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' /ebster Family Library of Veterinary Medicine
t Timings School of Veterinary Medicine at
■■' :.is University
2G0 Westboro Road
North Grafton, MA 01 536

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FI^SIDENT OF TSE HieHLAITD ^AGHICUITIIRAl SOCIETY 1841,-1844

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''WIJLJL ETIGETTiE-GALE?

PUBLISHED BTROGERSOIvr & TirXEORD. MARK LAW. EXPRESS OIEICE,
246, STRAND, LONDON.
1866.

5a!

BEiicaf 3©i

TO

JAMES DOUGLAS,

OF ATHELSTANEPOED,

IN REMEMBKANCE OP THE TIME WHEX HE LED

THE "red, WHITE, AND ROAN " TO VICTORY OVER THE BORDER.

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY HIS FRIEND,

THE AUTHOR.

b (S)

P i E P a C E

©HE object and the mode of my journey have been
so fully explained in the preface to part "NortV
that I need not recount them here. It was my
original intention to have compressed the whole of
my notes into one book,, but on further consi-
deration it seemed that it would be for the interest
both of myself and my readers to make two parts^
which could be purchased separately. '^ Highlands^^
and ^^ Lowlands^^ were the natural divisions, but I
eventually decided to call them "NortV^ and
" South," and take the Frith of Forth as nearly as
possible for my line of demarcation. Without en-
tering at any length into arable matters (which Mr.
Stephens in his "Book of the Farm," and other
writers, have handled so ably), I have endeavoured,
as far as lay in my power, to make these two parts
a reflex of that Scottish country life which I enjoyed
so heartily for three successive summers. There may
be errors, but still there is not a page in either part

J5 PREFACE.

bat \vliat lias been submitted^ not to one, but often
to two or tbree men of the liigbest experience in that
particular subject. That ^' doctors will disagree" is a
truth which I have too often felt in the course of my
labours, and I can only hope that in divers difficulties
I have pinned my faith on the right ''doctor" at
last.

10, Kensington Square,
August 1, 1865.

CeiTEITS.

EH£FfSE L

Mr. Harvey's Glasgow Dairy — Tlie Easterliill Pigs — Merryton — Tht
Duke of Hamilton's Clydesdales and Ayrshires — The Prize Clydesdales
at the Highland Society — Mr. A. Graham of Capellie; his Parm,
Ventilation, and Coursing Career — Scottish Coursing Cracks and
Grounds — Barrator at Biggar — Waterloo — A Visit to the Eenfrc-\v-
shire Kennel. . . . . ' . 1 — 30

SaAFflE II,
fMMM

The Lanark Tryst — Dealings of leading Salesmen — Scenes on the ^loor
— The Dealers of Other Days — Pate of the Greenhorns— Jhe Myste-
rious Visitor — Among the Drovers — Driving and Shoeing Beasts — His-
tory of the Palkirk Trysts— The other Sheep and Cattle Pairs in
Scotland — Poreign Supplies — Linlithgowshire — Tom Rintoul — The
West Lothian Kennels— Mr. Waldron Hill and his Otter Hounds

31—64.

11 CONTENTS.

EiiiraKsii TO f Hi MMm mm.

Arrival in Edinburgh — ^Professor Dick's " Constitution Hill" — Messrs.
Girdwood's Wool Stores — Origin of the Highland Society — Its En-
couragement of Gaelic — Its Early Aims — Original Members — Its
Agricultural Education — Gradual Development — Bagpipe Contests —
Cheese, Cured ]\Ieat, and Ploughing Prizes — Resume of the princi-
pal Cattle Shows — Present Competition Rules — Agricultural Statistics
Inquiry — The Council Chamber of the Society — Pictures of Winners
The Museum — White Crop Samples . . 65 — 104

Coursing at the Roman Camp — Woolmet — Dirleton Common — The
Lothian Ram Sales — Camptown — Wood Pigeons — Stock in East
Lothian — The Grave of Phantassie — "WTiittingham — The Athelstane-
ford Herd— The East Lothian Hounds . . 105—143

ITIIEiS«ii«B ?§ CSLiSfRili.

Ride across the Lammermoors — The Highland Society's Show at Kelso
— A Sketch of it in 1833— Kelso Race-com-se — Kelso Ram Fair —
Scenes in the Sale Yard — Lord Polwarth's Sale — The Border Leices-
ters — The Yetholm Gipsies — The Earl of Wemyss's Hounds and
Hunters at Coldstream .... 144—166

CONTENTS. ni

The Hawick "Lads" — Messrs. Oliver's Auction Sales — The Hawick Ram
Sale — Dr. Grant's Otter Hounds — His Dandie Dinmonts — Robin's
Education — Sandy and Billy — Mornings with the Doctor on the
Teviot, Ale, and Jed .... 167—201

GHAFflE ?HL

umm w loss paul.

The Links of Linhope Lea — Moss Paul Inn:— The "Wisp Club and its
Objects — Scott of Priesthaagh — Old Lymecleuch — His Weighing
Match — His Opinion of an Orator's Attitude — Sheep and Shepherd
Losses — Mr. Aitchisou on Mountain Hay — Sheep INIanagement —
Davie Kyle — Yeddie Jackson — Dandie Dinmont . 202 — 213^

P^ M k •-> * *';"• '"•< \'y ^ * <i

"Will "Williamson's Early History — His Opini?)n of a few Old Sportsmen —
The Buccleuch Hounds — Opening-up the St. Mary's Loch Country —
The Buccleuch Country — "Will's Best Horses — A "Walk thi-ough the
Buccleuch Stables — Moultan, "Wyndham, Paymaster, Marottc, and
Star— The Great Marlfield day— The Moor and his Stable Conii-ades
—The Brood Mares— Will Shore and the Hounds . 214—232

IV CONTENTS.

ffiliFfll II,

A Peep at Faldonside — The Landseer Gallery at BowLill — Over Minch-
moor — The Ettrick Shepherd — Sheep in Ettrick Forest — Points of
Blackfaces — Crossing with Cheviots — Lanarkshire Breeders and Pairs
— The Clad Score — Curling Enthusiasm — A visit to Dalgig — Scotland
Yet and Canaradzo .... 233—266

Ayr — Cow Districts — Rearing, and Points of Ayrshire Cows — Colours —
Vessel — Beef — Milking — Show Dodges — Ayr Milking Prize — Bowers
Cheese-making — Dunlop and Cheddar — Mrs, Jane Dunlop — English
Pm-chasers of Ayrshires . . . 267 — 287

Eglinton Castle — The Races at Bogside — Scene of the Tom-nament —
The Foxhounds — Bowls, Rackets, and Curling in the late Lord's time
— The Ardrossan Coursing Club— Waterloo — A Peep at Picton and.
Cardinal York— A Visit to Mr. Borron's Kennel . 288—304

CONTENTS.

GHAFSll Zll

Ayr Eace-course — Kilkcrran — The Dairies of Galloway — Captain Ken-
nedy— Stranraer — Galloway Points — A Day at Meikleculloch — Ride
to Southwick — Mr. Stewart's Shorthorns — The Dumfries Pork Trade

305—332

mMWE HE.

fmwMJB mwm m mMMimm.

Tinwald Downs — The New and Old Race Courses — Mr. "Wilkin's Blood
Stock — Stable Scenes — Jamie Heughan's Discipline — Bob .Johnson's
Tumble off Saucebox — Drumlanrig Castle — The Duke of Buccleuch's
Stock at Holstane and Tibbers — Vendace at Lochmaben — The late
Mr. Andrew Johnstone — Blood Stock at Hallheaths . 333—354

The Churchyard of Old Drumgre — Lockerby Lamb Fair — Breeding in
Dumfriesshire — Sale of the Moodlaw Tups at Beattock — Ericstane —
The Shaw— Eskdale ]Muir— A Day at Moodlaw— Annals of the
Moodlaw Flock .... 355—368

VI CONTENTS,

• lieiLiW T® £HiLET©fl

From Moodlaw to Langholm — The late Sir Frederick Johnstone —
Langholm and its Bye-laws — Langholm Lodge and its Bard — Hunting
— The late Lord John Scott ; his Racing Stud — A Crack with Terrona
on Cumherland Border Sires — Terrona's Poet — Mr. John Jardine and
his Greyhounds .... 369—384

£iii©i3E fi iiiSilEfei.

"VVoodhouseleea — The late Miss Rachel BeU — Ecclefechan — A Day at
Knockhill; its Horses and Greyhounds — Hoddom Castle — Hunting
Recollections of Joe Graham — The Dumfriesshire Kennels — Blood
Royal in his Barn — Mr. Beattie and his Stake Nets — The Solway
riow — The Red Kirk Herd — From Holme Eden to Kensington

383—409

EiEiEiiies.

HIS GRACE THE LATE DUKE OF RICHMOND, K.G. • Fl'Untisi.iece

■WILL NIGHTINGALE . . . , . Vifjnette

DR. GRANT AND " SANDY" .... P^^e 184

A SCENE AT KNOCKHILL, 1864 . . . Pctrje 300

(s)

FiM nil PEil,

OR,

SCOTTISH
FLOCKS AKD HERDS.

" An i what a sweep of mountains grand,
From Goatfell, Arran's Pride,
To Northern ' Bens' and Eastern * Tops,'
And your own ' Pad' beside !"

A. Gkaham.

]Mr. Harvey's Glasgow Dairy — The Easterhill Pigs — IMerrytou — The
Duke of Hamilton's Clydesdales and Ayrshires — The Prize Clydesdales
at the Highland Society — Mr. A. Graham of Capellie ; his Farm,
Ventilation, and Coursing Career — Scottish Coursing Cracks and
Grounds — Barrator at Biggar — Waterloo — A Visit to the Renfrew-
shire Kennel.

'^ TIRED man will struggle hard to get home."

Such was the reasouing of Captain Barclay^s
father, when he began his planting at Ury as far
from the house as possible ; and some such idea pos-
sessed us_, when we made a special point of finishing
our journey North of the Erith of Forth before we

2b

2 FIELD AND FERN.

attempted tlie Lowlands. "We had done, to our
boundless joy, ■with " the deep-sea sailings" at last ;
but there was nothing we specially cared for in
Glasgow, except the monster dairy. It lies among
a frowning forest of chimneys, and was reached
through mud and mire, now over a tram-road, now
across a canal, and finally past a manufactory where
horses are boiled into glue by the score.

Mr. Harvey's byres are distinguished by different
names— '^The Parlour,'^ '^ The . Thistle," "The Hal-
low-een," ^^The Waterloo/' "The Malakhoff," and
so on. There were some 1,700 cows and queys in
all, and about 1,000 of them in milk, and feeding on
turnip, cut straw, and distilled grains. The bulls,
which stand with them, are mostly shorthorns, and
so are 800 of the milch cows ; the rest are Ayrshires,
with the exception of a few polls and recently a sprink-
ling of Dutch. They stand in long ranks tail to tail,
and the scourings fall into the gutters behind them,
which are duly flushed down. Hence each beast has
to be very accurately told off, on her arrival, into a
byre, whose stallage exactly suits her length. In
some of the byres there is only one line of cows, and
the calves are in small partitions opposite them.
About fifty of the queys are kept each j^ear, and go
as yearlings and two-j^ar-olds to Parks down the
Clyde, and the rest are dismissed as "slink veal'^ (to
adopt the term of the trade) to the butcher soon after
they are calved. Thirteen cows are allotted to each
milker, seven of whom live on the spot, and the rest

GLASGOW TO CAPELLIE. 3

arrive at milking hours from Glasgow. The dairy-
is under the Thistle emblem, and is furnished entirely
with wooden vessels. Turke^^s were picking their
dainty way round the manure tank, and casting
longing eyes at the offal in the abyss, whose contents
are discharged through pipes for miles to the thirsty
meadows, and return to the fountain-head once more
in the shape of succulent grasses.

Easterhill, the Carrhead of Scotland, is reached
from Glasgow through Bridgetown, and lies about
four miles out on the road to the Clyde Iron Works.
The owner^s tastes speak for them^selves, as you drive
up the beech and oak avenue, and see " Nelly"' and
four other sows routing in the meadow close up to
the iron railings. This has always been the Carr-
head system, and it has been the fruitful mother of
many a litter. They are mostly tenderly waited on
at Easterhill when they do come ; and we found a
woman with her fire and her bed in a small room
adjoining the piggery, and in attendance on two sows
which had just farrowed. Mr, Findlay began, about
nine years ago, with Windsors, two sows and a boar,
and got a Jonathan Brown boar from Cumberland
to cross the produce. The small breed was very
successful at local shows, and he consolidated it by
using Lord Yv'enlock^s breed with its short broad
face, pointed ear, great jowl, and fine quality, upon
his Windsors and Windsor-Browns. His large breed
had their origin in a Harrison boar and sow, and in
a short time he came second with '' Nelly^' (the dam

2 B 2

4 FIELD AND FERN.

of Sally, alias the Spotted Lady, and some other
capital sows) and "Bob" of his own breeding, in tlie
boar and sow classes at Kelso. Nelly has yielded
up her ham and bacon, and the only addition since
our visit is a boar of the large sort from Mr. Brown^s
of Kirkbampton, near Carlisle. Tlie middle breed is
a simple combination of the two others. Glasgow
Green in May (where Mr. Findlay won firsts
in the large and small classes this year) is the
great local pig show, and there the " Improved
Easterhill" pigs have done uniformly well. The
sows are generally ready to pig a fortnight after, so
as to be in nice trim for the Highland Society. Ten of
the small and large, and two of the middle breed com-
pose the Easterhill breeding sow lot ; and many
young pigs have gone to the West Indies and Ame-
rica, as well as all over Scotland, at very high prices,
from the teat.

