Epsom Downs

“ Yet of late, with their horse-racing in April and June, and the strange repute of the bone-setter Sally Wallin, the salubrity of the air on the Downs, the easy access to the town, which lieth but sixteen miles or thereabouts from Paul’s, and the goodness of the lodgings, the fame of the place had revived. The gentry of the country-side came to the Monday breakfasts and assemblies, when there was music, card-playing, and dancing; the old buildings were again repaired, and Epsom Wells for a few years was once more crowded. ”

“ Where are you going to place yourself? I think I shall remain below here on the green.”
“Then I shall see the race from the roof my Lord,” answered the captain savagely, and thither he and his companion betook themselves accordingly.
To look down from that elevation upon Epsom Downs just before the start for the Great Race, is to behold a wondrous spectacle. Men—a quarter of a million or so—as black and thick as bees, and emitting much such a hum and clangour as attends the swarming of those perilous insects ”

“ Few able-bodied Londoners of our generation have not by one route or other visited Epsom, which has four railway lines from the capital, two of them indeed not taking the trouble to come beyond the famous racecourse on the Downs. The smart little town lies mainly along the Dorking high-road, in a dip between the Downs and the expanse of Epsom Common, which imperceptibly merges with{150} the wooded swell of Ashstead Common, named Leatherhead Common on a map of a century ago, before it became a resort of school-feasting Londoners. ”

“ The London end of the town is more commonplace, but farther on, about the Clock Tower that replaces the old watch-house, roomy openings, venerable inns, solid dwelling-houses, and shaded walks hint at the amenities of Epsom in its days of watering-place fame. Beyond this south end are the notable mansions of the Durdans and Woodcote Park, each in their well-wooded grounds. Above all, shining on the top of the Downs, the Grand Stand, more than once enlarged since its building in 1829, makes the Capitol or Acropolis of this Surrey Olympia. ”

“ Each of the small, yet dignified, eighteenth-century houses, which add such distinction and grace to each Surrey township—Epsom, Leatherhead, Guildford—gave him a comfortable feeling of his country's well-being, of the essential stability of England. Now and again, in some woodland glade where summer still lingered, he would pass by happy groups engaged in black-berrying; while on the road there waited the charabancs, the motor-cycles, the pony-traps, which had brought them. ”

“ James,” she said, “is splendid with young men. Only I could really tell the world what he has been to some of them. They take to him like anything. There’s something so strong and manly about him—and yet he’s sympathetic. Oh! I could tell you——” She nodded her head sagaciously.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Lester; “I can’t tell you how I admire him, how we all do, in fact. He must be very popular in Epsom.”
“Well, as a matter of fact he rather keeps himself to himself there. They all like him enormously, of course; but he doesn’t want anything really except just the family—myself and the girls, you know. ”

“ Sent along at a pace that Epsom flat never saw eclipsed, sweeping by the Grand Stand like the flash of electric flame, they ran side to side one moment more, their foam flung on each other's withers, their breath hot in each other's nostrils, while the dark earth flew beneath their stride. The blackthorn was in front behind five bars of solid oak, the water yawning on its farther side, black and deep, and fenced, twelve feet wide if it were an inch, with the same thorn wall beyond it! a leap no horse should have been given, no steward should have set. ”

“ Lily had sometimes wondered idly into what sort of a man he had grown up. Beppo had been sixteen or seventeen when the Countess had paid her memorable visit to England—he must be nearly thirty now.
At intervals the Countess would write the Englishwoman whom she called sister a letter which was at once formal and gushing. Two years after her visit to Epsom she had written to say that she and her husband, after spending most of their married life in Italy, had gone back to his native place, Monaco, where they had bought a small property, and where they hoped to spend a peaceful old age. ”

“ I have been told of 8,000 families there at a time—some for the benefit of drinking its hot waters, others for bathing, and others for diversion and pleasure (of which, I must say, it affords more than any public place of that kind in Europe) .
I told you in my former letters that Epsom and Tunbridge do not allow visiting (the companies there meet only on the walks) ; but here visits are received and returned, assemblies and balls are given, and parties at play in most houses every night, to which one Mr. Nash hath for many years contributed very much. ”

