Chapter III

The chase was particularly close. I was anxiously awaiting nightfall to escape them, when, horror! something wet touched my cheek. It was raining. The rain fell in torrents, and as it washed my colour off and I gradually became white, the Chickatoos saw through my disguise. Seizing his rifle, the chief told me to stand apart. He fired, but missed me. I feigned to be hit, and springing into the air, turned sixteen distinct somersaults. Before they recovered from their surprise, I disappeared in the forest.

F. P. DELAFOND.

_The Weekly Dispatch Competition._ February 25, 1883.

In this competition, the compositions were limited to 300 words, which prevented the authors from giving more than a very rough caricature of their originals. But in 1867, Mr. Walter Parke contributed a parody of Captain Mayne Reid to _Judy_ free from any such harrassing restriction, and succeeded in producing a most blood-curdling romance. It was entitled “_The Skull Hunters_: A Terrific Tale of the Prairie!!” By Captain Rayne Meade; and consisted of twenty-one chapters of thrilling adventures, and daring exploits with illustrations to match. This was published in book form in 1868, another and revised edition was brought out in 1887, during the excitement about Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. This had a tremendous sale, it was called “_The Skull Hunters_; or, The Warriors of the Wild West.” _Judy_ Office, London.

――――

ANTICIPATIONS OF THE DERBY.
BY A FRENCH VISITOR.

I. _L’Homme qui Rit._

“In England, everything is great, even that which is not good, even oligarchy itself!” Thought profound and sublime of the Master; apothegm initiatory and bitter of the Man who Laughs――who laughs, but who can also bite.

For Genius, as for Ambition――for Prometheus who thinks, as for Prometheus who wields the great battalions――seems it not that there is reserved, by the derisive irony of Fate, an expiatory rock, an island exile?

For Victor Hugo, this rock, expiatory but glorious, calls itself Guernsey.

For Napoleon, it had two names; it was Elba, and it was Ste. Hélène.

Patience, Master! Watching the brumous clouds, tainted with Britannic fogs, that roll around the Islands of the Sleeve in the crepusculary sadness of an English spring――listening to the breeze, keen, acute, Arctic, Polar, which groans, which growls, which howls, which whistles menacing but impuissant, around the walls of Hauteville House――remember thyself, Master, that History, as for Ambition, so for Genius, repeats herself, in moments, for the one of remorse, for the other of caprice!

After Elba, the Hundred Days.

After Ste. Hélène, the voyage of the Belle-Poule.

“He laughs best who laughs last,” says the Proverb.

Proverbs are the wisdom of nations.

And thou, oh Master, oh author of the Man who Laughs, thy laugh is as the laugh of Gwynplaine, sombre but not cynical, permanent but full of pity, of compassion――a laughter broken with tears――above all, a laughter which endures!

II. _The Solidarity of the Sportmans._

Yes; in England, everything is great. Even in her sports, she is the Titaness of the Ocean.

There is a solidarity of peoples; above all, there is a solidarity amongst the votaries of Diana, huntress pale, chaste, ferocious, formidable, but ravishing, but divine!

The _sportmans_ of France, the _sportmans_ of England, they are as the brothers of Corsica. What says your Williams? “As we were being washed by nurse, we got completely mixed!”

Touching and tender fantasy of this grand old Swan of Stratford-upon- Thames! Or, what say I――of Corsica? Of Siam――melancholy but affecting type of the rudimentary solidarity of the Orient!

I had long desired to watch you insularies in the sports of the hippodrome, in which I am myself not without skill; but the furious storms of the Sleeve twice detained me at Calais, and once at Boulogne. I consoled myself in the hope that everything comes to him who knows how to wait.

I knew how to wait. I waited.

After Chantilly, Epsom’s courses!

The sea appeared calm; not a wrinkle in the folds of the steel-blue Sleeve.

I embarked myself, with my luggage in my left hand and my “Ruff’s Guide to the Turf” in my right.

I shall see them, then, at last――these courses, sacred in the past by the memory of Eclipse and the Flying Admiral Childers, dear to the patriotic heart of France in the present days by the triumph of Gladiateur!

III. _Ocean less Perfidious than the Aristocracy of Albion._

The sun was shining. The Ocean stirred gently in its sleep. Its ripples were as tender, as voluptuous, as the sighs of pleasure which scarcely derange the diaphanous scarf that lies upon the bosom of beauty. Oh, Phœbus! Oh, Neptunus! Oh, Venus!

I told you the sun was shining. My heart also. That I was gay! Gaiety premature, unreasonable, absurd!