Their owner rather enjoys "pig-racing," which, as
a country squire once said to us, " is quite as good
fun as shorthorn-racing, at one-fourth the expense.'^
The sister sport also profits, as another breeder made
it his boast "that he had three days a week hunting
out of two breeding sows.^' The best pig joke w^e
heard in Scotland was at the expense of a man in
charge. His beloved sow had won, and some by-
standers would tell him that he had no right to the
prize, as she was not so good in her girth as the se-
cond. Through good report and evil report he was
bound to support her ; and this he did most effec-

GLASGOW TO CArELLIE. " 5

tually, after a fashion : ^^ Girth, indeed'! we donH like
'em to girth oiver much doon at our place' ^ — an ex-
pression ^?hicil ran round the yard like wikl-fire-
Except when the Society was at Newcastle^ Mr.
Pindlay has never sent any pigs to the English
iloyal. He there took his stand on the small whites,
and was second with George 1st to Mr. Mangles^s
Brutus^ and third to Mr. Wainman^s Silver Branch
and Mr. Steam's Victoria 2nd, with his Lady Emily.
The latter and Silver Branch met again at Stirling,
and the Scottish Bench reversed the Royal decision.

Mr. Findlay and his brother Major Findlay breed
Clydesdales at their farm of Kenmuir, two miles
further on, from which their father sold Briton' to
the late Piince Consort, some nine years since, at
250 gs. We found there the three-year-old sire
which vv'as second to Mr. Stirling's Baronet in a good
field at Kelso, the third-prize two-year-old filly at
Stirling, and some local winners, to say nothing of
Eabula (dam of Lord of Linne), an old Knockhill
acquaintance, with her Warlock foal.

Merryton, the home-farm of Hamilton Palace, was
the next on our list, and was reached by a v/alk of
two miles from Hamilton. Except when we chanced
to be toiling along, carpet-bag on back (and intended
to stand whisky to give it a ride, and follow on *' the
cow and calf principle'^), we didn't look much at the
carts, but here we were bound to note that they were
all green, with red wheels — a fashion which extends
from Tinto to Greenock, when the red and all

FIELD AND FERN.

red begin again. The Clyde ^yinds along to our
left, and the dome of the family mausoleum, where
the late Duke sleeps, just peeps above the Palace
woods. For many years his Grace took no great in-
terest ill stock; but when the Battersea Meeting
drew nigh, and many exhibitors grew faint-hearted
a.bout the distance, he contracted a great wish to
see the Scottish ranks well filled, and Mr. Drew was
accordingly directed to get together a strong force
of Clydesdales and Ayrshires.

The task was exactly to his mind, and right well
executed, although he had only three days^ notice
before the last day of entry. Sir Walter Scott was
bcfught from Mr. David Riddell of Kilbowie. He had
won at the Highland Society's Meeting at Dumfries,
and 400 gs. was the figure. It v/as his Grace's de-
light at his pony paces and the number of times he
had him trotted up the Battersea rows after his vic-
tory, which did much towards bringing about a
proper Boyal parade at Worcester the next year.
Maggie, the second-prize brood mare, also came from
Mr. Park of Balquanharan, near Dalmuir. The
Ayrshire bull Sir Colin was bought from Mr. E.
M^Kean, and vras first; and Brockie, the second-
prize cow in-calf, and Airblaes, the first-prize cow
in-calf, were selected with some seven other cows and
heifers, two of which were highly commended, out
cf Mr. Drew's own Merryton herd. Merryton had
other collateral honours, as Colly Hill, who beat
Brockie, and had been sold out of its stalls, and Lord

GLASGOVv' TO CAPELLIE. 7

Strathmore's second and third prize cows in-calf had
also been bred there. The seven Hamilton Ctydes-
dales made np a great arraj^, and four firsts, t\YO
seconds, and a third were their spoils. This success
worked his Grace up, and made him wish for the
home-farm, and he accordingly bought all Mr.
Drew^s stock. His interest in them never faltered
to the close ; and during his last and very brief visit
to the Palace in the May of ■'63, he hardly missed
an afternoon among them."^

Sir Walter had forgotten none of his beautiful
hock action ; and Uosy, Jean, Jane, Sally, Maggy,
and a number of other fine mares, were in the stalls.
Rosy and Jean had been pitted three times against
each other vnth the same result ; but still, at the sale
Jean made 81 gs., or three guineas more, as being more
durable and with better action, while Eosy had more
size. There w^ere 150 Ayrshires, young and old, and
eighty or ninety of them in-calf. Brockie was there,
as full of quality as ever, and so was Airblaes, who is
much the bigger cow of the two. She has been first
at Maryhill since her visit to Battersea, and she re-
versed her second at Hamilton when she and the
winning cow met on Glasgow Green.

Mr. Marshall of Airblaes sold her to Mr. Drew
originally for £60, and as onQ of her calves has
made £30, and she has won £38 worth of prizes,
her purchase-money has come back with interest.

* An account of tli3 nevr farm buildings ttlII he found in Tke Scottish
Farmer, April, 186^!.

8 FIELD AND FERN.

The byre is 80 by 60 feet, and well pa^^ered with prize-
tickets. Seven of them are Coilyhiirs, and all of
those firsts; in fact_, she never was beaten but once,
and then almost immediately after calving. No
butter or cheese is made here, but the cream goes to
Glasgow with sweet and skim milk. The calves, of
which his Grace rears 30 or 40 and seldom sells bulls,
are always brought up with sweet milk for two or
three months ; they then get on to oilcake and grass,
and gradually to cut hay, steamed turnips, boiled
barley, and barley-meal twice a day.

At one time the late Duke used to breed West
Highlanders at Arran, but Mr. Allan Pollok so
invariably beat him at the Highland Society that
he did not persevere. His Grace began again in the
heat of the Breadalbane sale, and bought four or
five lots. They went, like the rest of his stock, to
Kelso, in order that the wish of his life — never to see
the West Highland, Ayrshire, or Clydesdale ranks
bare at the Highland Society — might be fulfilled in
his death, and were sold on the ground to his
Breadalbane opponent, the late Duke of iVthole.

We are quite in the county of Clydesdales here,
but still there is no great stud of them, and some of
the best have been bred by farmers keeping four or
five work mares. The Clydesdale is well suited for
the cold climate, and except for breeding milk ponies,
the thorough-bred horse is very little used to cross
them. Judging from the Barrhead Society prize-
list, there is a distinction even in this class of dairy

GLASGOW TO CAPELLIE. 9

labour. The prize drawer of the butter-milk cart is
to be a " horse not above fifteen hands, *^ and of the
sweet-milk ditto a ^' pony not above fourteen-two/^
Many farmers fancy that Clydesdales are getting too
lofty, but breeders will keep the high prices of
the lorry market in their eye. For this business the
buyers never look at anything under sixteen-two and
17 cwt., and they must have capital feet, "good
either for frost or fresh." liarge ears, a fiddle-case
rather than a Eoman or ''^Cheshire Cheese" head,
a good eye, broad flat legs, nicely feathered like a set-
ter's, straight-away equal action, and a good mottled
bay or brown are all very cardinal points."^

The Giasgovf meetings in 1826 and 1828 were the
first at which the Highland Society ofi'ered Clydes-
dale prizes, and since then they have gone on steadily.
With the excention of one vear, tlie entries have of
course always been best in the Glasgow district, and
rose there in 1857 to 21^0. There were sixteen rare
mares at Perth in ^29, when a black oue of Mr.
Adarn Curror's, and bought from "Sammel Graham,"
won; and the Kingcausie people, who were very con-
fident with one of their greys, had to take the second
card. Mr. Fram of Bromfield, on the old road
from Edinburgh to Ayr, was soon well known
among Clydesdale men v>'ith his Glancer, who was
never beaten till he was twelve. The scene of his

* All the learning on the subject of Clydesdales is collected in the pam-
phlet published a few years aero by Mr. Charles Stevenson, editor of the
" North British Agriculturist,"' in reply to tao queries on the subject which
Avere sent to him from France.

10 JFIELD AND TERN.

downfall was at Haddington^ when he met Mr.
Steedman of BoghalFs Lofty. They were led by two
brothers, and Glancer^s arrival -was so unexpected
that when Lofty^s man heard of it, he soared into
the indignant latitudes, locked up his stable and
would not show his horse to his brother, and would
not in fact speak to him for years. At Aberdeen in
^34 the Clydesdale men had no high opinion of some
Lincolnshire horses which had been brought into the
neighbourhood, and thought them soft and greasy-
legged, and not likely to stand the climate; and in
the following year, the damp climate of Ayrshire was
given as the reason why the Ayrshire horses, old and
young, had bog-spavins and thorough-pins. The
judges were divided over the first-prize horse, and
the decision was so much canvassed that when one
of them who was in the minority gave effect to
his dissent at the dinner, and quoted one of his col-
leagues in confirmation, he was received with '^ loud
and long-continued cheering.^^

The greys were in the ascendant at Dumfries in
'37 ; bat there was a good struggle between the win-
ning one and Mr. Steedman^s black Champion, for
which Professor Dick stood out manfully. The grej^
mare had The Peacock at her foot, perhaps the
largest foal ever seen in Scotland, and the sire of a
very capital stock, many of them greys, in his time.
Champion beat everything quite easily at Glasgow
the next year ; and no one was more delighted than
the Professor, as three or four times he had hobbled

GLASGOW TO CAPELLIE. 11

liim^ and then begged him off. His owner was sorely
anxious to see the judging, but the rules did not
allow of more than one attendant. Accordingly he
bluffed his black, and took hold of one side of his
head, while his groom took the other, and, by met-
tling him up a bit, persuaded the policemen ti:at he
had such a savage in charge that they fell back in
mortal terror. When he was once in his stall the
bandage Avas still left on, and " BoghalP^ slipped
down the ranks and ^' got a pig to wait on.^^ With
such advantages he obtained as extensive and as accu-
rate an insight into the judges^ proceedings as he did
into Parisian life and customs, when he crossed the
Channel in 1856 as charge d'affaires of the Scottish
stock under Mr. Hall Maxwell. At the right moment
he signalled the man to take off the bandage, and out
came the Champion, stepping like a pony, and well
might the Marquis of Tweeddale say *' He wins in a
canter/^

The Show at Aberdeen in ^40 confirmed the an-
ticipations of six years before, that there Y»^ould hardly
be a good horse, and they were well tried on the
granite. In ^44 the show was again at Glasgow, not
in the cattle market, but on The Green. This was
the year of Loudon Tarn, a very Blair Athol among
Clydesdales, with his beautiful bone and silky hair.
There was also a very good four-year-old mare, but
not equal to Mr. Frames mare in ^48. It is well
known that their coats are washed with butter-milk
till they look all glazed and painted ; but this mare

12 FIELD AND FERN.

had been, it was said, in the fullest enjoyment of two
cows' milk for two months before. Cumberland fur-
nished her grey Merry Tom to the Glasgow show of
^50, and the oldest judges agreed that they had never
seen a better for his age. Clyde, v/ho was not
then Mr. Stirling's, won as a three-year-old, and four
very rare ones headed the old class. But for knuck-
ling over slightly, a Fife horse would have got it, and
even the one which was placed third was sold for
£350; but the amount of the luckpenny — sometimes
an enormous per-centage — did not transpire. An acci-
dent in his stable which prevented his shovring so well
destroyed Clyde's chance against a " gay cocky little
horse'^ of Sam Clark's of Kilbarchan in '52 at Perth,
where Merry Tom was cast. He won at Glasgow
soon after, and a newspaper controversy raged as to the
Perth ^Svhy and wherefore." The judges were not men
to flinch when they had given an opinion; but
neither of them, although they corresponded on the
point, could remember why he was put aside. One
of them had " lost sight of him for two years ;" but,
as "Boghall" happened to sit at dinner the day
before the show at Bertvick-upon-Tweed, the grey
went past, and though he only saw him through
the wire blinds, he put down his knife and fork,
and exclaimed, without any preface, to the astonish-
ment of a crowded coffee-room : '' I see Ids fault
now ; his thighs are too light.'' Clyde was against
him that year ; but though the bay was rather lame,
Mr. Gibson would not give him up, as he consi-

GLASGOV/ TO CAPELLIE. 13

dered him a far truer type of a ('lydesdale than
the grey.

It was grey again at Inverness in ^56^ when 'Mr.
Wilson showed Comet, and brought him to the
show, not sheeted and by easy Avalking stages, but at
a good swinging trot in his dog-cart iovty miles from
Durne. Since then he has won the gold cup three
years in succession at Aberdeen, where in ^58 an
'^oversman^^ was called in to decide betv/een Black Lea'
and a grey. The bay was quite one of the Loudon
Tam stamp, and no one could crab him, ex-
cept to say that '^ his leg^s painied.^' Next year Mr.
Steedman offered £400 for him, and he finally went
to Melbourne, it vras said, for another .€100. The
leaders both of the young and old ranks were re-
markable at Dumfries in '60. Sir Walter Scott and
his second exactly foreshadowed their Battersea
places ; and most of the younger horses left the
country at about €300. At Battersea the young
horses were bad, and the mares, of which four out of
the first five were Mr. Stirling's of Kcir, a remarkable
lot. It was quite a Hamilton Palace year at Stir-
ling, as the stud won three firsts, two seconds, and a
third, against a strong competition ; and the very
clever first-prize mare in-foal had the first Sir Walter
Scott of his Grace^s breeding by her side. Still,
Stirling, where Mr. Kcir^s Peggy was such a bay
belle, had the best show of Clydesdale mares ever
seen in Scotland; and "'Boghall,'^ who is quite the
walking Peerage of the breed, was so smitten that he

14 FIELD AND FERN.

bouglit a dozen mares and stallions at all prices from
<£40 to £200 on the spot, for England and the Con-
tinent. Among the four or five greatest breeders of
Clydesdales are Mr. Samuel Clark of Manswrae,
Kilbarchan, and Mr. Peter Crauford of Dumgoyack,
Strathblane. The latter had Black Leg, and sold him
at £500, the greatest price that was ever given for a
Clydesdale stallion in Scotland.

From Glasgow we started for Capellie near Barr-
head, to see Mr. A. Graham. We had a long climb
after " The Emperor of Coursers" over the Eereneze
range, and found him at last with Curds and Cream,
Analough, and General Bragg in the sheets, and the
smooth Editor and the rough Tassan in the slips.
Both of them strain back to Gilbettfield, who,
though rough himself, generally begot them smooth.
His own brindle was so peculiar, that, according to
the shade imparted to it by his condition, the judge,
on deciding for him, shouted "Brindle !" or "Blue /"
or " Grey /'^ It is now forty years since Mr. A. Gra-
ham began public coursing, and tv»^enty-seven since
he became the annual chairman at the Waterloo
dinner. Earming has made him indifPerent to
greyhound breeding and training, but not to the
business of the field. He is still there, as Mr.
Nightingale was wont to say of him in old days,
" with his eyes always open to make the most of the
game, and never wanting at the finish, so that I had
always some one to ride home Avith."

