Out they jump close to us. The Earl, a handsome young fellow, smoking a cigar, and with him a stout man, his mentor-save the mark!-who taught him the ways of the Turf, and finally ruined him. Ah! they are dead and gone, tutor and pupil-the one with his fortune and ill-gotten gains, the other with his wasted and dishonoured life.

Later in life I saw this noble Earl in the grand stand at Warwick, with a crowd of bookmakers shouting the odds at him, vying to catch his eye to book for a thousand or ten thousand, shouting themselves hoarse in their eagerness. Later still I saw him again at Newmarket, haggard, broken, a ruined man, when these same bookmakers shut up their books as he approached, and would not give him the odds to a miserable sovereign!

But he was young now. Of him might we well say with Mitchell, after Aristophanes :

day, their fame, and their fortunes, and have passed away.

"Good morning, my lord; morning, Mr Hardwick," says the trainer. "Early hours for you, my lord: wrap your coat well round you, my lord, -the down air is keen, specially at night. Sorry to bring you out at such an hour, but this ain't, as I may say, an everyday affair, and we've done these touts to-night, or my name isn't Joseph."

Prettyman Bob chuckled so loud I could have pinched him. I withdrew from my peep-hole, and shook with fright. So close were they to us, however, that I heard Mr Hardwick say, "Don't make too sure, Dowton; I'll just circumnavigate this haystack. All right here," I heard, after an anxious minute.

"Ah, Mr Hardwick's too cute, my lord," said the trainer; "he'd find a needle in a haystack, he would."

"Well," said the Earl-he seemed strangely anxious, I thought-"let's have the trial off, and get away, it's awfully cold here; where do they finish?"

"They strip at the old rubbing-house, my lord, start at the gorse bushes-my brother's there -come right away and finish off here, just a mile and a half. Opposite the haystack is the winning

On a cob up cantered the trainer. In their clothing passed three horses. I knew them-Yelverton, Wild Harry, and Zambesi, with three unknown jockeys on them. I knew them, too, well enough afterwards, but they too have had their

"And how about the weights?" said Hardwick.

"The old horse gives the young uns 7 lb.; the young uns run even at Derby weights.'

Now the old horse was Zambesi, a famous cup horse and a good stayer, but hardly, it seems to me now, quite quick enough to test a couple of clippers over the Derby course. Of the young ones, both were in Dowton's stables, and both the Earl's property. Yelverton

was favourite for the Derby at 9 to 4, and had been favourite all the winter; while Wild Harry, a magnificent chestnut, with a temper however, was at 25 to 1. We had not long to wait. The Earl had just lit another cigar, throwing his fusee, with characteristic carelessness, so close to the rick that I thought it might be a case of roasted touts, when Dowton said, "They're coming, my lord," and past us like a flash of lightning, with the hot breath streaming from the wide-opened scarlet nostrils, shoot the racers, and Wild Harry is the winner by half a length, the favourite second, and the old horse, outpaced, a shocking bad third.

A short prayer just reached me. "The Devil!" exclaimed the trainer; but Hardwick was undisturbed.

"We'll go down at once to your place, Dowton, have something to warm us a bit, and be in town in time to milk the flats long before the trial gets about for out it all will come in time; and just keep those three jocks in view all today, Dowton: liquor them up well, do what you will with 'em, but don't let them out of your sight this day."

They walked off-Jack-at-theSwan had been sent off to the village before the trial with the landau and horses, and they had hardly got out of hearing when Bob spoke. "You've brought me good luck. This is the best stroke I ever did. I'm off to wire to London." Down the rick he slipped, off he ran (I can see his little bandy legs now making tracks down Blewbury Bottom) "like bricks," as we used to say in old Etonian slang.

I waited a while, then, somewhat stiff with cramp and cold, made tracks too, and, after a while, lay

warm and snug in my bed, very tired, and, now it was all over, doubting if the game was worth the candle at any rate, worth the promised sovereign to Bob, which would drain my slender purse for twelve months at least.

And somehow that trial did no one any good. When the Earl and Hardwick reached "the Corner," they found, to their utter amazement, the odds had changed -Wild Harry 3 to 1, Yelverton 15 to 1. In spite of which, and against the advice of his mentor, the Earl plunged to the extent of £20,000 on Wild Harry-£40,000 said those "qui de magnis majora loquuntur."

How the favourite was beat in the actual race by a rank outsider, in which it was more than hinted Mr Hardwick had an interest; how the Earl had to apply to his mentor for cash to meet the settlement; how the spider threw his first web over the poor fly till he was tied hand and foot in his coils; how the Earl accused the trainer, and removed his horses; how the trainer lived to give an epitaph on Mr Hardwick's grave: "Many a rogue I've seen on the turf, but the greatest rogue lies here, and that's something to be thankful for "-all these things are written in the annals of our "glorious national sport," where the old game of Mr Rook and Mr Pigeon goes on merrily as ever.

