yearlings is to give them a good education, and a creditable start in life-the latter expression signifies a good name (he would as soon eat beef without mustard, as copy Lord Glasgow in this respect), and an entry in the Derby, Convivial, and Great Yorkshire Stakes, and the Doncaster Stakes, and St. Leger. Every Yorkshire breeder who does not put his young things into the Great Yorkshire and the St. Leger, he considers as dead to the best interests of his country. These two meetings, and Goodwood, are about the only great ones he attends, and he always looks very downcast as his two yearling pets are annually knocked down by Mr. Tattersall, in front of the Salutation, and he finds that some "foreigneering fellow" has made the last bid. I don't believe that he ever got less than 100 guineas for any one of them. One of them brought 250 guineas, but sad to say, that gallant brown shut up after he had waited well in front to the Red House in the St. Leger, and is now an unhappy eunuch, and steered by a second whip, in a close fencing country. In spite, however, of these little Turf ties, Ironmould has strong yearnings towards the Road. In old days he would be out night after night, expressly for the pleasure of tooling the north mail, and a better coachman never handled the ribbons, at least Tom Holtby said so, and if he isn't a bit of a judge in such matters, I don't know who is. I'm not sure that he wasn't on the coach, when Tom, after giving poor Nimrod a wrinkle or two on coaching matters in general, played off that little trick on him, with a very freegoing leader, which nearly sent his arms out of their sockets before he had driven a mile, and sends Tom off into fits to this day, whenever he tells the story. Nothing comes amiss to Ironmould, in the way of a team. His friends do say that when he is in London, his principal delight seems to be to tool omnibuses, on what he calls the "off days," i. e., every day in the week that there are no sales at Tattersall's. A wild le gend reached his native village, that one winter evening, he stealthily sent the driver and conductor of one to have a glass at the inn bar before starting, and then drove it from Whitechapel to Kensington without a single check. I know this is a fact; for whenever he has a singing in his ears, he intimates that it is the latent effects of the screeching of the eight female insides, as they each thrust their heads out of the windows, and wildly adjured him to pull up. He believes that the most elderly of the party used bad language in Piccadilly, and that they would all have jumped out, but the pace was too good. He slipped the reins over the horses' backs, and slipped himself down a dark alley, when he got into Kensington, and to this day do those females consider that they were driven by Beelzebub ; but he paid the fines for the driver and conductor next day, and tipped them handsomely into the bargain. The opera is another of his principal amusements in the metropolis, but he is secretly of opinion with his friend Sir Tatton that the " Statty Fair" well sung is the brightest musical gem of the age. He used to sing a little at college suppers, but he seldom so far commits himself now, except it be in church, where there is, as he terms it, a good bottommed violoncello, "to make all the play for him." It is one of his especial pleasures to get up and drive a four-in-hand whenever any fête or cricket match is going on. I think that is the only reason that he is a member of a cricket club, as he cares no more for the game itself than he does for the spread of Mahomedanism. However this may be, the deciding match between the Brawl and the Ainsford clubs was played in his paddock, and they say that he won the match for the former. I rather think he did too. It wasn't his batting, for he invariably gave catches, and in his best moments of inspiration he seldom "got home" with his rippers; but he had a cellar, and that, well wielded, was more effective than either his bat or his ball. As no earthly power could get out that gallant grocer, Wilkins of the Ainsford, the Brawl Club were defeated by fifty in the first innings, and then we all thought that Ironmould would have led the way to his dining room, by way of getting up the spirits of his party. No such thing. Just at that moment the head waiter appeared from the house, and was, 66 sorry that the dinner could not be ready for an hour or more." I thought Ironmould did not seem at all put out by this intelligence, but rather the contrary; in fact, I could have sworn from a sly twitch of his features that he expected it. "We had better take our second innings," he remarked, very cheerfully, and a capital second innings did he and his men of Brawl take too. Ainsford had to get 40 to make a tie of it when dinner did come-and a rare dinner it was-pastry that would have melted the heart of a savage was the least part of it. The attention of our host to the comforts of the Ainsfordites was unbounded. George, the head waiter, who had backed Brawl in my hearing at two to one for a sovereign, never would allow their glasses to be empty for an instant. As for the devoted Wilkins, I saw him give him champagne nine times. No wonder that Ainsford was wrapt in gloom that night, when a slightly" mesmerized" courier announced to them that Brawl had won in a canter by 25. Wilkins's stumps were sent flying in less than no time, and he returned with an unsteady step and sickly smile to the scorer's tent, where that crafty head-waiter addressed to him a