We kept beating away over Capellie heights, with

GLASGOW TO CAPELLIE. 15

that glorious prospect of the Scottish hills in the dis-
tance^ and the clear-bottomed surface drains at our
feet. These are made with a plough constructed for
the purpose, eighteen feet apart and five to ten inches
in depth. A man with two horses can drain five
acres a day ; and the muirland bite has been im-
proved not a little for the blackfaced ewes, which are
crossed with Leicesters for early Glasgow lamb.
Along the middle of the sheep-walk is an excellent
rifle range of twelve hundred yards ; and the sheep-
walk itself is a great rural amphitheatre, where the
West of Scotland sham-fight took place in '64, with
8,000 volunteers, in the valley, nearly 50,000
spectators on Capellie top and Killoch height, and
the '' Field Marshal of the Waterloo" in the double
character of a Major of a Battalion and Lord of the
Manor.

He is at pretty constant drill, both with rifle,
tongue, and pen. As "A Public Courser," he first
gave life and nerves to the dry bones of coursing
literature. " Sic itiir ad asira,'' said a rapturous
lover of long-tails, when he read the beautiful scenery
and character setting of his Cup victory in The Life ;
and in one sense the writer has now glided into '' the
milky-way," as he follows up sport with practice, as
^^A Renfrewshire Dairyman.''^ Be it as chairman or
lecturer, there is always the same eloquent flow and
dainty choice of language, which might go from
his lips to the press without altering a Vv^ord, com-
bined with the power of staying any distance, on any

16 PIELD AND FERN.

subject^ at any hour of tlie day or night. As Captain
Heys saidj in proposing his health as chairman of
the Barrhead Agricultural Society, " whenever any
of the good boys of Barrhead attempted to enter the
ring, he had the happy tact of appealing to the
feelings of the model little man, v;ho lied before the
Major could finish his address."

Much of the Capellie farm is from 600 to 700
feet above the sea-level, and many shook their
heads when Mr. A. Graham took to it. The green -
crop land is dressed, before it is drilled, with hot liiiic
mixed with kelp-salt, or common salt, which has been
found to be very efficacious against finger and toe,
as well as grubs, worms, and, as a matter of course,
moles. With this view, as well as to give strength
to the straw, the land sown v/ith cereals is dressed
with salt at the rate of 4 cwt. per acre ; and he
informs us that he has every reason to be satisfied with
the result, both in his corn, root, and grass crops.

The little farm steading, with its water-wheel
which is painted mail-coach colour and its ventilation
processes, has made many an agriculturist observe
that ^' Mr. Graham is all air and water.^' The stables
and cow houses are effectually ventilated, and abun-
dance of water is Laid on for drink, and for cleansing
within the byres, where a large number of Ayr-
shires contribute their quota, morning and evening,
to the voracious Glasgow milk-cans.

The very hay- slides are so managed as to pre-
vent the stable being cold or warm just as

GLASGOW TO CAPELLIE. !7

the rack is empty or full; and the ventilators are
remarkably simple. Every three yards along the
ridge the roof is cut out. and one of them is in-^
serted^ rising two feet in the air with openings on the
two opposite sides, protected from rain and snow by
boards which overhang at an angle of 45 degrees.
It is divided in the middle within by a thin board
which descends six inches lower than the line of the
ridge, and a horizontal board is fixed three inches
below like a tray, to spread the descending air, and
intercept it from falling directly on the cattle. Ac-
cording to the direction from which it blows, the
wind enters at one side or the other, strikes the in-
ternal dividing-board, and descends, thus supplying
fresh air, and pressing — one might say pumping — the
used or heated air np the other or sheltered side
of the dividing-board into the outer air. Mr. A.
Graham considers it most efiicacious against smells or
draughts, or, as he puts it in his terse way, "no cough
heard in the stable, no pleuro-pneumonia seen in the
byre.^^ The thrashing of cereals, the cutting of hay
and straw, and the sawing of wood, are all done by
water power, which is supplied by a long canal acrosti
a hill-side, fed by the drainage of some hundreds of
acres. His irrigated meadows yield from three to
five tons of hay per acre to one cutting ; and when
not cut a second time, they are pastured without in-
jury, as the land has been thoroughly drained, and
is perfectly firm.

Amid all his improvements and experiments at

2 c

18 FIELD AND FERN.

Capellie^ the love of the leasli will peep out. There
is an open heart in the centre of the book-case in
his farm-office, and of course a greyhound, and not a
ventilator, is embossed on it. He wears greyhound
(rough or smooth we conclude, as they come) skins in
the shape of waistcoats; and at Fereneze House, where
he has latterly resided with his elder brother John,
the old white horse, on which for well nigh twenty
years he led the coursing-field, is buried under a
sycamore. He was by Caleb Quotem, fifteen hands
sharp, and not a very pleasant one to ride till he was
seven or eight years old. A statue of the greyhound
Oscar, from which envious Time has stolen the tail
(which was turned round, and carried high in life), is
over the front-door. It is the work of Greenshields,
the self-taught sculptor, not from measurement, but
simply from looking at the animal of v/hich it is a
perfect image. Mr. A. Graham took Oscar over
himself to that little, quiet cottage by the side of the
Clyde, and let him play about while " the fine hale
mason, with a countenance like a book,^^ noted every
attitude, and then *^'fixed^^ him in stone from the
self-same rock from which he had hewn the stone for
his Sir Walter Scott.

Oscar always went from a loose slip, and used to roll
his tongue strangely from side to side, while the beaters
were looking for a hare. " Studying Oscar,^' said a
great judge, '^^is studying coursing.^^ He placed
himself right in his harems line, and realized the old
saying that ^^a cunning. dog will throw you over, but

GLASGOW TO CAPELLIE. 19

that it takes some sense to win a great cup/^ Thus
Mr. Nightingale was wont to say of Ladylike that she
"had just sense enough not to be cunning; if the
hare went down hill_, she would follow her just far
enough,, and not too far, so as to stop herself ; but if
she did miscalculate, she went like a shot/'' Mr. A.
Graham^s British Lion had this faculty to a nicety,
as he would stop in two yards on the side of a hill.
He and Greenwich Time were both Fereneze cracks,
but British Lion was the best of them all. He was,
according to Mr. Nightingale, " a dog who would
run every day, and with a constitution against the
world — fine smooth action : even his failings were
respectable ; and if he was beaten, he ran well and
worked hard. Still, as a killer there was nothing
like Cerito for safety and science. Her measure was
perfection. She would never make a flying kill, but
draw herself back and be ready for the turns, and
kill them just on the bend or the broadside. Mocking
Bird threw herself at her hare farther off than any
greyhound I ever saw. Biotas was a very straight
and steady style. Both she and Wicked Eye were
wonderfully full of pluck; but, like Judge, they
would throw out a wild turn now and then.^^

Mr. A. Graham has several greyhound pictures.
There hang on his walls (althoagh.the greater part
of them and the coursing cups are at Limekilns), the
companions of many a proud and happy day — Gil-
bertfield and Black-eyed Susan (the sire and the dam
of Goth and Vandal), and Oh Yes ! Oh Yes ! !

2 c 2

20 FIELD AND FERN.

O Yes ! ! ! with his brother Cacciatore^ who ran
up with Empress for the Caledonian Cup. It was a
very memorable cup, from the fact that the winner
and Lord Douglases black dog Kent were so ex-
hausted in one of the ties that they were obliged to
lie down ; but there were not nearly so many dogs
as in Camarine^s year, when more than a hundred
w^ere in it, and it took above a week to run it off.
Screw was another of Mr. A. Graham^s early cham-
pions, and he put the screw on with her to some pur-
pose, as she won the Altcar Purse in England one
week, the Caledonian Cup in Scotland the next, and
the Prince Albert Stakes in the South of Ireland,
the one after that, long before there Y*^as easy trans-
port by railway.

Mr. A. Graham began as a young man at Dirleton
and Danskine, East Lothian, and then extended his
circuit to the Lanarkshire, Henfrew^hire, and Ayr-
shire Clubs. Sandy Robinson, so well known in
every coursing field by his enormous hat, quite a
covering from the heat by day and the dews by night,
was his trainer at first ; and when his trainer days
were over, he followed the meetings witli a violin. As
a walker Sandy had few peers in his prime, and he
thought nothing of the 87 miles to Danskine and
home again with his dogs. After some days' rest, he
would go to Dirleton, which was nearly the same dis-
tance.

The dogs were collected, each from the farmhouse
where it was reared, and these walks were almost

GLASGOW TO CAPELLIE. 21

the only artificial training they got.* Gilbertfield
or 'Hhe clog with the rough beard/^ was still the one
to which, in coursing phrase, !Mr. A. Graham always
"belonged'^; and it was on his great rival Major
that he wrote the epitaph, at Lord Eglinton^s re-
quest, ^' Major quo non Mrjor.'' They ran in the
same thirteen public prizes, and each of them
won six. Gilbertfield was a very fast turner
going down-hill, and, as is the manner of rough-
haired dogs, closed with his hare at the fences. His
son Stewartfield was a finer dog to look at, and rough
like himself, and he never had an opponent more
worthy of him than Mr. Geddes^s " Go," who made
with Glory, one rough and the other smooth, the
fastest dog and bitch brace in any Scottish kennel.
Their owner was as good a courser as he was a shot.
He always wore a shawl handkerchief, vvhite bird^s-
eye on a green ground, and walked all day wet-shod
with a pair of low thin shoes.

To a Lowlander the spots where great coursing
cups have been run off are invested with as deep a

* " Sandy was in the Graham family at Limekilns-House, in Lanarkshii-e
for the last sixty years of his life, teaching boy afier boy of them to fishj shoot,
and ciu-1 — a model of uni^ladgred temperance, tea his beverage and a CremonA
his evening companion. In Scotch reel-playing he handled his bow after the
manner of his instructor, Neil Gow, so as to enchant the late Duke of Hamil-
ton, then Marquis of Douglas, who was the best reel-dancer of the North, and
at whose request it was that the old man's figiu'e and broad-brim were im-
mortalized in the Caledonian Coursing Picture. A great hiimorLst, full of
anecdote, and an utterer of no end of shrewd sayings or maxims — such as,
"Maister Alexander, whatever you lose in the dancing be sui-e to make up in
the turnm' aboot" — he would have been worth thousands to the Great Un-
kno^vn as the backbone of a novel. And then the world would have been
fascinated with descriptions of coursing such as the graphic one of fox-
hunting by Dr. Chalmers in his sermon on " Cruelty to Animals," wherein he
defended the sporting spuit of "the assembled cliivalry of half a county."
— A.G.

22 FIELD AND FERN.

significance as Doncaster Moor or Ascot Heath to
an Englishman. The watch-towers yet stand on
the hill from which Sir John Maxwell of Pollok
used to watch the coursing, and enjoy the sport, all
the more if "half Glasgow" shared it. Once he
was ready mounted on Ambush, with his gamekeeper,
slipper, beaters, and his own stud of greyhounds be-
hind him to receive all comers at 12 ; and wherever
the fixture was to be, the hares had been carefully
netted out of the adjoining covers. Neil Cairnie
was there on his sheltie, enthusiastic about " Susan" f
James Crum on foot, with his constant friend " The
Dock," in chronic raptures about Charles James Fox ;
and so was the indefatigable quaker, who took charge
of the cards on prize days, and Avas sure to have them
headed, " He ivlio runs may readJ' Never was there
such patronage of coursing. But the old baronet is
dead and gone, and no greyhound now twists and
twines over those fine old pastures, except when Mr.
A. Graham and a few others wake the old echoes
with the So Ho ! and the Halloo ! Then there is
Ardrossan, with its nice ten to twenty acre en-
closures. Biggar has a great variety of ground,
much of it near Abington rough and chancy, and
some very good, generally sloping sheep pasture
deep in autumn, and with a Black Hill as great a
choke jade as the Newmarket rise from the dip in
the Two Thousand or the Beacon Hill at Ames-
bury. The old Biggar Club runs there no longer, but
was merged with the Caledonian Club into the

GLASGOVr TO CAPELLIE. 23

Scottish National^ when the C. C. lost the Pettir-
nane ground near Carstairs junction, which was
leased from Sir Wyndham Anstruther, and was
then one of the best coursing places in Scotland^
It furnished many a good trial from the mea-
dows by the side of the Clyde, up-hill to cover, but
now it is intersected with wire fences, and no longer
available. Carnwath, the property of Sir Norman
Lockhart, is a combination of lowland and muirland,
and well adapted for testing the merits of the long-
tails.

The Scottish National Club flourishes under the
management of its honorary secretary, Mr. Blan-
shard, and is limited to sixty members. It has the
j)rivilege of coursing over the extensive Douglas
estates, &c., of the Earl of Home in Lanarkshire,
which combine all sorts of ground, including Pepper
Knowes, always so celebrated for its stout, racing
hares. The iron fences are so constructed as to be
hooked up during the coursing, and the tenants vie
with his lordship in giving the Club a welcome, at
their three meetings in October, December, and
March. The last-named is the grand wind-up or
open champion meeting of England and Scotland^
at which old Kebe won the cup this year.

Carnwath has many spring and autumn me-
mories of the Duke of Hamilton's Drift and
Driver, and (although Arran was painted in as the
background) the Great Caledonian Picture meeting,
for which Mr. A. Graham acted as honorarv secre-

24 FIELD AND FERX.

tary^ was held there. It was open to one hundred
and twenty-eight dogs named by any member of a
coursing club in the United Kingdom. They were
;first classed in eight sixteen-dog stakes^ each of
■which was named after a celebrated painter. The
Snyders Stake and the Landseer Stake had each
two representatives among the last four. In the
former the struggle was between two black dogs, the
Marquis of Douglases Drift and Mr. Wardlaw Ram-
say's Rector, and in the latter, between Mr. Gib-
son^s Violet and Mr. G. Poliok's Hawthorn ; and
then the blue Violet, " the small, the pretty, the
strong," who was bred by Mr. Adam Carror, beat
Drift in the decider. Nothing was thought of Violet
at first, and till she had beaten two English dogs
handsomely, Mr. Nightingale " never noticed her
much." Mr. Gibson bought the renowned Sam spe-
cially for her, but she died in pupping. " Muirland
Meg," the Chief Justice adds, " fell on some grass,
when she had quite the pace of Drift in the Boat
Hoime."

