Part 8 (1/2)

A curious incident happened once in the rural district of Saffron Walden. It is a borough no doubt, but it always seemed to me to be too small for any grown-up thing, and its name sounded more like a little flower-bed than anything else. On the occasion of which I speak there was great excitement in the place because they had got a prisoner--an event which baffled the experience of the oldest inhabitant.

The Recorder was an elderly barrister, full of pomp and dignity; and, like many of his brother Recorders, had very seldom a prisoner to try. You may therefore imagine with what stupendous importance he was invested when he found that the rural magistrates had committed a little boy for trial for stealing a _ball of twine_. Think of the grand jury filing in to be ”charged” by this judicial dignitary.

Imagine his charge, his well-chosen sentences in antic.i.p.ation of the one to come at the end of the sitting. Think of his eloquent disquisition on the law of larceny! It was all there!

After the usual proclamation against vice and immorality had been read, and after the grand jury had duly found a true bill, the next thing was to find the prisoner and bring him up for trial.

We may not be sentimental, or I might have cried, ”G.o.d save the child!” as the usher said, ”G.o.d save the Queen!” But ”Suffer little children to come unto Me” would not have applied to our jails in those miserable and inhuman times. Mercy and sympathy were out of the question when you had law and order to maintain, as well as all the functionaries who had to contribute to their preservation.

”Put up the prisoner!” said the Recorder in solemn and commanding tones.

Down into the jaws of the cavern below the dock descended the jailer of six feet two--the only big thing about the place. He was a resolute-looking man in full uniform, and I can almost feel the breathless silence that pervaded the court during his absence.

Time pa.s.sed and no one appeared. When a sufficient interval had elapsed for the stalwart jailer to have eaten his prisoner, had he been so minded, the Recorder, looking up from behind the _Times_, which he appeared to be reading, asked in a very stern voice why the prisoner was not ”put up.”

They did not put up the boy, but the jailer, with a blood-forsaken face, put himself up through the hole, like a policeman coming through a trap-door in a pantomime.

”I beg your honour's pardon, my lord, but they have forgot to bring him.”

”Forgot to bring him! What do you mean? Where is he?”

”They've left him at Chelmsford, your honour.”

It seemed there was no jail at Saffron Walden, because, to the honour of the borough be it said, they had no one to put into it; and this small child had been committed for safe custody to Chelmsford to wait his trial at sessions, and had been there so long that he was actually forgotten when the day of trial came. I never heard anything more of him; but hope his small offence was forgotten as well as himself.

CHAPTER IX.

THE ONLY ”RACER” I EVER OWNED--SAM LINTON, THE DOG-FINDER.

I have been often asked whether I ever owned a racer. In point of fact, I never did, although I went as near to that honour as any man who never arrived at it--a racer, too, who afterwards carried its owner's colours triumphantly past the winning-post.

The reader may have been shocked at the story I told of those poor ill-brought-up children whose mother was murdered, from the natural feeling that if pure innocence is not to be found in childhood, where are we to seek it?

I will indicate the spot in three words--_on the Turf_.

True, you will find fraud, cunning, knavery, and robbery, but you will find also the most unsophisticated innocence.

I went as a spectator, a lover of sport, and a lover of horses; and took more delight in it than I ever could in any haunt of fas.h.i.+onable idleness.

I amused myself by watching the proceedings of the betting-ring, where there is a good deal more honesty than in many places dignified by the name of ”marts.”

But if there was no innocence on the turf, rogues could not live; they are not cannibals--not, at all events, while they can obtain tenderer food. And are there not commercial circles also which could not exist without their equally innocent supporters?

Experience may be a dear school, but its lessons are never forgotten.

A very little should go a long way, and the wisest make it go farthest. If any one wants a picture of innocence on the turf, let me give one of my own drawing, taken from nature.

All my life I have loved animals, especially horses and dogs; and all field sports, especially hunting and racing. But I went on the turf with as much simplicity as a girl possesses at her first ball, knowing nothing about public form or the way to calculate odds, to hedge, or do anything but wonder at the number of fools there were in the world.

I did not know ”a thing or two,” like the knowing ones who lose all they possess. Who could believe that men go about philanthropically to inform the innocent how to ”put their money on,” while they carefully avoid putting on their own? Tipsters, in short, were no part of my racing creed. I was not so ignorant as that. I believed in a good horse quite as much as Lord Rosebery does, and much more than I believed in a good rider. But there were even then honest jockeys, as well as unimpeachable owners. All you can say is, honesty is honesty everywhere, and you will find a good deal of it on the turf, if you know where to look for it; and its value is in proportion to its quant.i.ty. The moment you depart a hair's-breadth from its immaculate principle there is no medium state between that and roguery.