v*- SADDLEANnSIRLOIN; OR, ENGLISH FARM AND SPORTING WORTHIES. BY THE DRUID, AUTHOR OF "SCOTT AND SEBRIGHT," " SILK AND SCARLET, "POST AND PADDOCK." WITH ENGRAVINGS ON STEEL. NEW EDITION. LONDON : VINTON AND CO., LIMITED, 9, NEW BRIDGE STREET, LUDGATE CIRCUS, E.G. iv Preface. slight pleasure now that I can have no more " quiet evenings," listening to and noting down their ex- periences. In compiling this book I have endeavoured to relieve the general reader by throwing mere matters of flock and herd detail into the notes. I could do no more than touch on what appear to be leading points in a county, and as these matters are appreci- ated differently by different minds, I shall no doubt be found guilty of many dreadful acts of omission. It is, however, a comfort to think that one enthusiastic purveyor, who painted " Saddle and Sirloin" over his sign as soon as the title was announced, and has amused himself ever since by listening to the com- ments of the passers-by, is bound to stand by me and my selection for better for worse ; and I trust that those who have not committed themselves after this fashion may not find much to condemn. H. H. DIXON. PREFACE TO NEW EDITION. THE copyright of the " Druid Sporting Library " having been acquired by .the present publishers, the question of revision was duly con- sidered. Any idea of materially interfering with the text was abandoned, and it was determined to introduce as few changes as possible, but to care- fully revise the work, correcting little inaccuracies that had escaped the notice of the author. Instead of altering the framework of the four books consti- tuting the library, it was decided to add a fifth to the number, and the publishers have been fortunate in obtaining the co-operation of the Honourable Francis Lawley, who has carried out the congenial task of writing the " Life and Times of ' The Druid,' " which will now form a companion volume to the series, adding to their completeness in a more satisfactory manner than could have been accomplished in any other way. The titles of the volumes of the " Druid Sporting Library " are as follows : THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. SILK AND SCARLET. SCOTT AND SEBRIGHT. SADDLE AND SIRLOIN. LIFE AND TIMES OF " THE DRUID." February, 1895. TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Over the Border Professor Dick Mr. Hall Maxwell Mr. Ivie Campbell John Benzies, the Herdsman John White, the Gamekeeper The Master of the Teviotdale The Earl of Glasgow I 32 CHAPTER II. The late Sir James Graham, his farming tastes Recollections of Carlisle Meeting the Judges Old Posting Times Loyal Tom King Jack Ainslie and his Gretna-green tactics 3246 CHAPTER III. The Mail and Coach Days Shap Fells Drivers, Regular and Amateur Guards Horses Carlisle Races ; the late Mr. Daley The Wrestling Ring Cumberland Wrestling Cham- pions 47 78 CHAPTER IV. Whitehall Killhow Sale of Shorthorns Scaleby Castle The Western Plain of Cumberland Mr. Watson's and the late Mr. Brown's Pigs Mr. Curwen's Agricultural Gathering at the Schooze Farm Champion Bulls The late Captain Spencer's Greyhounds 79 93 viii Contents. CHAPTER XV. Shropshire Sheep Lord Berwick's Herefords Sir Bellingham Graham Coursing at Sundorne Mr. Corbet Old Bob Luther 434 451 CHAPTER XVI. Clayton and Shuttleworth's Works at Lincoln Lincoln Flocks Tom Brooks and John Thompson Ayiesby Manor Tux- ford and Sons' Works at Boston 452 471 SADDLE AND SIRLOIN; OR, ENGLISH COUNTRY LIFE. CHAPTER I. " At Doncaster, at York, and Leeds, And merry Carlisle had he been ; And all along the lowlands fair, All through the bonny shire of Ayr ; And far as Aberdeen. " And he had seen Caernarvon's towers, And well he knew the spire of Sarum, And he had been where Lincoln's bell Flings o'er the fen that ponderous knell His far renowned alarum 1" Wordsworth. Over the Border Professor Dick Mr. Hall Maxwell Mr. Ivie Camp- bell John Benzies, the Herdsman John White, the Gamekeeper The Master of the Teviotdale The Earl of Glasgow. TOLLMAN OF GLYNDE loved a day with his LJ lemon-and-white beagles. If a hare beat him at nightfall he would mark with a stick the spot where they last spoke to her, and return there first thing next morning. How he dealt with " the situ- ation" in the early dews we know not. This we do know, that when another summer found us in cannie Cumberland, to take up our " field and fern" tale for England, our first impulse was to cast back over the Border. B 2 Saddle and Sirloin. Some good friends live only in memory. Professor Dick, " the old white lion," as his pupils called him, sleeps in Glasnevin cemetery. We always found him as kind as he was quaint. Ask him what we might about Clydesdales or anything else, and he never grudged us oil from his cruise. Write to him, and five or six words were our portion in reply. He liked to be paid off in his own coin ; hence our joint correspondence about his photograph comprised some thirteen words on four square inches of note paper. You saw the man best when he was trying a roarer on " Dick's Constitution Hill," or when he admitted you by the side-door on to the stage of his theatre, and placed you in shadow during a lecture. He would then grasp the thigh-bone of a horse, or whatever else he was about to illustrate, and speak in the same tone, with- out check or cadence for an hour. If he did pause, it was only to rebuke with a stony British stare some foolish " interruption and laughter." We are told that he rather prided himself on quelling such offenders by the una : ded power of his eye. He was in truth, a fine, rugged, old fellow, with "A skin of copper, - Quite professional and proper," a rambling, half-corpulent figure, shaggy white tresses, and thoughts full of marrow. He had a large stock of spare activities, whereon to use them ; as public matters, both political and civic, had always a great charm for him. A more sturdy Liberal never drew breath, and in 1852 his friends thought of putting him up for Edinburgh. He never entered very heartily into the idea, but it suited his humour to put out an elaborate and searching analysis of the great questions, which " must be considered settled," and those which belonged to the future. Among the latter he gave special prominence to the Irish Church and a Second Reform Bill. He never married, and Mr. Hall Maxwell. 3 he left the whole of his money, subject to the life- interest of Miss Dick, who had been to him a sister indeed, to endow the Veterinary College, where he had lived and laboured for two-and-forty years. Edinburgh seems still stranger to us without Mr. Hall Maxwell, of Dargavel, and those pleasant half- hour chats at Albyn Place, where he was quite the moving spirit and Secretary of the Highland Society. His object, as he once said to us, was " to hold Scotland in one great Society's network, and never let a mesh be out of order." In this he was most ably backed up by his confidential clerk, Mr. Duncan, and they both seemed to have the power of laying their finger in an instant on the most minute spring of the vast system they had reared. None were kinder and more ready to assist us on every point within their range. No matter how intricate the search for it might seem in prospective, Mr. Maxwell would ring his bell : " Mr. Duncan, would you please find me, &c. ?" and in five or six minutes his fidus Achates would return with all the particu- lars tabulated, as if by magic. In 1846 Mr. Maxwell succeeded Sir Charles Gordon, who died at his post, and he held office until the gih of May, 1866. His first meeting was at Inverness, in 1846; and there, nineteen years after, he made his farewell speech. He was pressed not to resign ; but Glasgow, where the business of the meeting is always unusually heavy, stood next on the list, and his heart-symptoms had long given him no uncertain warning that he must seek rest. But for the ill-health of his successor, Mr. Macduff (who died without taking office), his connexion with the Society would have ceased some months earlier. He was bred to the law, and practised regularly, previous to his acceptance of office; and those in the profession who knew his powers and remembered his speaking, more especially in a great murder-defence, believed B 2 4 Saddle and Sirloin. that he would have infallibly risen to be a Lord of Session. With commanding sense and marvellous shrewdness he combined a perfect mastery of tongue- fence, and he was as quick as lightning in his thrust or parry. No one was more jealous of his own or his Society's dignity, and his eye would flash and the colour would mount to his cheek at a word. He delighted most in marshalling statistics and annexing districts at his desk, but still he was supremely happy in the show- yard. Everything was done there with great dignity and order, and the Scottish bench would sometimes chaff their coadjutors from England overnight, and tell them that Hall Maxwell never admitted a judge into the show yard unless he presented himself in full court-dress. On the opening morning he might be found in the pay-box for a few minutes, helping to gather the crowns, and exchanging a word or a nod with each member as he came in ; but he soon retired, and for the rest of the week the saddle was his throne. He would be galloping here, there, and everywhere, as field-marshal, on his bay cob, setting lords, baro- nets, and lairds to work as " attending members" to the different sets of judges ; and he was a plainish speaker, sometimes, if things did not go just to his mind. In short, both there and at Albyn Place, he was quite the autocrat of the Society ; but, although they somewhat felt the bondage, they were very proud ol him, and quite content to set off the marvels he had wrought for them against what many thought, and some termed "dictation." If any of the members were unduly captious, he caught them without more ado and made directors of them, and they soon ceased from troubling. This mode of bland absorption was very transparent, but was never known to fail. Public business often took him to London, and no one could take charge of a Parliamentary bill better. Mr Hall Maxwell. 5 If he appeared in a Committee-room to support or oppose on behalf of the Society, it was with such a well-marshalled and serried mass of facts and wit- nesses that it was always odds on him. At Battersea and Paris he was quite in his element, looking after Scottish interests. When in '62 he led the hundred- and-twenty herdsmen and shepherds to Battersea- fields, he lodged them in Edgington tents, and fur- nished them with beds borrowed expressly from the Tower. They had regular night-watches like soldiers ; certain detachments of them made holiday at the Exhibition or the Crystal Palace, and on Sunday they were marched to Westminster Abbey. This was the only time that we ever saw him in complete sympathy with the stock classes. He seemed to care nothing about the very finest show animals or their points, and to merely regard them as necessary links in his system. Neither Belville, nor old Charlotte, nor Colly Hill, nor Loudon Tarn, " that very Blair Athole among Clydesdales," had made any impression on him. He only wished to see the classes worthily filled ; the cracks he left to his friend, Mr. Gourlay Steell, " to be translated." As a private companion none could excel 1 him, and to us his stories were all the more salient, when they turned on his recollections of his own Society. He loved to recount the Parisian speculations and observations of " Boghall," who did him such yeoman service as cattle manager on that famous international trip ; and he unconsciously gave us a delightful speci- men of his best official manner in his recital of " Duncan's Arrest at Perth." It seems that the late Duke of Athole, who was then president of the Society, went to Mr. Duncan the night before the show opened at Perth and demanded a stock cata- logue. With unswerving fidelity to his chief, who had given express orders to the contrary, Mr. Duncan re- spectfully declined to hand over, and the Duke (whose 6 Saddle and Sirloin. Highland blood was very easily roused) ordered him forthwith into a cab, and taking his seat beside him, drove straight off to Mr. Maxwell's inn. The latter was summoned from dinner, and, on going into the lobby, heard the indictment which the Duke delivered with immense emphasis, holding the accused by the collar. Then Mr. Maxwell struck in, appealing to the Duke as one who had been in the army, and knew the value of rigid discipline, and showing his Grace that " my orders are only your orders even a president cannot break his own rules ;" and so the upshot of it was that the Duke doffed his bonnet, and made a most gracious bow " Mr. Duncan, I humbly beg your pardon? Such was Hall Maxwell ; and Scotland did not let one who had served her so well and so long retire without a substantial reward. On January I7th, 1866, he was presented with lOOO guineas and a handsome service of plate, and was also requested by the direc- tors of the Society to sit to Mr. Gourlay Steell for his portrait. They little thought how soon that portrait (which is hung, among the few that have attained such honour, in their council-chamber) would be all they could look upon. He was still in the very prime of his mental vigour ; and, if health had been granted to him, he might have reasonably looked for- ward to another twenty years of usefulness in his county. It was not to be He held up just so long as the connexion between him and the Society was unbroken, and then his friends saw with sorrow that Edinburgh would soon know him no more. About the middle of May he quitted it, in very feeble health ; his fainting-fits became more frequent as the summer sped on, and on August 25th he died, at his own house, Torr Hall, Renfrewshire, in the 55th year of his age. A quiet evening with some really good coursers is no light privilege, especially if the kettle is singing a Mr. Ivie Campbell. 7 pleasant winter tune, and a greyhound that has " done the state some service" lies stretched in dreams on the hearth-rug. We have listened with delight as Mr. Nightingale recounted the points of each crack course at the meetings where he wore the scarlet ; and though the cold February wind whistled loud and shrill round the Ayrshire barn-tops, and away to the moors behind, what cared we as the servant lassie brought in tea, and fresh logs to the fire, and the late Mr. Campbell, with Canaradzo at his feet, dwelt fondly on the race of Scotland Yet. In his build Mr. Campbell would remind us of the late Mr. Kirby of York a man of burly frame, in a capacious black tail coat from which he had rather shrunk. He was good- tempered, but always able to hold his own, with in- cisive Quaker-like retorts, against a host, when he was chaffed. He sold all his greyhounds, save Coodareena, in the spring of '65, Canaradzo for ioo/. to Mr. Knowles, and Calabaroono for 2OO/., to the late Lord Uffington, with a view to the Waterloo Cup, for which he came, after the frost, far too fat to the slips. Few men began coursing so late, and none have made such prices ; but his dogs were always well placed, and well trained by his son and " Jock o' Dalgig." He was much " exercised" in the manufacture of greyhound names, and was wont to say that it often relieved him from severe fits of toothache. The pursuit had its origin as follows. He had a red dog, " Crom- well," winner of the Biggar (Open) Cup of sixty-four dogs, in 1853 ; and shortly after another " Cromwell," to his intense disgust, started up in the English entries. Then he called a brace " Scotland Yet" and " High- land Home" after favourite Scottish songs, and when the Ridgway Club entries came out, Mr. Sharpe had a Scotland Yet as well. After that he would have " no common names," and followed up a limited use of Ossian, by making them for himself. His first-born was " Coomerango," of which Boomerang was the key- 8 Saddle and Sirloin. note. "Crested Lochiel" and "Cam Ye by Athol," were the only names he would ever accept from his son. He said that his dogs had no luck unless they were named by himself, and as the above two died from in- juries at a fence, he had some grounds for his prejudice. His son really began the family coursing in 1841, when Mr. McTurk gave him a puppy. After that " Young Dalgig" always kept one ; but his father took no notice whatever of the sport until 1847, when he saw him with Kenmore, the dam of Dido, and con- ceived a violent admiration for her. He then learnt to love coursing at private meetings round home, and his maiden win was a farmer's stake at Closeburn five shillings entrance and thirty runners. Dido won, and followed suit at Closeburn public meeting the next year. He first tried Canaradzo in the Dalgig meadows with Mr. Hyslop's Forty-Six. If he was anxious for a trial he would walk from morning till evening to have one. On one occasion he and his son walked all Monday and Tuesday on the hills, and did not find a hare. On Wednesday they began again, and at two o'clock those plucky pilgrims at last " spied her sitting." He did not feel it a martyrdom, and no amount of wet would make him put back. The only alloy, in his mind, to these private trials was when "Jock" pro- claimed the death of a doe hare. Occasionally, he took an odd fit, and would run a dog three or four trials in a day. Much as he loved Coodareena, he would sometimes try the whole team with her, and he was "as deaf as Ailsa Craig" to every expostulation on the point. She was the stoutest hearted of all the Scotland Yets a sort which is either very game or very soft ; and but for these severe trials she would have won more than she did. As it was, she was left in among the last eight with Meg in Mr. Campbell's last Waterloo Cup essay ; and she ran well at Kyle in the winter, after having had three litters. Mr. Ivie Campbell. 9 Dalgig* was not far from the springs of Nitli, and every Edie Ochiltree and Madge Wildfire who wan- dered among those moors was sure of a night's shelter and plenty of porridge and milk. Mr. Campbell was a great student of human nature, and he loved a bit of character wherever he could find it, especially if it indulged in unshackelled Scotch. He made a point of asking every tramp their name, and they invariably said " Campbell." The outlying members of the clan seemed to increase in a most marvellous manner, but still he was content to ask no more questions. "Campbell" was not the only key to his heart. On one occasion he had some words with a vagrant, and denied him bed and board, but when the cunning fellow told him that his name was " Bruce," everything was forgiven and forgotten. They repaid his kindness by very seldom stealing from him. One of the worst of the lot was once heard to say to his child behind a hedge " Nab what you can, laddie, btit no at Dalgig for yer life'' His charity was once rather chilled by learning that two married couples had enjoyed his hospitality from Saturday till Monday, and occu pied their barn leisure in negotiating an exchange of wives. The arrangement was carried into effect, and " Old Dalgig" was so scandalized when he heard of it, that for a long time he housed no beggars but aged ones. He seldom changed his servants, and looked upon the seniors as quite family standards. " Sandy Dun" was with him and his father for fifty-seven years, and died at eighty-four, without redeeming the matrimo- nial promise which he made annually to his master, under the influence of ale, at Auchinleck Lamb Fair. Another of them, Willy Wilson, delighted to tell how a rough drover tried to prevent him and his master * For a visU to Dalgig see " Field and Fern" (South), pp. 249-66. i o Saddle and Sirloin. from passing a certain point in the fair with their lambs, and how the latter laid the fellow prostrate in the mud, and when he had extracted an apology, assisted him to rise and gave him sixpence to drink his health. If he scolded his servants or any one else he seldom got beyond, " You Saucestcr T (a Scotch word for a kind of pudding) ; but when his preface was " My Good Sir" he was felt to be in earnest indeed. Hugh Wyllie, who had been thirty-five years about Dalgig, was often " had in" for a chat at night. He was full of all the country news, and knew many curious stories, two traits which exactly suited his master. The finest scenes took place between " Old Dalgig" and his negro Black Geordie. At one time, Geordie was a sailor, then he cruised about the country selling pebbles and curious stones, and when that, game was up, he became a sort of groom to Mr. Campbell, for five-and-twenty years. He was very lazy, and nearly as bad tempered as old Pluto of Gibbet Island, and scenes, rich and rare, took place between him and his master, if the gig was not ready in time. Geordie would think out loud upon these occasions, and it was upon this aggravating habit that issue was joined. Mr. Campbell was very fond of reading, but con- fined himself principally to religious works, and more especially to Edward Irving's and Dr. Cumming's. He kept several terms at Glasgow University, where he studied Greek and Latin, and attended the Divinity Hall with no small zest. With a view to going out to China, he began to learn the language, but he was prevailed upon, in consequence of his father's advanced years, to cease from gathering " the blossom of the flying term," and to assist him in his farm duties.* * As a breeder of Ayrshires, horses, and sheep he had great expe- rience ; few men were in higher request as a judge at shows in Scotland, and, in 1864, he made his third and last journey to Ireland on the same Mr. Ivie Campbell. 1 1 Still, amid Ayrshire cows and arable, he always yearned after his first love his college cap and gown. Robert Pollok, the author of " The Course of Time," was a fellow student in the Divinity school, and many errand. Whatever he did, he did with all his might. For instance, when Lord James Stewart, as principal trustee for the young Marquis of Bute, offered four silver medals for different classes of farm stock, he felt sure of being first for the " Dairy Stock," and anything but sure of the " Single Ayrshire Milch Cow," the " Clydesdale Brood Mare," and the " Two-year-old Ayrshire Quey." Defeat was not to be thought of, and (like the late Duke of Hamilton when he determined to be foremost among the best at Battersea) he bought one in Dumfriesshire, another in Lanarkshire, and the third in a distant part of Ayrshire, and kept the medals together. In 1833 he reclaimed 570 acres of waste hill land by ploughing and liming, and then sowing it out in first-rate pasture, and for this improvement he gained the Highland and Agricultural Society's gold medal. Three years after that, he commenced with his brother-in-law, Mr. Richmond (of Bridgehouse), as his mentor, breed- ing " Superior Ayrshire Stock," and they bought between them the celebrated "Tarn" from Mr. Allan, of Dairy. Tarn's cows and queys carried almost everything before them from 1843 to 1854 ; and were first on five different occasions, when the competition was open to all Ayrshire. His next purchase, Cardigan, from Mr. Parker, gained twenty-seven first prizes, and was never beaten while at Dalgig, and it was for this bull that he refused ioo/. in 1856. Mr. Parker's stalls also furnished him with Clarendon, who fined down very much after his arrival, and was first both at Ayr and Glasgow in '60. With all this good milk material, do what he might, he could never get to the top of the tree in cheese-making. His dairy could win at New and Old Cumnock, but they were never even commended in the county competition at Kilmarnock. He spared no expense to have his dairy-maids instructed in the Cheddar system, and both Mr. Harding and Mr. Norton from Somersetshire set up their cheese-presses for a time at Dalgig. Still he never succeeded in making a first-class article, and he attributed his failure to the wet soil and the cold, damp air. Blackfaced sheep were also his fancy, and he won prizes with them, but never showed after Mr. Richmond's death in '44. He began his horse-labours simultaneously with his assault on waste land, and Kleber and Lamartine, both Lanarkshire-bred Clydesdales, were his best sires. Still, much as he might like good draught horses, he liked good saddle horses better, and by the purchase of Revolter (a son of Grand Turk, "the Cumberland coacher" and Merrylegs, a trotting mare) which he put to six or seven nearly thorough-bred mares, he achieved a great success both for himself and those who sent mares to " the old lame horse." For a man of his weight he was a very fearless rider, and he never cared what sort of savage he had in a gig, as he would soon teach it how to go. r 2 Saddle and Sirloin. of their Glasgow evenings were spent together. Their friendship knew no change, and the very year that Pollok died, he had promised to spend part of the summer at Dalgig. Curling and draughts were his chief amusements until he commenced coursing, and he kept up the former for fully forty years. He would drive seven- teen miles to Sanquhar to play, and although he never won the Picture, he held the New Cumnock Challenge Medal for several seasons. As a director of the game he was first-rate, but his temper not un- frequently went if any of his own players were care- less. However, the anger was soon off him, and he always said he was sorry for " blowing them up." Into draughts he entered with the same devotion, and on very special occasions he and a neighbour would be at it till three in the morning. For two or three years he had been very poorly, and six months before his death he was stricken with palsy. After that he grew weaker and weaker, but he was able to ride out in his gig until the October of '67, when a great change for the worse took place, and a peaceful end soon followed. Mr. McCombie's late herdsman, John Benzies, was another character whom we always liked to meet by the side of his heavy blacks, either at Islington or in the Vale of Alford. Owing to a constitutional in- firmity in his legs, he was not always able to compass his thousand miles each December, but in 1867, when he came South with the Black Prince Cup ox and swept everything he could try for, both at Birming- ham and London, we never saw him more active. His appearance " by special command" with his ox before Her Majesty at the Windsor Home Farm was a grand event, and of course he was pretty often waylaid as he went smiling down the Islington avenues, and was requested to stand and deliver a Court Journal account of himself. Despite all this John White, the Gamekeeper. 13 notice in high places, John did not lose his head, and when a celebrated English feeder put a chaffing question to him as to his ox's dietary, he had his guard up in an instant, and wouldn't allow that it ever ate anything but " Heather bloom ! heather bloom /" He seemed very well, but when he was met at the station on his return, he told his fellow servant, as if with a sort of sad prescience, that he had now won all he could win, and that he didn't care whether he ever saw the South again. Then came two quiet days to recruit him after his journey, and some long, two-handed cracks with his master about the black he had left behind him, and then to work once more in his nice, cheerful way among the prize beasts for '68. Still his treacherous complaint knew of no lengthened compromise. Another short week and his labour was done, and this true- hearted servant was borne up the valley to his grave. We have also lost our honest, downright friend of many years standing, John White, or " Hawthorne." No more each August shall we hail his forecast of the grouse on the Grampians, so often prefaced by the lines which told of the muircock's crow, the eagle's haunt in the glen, the sweet moss where the roe deer browse, and all the other delights of his heart, and ending up with an exhortation to his brother sports- men to " on wi' the tartan, and off wi' me ride." He was head-keeper to the Earl of Mansfield, in whose service he had been for nineteen years. His com- mand extended over the Lowland shootings round Scone and Lynedoch one on the banks of the Tay, and the other of the Almond. Lynedoch, which is some six miles out of Perth, is a lovely wild spot, and he lived in the heart of it, not much more than a hundred yards from the now ruined cottage where the venerable General Lynedoch, as long as his eye- sight lasted, spent three months of his summer. 1 4 Saddle and Sirloin. Pheasants, partridges, roe deer, " fur" in abundance, wild ducks, and a sprinkling of capercailzie composed John's charge. The graves of Bessie Bell and Mary Gray are by the rocky stream of the Almond in those grounds, and drew many picknickers with leave and without. Sometimes these outlaws would let themselves in by a key at the great gate under the cliff, and we often laughed to hear the rout when the " lion of Lynedoch" bore down upon them with dishevelled mane, and exacted ample apologies and submission, when they thought that all was serene. He learnt his game-lesson well with his father, who was head keeper at Arniston, near Edinburgh ; and when quite a lad, he was constantly out coursing with Sir Walter Scott. The bard liked his enthusiasm, and had many a chat with him as he led his dogs, and thus indirectly fostered the taste which he always had for a bit of verse and prose on field sports. After this he was fifteen years at Abercairney with Mr. James Moray and his brother, the major. The former kept a pack of hounds in Perthshire, and John was a keen preserver of foxes, and had lots of good mounts for his fealty. As " Brushwood," he used to send Old Maga many a line about them, and when they were given up, he had plenty to tell of " Merry John " Walker, and his great doings in Fife. He was a much lighter weight in those days, and generally there or thereabouts, not unfrequently on Walker's own horses. In later days he took to coursing, and he won, and then divided the Cup with his Duncan Gray at the Carse of Gowrie Meeting. He was also a great fisher, and there was scarcely a stream or loch in Scotland where he had not cast his fly, and to good purpose. He landed many a noble salmon on the banks of the Tay, and preferred it before all other sports ; but when he told us (who had never seen him John White, the Gamekeeper. 