In connexion with Abington, Mr. Nightingale has
always a good word for Mr. Patterson^s Susan White-
head, when she won the Puppy Stakes against Bold
Enterprise ; and it was also the scene of one of the
finest courses between Barrator and Ladylike, who
afterwards divided the stake. Still, Barrator's se-
verest Scottish course was run with one of Toll
"Wife's pups, at Crawfurd John, close to the village,
through fold-yards and over wails, through gateways.

GLASGOVtT TO CAPELLIE. 25

across the road and up the road, and finally tip the
hill over some very deep ground. ^^It was just the
one for him, as he was the cleverest dog in England.^^
Omniscience was his forte, and his owner, a veteri-
nary surgeon at Selby, knew how to foster it. In
fact, he trained him by taking a second-class ticket,
and making him follow the train. A more serious-
looking dog was never whelped, and with head
enough for a litter. He would play at leap-frog
with his owner, walk in a field Avith hares on every
side and not look at one, raid stop at a word if he
was running a course. He would lie on a dinner-
table, and ask for nothing, and he would have wor-
ried a man out of hand if he got the office. In fact,
'' Barrator at Biggar'^ was quite a character, and be-
tween the courses, if he was not distressed, he might
be generally seen with a ring round him going
through his various performances. He did a very
clever thing at Lytham, so clever, in fact, that Mr.
Nightingale always goes to look at the place for his
sake. He pressed his hare to a gate, jumped over
her, and went round as if on a pivot, turned her
back, and killed her in his second jump. It was
done so instantaneously that the dog seemed to throw
a back somersault in the air, and he had her before
the other dog reached the gate.

The great Eden and Dusty Miller match for 250
sovs. aside, the best of three, quite agitated the Glas-
gow Stock Exchange on the day it was run off near
Eeattock. It arose out of Gilbertfield defeating

26 FIELD AND FERN,

Eden for the Eaglesham Gold Cup^[and as Mr. A.
Graham would not accept the challenge,, Mr. Geddes
took it up with Dusty Miller ; and Mr. Nightingale,
who first judged at Lyme in the November of ^32,
made his Scottish debut in the scarlet that day.
Eden the black dog was the fastest of the two, and
led in the first course till they crossed the Great
Northern Road ; but he was out of form, and Dusty
Miller did all the work when they reached the hill,
and won still farther the next time.

Cambuslang has some very severe ground near
Gilbertfield on the slope of Dechmount Hill, half
way between Glasgow and Hamilton. It is famed
for its big and good hares, but they are hardly equal
to those at Eaglesham, which in point of antiquity
is quite the Ashdown of the West. It has a great
variety of ground and plenty of hill, and the big,
red-legged hares, whieh have a long way to travel for
food, played havoc with Waterloo, who was always a
bad killer. It was here that he won his match with
Young Carron, who led him over the grass. Then came
a bit of stiff plough, which was the yellow-and-white^s
great forte ; and Mr. Geddes, who made the match
for Young Carron, threw up his hands, and said,
" It's all over noio /" The conqueror had a terrible
course here, with the Marquis of Douglases Driver,
up and down one large field, Mr. Nightingale sitting
on his horse in the centre. Driver was fairly beaten,
and too glad to be picked up ; and Waterloo just
stumbled into the next field, and lay down. It was

GLASGOW TO CAPELLIE. 27

in the fourtli ties, and Waterloo was drawn, and lie
never fairly got over it. The crowd stood just like a
pillar of stone where the hare wanted to come, and
no persuasion could get them back. Seeing Water-
loo do his work right under their noses was a thing
which the Caledonians, however right-minded gene-
rally on these matters, could not forego.

INIalleny ]Moor, sis miles from Edinburgh on the
Lanark road, was another great Scottish meet.
Many of the courses were run off on the arable, and
the hares vv^ere driven for it out of the field at the back
of the Kirk of Curry. The severe hill behind the
farm of Kinleath was what the coursers most dreaded,
and it was accordingly a great thing to be drawn
low dov/n on the card. If the hare raced across the
fiat and put her head for the hill, it was death to the
dogs, as when they did reach the top they were pretty
certain to divide on a fresh hare in the whins. It
was here that Neville won a great hundred-dog stake,
and Leven Water ran up. '^Neville," says Mr.
Nightingale, " was very smooth and fast, and opened
the pace from t]ie slips, and, for a big dog, a good
worker. Bennett^s Rocket was the fastest I ever
saw ; J udge, who had magnificent forelegs, and
Neville next, but perhaps Neville was the fastest of
the two." Jamie Forrest also won a stake of equal
amount over The Moor, and he too was " a rare dog,
and the best of his day.^^

But a truce to old leash times. We slipped
down from Fereneze past Paisley, which alone keeps

28 FIELD AND FERN.

up the custom of racing for '^The Silver Bells/^ to
have an afternoon with John Squires at the Lanark-
shire and Eenfrewshire Kennels_, which are three
miles from the Houston station on the Greenock rail-
way. The country is very open and nearly all grass
and moor, intersected with stone walls about five feet
high. Bogs are especially plentiful round Duchal,
but Squires has "kept pretty well out of them so
far.'^ There are a few good gorses, and five or six
have been planted, one of them at Fereneze, but the
covers are generally small and thin for plantations,
and foxes do not dwell a minute after the hounds
are in. The cub-hunting is generally done in the
great Lanarkshire glens about the Duke of Hamil-
ton's, where rocks and trees and underwood abound.
A large burn runs at the bottom of each, and it is
often asmuch as the hounds can doto hear one another,
besides which they frequently fall over the cliffs and get
terribly lamed. The foxes lay up their cubs in rocks or
old coal and limestone mines, and therefore a find is
often very doubtful, and earth-stopping a very heavy
item in the accounts. Every meeting involves eight
or nine stops, and Houston still more. In his first
season of 1862-63, Squires had seventeen blank days,
hunting twice a week, but last season there were only
two days without a challenge. " Weeping skies" are
the rule ; and he told us, in quite a martyred tone, that
during his first eight weeks he had only two dry days.
It is also a hilly, heavy country, and " horses up to
their hocks and knees the greater part of their time."

GLASGOW TO CAPELLIE. 2^

Colonel Buchanan lias been the master for fifteen
seasons, and succeeded Mr. Merry, who in his turn
succeeded Lord Glasgow. There are from fifty to
sixty in the field generally^ and nearly half of them in
pink, and some very hard riders amongst them.
Saturday is the great day on the Caldwell and Loeh-
winnocli side of the county, as it is within reach of
the Eglinton Hunt men, and the Glasgow men are
at leisure.

The greatest difficulty that a huntsman has to con-
tend with are the bogs and the roe deer. The hounds
enjoy the scent so much that they will change from
fox and go off for a mile or two, and the bogs
make it very difiicult riding to head them. Old
hounds are nearly as bad as the one-season hounds
under this temptation, but they are more easily
stopped. Left to themselves they would cut up a
roe deer in about twenty minutes. There were about
31t^ couple of hounds in kennel, principally drafts
from the South Oxfordshire, the Pytchley, and the
Cheshire. About twelve to fifteen couple of puppies
arc sent out each year, and Squires has now 5^ couple
in kennel of his own breeding. Governor, Stream er>
and Dilio'ence amonsr the five-season, Pvtchlev Fear-
less among the four, and Chaser, Amazon, Welcome,
and Lictor, the last-named by North Staffordshire
Comus, are leaders among the three-season hounds,
while a one-season entry of five by Pytchley Marplot
from Nightshade have " taken to it like old ones.^'
The kennels were rather humble-looking; but a new

30 FIELD AND FERN.

house has been built for Squires, who concluded a
fresh engagement, at a considerably increased salary,
for three seasons, at the end of his first — no slight
testimony to his talent and popularity with the
hunt. The hounds come to Houston on May 4th,
and stop till September 19th ; then they go to Drum-
pellier, the master^s seat, for five weeks ; then back
to Houston till the middle of February, and then to
Lanarkshire, to wind up. " November 1st, —
The Kennels" opens the ssason either in Mr.
Spiers^s woods or Barrachan Wood and Gorse, the
property of Miss Fleming, one of the strictest pre-
servers in the Hunt. The half-dozen horses are all
Irish, and a very useful lot they seemed. White-
nose is Squires^ Tuesday horse ; and a white nose
poked over a loose-box to greet him, told that
Return had been confederate with him on many a
hard-fought Saturday.

FALKIRK TO EDINBURGH. 31

" The sheep farmer thought a little, snuiFed, sipped his toddy, and replied :
' The Duke of Wellington was, na doot, a varra clever man — vaiTa clever,
T believe. They tell "me he was a good soger; Imt then d'ye see, he had
2'easonable men to deal with — captains, and majors and generals that could
understand him every yen o' them— both officers and men ; biit I'm no so
sm-e, after all, if he could manage, say 20,000 sheep, to say nout of black
cattle, that could na tmderstand one word he said, Gaelic or EngUsh, and
l>ring eveiy hoof of them to Fa'kirk Tiyst ! I doot it. But I ha' done that I' "

The Lanark Tryst — Dealings of leading Salesmen — Scenes on the IMoor
— The Dealers of Other Days — Fate of the Greenliorns — The Myste-
rious Visitor — Among the Drovers — Driving and Shoeing Beasts — His-
tory of the Falkirk Trysts — The other Sheep and Cattle Fairs in
Scotland — Foreign Supplies — Linlithgowshire — Tom Rintoul — The
West Lothian Kennels — ^.Ir. VCaldron Hill and his Otter Hounds.

T\ T was ten o'clock on the second day of the Falkirk
^ Tryst. Whole lines of trucks were already laden
with beasts, the shorthorn crosses bound to the
North, and the West Highlanders South. The road
to the moor was one struggling mass of Norlands
and Irish calves, and ankle deep in mud ; and Mr.
Adderley and Mr. Stirling, as they tucked up their
trouser-bottoms, and trudged sturdily along, were
a type of those " Faithful Commons,^' who had once
to leave their coaches and walk half their time,
through still more deep and miry ways from Scotland
to St. Stephen^ s.

The sheep had come, and more than two-thirds of

32 FIELD AND TERN.

tliem liad departed on the Monday; and '^ Yes !
theyWe tarring ^em" was the constant response, when
we asked if certain lots of cattle were sold. The
sheep sales had been very large, and, in fact, for the
last five-and-twenty years, many proprietors and far-
mers, who were wont to sell by character at Inver-
ness, have been gradually changing their tactics, and
sending ewes and v/edders direct to the September
and October Ealkirks. Mr. John jNInrray, who w^as
in early life a sheep manager for six years on the
estate of Glengarry, had sold on this occasion forty-
three lots from twenty-two different farms in his
wonted strongholds of Inverness -shire, Ross-shire,
and Sutherlandshire. At times he ^Yill pass some
24,000 through his hands at these two trysts ; and
being always employed by farmers and proprietors,
who are breeders of stock, and do not buy on specu-
lation, he confines himself here, as at Inverness,
strictly to selling. From 1843 to 1860 he bought
very largety at Inverness, principally for the late Mr,
James Scott, of Hawick, wdio did by far the largest
business on the ^^ plane stones.^^ He has few cattle
transactions ; and the chief occasion of his buying
largely is at Melrose, where he selects Cheviot
wedder lambs on commissions for his clients in the
North, who send them back to him at Falkirk after
three years' keep. The great majority of his Falkirk
lots are Cheviot ewes and wedders ; about a tenth
of them are crosses, and a still smaller proportion
black-faced. No sheep come to the August tryst.

FALKIRK TO EDINBURGH. 33-

and he very often sells twice as many at the October
one as he does at the September. Last October his
three largest consignments were from "LochiePs"
farm of Locharkaig in Lochaber, Captain Donald
Colin Cameron of Talisker, Isle of Skye, and Messrs.
Elliot and Scott of Drynoch in the same island. No
less than 3,679 of LochieFs were divided between the
two trysts, and 2,378 of them were sold in the Oc-
tober, with 3,437 from Captain Cameron^ and
1,673 from the Drynoch farm.

The Swans, father and two sons, are flitting about
not in white swanks-down, but white linen coats, and
note -book and pencil in hand. One son makes
sheep, and the other cattle, his specialty. They
had nigh ten thousand sheep on sale yester-
day^, and many thousand pounds' worth of cattle will
have passed through their note-books before the sun
goes down. Then we are told that Daniel Kennedy
has sold the Corrynafarm wedders at 38s., and that
"Walter Smith has shaken hands with Kerr of Liver-
pool, w^ho never saw Falkirk more, for 650 black-
faced wedders at one-and-thirty. Buist had also been
busy with his auction; and they told of Walter Brydon
of Burncastle's black-faced tups fetching from £16
downwards.

The larger money transfers are generally managed
by the bankers, who pitch their little " green-back^^
tents, and deal in more sterling currency. Liverpool,
Yorkshire, and Cumberland men are their leading
customers, an-d if any hitch arises about a cheque or

2 D

34; FIELD AND FERN.

a banker's letter, a messenger slips away from the-
muir, and telegraphs to head quarters for in-
formation. A Union Jack generally waves over the
Union Bank ; the Royal glories in the white and
blue Prince's Feather ; the National goes in for blue
and yellow; but the Clydesdale makes no sign.
Horse dealers also come out strongly with their
Clydesdales, whose tails they plait with an art which
Dunstable might envy. Kopes, straw, and tape are
all in vogue for such adornments, and so are ribbons
of every hue. A mule is pressed upon us in vain for
^3 10s., with an assurance that he is "varra corney,'^
which he illustrates in one sense by backing into
corners among tents and potato-kettles, and stead-
fastly refusing to leave them. There are ponies, too,
of divers kinds, fat and unshoed, or standing in
melancholy- eyed Shetland droves, from one of which a
purchaser took five at haphazard for £17, luck-penny
unknown.

