This was the only tree visible; for a turn of the road and the unevenness 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.