The road happened just then to be pretty clear, so they proceeded leisurely for some miles further, till just as they were quitting the turnpike for a lane which led to the course, the rattle of wheels and the shouts of drivers came up behind them. Benson, not disposed to swallow any more of other people's dust if he could help it, waked up his horses at once, and they clattered along the lane, up hill and down, and over a railroad track, and past numerous wagons, at a faster rate than ever. "_Do_ get out of the way!" shouted Henry to one primitive gentleman, with a very tired horse, who was occupying exactly the centre of the road. "You go to ----." The individual addressed was probably about to say something very bad, when Benson, who was a moral man, and had the strongest wheels, cut short any possible profanity for the moment by driving slap into him, and knocking him into the ditch, with the loss of a spoke or two. This collision hardly delayed their speed an instant; and though some of the pursuers were evidently gaining, no one overhauled them for three-quarters of a mile, at the end of which Starlight and Firefly swept proudly up to the course, with a long train in their rear. All the vicinity of the Centreville Course--not the stables and sheds merely, but the lanes leading to it, the open ground about it, the whole adjacent country, one might almost say--was covered with wagons stowed together as closely as cattle in a market. If it had been raining wagons and trotters the night before just over the place, like showers of frogs that country editors short of copy fill a column with, or if they had grown up there ready harnessed, there could not have been a more plentiful supply. Wagons, wagons, wagons everywhere, of all weights, from a hundred and eighty pounds to four hundred, with here and there a sulky for variety--horses of all styles, colors, and merits--no sign of a servant or groom of any kind, but a number of boys, mostly blackies, about one to every ten horses, who earned a few shillings by looking after the animals, and watching the carpets, sheets, and fly-nets. The only other movables, the long-handled short-lashed whips, were invariably carried off by their proprietors. Whips and umbrellas are common property in America; they are an exception to the ordinary law of _meum_ and _tuum_, and strictly subject to socialist rules. Woe to the owner of either who lets his property go one second out of his sight! "Now then, Snowball!" quoth Benson, as a young gentleman of color rushed up on the full grin, stimulated to extra activity by the recollection of the past and the vision of prospective "quarters,"--"take care of the fliers, and don't let any one steal their tails! I ought to tell you," he continued to Ashburner, leading the way towards the big, dilapidated,[5] unpainted, barn-like structure, which appeared to be the rear of the grandstand, "you won't find any gentlemen here--that is, not above half-a-dozen at most."