A donkey from the Bridge of Allan was always on
parade, and announced for sale ^' because the season
is over, ye ken.'"' There was no lack of conjurors. One
of them said, ^'^ I'll sivellij the sword, if I fa' clown deed
on the spot ;'^ but as we were quite proof against his
appeal to us to enter the ring and stand by him for
the honour of pulling it up when it was swallowed,
he winked at us pleasantly, worked "the West Riding
telegraph," as a relief to his feelings, and proceeded to
business. For a really brisk trade there was nothing
to equal the merchant who sells his packets for " a

FALKIRK TO EDINBURGH. 35

shilling and a bawbee/^ and warrants bis gingerbread
to "drive a nail in tlie dark/-' In tbe tents^ whisky
and mashed potatoes were the great circulating
media ; and with meat and mnstard to aid it, a
stomach must be cynical indeed which cannot break
its Falkirk fast. As you sit waiting for your turn,
you hear hard bargains and harder slaps all round
you, and see piles of greasy one-pound notes pulled
out of breast=pockets and paid away by the smaller
men, to whom a cheque-book is only a dream of
the future.

There was a time when no shorthorns were seen on
the muir, and Aberdeen runts and West Highland-
ers, and a few Ayrshire stots, formed its sole army of
occupation, llobert M^Turk was a mighty buyer in
old days, and was known to strike hands for seventy
score of West Highland stirks at £S each one
Michaelmas tryst before he got off his pony. The
Williamsons and the Thoms were also very compre-
hensive in their dealings, and so was old M'^Combie,
whose family mark below the near hock was known
at Falkirk for sixty long years. It was only for the
runts, as the West Highlanders were burnt with
gustrils in the horns. Big Paterson was a mighty
sheep seller from Caithness, and would sometimes
bring nine thousand Cheviots. It ^ was the boast of
Cameron of Corrychoillie that he was the greatest
stock owner in the world except Prince Esterhazy.
He won the prize for buck goats when the Highland
Society met at Inverness in ^31, and he was not

2 D 2

^6 FIELD AND FERN.

averse to liair on his own face. None knew better
than himself and his retainers how to punish all can-
didates for the high ground at Falkirk. He had
most wonderful ponies, and would ride six or seven
times a year from Skye, a journey which he did not
shorten by his circuits to save the turnpike — '^ not
for pence, but for principle.^^ " EoghalF^ ouce
bought a Highland grey pony, not highly fed, from
him for thirty shillings; and passed everything on
the road with it when he drove a friend from Edin-
burgh to the Berwick show.

'' A sharpish bit of work" on the part of another
old dealer was long remembered on the moor.
He could not get rid of sixty beasts the first
day; and the next morning found him hard at it
with Kobert Nichol of Fife, who offered him £8
12s. 6cl., and was then within half-a-crown of
him. At this juncture, a little red-faced man on
a white pony rode up, and asked the price. " Tze
come doon to thirteen guineas,'' was the reply. " What
will you give ?" " Eleven/' said the man, thinking
he had done a very clever thing; but the re-
joinder of ^^ They're yours, sir!" and the hard clap
of the hand came so quick that he began to smell a
rat. The case was referred to a leading dealer, who
thus delivered judgment : " They're good groivers —
you'll soon mak them worth it — you just need to tak
them." And so he did, as the seller was not the man to
pass him. Another of this helpless stamp once came
for draft ewes, and fell in with a dealer who furnished

FALKIRK TO EDINBURGH. 37

him with double-milled ones at 27s. a head. Some
one overheard them winding up the bargain in a tent,
and the colloquy was on this wise : ^^ Come aiva, man,
Fse had bad ivark to keep them nice fowre year old
yows for ye] there was so mony customers, they wad
hae them on mej" Thus encouraged, the buyer con-
sented, and paid. The seller then rose to the occa-
sion. There'' s a sovereign for you/' he said, '^ because
yoiCre a gentleman ; and there's another sovereign for
you because Fse a gentleman'' And so they parted,
the one to have his laugh out, and the other to hear
from his neighbours that lieM ^^ better tak a sheep
dentist to t']Muir next year."

There were some wonderful night scenes at the
grieve of Carron's, and for many a long year the
dealers sat round the fire, and talked of their myste-
rious visitor. He wore top-boots, a long blue coat,
and buckskins, and was as clean as a new pin. The
Man in the Iron Mask could not have created more
speculation. He appeared about nine o^clock, and
said that he had been looking at the cattle in the
fields, that he was an ex-major in the army, and that
he wouldn't stir a peg that night. All further at-
tempts to '^ draw'^ him he parried, by simply saying :
" My nephev.) has more money than brains. I've corns
to buy a few things for him." Eefore lying down for
the night, he became a trifle more talkative. "I've
never had a sick head or a sore breast ; Pm eighty-two,
and when I go, I go at once." He repeated the ^^at
once'' so impressively, that they thought he was a

38 FIELD AND FERN.

Warlock or deranged, and were glad to see him un-
dress and lie down in the mifldle of the floor to
sleep, with a blanket above him, and his waistcoat
folded under his head. At breakfast he was quite
lively upon hunting and racing topics, and then he
bought twenty score of the best middle horned beasts
with good judgment on the Moor. He did not want
to be asked for his money, but off" came his coat and
waistcoat, and out came his pen -knife, and in a very
short space he had ripped Bank of England notes to
the amount of .€4,400 out of his waistcoat-lining.
He did not breathe his name, and he was only seen
once more, at the next tryst, when he bought 120
more at rather a higher figure.

No men lead a more anxious life than the dealers.
If it is a dewy morning, and the cattle cannot eat and
come round and fresh on to the Moor, it is a certain
loss of ten shillings per head. Sometimes a whole
lot will get hoven with clover, and whisky or tur-
pentine and water have to be used, and perhaps they
have to be " stabbed" at last. Drawing and lotting
before the tryst is also a job of especial nicety, and
the great knack is to make the first lot the biggest
if you can. If an experienced grazier had 100 beasts
to sell, he would put 60 of the best and only 40 of the
worst together. There are no drovers to be compared,
for natural talent, to the Irish, either for drawing or
making cattle go sweetly along a road. A good
steady man goes with two or three in front, to stop
the pace ; but the second man has the most respon-

FALKIRK TO EDINBURGH. 39

-sible post, and it depends more upon liim whether or
not the drove " goes weaving away as canny as pos-
sible/^ The drover's cry always tells an old crafts-
man down wind if anything is wrong, without ever
seeing the cattle. If they are going ^^ sweetly/^ they
should be two or three deep, the same thickness all
along, and streaming away like a flock of wild geese.
If once they take a panic and run off, they might go
for miles, and never settle, and even the clatter of
a little burn might do it.

Some very good drovers come from the Western
Islands, and none were better known to fame at Fal-
kirk than " Willy liun-her-outj^ but only three or
four of the true old sort are left. Willy got the name
from running down a quey at Aikey Fair of Old Deer ;
but he was so weary after his performance, that a light
which was applied for a bet to the sole of his feet
quite failed to awaken him. The droves generally
travel about twelve miles a day, with a break of two
or three hours about noon. Once the drovers only
got 2s. or Is. 6d. a day, and no watching-money, but
the better ones earn 3s., and Is. for watching at night
till September, and Is. 6d. when the nights are
longer.

Many used to buy meal, and carry it on their backs ;
and an unpopular one, who was called " Talavera, ''
from his constant allusions to that passage of his
soldier life, had his supply very freely salted by his
comrades. Being of a penurious disposition, he would
■mot throw it away, and went through three remark-

40 riELD AND FERN.

able weeks of excruciating thirst and unlimited suc-
tion at every roadside spring.

The bullocks were generally shod on the inside of
the fore-hoofs, but very rarely behind. Holding the
leg was a science of itself; and only one man, a
blacksmith at the Bow of Fife, ever made nails that
suited them. No other man^s seemed to " drive/^
and large dealers kept supplies ot them at points,
and sent a bag with each drove. When the roads
broke up after frost, it was terrible work for cattle,
but shoes well put on might last for six months,
though not as a rule. One " Rob,^' who was killed
last year by the train, was a wonderful slioer, and
once shod seventy cattle for Mr. M'Combie in a
forenoon. He knew well, too, what people meant
when they asked him if he had got any silk handker-
chiefs or Hallow five-pound notes to spare, and when,
he dressed last like a minister.

Such were a few of the leading characters at Fal-
kirk, whose season begins with the August tryst. It
is principally for West Highlanders, of which from
five to seven thousand are shown. Most of them are
bought to go South into the Midland Counties, or
to gentlemen^s parks round London ; but a few go
to Cumberland, Northumberland, and Cheshire.
Cross-bred cattle are sent from the neighbourhood ;
as well as Irish two years old and stirks which come
over in the spring, and are sold off grass to put on tur-
nips in Fife and East Lothian, The September tryst
brings with it the first drafts of hill sheep from the

FALKIRK TO EDINBURGH. 41

North of Scotland, and blackfaces and Cheviots
are pretty equally divided. Many of them have
been bought on speculation at the Inverness Charac-
ter market, and forty thousand will sometimes be
pitched. It is principally a wedder market, as the
draft ewes do not come out in force before October.
The best Cheviot wedders go into Cumberland, and
the black-faced to Ayrshire, Wigtownshire, Edin-
burgh, and the West Lothian. The highest price that
the Messrs. Swan ever got for Cheviot wedders was-
42s. 6d. for 758, bred by Mr. John Hall, of Sei-
ber^s Cross, and sold for Mr. Wallbank, who had
purchased them at Inverness. Within seven or eight
years they have risen 10s. a-piece, but they range
from 34s. to 40s., and blackfaced wedders which
have touched 33s., from 31s. to 27s. A lot of cast
Cheviot ewes from Mr. Mitchell's of Kibigill in
Sutherlandshire went as high recently as 31s. 6d.

The Kelso September fair has been very lecently
established. It is made up principally of shorthorns
from Yorkshire and Cumberland, which are bought
to fatten in the district. The cast ewes are mostly
three-parts or half-bred, and are bought for York-
shire and the East Lothian, the half-breds at from
35s. to 40s., and the three -parts at half-a-crown or
3s. more. East Linton, which is the centre of a
capital locality, comes between the two autumn Fal-
kirks on the first Thursday in October ; and although
it has only been established for six or seven years, it
averages higher per head than any lean market in

42 FIELD AND FERN.

Scotland. Nearly all the cattle are Englisli-bred,
and the two and three year old shorthorns are gene-
rally of the best class, and readily picked up by the
Pife and East Lothian farmers. The latter are very
fond of '' the Hempton beasts," which are sold at
Carlisle at the '' Three Hemptons'^ after the grass.

About fifteen to eighteen hundred head of cattle
generally come to Falkirk October, and are bought
up as straw treaders. At the September tryst seve-
ral cattle are bought for early beef, and put into
reeds or covertings, and get cut grass. Scarcely any
Angus beasts come, and the best of the Galloways
all go to Norwich fair. The great majority are West
Highlanders from the Northern and Western coun-
ties and Skye, and, since so much land has been gra-
dually given up to deer forests, they have risen very
much in price. Three year old bullocks of the breed
have fetched j£14 10s., but they vary from £14 to
<£9, and tivo-year-olds from £10 to £6 10s., while
queys may be generally quoted from 30s. to £1 less ;
and stirks of both sexes from .€5 to J3 10s. These
figures apply to all the other markets where High-
land cattle are sold, snch as Dumbarton, Doune, &c.
The shorthorn crosses have a sharp tussle to hold
their own with the Irish, which are quite as well
bred, and come principally from Meath and Ferma-
nagh by ship and steam to Glasgow. They have
improved immensely of late years ; and a half-bred
poll, which was purchased in ^63 by Mr. Crawfurd of
Perth in a lot of twenty-two at .€10 17s. 6d., came

FALKIRK TO EDINBURGH. 43

out SO completely from the rest_, that, after being sent
along on cake and corn, it was sold for 76s. per cwt.,
and left ^844 for eighteen months' keep. No sales
were more spoken of last year than this bullock^s,
and the dozen three-year-old shorthorn crosses of Mr.
Harris's, which were lifted at =£48 all round in Forres
Christmas market.

Calves also come to Falkirk in large lots from
Craven and the dairy districts of Yorkshire and Lan-
cashire, and are purchased by feeders and graziers
north of the Forth, and principally from Forfar-
shire and Fife. Their horns are generally taken out
by the buyers, that they may take up less room, and
not be troublesome in the yards, and some of the
Dutch purchases have theirs extracted at a still riper
age. For cross-bred shorthorns, threes, twos, stirks,
and calves, £18 to J13, £15 to £11, £12 to £7, and
£6 to £4 are the general prices ; and the Irish-bred
ones range about £1 lower. Cast ewes come out in im-
mense strength at this October tryst, and as many as
80,000 ewes and wedders, fxve-eighths of them Che-
viots, will change hands, while blackfaced '^ High-
land or HilF' wedders will muster 800 to 1,000 in
a lot.

The principal buyers at Falkirk are the Cumber-
land, Dumfries, and Wigtownshire men, many of
whom take large lots varying from 3,000 to 4,000,
and divide them with their brother farmers. In this way
some of the Cumberland ..men will have as their por-
tion 400 to 500 Cheviot wedders, and half as many

44 FIELD AND FERN.

cast ewes. Young and Butterfield of Penritli bring
arge lots of cattle to the Falkirks, Dalkeith, Linton,
Hallow Fair, and Big Wednesday markets. They
are also extensive buyers at the Falkirks of sheep,
which they either turnip on their own account,
or sell to the Cumberland farmers when the price
rises. They deal very largely in fat stock, attend-
ing the Manchester market -weekly, and have very
considerable transactions as store cattle dealers.
Bowstead and Nelson, on the contrary, are entirely
sheep men, and take turnips. The}^ are to be found
principally at Inverness, and the second and third
Ealkirks. Nelson, perhaps, does more at Inverness,
and Bowstead at Falkirk ; and the former has gene-
rally a show at the BulFs Head, Plumpton, near Pen-
rith, where the Cumberland and Westmorland farmers
draw up and meet the lots. Maxwell of Carlisle attends
the Falkirks and Inverness, and turnips about 2,500
wedders, chiefly Cheviots, round Carlisle and up the
Yale of the Eden; and Richard Pattinson, another of
the Cumberland '^ grey-coats,-"' goes to Falkirk with
a large commission from his brother farmers for Che-
viot wedders, and divides them at home.

