At last the trees ceased and they found themselves on the hilltop in a glare of sunlight, on a space of worn ground where donkeys were tethered. "Is this the Derby?" said Sarah. "I hope you're not disappointed?" "No, dear; but where's all the people--the drags, the carriages?" "We'll see them presently," said old John, and he volunteered some explanations. The white building was the Grand Stand. The winning-post was a little further this way. "Where do they start?" said Sarah. "Over yonder, where you see that clump. They run through the furze right up to Tattenham Corner." A vast crowd swarmed over the opposite hill, and beyond the crowd the women saw a piece of open downland dotted with bushes, and rising in gentle incline to a belt of trees which closed the horizon. "Where them trees are, that's _Tattenham Corner_." The words seemed to fill old John with enthusiasm, and he described how the horses came round this side of the trees. "They comes right down that 'ere 'ill--there's the dip--and they finishes opposite to where we is standing. Yonder, by Barnard's Ring." "What, all among the people?" said Sarah. "The police will get the people right back up the hill." "That's where we shall find William," said Esther. "I'm getting a bit peckish; ain't you, dear? He's got the luncheon-basket.... but, lor', what a lot of people! Look at that." What had attracted Sarah's attention was a boy walking through the crowd on a pair of stilts fully eight feet high. He uttered short warning cries from time to time, held out his wide trousers and caught pennies in his conical cap. Drags and carriages continued to arrive. The sweating horses were unyoked, and grooms and helpers rolled the vehicles into position along the rails. Lackeys drew forth cases of wine and provisions, and the flutter of table-cloths had begun to attract vagrants, itinerant musicians, fortune-tellers, begging children. All these plied their trades round the fashion of grey frock-coats and silk sun-shades. Along the rails rough fellows lay asleep; the place looked like a vast dormitory; they lay with their hats over their faces, clay pipes sticking from under the brims, their brown-red hands upon the grey grass.