2\rf History. 5 



to all parts of the compass ; some got to Wakefield, 

 others travelled unconcernedly off towards London, 

 and some astounded the natives of " Old Ebor" that 

 evening with their marvellous recitals of the York- 

 shire triumph of the day. Still the West Riding 

 does not raise men of the late Michael Brunton 

 stamp, with heads like a stud-book, and ready, like 

 him, with an offer, then and there, to back his opinion 

 at '* six to four" on a legal point, when he chanced to 

 differ with the Richmond bench, or the clerk to the 

 magistrates during his mayoralty. It is in the North 

 and East Ridings that the racing taste of the county 

 is most especially apparent. Little oval country 

 courses, dotted with white posts, and approached by 

 wide rustic gates, through which generation after 

 generation of county families — who vied with each 

 other in importing the best blood, and toasted a per- 

 fect bede-roll of winners, from Buckhunter to Catton 

 — have driven proudly in their day, open on you by 

 the wayside in nooks where you least expect them. 

 A bitted, curvetting blood-yearling meets you there 

 still : but a sheeted regiment of racers, with their 

 saddle-bags on their backs, and their tiny grooms at 

 their heads, marching in Indian file, on their way to 

 a meeting, is a sight which is rare in these railway 

 days. The inns all along the Great North Road, 

 w^here, twenty years ago, the postillions had to sleep, 

 spur on heel, when a great division, or the Twelfth 

 of August was at hand, and the ostler muttered 

 *' Horses on" in his dreams, are nearly all merged 

 into farm-houses ; but racing recollections will hover 

 about them, albeit the bar-snuggery has become a 

 cheese-room, and Herring's St< Leger winners, which 

 once adorned their walls, are dispersed into all lands. 

 These were the texts on which the jolly landlord dis- 

 coursed without any bidding, to favoured groups by 

 the hour, till the mail bugle was heard in the dis- 

 tance and the guard and the coachman bustled in, 



