“Certainly, my Lord, just as Tom Uxbridge here will mount _The King_. What's the good of having a trial-race unless with the same jocks as is to ride them afterwards?--Starting from that white post, up the rise yonder, round the fir clump, and so back again, is the Derby course to a yard.--Master Walter and Mr Derrick, will you be so good-as to bear a hand, and help me out with the steps?” “Ain't the gentleman in the broad-brim going to use them as well as me?” observed the Colonist insolently, and keeping his hands resolutely in his pockets. “I never engaged myself to be his body-servant, as I know on.” There being no answer to this appeal, Captain Lisgard and the trainer once more entered the rubbing-house, and reappeared dragging with them a movable platform upon wheels, and furnished with a flight of steps after the manner of a pulpit. From the top of this, one might see the whole course from end to end, and upon it the four spectators took their station close to the starting-post. “Now, my lads, are you both ready?” inquired the trainer of the jockeys, who were getting their fuming horses into line. “This handkerchief will serve for a flag, and when I drop it, let there he no false starts. One, two, three--now off!” As the handkerchief left his fingers, the bay and black leaped forward as with a single impulse; the next moment each had got into his stride, and was away like the wind. “It is amazing how they keep together,” muttered his Lordship in an uneasy tone: “I should not have thought the Frenchman had had such speed in him.” “It is the hill which will decide the matter, my Lord,” returned the trainer in a low tone; “the ground is rising already. There! and see, the black draws ahead.” “Ay, the black has it!” cried Derrick with a frightful imprecation. “I will lay fifty-pounds to ten on _Manylaws_.” “I take you, sir,” said the man in the broad-brim coolly, as with race-glass in hand he watched every movement of the horses who were now nearing the fir-clump: “there has something happened to that big-boned animal of yours, I fear. What is it, Chifney?” He was about to pass the glass to the trainer, but Derrick roughly tore it from his grasp, and applied it to his own eyes. “It's one of his infernal jibs,” exclaimed he; “and yet---- Well done, Jack Withers; that's a five-pound note in your pocket.--Perhaps you'd like to look again, my Lord, for their position is a little altered.” “The black is gaining fast,” ejaculated Captain Lisgard, his pale face aglow with excitement. “He has recovered all he lost by that false step. What a pace they are coming down the hill! By Heaven, _The King_ is beaten! Tom is using the whip.” “Just what I expected,” murmured the trainer. There was a thunder of hoofs, the smack of a whip again and again, a flash of colour--first black, then bay--and the trial-race was over. “In a second and a half less time than the last Derby,” said his Lordship drily, after consulting his stop-watch.