Poor Prettyman Bob, who was by no means the worst of the lot, put my sovereign, and every penny he got from his gratified employers for his early news, and every penny he could borrow, on Wild Harry, and dropped it, not like a man, poor fellow! for he was found the day after the Derby with a shot through his brain, lying stiff and stark near Scutchamoor Knob. I myself went back late to Eton that

MORE than sixty years ago there lived at Doot Hall one Mr Doot, a fine old Irish gentleman with a large estate. The Hall stood in a grand park adorned with wood and water, on an undulating surface. The land was good and fertile; there was much pasture; horses, cattle, and sheep were there; poultry cackled in the yard; fish were in the river, all that man required for his ordinary consumption was on the spot. Mr Doot was in debt, as many other large proprietors were at that time; he lived well, and entertained his neighbours liberally. The writer of this paper had the honour of dining at his table at the time alluded to; Mr Doot, two fine young men, his sons, one daughter, the governess, and an officer of the army on still-hunting duty, made the party seven. When the ladies left the room the bell was rung; a respectable - looking old man brought in a tray with whisky, sugar, lemon, hot water, and a silver bowl. As the man was leaving, Mr Doot said, "If any gentlemen wish to join the ladies, they can go now, as I am going to lock the door till this bottle is finished, just for the express purpose of putting another nail in my coffin." The writer left the room with the butler, and heard the key turn in the lock; he wondered whether he should see his brother again, or whether he would see two brothers when the whisky was finished. After this we met the young men frequently; we shot swallows and rabbits together, becoming intimate with the two young Doots, especially with Charles, the younger son, a fine-grown fellow of eighteen.

He told me that his mother had died at his birth, that Mrs Flanagan had reared him along with her daughter Biddy, who should be his wife, if he was ever in a condition to marry. "That dad of mine," he said, "will never lave me anything if he can help it; he will not even ask for any occupation for me; so I have written to the Commander-in-Chief at the Horse Guards, to tell him where he can find a likely boy. It'll be a long time before I come home again; perhaps dad'll be drowned in whisky, and John'll be married to Betty Sullivan; but what'll become of Biddy? She says she'll wait; but I don't think that's right. She's a good girl is Biddy, my foster - sister,- -we have been together all our lives. Dad says it's not to be. If I can get settled handy, I'll see about that; but if my duty's far away, I must just take my chance. Don't you think your brother could lend me a hand?"

Charles Doot stopped as he slapped his thigh, and then exclaimed, "Begorrah! if I could be sent still-hunting,' I'd settle this poteen nicely!" There he stopped to meditate, and I left him.

Far away up amongst the hills there was a small lake, celebrated for the quantity and quality of its red trout. Dan O'Brien, the best driver and most knowing fisherman of Doot Hill, undertook to drive me, boat me, and tie the flies for me; so one pleasant cloudy morning away we went up a rough hill-track, over which Dan used many levelling words without saving the wheels, the whip, or the horse. In due time he pulled up at a lonely hut, with a sign-post

before it on which there were

illegible letters. An old woman and a half-naked boy sat on a broken bench beside the door; just inside it two fat pigs were snoring; there was an odour of barley in the thin blue smoke that curled lightly down on us; a peatstack was begun; a few poultry scratched among the débris; a manure-heap was handy, and from it were spreading the tendrils of a gourd. While I was taking in all this, Dan had jumped down; he took off his hat with the air of a courtier, and said, "The top of the morning to ye, Mrs Flaherty. How be you and the good man and the boy and the cow?" all in a breath.

Mrs Flaherty returned the salutation with a polished curtsey, saying, "Much obleeged to you, Mr O'Brien; we be all pretty well except the cow, as had a calf this morn'g; there's some barley brewing for her. Mr Flaherty and the boy are cutting turfs."

I had got down on the other side of the car by this time. Mrs Flaherty called the boy : James, run and call Murphy; sure the boat'll be wanted."

"Hold!" cried Dan; "I will do the boat."

"And," said I, "there will be a shilling for Murphy if he don't

Passing through a likely patch of potatoes, we found the boat with her chain-painter looped over a post. The sculls were in a shed; so in a few minutes the rod was put together, a small red palmer, a hare's-ear, and a blue gnat were put on, and the sport began. One at a time the small trout were in my landing-net, which Dan handled tidily. All were caught by the blue gnat, so the other flies were unhitched and blue gnats put on. There was a sweet little ripple on the water; we were on the very best part of the " "wide expanse, as Dan called it. Presently two fish were on at once: twice three were caught together-beautiful little small-headed fish, with thick shoulders, well fed, dressed in their glittering scales of deep-brown, bright-red spots, and white below. By twelve o'clock the bag was crowded, and Dan thought we had better go on shore for luncheon and a rest.

Steering for a dell, where the trees grew down to the water's edge, we landed on a black rock, and found a fair retreat with light and shade, looking over a bit of the lake, but shut in on the land side with as thick and varied a foliage as one would wish to see. A tiny streamlet gurgled down the dell, winding its way through great boulders, partly covered with moss or ferns here trickling smoothly over its bed of yellow sand, there rippling over a gravel slope, and then rushing over a larger stone to make a miniature waterfall into the bubbling pool below. Dan put down the basket on a turfy bank, made a fire of a bundle of dry sticks, cut four arbutus skewers, and in due time four delicious trout were smoking on our plates. The whisky-flask was opened; the water at our feet was cool and sweet. As I contaminated the