Time passed and no one appeared.  When a sufficient interval had elapsed for the stalwart jailer to have eaten his prisoner, had he been so minded, the Recorder, looking up from behind the Times, which he appeared to be reading, asked in a very stern voice why the prisoner was not “put up.”

They did not put up the boy, but the jailer, with a blood-forsaken face, put himself up through the hole, like a policeman coming through a trap-door in a pantomime.

“I beg your honour’s pardon, my lord, but they have forgot to bring him.”

“Forgot to bring him!  What do you mean?  Where is he?”

“They’ve left him at Chelmsford, your honour.”

It seemed there was no jail at Saffron Walden, because, to the honour of the borough be it said, they had no one to put into it; and this small child had been committed for safe custody to Chelmsford to wait his trial at sessions, and had been there so long that he was actually forgotten when the day of trial came.  I never heard anything more of him; but hope his small offence was forgotten as well as himself.

CHAPTER IX.

THE ONLY “RACER” I EVER OWNED—­SAM LINTON, THE DOG-FINDER.

I have been often asked whether I ever owned a racer.  In point of fact, I never did, although I went as near to that honour as any man who never arrived at it—­a racer, too, who afterwards carried its owner’s colours triumphantly past the winning-post.

The reader may have been shocked at the story I told of those poor ill-brought-up children whose mother was murdered, from the natural feeling that if pure innocence is not to be found in childhood, where are we to seek it?

I will indicate the spot in three words—­on the Turf.

True, you will find fraud, cunning, knavery, and robbery, but you will find also the most unsophisticated innocence.

I went as a spectator, a lover of sport, and a lover of horses; and took more delight in it than I ever could in any haunt of fashionable idleness.

I amused myself by watching the proceedings of the betting-ring, where there is a good deal more honesty than in many places dignified by the name of “marts.”

But if there was no innocence on the turf, rogues could not live; they are not cannibals—­not, at all events, while they can obtain tenderer food.  And are there not commercial circles also which could not exist without their equally innocent supporters?

Experience may be a dear school, but its lessons are never forgotten.  A very little should go a long way, and the wisest make it go farthest.  If any one wants a picture of innocence on the turf, let me give one of my own drawing, taken from nature.