John Martindale, of Manchester, unites the grazier
and butcher business, buying up the best cast Cheviot
and blackfaced ewes at the September and October
Falkirks, and taking a lamb off them at his farms near
Manchester. John Gibbons has been well known
for these thirty years at Inverness, where he takes
many of the best lots, principally wedders, for his

FALKIRK TO EDINBURGH. 45

customers in Cumberland and Dumffies-sMre ; and
Yorkshire has no greater buyer tha.n Jonas Walbank
of Keighley. In fat stock, sheep, and store cattle,
he does a great trade from February to June, and
sends them all over England. After the Falkirk
trysts, he takes very large supplies of cast Cheviot ewes
to the York market, and Berwickshire and Roxburgh-
shire have also a strong levy made on them for half-
bred ewes, which he brings down to Yorkshire and
the Midlands. Joseph Ruddock of Berwick not only
buys up stores about Durham for Falkirk, and fat
cattle in Roxburghshire and Berwickshire, but does
a very large sheep-carcase trade with London.
The Swans do nothing on their own account, but
simply as salesmen, and guarantee the money for
their commission. They have sold in one year as
many as 65,000 Scotch and English sheep, as well
as 12,000 Foreign ones. To this we may add
about 20,000 cattle, of which a fourth are foreign
and Iiish. At one October Falkirk they passed
through their hands 10,000 sheep, and 1,400 cattle.

Despite these large supplies, farmers have of late
years found it so much more profitable to make their
corn-sacks walk to market in the shape of beef and
mutton, that they have often hardly known where to
look for store beasts. Time has, indeed, verified
what Mr. Aitchison of Linhope said in one of
those glowing periods which used to '' bring down
the house,^^ when he returned thanks for "The Tenant
Farmers'^ at the Highland Society^s banquet—-

46 FIELD AND FEIIN.

'^ Steam is your Highland drover" And so it was,
in verity, a few months since, when a dealer, finding
himself left short for Ellon, set off from Aberdeen on
a Wednesday, and returned with a large lot of Here-
fords from England on the Saturday.

A Denmark beast trade is being opened up with
the direct steam navigation from Copenhagen to
Leith, and fully 5,000 " Dutchmen ^^ are passed
through the hands of the Swans between May and
October, and sold to the Forfarshire, Fife, and Lo-
thian farmers at £5 to .€8. They are small blacks
and whites, and very like the Ayrshires in size and
marks. The Holstein cattle, on the contrary, which
are poured in from Hamburg and Oldenburg are
not unlike the Fife breed, and of all colours, black,
spotted, and red and white. ]Mr. Smith, of Ley
Shade, near Dundee, imports about 500 or 600 of
them annually, and puts them into the farmers, and
then buys them back at a profit of from 25s. to 30s.
a month for a few months^ keep. The smaller
butchers hwj them up very readily, but the leading
men do not take kindly to anything but British-fed
beef and mutton. Still when the beasts have been
judiciously selected off ship-board, and fed for a time
in the country, they come out well, and command a
ready sale, as they carry both flesh and fat, and are
generally good killers. Between the middle of
March and the first of November, Hamburg ships
fully two thousand of these cattle, and fifteen
thousand sheep to Leith. Some of the cattle are

FALKIRK TO EDINBURGH. 47

^^as old as a roan/^ and with strong marks of
the collar ; and many of the Merinoes are most vener-
able wool producers. They are generally four and
five years old wedders, and suit the second-class
Glasgow butchers_, at all figures from 22s. to 30s.,
while the Holsteiners will fetch from £18 to £23.
These sheep are the incarnation of ugliness, with
long tails and Avhite noses, and most of them with a
strong dash of Merino blood. When they do not
come over clipped, as a large proportion do, their
skins make 7s. Plenty kill at only 71bs. to 81bs. per
quarter, but the better class scale twice as much.

The Dalkeith fair is on the Tuesday after the last
Ealkirk tryst. No Highland cattle attend it, and from
5,000 to 7,000 shorthorn crosses, Irish, and Gallo-
ways, several of which have been grazed in the dis-
trict, are the staple of its supplies. Mr. Dudgeon, of
Almond Hill, gave £600 for a prime lot of thirty
Galloways, but the general run of prices for the three
kinds is for threes, from £17 to £13, for twos from
£13 to £10, and for stirks from £8 to £6 ; and these
quotations apply to all markets at that time of the
year. Cumberland (more especially its Penrith dis-
trict) and the country round Yarm send shorthorns,
with a good sprinkling of calves; and the supply is
strengthened by home-grazed beasts, some of which
are bought here or at Hallow fair the previous year,
and are now replaced.

The first Doune market, which begins on the first
Tuesday in November, is principally devoted to

4S FIELD AND FERN.

blackfaced ewes, two years old wedders, and double-
milled ewes. Some of the blackfaces from Argyle-
shire and Perthshire are very good indeed ; cast ewes
have made as high as twenty-two shillings, and the
two-year-old wedders are picked np principally for
the coarser hill land in Cumberland and Yorkshire.
The blackfaced ewes go to Derbyshire and Lanark-
shire, and many of them to West Lothian, to
be crossed Avith a Leicester. The cattle come on
the Wednesday ; and what with sm^all West Iligh-
landers and country-cross breds, there will some
years be little short of twenty thousand. They are
mostly yearlings and two-year-olds, and are spread
all over Scotland (move especially Dumfriesshire),
Yorkshire, and the Midlands. The second fair, or
" Snowy Doune,^^ comes off on the last Wednesday
of November, and is simply for cattle culls and sheep
shots, which go to Perthshire and the North.

Sheep are very seldom shown at Hallow Fair, ex-
cept w hen business has been slack at the first Doune,
but the show of cattle will sometimes range from 14,000
to 12,000, nearly all shorthorns. Once upon a time,
the Angus men used to sell here; but now they, as
w^ell as other farmers south of Aberdeen, are fain to
come and make up their Avinter lots from the two-
year-olds and stirks, for which this fair rather enjoys
a specialty. The trade at the Big Wednesday is very
much governed by the Hallow. This fair was for-
merly held at Gorgie farm, near Edinburgh, but last
year it was on the Fat Cattle Stance. It is not

FALKIRK TO EDINBURGH. 49

attended by more than a sixth of the cattle which,
come to Hallow (and these are rather of the cull
order), and scarcely any sheep whatever. By this
time the farmers' yards are full, and only a few stores
are required for the poorer land in the higher districts.

The blackfaced wedder mutton is specially sought
after for the higher Edinburgh tables ; and the speci-
mens which come up for the Christmas market are so
good that a Kincardineshire pen of five, which won
Messrs. Swan's Sheep Cup in 1863, sold for £6 10s.
each, and one of them made 34i lbs. per quarter clean
w^eight. The Glasgow market is of course much larger
than the Edinburgh, and is very freely supplied by
the Fife feeders from March to June ; while the in-
ferior mutton of the Hamburgh sheep meets with a
ready sale.

The regular Scottish sheep markets of the year
may be said to begin with the House of Muir, near
Penicuick, on the first and second Monday of April.
Rough half-bred and three-parts-bred, Cheviot, and
cross-bred hoggs are brought out, with Cheviot and
blackfaced ewes in-lamb. Those with the Leices-
ter blood go mostly to the Lothians and Fife for
fattening off grass, and the Cheviot hoggs to the
higher districts for turnips ; the Cheviot ewes are
principally bought for the Lothians^ and the black-
faced for Lanarkshire and the West. The St. Bos-
w^ell's lamb fair begins about July 18th, and at
times 10,000 to 25,000^ feeders and breeders in

* Vf e find the greatest difference of opinion as to the niimber.

2 E

50 PIELD AND FERN.

the shape of half and three -parts bred lambs are-
gathered there from all the Lowland districts. Fifty
years ago only rough Cheviot hoggs and black-faced
three-year-old wedders and wedder lambs came;
but time has wrought wonders in this respect. The
ewe and wedder lambs are generally sold mixed at
from 21s. to .29s.; but one lot of six or seven
score^ three-parts bred, was quoted last year at
35s. 6d.

The clipped ewe and wedder hoggs are all similarly
bred, but they seldom muster above two thousand.
Northumberland, Eifeshire^ and Berwickshire men
are all great buyers both here and at Melrose, which
is nearly a month later, and brings out Cheviot as
well as half-bred lambs. Many of the latter have
trenched on the high lands once used for Cheviots,
and it is these higher lands which furnish the chief
Melrose supplies. Once it was only a mart for
the shots of the St. BoswelFs lambs, and there were
not more than two or three thousand of them. Now
70,000 to 80,000 Cheviot, half-bred, and three-parts
bred may sometimes be found there, besides Leicester
shots, whose tops, as well as those of the three-parts
bred, have been sold at St. BoswelFs. Both it and
Melrose are early markets, and the lambs are on the
ground by sis o^clock. St. BoswelFs is more of a
mixed fair, and a great place for settling guano and
other accounts. The lambs have generally left the
ground by ten o^ clock, and a horse, cattle, and wool
fair fills up the day till four o'clock. Of Lockerby,,

TALKIRK TO EDINBURGH. 5i

Lanark, Callow, as well as some minor fairs, we liave
spoken in their places.

And so we leave Jb'alkirk, and all the fair lore of
which it is the natural text, and taking onr mare
once more from her snug Keir quarters, we passed on
through Linlithgowshire tovrards Edinburgh. This
county is not an especially interesting one, and,
with the exception of the high farms, is mostly under
tillage. Bare fallovrs are quite given up, and
what turnip land there is generally grows yellow
globes, and the Fosterton hybrid or big yellows along
with swedes for spring. As a county it is rich in
old grass parks, and none of them richer than liope-
toun and Dalmeny. The farmers go for feeding
rather than breeding, except in the West, about
Bathgate and Linlithgow, where they princi-
pally keep Ayrshires, and do a little in the cheese,
and very largely in the butter and milk line for
Edinburgh. Falkirk is their great cattle mart, and
if they have a leaning it is rather for Irish, and occa-
sionally Galloway stores, which are bought as two-
year-olds, and kept for six or twelve months in
yards.

Mr. Melvin of Bonnington is the top Leicester
breeder, and his tups are generally sold to cross with
Cheviots and a few Southdown ewes for the fat-lamb
market. Mr. Hill of Carlowie has 100 Leicester ewes,
and sold two score of his tup hoggs for good prices in
March ; while Mr. Melvin parts with his at the Edin-
burgh sales. Mr. Peter M'Lagan of Pumpherstown

2 E 2

DZ FIELD AND TERN.

lias done well with his Dorset ewes ; but Mr. Dud-
geon of Almond Hill (who was the first to introduce
furrow draining into Sutherland and Caithness-shire,
where he held large farms in succession) did not suc-
ceed w^ith his merinoes, as the ewes were too delicate,
and although he sold some 401b. lambs at a shilling
per pound live weight, he did not care to renew the
experiment.

The system of blackfaced Ochil ewe drafts on the
higher ground is ra,ther going out, and instead of
"breeding the greyfaced mules, the farmers are nearly
all turning to half-bred ewes and Cheviots. They
sometimes keep the lambs for sixteen or eighteen
months, but they are generally sold off before clip-
ping. Mr. Dudgeon of Dalmeny, near Kirkhston,
got 56s. last year for 100 highly-corned and caked
ewe and wedder hoggs ; but this was in the golden-
fleece era, and in ordinary seasons 46s. to 48s. was
not to be despised. Those farmers who do not
breed, buy half-bred lambs, generally tops, at Mel-
rose and Lockerby, and sell them off fat about home
<j>ut of the fleece in June. They will buy these
lambs at 28s., and pay 38s. for Cheviot wedders the
next month, and with eight months^ high feeding
they can bring the one up as high as 52s. to 56s.,
and the others to 56s. or £3, and hence the balance is
against the wedders, which some also consider to re-
quire more food. With such a heavy opposition
from young mutton, it seems more than probable
that the Cheviot wedders will have shortly to sink a

FALKIRK TO EDINBURGH. 53

year, as five to six shillings for a fleece on a liili farm
will not pay the year's rent and risk. Very few
hunters are kept, and hardly any farmer has bred
more than a couple of foals a-year since the horse
prices became low.

Tom Rintoul bade us welcome when we reached
the hostel at Linlithgow. His career began in the
racing stable along with Tom Dawson, under Daw-
son, senior, about the time when John Osborne was
hunting groom to Mr. Taylor of Kirton. Tom was
never " put up,^' and therefore his life was not like
that of the well-known Scottish rider about that
time, whose difficulties in wasting were so great that
he travelled from Ayr to Carlisle, leading a mare, on
four half-penny biscuits and two-pennyworth of
Epsom salts. His career with hounds began in
1817, and he came to Linlithgow in 1826 as first
whip to Kit Scott. Mr. Ramsay was true to his
family tastes, and kept stag-hounds at nineteen, a?
his father had done at Golf Hall. The latter had
also hunted the Linlithgowshire and Stirlingshire
country along with Lord Elphinstone and Colonel
Murray of Polmaise ; and he was wont to ride from.
Barnton to Hamilton, hunt all day, and back again
at night, by changing hacks at Cumbernaud. His
son^s country extended at one time pver Lanarkshire,
Carnwath, Linlithgowshire, Stirlingshire, and the
West of Fife and Forfarshire as well. Once they
had eleven Aveeks in Forfarshire, and killed twenty-
one brace, hunting four days a week, and accounted

54 FIELD AND FEF^N.

for nine brace more to ground. From one end of
tlie country to tlie other ",vas fully eighty miles^ and
it is a precious memory with Tom that one ■\veek
they ^' hunted it down^^ and killed four brace. The
hounds were generally of Beaufort and Lonsda^le
blood- Bracer by Bedford^ by Beaufort Brusher
from a Isiichol bitch, was quite one of the best ; and
Chalon, who once lived nearly a year at Barnton,
made him one of his chief hound studies. Lonsdale
blood was Mr. Ramsay's delight,, and he bought \7h
couple of them at the Cottesmore sale. He had six-
teen horses for his men, and as many for himself, and
yet some seasons he was not out five times.

