93 Silk and Scarlet, 



ever been before ; and the lad, if he got no riding fees, 

 made up for his Duke Humphrey fare at home, by 

 taking them out in kind at the booths. His seat and 

 judgment became so famed among the farmers, that 

 one of them, in the hour of victory, insisted on paying 

 him with a ewe, whose descendants soon swelled into 

 a dozen. 



They in their turn were chivalrously sold to pay 

 the fee of Smiling Tom, a half-bred Arab, from the 

 Hampton Court stud, whose produce out of one of 

 Mr. Read's mares won the Subscription Plate at Ham- 

 bleton, but was beat by " Peggy-Grieves-Me" and two 

 others in a field of sixteen for " The Guineas" next 

 year. Winter was fast approaching, and with only 

 slender funds in either purse to meet it ; but aided by 

 the countenance of a sturdy butcher from Pocklington, 

 who knew the mare, and rode 120 miles to back her, 

 (stabling himself and steed under a haystack by night,) 

 she and John won the Morpeth Plate, and two others 

 at Stockton and Sunderland as well. The stables at 

 Grimsthorpe soon became fraught with winners, and a 

 filly which the Marquis of Rockingham purchased out 

 of them, induced his lordship to offer its good genius 

 the situation of jockey and trainer to himself. Long 

 before he was forty, he had the lion's share of the 

 Yorkshire riding, and henceforth he hailed from New- 

 market during the spring, and Thixendale in the sum- 

 mer. Seven years after he had defeated Herod and two 

 others with Bay Malton over the Beacon Course, his 

 half century in the saddle ended ; and he came back 

 permanently to Yorkshire, and was buried in nearly 

 his eightieth year, hard by his first master. No 

 jockey had so many pictures taken of him ; but that 

 which represents him riding his hunter Merry Bachelor, 

 in his gold-laced hat and long coat, and with a brace 

 of greyhounds, on the look-out for a wold hare, at his 

 side, hands down most faithfully the seat and character 

 of this first great Northern Light. 



