that before Turpin got to Bawtry he went through Newark 1244 miles from London, and 2 miles over the Nottinghamshire border -past Scarthing Moor inn (a posting-station in old days, but where is it now?), through Tuxford, where The Red Lion was a famous inn in the coaching days-now as the Newcastle Arms, and posting-house not unknown to fame-and so on past East Retford and Barnby Moor inn 147 miles from London, to the bourne where we left him.

And from Bawtry the roads to York

bellyful of it," the rest were pursuing still no doubt - but nearly a county separated them from their prey. Yes, it was at such a crisis of affairs, when all promised to end prosperously for Richard Turpin, Esquire, that, as I say, calamity began to overtake him. As he was skirting the waters of the deep-channelled Don, Bess began to manifest some slight symptoms of distress. This was bad enough; but it "was now that gray and grimly hour ere one flicker of orange or rose has gemmed the East, and when unwearying

But his practised eye soon told him that Black Bess was in a parlous plight. Her large eyes glared wildly. "She won't go much further," said Turpin," and I must give it up! What!

give up the race just when it's won?... No! . . . That can't be .... Ha! Well thought en !!"-with which he drew from his pocket the inevitable phial, without

which romances could never be brought to their end. "Raising the mare's head upon his shoulder, he poured the contents of the

Don and skirting the fields of flax that bound its sides!

Snaith was soon passed, and our hero was well on the road to Selby when dawn put in

From a Drawing by HERBERT RAILTON,

an appearance with the usual accompaniments of sparrows twittering, hares running across the path, and mists rising from the

Y Y

earth. It became extremely foggy, and Turpin, I am sorry to say, was so weak as to be influenced by the climate and became foggy too.

He became aware of another horseman riding by his side. "It was impossible to discern the features of the rider; but his figure in the mist seemed gigantic, neither was the colour of his steed distinguishable." And Dick having taken note of these phenomena, came somewhat hastily to an amazing conclusion. "It must be Tom," thought he; "he is come to warn me of my approaching end. I will speak to him."

blood or not sealed, as the case may be, Turpin rode down to the Ferry at Cawood189 miles from London. Nine miles only separated him from his goal. But the ferryman accidentally happened to be on the other side of the river, and at the same moment a loud shout smote his ear-(Turpin's ear, not the ferryman's). This shout was the Halloo of the pursuers. The only thing to be done now was to ford the river, and this Dick Turpin did. Once on the other side, he had a fresh start-in other words, "Once more on wings of swiftness" Black Bess bore him away from his pursuers. But Major

But why Tom? Indeed it was not Tom at all as Turpin discovered by and by when the atmosphere had become clearer. "Sir Luke Rookwood by this light!" was the exclamation which sounded the depths of this conundrum and proved the grim personage who rode at our hero's right hand to be none other than the obscure and aimless baronet, resident somewhere in Sussex, and already mentioned in the encounter with the York Mail.

After a brief mysterious dialogue with this mysterious and aimless personage, principally dealing with such fanciful subjects as oaths, affianced brides, contracts sealed with

Mowbray, who was one of them, saw that all this parade of victory was only an expiring flash. "She must soon drop" he observed. Bess however held on past Fulford-" till the towers of York (1994 miles from London) burst upon him in all the freshness, the beauty and the glory of a bright clear autumnal morn. The noble minster, and its serene and massive pinnacles, crocketed, lantern-like, and beautiful; Saint Mary's lofty spire; All Hallow's tower, and architectural York generally, to make a long list short, beamed upon him; shortly after which another mile was passed; shortly after which Dick shouted "hurrah!" shortly after which Black Bess "tottered

From a Drawing by HERBERT RAILTON.

fell. There was a dreadful gasp,-a parting moan-a snort; her eye gazed for an instant on her master with a dying glare; then grew palsied, rayless, fixed. A shiver also ran through her frame." And there was an end of the celebrated ride to York. And I hope that those who can believe in it will.

And now I come to a less legendary side of my subject. Turpin has taken us to York: and faster than we could have gone there in the Coaching Age-faster a good deal-but he has not stopped for us at any of the inns, and to one or two of these inns on the great North Road I wish particularly to introduce my readers. For they are hostelries in the true sense of the word, and call up even now I know not what coloured reminiscences of the full life of the Coaching Age-reminiscences of the late arrival of fagged travellers on snowy nights before ample porches, their induction thence, their immediate induction half frozen as they were, into snug parlours adorned with prints of coaches at full gallop, revealed by the light of a fire blazing half

way up the chimney;-reminiscences too of table comforts considered prodigious in these degenerate days-with good liquor to round the story, and a dreamless sleep between lavender-scented sheets.

The scenes of such comfortable hours spent by ancestors long since buried, still throng the now almost deserted reaches of the Great North Road; and some of these old inns, situated in places through which the northern railways pass, still live, careless of the changed condition of things, and tender the same hospitality to passengers alighting from the Great Northern Railway, as they used to tender in days gone by to passengers alighting from the Great York and Edinburgh Mail. At Stamford, for instance, the George still stands where it stood, though with main entrance altered- a huge reservoir in itself (had its record been in some way or other preserved) of a whole sea of travel continually ebbing and flowing between the Metropolis and the North. Royalty itself was entertained at this house in the person of Charles the First. The King slept here on his way from Newark to Huntingdon on August 23, 1645. And besides royalty, who I should like to know, can tell the list of its distinguished guests in all branches of all the arts, either of war or peace? Walter Scott was frequently at this house on those numerous jaunts of his up to London, when he was a welcome guest at the Prince's tablea valiant bottle companion and entrancing raconteur-always the same genial kindly gentleman of genius, though not known yet as the author of surely the most delightful novels in the world. To pass from the pen