15 perform) of his agility, and his playing a fish for more than an hour, we could only gaze in wonder at his burly figure, and congratulate him upon being " got so fit" for the Derby week with a salmon to " lead work" all spring. He was out deer-stalking with the Prince Consort in Glenartney Forest, when H.R.H. first came to Scotland, and he had some capital stories of his keeper's experiences, "owre the muir amang the heather." The frost always found his eye true and his hand steady for the curling stones, and he won a prize not many winters since at that game. He was also a capital rifle shot, and he especially cherished a silver medal which he won in 1829 at the Border Club, when a stripling of twenty, as " the Ettrick Shepherd" with whom he had often lived and fished and shot near the Braes of Yarrow hung it round his neck in public, and made a short speech in his honour. Few better game shots went into a cover ; he delighted in his profession, and in such a retired spot, among the laurels, " where once a garden smiled, and still where many a garden flower runs wild," he had a fine cover for his pheasants close round his lodge, which was almost hid in jessamine and honeysuckle. We often stayed with him there and listened to his good stories, amplified rather at times by the repetition of his pet phrase, "/ said to Mr. says 7," but very amusing, and full of cha- racter, for which he was a keen watcher. As each Derby began to loom, he was anxious to be up and on the Downs, but he said every year that he should " never come again." If there was a great pigeon handicap, he would go and load for his young master, Lord Stormont, and the North Countrie men always delighted to see John's honest, hearty face among them. He had known lots of them as chil- dren, but he had hardly a grey hair in his head. He also knew a leading book-maker, and from him he received tips, but to judge from the state of his book, 1 6 Saddle and Sirloin. when he arrived in the metropolis, John was not very constant to his Derby love during the winter. At Perth he was a well-known character, driving through in his trap to Scone, or in Paton the gunsmith's shop, up to his crupper in fishing-rods and breech-loaders, or talking to Speedie about his salmon takes. He died after a very short illness at Scone, and he was buried at Moneydie Church, about two miles from Lynedoch, on the banks of a little stream which falls into that Tay he loved so dearly, near the salmon- breeding ponds at Stormontfield.* Time has wrought some changes at Dr. Grant's since we first wrote of the doings of the Master of the Teviotdale.t First and foremost, the Doctor has foresworn celibacy, and has found a helpmate as fond and as beloved of the hounds as himself, and as daring in the saddle, when she dons her blue habit on a fox or otter-hunting morning. The Liddesdale Hunt remembers well how five or six seasons since she won the brush on her grey pony. In fact, the Doctor has consistently reversed George Herbert's saying of " a horse made, and a wife to make." The step quite took Hawick by surprise. The Kirk Session clerk thought it was a hoax-, when the Doctor handed him the guinea and the proclamation for kirk * A local paper, the Crieff Journal, has the following lines to his memory, which shows that in his humble walk, he has left some " foot- prints on the sands of Time," in both the places where he lived and did his duty so well. They run as follows : " Weeping echoes in the Braes of Lynedoch and Abercairney :" " Alas ! he's gone. Who's gone? Honest John White gone ; Neither laird nor statesman he, Nor boasting of high pedigree, But proud of country and of home, A leal true-hearted Scotsman, gone ; Firm in duty, sportsman rare, Constant friend, man everywhere." t See ''Field and Fern" (South), pp. 171-201. The Master of the Teviotdale. 17 next day, and he positively refused to handle the one or believe the other till a mutual friend solemnly vouched for it. Even when he read it out in kirk, he was in fear and trembling, and "thought the Doctor might be getting himself into trouble with another of his odd tricks." The great fear among the Hawick " lads" when the secret came out that Sunday was, that the days of the Teviotdale pack were numbered No such thing. The whole of the premises in Hawick were knocked down, and new opes of a very different stamp grew out of the same spot in their place. Horses and dogs lived pro tern, just where they could among the debris. The brown pony of the fair " first whip" (Mrs. G.) was located in a little boarded corner of the barn, with Frank, the terrier (a staunch badger dog, but unentered at otter) in perpetual attendance. The grey half-Arab mare, a rare goer on the road, and a wonderfully steady one when you come to a wade in " silver Teviot's tide," and the bay whose life was spent between the rubbish cart and professional tours in the gig were stabled in a house without a gable end, where three " families" used to live. The pack found shelter in the old hunting-break shed, and the break was poked away behind divers roof beams and laths. Slash, the big black Labrador of io81bs. weight, was tied up in the back surgery with the turtledove of apocryphal age, which has lollowed the Doctor's fortunes from three houses in Hawick. The black had been so accustomed to watch for poachers, that before he fairly understood " Hints on Etiquette" in the house, he was suspicious when he winded a patient after dark, and on one occasion he made a well-meant effort to eat a flesher, who had come to have his tooth drawn. Billy and Bobby generally lived with two cats in the garret, and the latter, when he was in an ill- humour, kept the tabbies in strong exercise. Billy paid off a servant-girl, against whom he had a slight C 1 8 Saddle and Sirloin. grudge. He would share her bed every night ; but once when she had to get out and go downstairs to fetch something, he took a surly fit, and would never let her in again at least, under the blankets and that long-suffering woman had to sleep in her shift on the outside. Teddy and the cat were mostly in bed- partnership with the boy ; but Billy stuck to the girls, and old half-blind Stormer, who fights every- thing in kennel, roamed about at will. After trying in vain on a pouring night for a settlement in some parish, he discovered a happy hermitage, in this brick- and-mortar waste, at the bottom of an old chimney, and, having laid the coals in order, entered into re- sidence at once. My Mary, by Shamrock, is inde- pendent of alterations, and resides entirely in the gigs at least, the one which has the apron on and makes sundry sallies during the night on to the rats, which hold holiday in the yard. On one occasion, she was found with five, which she must have carried up, step by step, through the wheel spokes, and then borne, Blondin-fashion, along the side-shaft to her lair. As the Doctor says, she " lies with them in her arms, as if they were puppies the darling wee thing!" She lives well among the patients in her daily gig rides, but cream and meat don't make her idle. Occasionally she enlivens these professional rounds by taking the drains after a rabbit, and she has car- ried one alive into the gig. Like her, the Doctor does a good deal of sleeping in the gig, but to ensure peaceful repose he must have two pair of reins, and hold the one while his wife drives with the other. Gouty old MalakhofFs white skin is in the best bed- room, and you now tread over " old John Peel's" and Fairplay's somewhere on the landing. Shamrock's is in the big room, and gives you the notion, as you first look and recall the little grey-and-tan warrior of eighteen seasons, that a quarry stone has tumbled on him, and flattened him out. His is indeed a precious The Master of the Teviotdale. 1 9 memory with the Doctor. " When Broadwith could find no vermin for him he killed collies on the spot he had such destructive power he suffered very much at last ; I tapped him twice, and took away about 1 60 ounces of fluid in all." He left more daughters than sons behind him ; and the former more especially followed him in colour. Teddy, his son, is quite as determined with otters, and by dint of practice as artistic as himself, though he is not quite so heavy. The badgers needed no close borough of their own amid all this yard confusion, as they were all poisoned that summer on one and the self-same night. They would catch rats like a dog, as the vermin stole to their feeding trough in " the sweet moonshine ; " but they killed and ate one too many. A poisoned rat came among the rest, and all three seemed to have partaken of him, as they were found curled up stiff and dead in one tub. The Doctor had no idea that poisoning was in process next door, or he would have adopted his usual preventive of feeding up the out-lying terriers and the badgers, so that they would not eat their spoil. He mourned sadly over the big badger, as nearly every terrier in the place had been highly tried with him in his time. This badger main- tained the very pleasantest relations with the stable- boy and servant-girl, who cleaned him out and fed him. Let but the Doctor appear, and he growled fearfully, and as often as not tried to break through his iron poker guard, and have a touch at his learned legs. He was quite different in attitude and expres- sion when one of the Doctor's wire-haired brigade went in, and he would at once entrench himself in a corner, " to receive cavalry," knowing right well what to expect. If it was merely a stranger he scorned such work, and went in for a merry ding-dong, which soon settled matters. A very expensive brace were so heavily beaten in their trial, that their disgusted C 2 2O Saddle and Sirloin. owner packed them off that night, and said he thought they " would be good enough for London." Teddy nailed him at eleven months, and got bitten through his nose and shoulder, but he went in at him a few days after, as resolute as ever. Badger-baiting is in the blood, as Shammy's grandsire, " The Patriotic Pep," killed a badger in a drain when he was quite old and blind. This was at William Broadwith's, who used often to turn out a badger on Longnewton Forest with one and a half hours' law, whenever Sir George Douglas's pack were unusually short of otters. The performing chestnut horse was put down early in '67, and was generally supposed to be rising twenty- seven years, of which he had spent eleven with the Doctor. As a jumper, whether of stone walls, banks, or timber, he had few to touch him, and with the Doctor's leaping-pole on the top of it, he cared no- thing for a wire fence. He would follow his master over any jump, and never separate from him when he was over, however good a head hounds might be carrying. For some time past he had been troubled in his wind, and was found, on a careful post mortem, to have aneurism of the heart and malignant disease of the liver. In fact it was about time for him to render up his flesh to the hounds he loved so well, and his " flag," skin, and hoofs (the latter in the shape of polished snuff-boxes) serve as adornments to the big room of 3Oft. by I Sift., above the stables. His carcase was pickled for the pack and was " as good beef as ever you saw ; but perhaps not so fat as some we've known." They put a sack over his head, and the poor beast began to waltz with his fore feet, as if he was expecting to be taught his lOist performance, when down he went with No. 5 shot through the fore- head. The Doctor cannot bear ball in such a crisis, as his five-barrelled revolver once failed with a Bird- catcher mare, and he only killed her by opening a The Master of the Teviotdale. 2 i vein, and blowing into it, when she died with a hearty nicker in her nostrils. The one-eyed thorough-bred mare has been disposed of long since. Her original price was thirty shillings, because no one could get on her back, and the Doctor consistently reached that proud elevation up to the day of her death by a series of flying jumps on the blind off-side. He has a capital harness mare, looking like a hunter, which wont ride a yard, and never will. It once took three and a half hours to do two miles on her, and her rider only effected that by sitting down on her, and working the journey tail forem6st the only way in which she will go under a saddle, although she will kneel, and take quite naturally to hanky-panky tricks. The Doctor takes the precaution of having his harness made throughout with spring hooks so that if he has an accident he can hold the horse with the left hand, and set it free with the right. There are about five otter hounds, eight Dandies, and Billy in the pack ; but there is nothing the Doctor relies on more than Slash the Labrador, with his jet-black coat and his fine grey muzzle. This warrior came from Broadwith's, and hunted with the Doctor for many a season before he was " reduced into possession." He was helping in night-work at the same time ; but it became at last dangerous to take him out, as he could wind a poacher at any distance, and his growls of linked sweetness long drawn out, when they held him " for fear of murder," told too much. Hence the Doctor, to his great joy, was al- lowed to take him home, and he has become a groom of the bedchamber. Slash believes in no dog not excepting Ringwood unless he has felt at the spot for himself. Hunting alone is his delight, and he is always questing either up or down stream, yards apart from the body of the pack. He quarters the stream just like a setter dog after partridges sometimes with his nose right under the water, and his head on one 22 Saddle and Sirloin. side, as if listening, and sometimes with it flat on the surface. When there is a worry he takes care to have his back nip ; whereas old Stormer only tugs away at the tail, and Ringwood is quite open to let up Billy and the terriers at such a crisis. Slash was the only dog which ever beat the Doctor when he wanted to save his otter. That devoted man had the rest at bay under an elder bush on the Ale, and the terriers would not act on account of the heavy stream ; but Slash would not be denied, floored him in the mud, and took the otter from him then and there. The " auctioneer," which MalakhofF dreaded so much, was no use what- ever against such a "Molyneux the Black." The Doctor remarks " that he does not know pain. Look at the thumps he got from that iron hook of Bill's : his nervous system is not like other dogs he's a dog of metallic nerves." The long room above the stables is now (i 870) finished, but not furnished ; a fox has been kept there since it was a cub, and ere long the trick training will commence. A badger again forms one of the establishment, to the great delight of Betsy ; and a man hunted a buck tbulmart for six weeks as a consort for the ferrets, which had grown slack in the Doctor's eyes, and re- quired a fresh strain of blood. It was run to ground several times, and made such an example of its pur- suer's fingers, that the latter was perpetually under medical treatment till he conquered. The Doctor has made a platform nine feet from the ground round his yard, and stocked it with all kinds of British flowers. This is what he understands by sitting under his own fig-tree in years to come, and what cares he even if the otter-bites in his hands do become " the seats of rheumatism." Above the long room he has a shoot- ing gallery of twenty-five yards, finishing in his extra bedroom, which commands a view of Chapel Hill, Borthaugh, and Gala Law covers. Through an artful tube in the wall, he commands the illuminated face of The Master of the Teviotdale. 23 the Town Clock as he lies in his bed, which saves all candle reference to his watch on an otter-hunting morning. Some of the otter hounds have been working with Sandy in the Carlisle pack ; but Royal, Collier, and Ringwood are still (1870) in kennel with Teddy, Piper, Tom, and the other terriers, who " get round the otter like a collar of leeches." Two greyhounds (one of them old Artful), Slash, old Major (who is almost blind), Judge (the setter), and Stormer have tickets- of-leave in the stable ; Billy, Bobby, and Ragman are a trio by themselves ; and Black Jack, who will fight any mortal thing, occupies the boot of the break. There is also a magnificent bitch, Melody, from Mr. Stonehewer's which has no superior in a cold scent, and Little Pod, a puppy of The Dwarfs, is quite a character. The Doctor's deposition touching the attempted capture of Billy is worth preserving : " I saw the man at the head of Baker's Close, coquetting with Billy, and marked him as a stranger, with an eye to the dog. The two disappeared. I got into position at the other end of the Close, and took him by the throat ; he threw down the rope, and I made him pick it up again. He tried to break my arm ; but I knew the old dodge. He seized me by the wrist, and ran under it. I stopped him with one on the larynx ; he opened his mouth wider than any otter hound he was nearly asphyxiated. It was such a nasty trick trying to put out a gentleman's arm for claim- ing his own dog. Billy was quite conscience-stricken at finding himself in such low company. He knew he had done something wrong. The man had to stand in the yard with his back against the wall, and hold the rope as evidence against himself, till a Serjeant of police came. The rope was the link of union ; it kept them all nicely connected together The man began in a most piteous way. He told me 24 Saddle and Sirloin. he had only just finished his t\vo years in Perth Penitentiary for taking a mouthful of flesh out of a policeman's leg. I had some pity on him, and I wouldn't value Billy at io/., so he couldn't be sent to Jedburgh. He had the full benefit of ten days. The baillie would have given him more for Billy's sake, if he could. As for the man, he was gratitude to the mast-head. * /'// never steal another dog from yon' I thought he would come and call ; but I am glad to say he didn't. ' Pve got a good dog at Dal- keitJi ; yon can have it if yon like. If yon ever want one, write me' That is what he said : it showed his heart was in the right place. It was a tremendous undertaking stealing a public character like Billy a dog that everybody here knows and respects a privi- leged dog goes round the town every forenoon, and visits on his own hook not a butcher's shop he dosen't know, and he's very fond of confectionery too. He may well be fat.' ; The Doctor " took a notion" shortly after our visit, and sallied forth with Ringwood, Royal, Collier, Stormer, and Melody to look for an otter at Shields- wood, where Jack Deans the keeper had several fox litters. The otter had been a great night-traveller, and between Ashkirk and Shieldswood loch the scent was as hot as fire. Mrs. Grant commanded the terrier contingent, of Teddy, Tom, Piper, Vixen, and My Mary ; while Slash the Labrador, Billy, and the five otter hounds were the Doctor's aides-de-camp as usual. Jack was in a dreadful fright when the Din- monts went to ground, lest it should be a vixen fox, but it was the "right stuff," a regular thirty- pounder, and out it came through the pack and into the loch. There was plenty of music, and when it had swum a ring it earthed again, and was drawn out by the terriers. It was nearly off the second time, but the Doctor dashed into the loch, seized it by the hind legs, and fell trying to swing it up the bank. As the The Master of the Teviotdale. 2 5 Doctor fell, some of his dogs, whose blood was regu- larly up, caught him by the hip in the melee, and bit hirn so severely that the leg became benumbed down to the foot, and he could not get up again. Jack then slipped and went down in trying to land him, and was bitten by one of the dogs in the hand. Mrs. Grant, as reserve corps, then flew to their aid, and the Doctor was got out of the loch, still holding on to the hind legs of the otter, which just prevented his coat and vest from being pulled right over his head. There was a most fearful battle on the bank, and but for Slash and his tremendous " back nip," the otter might have won the day. Poor Billy was of no use; he hung on " like grim death/' and tried to chew, but he seemed to do no harm. On examination it was found that he had struck two of his long tusks through his upper-lip, and had thus fairly muzzled himself. There never was such a bloody death, and the terriers, to use the Doctor's noble simile, " looked as if scarlet nightcaps had been drawn over their heads and necks." Billy was in high fever next day, with a head so fearfully swollen that the Doctor thought he could not recover, and carried him perfectly blind to the photographer, for a parting reminiscence. His head when submitted to the photographer was just as broad as it was long, whereas in health the length is about twice the width. He is now quite well again and ripe for duty, and another photograph was taken of him ; so that his friends at a distance might see, with the aid of a magnifying-glass, what a tre- mendous jobation he received during his " lock jaw." The Doctor firmly believes that the dog owes his life to the tender nursing and devotion of his mate, the ex-pugilist Bobby, who took possession of him that night, and never left him till all his face-wounds were healed up. He lay with his patient on the kitchen sofa, and never ceased to lick the raw spots. If Billy went into the yard he accompanied him, and would 26 Saddle and Sirloin. not let him out of his sight for an instant. His tongue was in fact a perpetual poultice and antidote to inflam- mation. The Doctor tried hard one day to get him to dress the wounds of the Dandies, but he would not even look at them. Some years ago he and Billy fought till they were exhausted, and ever since they seem to have been quite content to look upon it as a drawn match, and never quarrel about victuals or any- thing else. " Well, den ! Hard Koppig Peter ben gone at last," said the Dutchman of New Amsterdam, as they puffed the pensive pipe, and gazed into his grave. Now that his beloved Newmarket will know him no more, turf- ites have a still warmer remembrance of their " Peter the Headstrong," or "Old Glasgow!" The Dutch and Scottish heroes were of the same kidney. One prorogued a meeting of the burghers sine die by kick- ing it bodily downstairs with his silver-mounted wooden leg ; and then posted himself in full regimen- tals and cocked hat, with a blunderbuss at a garret window of Government-house, rather than sign the surrender of his town. The other looked upon the Press much from the same point of view as Peter did on the troublesome tribes of Preserved Fish and Determined Cock, and did nothing on the turf like anybody else. He went to sea at a tender age, and he never lost the salt flavour. To the last he was a true descendant of the old Norsemen in his manners and in his blood. Grafton, Rutland, Exeter, and Jersey were courtly models to which he did not care to conform. Under the auspices of his one-armed tutor, "Sir Wolly," who, for lack of more worlds to conquer, on his proud St. Leger Eve thrust his walking-stick through the pier glasses of the Rein Deer, the young lieutenant soon became seasoned to life ashore. They would sit at the window of the Black Swan at York with magnums of claret before them after midnight, and hand it out The Earl of Glasgow. 2 7 in tumblers to the passers-by. Old racing men first remember the pupil jumping on the table at the Star in Stonegate, when Mr. Gully entered and offered 25 to I in hundreds against Brutandorf for the St. Leger, and repeating the offer in thousands. Having once begun to " plunge," he won I7,ooo/. on Jerry, and lost 27,ooo/. on Mameluke at Doncaster ; and trusting in Bay Middleton, and Bay Middleton alone, he offered 9O,ooo/, to 3O,ooo/. against Venison for the Derby, " each man to post the money." Of late years he had made some big bets, and offered bigger, but be the issue what it might, no one could tell by his features whether he had won or lost. It was dangerous for a trainer or jockey to advise his lordship to put ioo/. on a horse, as he was sure to multiply the advice by five. Very often he would take no advice, and with a colt at least two stone better in the stable he charac- teristically enough backed Dare Devil to win 5O,ooo/., and put his first jockey on him in the St. Leger. Combined with all this off-hand daring, there was the fine, simple faith of a Jack Tar, and the most rugged honesty. Finesse or generalship, such as letting the worst horse finish first in the trial when a good "taste" had been taken a quarter of a mile from home, was a thing he could not understand. Hence, he never fairly mastered the fact that Actseon was much better than Jerry ; and Purity's hollow defeat in the first two heats out of five at Doncaster, despite Croft's assu- rance that " the fun of the fair is only beginning, my lord," seemed a purely Chinese puzzle to him. As Lord Kelburne, when his racing aspirations did not often range further south than York and Don- caster, he lived a good deal in Scotland, at his seat of Hawkhead, near Paisley. That daring soul, Lord Kennedy, was then in his zenith, ready to shoot (at grouse or pigeons), or walk, or drive, against any mortal man, for any conceivable sum, and, as may be i inagined, his lordship found a foeman, with a long 28 Saddle and Sirloin. purse, ready for him at any hour of the day or night. The later the hour, the wilder the bet ; and it is on record that they had a driving match after midnight, and that Lord Kelburne lost by choosing the wrong road, and nearly plunging his team among the breakers off Ardrossan. In sturdy emphasis of speech, whether at Jockey Club Cabinets, or addressing his trainer, he was the same " Downright Shippon" to the last. For him the Presbytery of Strathbogie had lived and laboured in vain. To discuss a subject of turf polity with him was about as hopeless as to ask his opinion respecting the new veterinary discovery of a small supplementary muscle in the eye of an ass. He once ordered a handi- capper to put 7lbs. more on his own mare. When, as Lord Kelburne, he hunted Ayrshire, if anything went wrong with the sport, he immediately turned upon the huntsman, and chased that devoted man, thong in hand, half a league v over hedge and fallow. Fashion and Usage could forge no fetters for him. Hodgson in a pair of gloves, Shades of Meynell and of Mytton 1 Vainly Venus sent her doves, With a pair of her own knitting, expressed a home truth about a Master of the Quorn, which would have equally applied to the old Earl. He never appeared in such modern knick-knacks as knickerbockers. To the last he stood by the side of the cords, with low shoes a world too wide, white trousers, in which T. P. Cooke himself could have conscientiously danced a hornpipe, and not unfre- quently in a blue coat with gilt buttons. See him when you might, there was the same nervous irrita- tion, which ruined all natural rest, and made his span of nearly seventy-seven years, eked out as it was nightly by chloroform or laudanum, very little short of miraculous. He was not exactly, as Aytoun said of Lord The Earl of Glasgow. 29 Eglinton, " one of the heroic stamp of Montrose and Dundee," but still a grand Turf patriarch, whom no defeat could quench. He had spent hundreds of thousands during nearly half a century of racing life, and yet not one of the three great events fell to his " white body, crimson sleeves and cap," in which Harry Edwards on Actaeon, that most ungenerous of finishers, defeated by a head the terrific rush of Sam Chifney on Memnon. This York Subscription Purse was, after all, the victory of his life. " Lord Glasgow wins," was heard at the Two Thousand finish in General Peel's year, and no shout was taken up with greater zest by the multitude. " Old Glasgow always goes straight to the winning-post," and " Rogues can take no change out of him." Like Lord Exeter, he could furnish his " surprises," and none greater than when Rapid Rhone defeated Lord Clifden for the Claret Stakes. Cheered on by the warmth and high spirits of a Jocky Club dinner, he would match any- thing in his stable, and when he could come to New- market no longer, he wrote and desired his trainer to turn his attention that way, so that while absent at Hawkhead, he might still be doing something. To one or two of his most wary opponents he was as good as an annuity ; but on a memorable Houghton Satur- day he laughed them all to scorn, and won six matches in succession. No one was so wayward and difficult to please, or so munificent when he was pleased. His trainers " came and went like the simoon," till at last men of standing in the profession would not engage themselves to him without a guarantee for at least three years. When he had gone the round he would come back to the old ones, although he had vowed, by all his gods, that they had ruined his horses. Every trainer did that. Still, his cheque was always there to the moment, and that was like wine and oil to the wounds he inflicted with his tongue. As for his favourite jockey, Tom Aldcroft, 3O Saddle and Sirloin. he had nearly as many " reconciliations" with him as Tom Sayers had with Heenan at the Alhambra ; but he could never quite forgive John Scott for "leaving him alone so severely," when, in his thirst for con- troversy about his colt General Peel, he shot quite a sheaf of arrows at Whitewall. Above all things he hated naming his horses, and preferred to leave the public which never really took any trouble in the matter, as it dare not back one out of fifty on its merits to grope helplessly among the Miss Whip, Physalis, or dam by Gameboy sorts, from which sprang the noble race of Flutter and " the tight'uns by Barbatus." It had been the self- same story in earlier days, with Jerry, Retainer, Albany, and Retriever. Half the evenings at the Club, when Lord Derby led the revels, with the Earl of Strafford, General Peel, Admiral Rous, Mr. Greville, and Mr. Payne friends who could always touch the right chord in that testy old Scot were spent in trying to name his horses for him. Getting the " royal assent" was the real difficulty, and once "the rich relics of" what promised to be "a well- spent hour" only resulted in the registration with Messrs. Weatherby of "He has a name," and " Give him a name." The Black Duck Stakes of 1000, h-ft, jumped so much with his humour, that " The Drake," and " The White Duck" which had a double aspect, bearing on the above stake and his own seafaring trousers as well were readily adopted ; but " Light Bob," by Voltigeur, was hardly expected of him, except, perhaps, in the light of a cut at the rival pro- fession. Tom Bowline, one of the few yearlings he ever bought, came to his hand at the hammer ready named, and there were melting moments when he could not resist the offers of his friends to be sponsors for his best. " Knowsley" was but due to the genial Earl who had made many a match with him in his day ; " Strafford" and " General Peel," might well VNJV The Earl of Glasgow. 