, so I shall join you at the other side of the farm.’ With which speech .lack buttoned up his coat in a truculent manner, waved his cane jauntily, and swaggered off into the ten-acre lot.

We clustered about tho stile and watched the proceedings with anxiety. Jack tried to look as if he were entirely absorbed in the view and in the probable state of the weather, for he gazed about him and up into the clouds in an abstracted manner. His gaze generally began and ended, however, somewhere in the direction of the bull. That animal, after regarding the intruder with a prolonged sfare, had retreated into the shadow of the hedge at one side, while Jack was walking up the long axis of the field.

‘ It's all right,’ said I; ‘it’s got out of his way.’ ’I think it’s leading h'm on,' said Mr Nicholas Cronin. ‘ It's a vicious, cunning brni«.’

Mr Cronin had hardly spoken before the bull emerged from the hedge, and began pawing the ground and tossing its wicked bl-ck head in the air.

Jack was in the middle of the field by this time, and affected to take no notice of his companion, though he quickened his pace slightly. The bull’s next manoeuvre was to run rapidly round in two or three small circles ; and then it suddenly stopped, bellowed, put down Its head, elevated its tail, and made for Jack at the very top of its speed. There was no use pretending to ignore its ex : stence any longer. Jack faced rouud and gazed at it for a moment. He had only h's little cane in his hand to oppose to the halfton of irate baef which was charging towards him. He did the only thing that was possible, namely, to make for the hedge at the other side of the field.

At fi'at Jack hardly condescended to run, but went off wltu a languid, contemptuous trot, a sort of compromise between his dignity and his fear, which was so ludicrous that, frightened as we were, we burst Into a chorus of laughter. By degrees, however, as he heard the galloping of hoofs sounding nearer and nearer, ho quickened his p«oo, until ultimately ho was in full flight for shelter, with his hat gone and his coat-tails fluttering in tho breeze, while his pursuer was not ten yards behind him. If all Ayoub Khan’s cavalry had been in his rear, our Afghan kero could not havo dane the dia-

in a shorter time. Quickly as he went, the bull went quicker still, and the two seemed to gain the hedge almost at the same moment. W« saw Jack spring boldly into it nnd tho next moment, ho camo flying out at the other side bs if he had b en discharged from a cannon, while tho bull in-ono-ed in a scries of triumphant billows through thn hoi j which he hid nude. It was a reliif to us all to see Jack gather himso f up and start off for homo without a gin nee" in our direction. He had retired to his room by tho time wc arrived, and did not appear until breakfast next morning, when he limped in with a ’.cry oreatfa'lon expre-s'.cn. r one of us was hard-hearted enough to allude to the subject, however, and by judicious treatment we[restorad him before lunch time to his usual state of equanimity. It was a couple of days after tho picnic that our great Derby sweepstakes was to come off. This was an annual ceremony never omitted at Hatherley Hou?.e, whore, between visitors and neighbours, there were generally quite as many candidates for tickets as there wore horses entered.

' The sweepstakes, ladies and g a ntlemon, oomea off to-night,’ said Bob in his character of head of the house- * Tho subscription is ten shillings. Second gets quarter of the pool, and third has his money returned. No ono is allowed to have more than one ticket, or to sell his ticket after drawing it. Tho drawing will bi st (even thirty.’ All of which Bub delivered in a very pompous and official voice, though tho effect was impaired by a sonorour 4 Amen !’ from Mr Nicholas Cronia, {To he continued.)