As we cross Calais Bar the vessel rolls. I like it not. Can she be strong enough for the traverse, often fearful and stormy, to Douvres? I begin to marvel whether she is made of iron, or only made of wood.

I address the question, politely, to a young English _sportmans_ by my side――“Pardon, Mister! but what is the vessel made of?”

A spasm of uncertainty, if not of pain, passes across his face as he points to an inscription inside the paddle-boxes.

One can only die one time; nevertheless, it is permitted to exclaim against the perfidy of the Steam-Lords of the Board of Commerce for London and Douvres. I read the inscription. Hope abandons me. The vessel is _not_ made of iron!

She is not even made of wood!!

She is only “Maid of Kent!!!”

IV. _Portentosum Mare._

An agitation which I have never felt before seems to seize upon me.

The further we go, the more it increases.

The young English _sportmans_, with the cynical indifference of the patrician, contemplates my sufferings, and lights his cigar. Is it that he calls _that_ “solidarity”?

Two blonde misses with their papa――oligarch, fat, and without sympathy――sit near me. They talk to each other freely. At times they laugh. I laugh not, I!

Nor would _they_ laugh, spoilt infants of Fashion, if I were to express the ideas that are struggling in my bosom――if I were to show them all that is within me!

V. _After Convulsion, Despair._

I have shown them all that was within me.

They have moved away――it was a prudent step.

Now that they are gone, I could almost wish that I were dead!

VI. _Noblesse Oblige._

The young English _sportmans_ is, after all, a good infant. He brings me a big goblet and a biscuit, which comfort me, and tries to speak to me in French.

Words sympathetic, but mysterious.

“_Ah, Monsieur_,” he says, “_il faut décidément maintenir votre pivert_!”

Enigma! “I must keep up my wood-pecker?” I _have_ no wood-pecker! I tell him so in his own tongue; adding that I am very fond of shooting at the doves.

“Ah,” he rejoins, “we don’t call ’em Doves, we call ’em _les hiboux du coiffeur_――Barbers’ Owls!”

We become more and more friendly, as the pain subsides. When we reach Douvres, I give him my card.

He says that he has forgotten his; but that I shall have no difficulty in finding him at any of the _tambours de la chasse_――Sporting Drums――especially if I ask for Lord William Wiggins, of Wapping.

What a droll of a name! Not facile to pronounce, that! Let us essay, with the help of the dictionary of pronunciation:

“Ouilliam Ouiggins――of Ouapping.”

VII. _The Babylon of Britain._

Yes: in England everything is great. Behold this London, confused and chaotic amalgamation of bourg upon bourg, of city upon city, almost of county upon county――behold its administration, vague, contradictory, without doubt, but immense, but Titanic, but sublime.

To-day London has but one heart, which palpitates――one thought, which engrosses――one dream, which possesses――one hope, which enchants. To the heart, the thought, the dream, the hope, there is one key.

It is the Epsom’s Courses, at Derby!

VIII. _Explications._

Questions to resolve:

“Who is Epsom?”

“And where is Derby?”

Mystery strange and inexplicable, this Epsom! Not one of my interlocutors, of French or English, can give me any particulars of his life. Oh fame, oh renown, oh fickleness of popular affection! We go to the Courses he has founded; and yet the very day of his death is forgotten or unknown!

Another mystery. Derby is a hundred and twenty miles from London; and yet many of my friends assure that they will drive down without a single change of horses! Ah, then, it is no marvel, this predominance of the old England in the hippic arena, when even the ordinary horses of the carriage can travel a hundred and twenty miles――two hundred kilomètres――without fatigue.

These facts were new to me. They were also new to most of my countrymen with whom I conversed.

The Unknown――behold the Redoubtable!

IX. _Vieille Ecole, Bonne Ecole_.

Happily, I encounter Lord Ouiggins.

He is an aristocrat of the old rock――a little mocking, perchance, a little reserved, cold, indifferent, proud, but of an antique probity, a disinterestedness more than Roman.

He takes me under his charge.

_I had been deceived._ They were mocking themselves of me, those who told me the courses were at Derby. They are run on Epsom’s Salt-Downs.

“Derby” is only the title of their founder, one of those English eccentrics of whom the type is so familiar in France――poet, politician, jockey――Premier Minister of Great Britain until he was overthrown by the intrigues of Sir Benjamin Gladstone!

After one thunder-stroke, another:

_Gladiateur is not to run!_

Is _this_, then, the old Britannic chivalry――the love of what the poet has proudly called “Greenwich Fair-Play”? Is _this_ the _entente cordiale_? I survey Lord Ouiggins. He can scarcely meet my eye. He turns aside.

Let us hope it is to blush!

