232 Saddle and Sirloin. 



from the country" always meant business, and gene- 

 rally arrived on the quiet after a good trial to look for 

 some more of the sort. It was he who made the great 

 hit for Womersley, when in 1855, the first year that 

 Sir Tatton sold his yearlings at York, four, with St. 

 Giles among them, returned without a bid, and he 

 took them at sixty all round. He then tried some 

 Womersley fillies ; but they did no good, and were 

 sent back to Sledmere. 



Lord George Bentinck was once at Sledmere, but 

 his lordship did nothing particular but pursue his pet 

 system of rattling his hat to make the yearlings gallop 



judges often went to have a little chaff with him, and ask him what the 

 people were saying, and of course Dick laid bare his own feelings in the 

 matter, and fathered them most liberally on to "They say." At 

 Northallerton, where he led General Williams into the ring, "by 

 special request," he informed them that he " he heard a man say, and a 

 varra good judge too, that you ought all to be hung." Latterly, he was 

 more of a spectator, except at foal shows. He got stout, and he 

 couldn't run much, and he didn't care to strip off his coat and go at it 

 like " Franky" (though he was quite open to a running match with him) 

 for the special amusement of the outsiders. He loitered about generally 

 at one corner of the ring, putting his lip down (which he always did, like 

 Tom Sebright, when he was going to have a sly dig), wagging his head 

 slightly, and giving his friends such a grip of the hand when he met 

 them. When he was chaffed about his picture in " Silk and Scarlet," 

 he always said that Mr. and Mrs. Scott had got him in at Whitewall 

 specially to compare its lineaments with the original, and that "they 

 didn't think it half handsome enough." 



A day at Sir Tatton's once a year, if he could manage it, was a great 

 point with him. Dick at lunch with Sir Tatton in the dining-room at 

 Sledmere, with one glass of ale in him, was a sight for men and gods, 

 as his host kept poking him up about Maroon and divers incidents in 

 his travels. Every little shot told, as Sir Tatton knew everything 

 going ; but Dick only replied, with a most jolly continuous grin, and 

 went on to glass No. 2, to show Sir Tatton that he did not acquiesce in 

 his remark, " You live so well at Driffield you all get the gout." The 

 bye-play between them was quite a bit of rich genuine Yorkshire 

 comedy. Dick's retort that Maroon had only one fault, being "a 

 little over-big for Sir Tatton Sykes" delighted the old baronet amazingly 

 by its felicity and neatness' ; but, generally, it was more the way he said 

 things than the things he said which distinguished him as a character, 

 nothing but the East Riding country could have produced two men so 

 different, and yet so united in their horse-love. 



