Top-boot

Mr Poyser had no reason to be ashamed of his leg, and suspected that the growing abuse of top-boots and other fashions tending to disguise the nether limbs, had their origin in a pitiable degeneracy of the human calf.

A very spirited affair it looked with its red body and yellow wheels, bouncing about on its high C springs [...] with its four horses going full stretch and two postilions in knee-cords and top-boots laying into the horses in a lather of dust and excitement.