3 1 have a pleasant sound ; a chestnut with such a peculiar white mark under the knee was of course Knight of the Garter ; and " Rapid Rhone" was a sterling compliment, such as that roan tribe might not know again in the course of the century. Both Knowsley and the Drake have repaid breeders well in different lines, and The Earl was one of the results of that " nick" of Orlando mares with his Young Mel- bourne, which General Peel made so fashionable. Hence, thanks to old Clarissa, he could turn the laugh against stud critics at last. The more they jeered at his stud tribes, the more he stuck by them, and the more assiduously he matched the produce. He cared nothing what he spent out of a reputed 6o,ooo/. a year. If a privileged queen of the card-women hit him a little too hard with her chaff, he would rub his neck or back, as was his nervous way, a little more vigorously than usual, and throw her a sovereign to get rid of her. He liked having his racing blood to himself, and therefore he put his sires' fees at a pretty prohibitive figure. In fact, he would rather lend than let, and infinitely sooner shoot than sell. He has been known to go down to Middleham out of the season, summon four or five resident jockeys over-night to ride a score or more of trials for him the next morning, and finish up by shooting half-a-dozen of the worst twos and threes, without benefit of clergy. Stern of mood as he might be when he was crossed, " his hand was ever open, his heart was ever warm." It was said that he once fed half Paisley in a time of distress, and that yet not even a baillie dare thank him on behalf of his brother- townsmen, for fear of being assaulted. A io/. note or a " pony" was the very least he would pull out of his pocket, if the hat went round, and good cause was shown for some Turfite who had fallen behind the world. For forty years after their con- nexion had ceased, he would send one of his earliest 32 Saddle and Sirloin. jockeys a 5L THE UNIVRSIT V or - . - Killhow Sale of Shorthorns. 8 1 and there for a while shakes off the moil and dust of the great city. The bulk of his estate is at Killhow, which is separated from Quarry Hill by the village of Bolton Gate, whose glorious limestone spring " flows on for ever." Hard by The Bow is that little cottage- ruin where " Blackbird Wilson" held his village-school seven-and-forty years ago, and employed his leisure hours in whistling and suction, but not at the spring! Bolton Church was " built in a night," and the ghostly masons in their hurry put the steeple at the wrong end. But we have to do here with the building up of Mr. Foster's pure-bred herd, which is always kept at Killhow, while Quarry Hill carries the feeding stock. When he took the six hundred acres into his own hands in '6 1, his ideas did not rise beyond Irish cattle. Mr. Drewry, who was born near him, was the tempter, and they went together to the Babraham second sale in June '63, and bought Young Celia (42 guineas). She won at Wigton and Ireby ; but did him no good. White Lily (36 guineas) of the same tribe came with her, and helped her to win the first victory (in a pair) against Sir Wilfrid Lawson's, and had three heifer calves to boot. In process of time Mr. Foster treated himself to two Fantails at the Yardley sale, Polly Gwynne and Duchess Gwynne, at Middle Farm, near Brampton ; Moss Rose (230 guineas) on that memo- rable May morning at Mr. Betts's ; and Princess 2nd and 3rd at Mr. Macintosh's next day. Thus the " Bit of Bates" expanded, and in little more than five years his labours were publicly endorsed by an average of 67 /. ^s. gd. for sixty-six head. The sale-ring had Art and Nature in aid, with the massive white stone turrets of Killhow in the back- ground, and Skiddaw looking down upon many a deep valley and silent tarn in the distance. The quiet dalesmen, who don't care much about pedigree, but like a roan bull and a " sken at the dam as well," if they can get one, trudged merrily to the scene of G 82 Saddle and Sirloin. action. After a sale luncheon, which was of a truth to the North what Mr. Macintosh's memorable one had been to the South, the agricultural worthies, headed by Tom Gibbons, might be seen cosily seated round the ring for four long hours, cheering whenever the biddings rose to fever heat for Moss Rose and the Princesses, and smoking their "churchwardens" in supreme delight. Mr. D. R. Davies, Mr. Brogden (who was then successfully wooing Wednesbury), and Mr. Drewry mounted a low platform, with Mr. Thorn- ton as a " Herd Book in breeches" on the box of a drag at their elbow, and a very " hot corner" it proved, when business fairly began. Mr. Stafford, who, as usual, held a commission for " the Kentish Son of Thunder," fought Mr. Davies by ID-guinea bids from 300 (where five bidders had dropped off) up to 400 for Moss Rose. This was her fourth appearance in a sale-ring. First she fell as a blooming Cobham calf for 260 guineas to Mr. Hales's nod ; then it was " 245 guineas, Mr. Betts," " 230 guineas, Mr. Foster ;" and now 400 guineas for the Mere Old Hall herd completed her Tale of a Time Glass. Duchess Gwynne (180 guineas), Princess 2nd (300 guineas), and Princess 3rd (330 guineas), were fought out between Lord Kenlis and Mr. Brogden, and his lordship won the rubber. Nothing daunted, in went Mr. Brogden for Countess Gwynne (240 guineas), and got her. At this juncture, the platform could bear such heavy volleys no longer, and collapsed amid a roar of merriment ; and when Mr. Brogden and Mr. Davies lighted on their legs, and presented themselves again on a surer footing, they were greeted with the assurance that " weight of brass brokt doon" Sir Wilfrid Lawson was not long in making up his mind for Royal Cambridge, a massive son of Moss Rose, and at 240 guineas the roan was booked for Brayton. His brother, Royal Cumberland, tempted Mr. Fawcett at 160 guineas, and he and the wealthy The Western Plain of Cumberland. 83 Fantail 4th, at nearly the same sum, departed for Scaleby Castle together. And so did most of the company, cheered by the beams of a double rainbow, to buy the descendants of the Elvira or Princess sort on the morrow.* The blacksmith at the Red Dial warned us that it was " an uneasy road," as we sought Mr. Watson's. The mist was on the Solway, and half veiled Wedham Flow (beloved of snipes) and those salt-marshes on whose edge the natives set fixed engines for salmon, and " stick it out" before the Commissioners that they only aspire to flounders. As we climb the side of Cattland Fell, the great north-west plain of Cumber- land lies at our feet. " This is the old border land, memorable alike for strife and song. The impress of its troubled history may here and there be seen in the massive square towers, which yet rear their time-worn walls, telling of many a storm and siege." We feel too on another score that we hold the keystone of a strong position. Beyond the Solway, we see the birthplace of Pride of Southwick in a wooded spur of * Scaleby Castle was built about the time of Henry I., or subse- quently by the Norman Tilliolfs, who got a large grant of the adjacent county both as their residence, and also as a place of refuge from the attacks of the marauding Scots of that period. When the sentinel sta- tioned on the "Toot Hill" (now Scaleby Hall) sounded his horn, the people with all haste collected their stock within the precincts of the double moat, or, in case of greater emergency, within the quadrangular courtyard of the castle. The outer moat is still in perfect preservation ; but the inner one has for years been filled in. An old donjon keep rises to a considerable height above the other parts of the building, and has long been an almost inaccessible ivy-clad tower, tenanted only by the bat or the moping owl, while the large black martins wheel in rapid flight, and chase each other with defiant scream round the battlements. The walnut-tree, which spread its lateral arms far and wide, and the gigantic elms which threatened to push the old walls from their founda- tions, have all gone ; but still many a fine gnarled oak holds the ancient keep in countenance. Mr. Fawcett has kept shorthorns of the Princess blood, so famed for the pail, ever since he was under Mr. Bates's roof as a pupil. Of late years he has purchased some high-priced heavy-fleshed cows, chiefly of Bates blood, and he gave 155 guineas for Fourteenth Dyke of Oxford at His Grace the Duke of Devonshire's sale. G 2 84 Saddle and Sirloin. Criffell ; Lady Solway, that great nursing mother of Cumberland ham, flourished at Solway House ; Maid of the Mill, Beckford, and the Blackstock "belles" have done their work near Allonby for Lytham and Waterloo ; Casson's future gold medal hunter Com- missioner hails from Burgh ; and Crafty,* " the queen of the hackneys," is in her box at Howsenrigg, with George Mulcaster as her proud esquire. Amid the rich pastures and " black dairies " of the Abbey Holme, lived " Sammy Rigg," that head-centre of Cumberland "statesmen," as famed for his swedes and Galloways as Mr. Rooke for his views on " Corn and Currency." There, too, once upon a time, Pearson of Langrigg had forty greys, all by Old Conqueror, from mares by The Earl and Grand Turk. Brayton, * Crafty, bred by Mr. A. Dalzell, of Stainburn Hall, Workington, in 1858, is by The Judge, out of a mare by Nimrod (h.-b. son of Muley), her dam a hackney mare of unknown pedigree, the property of the late Dr. Dickinson, of Workington. The Judge, bred by Mr. A. Dalzell in 1850, was by Galaor, out of Cerito (sister to The Currier) by The Saddler, out of Amaryllis by Cervantes. The Judge was not much of a racehorse, though he ran repeatedly in Mr. Dalzell's colours ; while we hear he is the sire of very good riding stock in the Carlisle and Cumber- land country. Crafty was purchased when a yearling at 2O/. for Mr. H. J. Percy, of Howsenrigg, Aspatria, by his manager, the now well- known George Mulcaster, who brought her out in the same year 1859, when she was first shown and placed third to' two half-brothers by The Judge, in the yearling class of hunting colts and fillies at the Cockermouth Meeting of the Cumberland and Westmoreland Agricultural Society. In the same year Crafty took the first prize of 2 sovs. for yearling fillies by The Judge, and the second prize for yearling saddle or harness fillies, at the Wigton Agricultural Society's Show, &c. Crafty is a rich dappled brown mare, standing fifteen hands one inch and a half high, and girthing six feet two and a half. She has a neat sensible head, with a good eye and a nicely crested neck, running into well-raised withers. She has a full chest, with beautifully laid shoulders, a capital barrel and back, with good round quarters and well-developed arms and thighs. Then her joints are excellent, her legs and feet first-rate, while she is full of power without lumber, but with plenty of length, hardy looks, and especially grand-taking action, &c. Farmers' Magazine. [Since the above was written, she has won an enormous number of prizes. She has had three colts and a filly, two of the former by Motley, and the tatter by her own sire.] Mr. Watsons and Mr. Browns Pigs. 85 the scene of some very dashing bids by Mr. Saunders, when the herd was dispersed, is a little further down the line ; and so is Blennerhasset, that Sebastopol of the vegetarians, where the engines "Cain" and " Abel " groan on their miry way, where a professor is ever composing manures, and where Christmas was kept with apples and biscuits, potatoes, and oilcake sauce. A Saturday Revieiver once directed our attention to the fact that we seem to regard a country as be- nighted, except in those spots which are hallowed by the presence or recollection of some distinguished thing on four feet. If this be so, very little of that Cumberland landscape was in shadow, as we passed through the two greyhounds in stone at Mr. Watson's gates, and looked over it from his garden terrace. This ex-Cumberland champion of the pig lists began with the Lady Solway* breed, and then gave Mr. Unthank five guineas for a little sow pig of Sober * This foundress of the Sol way House blood was sent by Mr. George Donald from Newtown House, near Durham, to the late Mr. Wester Wilson, of Thistlewood. She was a combination of Mason of Chilton's and Ferguson of Catterick's blood, and her daughter, Lady Solway, was a prize winner at the Bristol Royal, as well as at several local shows. Mr. Brown, of The High, had some of the sort, and they pro- duced several fine lengthy pigs. Besides Liberator, Mr. Watson used another of his blood, and also bought Protection (a first at Carlisle and Whitehaven) from Mr. Unthank, for a double dip. into Thormanby. Mr. Watson showed first at the Highland and Agricultural Society's Perth meeting in 1850, and Carlisle, Chelmsford, and Salisbury in 1855-57 were his three most successful Royal meetings. He never showed at the Smithfield Club ; but he won two prizes at Bingley Hall, after he gave up The Royal. His piggery was not large, and he had at no time more than four sows, and generally sold their produce at io/. to I5/. off the teat. The breed had a great run while the trade lasted. Mr. Majoribanks gave 25/. each for some sows, and Mr. Wilson (for the Prince Consort and the Duke of Richmond), and Messrs. Crisp and Mangles (a pupil of Mr. Watson's father) had all a taste. Mr. Brown's showing career lasted for nearly twelve years, and the small breed paid him best. Liberator, Lord Wenlock, Thormanby (first at the Norwich Royal), and Wenlock (first at the Newcastle Royal) were his leading boars ; and Liberator went from his styes at a high price to Australia. 86 Saddle and Sirloin. Watkins's Thormanby and Wiley blood, which he brought back from Netherscales in his dog-cart. She was crossed in due time with Earl Ducie's Liberator, which proved a rare " nick," both for form and hand, and did a good turn for the small Cumberland Whites. Mr. Watson may be said to owe his heads and hams to Liberator, and his backs to Thormanby, and to make assurance sure, he had double crosses of the sort. Miss West* was quite a prima donna among sows at the Carlisle Royal ; but Faith (by Liberator, out of the Unthank sow) was not only bigger, but more level, and sweeter in the head. The former was never beaten ; and if Mr. Watson could have war- ranted her in pig, he might once have had upwards of 40 guineas for her. Faith, Hope, and Charity were his first prize pen of sow pigs under six months at Carlisle, and their names created some comment. " And pray which of these three is Charity ?" said an old lady, after duly adjusting her spectacles, and taking a protracted survey of the pen. " Which is Charity, marm ?" said the attendant, " of course the biggest on 'em is Charity." " My dears," said the old lady, turning to her daughters, " I never saw it just put in that practical way before." Charity was found at the Chelmsford Royal next year with the first prize orange card over her head, and six pigs at the teat. She had only pigged two days before she left Cum- berland, and some of them were sold for ten and the rest for fifteen guineas a piece. The journey knocked her about considerably, and she was beaten soon after by the Duke of Northumberland's sow at Cornhill. " We," " Shall," " Win," was another sample of Mr. Watson's neat nomenclature, and the three made nearly 8o/. at Salisbury two years afterwards. Mr. Fisher amplified the idea into "Advance Quality," * Miss West was by Liberator, dam by Jimmy from York. Mr. Watsons and Mr. Browns Pigs. 8 7 "Advance Symmetry," and " No Surrender!" and it sank at last into " Aint," " We," " Stunners ?" Mr. Watson's were generally of a less and rather finer-boned sort than his neighbour's, Mr. Brown's, of The High, and were kept like his, principally upon new milk and oatmeal and barley mixed. After a fortnight, they would be coaxed into drinking a quart of new milk at three or four times. They would then have a pint at each end of the day, but never more than two quarts. No sleeping draught could be more potent, and sleep is the chief promoter of pork. The Highland and Agricultural Society was Mr. Brown's favourite show sphere, and Liberator, Wenlock, and Thormanby blood his delight. His pigs might often be picked out by the blue spots on their quarters and backs. It was give and take between him and Mr. Watson when they met in the show-ring, and Faith, Hope, and Charity had opponents worthy of them at Carlisle. Mrs. Brown was an excellent home secre- tary in pig matters ; but her husband never knew when to sell. He refused good prices, and brought back sows, tried to reduce them for a year or two, and found them only barren fig-trees after all. Prices went down when he and others were watching for them to go up, and at last 4/. or 5/. could hardly be got, where io/. or I2/. had been given without scruple before.* A little further West, and we reach Workington Hall, once the Holkham or Woburn of the North. The late Mr. John Grey had seen a great deal, and spoke much to us of Mr. Curwen and his nephew Mr. Bla- mire.t According to him, the future Tithe Commis- sioner was at that time " a quiet subject, and very much under his uncle." He attended Rosley Hill * For a sketch of the Cumberland bacon trade, see "Field and Fern" (South) pp. 326-332. For whom in detail, see Dr. Lonsdale's "Cumberland Worthies." 88 Saddle and Sirloin. and nearly all the Northern cattle and sheep fairs, either in person or through his man Armstrong ; and he had not unfrequently eight or ten horses for sale at Newcastle. When he judged he was all for quality, and the next time Mr. Grey met him, " shuffling with his hands in his pockets down Parliament-street to the House," he could not refrain from asking him if he still remembered the heifers (Mr. Grey's own) to which he gave prizes at Kelso in '31. He never judged again, and enclosures and tithe apportionments engrossed him, till after some twenty years of official life he retired a broken-down man to Thackwood Nook to die. Mr. Grey had no great belief in Mr. Curwen, but he thought him " very clever," and he thoroughly enjoyed his annual autumn ride to Workington Hall, with his brother farmers from the Tyneside. The preparation of these modern moss-troopers for the Workington carnival was not very extensive. They came clad in the peaceful guise of top boots, or brown breeches and gaiters, and merely carried their slippers, a razor, and a couple of shirts, &c., in front of them. Jobson, from New Town, near Chillingham, would have a quiet day's farming on the road with his old pupil Joseph Dixon, at Broadwath, and discuss with him the merits of " Wetheral" and " Constitution," or the white bull of his " sort." Early next morning the two would set out on their ride together, and there was a good muster of pilgrims to breakfast at Cock Bridge. Workington Hall was reached by midday. There they had two days' farming at The Schooze, and dined in a large wooden booth, where Mr. Stanley, then the great " blue parson" of the West, was the chief speaker. Mr. Curwen was at that time member for Cumberland, and the gathering had rather a political tinge about it. The host was field-marshal, and Mr. Blamire was always there to help him. Every one rode through the fields and saw the ploughs at Mr. Cur wen's Agricultural Gathering. 89 work, and scanned the turnip drills, and then came back to finish the business portion of the day among the cattle in the yards, or at the sale of Shorthorn heifers. Mr. Curwen had also a good deal to say on new manures and the subject of salt as an antidote to sheep-rot. It was placed on slates all round the fields for sheep, and the shepherd on his mule with a sack of small blocks of it behind him was quite a feature of the day. Mr. Curwen conducted, A.D. 1810, some fattening experiments, for the report of which the Board of Agriculture awarded him a 5O/. prize. His "experi- mental cattle" consisted of a couple of Shorthorns, Herefords, Glamorgans, Galloways, and Longhorns, and a solitary Sussex. The greatest profit was 8/. los. \d. on Shorthorn No. 2, which increased in weight from QOst. to I i5st. ; and the second best was 6L i6s. 5 was a veritable Bunker's Hill removed. Eng- land was pitted against America once more the guineas of the old country against the " almighty dollars" of the new. Messrs. Morris and Becar bid by their agent ; but Mr. Thorne did his own business, in a cool Quaker-like style, with which it was almost hope- less to cope. His first English purchase for Thorn- dale was a 14-guinea bull-calf at Captain Pelham's sale, which he afterwards sold for upwards of 300 guineas to the West of America. It is calculated that he laid out at least fifteen thousand in five years on shorthorns ; and he bought up fifty-two lots when the Morris and Becar confederacy was dissolved by the latter's untimely death, at prices which had hitherto only been read of by his countrymen in the English prints. But for Major Gunter and Mr. Tanqueray, who upset all the wise counsels which had been taken at the Gloucester caucus over-night, the Duchess tribe would have departed bodily across the Atlantic.* * Previous to the Tortworth sale, Major Gunter had only a few A-lderneys and ordinary Shorthorns, and he had not made up his mind as 156 Saddle and Sirloin. The specialty of the Cleveland Show, when it was held at Yarm, proved to be the fox terriers. On our way down we tried in vain to impress upon a man, whose Twitch and Viper and Myrtle were as fat as guinea pigs, that the small and smooth whites were the only orthodox sort, and that he must banish hope. Of course he wouldn't have it. His dogs had Lamb- ton and Fitzwilliam blood in them, and the former " wur always hairy." That didn't convince us, so he urged that " the Hurworth have been glad enough, time upon times, to send for yon dog's grandfather to get a fox out for them," and " as for his dam, she's been painted ten times over." However, the owner of the trio and sundry other vagrant professors of fox drawing took nothing by their journey. One Peeping to whether he should buy on that day ; but the bitter complaints of some Gloucestershire farmers, who shared his waggon, as to the Americans getting Duchess 59th fired him into action at last. He accordingly bid 200 guineas for the twentieth lot, Duchess 64th, but it was hardly taken, and his 400 guineas was soon left in the rear by the Trans- atlantic rivals. He did not touch the 7oo-guinea Duchess 66th, but Duchess 67th, the fifteen-months' heifer by Usurer out of Duchess 59th (the highest-priced female at the Kirklevington sale), fell to his nod for 350 guineas, and then Duchess 7nly Duchess which lacks the Usurer cross. The numbers looth, 99th, 98th, and 97th once roamed together in the home pasture unbroken, but Mr. Cochrane had taken his choice and borne off the last to Canada at 1,000 guineas. She is from 92nd, a daughter of 84th, "which broke down on us as a calf for Leeds." Her once constant companion Captain Gunter's Herd. 277 The Grange Park was placed by Captain Gunter entirely at the disposal of the Yorkshire Society. It was once the property of " Kit Wilson," the Father of the Turf, who owned Comus, the blind chestnut, which did such good to Sledmere in the days of the first Sir Tatton. The whole of the arrangements, thanks to Mr. Parringtori, to whom the general improvement as regards the accommodation of horses in the show- yards of England may primarily be said to be due, 98th from 88th was a white with roan ears, and Taylor again calls to mind how she was "once held like a kitten to the teat." Writers who have to encounter there night-mare numbers may well be among those " Who dread to speak of '98, Who tremble at the name." The wished-for looth was reached at last in the shape of a red roan, but a two-days-old roan, half-sister to " the American lady, " was the latest arrival, and Duchess iO3rd had been the Captain's private herd book entry. Fourth Duke of Thorndale was the monarch of the yard, and Grand Duchess 8th, from Penrhyn Castle was there to share his smiles. Mild Eyes 3rd (by 4th Duke of Thorndale from Mild Eyes) and a heifer by 5th Duke of Wharfedale from " the Waterloo heifer," have since then arrived ; and Duchess 84th has lost the red Duchess iO4th. It was jumping about its box when two months old, and burst a blood-vessel in the heart. Duchess 94th has had twins a bull and a red heifer, the latter taking rank as Duchess io5th. Third Duke of Wharfedale (sire of Mr. Cochrane's heifer) from Duchess 86th now reigns at Wetherby (after two seasons at Penrhyn), vice Fourth Duke of Thorndale, who was found dead in his box last spring ; and 2nd Duke of Wetherby from Duchess 77th, and 2nd Duke of Claro from Duchess 79th are both let. The 3rd Duke of Wetherby by 4th Duke of Thorndale from Duchess 82nd is coming on for home use. The 2nd Duke of Collingham, Duke of Tregunter (a name taken from an old family estate in Wales), 3rd Duke of Claro, 5th Duke of Wharfedale, and 2nd Duke of Tregunter, have all been sold to English purchasers for 500 guineas each. During the cattle plague Captain Gunter's farm was in a deeply in- fected parish, and cattle were dying or being slaughtered almost daily, close up to the park gates, for months. Chloride of lime was used liberally, but the Captain's main reliance was on the .very strictest observance of the isolation principle. The Duchesses and the rest of the cattle were divided into several lots of two each, and placed in small sheds all over the six hundred acre occupation ; the yards attached to these sheds were netted round the bottom, so as to keep out dogs, 278 Saddle and Sirloin. were admirable, down to the cloak-room, with cloak- pegs innumerable, and " the jewel-room," where a silversmith sets his wares in array, and fits up winners with cups. The police bivouack thirty strong, in the same " Wood Street." They have plenty of night work, as the men; more especially the grooms, get very drunk, and make night hideous with their hulla- baloo. They cannot sleep for the heat, and therefore they will, to use their own phrase, " still be lapping," which means that they are always at the canteen for soda-water, or something a little stronger. Under its influence they run foot races with nothing on but their shirts, and it is daylight before those gentlemen in white finish their revels and return to their straw wisps. There are some quaint characters among the grooms. One of them was attacked last year by five men in a garden at Scarborough. " If it had been nobbut one or two, I could have warmed him," was his version of the combat, " but five's owre mony ; so I just put my hand in my pocket, and kep shifting till somebody came. I let 'em just batter away at my head ; I can stan' a deal of rough wark that way, if I nobbut hod to the brass." But we have to deal with day, and not with night scenes ; and we first make our way, in obedience to old instincts, to the shorthorn ring. Three good judges are inside it Jamie Douglas, who once could beat on " the grand tour" the heifers of the three kingdoms with his Rose of Summer and his Second Queen of Trumps ; Charles Howard, of Oxford Down hares, rabbits, and other "travellers." The herdsman and his assis- tants never went near any other cattle or person engaged about cattle on any pretence whatever ; and if the Captain had been out hunting, or anywhere else in the country, he never entered the sheds until he had changed his clothes. Second Duke of Wharfedale was slaughtered after a slight accident, rather than run the risk of bringing a veterinary surgeon to attend upon him ; and when the butcher came for fat sheep they were driven out of the field for him while he waited with his dog on the roa4, The Yorkshire Show. 279 fame, who won his first Royal prize at Leeds with one of twin bulls ; and Stephenson, of Fourstones, a " well kent" man on the border. There is quite an excited buzz of conversation, as Booth's roan bull, Commander-in-Chief, has just been led out of the ring with only the second prize ribbons, while Knight of Knowlrnere, who was second to him at Leicester, takes the first. The decision falls upon the shorthorn men like a rocket upon