“ I took the viall and played some things from one of their books, Lyra lessons, which they seemed to like well. Thus we pass an hour or two after dinner and towards the evening we bade them Adieu! and took horse; being resolved that, instead of the race which fails us, we would go to Epsum. So we set out, and being gone a little way I sent home Will to look to the house, and Creed and I rode forward; the road being full of citizens going and coming toward Epsum, where, when we came, we could hear of no lodging, the town so full ”

“ One single attraction Toland admits Epsom never had—it lacks a river. "One thing is wanting—and happy is the situation that wants no more; for in this place notwithstanding the medicinal waters, and sufficient of sweetes for domestic use, are not to be heard the precipitant murmurs of impetuous cascades. ”

“ Eben, having walked over the mile and a half of heather, and having come to the point from which you can on a clear day see the waters of Cardigan Bay, opened the gate of the enclosure in which Shames’s sheep spent the night.
This Eben did every day till he grew out of knee-breeches into long corduroy trousers. His life was lonely; books were closed against him, because he had not been taught to read; and the sense of the beautiful or the curious in Nature is slow to awake in the mind of the Welsh peasant. After a time Eben began to hold whispered conversations with himself. ”

“ There's a sin, a fearful sin, resting on this nation, that will not go unpunished forever. There will be a reckoning yet—yes, Epps, there's a day coming that will burn as an oven. It may be sooner or it may be later, but it's a coming as sure as the Lord is just."
"If you lived up among the Yankees in New-England," said Epps, "I expect you'd be one of them cursed fanatics that know more than the constitution, and go about peddling clocks and coaxing niggers to run away."
"If I was in New-England," returned Bass, "I would be just what I am here. ”

“ The drive to Epsom, when you get well out of London, is sufficiently pretty; but the part of it which most took my fancy was a district preëminently suburban, the classic community of Clapham. The vision of Clapham had been a part of the furniture of one’s milder historic consciousness—the vision of its respectable common, its evangelical society, its rich drab humanity, its goodly brick mansions of the Georgian era. ”

“ I shall build a cottage down by the river side and live there, and then we can fish for salmon. What more does a fellow want?”
“Let’s wait a bit, and see what the rest of the country is like. We may find a better place.”
“Couldn’t,” cried Esau. “I say, one don’t feel the water so cold now. I don’t want a place to be any better than this. It’s just right.”
“Well, let’s swim back now, and dress. I want my breakfast, and I dare say Gunson’s ready.”
“Bother old Gunson!” puffed Esau. “He’s a regular nuisance. Is he going to-day?” ”

“ The old man is a Tartar, and the girl isn't the sort you could scrape an acquaintance with unceremoniously in the hunting-field. I ought to be able to help you here, but I can't. You see, my wife never dreamt of calling. I'd have made her if I'd known about this before; but it's too late now."
"I've laid my own plans, thank you," said Captain Escott quietly. "Now listen to me carefully. There isn't the slightest chance of getting even an introduction by ordinary means, so I'm going to try extraordinary ones. Old Smith wants a groom. ”

“ When properly stationed on the floor, I would strike up a tune.
"Dance, you d—d niggers, dance," Epps would shout.
Then there must be no halting or delay, no slow or languid movements; all must be brisk, and lively, and alert. "Up and down, heel and toe, and away we go," was the order of the hour. Epps' portly form mingled with those of his dusky slaves, moving rapidly through all the mazes of the dance.
Usually his whip was in his hand, ready to fall about the ears of the presumptuous thrall, who dared to rest a moment, or even stop to catch his breath. ”

“ There is one other yet to pass through the shed, who has as it were a hundred eyes, and until he has come and gone, your life is still in peril." At that moment the master himself entered, and having had to complain that his oxen had not been properly fed, he went up to their racks, and cried out: "Why is there such a scarcity of fodder? There is not half enough straw for them to lie on. Those lazy fellows have not even swept the cobwebs away." ”

