248 Saddle and Sirloin. 



winding stair, and stood at last in the little guest- 

 chamber near the top. On one side were the deep 

 green woods of Sledmere ; to the seaward the 

 "waves of wheat which ripple round the lonely 

 Grange" (where Mr. Major had just shown us the 

 paces of his first prize hackney mare Polly) and down 

 the Crussdale Valley. Driffield church stood out in 

 the distance among those vast ash-tree hedge-rows 

 which have been recently thinned out with Dutch 

 regularity to one in fifteen yards, and the sky-line 

 on the south stretches over many a rich arable farm, 

 to the country of Philip Ramsden, once the patron 

 saint of roadsters " by Huggate and Pocklington 

 way." 



Old Bob Ramsden of Market Weighton had Pre- 

 tender and Reformer (both trotting sires) from Norfolk. 

 At eighty he dressed the character to the life, in white 

 stockings and shoes, long black coat, low broad hat, 

 and kerseymere breeches. Even at that age he could 

 show a trotter's paces with any man at Market 

 Weighton each market Wednesday in May. He was 

 never in a hurry about it, but sat in his chimney 

 corner, and let the others trot on till his pipe was 

 finished. Then he would reach down his spurs, buckle 

 them on to his shoes, and mount his galloway to show 

 off his stallion. Performer was his delight ; he would 

 gallop his galloway by his side on the turnpike, and 

 then shift the saddle on to the horse, and, as he was 

 wont to say, " Trot over their backs!' No horse could 

 trot with Performer, and he trotted faster than he 

 could gallop. Old Bob was six feet high when in his 

 prime, and game to the backbone. He was consi- 

 derably above seventy when he fetched the cap and 

 jacket of other days out of a drawer, and it was all 

 his friends could do to prevent him coming up to 

 London then and there to ride a friend's horse for a 

 ten miles' trotting match. His son Philip, who died 

 a few years since, did a great deal towards improving 



