Hard Pressed by Fred M. White — Read

At Mirst Park there was not very much for Fielden to do. The horses he had brought with him were a moderate lot, and, in the words of the stud-groom, there was not a racer amongst them. With his intimate knowledge of horse-flesh Fielden wondered why Copley kept such an indifferent stable, and where he got his animals. They were even worse than the ordinary run of equine rubbish usually foisted on the millionaire whose ambition it is to figure as a patron of the turf. Perhaps the whole thing was a blind. Perhaps the stud at Seton Manor was merely intended to cover Copley's rascality in another direction. At any rate, Fielden watched the first two races with mingled feelings of contempt and amusement. He had seen his employer's horses figure in both in the sorriest fashion, and till the four o'clock race was free to do as he pleased.

It was strange to move about the paddock, by the weighing-room and on the stand, rubbing shoulders with a score of men whom he knew well. The course was familiar to him, too. Were the past two years but a dream, and had he never left the scene of his former recreations? But no one recognized him. He strolled about listening to the roar of the betting-ring and the cries of the multitude, or threaded his way in and out among the horses. He even spoke to one or two jockeys whom he had once known, but none seemed to identify him.