His heart was in the Defiance and the Tallyho ;
but when he did get a lead over a strong country, he
was very bad to beat. '^ Sim" Templeman Avould be
down occasionally after the Caledonian meeting, and
rode some of his hunters for him ; and so did Harry
Edwards in '37, a few months after he had won two
Liverpool Cups in one week on Inheritor in his very
finest style. Will Noble would also help to whip in,
and William FAnson bore a hand when he had
brought the race-horses from Gullane to Barnton for
the winter. Tom Cleghorn's old horse Davie was a
permanent resident at Barnton. The grooms might
well say that he had seen a vast of sport, as he began
when he was about three, and died at 35, quite white
on his head, but still "able to enjoy himself with
hounds.'' Tom rode in shoes and black stockings
and a mealy-brown suit, and whatever his hat might

FALKIRK TO EDINBURGH. 55

have been in the morning it was invariably " a cocket
one^'' at the finish. If there had been a very good
run^ he would stop at Winchborongh with David
Brown for two days to discuss it. When the two
days were out, his attendants came with a cart and
blankets, and took him peacefully to his farm, with
his hunter tied behind the cart. Dr. Liston was a
capital sportsman, both on this and the Buccleuch
side of the country, and '' knew Tom fine.^^ Tinker
was his best horse, but he turned a roarer, and the
operation on his windpipe availed him nothing. Eor
nine seasons the Rocket horse was Tom RintouFs
crack, and he rode him three times in one day over
the Lead Hills near Tinto, and killed three foxes.
He had one of his finest runs from West Craigs, be-
yond Bathgate, eighteen miles straight, and killed
in a wash-house near Denney. Craigie Hill and
Barr Hill were once grand places to work up the
young* uns; but never a whimper is heard among
their gorse and whins now. Lee Castle had also
strong covers in those days ; but now, as Stracey
says, " you might as loell run through this room ; you
can see every rahbit in it.'' Once on a time, Tom
gave fourteen couple of the entry such a lesson in it
for twelve hours that they required no more teaching.
There had been some disagreement between the
keepers and one of them as a safety-valve for his
wrath, opened the earths as fast as the other stopped
them, and upwards of seven brace of foxes were
about.

56 riELD AND lERN.

Now there is no cub-hunting, except they have
a turn or two at the Corstorphine Hills, which
are all rocks and braes and brambles. They gene-
rally began there, and the gardeners and keepers
light fires and net the rocks in some places, and
even then the foxes will not be forced away, but
make wild dashes at the nets. There are generally
a litter or two in the rocks, but cubs are very seldom
found in the country, and on the south side the chief
dependence is on hill foxes. Macbie Hill is a great
rendezvous for old Peebleshire foxes, which go back
at the lambing time, and generally faster than they
come. Morton covert is a capital cover, about three
miles from Midcalder, and gives many a fine run
over the Cairn Hill. It is almost always a sure find,
and the fox is as surely a stout one. There is another
famous whin half-way between Uphall and Mid-
calder, whose owner, Mr. Peter M^Clagan, is a most
staunch game-preserver. Houston Gorse was also a
favourite find in the late Mr. Ramsay^s time, but
now, alas ! it is almost a desert.

There are miles of moss both about Cairn Hill and
in the Carnwath. country, and a huntsman has to ''pick
and creep and screw" to keep near his hounds at all,
and even when Stracey is on North Briton he is often
in sad tribulation. In fact, it is a regular choker
over such country, and the hounds do it pretty much
by themselves. As Stracey graphically puts it, "ihey
have a turn at the Pentland Hills from Malleny, and
face the hills np wind a mile as hard as they can

TALKIHK TO EDINBURGH. 57

rattle; then they sink the wind: they never care
which way the wind blows, and Fm blowed if you
can tell what to do with them, it would puzzle mor-
tal man, up hills four or five miles from the bottom,
and you tearing after them — that^s the way they
work you, and so they nail us."

East to west, from Corstorphine Hill to Lee Castle„
tlie country runs about forty miles. The Carnwath
covers are all fir plantations on the hills, and the best
of them belong to the Earl of Home, at Stone-
hill, near the Tinto boundary. The covers are
very middling, the fir plantations are scarce and
grown out, and there are very few gorses. The best
are round Wall House, nice and dry fir plantings on
the side of a hill, Avith heather and rock. Near
Wall House the country is generally old grass, and
mostly plough near home. The home country is not
spoilt by wire, which is a perfect pest in Carnwath
without the alleviation of telegraph-posts to the
bunting-gates, as in the Buccleuch country. In the
Dechmount country, about nine miles from the ken-
nels, the ground is sound and good, and all on old
grass. The crack gorse of the country is Riccarton
Hill, and Champflurie laurels have had a great re-
pute. Ever since Mr. Ramsay's death '^ the white
collars" have been under the mastership of his brother-
in-law, the Hon. James Sandilands, witha subscription
which was very nominal. His nephew has taken to
them on coming of age, and the subscription has been
fixed for the present at £900 a year. The land-

58 FIELD AND FERN.

owners generally hunt elsewhere^ bufc tliey are very
fair preservers of foxes^ of wliicli twenty brace are
generally brouglit to hand in a season. On the
Edinburgh side_, a prospect of something good over
the grass from Dechmoiint^ Champflurie^ and Ban-
gour will bring out the Edinburgh^ and Glasgow gen-
tlemen as well, and swell the field to fifty. Potts,
Purslow, NasoU; and Jack Jones followed Tom Rin-
toul as huntsmen ; and then Stracey, who had two
seasons as first whip with Jones (to whom he also
whipped in with the Warwickshire), went np, and
has now held the horn for five seasons, which makes
his tvv^enty-third with hounds.

There are generally about 45] couple of hounds in
kennel, and two dozen couple of puppies are put out
among the Barnton tenants. The strength of the
kennel comes from the Yarborough and Fitzhardinge
drafts, of which some ten couple have been sent from
England for four seasons past. The Yarborough dogs
and the Eitzhardinge bitches have done them most
service, and Bedford and Auditor among the former,
and Bertha and Songstress among the latter have been
the mainstay. The Eitzhardinge (late MorrelFs) Baja-
zets have " proved themselves good workers and fine
constitutions,*^ and the old dog was put away in his
eleventh season at the kennels, which are at Golf Hall,
five miles from Edinburgh, The Cromwell nose, which
helped Harry Ayris over many a dry fallow, also bids
fair to be perpetuated in his son Waterloo. In his
very first season he was the only one that would

FALKIRK TO EDINBURGH. 59

speak to it through a dry fir plantings in a capital
thing of fifteen' miles straight from Macbie_, in fact
'' such a nipper that it could never have been one fox, ^^
Mr. Sanclilands does not care for a hea^y-boned
hound^ as they get quite beat at the hills, and the
leader at present is Yarborough Bedford, aspayeddog,
light and narro\r and high on the leg, but he finds
" no country too heavy and no hills too high/^ On
Tuesday they take the east side by Dalmahoy and
Ormiston, on • Thursday they generally train it to-
wards Linlithp^ow, and Saturday finds them on the
Wall House side, which holds, with Dechmount and
Bangour, the best scent. The Carnwath time is
from the loth or 16th of March till about the end
of April. They have killed a May fox there, and an
eight -and-twenty miles trot finds them again in this
hill country for nearly as long in the autumn.

Yv^hen the Yv^est Lothian are not at work, the men
of Edinburgh and the Lothians have had many a
good river run with Mr. Waldron HilFs otter hounds.
They are kept at his residence at Murrayfield House,
about two miles out of Edinburgh, on the West
Lothian side. Their owner never rides, but always
runs with foxhounds, and sees as many foxes broken
up as any man in the Hunt. Some years ago he
had a pack of otter hounds in Monmouthshire of the
"Welsh breed, smooth and white with yellow ears ;
for the last five years he has had black and tans, a
cross between the bloodhound and rough Lancashire
hound, which is used in that county for otter and

60 FIELD AND FERN.

foulmart. Their nose is nearly equal to the Lanca-
shire hound, who are unrivalled in this respect, and
never disposed to be - tonguy. The bloodhound
cross also makes them more savage in their worry,
but they are often very unpleasant to manage in
kennel. Mr. Hill has found the foxhound fail in
working up to his otter in a cold drag, but excellent
on the line when the game is fairly started. With
him the southern hound has only failed from lack
of constitution, which is injured by too much
swimming.

The Murray field terriers are descended from the
pure Welsh breed of Mr. Ramsay Williams, vdio lived
near Carnarvon. He died eight years since, and his
hunting journal testifies to a most wondrous medley
of sport with fox, otter, marten, foulmart, and hedge-
hog. For twenty-five years did Mr. Hill long for
his terriers, but never succeeded in getting any
until the old man^s death. They weigh about 151bs.,
and have no cross of the bull- dog in them ; their
length of leg enables them to scramble out of
any rocky cairn, where a fox can climb ; and they
are always bred as flatsided as possible, so as to
squeeze into the smallest compass. To looks they
have no pretensions, but they stick to the water
most resolutely, and one of the best of them died
last October, after swimming an otter for hours on
the Lyne, near Drochil Castle, in Peebleshire. She
sternly refused to leave it, and foiled every effort
to get at her, till she sank fairly frozen by cold.

lALKiaK TO EDINBURGH. 61

They worry and teaze the otter, but do not fasten on
him and kill him in the earth; and Mr. Hill has
found that half-a-dozen of them will go into an earth,
and never quarrel, but that if two of a bull-dog cross
get together, there is sure to be a row directly. Wini-
fred and her dauojliter Dinah are the flower of the
terrier stock; and among the hounds Bangor, who
" never tells a lie,^' and his sister Brenda are great
on the drag, and Fairfax is unequalled as a marker
to ground.

Mr. HilFs principal river is the Tyne, which runs
through Haddingtonshire. It is well preserved for
him, but far too full of drains, which are being gra-
dually grated, especially in the town of Haddington,
which is a great resort and stronghold of game. In
some places the Tyne is deep, but there are very few
rocks ; it is more like an English river, and but for the
drains one of the best he has. The Avon in Linlith-
gowshire has furnished great sport, and, strange to
say, although the paraffin-oil Avorks are situated on
a tributary of it, and have effectually driven away
the fish, it is always a sure otter find, and there have
been more kills on it than any other river. Mr.
Hill also hunts the North and South Esk, which
rise in Peebleshire, join at Dalkeith, and run into the
sea at Musselburgh. On the South Esk the sport
has been first-rate. It is not deep, but very rapid and
rocky; its banks are well lined with wood, and there
is not a drain on it. Last August it was the scene
of a very remarkable run, as the otter only touched

62 FIELD AND TERN.

the water twice for a few minutes tlirouglioiit a run
of eiglit or nine miles, and was eventually pulled
down in the heart of one of the East Lothian fox-
whins. Bangor distinguished himself greatly in this
run, and so did Dinah, a small but very fast terrier.

The Water Company^s reservoirs on the Pentiands
sometimes furnish a good otter. In ''62 the hounds
hit upon one at the Clutby Dam reservoir on the
north side of the Pentiands, and hunted him through
the sheep-drains right over the Pentiands, down to
the reservoir at St. Catherine's. He had gone
through it on the north side, and from there dov\^n
the Glencorn burn, nearly to the North Esk. Leaving
this for another burn across the country, he headed
back to the reservoir at St. Catherine's, where, on
account of the water being too high, he could not be
moved. This otter must have travelled nearly twenty
miles during the night, and it was well for Mr.
Hill that his terriers were longlegged, and that he
himself is always in condition summer or winter, or
he would have seen nothing of the fun on that hot
and very wet September morning.

A fortnight after, they went back for their revenge,
found him at the old spot, and, after three hours
without a check, fairly swam him down. In putting
him out from the rock under which he was lying,
one of the terriers (Caroline) had one side of her
face, from the eye to the nose, completely scalped,
and the otter came out holding her fast ; but still,
when he Avas run into on the public road, she

FALKIRK TO EDINBURGH. 63

attacked him as if she had never had a bite in her
life.

On the Lyne and Forth in Peebleshire there has
been good sport ; but the first is small, and both are
uncertain. The upper part of the Clyde is good, and
also the South jSIedwyn in Lanarkshire, which runs
into it. Mr. Hope Vere of Craigie Hill, on the
Almond, is a staunch preserver of the animal, al-
though he is very fond of fishing. He kept otters
very strictly for the late Duke of A thole, and his
part is still the surest find on the whole river. It
was there that a large dog otter cut up Dinah and
the terriers so fearfully in a drain last year, that they
had to be carried home. In Fife the Eden is the
best river, and has always otters upon it ; but the
numerous drains render it very difficult to kill, ex-
cept by a mere chance. On the Leven, which is
very deep and very dirty, owing to the mills, there
has been good sport, and especially with a vixen, otter,
which lived before the hounds for o h. 10 m. without
any intermission, and then saved herself under an
oak tree, which must have been cut down for blood.
The upper part of the Whiteadder in Berwickshire
furnished a fine run last year ; but its rough and
rocky banks make it very difficult to keep up with
the dogs, when they are running a fresh drag. Wini-
fred, the terrier, backed up Bangor, Fairfax, and
Potiphar last October in a run which Lord Wemyss,
the owner of much of the property on its banks,
would have rejoiced to see. There was a capital

Gi FIELD AND FERN.

scent, such as is rarely met witli previous to such a
storm of rain as came rattling down almost at the
very moment the otter was killed. In all these
forays Mr. Hill has never got heavily bitten himself;
but many years ago, when he was hunting on the
Kenvy near Abergavenny, the otter came out of the
water just before it was killed, made straight at the
whip, who was a few yards off his master, shook him
savagely by the trousers, and then passed on.

EDINBURGH TO THE ROMAN CA5IP. 65

-fs ^?»7 r ^-K-^V rev '""i •'? " •■*

wiMMiWwiiia ua i/crt iWaj im wW m 0

ESilB-iJHeil TO f HE MiM C«P.

*' A hoary ridge of ancient to-wn
Smoke-wreathed, picturesque and still,
Cirque of crag, and temple hill,
And Arthur's lion coitching down
In watch, as if the news of Flodden
Stirred hira j^et — my fancy flies
To level wastes and moors imtrodden,
PurpKng 'neath the low-hung skies.
I see the bm-dened orchards, mute and mellow,
I see the sheaves ; and girt by reaper trains,
^•Vnd bluiTed by breath of horses, tlrrough a yellow
September moonlight roll the swaggering wanes."