“ The Ass and the Old Shepherd
A SHEPHERD, watching his Ass feeding in a meadow, was alarmed all of a sudden by the cries of the enemy. He appealed to the Ass to fly with him, lest they should both be captured, but the animal lazily replied, “Why should I, pray? Do you think it likely the conqueror will place on me two sets of panniers?” “No,” rejoined the Shepherd. “Then,” said the Ass, “as long as I carry the panniers, what matters it to me whom I serve?”
In a change of government the poor change nothing beyond the name of their master. ”

“ In recent years the town has spread in every direction that is possible. In the centre is the Evesham of the past, the Evesham our forefathers built and our fathers knew. But it is encircled by streets and houses which are not the product of the vale, nor are they marked by any individual character. Rows upon rows of dwellings, symmetrical, mechanical, and monotonous, can give no pleasure to the eye, nor can the mind read in them any story save the commercial enterprise of a commercial age. ”

“ Bullsom asked anxiously.
"To tell you the truth, I scarcely know," the younger answered. "Ten years ago there could have been but one answer—to-day—well, look there."
The two men stood still for a moment. They were in the centre of the town, at a spot from which the main thoroughfares radiated into the suburbs and manufacturing centres. Everywhere the pavements and the open space where a memorial tower stood were crowded with loiterers. Men in long lines stood upon the kerbstones, their hands in their pockets, watching, waiting—God knows for what. ”

“ Poor little Eppie had found her home at last—her old home too. Jake Martin, at his wife's instigation, had handed over to his son the little farm that had once belonged to old Sandy and there Charlie and Eppie were to start their new life. And so just as the stars were sinking into the faint blue vault of heaven, and the earth was rising slowly from its shroud of darkness and sleep, Elizabeth had arisen and was now dressed and waiting for Charles Stuart long before he could be expected. ”

“ The contrast between the thousands that spread themselves over the hill or range themselves several deep along the rails, from Tattenham Corner to winning post, and the attendance one meets with on Doncaster Town Moor is great, for in the north the vast concourse is composed mainly of factory hands and other genuine workers enjoying a holiday with money that has been honourably earned, whereas at Epsom we find gathered together the scum of the metropolis, attired mostly in rags, enjoying one phase of the existence of the drone. ”

“ Æsop made his wishes clear. "There is a little lodge yonder in the darkness at the end of that alley, hard by the small gate that is seldom used. You know the gate, for you sometimes used to wait in that little lodge when a late exalted personage chose to walk abroad incognito."
Breant frowned at him. "You know much, Master Æsop."
Æsop shrugged his shoulders. "I am a wizard. But it needs no wizard to guess that, as the exalted personage is no longer with us, he will not walk abroad to-night, and you will not have to yawn and doze in the lodge till he return." ”

“ It had never occurred to her to doubt at first but that he was some fisherman from the village, for he wore a rough jersey and a pair of trousers tucked into sea-boots. His face was bronzed, and his hands were large and brown. Nevertheless she saw that his features were good, and his voice, though he spoke the dialect of the country, had about it some quality which she was not slow to recognize.
"Who are you?" she asked, a little curiously. "Do you live in the village?"
He looked down at her with a faint smile.
"I live in the village," he answered, "and my name is Andrew." ”

“ The Widest Street in Surrey.—A lucky find.—Barbara Villiers.—Pepys at the Wells.—Nell Gwynne.—Aldermen and lazy ladies.—Epsom's fall.—A knavish apothecary.—Baron Swasso, his house.—Miss Wallin, bone-setter; bone-setter, Mrs. Mapp.—Epsom re-made at the table.—Eclipse.—The Road to the Derby.—The Ring round the Gibbet.—Catherine-wheels, Motor-cars, Kites, Pills.—Lord Rosebery.—Lord Lyttelton's ghost.
Epsom is the centre of the country between the great railway lines. ”