Read "Sink or Swim? , Volume II" by Matilda Charlotte Houstoun online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Musing on this unexpected discovery, Colonel Norcott sauntered slowly / onwards under the spreading lime-trees, now in their full gush of / sweetness, to that portion of the Park where the scene which was the / only one of interest to him in that day's programme of sports was to be / enacted.
On a broad portion of level road, about three-quarters of a mile in / length, and bordered on either side by a grassy ride, it had been / announced that a trotting-match between the respective horses of two / sporting farmers would take place. The match had been made at the Bell / Inn at Gawthorpe, one social evening after market-day was over; and Lord / Guernsey, who was a liberal promoter of all legitimate "sport," had / kindly consented that it should come off on one of the gala-days in / Danescourt Park. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the two / animals, on whose respective merits, nevertheless, a good deal of money / (for such an obscure occasion as the present) had been risked on either / side. Colonel Fred -- who was an _habitué_ at the Bell, "hanging out," as / he termed it, at that highly-respectable hostelry whenever either filial / solicitude or the world-known Gawthorpe races brought him to / Sandyshire -- took a very decided part in the affair, backing his high / opinion of Farmer Scroop's rat-tailed brown cob for more money than he / could well afford to lose. This being the case, and experience on / sporting matters -- to say nothing of a natural tendency to / mistrustfulness -- having combined to put him on the _qui-vive_, the / Colonel had his eyes well open to ascertain that all was on the square, / and that the race, humble though it might be considered, was not going / to be "sold."