144 ASHGILL; OR, THE LIFE 



battlefield and the bringing up of the reserves with the 

 calmness of a Clyde. ' We know he's well trained and 

 will be well ridden ; and what more do we want ? ' 

 * Why, only to collar the " stuff " afterwards,' was all 

 that could be extracted from him ; and Johnnie Osborne 

 passing him at the time he was speaking, he added, 

 ' That lad rides the winner of the Leger.' ' Mine is a 

 good mare, but not a smasher,' was what John Scott 

 said of Queen Bertha ; but after he had seen ' Clif den ' 

 gallop he almost felt inclined to coincide with the pro- 

 phecy of ' The Druid,' who, in his field wanderings in 

 Scotland, had enveloped himself in the mantle of Pepys, 

 and told him that as fifteen years ago Canezou had to 

 yield to one Lord Clifden, so now would Queen Bertha 

 have to yield to another. Those who had ' taken the 

 pledge ' stuck to him manfully, and none more so than 

 his late owner, who pooh-poohed Queen Bertha terribly. 

 Borealis and Bluemantle had both passed the Doctor in 

 the morning, but none of the old school of trainers, who 

 live as John Osborne does in the mists of Middleham, 

 liked Avenger. 



" The St. Leger Day," vividly continues the brilliant 

 chronicler of Turf events of the period, " fairly beat us, 

 and accustomed as we are to the profanum vulgus, the 

 hordes of Lancashire and Yorkshire w r ere too many for 

 us. Where they came from and where they dispersed 

 to is a problem worthy of consideration of the Council 

 of the Social Science Congress, which is to be held next 

 week. We had read, of course, of the invasion of the 

 cities, but the flock of pilgrims to Doncaster was enough 

 to frighten both the authorities and the unprotected 

 females of the place. And as if the ' flies ' were not 

 sufficiently dangerous in the streets in the high tide of 

 the morning, a menagerie made its appearance with 