the Life Guards of King Theodore, and they know not what to make of it. It goes round that Jamie " shot him down" the moment the roan entered the ring, and went stoutly for the white. You hear the decision hotly discussed, not only at the ring side, but by lovers of shorthorns of both sexes, who sit hard by on inverted pails and bundles o f hay. If Mr. Booth loses with Commander-in-Chief, there is balm in Gilead with Lady Fragrant, a sweet cow with a " picture head," as they phrase it, and his two heifers, Lady Gaiety and Patricia, head the yearling class. Neither of the pair had a chance with Lady Fragrant for the Female Winner's Cup, and one walk round the ring decides that Mr. Foljambe's bull-calf, Knight of the Crescent, beats Knight of Knowlmere and all his seniors when the males are on their trial. The proud little red is hardJy in the ring an instant, and Veni, vidi y vici is the word to-day. The last decision is in the Extra Stock Classes, where a three-year-old shorthorn ox has nothing to meet but Zelica, a little half Brahmin cow. The first ribbons are handed to the leader of the latter by mistake, but Mr. Charles Howard dashes forward, with quite a melodramatic start, and rescues them from such profanation. Mr. Borton has it all his own way in Leicesters. For more than twenty years he has held his place as the Yorkshire champion, and true to the county nomen clature, Blair Athol is his great ram. Southdowns do not take in Yorkshire, and as there was no entry, 2 : o Saddle and Sir lain. the Society saved their 55/. Lincolns and Cot?wo!ds came, and among the latter " Mr. Tombs's big sheep," but the Ridings have no solid resting-place for the sole of their feet. They have used the former on the Wolds, but they did not thrive, and one Leicester patriarch had a flying sarcasm at their expense, that if three came in a cart, and all stood with their heads on one side, they would infallibly upset it. The sheep rival to the half Brahmin was one from the coasts of Galilee, with a tail of I2lbs. weight, and described on its card as " a combination of fat and marrow. Duckering, Sagar, Dyson, Eden, and all the fami- liar names are to be found among the pig-winners, but the judges complain of a lack of hair. It is a more popular part of the show than the sheep, but still it is at the horse-ring that the most earnest gazers are found. Mr. Burbidge, " Jack Skip- worth," and Mr. Garfit from Cheshire, make up the bench. The blood sires come in first, and for the third year in succession the big-boned Angelus takes the first rosette. He is the property of Sir George Cholmley, the oldest horse breeder in Yorkshire, and from a Nutwith dam of Lord Exeter's, which was pur- chased as a draft-mare at Doncaster. King Brian is second, and the neat, compact Wyndham, from Raw- cliffe paddocks, to whom not a few, who remember how he " came to the rescue " in his racing days, hold most tenaciously, gets no mention among the ten. Among the coachers we look in vain for the old Cleve- land bays, such as Howdenshire loved, and w r hich once drew the heavy family chariot at six miles an hour. They have been gradually crossed up with blood sires, so that if any foal from a Cleveland mare falls smarter than usual, the breeder can cut its tail, and call it a hunter. In fact, a horse which a few years since was almost the champion of the hunting classes all over England, began his show life in a class for young coach horses. The winner on this day looked as if he had The Yorkshire Shaw. 281 an extra cross of blood in him, and won easily enough. Two blacks, sire and son, the latter rejoicing in the name of Sir Edwin Landseer, headed the roadster class. There was only three years between them, and the sire had lost an eye, but still the six-year-old was fairly beaten. Trotting sires' conductors are generally " a set of wild Indiains,"* and show their horses" paces with remarkably jealous zest. They trot them with a long rein, and use words in an almost unknown tongue, and they will watch half a market-day for a rival, whose owner has been ** bouncing ** in his advertise- ment, so as to lay their horse alongside of his pet, when he is giving him a sly trot, and thus make him eat or prove his words. Each medal recording a fresh victory is attached to a conquerors neck collar, and one horse which came to Wetherby, and " took no- thing by his motion,"" wore a breeching of medals as well, and looked more like a charger of the middle ages than a trotter of the nineteenth century. The young hunters had not many among them which would ** pass the college." One class was so afflicted with curbs and bog spavins, that when at last three were left in, it was proposed to set them aside, and go on with the next class, while Professor Spooner decided which was least unsound. One of the judges said, with quite an injured air, "I like one of the five we've put aside best, but then his bog spavins aren't of a size." Sir George Cholmley and his chestnuts have a rare time of it, and Bob Brignall, the "first cross-country jock" to the stable, shows them capitally in " black waistcoats and pants." Many look at the grand chestnut three-year-old Don Juan, and talk of cups in store. The riders are a study of themselves. One of them wears a black and yellow jockey cap, and is saluted with, "Near, Fordham* wakeherup!* as he tears round on his pony. An- other in a grey cap looks so stolid over it, and sits so artistically (in his own eyes), that the judges cannot 282 Saddle and Sirloin. resist sending him a strong gallop three times round for the pure enjoyment of the thing. He is so dread- fully in earnest during the performance, that he does not see them laughing, and his look of disgust when he is put among the knock-outs at its conclusion, is like the mien of the warror in the song, at once " stern and high." Bob Mulcaster is a great artiste both with the leading rein and in the saddle, and there is quite a buzz of delight when he leads out old Crafty, " the heroine of a hundred fights," as the local papers delight to call her, and sends her along with her thin tail extended, like the old beauty that she is. We have seen fat men of eighteen stone strip to their work in obedience to the call all round the ring : " Now, Franky, man, it's thy turn. Thodse a bit too fat for't job. Now, mettle up ! " And away went Franky, top heavy, and " bad on thy pins" only to receive the consolation " thoo maks a varra poor tew of it" There was a man of Mr. George Holmes's who had the knee in curb-chain action to such perfection, that he could teach his master's horses to be steppers. He did it in the ring with a face as calm as if he were carved from stone, while the laughter rung as it did in the Adelphi when Wright's voice was heard at the right or left wing. The boys made quite a Sir Roger de Coverley gallop of it on their ponies, before their ponies were settled ; and a grey trotted in such style, that a hunt- ing baronet declared that at last he had found the cover hack he had been seeking all his life. The hunters from three year old and upwards are, after all, the cream of the thing. Lady Derwent, the queen of the season, had a long contest with Bor- derer and another, and once more the white rosette was pinned on to her bridle. She is a beautiful mare with a dish head, which she owes to her sire Codring- ton, a son of Womersley, whom Sir Tatton Skyes had for a season. He had given her so much quality that scarcely any one suspected that she had only one cross The Yorkshire Hound Show. 283 of blood in her. Sprig of Shillelah, Iris, Mountain Dew, and Cavendish, two bays, and two dark browns are in the ring nearly three-quarters of an hour before the judges can make up their minds. At last the battle waxed hot between Mountain Dew and Iris, and the saddles were ordered off. Then they were re-saddled, and the judges mounted them for some scenes in the circus, and iris, a horse of tremendous power, and the one upon which Mr. Thomson is painted by Sir Francis Grant, gained the day. The hunter first prize winners are put together for the cup, and Lady Der- went has no chance with Iris, who seems to gallop everything down, and is ridden specially by the head groom, John Pye, who " sends him out " to perfection. Mr. Thomson looks on at the side of the rails, and adjourns in due time to the Jewel House, to take his choice of* a cup. The hound show was held in a .quiet spot in the park, just under the chain of woodlands which flank the grange. " The Bramham Moor and two-and- twenty couple " is the hunting toast in these parts, and their name is one of the thirteen above the hound cages. Sixteen or seventeen huntsmen and whips from England and Scotland are there in scarlet, awaiting their turn to bring their lots on to the flags. Only one wears a cap, and hats and "pudding basons" are all the go. There was an old Yorkshire huntsman, Will Carter, who never could be pursuaded into any- thing but a felt wideawake even in the field, and placed a horn under the same ban. " Hard-riding Ben " from Lord Middleton's is there, but we miss old Tom Sebright, who fought many a good round with him at Redcar, Yarm, and Guisborough, in those plea- sant summer days when the Cleveland Society held the lead, and gave such an impetus to agricultural meetings. John Walker, Harry Ayris, Charles Payne, Jack Goddard, Jack Morgan, and other celebrities do not show ; but Peter Collisson, a worthy successor to 284 Saddle and Sirloin. Joe Maiden over Cheshire, looks on from the stand benches. Old Will Danby is the patriarch of the day, and wears his 75 summers as lightly as a flower. Will was at hunting for just fifty seasons, and then, in his expressive words, " he lapped it up." He is great in dates, and if you ask him the cause of his vigorous old age, you hear that he has tasted nothing stronger than raspberry vinegar for seven-and-forty years. He " goes into less room" than he did, and in his neat black coat and waistcoat, white cravat, and drab breeches and gaiters, he looks his profession to the life. " I can sleep like a man, and eat any mortal thing," and " I never wore trousers in my life, and I never will," is his general sketch of himself. In this respect he differs from his successor in the York and Ainsty, who comes to the fete in grey trousers, and gets well joked about them, as he thrice walks up for a prize. Thirteen kennels contend, but the prizes fall to the lot of four, and every county save Yorkshire and Linconshire is out of it. Lord Kesteven may well be in a high flow of spirits, and people may well wonder how he has achieved in six seasons what others cannot in a lifetime. There, too, on the front bench sit a bevy of fox-hunting peers Hawke, Macclesfield, Middleton, and Wenlock. Sir Charles Slingsby watches the brilliant fortunes -of the Nelson and Comedy litter, and Mr. Thomson of " the Pitchley," as Mr. Bright once called it in the House, to the inextinguishable merriment of the landed interest, vibrates between the front benches and the horse ring. Mr. Hall of the Holderness rides up with a geranium in his button-hole, and " looking as hard as stub nails," on Captain Gunter's grey Crimean Arab, takes his part in the fun. The hunting-field has no gamer or more battered hero, but he jests at his scars ; and if his horse does roll over him and squeeze the breath out, his first impulse, when the yNI The Yorkshire Hound Show lungs fill, is to ask to be helped on again. " John o' the Bedale," and nearly every other Yorkshire master, are on the back benches ; but we miss the form of Mr. Foljambe, in his green coat, leaning on Mr. Parry of the Puckeridge, and of Captain Percy Williams. Jack Parker of the Sinnington, the very Zekiel Homespun of huntsmen, is not there to tell of the feats of his trencher-fed dogs ; and that Tommiad of fox-hunting centaurs, Tom Smith, Tom Hodgson with his big white hat and bigger white cravat and Tom Sebright, are all in their graves. There are twenty-six couple in the entered hound classes, and Lord Kesteven wins them both. His lordship's have quality for ever ; but they are too full of flesh. Still, with Foreman and Primate to help in one class, and Artful, Rally, and Stately in the other, they have it una voce. Four of Stately's stock come with her, and one of them, Seaman, who won at Thirsk the year before, is among the winning lot. Yarborough Nelson a use- ful, bony dog, but rather lacking fashion in his neck and colour, and still holding the line as well as ever in his ninth season wins the Stallion Hound Prize. The rain, which has prophesied of itself through divers thunderpeals, comes at last, rolling up the valley of the Wharfe before we are half done ; and the huntsmen cage themselves up with their hounds till this happy harbinger of cub-hunting and drought- deliverance passes briskly by. There is a tent spread with dinner for the huntsmen when all is over, but nothing can tempt old Will Danby under canvas ; either he thinks that he will be required to make an oration or to drink something, so he stoutly refuses to enter, and marches about in front of the cages, with a first- whip's wife, keeping the hounds in order. They are quiet enough till the Tallyhos begin in the tent after Mr. Fox's speech, and then they send up an answering cheer. Some simple-minded visitors don't understand these sounds. At York, we met two 286 Saddle and Sirloin. women running violently towards the spot from whence they proceeded " Dearie me ! Mary Ann, let's gan and see. Somebody's murdering somebody. Come along, lass !" Jack Backhouse's speech has accompaniments which may well make the fox cubs tremble in their pads. The toast was the " Unsuc- cessful Candidates," and Jack announces himself as " Yorkshire Jack." First he tells how, when he and his friend Ben Morgan are " ligging a long way fra yam," they don't " lap it up," but they draw for a second fox. Leaving the past, he dashes boldly into the future ; and referring to the contests of the day, he says, " I'll get a prize ye now I've been what they call ' recommended.' "* It was a great speech. Mr. Hall can hardly believe in such eloquence on the part of Jack, when it reaches his ears later in the day, but he asks a huntsman or two, and they are unanimous in their testimony. The scarlets linger near the hunters for the rest of the afternoon, but by the morrow's morn they are far away. On Friday, the sixpenny crowd are in at one o'clock, and by four, man and beast are on the move homeward. Some * No one knows that Jack was " recommended," as he states ; but at Eeverley, in 1869. he fulfilled his prophecy, and took a 5/. prize and a 2/. gratuity for being second in the dog puppy class with Leader. The Bishop of Oxford, who was staying with Mr. Sykes, M.P., and took his seat with his peers on the M. F. H. bench, could not resist the beaming looks of his brother Yorkshiremen ; and the oration which Jack delivered in honour of Leader, first holding him by the head and then by the stern, when the dog tried to cut it, was one which the eloquent prelate will not forget. Soon after this Jack was so struck with the tie of one of his brother huntsmen, that he insisted that it was starched and ironed on him, and wouldn't believe in "one effort" " Nowt of the sort." Old Will Danby came over once more to the county where he and Mr. Tom Hodgson performed such prodigies among the foxes ; and when a photographer placed the huntsmen and judges in a group, Mr. Tom Parrington took the modest old fellow by the collar, and compelled him by "gentle violence" to come on to the flags. Mr. Hall was reminding him of the Lammas Stream business when Will got over on a I5/. grey, and he himself got "stabled between banks" on a 4oo-guinea brown. Farnley Hall. 287 lead the foal and dam, or ride the stallions, with the carpet-bag and sheets folded up in front of them. The owner of Lady Derwent is of this mind. The mare is in a white hood and sheet, and wears a collar studded with pieces of round pasteboard on her neck, each containing the printed record of a victory. He rides her through Wetherby in state, and we leave her standing in her groom's hands waiting to be trucked, with a bunch of white ribbons flying from her head, big enough for an army of brides. " The Vale of the Wharfe is adorned with elegant mansions, and the views obtained from neighbouring elevations are at once noble and commanding." So says a Yorkshire Directory, and so old Coates must have thought from his heart, as laden with weighty calf-records, and still weightier bull data, beginning from Abelard, that descendant of " Booth's lame" and " Booth's old white" bulls, he gained the top of the wooden ridge of Sheven. Then patting his white mare's neck, he descended on his winding road to the homestead at Greenholme, which lay stretched, west- ward of the litle market town of Otley, like a land of shorthorn promise beneath. It was here that " The Improved Durham Breed" found a home in those dreary hopeless times which followed upon the Comet mania and the war, when 30 guineas a season was a great bull hire, and 80 guineas a marvellous purchase. Mr. Whitaker never bated one jot of heart or hope, and "the quiet afternoons at Greenholme" have borne their rich fruit for shorthorn breeders at last. Without his earnest aid, Coates would never have ventured to bring out the first volume of the Herd- Book in 1822, when nothing but " Corn and Currency " was on every English tongue, and agrarian outrage and hunger were raging across the channel. It was "printed by W. Walker, at the Wharf edale Stanhope Press, top of the market-place, Otley ;" and a manuscript copy of it is still preserved, 288 Saddle and Sirloin. written out in Mr. Whitaker's own neat hand, and with his red ink annotations, which now almost need a microscope to decipher. It would seem as if he had walked about for years with the images of every great cow or bull firmly fixed in his retina. Of Duchess First he merely says " fair ;" of Duchess Second "droops;" while Hubback comes in among other criticisms for "flank and twist wonderful, shoulders rather upright' 1 Three-fourths of the original list of subscribers have gone to their rest ; and so too, within the last twelve years has the patriarchal James Ward, R.A., who condescended to draw Maria and Miranda on stone for the work, and speculated on the coming fortunes of a certain young self-taught mail-driver, Herring of Doncaster, who had also borne a hand and sketched the heifer "Daffodil in two positions." A few years later, Mr. Strafford, after- wards editor of the Herd Book, then a mere lad of 15, fresh from his school studies of the Durham Ox and Coates's Driffield Cow, was sent over to paint Charles (878) for the second volume, and like Culshaw, whose boyish embassy to the same spot has still to be told, he dates his chief Shorthorn impressions from that weary journey, two-thirds on foot, and a third in the carrier's cart. In 1844, after the death of Coates junior, he took up the Herd Book with Volume 6th, and has now brought it up to the i8th, besides revising and reprinting the first five volumes of the series. No man ever threw more energy into a great task, or made such a succession of brilliant sale averages as he has done for twenty years past. Tim Metcalfe, the herds- man, was also a remarkable character in the Green- holme drama. He " knew 'em when he saw 'em' as well as any man, but as he never knew his alphabet, he invariably clenched the matter with, " Give me t' pedi- gree, and Fit tak it home t'it maister'' No wonder then that the taste for Shorthorns should have gradually spread along the Wharfe, and not only Farnley Hall. 289 brought new tenants to browse in the pastures of Farn- ley, Broughton, and Denton Park, but tempted the Duchess tribe to renew their strength in later years near Wetherby.*' Farnley Hall, which was originally built in the time * Mr. Fawkes's career as a breeder of shorthorns may be said to have begun in earnest with Mr. Whitaker's stock. His first purchase was Norfolk (2377), a grand roan bull by Second Hubback, and then such a favourite of Mr. Bates's, that he sent six heifers from Kirk- levington expressly to be served by him. One of them was " my best Duchess" 33rd, the great grandam of Grand Duke ; another, Blanche by Belvedere, from whom Roan Duchess 2nd is in direct descent ; and a third founded the Waterloos of Aylesby and Springfield fame. Norfolk himself was from Nonpareil by Magnet, rather a gaudy cow, from Mr. Barker of East Layton's sale, where Sir Charles Knightley purchased Rosy and Primrose, which, along with Rufus and Little John of Mr. Arbuthnot's breeding, virtually founded the Fawsley herd. In 1834, Mr. Whitaker bought Verbena (45 guineas) and the grand Medora (40 guineas), both as heifer calves, at Mr. Richard Booth's Studley sale, and bred nine calves from the latter. In the previous year Mr. Whitaker sold off his herd, and again bought about three dozen well bred cows, for the use of his work people at the Burley mills. Mr. Fawkes was so much struck with the looks of some of them, that he arranged with his neighbour to allow him to select twenty for service principally by Norfolk. The compact was to be in force for three years, and 10 guineas was to be paid for each of them, doublets or not, at the expiration of a week, provided it was not a black-nose, and had no symptoms of unsoundness. Hence, sixty were transferred during that period from Greenholme to Farnley, and the first ten bull-calves by Norfolk averaged 100 guineas each. The very first bull-calf that was dropped received the title of Sir Thomas Fairfax, (who won at the Bristol Royal, and twice at the Yorkshire Society) ; and the Ohio Company offered 400 guineas for Norfolk in vain on that trip, when, but for Mr. Whitaker's faint praise, they would have carried off Duchess 34th in calf with the Duke of Northumberland. However, they took away the Duke of York (1941) for 150 guineas, who had been sold as a calf for 14 guineas at Mr. Whitaker's sale the year before, and bought some lots at the Studley sale as well. When he was rising four, 250 guineas was accepted for Sir Thomas Fairfax, and he departed to Brawith, leaving eight-and-twenty " Fair"-named calves behind. Old Fairy Tale long remained to testify to this beauti- ful favourite, and she bravely supported his line with fourteen calves since 1842. Medora had been helping meanwhile to carry on the Norfolks, thrice from the old bull direct, and thrice from Sir Thomas Fairfax, and when the three years' lease of Mr. Whitaker's cows had expired, the Farnley herd mainly consisted of some thirty two-year-ol4 heifers. U 290 Saddle and Sirloin. of Elizabeth, was added on to about a hundred years ago, and stands on a rising ground, a mile and a half to the north-east of Otley. The road winds up through the well-wooded park, of a hundred and forty acres, and so along an avenue thickly lined with laurels, among which " the merry brown hares come leaping," and the pheasants feed in troops, as if the crack of a Manton was a sound unknown in Wharfedale. A road to the right, just before we reach the quaint old iron gates, leads across a bridge, and past the aviary to the farmyard buildings, part of which once composed the ancient kennels, from which Mr. Fawkes in his younger days was wont to ride forth at the head of his harriers. All the cattle stand on wood spars in old-fashioned comfortable boxes. Robinson Crusoe, a bull on the shortest leg, and with the deepest bosom we ever saw, was then the principal tenant of the bull paddock, but we heard of Milton and his sire Rockingham, who owned no master but a certain dog after his ring had been torn out of his nose. Laudable was a good bull, and Bridegroom's three sons, Sir Edmund Lyons, John O'Groat, and General Bosquet were all Royal winners like himself. " The General" was not so neat, but more massive and mossy-haired than Sir Edmund Lyons, and his son Bon Gargon also kept up the Farnley charter, and beat Royal Butterfly as a calf at Chester. Mr. Fawkes was very lucky with three, but sold the fourth, John O'Groat for a good sum. Bull-breeding has always been his forte, and since those days he has won first prizes with Friar Tuck and his own brother Friar Bacon at Plymouth Royal in '65. At Newcastle Royal he took a first with Marquis, and at Manchester Royal the same honours with Lord Isabeau. It is his rule only to show young bulls. He has always tried for roans, and it is his experience that white upon red is more likely to produce them than red upon white. The Pig Show at Keighley. 291 It was not, after all, an unnatural transition from calves with the martial and political names without, to the suits of ancient armour and the old rallying room of the great Yorkshire Orange party. Sir Thomas Fairfax, too, was reflected through his sword and- his candlesticks, which hung, with Oliver Crom- well's hat, in the rich oak-panelled entrance. There, however, the chain of connexion with the herd ceased. Not one bull stirred up the remembrance of its Royal triumphs on canvas ; and we felt as one green silk curtain after another was drawn aside by the hand of our host, that there must be a deep truth in the words of the author of Hora Subseciva when he spoke of the six great sights of his life, and classed the Pyrenees, the Venus of Melos, Titian's Entombment, and Paul Veronese's Cain with his wife and child, and The Rhine under a Midnight Thunderstorm at Coblentz, with the wondrous Turners at Farnley Hall. CHAPTER XI. " Mrs. Marcet admired his hams. ' Oh !' said he, ' our hams are the only true hams ; yours are only Shems or Japhets.' " Sydney Smith's Life. The Pig Show at Keighley Celebrating a Victory Mr. Wainman's Pigs Pig Scenes Abroad Mr. Waterton at Home Mr. Gully, "The Squire," and Mr. Tom Hodgson Doncaster Moor Purity's Five Heats "Martingale." ABIT of good Pig- Racing," said a country philo- sopher to us, " is worth all your horse-running business. It's twice the fun sure-ly, and nobbut one hundredth part of the expense. It taks up a yale afternoon, and t'Leger don't tak four minnits." It would have been hopeless to meet such an argument, especially when propounded by a brawny mason in U 2 292 Saddle and Sirloin. his Sunday best, with unkempt hair, and collars up to his cheek-bones, and a visage absolutely beaming with the proud recollection of how " old sow wan." The turfite, who feebly suggested that he didn't see the great difference, as an owner could now eat his horse if he didn't run well, was at once suspected of " chaff- ing" (which countrymen hate of all things), and re- ceived a broadside in unshackled Doric, such as our " steel pen" whatever Colonel Penn's might do would despair of reproducing. The fact is, that pig racing, alias pig showing, is a very solemn British in- stitution. Go into a local agricultural show in Lan- cashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire, and the vast majority of the rustics never get beyond the pigs, the poultry, and the washing machines. Booth and Bates cows are wholly lost on them, and the hunters are a drug in their eyes, except when they are " asked a question" over the hurdles. No town in those vast hives of industry is more de- voted to its agricultural show thac Keighley. It is the high festival of the year, and on one occasion every window was illuminated. Choice quintets from the Branches, Towneley, and Warlaby herds have met for the cup in its ring. Sheep-dogs and rabbits are not kept back from honour, and the owner of the donkey in the best condition is rewarded with a sovereign. The " neddies" step out very differently since this stimulus was applied, when they " Gang for the coals i' the morning," and " prods" will soon be a thing of the past. Still, Keighley reserves its highest sympathies for the pig, and 3]\d. for 56. On reference back, we find that Robert Colling has an average of I28/. 14^. \Q\d. for 61 ; while Charles Colling, thanks to Comet, has 15 1/. $s. 5^d. for 47. It nust also be remembered that eighteen of the Towneley lots were onder a year, and seven born within the year. The Willis's Room Sale, when 17 averaged 4817. 3.?., hardly comes into the sale category, except merely by way of comparison with the average made by Sfee Duchess blood on the two previous occasions of its being put up, viz., Ii6/. 5.?. for 14, at Kirklevington, and 4427. is. for 10, at TJortworth. Taking the greater sales in order since Lord Ducie's, they stand thus : Lots. Average. ? <* Mr. Betts's 63 ... 180 19 o Lord Ducie's 62 150 19 II Colonel Towneley's ... 56 ... 128 7 7 Mr. Macintosh's 57 116 12 6 Mr. Marjoribanks's (1857) 59 90 2 4 Mr. Ambler's .. 50 83 4 o Mr. H. Combe's 63 ... 80 12 8 Sir Charles Knightley's 77 80 i o Mr. Tanqueray's Mr. Marjoribanks's (1862) 101 80 77 13 5 74 3 4 The average of the three leading bulls at Towneley was thirteen Royal Z 338 Saddle and Sirloin. Mr. Eastwood for the former, which he bought for 130 guineas. His lordship was equally pleased with his own purchase. Looking round the herd at Tort- worth, some years after, with Mr. Eastwood and Mr. Knowles, he stopped at each of them, and said, " There s that dreadful tribe again /' but when his corn- Butterflies at 2527., the same number of Dukes of Wharfedale, of all ages, from July I2th, 1863, to Feb. 29th, 1864, at 697. 4^., and seven Baron Hopewells at H5/. u. The six tribes averaged as follows : s. i Mantalini 105 o 8 Pearly ... 106 I 5 Vestris 3rd 103 19 9 Second Roan Duchess ... 