Bloody Oaks 157 Interior of a Village Inn 159 House, formerly the “Black Bull,” Witham Common 163 Foster Powell 168 Great Ponton 177 Great Ponton Church 179 The “Angel,” Grantham 182 The “Wondrous Sign” 187 Newark Castle 195 Market Place, Newark 199 Newark Castle 201 Jockey House 210 An Old Postboy: John Blagg 212 Scrooby Church 216 Scrooby Manor House 217 The Stables, Scrooby Manor House 220 The “Crown,” Bawtry 224 Coach passing Doncaster Racecourse 229 Brayton Church 237 Market Place, Selby 239 Micklegate Bar 245 Micklegate Bar: Present Day 246 [Picture: Old steam train] I. THERE was once an American who, with cheap wit, expressed a fear of travelling in the little island of Great Britain, lest he should accidentally fall over the edge of so small a place. It is quite evident that he never travelled the road from London to York and Edinburgh. You have to perform that journey to realise that this is, after all, not so very small an island. It is not enough to have been wafted between London and Edinburgh by express train—even although the wafting itself takes seven hours and a half—for one to gain a good idea of the distance. We will not take into consideration the total mileage between Dover and Cape Wrath, which tots up to the formidable figure of eight hundred miles or so, but will confine ourselves in these pages to the great road between London and Edinburgh: to the Great North Road, in fact, which measures, by way of York, three hundred and ninety-three miles.