He tries to defend the invidious exclusion. He pretends that in the Derby-Course the horses must not exceed a certain age; also that Gladiateur was at least quite sufficiently near that age when he _did_ run. Puerile evasion! False pride of nationality!

What is to become of the money I have wagered?

Lord Ouiggins tells me to console myself. _He has private information._ He will not see a foreign gentleman wronged.

X. _Les Nuits de Londres._

We are inseparable.

Milord has backed a favourite to win him thousands of sterlings.

Curious, almost cynical nomenclature of the Turf!

The horse is named Ventre-Tambour, Bellydrum!!

He is assured to win; Milord dreamt, last night, that he saw him four lengths ahead at Tattenham-court-road Corner.

I wager freely on Ventre-Tambour.

Lord Ouiggins says we had better not go down to his baronial hall at Ouapping, but “make a night” and start early.

Ah, nights of London, you have not, effectively, stolen your reputation! What contrasts, fascinating but terrible――here, the noblesse, like Ouiggins quaffing champagne with visitors from France; and there the miserables, the Tom-Dick-Harries drinking gin――the blonde misses, casting aside the Puritanic pudor of the saloon, and dancing freely with foreign _gentlemans_ at the Duke of Argyle’s Casino――what contrasts, but also, alas, what jealousies still existing, what internecine hatred still in rage!

That the English should hate the Irish is but natural.

We always hate those whom we have wronged!

It is less reasonable that they should continue to hate the children of Cambria, with whom they have been so long in friendly union.

And yet, more than once during this exciting evening, I have heard Lord Ouiggins spoken of――my patrician _pur sang_――as a Welsher, with evident contempt.

Brutal antipathies unworthy of the century!

They shall have no influence on the mind of a son of France.

“Lord Ouilliam,” I exclaimed, “regard them not! Generous compatriot of Llewellyn, I pledge thee in another bumper to the victory of Ventre-Tambour!”

――――:o:――――

REALITIES OF THE DERBY.

I. _Selters waters, or S. and B?_

After Light, Shadow; after Pleasure, Pain; sad but inevitable oscillations of the pendulum of life!

Alas, to wake――it is to remember, and to remember is to repent.

Last night, I banqueted with the merchant-princes of London and with the ancient nobility of Wales; the leaders of the Fashion World, the Sport, the Turf, the boxers of the most renowned, the comics of the musical saloons――Lord Ouiggins signalised them all to me. Foaming, sparkling, vivacious, the wines of Champagne led the way for the stronger Grogs. A vision, confused indeed, but magnificent in its confusion, will long recall to me the night before the Derby.

I awoke.

Sad and supreme moment of mortality when awakening means isolation!

For some time, I knew not where I found myself. Presently, as the dim light of the dawn penetrated, first through the folds of the fog, and next through the dirt of the windows, I recollected that Lord Ouiggins had advised me to stay with him at a fashionable hotel, adding that his own drag would call for us in the morning.

It was still of a good hour. I turned myself to sleep; but heard, with dreamy ears, the fall――or so it seemed――of cataracts of rain, around me, beside me, overhead. The sound gave me a strange sensation of thirst, which I cannot otherwise explain.

Instinctively, I rang the bell, and shouted “Selters! Selters! Selters!”

A tap at my door; and Lord Ouilliam, in half-toilette, appeared. I saluted him.

“Is it that the rain will make to be deferred the Courses?”

“What rain?”

“Listen, then!”

“_That?_ Why, it’s only the men tubbing!” (Idiom untranslatable.)

“What did you ring for?” pursued Lord Ouilliam.

“But, for Selters then!”

“_Tout droit._” he rejoined. “_Vous etiez horriblement coupé, mon ami; bien roide!_”

Strange and picturesque _argot_ of intoxication: “awfully cut,” “very tight.”

“Listen,” continued Milord, “My carriage is not yet arrived. It has probably been stopped by the Thames Embankment, which is to run outside my park at Ouapping. Look you, I will take places for two, outside an omnibus. It is the usual plan amongst nobility. Admiral Rous will be one of us. You may easily know him by his wearing a white hat, a veil, and a flower in his button-hole. Meanwhile, better not have Selters. Try S. and B!”

Enigma, of which the solution――when it came――was far from disagreeable.

II. _Lux._

The morning at first was dull and brumous. The _spleen_ of Britannia seemed to possess me. I had atrocious pains in my head. Every noise bore upon my nerves. The very sight of food seemed to nauseate me.

Lord Ouiggins, on the contrary, made a breakfast of the most substantial.

