436 MB. SPONGE'S SPORTING TOUR. 



which nothing could be more irregular. That nuisance, thank 

 goodness, is abated. A steeple-chaser now generally stands on his 

 own merits ; a change for which sportsmen may be thankful. 



But to our story. 



The whole country was in a commotion about this " Aristo- 

 cratic." The unsophisticated looked upon it as a grand reunion 

 of the aristocracy ; and smart bonnets and cloaks, and jackets and 

 parasols were ordered with the liberality incident to a distant view of 

 Christmas. As Viney sipped his sherry-cobler of an evening, he 

 laughed at the idea of a son-of-a-day labourer like himself raising 

 such a dust. Letters came pouring in to the clerk of the course 

 from all quarters ; some asking about beds ; some about break- 

 fasts ; some about stakes ; some about stables ; some about this 

 thing, some about that. Every room in the Old Duke of Cumber- 

 land was speedily bespoke. Post-horses rose in price, and Dobbin 

 and Sniiler, and Jumper and Cappy, and Jessy and Tumbler were 

 jobbed from the neighbouring farmers, and converted for the 

 occasion into posters. At last came the great and important day 

 — day big with the fate of thousands of pounds ; for the betting 

 list vermin had been plying their trade briskly throughout the 

 kingdom, and all sorts of rumours had been raised relative to the 

 qualities and condition of the horses. 



Who doesn't know the chilling feel of an English spring, or 

 rather of a day at the turn of the year before there is any spring ? 

 Our gala-day was a perfect specimen of the order — a white frost 

 succeeded by a bright sun, with an east wind, warming one side of 

 the face and starving the other. It was neither a day for fishing 

 nor hunting, nor coursing, nor anything but farming. The 

 country, save where there were a few lingering patches of turnips, 

 was all one dingy drab, with abundant scalds on the undrained 

 fallows. The grass was more like hemp than anything else. The 

 very rushes were yellow and sickly. 



Long before mid-day the whole country was in commotion. 

 The same sort of people commingled that one would expect to see 

 if there was a balloon to go up, and a man to go down, or be hung 

 at the same place. Fine ladies in all the colours of the rainbow ; 

 and swarthy, beady-eyed dames, with their stalwart, big-calved, 

 basket-carrying comrades ; genteel young people from behind the 

 counter ; Dandy Candy merchants from behind the hedge ; 

 rough-coated dandies with their silver-mounted whips ; and 

 Shaggyford roughs, in their baggy, poacher-like coats, and formid- 

 able clubs ; carriages and four, and carriages and pairs ; and gigs 

 and dog-carts, and Whitechapels, and Newport Pagnels, and long 

 carts, and short carts, and donkey carts, converged from all 

 quarters upon the point of attraction at Broom Hill. 



If farmer Scourgefield had made a mob, he could not have got 



