ness of the ground, completely veiled the house we had passed,
and the few low firs and sycamores which made its only plantations. The
sullen pool--its ghost-like guardian--the dreary heath around, the rude
features of the country beyond, and the apparent absence of all human
habitation, conspired to make a scene of the most dispiriting and
striking desolation. I know not how to account for it, but as I gazed
around in silence, the whole place appeared to grow over my mind, as one
which I had seen, though dimly and drearily, before; and a nameless and
unaccountable presentiment of fear and evil sunk like ice into my heart.
We ascended the hill, and the rest of the road being of a kind better
adapted to expedition, we mended our pace and soon arrived at the goal
of our journey.

The race-ground had its customary compliment of knaves and fools--the
dupers and the duped. Poor Lady Chester, who had proceeded to the ground
by the high road (for the way we had chosen was inaccessible to those
who ride in chariots, and whose charioteers are set up in high places,)
was driving to and fro, the very picture of cold and discomfort; and the
few solitary carriages which honoured the course, looked as miserable
as if they were witnessing the funeral of their owner's persons, rather
than the peril of their characters and purses.

As we rode along to the betting-post, Sir John Tyrrell passed us: Lord
Chester accosted him familiarly, and the baronet joined us. He had been
an old votary of the turf in his younger days, and he still preserved
all his ancient predilection in its favour.

It seemed that Chester had not met him for many years, and after a short
and characteristic conversation of "God bless me, how long since I
saw you!--d--d good horse you're on--you look thin--admirable
condition--what have you been doing?--grand action--a'n't we behind
hand?--famous fore-hand--recollect old Queensberry?--hot in the
mouth--gone to the devil--what are the odds?" Lord Chester asked Tyrrell
to go home with us. The invitation was readily accepted.

"With impotence of will We wheel, tho' ghastly shadows interpose Round
us, and round each other."--Shelley.

Now, then, arose the noise, the clatter, the swearing, the lying, the
perjury, the cheating, the crowd, the bustle, the hurry, the rush, the
heat, the ardour, the impatience, the hope, the terror, the rapture, the
agony of the race. Directly the first heat was over, one asked me one
thing