I cannot say much in favour of the cuisine at this fashionable hotel, one of the first in London, the well-known “Spotted Dog” in the aristocratic quarter. Route de la Chapelle Blanche (White-Chapel-road), the Faubourg St. Germain of London. Strange: the hotel is not mentioned in any of the ordinary London Guides.

We take our places. The best seat is reserved for the Admiral――that famous old warrior, who turned the fortune of the day at Chillianwallah by his historical charge at the head of the Naval Reserve and the Royal Horse Marines. Combination eccentric, but not without precedent. The horse was sacred to Neptunus. This Rous, see you, this Admiral so passionately equine in his tastes, he is Jean-Bart and he is also Murat; he is Kellermann and he is also La Pérouse! All the great men touch, and recognise one another!

The light still brightens. Behold us then effectively departed!

Hourrah! Hep, hep, hep!

Vive Ventre-Tambour!

III. _Nothing is Certain to Happen but that which is Unforeseen._

We have gone a few miles on our road, still through the streets of the fashionable quarter, to-day as democratic as the Faubourg St. Antoine, and crowded with other Derbyites, before we speak much to each other. Reserve characteristic of the oldest and proudest aristocracy on earth.

At length Lord Ouiggins whispers me――

“I knew I had forgotten _something_. I’ve left my purse on the piano!”

For the moment I wished that I had done the same.

Suspicion dishonouring and ignoble!

IV. _Si Jeunesse Savait._

Fog, obscurity, cold――yes, you will find them all in the climate of Great Britain; in England, in Scotland, in Ireland, and in the mountains of Wales, the cradle of Lord Ouilliam! It is true, but it is not the only verity. Great Britain also has her moments of fine weather. There are no such trees in the world as the tall poplars of my own, my beautiful France――none planted in such mathematical, such symmetrical order, so methodical, logical, and straight. Nevertheless, Nature is infinite. Even the chestnuts, hawthorns, lilacs, and laburnums of the Surrey lanes are not absolutely offensive to the eye. To-day, also, Phœbus pierces. _Lux!_

There are no women in the world like those of Paris; but there is still a pleasant freshness in the faces of the young pensionaries who watch us, at times, over garden walls. To several of these, I kiss my hand. They smile in reply. Laugh, rosy daughters of Albion, laugh; for it is still day, and you are young――too young for reverie.

V. _When Poverty becomes ironical, let Wealth take care._

The old Britannic _humour_, as exhibited in Samuel Benjamin Jonson, in Jonathan Smith, and Dean Sydney Swift, is not absolutely extinct upon the road.

More than one little Arab of the highway shouts out to me, “I’ll have your hat!” Wild caprice of the imagination, playfully misrepresenting the probable eventualities of the future, and yet, at bottom, profound, almost terrible――a mockery, yes, but a menace――a jest, without doubt, but a threat also――the voice, grotesque but strident, of the Miserables.

I impart the reflections to Lord Ouiggins. Alas, to what good? The pride of his class is too strong for him. His natural instincts are noble; but he is spoiled by the mephitic atmosphere of the Upper Chamber. With a laugh cold, sardonic, and glacial, he replies:――

“Throw the little beggar a copper, and let him go!”

He does not even, generous though he is, offer to provide the copper.

Again, ignoble suspicion! I forget that he has left his purse on the piano!

The Arab――delirious with joy――saved, perhaps, from starvation by the casual bounty of a foreign _sportmans_, would fain express his thanks. His emotion overpowers him. He staggers; horror, he falls! No! again! Gallant child of Poverty, the struggle is vain. Once more he wavers, he oscillates, he falls, and turning wildly head over heels, in the convulsion of his death agony, he disappears in a cloud of dust――doubtless to be driven over by the omnibuses of the haughty, and the phaetons of the Stock Exchange!

Shocked, but masking my horror under the veil of a politeness a little cynical I say to Lord Ouiggins.

“And well, then, Milord, did you see what he did? and do you know what will be his fate?”

Question terrible!

He does not even remove the cigar from his mouth, this impassive patrician, as he answers, with a laconism which lacerates, which vibrates on my nerves, which almost makes me bound.

“_Yes; cart-wheel!_”

VI. _London at Epsom._

Dust, heat, emotion――all stimulate thirst.

I soon forget the little Arab. There are plenty of others remaining! There are worse things in the world, too, than bottled stout. Lord Ouilliam tells me that none of the aristocracy now drink champagne in public. It excites a feeling of envy among the lower orders. On Derby’s Day, the populace gives the tone to the peerage.

The crowd; my faith, and what a crowd! There are two things in the world which a man never forgets: his first sight of the sea, and his first sight of the multitude on Epsom Downs!