179 II 28 Barmpton Rose 121 16 5 Alice 2nd 138 12 Having settled this little matter, we must run over, chiefly in the words of one who knew them well, a few of the Towneley cracks. We'll miss Royal Butterfly and Master Butterfly, and get to Royal Butterfly loth ; he was from Parade by Duke of Glo'ster ; his head was not first-rate ; he was a great fine bull with such a back, and such dash about him ; he should have been a rich roan. Richard Cceur de Lion, or "Dick" as they called him, had as good a head as was ever stuck on a pair of shoulders. At the Dublin Show Mr. Baxter handled " Dick," and Culshaw led Master Butterfly he never would walk, but seemed to go on springs, as if Irish soil wasn't good enough for him. Mr. Douglas's Captain Balco, a splendid bull, was second that day, and " Dick" third. At Chelmsford, one of the judges said " he walks like a gentleman, " and Culshaw nodded to Dodds at those words, and said, " I've just done you." Grand Turk had not the" same beautiful blood- like offal as Master Butterfly. "The Royal" was better let down in the thigh, and was a little bit better in the back than Master Butterfly, and his bosom was rather wider. His- breast wasn't so deep, and his head was a little better and not quite so long. Dick was thick fleshed, and hadn't a vulgar hair about him, and thighed down to the hock. He gave Towneley stamp, thick flesh, true form, and mellow hides. He got Young Barmpton Rose and Emma she was lovely and Butterfly's Nephew with that wonderful back and substance. Then there was Master Butterfly 4th, by him from Beauty 3rd, by Frederick he was poor and delicate as a calf he went to the Emperor of the French, and he had no luck. When Frederick was a calf, he did so badly that they had very nearly exchanged him for a female with Mr. Manning, of Rothersthorpe, but he was given to the tenants, and Messrs. Willis had him for a time. From him their Lord Frederick was descended, and the 1869 Birmingham medallist cow in a slight Mr. Eastwood's Herd. 339 panion brought him up with, " Well, my lord, how much for the whole of them f" he only laughed, and said, "/ knew what y oud be at in a minute or two : you'll not have them" Mr. Eastwood had been to Killerby from the very first, and his next step on getting But- tercup home was to hire its red Jeweller, a son of degree. He was the first bull bred at Towneley, and Butterfly the first female, with the exception of Frederick's sister, the freemartin. Frederick by Lax's Duke, and Butterfly by Booth's Jeweller, were out of Bessy and Buttercup, both daughters of Barmpton Rose. Frederick came home a perfect ruin at three years old. He had been on the Bowland Moors. Mr. Eastwood saw his rare roan heifers at rent day, and asked his price. The farmer said 8/. ios., the same price as Hub- back, and Mr. Eastwood gave him a ten pound note. He was calved on the 5th of February, 1849, and Master Butterfly was one of the first calves he got when he came to Towneley in '52. He was rather high- mettled and treacherous at times. He once regularly setatCulshaw,who made a masterly retreat over the side of the box. Barmpton Rose was beautifully filled up behind the elbow, and Cul- shaw, who was then a lad, was quite "lifted up" when Tom Mason first brought her home to Sir Charles Tempest's from the Walkeringham sale. Her first calf was a white bull ; then she had a red heifer calf to Mehemet Ali : she was a smart one, but she died at six weeks. Barmp- ton Rose had head to spare to look at anything, deep and with fine arched ribs, back if anything a little up, and a great milker she was a good strawberry roan, not much bigger than Buttercup. Bessy was smaller, and on a short leg, and much below the average for height. She had such ribs and such a bag and head ! Princess Royal was more of the style of her dam, and very gay. Buttercup was a sort of yellow red, and like Hubback in her flecks. Briseis was another daughter of Barmpton Rose. The late William Smith had her, and Christmas Rose and Rosa sprang from her. Norwich, in 1849, was the first Royal Show we visited. We took Beauty and Surmise there ; one was the second yearling heifer, and Surmise highly commended. Beauty was second again at the York- shire, when the Duke of Lancaster was the first bull calf, and Ruby the first heifer. Beauty the dam of Beauty's Butterfly, was a thick, heavy fleshed one, with a splendid head and bosom and shoulders ; she held her head well up and had thighs like The Royal ; she hadn't the thickest of loins, and her offal might have been finer. She was the heaviest and biggest framed cow we had, but she had not Butterfly's length. Alice had a pleasant head, and " cheerful 'ticing looks" enough to fill any one with admiration at once. She wanted perhaps a little width of breast ; her hips were beautifully covered, and her underline so perfect. She was a light roan, with a little on the neck and ears, of more than the average size, but half a size less than Butterfly a great lady with Z 2 340 Saddle and Sirloin. Necklace. He was rather a short bull with a bad head and a light neck, but with capital sides and quality. His hirer was confidently assured in the North Riding, that it would be "destruction to your herd to use such a brute ;" but he wisely chose to rely on his own judgment in the matter. Harlsonio, of nice offal, and it would be well if we could breed a dozen more like her. Her neck certainly did not let in nicely from the top of the shoulder, but necks are only stews after all. Ruby was a daughter of Dick and Gem, and she had a good deal of Emma's style. She beat Butterfly as a yearling, but she had not her style, and like Alice her neck dipped a little coming out of her shoulders! The others were no use with them that year. Butterfly's breast was not so deep as some, but her touch and hair was such that if a man was half dead, he must revive if he could only get his hand on her. She beat them all when she was four years old ; they couldn't keep their eyes off her, and she knew it such grand mellow loins, and so good through the breast ! Then she got a bit loose behind and looked a little lighter than she was. She was a killer ; one of those ladies who sail into a ball-room and seem to say by their looks, " Stand by I'm here you're not in the same day with me !" She was so active too. She had to go up forty steps one side of which was open to the sea at Liverpool when she came from Ireland. Poor Edward led Jasper, and Culshaw Butter- fly. She gave Jasper a good start and caught him up. She lay all the way from Liverpool to Towneley, and then she knew the place and got up and stared about her. She always lay down at once in the railway box. Alice and Ruby found out the comfort of it, and there were plaited straw mats in the boxes for them. Butterfly had six living calves, and was very unfortunate with her heifers. She had a roan one eight weeks before its time, by Frederick, and it only lived a week, and her heifer, Butterfly 2nd, died in calf from lung' disease. Edward put her by mistake to Gavazzi, and she had Butterfly 3rd, which broke her stifle joint. Then she had a heifer by Master Butterfly 4th, one of the very best we ever had, but it took fits. She finished up with Royal Butterfly. Master Butterfly went as a calf to the Lincoln Royal on July I4th, 1854. He was just a year old, as old as he could be for the Royal, and therefore he was obliged to give several months away for the Yorkshire. There was nothing but what was winning about him. At Carlisle he beat John o'Groat ; he was not so heavy fleshed as The Royal, but he used his legs more like a thorough-bred horse. He was first put to Vestris, and she cast her calf early on. From a yearling to a two-year- old he made a great stride. He left England before he was three years old. In '56 he went to Paris, and was a month away ; we had four there and got four gold medals the foot-and-mouth broke out, and Voltigeur died. Two took it, and Master Butterfly escaped ; he was a Mr. EastwoocFs Herd. 341 Lax blood, had died just before of cancer in the nose, and therefore Jeweller had no rival for the love of Buttercup, and Butterfly was the issue. Bessy, half- sister to Buttercup, calved Frederick by Lax's Duke, and thus these two crosses produced the pair from which Master Butterfly and Royal Butterfly sprang. straightforward chap all was fish that came to his net. In colour he was rather richer than Royal Butterfly. Culshaw saw him into his horse-box at Chelmsford, and he went to Grays, and from there to the docks. Red Butterfly was about the last of his get in England. Vestris 3rd was out of Venilia, and Rosemary out of Rosa. The former made up best as a heifer from two to three, but she turned patchy after that. Roan Duchess 2nd by Frederick, g. g. d. old Blanche 5th, was a gay lady, with such a back as we seldom see ; she died worn out, and the last calf came wrong way first. Some said that Blanche 6th by Frederick was better ; they were nearly own sisters. Roan Duchess 2nd won everything she could at the Royal and the Yorkshire, and she beat Booth's Bridesmaid at Ripon. In 1850 Butterfly and Venilia 2nd were shown at Glasgow, and were beaten by a pair, one of which looked nearly pure Ayrshire. The judges said that the roan wasn't good enough for the pair. At Alnwick the roan was put first, but at Thirsk it was Butterfly first and Venilia 2nd nowhere. All three shows were within ten days. Hudibras, own brother to Alice, came out about this time. He was a great leathering fine bull, the same colour as his sister, but queer behind the shoulders ; rather a long loose bull. In 1851, at Windsor, we had Garrick by Gaylad, from Lavinia, a fine strong-backed bull, red and white. Butter- fly 2nd was by him. In the two-year-old class that year, Butterfly, Ruby, and Venilia 2nd were first, second, and fourth. Frederica, the first yearling heifer at Lewes Royal, was sold as an in-calf heifer, with Lallah Rookh, for 700 guineas, to America, and shipwrecked. Their boxes were blown down on deck, but still Frederica produced a living calf, and did well for Mr. Thome. The best prices besides these were 500 guineas from Mr. Douglas for Ringlet, the dam of his 5oo-guinea Queen of Athelstane, as well as Maid of Athelstane ; iooo/. for three heifer calves to go to America ; and the I2oo/. for Master Butterfly. Alice, Butterfly, Frederica, and Vestris were all firsts at Lewes Royal, or the Yorkshire at Sheffield in 1852. This would be the lot that took Mr. Jacob Bright's timepiece at Sheffield the same year. Vestris was a grand cow, but she had only one calf. She took a surfeit one frosty night and it killed her. Ruby (dam of Jenny Lind) was the first cow at Birmingham, where she took the female gold medal. She was also first in her class at Smithfield, but a Hereford beat her for the gold medal. In 1853 there was a great meeting at York, and Towneley took six firsts and two seconds. Voltigeur was the first bull, and Roan Duchess 2nd the first heifer calf, but Booth's Bridesmaid beat both 342 Saddle and Sirloin. Neither Frederick nor Butterfly were born when, in 1848, Mr. Eastwood sold his herd of twenty to Colonel Towneley, and when Frederick did come, it was in twinship with Dot. For many years Mr. Eastwood contented himself with watching the progress of the Towneley herd under Culshaw ; but, like an old Alice and Frederica. They didn't send anything to Glo'ster, but they met Lord Berners' old bull Pat (who had won there) with jasper by Jeweller, and beat him at Killarney. Jasper was a fine level bull, and a twin like Dick and Frederick before him. In 1854 Master Butterfly came out as a calf at Lincoln, where the herd took three firsts and two seconds. Then the Yorkites got a dresser at Ripon. The Squire had a first he was a thick, heavy-fleshed dog, still not so thick on his back or very nice in his huggins. Hogarth by Booth's Harbinger (who got many of his bulls rather big in their hips) was first in the younger bull class. He was a deep roan and red on the neck. Colonel Towneley only tried in seven classes and took six firsts and a second. Butterfly, Columbus, Roan Duchess 2nd, and Ringlet (a calf then) were the other firsts. Ringlet was by Frederick, out of Pearly. Ringlet's chief fault was that her head was down a bit. Butterfly won the Purcell Challenge Cup three times, and got it into possession that year at Armagh. Dub- lin Show brought four firsts in 1855 ; and at the Yorkshire, Blanche 6th paid back Booth's Bride Elect in the two-year-old class for beating her at the Carlisle Royal. At Paris, in 1856, Master Butterfly was the first bull, and Pro Bono Publico the second ; Vestris 3rd was the first cow and got the gold medal. She was only two and a half years old then, and her first calf was six months old. Gold medals were given for extra merit, and Colonel Towneley had four animals in three classes (Rosemary and Voltigeur were the others) and took three firsts and four gold medals. Victoria came out and won as a two-year-old heifer at Chelmsford that year, and she and Blanche 6th, Roan Duchess 2nd, and Rose of Towneley made a great sweep at Rotherham. She was a beautiful cow, and won her honours at Birmingham and Smith- field, in calf with Gold Medal, which was sold for 400 guineas to the Atkinsons. There was little done in 1857, but at Chester the next year the ten yearling heifers came out and were beaten by Booth's Queen of the Isles. Frederick's Diadem was second, but Culshaw always thought Emma the best of his lot. All of them had calves, and some of them were in calf then. Royal Butterfly went and was highly commended in the bull calf class, where Mr. Fawkes's Bon Gar$on won. It was the first time that Culshaw ever took a nurse, but he made an exception for this pet calf, as he always drank too greedily from the pail. He was seized with purging, and had to retire from the yard under Professor Simonds's care, but it did not interfere with his winning trip to Northal- lerton a fortnight after. Queen of the Isles was beaten easily by Mr. Eastwood's Herd. 343 coachman, he still liked to hear the crack of his own whip, and a small, but terribly select herd, of about fifteen, with Rosette as its lady-patroness, has gra- dually sprung up at the Hodder side. Except where Mr. Peel joins in on the Sladeburn side, the whole of the valley of the Hodder and the Fidelity and Pearl, at Warwick, the next year ; and the former, after producing one calf, ended her days as first prize fat cow at Liverpool. Baron Hopewell's blood brought out a first and second in the bull-calf class at Hull that year, where Emma, Royal Butterfly, Beauty's Butter- fly, and Frederick's Diadem were all winners, and the Warwick heifers replaced in the same order. Col. Towneley and Mr. Richard Booth pitted the best lot of beasts against each other at Blackburn for the Cup, and the former won. At Durham County, Nectarine Blossom beat " The Royal" for the best beast in the yard. Save here and at Chester and Manchester he never suffered defeat. They once thought Beauty's Butterfly was in calf when the Duke of Athol ran with her, and in fact she had every symptom of it. She was a month away with Rose of Towneley on their Fat Tour in '59, and they took fourteen cups or first prizes at Birmingham, London, and York. She was best in the yard at all three places. She was kept more than twelve months after her Smithfield Club medal, and won at Rugby the next year, without any extra keep, at 3 years 9 months. Perhaps she might have been a trifle heavier in the thigh, and the "dimple" at her tail-head, of which Ptmch talked, might have been dispensed with. She was never weighed alive, but her girth at her best was 9ft. lin. At last she was killed by a butcher near Huddersfield, and her womb was found to be quite con- tracted. Neither she nor any of the rest ever had a gill of porter (as some people reported) but only natural food. After this year, the showing strength of Towneley began to slacken, and Romulus Butterfly was only second at Canterbury, and Royal Butterfly loth second at Battersea. Frederick's back gave way early in '6 1, when he was about twelve years old, and his last calf, Frederick's Farewell, from Vestris 3rd, arrived in the September of that year. The Towneley fortunes revived considerably at Worcester, where this heifer won as a yearling, and Double Butterfly and Perfume as a pair. Roan Knight's Butterfly and Royal Butterfly's Duchess also took first and second honours in the in-calf heifer class, when Second Queen of May and Rosedale proved barren. Culshaw's greatest disappointment was not winning there with Royal Butterfly's Pageant in the calf class. She was sold at the sale for 590 guineas, and died after calving. Ten firsts and one second was the wind up at the North Lancashire, and the herd left off in full show swing with Royal Butterfly in his seventh year, and as brisk as ever. The Royal was a wonderful traveller, and Culshaw always fought him with great pluck. He beat Prince of Prussia at Can- terbury after Mr. Douglas had gone for the latter in Lancashire the year 344 Saddle and Sirloin. adjacent hills belong to Colonel Towneley ; and Mr. Eastwood has about 1000 acres in the lowland, and 4000 on the fell in his hands. His flock consists of upwards of 2300, and of these the lonks and cross-breds stick to the fell, and the Shropshires and Southdowns to the grass-lands and turnips of the valley. " The before ; and when he had no more " Royal" worlds left to conquer, he went to York to meet Van Tromp and Skyrocket, who beat Royal Turk and such a large field of bulls at Leeds Royal the year before. In his last circuit (1863) he couldn't go to Ulverston, as he went home with his hind foot cut, so Master Frederick went and won there. Two days after that he was at Lancaster, with his foot tied up, and then off by night to Skipton, and the next night to Halifax. He then rested at home for two or three days, and off to Keighley to appear in a winning family party. On he went all night to Wigton for Mr. Clark Irving's Cup, and beat Mr. Wilson's Duke of Tyne, who had won at Worcester that year, and off all night again to Clitheroe. Thus he finished his show course in the railway truck at night, and in the show field by day and without a blemish. Clitheroe witnessed the close of the showing, and the five that went there had each a first. At Wigton, Mr. George H. Head, the Cumberland banker, offered 250 guineas for Royal Butterfly nth, and Culshaw would have taken 300 guineas. There were not many in calf to ' ' The Royal" at the sale, as the blood suited second Duke of Wharfedale, but all the dairy cows held to him. After the sale the four shorthorns which were repurchased held, and the dairy cows missed. The first herd won in fourteen years upwards of 2OOO/. in money prizes, besides 22 cups, which included the Farmers' Gazette Challenge Cup, which was won by Colonel Towneley the first three years it was offered, and the Purcell Challenge Cup at the Royal Irish Agricultural Improvement Society, which had been offered for several years and had never been won thrice in succession by one breeder before. There were also 26 gold medals, and more than a hundred silver and bronze medals and other trophies. The situation of Towneley has always been bad, both on account of " the blacks" from the chimneys, the countless dogs which accompany the pedestrians along the open footpaths, and the butchers and others who will handle the cows as they pass along, forgetful that they may have been near diseased beasts. Belching chimneys are coming nearer and nearer, to within 100 yards of the farm- yard, and one where several tons of salt are burnt to glaze tiles, spreads smoke like a thick white fog, and taints the air with sulphuric acid. Several of the oak trees have died from its effects, and the herbage suffers as well. " The Royal" was born on August I2th, 1857, and he never showed any symptoms of failing until 1867, when he had a sort of climacteric, and it was thought that he must be killed. However, he got over it, Mr. Eastwood's Herd. 345 Shrops" are a new introduction, and at first only mus- tered ten gimmers and a tup of Horton and Crane blood, from the flock of Mr. Charles Holland, of Northwich. Robert Parker, the ancient shepherd, who has been in the Eastwood family since he was ten, has taken his spud and spectacles, and sallied forth to make his and although his thighs had wasted a little, there was still the grand framework, as we visited him at Towneley on his eleventh birthday. He drew himself up as proudly as of old when Culshaw put his arm round him and bestowed some of his wonted endearments upon his cheek and forehead. His daughter Alice Wharfedale's Butterfly, a light roan, was at his side, and so were his Royal Butterfly 2 1st from Duchess of Lancaster 2nd, Young Butterfly 2nd from his own Young Butterfly in short, quite a birthday party round him, with Culshaw as M. C. He looked likely to live to the age of Usurer and Rockingham, and Will Edmondson watches him with the most tender anxiety ; "just one more calf from Alice Wharfedale, and then, poor old follow, he'll have done his duty." When that comes, Will yearns for "just another," and so it goes on. Alice Wharfedale was repurchased at Mr. Carr's Rugby sale in calf of Alice Wharfedale 2nd. Frederick's box was not deserted, and there sat Culshaw on the manger, with the last of the sort, Royal Butterfly 22nd, performing a sort of figure-dance head and tail and legs before him. His only judicial comment was on this wise, "it's just their way the Butterflies were always dancing," and he seemed to live the proud old days over again, and to long to be "up and at them" once more on a Royal Monday. Especially stylish heads told of Baron Oxford, and there he was on the old parade ground, a very handsome bull to meet, with Baron Oxford's Beauty arid Baron Hubback, to mark his first Towneley season. The Towneley herd is fast assuming its original dimensions, and numbers between thirty and forty. The first purchase after the sale was British Beauty, at Mr. Robinson's, of Clifton Pastures. . She is the dam of Baron Oxford's Beauty by Baron Oxford, which took a first prize as a yearling heifer in 1869 at the Manchester Royal and the Royal North Lancashire shows, the only occasions on which she was exhibited. Young Butterfly was bought back at an advance from the late Mr. Crisp without her Baron Hopewell bull calf. Alice Wharfedale was bought at Mr. Carr's Rugby sale, Royal Butterfly's Duchess at Mr. Betts's, then three Duchesses of Lancaster at Mr. Bowstead's, Contord at Mr. Adkins's, Baron Oxford with two Oxford heifers (from the Windsor sale), and Wharfedale Butterfly and her calf Towneley Birter- fly followed. The two last were bought at the late Mr. Packe's salt, the cow at 1 10 guineas, or a 30 guineas advance on her Towneley sale price, and the calf (bred by Mr. Packe) at 130 guineas. Alice Wb\rfe- dale had four heifers and one bull, all singles, before she was six year* *ld. Duchess of Lancaster 6th was the first great disappointment \lat 346 Saddle and Sirloin. observations on "these new-comers." He speaks most cautiously, though, we may say, patronizingly of them, but still he hardly sees why they should be crossed, even for an experiment, with those cherished lonks, the delight of his boyhood and the solace of his old age, whose tap-root he considers as fixed in the very dust of time. The change of scene has wrought wonders with Frederick's Diadem and other breeding recusants, and "The Royal" has also renewed his strength by the side of the salmon-haunted Hodder. The beau- tiful Emma, who completed in Ireland what Rosette began, and brought home the Purcell Challenge Cup,* has gone and left nothing behind her, save Duke of Bowland, who was sold to the Duke of Buccleuch. The day of the massive, staring-coloured Esther, whose cushion would have served for a cushion-dance, is ended. The Hero, a fine framed white bull, with hair a trifle sharp, brought back first prize Royal honours from Worcester, and the ever bonny and buxom Rosette, whose life has been a chequered one between fat and store shows, and whose loves with Royal But- terfly have been unthrift ones, was still there in August (1868) with two daughters and a grand -daughter at her side. There too, in the Thorneyholme meadow, Colonel Towneley experienced in his new herd, as she flatly refused to breed, and she was only 2 months 20 days above the age of the heifer class at Smithfield. She was three weeks and four days on her Bir- mingham, London, and Liverpool travels, and took the extra stock prize for females at every place, and she was then sold by auction for 49/. TS. in Burnley. She went on to the weigh-bridge directly she was jold, and had only lost i61bs., or just a pound per day since she weighed out (2O23lbs.) at Islington, with Mr. Charles Howard and Mr. Duckham as joint clerks of the scales. Culshaw might well quote this, as showing the constitution of the Butterflies, and dwell with rapture on "above a pack weight of good loose fat inside her," the fine blending of fat and lean, and the weight of beef which was carried on that delicate bone. * Col. Towneley gave another with the same title, which Mr. East- wood won. Mr. Eastwood's Herd. 347 were those relics of a great Towneley day, Double Butterfly, Barmpton Butterfly, and Phoebe Butterfly and Double Butterfly 2nd, which are never apart. William Ward indulged in all the joys of anticipation over a red heifer calf from Phoebe Butterfly, and when that was over he led out the Witch of Endor to drink at the fountain and show her Christmas beef. Then came the delightful stroll over the drawbridge and away to the stables. Heseltine was off to York with fifteen yearlings, each led by one of the " Whitewell Rangers," as he calls that fine clan of young fellows who live in the valley, among blood stock, game, or agriculture, and bear a hand when August arrives with its pleasant York meeting holiday. Gutter Sands, hard by the great salmon hole, in which the Colonel delights on fishing days, was once the training ground, b#t there was no hill in it, and how Heseltine could ever prepare Doefoot and Rejoinder and win with them as he did, was a miracle. Buttercup hit her leg before the York meeting, when The Sawyer's running with the Spy at Stockton told them that some good things were in store, and she never could do strong work again. Her dam Butterfly was barren in her third year, and then she died producing her third foal, quite a chestnut monstrosity by Kettledrum. Water on the brain had swelled its head into the size of a young West Highland bullock, and it took eighteen " Rangers" at the ropes to bring it away. The grave of Butterfly is in the hot corner of Lea Wood plantation, near the gateway where Miss Grim- shaw stood and brought down her twelve brace of pheasants on a memorable day, and farther on we reach the boxes which hold " The Kettle" and " The King." The old horse's back is beginning to give a little more from age, but one-and-twenty summers have not been hard on him, and when he does go there will not be a Velocipede sire left in the land. Middleham still remembers how he used to go up the 348 Saddle and Sirloin. gallop, "cracking his nose," and how carefully his tender heels were washed out with milk each morning. The elegantly turned Breadalbane was full of spirits and quality, and his attempts to dance a solo before the Bishop of Nottingham were of the most graceful kind. Kettledrum's white reach head has hardly a peer, but with his stallion top upon him he looks a trifle light in the arm. From here as an interlude between hippothine and beef, we strolled along the Hodder side to the farm, and saw the twenty-three West Highland bullocks, over whom Ellison presides, and which had a first prize winner amongst them for the next Smithfield Club Show. An active bay Clydesdale mare, which had just won in a pair at Burnley, shows us her paces, and then we visit the upper box yard. The mares and foals to which it is devoted are bedded on the proceeds of the fern harvest, which, as the valley is guiltless of white crops, is the great substitute. Some- times they and the foals both eat a little for a relish, and thus rob the potatoes, as fern litter manure is re- markably well adapted for " that esculent." The mares were all stabled in boxes, with sliding doors, which no chill winds can penetrate, and out of the twenty-three a score had foals at their foot, and seventeen of them by Kettledrum. Two of the " half- bred" mares, Passion Flower and Hesperithusa, which first brought out the " white with black sleeves," had pledges of Cape Flyaway, and Honeydew had the only black foal of the lot, which were exactly equal in sex. Evadne, the dam of Evelina, had been found dead in the field, and Corrivall, the dam of The Sawyer, was barren. Mr. Eastwood had a very tender spot for this colt from the time he first looked at him as a foal, and though the chestnut was not always i' the vein, he was sold for five hundred guineas. There was a good omen the week we were there, as one day Lord Hawthorne and Evelina both Mr. Peel's Herd. 349 won at Stockton, and The Sawyer was only beaten a short head by The Spy, so that the stud won as nearly as possible three races off the reel. The Moet corks were drawn vigorously at Thorneyholme, when the tidings arrived. It is generally brought by pigeons, which are taken in by the carts to Clitheroe in the morning, and there handed to a saddler, who ties the telegram under their wings, and starts them back. They make very short work of the twelve miles, and come sailing up the valley, poised mid-air, with many an anxious eye watching their flight. If they don't go into their house, the saddle-room, that great Tattersall's of the place, is in a feverish state, as men and lads are burning to hear the home favourite's fate. Oddly enough, on this especial day, the lad was so busy with the York yearlings that he forgot the pigeons, and Heseltine heard the news on his march to York. Knowlmere Manor is barely two miles from Thor- neyholme. Nature and civilization in the shape of fell and meadow have long waged a fierce strife for the sovereignty of the spot, but twenty years ago Mr. Peel threw a handsome Tudor house into the scale of the latter, and forced Nature to fall back upon her foxes, her grouse, and, we may almost add, her Lonks. The valley of the Hodder is one of the last places in which we should have expected to find such a substantial tabernacle, and we could almost fancy that some wandering band of Freemasons had reared it in the days when Tudor or Plantagenet were living names, carved their quaint symbol as a me- morial on the stone, and departed as silently as they came. To a lover of wild scenery, however, the choice is fully justified. Knowl Hill is on the right, with its cap of fir-trees, and in the distance the dark Staple Oak ridge crosses the valley of the Hodder, so dear to the Northern tourist, and looks down on the Root Stud Farm. About 125 acres on millstone grit 350 Saddle and Sirloin. and heather make up Mr. Peel's sheep walk, and of the remaining 355 acres at the Home Farm, Harrow- field and Gibbs, about 50 acres are arable. The estate lies on the western edge of the Great Craven Fault, and the union of this limestone formation with the millstone grit on the hill-side caused endless cal- culations and searchings of heart both to Mr. Peel and his stalwart bailiff, Henry Clapham, who ori- ginally acted as foreman of the drainers. Only one thing was certain that the grit would be always above the limestone, and not directly in it ; but there was no great comfort in that. A.D. 1844 saw the commencement of these fierce labours of spade and pickaxe, and although the higher land does not aspire to the glories of the Hodder side meadows, which have been known to let as high as seven guineas an acre, and feed off two sets of beasts and sheep in summer, it has already brought back its increase with compound interest, in the shape of swedes, orange ovals, cabbages, and kohl-rabi. Salmon, as well as horses and calves, have also had their turn in the park, and a stream as pure as crystal, from between the limestone and the grit, was trickling down the now deserted beds, in which the ova boxes were deposited for hatching. The stream ran over the young fry for twenty-one days, at the end of which they were removed to the first pond ; the second became their local habitation when they were yearlings, and they then took their start for life as two-year-olds in the river. It was here that Mr. Ramsbottom, who has been to salmon what Nesfield is to landscape gardening, acquired much of the ex- perience which he has brought to bear in Ireland, Scotland, and Hungary, and solved the much-vexed question to his entire satisfaction, as to whether " smolt" are the salmon fry of the year before, or the year before that. Of the merits of the controversy we know nothing ; but those who feel dull when they The Lonks. 