head, has turned out to meet you. During
your drive you have named to Mr. Spurrier
the style of animal you require, and
that worthy, bidding the stud-groom to
have Martin out on Tomato, proposes a
glass of dry sherry before business. The
sherry is excellent, and before you have
drank your second glass, you see Martin
and Tomato leaving the stables, and making
for the fields. The former is the rough-
rider to the establishment, bullet-headed,
high cheek-boned, sunken-eyed, with limbs
of steel, and pluck which would make
him ram the horse at the Victoria Tower
if he had such instructions. The latter
is an immensely powerful, big, brown,
sixteen hands horse, with an arched neck,
and crest well set on, clean lean head, and
loins that look as if they would shoot a
man into the next county. In the field,
stretching from end to end, and measuring
over a quarter of a mile, you find a long
tan gallop, with leaping bars, hurdles,"on-
and-offs," "in-and-outs," and all sorts of
fancy leaps, scattered about. Over these
Martin takes Tomato, and subsequently
several other horses. If Mr. Spurrier sees
you at all hesitate, he bids Martin get off,
and he himself mounts the horse; he has a
lighter hand, and perhaps altogether a
better knack of "showing;" he humours
the animals more, too, and while they are
in good temper, and flushed and eager for
their work, he suggests that you should
"just throw your leg over one," with which
performance you are probably so pleased,
that you end by becoming a purchaser.
One hundred and fifty guineas are not
thought very much of at Mr. Demijohn's
farm, and there are many horses there for
which he would refuse double the money.
They come from all parts of the kingdom.
The great horse fairs of Horncastle, Rugeley,
and Lincoln, are attended by his
agents, who nearly always secure the pick
of the animals on sale, and if they are any
time on his hands, they become doubled in
value under Mr. Spurrier's careful training
and superintendence.

Quite another style of stud belongs to
Mr. Roller, the proprietor of Roller's Riding
Academy. Here you will find horses of
all kinds; serviceable but not too handsome;
clumsy-headed, and with a preponderance
of bone; light weedy screws, which
carry the charming Amazons to whom
Mr. Roller gives instruction; strong thickset
cobs for the stout middle-aged men,
who ride for exercise, not for pleasure; and
a variety of odd-looking animals for the
beginners. That strong old black horse, a
"cast" charger of a dragoon regiment, has
looked on a vast amount of nervousness
and imbecility, he being the regular stock
animal for the neophytes.

Mr. Roller makes a very tolerable livelihood
out of his stud. The horses cost him, on
an average, from five-and-twenty to thirty
pounds a piece, and their food stands him
in another ten shillings a week each, but
their earnings are large. The supply of
pupils, save in the dull months of August
and September, is constant, all paying
heavily for instruction, and many of them,
on leaving, purchasing the horse which
they had been in the habit of riding,
and to which, as they say themselves,
they have "become accustomed," at a
considerable advance on the price which
Mr. Roller originally paid for it. Then
some of the better class of hacks are hired
for an hour's park riding every day during
the season, at ten guineas a month, and
throughout the summer there are always
numberless young gents who are ready
with their sums of seven-and-six-pence for
a Sunday's outing on the back of a gallant
steed. In the winter, the stout middle-aged
men before noticed keep their horses at
"livery" in Mr. Roller's stables, and ride
them regularly for an hour in the morning
before they go into the City, and an hour
in the evening before dinner, always in the
riding-school, which is warm, and lit up,
and dry, and, on the whole, infinitely
preferable to the dark, dank Row, where the
mud is a foot and a half thick, and the
landscape is shrouded in impenetrable mist.

Now for a still further descent in the
social scale. Standing on the great Cliff
Bridge at Scarborough, you look down into
a large open square, three sides of which
are covered with large wooden sheds.
Herein stand, when not engaged, the little
light basket-carriages, drawn by one horse,
and conducted by a postilion, which are
so characteristic of the place. Herein also
stand the riding-horses, which at low tide
are galloped so madly up and down the
sands by the cheap trippers from the
neighbouring Yorkshire manufacturing towns,
who compress sea-sickness in a boat, deadly
terror on the outside of a horse, and a
considerable amount of drunkenness, into
one day's mad pleasure. Persons seeking
for common objects on the sea-shore must
keep their eyes tolerably wide open to
escape annihilation by these desperate
Cavaliers and Amazons. Here they come;
here is Tom Pilcher, the pride of Boar-lane,