CHAPTER XXII.

DONCASTER FENTON'S FATE.

"DEAR SYDNEY,-

"The weird legend of the Black Forest is quite Teutonic, and the catastrophe sufficiently sensational to establish Miss Harlingford's position as a claimant to literature. She must not rest and be thankful' with this legend. I shall await many more. I am off to Doncaster, and shall put up at the Dun Cow.' Your pony is on Compton, at three to one; although they are putting down the money on Aurelius with great confidence. Both are well. Other news anon. In haste,

"Yours, as always,

"FRED. WHITEBELT."

Ham

What a crowd there was in the High Street of Doncaster, on the St. Leger morning! Trains had brought their thousands from Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, York, Liverpool, London-ay, from everywhere. The trade in "Butter Scotch " was enormous. sandwiches at a premium. Peripatetic prophets in seedy black coats, broad- brimmed hats, dirty ties, once washed white, linenless undergarments, broad-toed boots, shortened trowsers, and husky voices, were holding forth with denunciatory threats upon the pleasureseekers of the day; warning them from the wrath to come, the sins of gambling, and idle folly, shouting hypocritically, "Brethren, avoid yon path which leads to hell"; "Know ye, the Winner of the Great Race is only to be sought above," &c. &c., and yet, a few short hours after, might be found laying out their ill-gotten shillings in backing horses on the

course.

A short race commenced proceedings, and then the bell clanged for the St. Leger. Eleven

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runners were numbered on the board. The ring resounded with the bookmakers' excited shouts. "Four to one, bar one."

"Who do you bar?" inquired an aristocrat, leaning over from the Stewards' Stand.

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Why, Compton, of course, my lord." "What on the field?" was the reply.

"A thousand to four hundred to you," roared out a Northern penciller.

"Put it down to me," answered Lord Walsham.

"And to me in monkeys," I said to Sheffield, "if it suits."

"Done, sir. Four to one agin Aurelius! five to one Emancipator. Any price outsiders."

It was a pretty sight to see the runners show off in single file before the Stand enclosures, and when, after two false starts, the white flag fell to Mr. McGeorge's signal, away they bounded over the soft sward; passing the Red House, the anxious spectators watched each struggling horse.

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"Why, t'ould meare wins noo!" roared a

"Dost see how Vanus

brawny Yorkshireman.

is a-goin'?"

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Na, na, nought of t'soort-there's but two in't," said his friend; and when the Judge's chair was reached the myriad cries were "Aurelius-Compton "; so near they were that all awaited the hoisting of the winner's number in breathless anxiety. Up it went, and Compton again obtained a laurel wreath.

"Well done, Whitebelt," said Lord Walsham. "You carried it off this time, at any rate. A near touch, though."

"Yes, better late than never!"

He

Just then I turned to go into the weighing room, when who should pass me but the saddened, chop - fallen Flowery Fenton? trembled as though stricken by paralysis, and, falling on the ground, groaned feebly, as the blood poured out of his mouth. "Send for a doctor," shouted some, who saw him helpless to arise. I went towards him, lifted his head, but it was all over with the mysterious Fenton. He just recognised me, and then gasped out

with his dying breath: "Too late! too late!Whitebelt-Compton wins — Aurelius done for -good-bye for ever!" And this was the end of the well-known, satirically named Flowery Fenton.

Alas! alas! Now how nobly came forth the epitaph of the Great Ancient, "De mortuis nil nisi bonum." Who amongst us should judge the life, the whole life, of a fellowcreature, with its various temptations and individual circumstances woven throughout and around its existence ? And, when he has passed away from us, who shall presume to cast the first stone to break the funereal urn, and extract only the blackened cinders from the cremated ashes of the earthly dead? Shall I do it? Will you try, good reader, strong in the vitality of life? I trow not. There is but One to decide, and pronounce the unknown verdict. For us frail mortals it should be but to remember the good qualities of the departed -to forgive and to forget. Good-bye, Fenton, good-bye.