351 are waiting for the train at Clitheroe, and yearn to know what a young " cock salmon" looks like when it emerges from the egg, and is magnified 64 dia- meters, had better stroll up street and look into his shop window for some minutes as zealously as we did. We were first at Knowlmere in the days of " Mountain King," who was then in his heyday, and had just won his thirteenth out of some forty first prizes. He made quite a picture as he stood, held by a rod through holes drilled in his horns, and with a fleece of i61bs. on his back, of which fully lolbs. had been made since the 6th of May. Through the heart and in the breast he was all that could be wished, and the family failing of the Lonks over the loin was very small indeed. This was in '60, and he died on November I2th, 1864. The " black mutton," as the Robin Hoods of the district delicately termed it, has quite disappeared from the Forest of Bowland since the fiat of dispark- ing went forth. Those who just remember the killing of the last buck have long since grown into greybeards, and when antlers were extinct, the curved horn of the Lonk King reigned paramount on the fells. His prescriptive title among sheep may be traced back for more than a century all round the Keighley Moors, Pendle Hill, and along the Forest of Bowland to Lancaster. Near Rochdale the farmers are wont to cross with the Saddleworths for the sake of greater size, and the blackfaced and sometimes a Leicester cross comes in on the lower lands near Lancaster ; but the Lonk never nicks well with a Cheviot mate. Fastidious breeders consider that there is a separate breed of Lonks on every sheep-walk, and discern the difference not in the shape, but in the lighter or darker mottle on the face and legs. Quality of wool is a great Lonk attribute, and hence Mr. Peel has never crossed his flock with the 352 Saddle and Sirloin. Saddleworths, in spite of the temptation of the extra size both in fleece and mutton. Width of loin is their failing point, and by way of mending it, and getting quality of flesh as well, Mr. Peel resorted to the Shropshire Down. The experiment was, however, not wholly satisfactory, and Mr. Peel returned with all speed to the " pure unmitigated Lonk." The Knowl- mere flock consists of about 220 ewes, of which about seventy or eighty are drafted every year, and brought down from the fell to the valley, where they are put to a Leicester tup. The effect of this better fare is to bring many more doublets, and except the foot-rot (for which the fell is an invaluable specific) attacks them very badly, they are never moved back again. Their lambs are sold fat in the summer, and the draft ewes are passed on in November to the Lancashire butchers, and average from I7lbs. to iglbs. a quarter. Such is their peculiarly tameless nature, acquired from four roving years, that they will not bear being taken up to feed.* * The hill ranges of Yorkshire and Lancashire are believed to be the earliest home of the Lonks. We find them extending north from Clitheroe over the Forest of Bowland towards Lancaster, east by Colne and Skipton as far as Keighley and Ben Rhydding, and south along " the backbone of England, by Pendle Hill, Burnley, Todmorden, and Bacup, almost to Blackstone Edge. The Penistone breed, a shorter and thicker description of Lonk, then hold the hills, and Saddleworth has also a large and plain sheep of its own, with a white face and legs and coarse bone. The Saddleworth is a slower feeder than the common Lonk, with which it is often crossed for the sake of size, and its wool, which is worth as much, is a little closer and shorter in the staple. Derbyshire has also Lonks on most of its hills and peaks, and its flock- masters often go over to "report progress" at the Craven Show. Where there is a mere copyhold fell-right attached to a Lonk farm, the wether lambs are nearly always sold, but never where a flock-master has a great fell range, as, for instance, on the hills behind Bacup. A right of common is attached to many farms, and the flocks go mixed, with nothing but the " Lonk Book of Marks" as a guide to the owners. The old system of the flock going with the farm has been worked out except in one instance. It very much tended to support purity of breed, as now, if there is a flock of pure Lonks on a farm, the incoming tenant will not give the price for them, and commences forthwith to cross. On The Lonks. 353 Mr. Peel's first herd was swept off at the end of five years by murrain, in 1856. The disease raged without intermission from the October of that year up to the April of the next, and the Knowlmere homesteads became one great lazar-house. A common cow, which was bought in for milk, was supposed to have spread the fells from beyond Bowland Forest to Lancaster there are Blackface flocks, but some of the owners have lost on the wool, and have accord- ingly fallen back on the old sort. The Falkirk Blackface ewe drafts still come over Foulscales and Browsholme on their way from the trysts, and sometimes wait at Birket Moor to gather a little bloom before they proceed to Clitheroe Fair. Lonks in their turn have gone as far as Sutherlandshire, and the Grampian ranges between Perthshire and Argyllshire, and in some instances to Northumberland as a wool cross. The cast ewes are generally sold at Moiser Fair near Keighley, and four to five thousand of them are dispersed round the neighbour- hood among the small farmers, who take one crop of lambs from them by a Leicester tup. This cross knocks out the horn in the gimmers, and makes capital hoggs, which feed to i61bs. a quarter at twenty months on good lowland pasture, without any artificial food. Cots- wolds and Southdowns have also "hit" pretty well with them, but they have been but seldom tried. Some maintain that the pure Lonk should be copper-coloured on the nose, and have the face and legs of the same hue ; but fashion differs from them on this point. A white face is generally eschewed as soft, and any approach to a brindle shade as indicative of cross-breeding. The blending of pure black and white is now generally endorsed in the show-ring, more especially if the poll is white, and the white streaks fall over each cheek. Lightness in the fore-quarter is a characteristic of the Lonk, and, as in the Ayrshire cow, betokens good milking. Their scrags are rather light, and their legs long, and the loin too often lacks strength. The lambs shoot their horns with the new year, and the wethers never go beyond one curl. Breeders make much of the horn, and consider its strength a great proof of constitution. It ought to be self-coloured and finer than that of the blackface ; but it should come out low from the head, and with the same fine, gentle curl. For cunning the Lonks are unrivalled. They are, in fact, always working for themselves, with a zeal and sagacity which makes them very bad neighbours. Small farmers buy the wethers from the Moor by twenty or thirty at a time, and if there be one better acre than another in a parish, be it garden or churchyard, the strangers very soon make themselves tenants at will. Hence it is often necessary to "hopple" them in spring time. On the hills they run up walls like a cat, when they cannot take them "off and on ;" but a wire fence five feet high is too much for their philosophy. A curious anecdote is told about one which wanted to get back from the Ings to the hill. A canal A A 354 Saddle and Sirloin. the taint, and in less than a month it had gone through nearly the whole herd. In the height of its violence it seemed to obey some subtle law, as while it swept all the east side of one house, two Alderneys on the west side never suffered at all. Even when it attacked the first in a row, it did not go on by rotation, but was in the way, and the bridge gate was strongly barricaded ; but the Lonk bided his time till a canal-boat sailed past, and then jumping on to its deck, cleared the canal at twice. The story is true enough, and, as our informant naively added, " What possible inducement could a man have to lie about a Lonk ?" Both ewes and lambs are very hardy, and a little cow near Skipton might once be seen suckling four cades, and as proud of them as if they were calves. Except on the fell tops, the lambing begins about March 2Oth. Most of the ewes lamb on the enclosed ground below the hill, and stay there three weeks. They are not especially hardy, and require to be wintered pretty well with hay, if it is a snowy season. Fell life for a certain portion of the year is essential to the Lonks, as the heather gives them bone, and acts as an antidote to foot-root. The hoggs are generally kept down in the lowlands from September to April, and those which are meant for store or Christmas shows are " fed from the post," and scarcely ever see the hill. For lean wethers the quotations range according to quality from I/, to I/. ior., and for fat from 2l. los. to 3/. Mr. Jonathan Peel has often proved at the Smithfield Club what sheep fed below the hill could do, as his pen of three prize shearling wethers once averaged 2i5lbs. each, when they were weighed on October 25th, and their clip on April 4th had averaged i libs. The celebrated show-sheep "Mountain King," which was bred at Hould Top, and made the Knowlmere flock, was the grandsire of this trio on both sides, and when he was in his heyday, his own fleece weighed iSlbs. A breeder of many years' standing once wrote to us : "I never saw my mountain flock so full of wool. The average will be about 5lbs., but it is generally 441bs. Those kept on the low lands will of course clip more about 6 or ylbs., and some as high as 81bs." These calcu- lations will, however, only apply to a flock which is well looked after on a good fell range. The wool is long in the staple, but rough about the breeching a point on which the Leicester cross improves it, and it goes principally into the hands of the manufacturers of Rochdale for blankets and the finest cloths. During 1857-65, prices varied from iSs. gd. to 32^. the stone of i61bs. Three-year-old wethers from the fell, when grazed out on good grass land, kill to about iSlbs. per quarter of fine-grained well-mixed mutton, which a Lonk breeder would con- sider it flat heresy in an epicure to rank after Southdown or Welsh. With fairly good feeding and a fillip from turnips, 5lbs. to 7lbs. a quarter more can be reached j but the sort cannot be ranked among very fast feeders. Mr. Peel's Herd. 355 generally singled out the heaviest milkers for its earliest victims. Crumbling of the lungs, which ren- dered it impossible to chew the cud, was its most pro- minent symptom ; and, although the lives of a few were prolonged by the adoption of Horsfall's plan of gruel and cod liver oil three times a day, only two or three fought through, and were kept up in apparently the last stage of exhaustion by iron and other tonics. Old Pearl by Tom Steele (8715) withstood all in- fection. A whole host of Booth bulls The Monk, Valasco, Elfin King, Sir Samuel, Fitzclarence, Sir James have been in that hovel on the hill ; and, while Sir Lawrence Peel and the venerable Mr. Armstrong, Q.C. (who was spending part of his last summer with his old Northern Circuit friend), prolong their drive a little, we sit with Mr. Peel under that warm summer sun, and watch the present herd, as one by one they go down to the stream which joins the Hodder, hard by the fishing-stone. Bashful is up to her knees, and " a right-down, good, old, honest cow she is." There, too, is Boundless of the same tribe, Basilisk (another good one), and the big, massive Pride of the Isles by Sir James from Bride. Bloom is there to tell of Blush, which died at 21 score gibs, per quarter, and Marion traces back to old Water Witch, through Mistress Mary. The roan Banter and the white Banana seldom leave each other, and old Balmful keeps the top ground. Bride of the Mere by Horsa has to keep the house, and oilcake is her portion for Christmas.* We have seen odd markings a large * At Mr. Peel's draft sale in July, 1861, Lalage by Prince Imperial (15,095) from Lally, a pure Bates cow, brought 235 guineas (Captain Oliver), and Duke of Knowlmere, then a little over three months old, 115 guineas, the general average being over 56/. los. The Knowlmere herd has never contended for Smithfield honours. Three animals only have ever been in preparation for it, and their appearance at the Great Fat Show has, in each case, been prevented by circumstances so adverse as to have given rise to almost a superstition on the subject. A A 2 356 Saddle and Sirloin. belt of white, for instance, looking like a tape-line, from the crops round the fore-flank ; but " The Bride" looks as if one side of her face had been covered with a white cloth. The bull-carriage is in the yard, but Knight of Knowlmere is not in his box he is waiting quietly at Clitheroe for a couple more shows, and if there is a chance, to play out the rubber with Com- mander-in-Chief before he rides back in state over the hills. Malachite took the first yearling prize at the Canterbury Royal, and he was eventually sold to Sir John Sinclair of Barrock, Caithness, to cross with polls and cows of the country, and many a good yearling by him has gone to Georgemas Fair. CHAPTER XIII. " When North of Tweed and South of Tweed Join hands at Waterloo." Sporting Gazette. Manchester Racecourses Heaton Park Thomas Godwin Mr. Atherton's Farm Mr. Dickinson's Farm Great Coursing Grounds A Visit to Chloe The late Mr. Nightingale The Duke of Devon- shire's Herd Mr. Bolden's The Duchesses and Grand Duchesses Sketches of Great Greyhounds A Waterloo Cup Day. WE strolled out from Manchester to have a look at the old Kersall Moor racecourse. The de- serted Newmarket and Chesterford railway is nothing in comparison. Part of the ballast is left, although it is grass grown ; but there is nothing from which we might guess the antecedents of Kersall. A church is built on the top turn ; the run-in is quite effaced, and no one could suppose that the trying down hill finish which shook every joint in Galaor's body could have existed in that troubled surface of potato enclosures and rubble heaps, which now cumber the ground. The Grand Stand, once so vocal with Tom Bland and Manchester Race Courses. 357 Crutch Robinson, has wholly vanished, and there is nothing save green sward within some thorn hedges. We never saw it but once in its * glory, and that was " in Satirist's year." Sim Templeman was saddling Wee Willie, the first of the Liver- pools ; and Bob Heseltine was looking after the grey Bolus, one of the first of the Physicians ; Jack Holmes was wasted to a thread paper for a /st. I2lb. mount upon Kingston Robin ; Cartwright, then quite a Nat of the North, twice donned the Vansittart orange to win upon Galaor and had the broadest of Yorkshire congratulations from John Gill ; and the rough and ready M. Jones scored a race for Lord Stanley on the chestnut Cornuto. Still these horses were mere pigmies in point of fame to others which trod " Karsy Moor." The beautiful Magistrate with Bill Scott in the green and gold, and Mytton's Anti-Radical and Barefoot were all winners. It was here that Signorina slipped Memnon round the turns ; that Longwaist, with " Uncle Sam " up, defeated Fleur de Lis ; that Templeman got that marvellous head on the post out of little fifteen-hand Catherina, which " made history ;" and that Miss Bowe ran away in a three-mile Queen's Plate from General Chasse, who had to come down hill at the finish, instead of having his favourite Liverpool Cup rise (on which so many cracks had come back to him), when Jack Holmes slipped in the whalebone and the Ripon rowels. The Committee had very hard work to secure their late course at Castle Irwell. When Kersall Moor was taken from them, some people said that Radcliffe Bridge race ground would do. Horwich was also anxious that the meeting should come to its Moor ; Newton was ready to make its fixture for Whitsun week, and it was only at last when White Moss had been rejected, that Castle Irwell was fixed upon. The meeting on the Irwell meadows began on May 3 5 8 Saddle and Sirloin. 25th, 1847, with a dead heat between Louisa Newell and Meaux f George Simpson on Sheraton got the whip for winning the principal cup, and Tommy Lye, who died at last with as many pence as he had once had pounds, wrote regretting that a fall at Catterick had prevented him from contending for it in the town of his nativity. Peep o'Day Boy was bowled out the next year by Swiss Boy for the Cup, and for some time the Chesterfield and B. Green colours had quite a cup patent. Legerdemain, Frantic, Black Doctor, Longbow, King of Trumps, Rataplan (Qst. 3lbs.), Typee, Underhand, Ivanhoff, and Ellermire have all been winners over these meadows. The prophets saw nothing in the future winning "pony," Saucebox, when he was a Trades Cup winner, and Nat was never more astonished than when he took his celebrated leap over the rails on the perverse Iron Duke. On September 2ist, 1867, Mr. Eastwood wound up mat- ters with Rejoiner, who ran away from Merry Harp and old Queen of Trumps.* His horses played a prominent part when the new course was opened at Old Trafford, as Lord Hastings came under the charge of Arthur Briggs, and Buttercup of Watson, and each had full liberty to do his best to win the silver cup which the committee gave to the trainer of the first Trades Cup over the new ground. They compared notes the night before, and each was equally con- fident ; but Butterfly's daughter made short work of the "Lord." * This hard-working old "charwoman" ran 164 times in her six seasons, and won 42 times, or about every fourth time, which is any- thing but " monkey's allowance" in these days of severe " competitive examination" for the turf as well as the civil service. She first appeared as a bad fifth in the Doncaster Trial Stakes of 1862. Oddly enough, her stable mate, Moulsey, who ran his last race at Warwick Autumn, came out at Doncaster Spring in '63 as a bad fourth for the Betting Room Stakes ; and he retired about the same time, after having run 113 times, and won 34 times. Heat on Park. 359 R. W. Procter, a Manchester poet, has told us of " A party who went, on pleasure bent, On a journey to Heaton park ;" but the spring-carts which carried the " Rough Robins" and their ladye loves on Sept. 25th, 1827, when the park was opened for races, harmonized very ill with the Duke of Beaufort's four-in-hand, or with the team of six piebalds driven by Mr. Knowles, the coach pro- prietor. There was such a crush, that at three o'clock the gates were closed, and the scrambling through the hedges did such damage, that in future no one was admitted without a ticket, and then only on horseback or in a carriage. Then the great question arose, " Is a truck a carriage ? " and it was argued for the ap- pellant, that anything that could carry was a carriage, provided it were drawn by a horse, ox, goat or dog. The best illustration as to how a " carriage " should be drawn was, when " The Squire " brought Tom Thumb there in his match cart, and gave him some rare " steps out " round the course. He rode Catherina against Chancellor (Earl Wilton) in one of the finest finishes ever seen in the park, but " my lord " had the best of it on the post. " The Squire's " greatest vic- tory was on Rush ; and coloured engravings of it may be seen to this day. For two years running, Captain White, who was then in his Melton heyday, won the Matilda Gold Cup ; and Becher, " the -captain with the whiskers," after professionals had been admitted in 1835, screwed in Jagger first to John Scott's amaze- ment, despite his vile temper and a broken stirrup leather. Earl Wilton had the cream of the Whitewall riding, and Whitewall then meant the Westminster and Chesterfield lots. His lordship walked over twice on Touchstone, and won upon Hornsea and Scroggins ; and he was also on Prizeflower, the great bashaw of " cocktails," when Harkaway and Cruiskeen, the Irish chestnuts, fell. Don John came on from Doncaster 360 Saddle and Sirloin. with John and Bill Scott, and Nat in his train ; Slash- ing Harry and Miss Bowe ran the most slashing of dead heats ; the beautiful Vanish was great in Gold Cups, and the dam of Orlando did one of those " short, sharp, and decisive " things, at which for half a mile she has perhaps never had a rival. About thirty years ago Lancashire had better racing on the whole than Yorkshire. People can hardly realize now what an event the Liverpool Tradesmen's Cup was when General Chasse, Inheritor, and Charles XII. were winning it, or when Harkaway first made his appearance in England, and was beaten by Tommy Lye on St. Bennett. Very few turfites went to bed on those nights, watching for the mail guards to bring the news. " The days of its glory were o'er" with the Cup dead heat between John Day on Vulcan, and Chappie on Rodanthe. Lord George infused such energy into the Goodwood management, and Mr. Etty was such a quiet-going person, that owners gradually began to reserve their horses for the south, and with The Baron and Van Tromp, its famous St. Leger ceased to throw any shadows before. The late Lord Derby's racing heart was not in his country. It might be in the days of Verbena, for whose sake he always fancied the Velocipede blood, but when John Scott be- gan to train for him, Doncaster and the great Southern meetings pleased him better. He cared for few things more than going by the night train to see a trial run at Doncaster at dawn, and we remember well, how he seemed to enjoy walking right round the course with his lot, at their morning exercise in Knight of St. George's year. During our stroll to Heaton Park, we called upon Thomas Godwin (late head groom to the Earl of Wilton), that fine old man, of whom Dick Christian affirmed in his weird-like accents " Pleasant fellow as need to be, and the best groom rider as ever come to Melton'' He was born near Elton New Closes, Thomas Godwin. 361 sacred to the shade of Tom Sebright, in 1786, and owed his education to the village school. Out of doors he became a capital swimmer and skater ; and his diving abilities were of such a high order, that the " diving dog of Moscow " might have been jealous of him. As it was, a Newfoundland entertained some such feeling, and, seizing him as he rose to the surface at about the 999th essay of throwing himself into the water with the smallest possible impression, very nearly shook the life out of him. When very young, he entered the service of Earl Carysfort as second postillion, and had such a nice seat and hand that he was soon made second horseman, and dis- tinguished himself early by leading throughout a run, on Taffy, from Elton New Closes to Yaxley. His lordship went as straight as a bird, but suffered heavily from asthma ; and at times he would almost be hang- ing on, gasping, by the bridle, till Godwin could dis- mount and adminster the soothing dose which he always carried with him. One of Godwin's first pieces of sleight-of-hand, and one that he always loved to recount, was drilling a horse, which would never approach the steps of the front door to be mounted ; and he seldom failed to cap it with how he swam his own and his lordship's horse across some flooded meadows, while my lord took to the foot-bridge. The late Earl Fitzwilliam more than once asked him to take a whip's place, but he liked his present berth better. He gradually rose to be head groom at Lord Carysfort's, and made his first acquaintance with Lancashire by his trips across the Channel to his lordship's Irish estates. The sight of the Mersey never failed to elicit a word to the memory of Vandyke, one of his master's stud, which jumped overboard about a mile from Liverpool. The vessel's pace was not great at the time, and the horse swam in its furrow like " the bold shark," and was only beaten a few lengths to the pier-head. He was none 362 Saddle and Sirloin. the worse for his bath ; and Godwin, on the pretext of getting him measured for a new saddle at Stamford, soon after attended the great Cribb and Molyneux meet at Thistleton Gap. On leaving his lordship's service, he went back to Elton, where he broke young horses, and there carried out a notion which had long haunted him, of going abroad with Lord Strathaven, afterwards Marquis of Huntley, and Mr. Harvey Aston. His dancing abili- ties had great scope while travelling through Spain and Portugal ; and, in spite of his memories of Van- dyke and Taffy, he took quite kindly to the muleteer business, and enjoyed his new life all the more from one or two rencontres with banditti. However, the yellow jack cut his roaming short, and the doctors ordered him home, Mr. Aston giving him a very plea- sant berth at Aston Hall, in whose stalls he found Minister and some other capital hunters standing ab- solutely idle. He kept them in leaping-pole exercise in summer, and sent them along very merrily for some seasons while Will Head hunted the Cheshire ; and taught his son to imitate him on a pony, which he had got pretty sound by keeping him perpetually in bran- mash boots. Mr. Aston's next visit to England was not of long duration ; and when he left, he placed a mysterious letter in Godwin's hands, with injunctions that he was not to read it unless he heard of his death. After a long absence, his master returned, without notice, in the dead of night, knocked up Godwin, and burnt the letter ; and then told him that the horses, some of which proved worth 300 to 400 guineas each, were to be sold. For the next nine years Godwin stayed in the county as the landlord of the " Ring of Bells," a great house for funerals and weddings at Daresbury, where he broke ladies' horses so artistically that their fair owners would have it that he was one of the " Whis- perer" family, of whose Irish prowess so much had Thomas Godwin. 