Year: 1875

| the roaring crowd that thronged around
the track, hoarse with shouting at the
| flying steeds, began to have little leis-
ure for something else than roaring
Winners and loosers were both hun
Cry. It would be an hour or more before
the next race was called, and, therefore,
everybody who had brought anything to
eat or drink with them lost no time in
making preparations to demolish the
same.


There are very few who go hungry or
thirsty on an English race-course at
luncheon-tin1e. Tt is a general picnic of
a whole population, and though some of
the losers may have heavy hearts and Il O
appetites, the great majority are as mer-
ry as good eating and drinkig can make
them.


Opposite the grand stand where sew
eEal handsome carriages, filed with gay
fashionables, were standing in group,
loud laughter and jesting created hub
bnb scarcely less deafening than the
roars which had accompanied the races.
A party of collegians, swarming at the
top and sides of huge coach, were ban
dying jokes with their friends in the
crowd /; and several ladies, reclining in
landau Real, were equally merry, in a
quieter way, with their admirers throng-
ing about them.


A stolid policeman, seated, with fold
ed arms, on an empty wine case, and
youth in livery, slyly devouring tidbits
from hamper by which he knelt, were
the only two persons near who were not
talking or laughing, and they, no doubt,
were enjoying themselves quite as much
as the rest of the group. Nothing on
the surface of the scene indicated aught
but genuine fun and frolic, and the ac-
tors therein little dreamed that the ele-
ments of cruel tragedy were hidden
in their midst, waiting only a chance
meeting between two individuals, now
unconsciously approaching each other,
to bring it about.


1t came at last. A shrill cry of triumph
and rage in a boys voice, followed
quickly by dreadful oath in the deeper
tones OF man, beside himself with fear
and anger, rose above all other sounds.
and hushed the laughers as if by magic.
The tidbit which the youth in livery
was on the point of conveying to his
gaping mouth stopped half way and was
never swallowed. The jokers paused at
the point of the joke, the ladies drop
ped their fans and their Irritation, and the
stolid policeman, turning slowly on the
vine case, beheld, still with folded arms
and at his ease, this scene


Two men, dressed in fashionable gar
ments, and evidently members of the
higher class of society, confronting a
ragged, dirty boy, whose left hand held
backing brush, and whose right, clinch-
ed and quivering, seemed to threaten
the foremost Of the gentlemen with
blow. The latter appeared to be cou-
vulsed with terror and wrath. He swung
above his head q heavy cane, and his
pale face and fiery eyes threatened
murderous blow, which the restraining
hand of his companion for the moment
prevented.


The boy faced his antagonist daunt-
lessly, though there was that in the
mans face which might have caused the
boldest heart to quail. Starved almost
to skeleton, weak to faintness with i'll
ness and fatigue, his miserable clothes
scarcely affording his emaciated body a
decent covering, Ben, the Bootblack,
stood his ground before that evil eye and
uplfted weapon as if his scanty rags
We're steel armor and the humble imple-
ment of his trade ponderous battle ak.


''Ha, ha /" he cried, Historically. his
shrill voice trembling between a sob and
and laugh; GIVE found you at last,
have [? You're the very cove wot did
it. Give her back to me, I tell ye-give
her back


The man he addressed made no reply,
unless the fierce oath, his deadly pallor,
and the uplifted cane may be consider
ed such; but his companion, as he caught
his arm and arrested the blow, question
ed the boy angrily:


'EWhat do you mean ?'' he said. ssDo
you know who you are talking tor


81 knows him well," returned Ben,
frantically. s'Don't let him go. He
stole the baby up in Lunnon. I've fol-
Tered him ever since. I knows where he
took her to, and I'll never let him go till
he gives her back


Down on the ground, beneath rain
Of cruel strokes, each one of which
would have felled a giant, struggling
bravely to rise each time, and beaten
back again and again by the murderous
cane in the hands of one who was now a
veritable madman through terror and
wrath hearing the shouts of men and
the shrieks Of women around him, as if
they were battle cries urging him on to
do his deuoi7, fainter and fainter grow
his means and writings, until at last =
all that was fearful blow-our Knight
of Low Degree lies still upon the turf,
and Wyvil Moocroft is wrestling in the
hands of the by-standers, while the sto-
lid policeman is fitting handouts on his
elegant wrists.






had fully repaid his debt of gratitude
When he recovered his senses after the
terrible beating he had received, he told