CAPTAIN WARNER'S CLOSING SEASONS 139 



" But we must hurry to the scene of operations, 

 or we shall miss some of the fun. A three-mile 

 drive brings us to where a crowd of people are 

 standing about in the snow and the slush, with an 

 air of eager expectancy written on their faces. On 

 each side of the road two little blue and yellow flags 

 flutter gaily in the breeze, and denote that this is the 

 starting-post, as it also is the finishing one. Our 

 drag is drawn up in an adjoining gateway, and a 

 clump of Scotch pines shelters us from the wind. A 

 mile or more of brown road, hemmed in on each side 

 by the white snow, stretches away up the hill and 

 disappears beyond the brow. Some preliminaries 

 have to be gone through ; two of the teams have to 

 reach the farther end of the course, and the road has to 

 be cleared. A more good-humoured crowd could not 

 be imagined — lots of chaff, not a solitary policeman 

 to be seen, and never a moment when one is wanted. 



" At last everything is in readiness ; we assemble 

 round the timekeeper, there is a cry of * he's off ! ' 

 and we see Lord Lonsdale in blue spectacles dash by 

 in his 'one -horse shay.' It seems but another 

 second and old Warpaint, settling down in his stride, 

 is disappearing over the distant hill. He is out of 

 sight, and now we have twenty minutes to wait 

 before he can appear again, which time is not ill- 

 spent alongside of the refreshment hamper. A 

 day or two ago very few people believed it possible 

 to do the twenty miles under the hour; but the 

 business-like way in which everything is arranged 

 seems to have altered that opinion, and now we 

 cannot even get a modest sovereign on the event. 

 Watches are consulted, and in a few minutes more 

 we may expect the returning sportsman to appear 