363 been written. He didn't care what he rode ; and on one occasion, when the doctor was making a call, and the lad was holding his horse, the sight of Will Head and the Cheshire excited Tom so much that he jumped up and went well on " the unknown," in a nice 4O-minute thing. The doctor took it in very good part when the horse arrived back with " an honourable hunting diploma, such as I could never have conferred on him." Mr. Hopwood's beagles occasionally came into the neighbourhood, and were hunted by a pole- bearing enthusiast ; and even Godwin was found aiding and abetting them in treason against " Sir Harry, Will Head, and the hounds," when a fox jumped up in their faces, near an old pond. Having his eyes pretty well about him, he pur- chased an Irish horse for 2O/. out of a drove going to Chester fair, with fuil warning that he was a hopeless savage. Fighting and coaxing did its work ; and he exchanged him with one of Sir Harry Mainwaring's, which had defied Will Head, Tom Ranee, and all the rest of the kennel division. With a good ash plant and spurs newly rowelled, he commenced his task ; and as sliding up to trees and houses, and planting its forelegs against them, constituted a great part of the performance, the pair had a lively time, to the great edification of the village. The end of it was that he could ride him hunting in a halter, and sold him back to Sir Harry for ioo/., after a hard run, and felt sure from his after performances that he was given away. His little grey pony, the " three-legged horse," and his terrier bitch, which, weeks after the night of the robbery, marked the man who did it, by springing at him as he called for some ale at the bar, were all landmarks in his Cheshire stay, and through Sir Richard Bulkeley's influence he was engaged to the Earl of Wilton as stud-groom. Jenny Sutton and Arachne (dam of Industry) were among his first charges ; and it was when he stopped at Melton en .364 Saddle and Sirloin. route to Newmarket with Chancellor and Bras de Fer, that he had his first Leicestershire mount from his lordship. This taste of old times made him rather dislike the monotony of a life in the paddocks, and from being stud-groom he soon succeeded Allen at the head of his lordship's hunting stud. As a lady's pilot across country he was first-rate, and he used to reflect proudly on the brilliant riding of the Earl's family. He always persisted that he knew many ladies whose judgment was quite equal to gentlemen's with hounds, and that they " mauled their horses about far less." All his actions were quick, and his punctuality a proverb. Sixty miles on his hack and a hundred by rail, when he was looking after a horse for the Earl, were nothing to him ; and if he stopped at an inn, and went into the bar for a little warm beer, he would drink it and fall asleep, leaving word that he was to be awoke " in seven minutes." Training a horse for his lordship at Heaton Park, and beating one with the Whitewall polish on it, was a great joy to him ; and he did not fail to have his joke with Mr. Scott about home training, when he was performing his annual task of driving him and his brother Bill in the Irish car, to meet the coach. At these races he generally acted both as starter and course clearer, and he had very little sleep during that week. " Hard necks" and " sensible heads," " great hind-quarters," and " short legs" he regarded as the constituent elements of a "regular napper," among which his lordship's Brilliant, Cannon Ball, Roland the Brave, The Rose, Pigeon, the Piebald mare, Spectre, and the grey pony ranked very high with him. There was also the hack Telegraph, which was sold and bought back some time after ; and if Godwin had loved him in life, his admiration of him rose to blood heat at last, as he broke away from the grave-side and had a gallop about the pleasure-grounds just before he was shot. Thomas Godwin. This story he generally coupled with one of Jebb, the groom, who was commissioned to bring a donkey from Heaton Park to Melton. At Chesterfield the donkey died, and either for an excuse or under a solemn belief that he was doing his duty, Jebb came on the forty miles simply to announce the lamented decease. In his heart he did not blame the lad for seeing that journey through, which he himself enjoyed so much each autumn and spring. His good nature and jocularity made him quite a popular character in the towns and village on his route. A more business- like man never kept a stable key. He gave his horses a good deal of work before his lordship rode them, and after a very hard day a few drachms of aloes, but always on their return from hunting as much warm water as they would drink. Oatmeal he detested, owing to the trouble he once had with a pony from using it too freely ; and he seldom physicked a horse without flinging him a batten of straw for him to pick over and keep himself in action with. He rode long in the stirrup, and always holding his snaffle rein shorter than his curb, and with the heel of his hunting boots not deep, but remarkably extensive ; and his mode of getting on horseback was exactly the reverse of Rarey's. When his day was over, his noble master pensioned him handsomely, and he lived in Heaton Park, in a little house near the old course.. When we saw him he was seventy-two, and he seemed to be fail- ing fast. He did not live much more than two years, and died at Melton during one of his annual visits to the old spot, whose cemetery holds the remains of this right good and faithful servant. Chapel House lies five miles from Liverpool, on the Aigburth and Garston road, about a quarter of a mile from the banks of the Mersey, which bounds it on one side. The Welsh hills tower above the woods of Hooton and Eastham, which run down nearly to the opposite shore ; steamboats go churning on their 366 Saddle and Sirloin. way, and sloops with " their top-gallants set, and their streamers unfurled," come dropping down with their heavy cargoes of coal and rock-salt from the gloomy treasure-houses of Runcorn and Warrington. The farm is almost on a dead level, and laid out in seven fields of nearly thirty acres each. It was originally a rabbit warren, and was eventually purchased by Mr. Richard Watt, the owner of Blacklock and Altisidora. "Time works wonders," and in 1857 three societies awarded Mr. Atherton a prize for the best cultivated farm. His great shorthorn sale was in the July of 1862. Three Grand Dukes made 75O/. 15^., the 7th, by the 3rd from Grand Duchess 4th, going at 320 guineas to Captain Oliver, and the 3rd at 195 guineas to his neighbour Mr. Robarts. Six Cherry Duchesses made 696^ 3^., and of these Cherry Duchess 7th (205 guineas) went to Lord Penrhyn.* Mr. Atherton's farm was tenanted for twenty years by his father (who is now at Mount Pleasant, a larger farm close by), and comprises about two hundred acres. Potatoes, wheat, and barley form the crop rotation, and the facilities for getting manure afford every inducement to farm high. There is a great market for hay and straw, and it is Mr. Atherton's general practice to sell the first crop of hay, and use the second for his stock. Speke farming has always * Mr. Atherton has both bred largely and had several shorthorns of much value through his hands. The brothers Robert and Thomas Bell, who had left Kirklevington after the great sale, came to reside in his neighbourhood, and gave him the first start with pure blood. A lot of heifers, with Marquis of Speke (13,307), and then Cherry Duke 2nd (which he got from Mr. Bolden) to serve them, brought the herd to 50 strong, and these were sold in March '58 for nearly 337. a piece. Cherry Duke 2nd headed the bulls, and was bought by Mr. George Shepherd's son, a mere boy, for 205 guineas ; he did good service at Shethin, and went thence to Rossie Priory, Inchture. Mr. Atherton's second start was with Gwynnes from Mr. Caddy, and Wild Eyes from Messrs. Barthropp and Crisp ; these were augmented by the Springfield Duchess, Cherry, and Finella purchases. Czarovitz (17,654) was bought from Knowlmere Manor. Moss Rose (which he successfully Mr. At her tori s Farm. 367 had a great character, and in the Report of the Man- chester and Liverpool Society for 1853 (the year after Mr. Atherton succeeded his father at Chapel House), his neighbour, Mr. John Cartwright, appears as the prize-taker for the best cultivated farm of not less than 150 acres, and Mr. William Ashton for that between 60 and 100 ; while Mr. James Langshaw has a prize for laying down land to grass, and Mr. Atherton for mangold wurzel, swedes, and yellow globes. Plenty of medals and money were brought home by them and Mrs. Edwards in the intervening nine years ; but '61 found both Mr. Atherton and Mr. Cartwright with prizes for laying down land to grass, and the former with a sub-soiling prize as well. A sight of the capital midden with its 600 to 700 tons of " ripe, rotten dung," speaks both to eye and nose of mangolds, with nearly 44 tons to the acre, and turnips with 42^. Kooria Mooria guano is also called in aid, and applied very freely by hand to the turnips after the potatoes are taken away. Mr. Atherton has been rather fond of the latter combination of green crops. The potatoes are planted in March in drills, and then ridged up ; in May or June a ridge of turnips is sown at the side of the drill ; and in the latter end of June the early potatoes are taken out and sold, and the turnips remain. It was for a crop grown on this exhibited) and another heifer or two came from Wetherby, and with them the Duke of Wetherby (17,753), the first-born of Duchess 77th, on hire. After a short season with him a second sale took place in '62, the 51 averaging 6jL $s. &/. Since then Mr. Atherton has never lacked a good animal. In '64 he bought Mr. Mark Stewart's two heifers of the Cherry tribe, and one of them, Southwick Cherry Flower, illustrates the i8th vol. of the Herd Book. He also bought some of the Kirklevingtons, which he has recently sold at a large profit to Mr. Pavin Davies. The American bull Lord Oxford 2nd (20,215) was pur- chased by him soon after landing in '62 ; after nearly four years use he was exchanged for Imperial Oxford (18,084), who died in a short time, and was replaced by Thirteenth Duke of Oxford (21,604) (bred at Holker), from Killow. The latter has lately been sold with some heifers to Mr. Edgar Musgrove. 368 Saddle and Sirloin. principle that Mr. Atherton won a turnip prize* for two years in succession. A ride of twenty miles, with a couple of changes, amid a network of railways which it is hopeless to unravel on paper, found us at the Pimbo-lane station, about a quarter of a mile from Mr. Dickinson's Bal- cony Farm. It lies at Upholland, about four miles west of Wigan, and it is now the property of the Mar- quis de Rothwell, of Sharpies Hall, near Bolton. The stone-mullion windows and the comfortable entrance-hall, all mark the old manor house ; and the Derby crest of the eagle and child is still decipherable on the front. In extent the farm is a mere garden of 112 acres, and in such a cold and rainy spot, that when Mr. Dickinson took to it in 1838, it had been untenanted for a whole year. There was not a road on it ; it was all undrained, and with hardly a service- able fence, and very little wood except a few " hedge- hog trees" upon wide caps with a crooked ditch, and divers rows of stumps which required clearing. The prospect was not enlivening, and the croakers were in great force when they caught the new tenant at the market ordinary. The most sanguine of them kindly gave him a year, and the majority of them six months. Most men would have thrown up the cards in despair (and no blame to them either), but Mr. Dickinson would not flinch. Fifteen years of steady, unresting diligence brought its reward, and in 1853 he was enabled to claim, at the first time of asking, the Man- chester and Liverpool Agricultural Society's prize for "the best cultivated farm between zooand 150 acres;" and again in 1861, the earliest season for making a reclaim. In the interval between the two awards, he * Several other prizes, including the Centenary one given by the Manchester and Liverpool Society, with a challenge cup of 20 guineas, for the best cultivated farm in 1867, against eleven competitors, have fallen to Mr. Atherton's lot. Mr. Dickinsons fiarm. 369 had drained no less than 2600 rods with two and two and a half-inch pipe tiles from three to five feet deep, besides carting the tiles seven miles ; and when we add, that he had stubbed up 720 yards of old fences, and drained the ditches with four-inch pipes, and planted 1030 yards of new fences, and the whole at his own expense, with the exception of the quicks and planting, we have a pretty good proof of what Saxon perseverance can do.* * It was eight or nine years before he thought of shorthorns, and when he did speculate in a bull-calf it could get no stock. The second did not fare much better, as, after keeping it six months, it died off at a day's notice. So far, so bad ; but nothing daunted, he went again to the same herd (Mr. Birchall's, of Ribbleton Hall), and returned on that occasion with Louisa and two bull calves. Louisa gained an H. C. at the Liverpool and Manchester Show, but she would not breed to Statesman, and then Mr. Birchall presented him, to make up for his previous ill-luck, with Tipton (12,228) by Brewster (7847), as a mate for her. From this lucky cross (which was the turning point of the Up- holland herd) came Tipton Slasher (13,888), Amelia (the dam of Prince of Prussia, and Duke of Holland), and the Duchess of Lancaster ; and then Louisa considered her mission accomplished. Lancashire had hitherto bounded Mr. Dickinson's journeys, but he could not resist a peep at the Fawsley sale, and returned with the ten months' Pope's Eye (15,071), by Duke of Cambridge (12,742), from Smockfrock, by Earl of Dublin (10,178). Never were 45 guineas better laid out ; and Prince of Prussia, in 1857, and Duke of Holland, in 1858, were the results of the cross with Amelia, but, as if to square matters, their own brother died in 1860, when he was four days old, and she cast an own sister to them in the following year. Mr. Dickinson began as an exhibitor at the little Upholland gather- ing ; but he got well beaten at first, and could do nothing until he sent Louisa into the ring. His first Liverpool and Manchester prize was at Warrington in 1853, when " Tipton" beat a large field for the yearling bull prize. Amelia was also a great winner both, at this Society and others in the district ; and among her fifteen prizes she could count one as " best cow or heifer in the yard," at Southport ; and that for the 11 best tenant farmers' cow or heifer" twice over at the North Lancashire. So far Mr. Dickinson has nearly 5oo/. to his credit side in prizes, and of these 7o/. (and five silver medals) were contributed by Prince of Prussia. This bull was never shown till he was a yearling, and, except when he thrice met Royal Butterfly, and one of Mr. Ambler's (once), he never missed a first prize. It was rather hard lines to have Towneley in such especial force at the time, but still a second to such a bull at the Royal, with the first animal he ever showed there, and a third in the B B 3 70 Saddle and Sirloin. But we have had enough beef for the present, and as Lytham is so near we must be off after the grey- hounds. The year of memory with modern coursers goes back principally to Mr. Nightingale's rise and steady reign at the head of coursing judges. In Craven the young fellows take to the sport by nature. Mr. Greenwood of Bank Newton, near Gargrave, was Mr. Nightingale's chief instructor, and the pupil could soon stand without holding, and judged his maiden public course, in 1831, at Mr. Legh of Lyme's. In due time his scarlet was seen at the Waterloo, and he judged there eighteen times in twenty-one years. In one of the other three, he was elected, but declined to give up the Roman Camp. During that period Speculation was a cup winner under Mr. McGeorge, and Cerito under Mr. Watson and Mr. Bennett. Mr. Nightingale's jurisdiction began with Fly, and ended with that " merry dog" King Lear. This was his last public course, and as Sunbeam ran up, he had the consolation of feeling when illness began at last to lay its iron grip on his sturdy frame, that he had " left off with two good ones." King Lear was the freshest, and led to his hare, wrenched, and turned her. Sun- beam then got in, wrenched, and killed so soon, that nothing under two more good points could have changed the shout from "Fawn!" to " Red /" There used to be sad dodging with stewards on some coursing fields, and a judge could only sit on his saddle and bear it. Stewards would wilfully shift the beating on to plough when a " dangerous stranger" had to be knocked out of time. Partisans would " steady" the hare by getting, at such a crisis, between her and a plantation or sough, so as to make the same class the next year, behind two like Skyrocket and Royal Turk, is (as the disappointed candidate always observes on the hustings) " even more than a victory." Prince of Prussia was sold after the Canterbury Royal for 200 guineas to go to Australia. Great Coursing Grounds. 371 course as long as possible. Ground, where it was almost impossible to kill a hare, has been selected for a bye ; and once, to the judge's bitter indignation, the beaters were actually ordered back a mile, that " a very dangerous stranger" might run among flints. The admirers of the " steadying" principle did once suc- ceed, as they thought, in gruelling a crack, but he warmed up wonderfully next day, and although the hare ran away from both in the decider, he got farthest up the hill at the finish and won. The Ridgway Club holds four meetings in the year one at Ridgway ; two (open) at Lytham, where the Clifton Arms is their head quarters ; and one (open) at Southport, where they hail from the Bold Arms. Lytham is seven miles from Ridgway, and separated from it by the Ribble. When the 168 Dog Stake was run for at Southport, and Rocket ran up for it as well as for the Waterloo Cup, there was no coursing at Lytham ; and Crosstown meadows, two miles south of Southport, where the stake finished, afforded some rare trials. The great, soft, grey hare, which is bred on the black earth near Marton Mere, lower down, is not so good ; but the Churchtown meadows have the advantage of the brown sea-side hares, which are driven from a strip of meadow and plough, on sandy soil, by the side of the road. Mr. Knowles lives at Lytham, and lends much life to the sport ; and so does Mr. Hardman, the owner of the manor of Gis- borne. The latter has been for thirteen years chair- man of the Ridgway Club, and is as felicitous a speaker as he is a good fisherman, shot, and courser. The stubbles are very deep, both at Lytham and Southport ; and the Lytham pastures have the advan- tage of some rare moss hares, among which "John o' Podd's," who lives at the bottom of the moss, had a mighty renown. The Ridgway Club judging is always done from a ladder eight feet high, as the ground is too soft to ride. Mr. Nightingale never could bear B B 2 372 Saddle and Sirloin. the ladder, and would maintain that he was " not a lamplighter." Jim Maple carried it after him till well into the afternoon, and finding it a case of " Love's Labour Lost," he flung it away into a ditch. Mr. Bake had it fished out and varnished, and Mr. War- wick and the present bench all go aloft. The ground, both at Lytham and Southport, is nearly all plough arid stubble, and with open dykes, like Altcar ; but it is heavier work for the dogs. A few small whin covers, and some whins by the side of the dykes, form the only cover. There are an immense number of hares, and many of the old ones are levelled off during the summer, as they are so hard upon the crops. No less than 205 were killed at one open meeting at Lytham. This was one which Mr. Nightingale has never forgotten. He had judged at Baldock, and he had to get from there to Wolverton to meet the mail train. He was at Lytham by a quarter before nine got a cup of tea, and began and decided eighty-four courses the first day. They left off five miles from Lytham, and even Mr. Blake had quitted the field. However, Mr. Nightingale walked home, and danced " into the small hours" at the Clifton Arms. Will V/arner slipped at that meeting, and Lyddesdale won. Will has grown fat and pursy now, and Tom Raper is still the star, while Metcalfe and Wilkinson have a good practice ; but Mr. Nightingale maintained that " Will was the first slipper who put the dogs in a straight line on their game." The practice is now abandoned, but Mr. Nightingale would always keep the slipper in hand and give the distance ; and on one occasion, when his " Go" was not waited for, he turned his back on the dogs, and gave it a " No go." A Waterloo slip will be from 100 to 120 yards. Raper still runs well, and delivers his dogs very smoothly and straight on the hare, and will stay any distance. His predecessor, Dick Nobblet, was a Great Coursing Grounds. 373 short, thick-set little fellow ; but still he ran fast, and in rough ground no one could lay his dogs on more scientifically. " It is a common saying," observed Mr. Nightingale, " that hares run so much better after frost, but it is not that the hares run so well after the frost, but that the greyhound generally runs worse at that time. Hares cannot bear starving in wet, and get their backs up ; and dry, windy weather suits them best. A good hare, under such circumstances, will wrench herself to hold her ground ; and a wrench does not count unless a dog is pressing her and forces her out of her track. Hares are very curious, and go by hear- ing far more than sight. I have seen a brace of grey- hounds running actually strike them out of their form, and yet they would sit down again. Shap or Knipe Scar is celebrated for its wonderful hares, and the ' Shapbeckers/ as they are called, have worn out many a good brace of dogs in a one and a-half mile race to the plantations at the top. When a ' Shap- becker' gets on a hare track, with her head for home, perhaps nothing in the world travels faster. The Shap fields are all grass, of 300 or 400 acres each, and are well fenced. There are some scars and bits of boulders, and clumps of trees and smeuses in plenty." Mr. Benn, late steward to the Earl of Lowther, was a very good courser in his day, and the owner of Eden, who ran the international match with Dusty Miller, During his great career as a judge, from which (in consequence of a spinal complaint) he re- tired with a handsome testimonial, Mr. Nightingale never had harder work than when he drove in his gig 70 miles in 7^ hours, with four changes of horses, from Harewood to Kendal after judging ; and he was in his saddle at 9 A.M. next morning, all ready for the Shap- beckers. A judge now-a-days has mail trains to help him, and Mr. Warwick finished, about 5 P.M., 3 74 Saddle and Sirloin. in Worcestershire last season, drove fourteen miles to the train, reached Stafford, changed trains, and on through the night to Carlisle, down the Newcastle railway, and then by " The Dandy," alias the horse- tram carriage to Brampton, and on the field some six miles away by ten o'clock. Six different conveyances, and sleep as you can ! Such are the labours of popular officials. 1 * There was once some beautiful running at Broughton, which has no plough, and fine undulating grass fields, of from 50 to 100 acres. The Ox Pasture, which is bounded on one side by the river Air, was the queen of them ; and Selby, Clive, Hughie Graham, and Dalton ran there. At one meeting they had twenty-one courses out of it, but that was done by drilling the beaters like soldiers. There are a few hedges, but the majority of the fences are walls. Sir Charles Tempest took great interest in the sport at one time, but an attack which was made upon his keepers by a Lancaster band of poachers disgusted him, and he ordered all the hares to be shot down. It was a very great grief to the Skipton people, but since Sir Charles died the meeting has been renewed. Harewood is bad, enclosed ground ; and Baldock, which is all grass, is something like Wiltshire, with plough farms, very few fences, and thin barley land. Cardington Great Field is shaped like a water-dish, and very little intersected with hedges. The hares are in the low parts, and the skirts always take the hill, and like the Dirleton hares, find them where you may, they are evenly good. " As a rule," according to Mr. Nightingale, " hares are more equal on corn than grass-land. They differ very much. At Eaglesham the red-legged hares were * At Ashdown there were formerly two tryers, one at the top and the other at the bottom of the hill. For Ashdown Coursinp- see " Sqott and Sebrieht." pp. 244-248. Great Coursing Grounds. 375 very large, and miracles of stoutness, and near the Three Mile House at Bendrigg, in Westmoreland, there used to be a dusky-coloured breed which screamed ten yards before the dogs a pretty strong indication of rottenness." Market Weighton has fine large enclosures, and small hedges, but flints are sadly in the way. The meadow ground at Barton-on-Humber is very good, and not unlike the Churchtown and Altcar meadows ; and the " Leger-field," as they call it, is a very grand one for racing stretches. It was here that War Eagle and Wicked Eye won the two stakes as puppies. At the Border Union they always commence the first day's coursing at Gretna Station on the Guards Farm, and almost within view of Gretna Green. It is a most central place, as three railways meet there. The beaters then go on to the Rosetrees Farm (Mrs. Gibbons'), and after that finish the day on The Bush, which is tenanted by Mr. Tom Gibbons, of Burnfoot. The second day's coursing was held last year over English Town and Cubby Hill farms, about four miles from Longtown. All the coursing about twenty years ago used to be over that ground. The old Hannah, or " the real Hannah," (as Jock Saunders once called her when she was winning at Morpeth), The Young Hannah, Tramp, and Bendigo all won or ran forward there. On the third day the meet is at Longtown Station, and they course over Sandbed, Oakbank (Mr. Tinning, the Secretary's farm), and Smalmstown, and finish up on the old Longtown racecourse or adjoining fields, all tenanted by Mr. Tom Gibbons. They never slip on the plough, but drive all the hares off it. It is one of the most economically managed clubs in the kingdom, and beats nearly all the crack clubs hollow in the small percentage for expenses. The list is filled very soon after it is published, and Mr. Tinning's balance-sheet might inflame with envy the hearts of Quilter and Ball. The draw dinner at 3 76 Saddle and Sirloin. Longtown is also a great affair with Mr. Tom Gibbons as perpetual president Mr. Wightman, the senior field steward, is a notable character on his half-Arab mare, " Fanny," and the way in which he drives a hare up a long fallow field, nearly half-a-mile in length, sometimes right in the face of a crowd, is a treat to see. Although he has been born and bred a foxhunter, being brother-in-law to Willy Routledge of The Crook (who has owned a small pack of fox- hounds for half a century), and does not care much for coursing, still he lends all the help he can, and is most capitally seconded by Mr. James Little of Guards. Mr. Nightingale considered the Altcar ground to be in most respects superior to all other ground, barring the best parts of Amesbury and Ashdown. The only drawbacks are the smeuzes for hares to run into and the open ditch system. Nothing spoils a dog so much as to lose sight of his game just as he is going to strike it. The ditches have changed the fortune of many a course ; but they are wanted to take off the waters from the levels into the larger cuts, and from thence to the engine-house, where it is pumped into the river at a higher level. The great main cut to the engine-house has never been jumped by pedestrians without a leaping-pole ; but Mr. Nightingale once threw his whip Over and did it in his riding-dress, with a pair of light buckskins and long knee-boots, without a nail in the sole. After a heavy fall of rain, such is the variable nature of the Altcar ground, that some parts are very spongy, and others firm and hard. Still, all styles of greyhounds can run over it, if they only understand how to fly a drain, from Judge at 6/lbs. to Lobelia at 43lbs. Be- sides the Waterloo Meeting, the Altcar Club generally meets there twice in the course of the season ; and Lord Sefton is as true a patron of the leash in the North, as Lord Craven and Sir Edmund Antrobus in Great Coursing Grounds. 377 the South. The best coursing at Altcar is in two or three of the meadows or marshes, commencing at Will Warner's house. The fallows, from which the hares are driven on to grass, were so full of " fur " this year, that when we were all ranged by the side of the engine meadows on the first day, more than a score cantered down almost abreast, and there were more coming. A leisure hour in the neighbourhood of Skipton found us at Chloe's home, which is about a nile from Bolton Bridge, that inn dear to tourists and newly- wedded pairs. The weather had broken the day before, and we met two of the former toiling along into Skipton under their knapsacks, grinning a most ghastly smile, and trying to look as if they enjoyed the rain. Next day the sun shone out, and the grass, as our driver observed, was " pricking up famish" everywhere in Craven from pastures which had been as brown as a coffee-berry. A field of corn in those parts is a rarity, and the one which was cut would not in ordi- nary seasons have whitened for harvest so soon by six or eight weeks. The Wharf e, which had been reduced at Wetherby pretty nearly to a mass of dry shingle, was rolling along once more past Bolton Abbey, which is about a mile or so from Chloe's home. Our driver was again most communicative : " My word, but they are rarely bucked up for the occasion" was his obser- vation on some of the lady visitors, who were prepar- ing for that walk up the woods to the Strid. On the architectural remains he was less diffuse. He certainly did notice the east window, and remarked that " Yon would take a rood of glass one time or another to kep it going " but he dwelt most upon the two greyhounds, which flank it, in memory of the young De Clifford, who perished many years since in the Strid. " They're greyhounds" he said, " but stone-^ mason's made them a vast sight more like pointers" As for their story, he referred me to the " History of Craven," which records how the poor lad tried to jump 3 78 Saddle and Sirloin. the river with a brace of them in the couples, and how one held back at the critical moment and dragged him into the torrent. He only made one addition to the text in reply to my query, whether the greyhounds were drowned. " Drowned ? he was tied to stick to them it looks like it" From the greyhounds in stone we adjourned to Chloe, and found the old lady a little greyer in the face, but still " beautiful for ever," without Madame Rachel's aid. She had then had four litters by Ca- naradzo, King Death, Reveller 2nd, Racing Hopfactor (out of whose dozen only a couple lived). Old Cheer- boys, that hero of Ashdown, a rough-looking never- say-die gentleman, was still in good force ; and there was a black puppy (Captain) by him, as well as an infant brace from Royal Seal, which were consorting with two lusty, smooth, liver-coloured pointer pups, with spotted heads and paws, and skulls and ears such as one rarely sees nowadays. Charming May is nearly as pretty as her dam, and there is the same curious dip behind the chine. Cock Robin was a handsome, muscular dog, but a little heavy-shouldered, and his running has not been so uniformly brilliant as it once promised to be. Chioe's running-weight was 561bs. ; and when she was once reduced to 54lbs., she wouldn't struggle at all. Boynton always considers that her best course was with Sapphire, at Ashdown, when she was beaten " under disadvantages" in the run up for the Oaks. She goes out occasionally on to the grouse hills behind the house, to show the young ones the way over the old Waterloo gallop. It is two miles from the Harrogate Road to Popplewell House, near Beamley Beacon, up-hill, and over all kinds of ground, with a brook and plenty of stone walls in it. The puppies learn it by a field at a time, and are tied to a gate and unloosed with a hundred yards' start of each other. They run in faith or by memory, following each other for the first mile, and after that they can Mr. Nightingale. 