20 ASHGILL; OR, THE LIFE 



CHAPTER III 



" When Time, who steals our hours away, 



Shall steal our pleasures too ; 

 The memory of the Past will stay, 

 And half our joys renew." 



LINKED as it has been for three-quarters of a century 

 with the Turf history of the United Kingdom generally, 

 and for upwards of sixty years with the isolated 

 Yorkshire hamlet of Middleham in particular, the name 

 of Osborne has become as familiar as a household word 

 throughout the length and breadth of the land. Its 

 connection with the county of broad acres has led the 

 " Tykes," at least that portion of them unacquainted 

 with the facts, to claim the family as indigenous to a 

 soil that has yielded owners, trainers, jockeys, and 

 stablemen who, from time immemorial, have been 

 conspicuous actors in the great drama of the Turf. 

 When an illusion is innocent 'twere pity, almost, to 

 dispel it. But in the interests of veracity the fact must 

 be stated that Yorkshire is not the natal soil of the 

 Osbornes, or, at least, that part of the family, viz., 

 the father and three sons William, John, and Robert 

 who form central figures in these pages, and to whom 

 the horse-loving county owes much of its history and 

 renown in the present century. 