few words of consolation, and the whole thing was over in half-an-bour. "The men of Brawl," as a York paper remarked, "played with great coolness and spirit, and we wish we could say the same for their opponents, whose hitting was very wild and ineffective, and presented a great contrast to their former play. Mr. Wilkins had his stumps levelled at the second ball, &c., &c.' The Ainsford men got sadly bullied by their townsmen for months after, and never dine now till all is over. As for Ironmould, he never regularly owns to knowing anything about the affair, but swears that his cook must have had the pot on," and was determined to bring it off. 66 Such "tumble-down-Dick" affairs as steeple chases, Ironmould despises from the bottom of his heart; his interest in the sport died away with the good 12-stone days of Vivian and his little whiskered "Captain." The last chase he saw was at Liverpool in 1840, when Lottery chested the wall-a fact which he can never satisfactorily account for to this day. He makes a point of reading all about the doings of "The Fancy" in Bell, and has many a time knocked me about with the gloves, but he has never gone near a "Tournament," since the January of '39, when poor Deaf Burke requested his backers to decide the question-Shall I goes in and licks that Bendigos at once, or shall I prolongs the fights?" Whenever any Tuesday has produced anything very good, I have heard him for days afterwards emphatically reciting. to himself that celebrated Dirge of Judah "No more shall the backers of Lazarus sing the lay of a happier time, When in style he shall floor Owen Swift in the ring, and show he's an Israelite prime." "Oh this was the lay that poor Lazarus sung, as in torments he laid on his back, His collar-bone broken, and feeble his tongue, and his ogles in mourning, deep black." "Oh ! where is Dutch Sam, of our ancient race, who wollopped each man that he met? Where's Barney Belasco? this stain I'll efface, in spite of Dick Curtis the Pet!" "The green turf now covers young Dutch Sam's nob, but yet I will venture a tizzy, A Sheeny survives who can batter and job, and that Sheeny is Lazarus Izzy." He bitterly laments that the illustrated Poet's Corner, in Bell, is reckoned among the has-beens, and maintains that their bard could give Byron 10lbs. any day and beat him. son. Next to his horses Ironmould's great pride is his dogs; he used to keep a pair of setters with a strong dash of the Newfoundland in them, but he nearly blew his hand off one day, and he has therefore registered a vow, never to handle a Joe Manton again. As a substitute he has a couple of the Ainsford hunt puppies out" at walk" with him every seaThe last time they met at Brawl wood, he pointed out to me eight of these foster children, getting well away with their fox. As a matter of course they were called after the Derby, Oaks, or St. Leger winners of their year; any other style of nomenclature would be treason in his ears. If he possessed a Mrs. I., and Mrs. I. had blessed him with a a little male I. last year, he would have proposed to call him Stockwell Ironmould. Greyhounds form the staple of his kennel, jet-black dogs, with white on their breasts-all as like their blood relation, Webb's War Eagle, as they can stare. This dog is his ideal hero in the greyhound world. He often tells with perfect enthusiasm, how he saw him dash five times at a gate, fall back and get over at the sixth attempt, when he won the Barton-upon-Humber Cup, in his puppy days, against aged dogs; and I thought he would have cried, when he saw him break down in 1851 at the Liverpool Champion meeting. Still, in spite of this staunch predilection, he thinks King Cob the most perfect greyhound that he ever looked over. Along with this greyhound leash, he keeps a brace of Scotch terriers, who wouldn't turn tail before the great Van Tromp of Brawl wood himself, or any badger breathing in the three Ridings. He bought their sire for 7s. 6d. ; at least he gave the guard of a Scotch mail that sum, and told him to bring him one on his next trip North. He had no fear of "the Bishop of Bond-street" before his eyes, had that jolly guard, and I fear that he often descended swiftly by night, from his perch, in the outskirts of sundry Caledonian towns, whenever an eligible opportunity presented itself, and left some Baillie Nicol Jarvey minus his wire haired page. CHARLEY CLINKER, who seems to know the residence of every fox, weasel, and polecat in the neighbourhood, is dog tutor in ordinary to Ironmould's establishment. He solemnly conducts the dogs in sheets, whenever they run in public, and has a pile of arguments always at hand, to show that they ought to have won every thing they ever started for. When PLATFORM did win the Golby Cup, he went into to us. upon such a state of insane joy, and was tipsy for so many days consecutively, that Ironmould declared he was 66 dangerous," and might bite both dogs and men, and insisted on his being bled, and taking two doses of salts "just to cool him," before he would let him have the key of the kennel again. His ideas are bounded; north, south, and east by that kennel, and west by racing. Bell's Life, The Era, and The Sunday and Racing Times are to him a sort of weekly Koran; and, Ironmould, Job Marson, Sim Templeman, Mr. Osbaldeston, and Sir Tatton excepted, he thinks their editors are the greatest men on earth. Although not a Yorkshireman, he was, on the whole, disposed to think very favourably of "The Duke ;" and since his death, he has looked "The Markiss" and "Denny Wynne" as the only distinguished Irishmen left Poor Bill Scott was another of his Yorkshire idols, and he took a secret pilgrimage to Meux Abbey, one long summer's day in '49, just to see where he lies. As for them foreign Sikhses," he believes to this hour that the whole nation is closely related to his beloved baronet, and therefore, as he observes," Blood will tell-they canna miss being good plucked-uns sure-LY!" Charley had been a sad poacher in his youth. A member of the Bench of Bishops had once caught him taking a hare out of a snare in the palace grounds. Their colloquy was hardly parliamentary, and somewhat on this wise :-" Man! do you know who I am ?" "I nowther know nor care." "I am the Bishop." "Are you? and a good place too; mind you keep it!" With this parting benediction Charley shouldered his hare and fled swiftly. About public events generally he does not trouble himself much, but the "Durham Letter" disturbance sorely puzzled him. He had heard Toм BRONZE, the neighbouring trainer, express himself in strong terms about "keeping down them Romans," and he had found his fifteen stable lads, in emulation of their Newmarket chums, burning the Pope in a bonfire, and seemingly very much relieved at the process. As however their theological explanations only "put him a deal deeper in the muck," he sagaciously waylaid GILCRUX, the kind-hearted parson of Brawl-bridge. in a bridle road near the Rectory, and with a tip of his hat, requested him to tell him "what this ere Colonel Wiseman had been a doing to the church?" The neighbours have christened him "Colonel Wiseman" ever since that interview. GILCRUX, and in short every one for ten miles round, considers Charley a very remarkable character, and well they may. He has innumerable stories of all sizes and patterns, and something like "200 songs in 200 different kays ;" and his hornpipe on a table towards the close of a harvest supper is one of the grandest sights in creation. The tears fairly roll down Ironmould's cheeks as he looks on, and more than one farmer's widow asserts that "she is main **** sure her poor dear man's 'plexy was brought on a vast deal sooner" by that remarkable scene. When he begins to chaunt his "Bread and cheese and porter-bread and cheese and porter- sundry devoted esquires generally see it is all "up" with him for that night, and remove him smiling to bed. As for eating, nothing under the sun, cooked or uncooked, comes amiss to him; and he drinks out of such places that it is a miracle he has not died of farcy or glanders long since. Army surgeons say that "it takes a man's weight in lead to kill him," and I am sure that is about true of Charley. His rear has been made a plum-pudding of five or six times in cover shooting, and at least every other limb in his body has been broken or "dead amiss" in its time; but it always gets round again. Sleep is a little matter about which he is perfectly indifferent: he would sit up for a week with a favourite invalid dog, and he can sleep like a top, on a couch so full of the black military," that, "if they had nobbut all lugged at me one way they'd have had me clean out of bed." But more of Charley anon. Ironmould has sent him off to Tom Bronze, to ask him to look in this evening; and when we have seen that gentleman well seated in Ironmould's snuggery, we hope to look in there too. "WINTER LEAVES." BY GREYBEARD. BUYING FOR THE RISE. A quaint old gentleman, celebrated for his appreciation of the goo things of this life, and his critical taste in port-wine, was tottering dowd Bond-street one fine spring morning, with a crutch under his arm, a n his left foot swathed in a cloth-shoe. Meeting an old friend, the latter stopped to condole with him on his affliction, and good-naturedly suggested that his gout was probably hereditary. "Hereditary?" vociferated the sufferer. "No, no, not so bad as that, thank Heaven!-value received, sir, value received." And to return to the subject we have been considering, viz., the merits and failings of old horses, their ailments, though occasionally hereditary, are more often-like our jolly friend's gout-the natural consequences of "value received," and acquired, like his, by going too fast. But there is one infliction compounded of both these qualities, which has proved the curse of many a stable, attacking, as it constantly does, the very flower of the stud, and which admits of no palliative or concealment: this is what is termed the navicular disease; and the anguish it causes the animal is so great that it will rather keep its foot suspended in the air than risk the sibility of touch by resting it on the ground. Strange to say, when warm this lameness completely disappears; and the same horse that ere the fox was found seemed scarce able to put one foot before the other, may be seen some twenty minutes afterwards striding away in the first flight with all the ease and freedom of the soundest five-year-old. Alas! to-morrow morning will again tell a far different tale. For this disease there is but one cure, and that a most excruciatingly painful one, only less cruel than the daily use of the sufferer. It is termed nerving, or neurotomy, and consists in cutting away a portion of the nerve, which transmits sensation from the foot, through the leg, into the frame, and the severance of which completely destroys all feeling below the point of separation. To use a familiar illustration, it is as though you were to divide the electric wire which transmits its vibration from London to pos |