379 hear Boynton calling to them. Sometimes he has a live rabbit to turn down for them when they reach him ; so that they soon learn the line, and keep it. It is half over grass, half over heather, and the two miks are generally covered in about five minutes. The kennels were not more than four miles from Skibeden, and there was nothing Mr. Nightingale loved more dearly than to look out of his window and see Boynton coming across the field with his " Ash- down Volunteers." Of Chloe he always said that she was perfection, if her forelegs had not been a trifle too long. Charming May was his delight, and he he j her up to his bedside shortly before the Waterloo Cup of last year to pat her, and "give her some good advice." Illness was irksome to a man of his eminently active habits ; but we never heard him murmur. In his prime he was possessed of great muscular power, able to hold any mail-team, and even master of Chapman, when they once met at the Greyhound Inn, Shep, and had a bout at throwing half-a-hundredweight under and above arm. He used to tell how a stalwart bully once put his head into a coffee-room in the South where he was sitting, and insinuated something about his judgment of a course. " It was well," he added, " that he ran down the passage, and locked himself up in a parlour, and apologized through the keyhole, or I know I should have killed him." Skibeden was three miles from Skipton, and the hospitable welcome within made up for the cold look of the house. A neater farmer was not to be found in Yorkshire, or a better judge of bullocks. Everything was in the most rigid order" not a straw dared to be out of place." When his coursing days were ended, he still took the judge's chair at the Caledonian Hunt Meetings, and on one occasion (so we have heard) decided " by a nose." On his way back he would generally stop at Mr. Sharpe's, of Hoddom, and talk over Hughie Gra- ham and " the family fawn " with " The Laird " and 380 Saddle and Sirloin. poor Will Carfrae. He also enjoyed an outing at the Waterloo and Lytham Meetings ; but his affection of the spine and rheumatism stealthily increased uponhim, and for two or three years before his death he could not get further than to his sister's house at Skipton in his gig. He died on September 2nd, 1869, in his seventieth year, and was buried at Gisbourn, and in obedience to one of his last wishes, his coffin-lid bore the likeness of a greyhound. As a coursing judge he has never been surpassed, and the beautiful silver testimonial which was pre- sented to him on his retirement by a subscription amongst the very first coursers in England and Scot- land told that his fame was unsullied to the close. A more righteous judge never got into the saddle, but his judgments were not always appreciated. His knowledge of the science was so deep that he was apt, at times, to reckon up a dog's work very differently to mere ordinary observers, who are generally the most captious critics. The really good judges of a course knew and made allowance for his one fault viz., that if he once saw a greyhound shirk its work in any way, he never forgave it, and the transgression was apt to be remembered the next time the offender was in the slips. This was a weakness to which he was quite alive, but which he could never quite shake off; and there is no doubt that it sometimes led him into de- cisions that were perhaps hardly warranted. Still, this was a mere speck on a very brilliant career, and as a public official we see few like him in any branch of sporting. He never seemed to forget any incident of a course, and it was his delight to sit and talk them over, as if they had been run only yesterday. He always inclined to Bennett's Rocket as the fastest dog he ever judged, and he thought that Gregson's Neville ranked next in pace, with just a shade the best of Judge. He loved to tell of the King Cob stock, which Morecambe Bay. 381 always " ran so stout, and kept their backs up and their heads so well down." Sunbeam's head was his idea of perfection, and he delighted in Sam and his " beautiful style of running so true that you might ride for miles after him, and never see his nob." Waterloo was his wrencher and great " dog on plough," Barrator his " acrobat," and in fact he never went to Lytham without going to see the spot where the black " pressed his hare to a gate, and went round as if on a pivot, turned her back, and killed her in his second jump." As a killer, he considered nothing superior to Cerito " for safety and science ;" and Ladylike's and British Lion's knack of stopping on the side of a hill, along with Mocking Bird's power of throwing herself at the hare further off than any grey- hound he ever saw, never lacked a mention. He loved the sport for its own sake, and understood field management and beating to a nicety ; and he always said that, however long the day, he never lacked Mr. A. Graham as his companion when they left off* From Skibeden we skirted the many " windings of the silver coast," on the branch line towards Ulver- stone. The sea breaks under the very wall of the railway, and winds in and out among innumerable creeks, clothed with dark-coloured plantations, which slope down to the water's edge. In fact, the marine and rural scenery are so strangely blended, that at one moment there was nothing to be seen but a few seagulls out for a wade, or a stately heron standing on one leg and a green weed reef, ready to strike a fish, and at the next there would be a troop of plump pheasants feeding on a knoll. The inland side pre- sents a range of rocky fir-clad terraces, with primroses still lingering at their base ; just the spot in which a professor of geology might choose to " spend a wedded * For his portrait and analysis of Scottish crack greyhounds and coursing fields, see "Field and Fern," vol. " South." 382 Saddle and Sirloin. eternity with a greywacke woman," while occasionally up some gorge we could catch a glimpse of a distant church, or what seemed like a beacon tower. Guides and beacons have for centuries been often useless across these treacherous sands ; and " one little man, round-faced, drowned 1577," "a poor apprentice, and officer for salt," "a native of Geneva (Domenico Curatto)," and " nine in one cart," are but a tithe of those which have gone down. A walk to the top of Bigland Scaur, which looks right down upon Holker Park, gave us the most com- prehensive bird's-eye view of the pastures. The rocky platform on which we stood seemed like a sort of Arthur's Seat, amid a profusion of oaks and ashes. To our right lay Ellerside Breast, pointing over some thousand acres of peat towards the lake country, where the snow was just seen to linger upon Coniston Old Man. More in front of us was the hill of Hoad, rising above the woods of Low Frith, from whence the seaboard stretched boldly away past Ulverstone and Conishead Priory, to the headland at Peel. Ulver- stone was a fitting feature in a shorthorn landscape. Its Young Ben had a few days before defeated all comers in the aged bull class at Dublin ; and we had but to carry our mind back to an August show, to see its brace of Barons, Messrs. Torr and Sanday, adjudg- ing the ten silver challenge cups, and Mr. Unthank beckoned over the rails into the ring, to decide the moot point between Duchess 77th, her companion Moss Rose, and Mr. Eastwood's Rosette. Just beneath us, to the right of Holker Park, lay fully 130 acres of reclaimed land. The salt marsh was nearly all drained by the Duke of Devonshire to the depth of four feet, with two-inch pipes, covered with peat moss or soil, to act as a filter and keep the sand out of the drains. It has been cropped with oats, green crops, wheat, and clover in succession, and the latter yielded two heavy crops last year. A Fowler's The D^^,ke of 'Devonshire 's Herd. 383 plough was at work with four b' easts on, and taking a half-mile field at twice ; but near Louth, furnished a tribe from Moon Beam and Gold Beam. They are all G's and M's, but the G's are the best of the two. The flock consists of 1200 breeding ewes, of which 500 are pure Leicesters, kept entirely at Aylesby. No lean stock is sent to market, the whole of the lambs being fed on the farms, as well as some lean ones in addition, which are bought in the autumn to make up for losses, &c. At Riby the proportion of gimmers annually introduced into the flock is fully one-third ; but at Aylesby it is less, as fine breeding ewes are kept on to an indefinite age. In 1848 Mr. Torr succeeded the younger Philip Skipworth (whose father gave 600 guineas for a ram from Leicestershire) in the occupation of Aylesby, and bought the pure Leicestershire flock of 400 ewes for 1500?. Since then the tups used have been almost entirely hired from Burgess and Sanday ; one or two others, however, have been obtained from Buckley and Stone. All the new blood has, therefore, been obtained from the purest flocks of Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire. The letting-books of the last twenty years show how much, and how widely, Aylesby blood is appreciated. A very large number of rams have gone to Ireland, some to France, Australia, and California, and a few even to Jamaica and St. Helena ; while Mr. Torr numbers amongst his home customers residents in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and most of the English counties. After Mr. Torr's death the flock and the herd were sold by auction at Aylesby Manor in September, 1875 the ewes averaged just five guineas, and the 17 rams I7/. Js. 6d., but the herd met with an ex- traordinary sale, upwards of three thousand people were present, and the 84 head averaged 5io/. 19*. ; the flock and the herd realising together 44,395^ n j - *>d. HH 466 Saddle and Sirloin. home for the wild duck and the heron. Its inhabitants, contrary to the old belief, are not web-footed, and ague is unknown. Oats have long since lost their monopoly of the soil. The carrot yield has been thirty tons to the acre ; and wheat on warp land has touched nine quarters. Woad with its seven-inch leaves, springing from a carrot-like root, yields its triple harvest for three years, and when pulled and dried on wicker flakes is packed off to Leeds as a mordant for blues and blacks. It lays no tax on the wheat-feeding properties of the soil, and hence wheat can be taken after it for three years in succes- sion. The warrens on the wolds above Alford have been enclosed and cultivated within the last thirty years. At " Hairby Hill" thousands of rabbits were slaugh- tered yearly for the sake of their silver-grey pelts, which were forwarded to St. Petersburgh, and their carcases disposed of for 4^. to 8^. a couple at Louth, Alford, Spilsby, and Boston. Between Burgh or " Boro" (as many term it) and the sea is a portion of a tract of marsh land extending from Grimsby to Boston, which is considered the finest grazing land in England. It is truly the land of " twenty thorpes," and a tale still lingers among those parishes of a parson who resided at a distance from his cure, and was called to account by his bishop for having omitted to hold service for several Sundays. He replied to his lord- ship after this fashion, " The roads are so bad, my lord, that I defy the devil himself to get to the parish ; but when the spring sets in and the roads are passable, I promise to be there in time, and give his majesty a dusting." It was in this neighbourhood that an eccentric farmer lived, who, rather than pay the nag- horse tax, which was levied in the height of the French war, sold his nag-horses and rode regularly to Spilsby market on a saddled cow. Spilsby was the early home of Sir John Franklin, and a few miles further Tuxford and Sons Works at Boston. 467 west is Revesby Abbey, the residence (before it was rebuilt) of Sir Joseph Banks, who " stocked the park with kangaroos." The old baronet sent a lot of them to Brocklesby, where Lord Yarborough allotted them a paddock, and every comfort and convenience. In fact they were one of the lions of the place. Seventy years ago, before Mr. William Wedd Tux- ford, senior, erected his eight-sail mill in Skirbeck, no fine wheats were grown on the fens, and it was long after that time before millers ceased to send for their finer flour into the Stamford and Spalding districts. " Velvet Red " was then sown, and in due time it had a successful rival in " Red Porky," or hog-backed wheat. This humble windmill, which " all the bugle breezes " only kept at work on the average for every third day, until steam power stepped in, was the germ of the works of Tuxford and Sons. It stands still keeping watch and ward over the busy life which it called into being, and not far from it is the grey tower of Skirbeck church, which has borne many a hundred months of that " hard grey weather " which blows from the Eastern sea. The first mechanical link be- tween " the wind wheel " of the past and the finishing machine and portable engine of the present was on this wise : During a very wet summer Mr. Tuxford had been at great trouble to separate the sprouted wheat by hand, and hence his flour made lod. per stone beyond any in the Boston market. As his busi- ness increased, he had to consider how the same process could be effected in machinery, and after much thought he solved the problem of the double motion reeing sieve. He then applied to a craftsman in the town to make the castings for his machinery, but that philosopher dreaded a rival at his very doors, and refused. Even the offer to give him the Birmingham price, plus the carriage, failed to persuade him, and the first reeing machine was built without his aid. A picture of it, well worn with time, still holds the pride 468 Saddle and Sirloin, of place in the Skirbeck Works' office, and at one corner of it is the scoop with which the attendant watched the machines, and at intervals skimmed off the smut-balls, sprouted, and lighter grains which worked their way to the centre of the sieve. With a variation in the size of the wire, it has been used fo/* grass seeds, linseed, and coffee berries, and sent to Egypt for lentils. A short ride from the Boston market-place where the statue of Herbert Ingram, who knew, if ever man did, as the poet of his own county has said, " The seasons when to take Occasion by the hand," tells its sterling lesson to the lads of his own town brings us to the Skirbeck Works, which now occupy an area of six acres. An Italian ship was discharging its freight of linseed, as we skirted the Witham on our route, and then we turned inland past the site of the mother church, the old red Hussey Tower, whose flagstaff leans in its decay over the battlement, and the pasture close of the Augustine friars. A few girders and plates for the Thames Embankment are stacked ready for departure to the order of Mr. Webster, who began his rapid upward career sixteen years ago as a master builder in a small village near Boston. The Skirbeck Works may be said to date from 1841, when they furnished a portable engine and thrashing machine to the late Mr. Robert Roslin, of Algarkirk, at a time when farmers hardly dared to think of a fire in their yard. The machine was driven on a frame, with the engine after the old fashion, and was equal to thrashing-out eighty quarters of wheat a day, with seven cwt. of coals. The firm's first port- able combined machine was ordered by Mr. George Holland of Wigtoft ; and having made their ground sure on that point, they introduced their patent housed engine with vertical cylinder at Exeter in 1850. Five Tuxford and Sons Works at Boston 469 years after they were first for portable engines at Carlisle, where the fuel was diminished from 81bs. to 3 fibs, per horse per hour. Skirbeck has scattered its products far and wide. In Hungary, France, and Austria more especially, it finds its great European markets for engines and finishing machines and centrifugal pumps ; and New Zealand, Pekin, the Burra Burra Mines, Shanghai, Cuba, Australia, Peru, and California have also sent many an order. Its sawing-machines may be found in Burmah, in whose wood yards elephants are taught to pile the teak. It has sent traction-engines and trains of waggons to Calicut, on the Coromandel coast, to bring coffee down the ghauts from the plan- tations, as well as steam packing machinery for wool to the Queensland Government, and an engine to spin wire for the telegraph works at Bengal. Two fibre mills with hydraulic presses have gone out to Loanga in Africa, to squeeze the juice of the giant reeds. No ships can come within a mile of that coast, and no horse can live there by reason of the Tsetse fly. Hence the negroes had to draw the engine when it was taken off the launches, and carry the other ma- chinery in pieces on their heads. The " river horse" holds his revels among the reeds, and his flesh is cured like bacon for sale. The draftsmen were busy with pencil and com- passes in a long upper room, marking-out the line for the busy colony of ten-score workers in wood and iron below. A mysterious glass vessel filled with an oil- like fluid on one table was bearing its part as an ex- perimental model for some giant double-actioned road-rammer, fated to descend with three-ton em- phasis at each stroke. Among the wood models were water-wheels furnished with different-floats ; and we had " our first warning" of the water-wheel for Natal, whose presence haunted us go where we might. Two or three small waggons linked together stand idly on 470 Saddle and Sirloin. the shelf, now that their mission is over of settling the point of connexion between each, so as to cause the whole train to take the same course on a straight road or round curves. A traction engine with an endless railway attached is taken on its journey across the floor for our benefit ; and we also hear of an adapta- tion of the half section of an Archimedean pump to " a worm" for the transference of grain in a mill. Pigs of iron are piled in the yard below, and workmen are breaking them up for the furnaces. The cold-blast iron comes from Shropshire, and Middles- boro' and Scotland furnish the hot-blast, which is not so strong in its texture, but has come into much more general use on account of its price. Part of the Natal wheel rests under a large shed, waiting for its buckets ; and crossing over the yard, we are in the dark sand regions among the moulders, who are busy at the Thames'-side balustrades. In this shop, puddlers with brawny sinews and "auctioneers" (which election bullies have not cared to meet twice) are bending over huge casting boxes, or treading in the clay for a girder mould* as if they were working in a wine vat. Thomas Sampson, who, like Ellis Maddison, has grown grey with forty years in the service, comes forth from his nook in the wall, to tell us of the giant cranes overhead and the mysteries of " proper granulation" at furnace tap- ping. The craft is of a less gentle kind in an adjoin- ing shed, where we find some grand left-handed hitters among the quartets which gather round the anvils, or close up the rivets of the engine boilers. It is here that iron owns its remorseless conqueror in steel and man's device. A small bolt descends upon an iron sheet and punches out a hole the size of a lozenge, while another half-inch sheet, which is held up to the tender mercies of an adjacent huge instrument of torture, is cut as calmly as a bit of brown paper. "The coach house" is across the yard, and there stand upwards of forty engines ready for going out, Tuxford and Sons Works at Boston. 47 1 and some of them packed for Japan. Blue was once the body colour, but of late years the taste of custo- mers has run in favour of green. An exact counter- part of the one with two cylinders which did the best duty at Bury viz. (3 pounds 2| ounces of coal for each horse power per hour), stands in the outer room, and others are drawn up in a shed, along with sections of centrifugal pumps, which are equal to discharging from 350 to 5000 gallons per minute. Leaving the Iron King's dominions we enter those of Wood, where seven combined finishing machines are receiving their last touches, and we try to pene- trate the mysteries of the adjustable screen. Patterns of wheels hang on the wall like shields, and for the third and last time we light on our Natal-bound friend with his thirty-feet diameter. A word to a carpenter in a mysterious model gallery running along the centre of the roof, brings him down with the wood coping model, and placing it on the balustrades which are built up into form as they come in from the founders, he shows us a portion of the parapet of the Thames Embankment. All the wood is seasoned for five years, under rain and sunshine in the yard. The elm and the ash are nearly all from the fens, and have 33 per cent, more gravity in that rich clay loam than when grown on lighter soils. Revesby and Kirkstead have furnished many a stately oak, and there was a memorable purchase at Pinch- beck of three oaks growing from one stool, which fell before the wind in a night. It was some time before the bargain was closed, and then the fallen monarchs would never have seen Skirbeck, if a trac- tion engine had not been sent to drag them across the fens. THE END. INDEX. ADNEY, Mr., and Shropshire Sheep, 434. Ainslie, Jack, and Gretna Green Tactics, 45. Aldborough Shorthorns, 170. Althorp, Lord, and his Short- horns, 124. Atherton's, Mr., Shorthorns, 366. Athole, Duke of, and Mr. T. Duncan, 5. Atkinson, Mr., of Peepy, 129. Aylesby Manor, 461. Ayrshire Cattle, 10, n. BAKEWELL'S Longhorns, 141. Bates, Thomas, and his Short- horns, 146. Battersea Show, 5. Benzies, John, Mr. M'Combie's Herdsman, 12. Berwick's, Lord, Herefords, 439- Black-faced Sheep, II. Blair Athol, 258. Blencathra Pack, 107. Bolden's, Mr., Shorthorns, 384. Booth Chart, 182. Booth Family, 148, 193. Booth, Mr. John, 193. Booth, Mr. Richard, 199. Border Leicester Sheep, 136. Borton's, Mr., Leicesters, 219. Bowes, Mr., 255. Brampton Coursing Meeting, 117. Brooks, Tom, 459. Brothers Colling, 197. Bruere, Mr., of Braithwaite, 177. Buston, Mr., of Dolphinby, 91. Byrns, Jim, 52. CAMPBELL, Mr. Ivie, and Coursing, 6. Captain Shaftoe, Shorthorn Bull, 95. Carhead Pigs, 296. Carlisle Races, 57. Carlisle, Recollections of, 37. Carlisle Swifts, 58. Carriage Horses, 40. Cass, William, Wrestler, 70. Catterick Races, 191. Celebrating a Pig Victory, 295. Champion Bulls, 91. Chapman, Wm., Wrestler, 72. Cheese-Making in Cheshire, 403- Chillingham Cattle, 135. " Chips " in Wrestling, 77. Cholmley, Sir George, 242. Clayton and Shuttleworth's Works, 452. Clun Forest Sheep, 438. Coach Horses, 55. Coaching Days, 47. Coachman's Fees, 51. Coates's Herd Book, 281 I I 474 Index. Colling, Brothers, 145, 197. Corbet, Mr., 444. Coursing, 6. Coursing at Sundorne, 446. Coursing Grounds, 370. Crafty, 84. Crozier's, Mr., Hounds, 107. Culley, George and Matthew, 137. Culshaw, Joseph, 329. Cumberland Wrestling Cham- pions, 65. Curwen, Mr., Shorthorn Breeder, 87. DALEY, Mr., "the Incledon of the Turf," 59. Davies', Mr. D. R., Shorthorns, 409. Devonshire's, Duke of, Short- horns, 382. Dick, Professor, 2. Dickinson's, Mr., Farm, 368. Dog Stealing, 23. Doncaster Moor, 319. Drax Abbey, 269. Drivers, Coach, 48. Duchess and Grand Duchess Shorthorns, 387. Duncan, Mr., Clerk of Highland and Agricultural Society, 3, 5. Duncombe Park Shorthorns, 215. " Durham Ox," 145. EADE, George, Coachman, 50. Eastwood's, Mr., Shorthorns, Eccentric Sporting Characters, 173- Ellman of Glynde, I. FARHAM Church, 113. Farham Hall and its Grey- hounds, 114. Farming on the Netherby Es- tates, 33. Farnley Hall, 287. Fawcett's, Mr. James, Recollec- tions of T. Bates, 150. Fawkes', Mr., Shorthorns, 289. Felton Agricultural Show, 133. Feversham's, Lord, Herd, 215. Fifth Duke of Oxford, 217. Forster, Mr., Killhow, 80. Fox Terriers at Yarm, 156. GENERAL Chasse, 58, 320. Glasgow, Earl of, 26. Godwin, Thomas, 361. "Golden Shorthorns, The," 79. Gordon, Richard, Wrestler, 74. Gordon, Sir Charles, 3. Graham, Sir Bellingham, 441. Graham, Sir James, 32. Grant, Dr. , Master of the Teviot- dale, 16. Great Shorthorn Breeders, 145. Gretna Green, 44. Grey, John, of Dilston, 87, 121. Greyhounds, Captain Spencer's, 93- Greyhounds, Mr. Ivie Camp- bell's, 7. Gully, Mr. John, 311. Gunter's, Colonel, Shorthorns, 155, 275. Gwendale, 250. HACKNEYS in Yorkshire, 249. Hall Maxwell, Secretary of Highlsnd and Agricultural Society, 3. Harding, Mr. J., Professional Cheese- maker, 404. Harrogate, 273. Heaton Park, 359. Herdwick Sheep, 98. Hereford Cattle at Leighton Hall, 431- Hereford Cattle, Lord Berwick's, 439- Highland and Agricultural So- ciety, 3, 4. Hodgson, Mr. Tom, 317. Holderness Cattle, 142. Holker Hall Shorthorns, 382. Horses, Coach, 55. Hound Show at Redcar, 159. Hunting Casualties, 263. Index. Hunting Tragedy on the Ure, 264. JACKSON, John, 205. Jackson, Wm., Wrestler, 75. KELBOURNE, Lord, 27. Killerby and Warlaby Recollec- tions, 193. Killhow Sale of Shorthorns, 81. Knavesmire, 259. Knightley, Sir Charles, 148. Knowlmere Shorthorns, 349. " LAMPLOUGH Hawkies," 89. Leicester Sheep, 219. Leighton Hall Herefords, 431. Lincoln Flocks, 457. Longhorn Cattle, 141. Lonks Sheep, 351. Lowther, Colonel, 39. Luther, Robert, of Acton, 447. MAIL and Coach Days, 47. Management of Herdwick Sheep, 102. Manchester Racecourses, 356. Market Weighton Trotters, 248. " Martingale," 326. Marton-le-Moor, 189. Maynard, Mr. Anthony, 188. Maynard, Mr. J. C., 190. Maxwell, Hall, Secretary of Highland and Agricultural Society, 3. Meire, Samuel, and Shropshire Sheep, 434. Milner, Sir William, 262. Morecambe Bay, 381. Mountain Ride, A, 419. Mulcaster, George, 84. NAMING Horses, 30. Neasham Hall Stud, 162. Nelson, Mr., of Gates Garth, 98. Nestor, The, of Shorthorns, 165. Newcastle Races, 130. Nicholson, Tom, of Threlkeld, 67. Nightingale, Mr., 379. Nunwick Hall Shorthorns, 97. "OLD Anna," 215. Old Posting Times, 42. Otter Hounds, 21. Otter Hunting, 24. Osbaldeston, Squire, 314. Osborne, John, 183. PARKER, James, Coachman, 48. Parrington, Mr. T., 165. Peel, John, 109. Peel's, Mr., Shorthorns, 349. Penrhyn Castle, 413. Pig Breeders, 303. Pig Show at Keighley, 291. Pigs, Mr. Brown's, 85. Pigs, Mr. Wainman's, 296. Pigs, Mr. Watson's, 86. Pigs, Mr. Wiley's, 303. Politics v. Shorthorns, 125. Posting Times, 42. Prize Fighting, 311. Purity's Five Heats, 325. RACING, Earl of Glasgow, 27. Ramsden, Old Bob, 248. Reed, John, Coachman, 49. Richardson, Will of, Caldbeck, 67. SCALEBY Castle, 83. Sheep Washing in Wales, 423. Shorthorns, Blencow Herd, 92. Shorthorns, Boldero's, 384. Shorthorns, Booth's, 148, 193. Shorthorns, Bruere's, 177. Shorthorns, Early, 144. Shorthorns, Herd Book, 287. Shorthorns, Holker, 382. Shorthorns, in Vale of Eden, 90. Shorthorns, Killhow, 81. Shorthorns, Lord Althorp's,i24. Shorthorns, Mr. Curwen's, 87. Shorthorns, Mr. Peel's, 355. Shorthorns, Mr. Unthank's, 94 Shorthorns, Nunwick Hall, 97, Shorthorns, Peepy, 129, Shorthorns, S. Wiley's, 21 1. 476 Index. Shorthorns, T. Bates's, 146. Shorthorns, *' The Golden," 79. Shorthorns, Towneley, 331. Shorthorns, Wetherell's, 165. Shorthorns, W. Torr's, 462. Shropshire Sheep, 434. Sinclair, Sir John, 122. Singleton's, Mr., Shorthorns and Leicesters, 251. Sledmere, 225. Sparkler of the Hurworth, 164. Spencer's, Captain, Greyhounds, 93- Sporting Characters, 173. Stockdale Uick, 230. Sykes, Sir Tatton, 211. TEAMS, Coaching, 53. Teeswater Cattle, 143. Teviotdale Pack, 17. " The Times" Coach, 47. Thoroughbreds at Sledmere, 226. Torr's, Mr. W., Shorthorns, 463- Tortworth Sale, 155. Towneley Herd, 323. Tuxford and Sons' Works at Boston, 467. UNTHANK, Mr., 94. WAINMAN'S, Mr., Pigs, 296. Warlaby Shorthorns, 198. Warping, 271. Waterloo Cup Day, 386. Waterton, Mr., 305. Watson's, Mr., Pigs, 86. Welsh Cattle, 414. Welsh Sheep, 420. Wensleydale Sheep, 180. Wetheral, ill. Wetherby, 275. Wetherell's, Mr., Shorthorns, 165- Whitaker of Burley, 148, 287. White, Captain, 407. White, John, Gamekeeper, 13. Wiley, Samuel, 211. Wiley's, Mr., Pigs, 303. Wild Cattle of Chillingham, 135- Wrestling, 63. Wynn's, Sir Watkin, Hounds, 424. YORKSHIRE Hound Show, 283. Yorkshire Roadsters, 249. Yorkshire Show at Wetherby, 275. 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. CIRC DBT LD 21A-60m-2,'67 (H241slO)476B General Library University of California Berkeley re i63?