What a sound, as of ocean! What infinite discords, subdued, by very force of number and of contradiction, into one sublime monotone! What minstrelsy, cosmopolitan and comprehensive――the audible expression of a Colonial System unparalleled in grandeur and extent! The Hindoo may think in his heart of the days when he fought for his country’s municipal freedom under the banner of Rammohun Roy and Nana Sahib; but look! Plaintively submissive, he strikes his _tom-tom_ to amuse the destroyers of his race.

VII. _Messieurs, faites votrejeu! Le jeu est fait!_

“Would you like to see the horses a little nearer?” says Lord Ouiggins. “You had better buy a couple of tickets for the Padwick.” I do so. The Padwick――so called of an eminent British _sportmans_――is an enclosed space in which the true connoisseurs survey the horses before they start. As I gaze at Ventre-Tambour, I can hardly refrain from shouting, amongst all these impassible patricians, “Hourrah! Hep, hep, hep!”

Lord Ouilliam Ouiggins comes to me, hurriedly, and whispers, “Hush, _I have just got the straight tip from the Admiral himself_. It’s a moral; and the horse at twenty-five to one! We must get on every sov. we have. There is barely time before they start. Quick.” I hand him my purse――not without a moment of hesitation――of which I am speedily ashamed.

VIII. _Rien ne va plus._

A minute sometimes seems like hours. Fortune was in my grasp.

The interval of suspense was horrible; and yet its termination, when it _did_ come, seemed abrupt, sudden, incredible.

I was still struggling with the crowd, when a hoarse sound suddenly rose like the roar of a tempest on a rocky coast――it rose, and rose, and grew stronger; I looked; I saw a wonderful white flash of faces as the heads of the multitude turned all, in one instant, one way; and my pulses seemed as though they would kill me with their throbbing as, with one voice, that innumerable assemblage cried――

“THEY’RE OFF!”

IX. _The Word of the Enigma._

They were indeed; and so was Lord Ouilliam Ouiggins of Ouapping!

ANONYMOUS, 1869.

――――:o:――――

ONE-AND-THREE.

In 1874, _Punch_ published a novel under the above title ascribed to “Fictor Nogo,” but which was popularly (and correctly) attributed to Mr. F. C. Burnand. Later on it was published in book form by Bradbury and Co. The fun is rather long drawn out, but Hugo’s style is admirably parodied. The following is an extract from the preface:――

Letter from M. Fictor Nogo (author of “Une-et-trois”) to our eminent translator:――“My Honourable Co-Labourer,――Your noble and glorious translation of my immortal work touches me profoundly. I felicitate London. London, in publishing a work of mine, draws to itself the attention of the civilised world. London swells with pride under the benignant sway of a Lord Mayor. The Lord Mayor crowns poets, glorifies literature. He decks you with turtle, and this does homage to genius. You represent genius, for you represent me. Thus I am shadowed: for this I embrace you in spirit, You have co-mingled your ideas with mine. You and I, the Translator and the Translated, the Adapter and the Adapted, it is grand. More than grand――it is stupendous. More than stupendous――it is colossal.”

――――:o:――――

“THIRTY-ONE.”
(_By the Author of “93,” “The History of a Grime,” &c., &c._)

CHAPTER I.――_Searching._

She was lost! In this world nothing is lost. It is only mislaid. _She_ was Miss Lade: yet she was lost! Where was she? She was in London. London is in England. It is a great city――as large as Paris! It is as hard to discover a person in London as “to find a needle in a bottle of hay.” This is an English phrase. They bottle hay, and rack it, like wine! It is made into chaff. The people are fond of chaff. The Scotchman lives on oats, the Irishman on potatoes, the Englishman on chaff.

Tom Harry sought her. He wanted to marry her! He hoped she also wanted Tom Harry. But he had lost her. He knew she was in London, therefore he was in London. He inquired of many. They gave him chaff. He could not find the needle in it. _She_ was his needle. He was a Pole――an English naturalized Pole. He would stick at nothing to find her. They were true to each other as Needle and Pole! but were now as far apart as two Poles!

CHAPTER II.――_Cum Grano Salis._

The world is always large. Society is small. But Tom Harry and Miss Lade were in the world. They were not in Society! He had to seek her _out_ of Society. Endeavour to catch a globule of mercury in a drawer. It flies――it escapes――it separates into atoms――it joins again and rolls away――it is lost――it is found――it is never secured! It eludes you――it is a demon――a wild spirit that vanishes as you think you grasp it! So was Miss Lade to Tom Harry! He thought that he saw her――but she became invisible! He could not find her. She found herself――it was in furnished apartments!