Alexaxdee Smith.

Arrival in Ediuburgh — Professor Dick's " Constitution Hill" — Messrs.
Girdwood's Wool Stores— Origin of the Highland Society — Its En-
coui-agcment of Gaelic — Its Early .Vims — Original jNIembers — Its
Agricultural Education — Gradual Development — Bagpipe Contests —
Cheese, Cured Meat, and Ploughing Prizes — Resume of the princi-
pal Cattle Shows — Present Competition Rules — Agricultural Statistics
1 nquiry — The Council Chamber of the Society — Pictures of "Winners
The Museum — White Crop Samples.

^T seemed quite strange to be in Edinburgli at last,
y with the mare quietly drinking at the Sinclair
fountain; but our reverie was broken rudely enough by
the boom of the one o^clock gun, and away she went,
best pace, down Princess-street, and it took *' a long
pull and a strong puU^^ to stop her. " Dick's Con-
stitution Hill,'^ as it is called by all the sporting men
and the faculty, would have been most opportune,
and we passed down it later in the day when we
went on our way to Tanfield. It is fully a quarter

2 F

66 FIELD AND TERX.

of a mile on a very steep incline from tlie bottom of
Dublin-street up Duke-street, to St. Andrew^s-square.
Professor Dick, whose first connexion with the Higli-
land Society dates back to '24, tries horses there,
which are sent to him under suspicion of roaring or
disease of the heart. "They seldom require a second
turn, except it is on a windy day, or people are par-
ticular/^ and the Professor is often glad to get the
man off their backs, when they have come through
at a sharp canter. ''Run him against the hillj gentle-
men, and you'll find him a roarer !" was the trenchant
phrase in which he once opposed a public appoint-
ment ; and the candidate merely observed, in reply,
that he was open to run the Professor. The Veteri-
nary College in Clyde-street, over which the Professor
has presided for eight-and-forty years, is close by ;
and we found him in the lecture-room with the skele-
ton of the blood mare Miss Foote at his side, the
hind leg of a horse fresh from the Grass Market in
his hand, and seven dozen students in front of him.

Edinburgh has gradually become a great empo-
rium for wool. In 1853, the system of public sales
for home-grown wools in Edinburgh was established
by Mr. Kobert Girdwood, and after combatting for
three years the prejudices both of growers and consu-
mers, it was accepted as '^''a great fact,^' and he opened
stores in Glasgow as well. Adams and Macgregor,
Crauford and Cree, and one or two other firms in Lcith
and Granton have followed suit, and a very large
business is done. Mr. Girdwood has his Edinburgh

EDINBURGH TO THE ROMAN CAMP. 67

stores at Tanfield, whicli has gone through many dif-
ferent phases in its day. The premises were originally
built by the Portable Gas Company^ which sent out
its gas compressed into malleable-iron bottles^ but
the speculation was a losing one, and the firm was
very soon wound up. Sir Walter Scott was the
designer of the original building, with its two gaso-
meter towers, its halls, and large apartments, after
the style of a Moorish fort.

The towers of five fiats (of which one flat serves
for the luncheon-room on sale-days, and the others
for skin stores) are still left to tell of the strange
scheme which gave birth to that building. It was
afterwards sold to some wholesale grocers and wine
merchants ; and it was there that the Free Kirk
ministers, with Chalmers, Candlish, and Cunning-
ham at their head, first marched, after the disruption
of 1843, from St. Andrew's Church, and held their
meetings for fourteen years. What is now the "West
Hall" had acquired before that a political renown.
Those walls had echoed back the voice of O'Connell,
as, with all that " action v/hich completes speech,^' he
talked to Edinburgh of Erin. He had canny Scots
to hear him; but it held them in a spell.

*' To the last verge of that wide audience sent.
It played with each wild passion as it went ;
Now stirred the uproar, now the mupmur stilled.
And. sighs and laughter answered as it willed."

An East Hall has now spruug up where "once a
garden smiled ;" in 1861 the North Hall, covering a
space of from 1,500 to 2,000 jards, was added, and

2 F 2

68 FIELD AND FERN.

m 1864 a large three-storeyed building. There are
thus about 10,000 yards of floorage, which are capable
of storing 20,000 to 30,000 bales of wool for the
sales.

When you have passed through the office, and
perhaps paused to look at the photograph of one
of Mr. Girdwood's earliest supporters, the late Mr.
Giinn of Glendhu, you enter the room, where sheets
and bags stand in piles all ready to send out. Above
£2^000 is invested in them alone. A few are of
Dundee manufacture, but they principally come from
Jameson of Hull, and are made of hemp, as being
most profitable, and very seldom of jute. The bags
begin to go out in April, and so on till the very end
of the year. Ten to forty sheets are sent out for
clips in the Lothians, &c., &c. ; but for big High-
land clips from ten to two hundred bags are re-
(|uired. A sheet generally carries 300 to 5001bs., but
English and Irish ones will go as high as 6 cwt,, when
intended for exportation. A bag will carry ten to
tiwelve Scotch stones (241bs. to the stone) of laid
wool, and eight stone of white wool, in fleeces ; and
Ihe Highland wool generally comes this way. It
was once a very common practice with the Scottish
farmers to weigh in lots of 2 stone, and thus in a bag
uf 10 stone the turn of the beam was against them
fiye times, and they perhaps lost 5 to 10 lbs. ; but
to obviate this, 1 lb, per cwt. of draft is allowed.
Sutherland shire, Ross-shire, Inverness-shire, Argyll-
shire, and Perthshire generally send their clips in

EDINBURGH TO THE ROMAN CAMP. 6^

bags, wliich carry 2 cwt. for the facility of carrying
and shipping, while the south country Cheviot and
half-bred wools mostly arrive in sheets.

The centre building has a great variety of home and
foreign skins, principally from Buenos Ayres, in bales
bound with steel hoops. The wools pulled from them.
are classed into three sorts, according to the part of the
sheep they belong to. The fellmongers get the skins,
and pull them after sweating, and sell the wool, and the
skin is converted into parchment or leather. About
100 bales of New Zealand wool were lying there. It
is very pure and white in its colour, finer than.
Cheviot, and shorter, although some is long and.
suitable for combing, and it is in demand both for
tweeds and hosiery. The contents of the Round
Towers of five fiats are more various. Lamb skins
figure as "morts,^^ and sell from IJd. to 2d.; and
Shetland pickings lie cheek by jowl with German
flipes, seal skins from Orkney, otter skins from Mullj
and calf skins from everywhere.

The North Hall is full of the finest specimens of
bred and half-bred"^' wools, from Caithness, the
Lothians, Berwickshire, Roxburghshire, Peebleshire.
Morayshire, and Fifeshire. Early in 1864?, on^
sample fetched 2s. 5|d. per lb., the highest price,
known since 1818; but since then one or two
others have reached as high as 2s. 7Jd. The wools
are all reclassed after examination by the buyers,

* Bred = Leicester ; Half-bred = Leicester and Cheviot ; Half-bred Cr&s-s —
Blackface and Leicester ; Cross = Blackface and Clie\'iot.

70 FIELD AND FERN.

W/lio come to look over them two days before the
sale, and the men refill the hags, which are hung
from the roofs during the process. The red clay of
the East Lothian, like that of Gala water, slightly
colours its wool, and one clip retained an oil-dip so
much that it might as well have been smeared. Mr.
Girdwood stands on his "Meiossoon dip," and several
tin jars and casks of it, hermetically sealed and
marked with the Highland ram^s head, occupy the
floor of the East Room. Butterate and White Smear
are his other preparations ; the latter is intended to
supersede tar and butter, but Time, ^''who knows
nor friend nor foe," will be the judge.

The public sales were announced in April, 1853,
and the first was held on July 14th of that year.
There were 3.20 bales, principally half-bred wools ;
and by the end of the first decade we find 7,000
bales or 1,364 lots in the catalogue of the corres-
ponding sale. The first supply was principally from
the Lothians and Fife, with part from Perth and
Argyllshire; a,nd the Highland and Highland-district
wools came later in the season. There was a
large assembly that day, and the absence of the
Halifax men was made up by a strong body of the
Bradford for the half-bred and other combing^ wools,
of which Mr. Baines especially was a large buyer.
Charles Fox from Dewsbury was also there for
clothing wools ; the Wilsons of Hawick, and Paton

* Combing' wools = breds, lialf-breds, blackface, and hi.crMy-fed Cheviot
hoggs ; Clothing wools = hill-fed Cheviots, crosses, and Southdowns.

EDINBURGH TO THE ROMAN CAMP. 71

and Son of Alloa^ for lialf-breds and Cheviots for
hosiery and Alloa stocking yarn ; Abercromby and
Co. of Stowe Mills, near Galashiels, for Southdown
and Cheviot for tartan shawls; Charles Yfilson and
Sons of Earlston were looking after Cheviot, crosses,
and blackfciced for blankets ; and. local dealers for
all sorts, and a bargain if it could be had.

"Lot 1, 3 sheets f first picky markj b — Skin Wool C./'
"was the opening entry of the maiden catalogue. The
first biddings were not up to the reserve price,
and tbe lot was withdrawn, and sold that afternoon
at Is. 4d. to Mr. Joshua Hall. For Lot 2, " Fliped
Hogg C," Mr. Baines of Bradford drew first blood,
and at the same price. At the second sale, Mr.
Varley of Stanningley bought largely of all kinds, and
the result convinced Mr. Girdwood that half-bred
crosses, which had been sold hitherto at a price half
way between Cheviot and Blackfaced wool, would
come close up to the half-bred, as they have done.

To master that catalogue and all its phrases is no
light effort. " Smyrna Britch" speaks, in a measure,
for itself as skirts, or the coarse hairy parts of Smyrna
fleece, and "-B A Bonne f as fine dark Buenos Ayres ;
while " Capes " are from the Cape of Good Hope.
There is more significance in "Brokes/' or broken
wools of all kinds ; " Fallen^' are fl,eeces gathered on
the hills from dead sheep ; and " Burrs'' are wool-
balls adhering to that prickle. After that our troubles
begin, and it does require some effort of pencil or
memory to master that " Noils" signify sbort wool

FIELD AND FEllN.

left iu the teeth of wool-combs, and that it goes to
the blanket manufacturer ; that " Cotts" are cotted
or matted fleeces ; that " Picklocks'' are divided into
best and second, or fine and coarse pick, from the
skin, by fellmongers; that ^' Haslock'^ is subject to
the same classification, but applies generally to the
coarse skirts of Cheviots, half-breds, &c., and the best
part of blackface ; that -'Fine Greif is equal to Has-
lock of that colour, and taken principally from black-
face for carpet yarns and blankets ; and that " Coai'se
TV/lite" comes from the shanks of the sheep, and
ranks in the social wool scale cilong with " Coarse
Grey/' and even below '' Common Haslock."

The sales take place eight times a year, beginning
in May; and in September, which is the height
of the season, they last from four to six days. Shet-
land sends very little native wool to public sales,
but, like Orkney, contributes some Cheviot. The half-
bred wool from Caithness is of a beautiful quality and
fine fibre, with a peculiarly pure colour, all of which
delight the Halifax men. The judges saw this at
the International ShoAV, and both Sir George Dun-
bar's bred and Mr. Swainson's half-bred fleeces had
certificates of merit. In fact, it is a hard race for supre-
macy between them and the East Lothian men, among
whom Major Hunter of Thurston, who farms about
five miles from Dnnbar, stands very high with his
half-breds, Southdowns, and Soathdown crosses. The
east-coast have an advantage over the west-coast men,
owing to the feeding, which causes the wool to be

EDINBURGH TO THE ROMAN CAMP. 73

rather brighter and stronger in the staple. Sutherland
wools^ v/hich principally come up in Jnlv, are excel-
lent for stockings, tweeds, pilot-cloths, blankets,
and blue flannels. Ross-shire sends good laid Che-
viot and blackface, and the sheep-farms of Easter
Eoss some of the best bred and half-bred wools.

The Highland smearing system extends through In-
verness, Argyllshire, lloss-shire, and Perthshire (ex-
cept in the agricultural parts) ; and these counties, with
Morayshire, parts of Banffshire and Aberdeenshire,^
Forfarshire, Fife, Kinross, and the agricultural parts
of Stirlingshire, nearly all send white wool. Skye is
faithful to laid, TV'hich is principally Cheviot, and very
fine in the staple. South of the Forth, the public
feeling has gone against smearing for some years past,
and the flock -masters chiefly apply dressing which v.ill
not stain the wool. Peebleshire is great 1)oth in Che-
viot and Blackfaced, and the pastures of Ayrshire bor-
dering on Galloway, and Galloway itself, produce a
closer and finer growth of wool, which the clothiers
love. Wool is sold at character fairs, Inverness, Fort
William, Oban, Inverary, Crieff, and Tyndrum, which
are all held in July. St. Boswells unites a wool cha-
racter and pitched sheep fair, and so does George -
mas ; Jedburgh, Peebles, Biggar, and Kelso sell, but
never pitch ; and Hawick has reg^ilar pitched wool
sales of its own.

The Highland Society was formed in 1784, at a
small meeting in the Cowgate. Lord Karnes had
given the times a wrench by his writings, and " Sir

74 I'lELD AND FERN.

John, of projects rife" was beginning to '^ stand
ibrtli'^ and make his voice heard from John o^Groat^s
to Gretna. It was not, however, until July 30tli, 1 787,
that the Society was incorporated by royal charter, and
was known, '' per nomen et titulum in vulgari," as
" The Highland Society of Scotland at Edinburgh.'^
John Duke of Argyll (its first President) and the
night Honourable Elizabeth Countess of Sutherland
were tlie first and second " original constituent mem-
bers^^ under the charter ; William Macdouald of St.
Martin's was its first secretary, and David Maclean.
its first piper.

It proposed to examine into the Highlands and
Islands, to establish towns, villages, and harbours
therein — to open communication byroads and bridges,
to extend and promote fisheries, to encourage agricul-
ture, and to introduce manufactures. The preservation
of the language, poetry, and music of the Highlands
was also its care. It was to this end that it paid
teachers of Gaelic, that it gave prizes for the best per-
formers on the bagpipes, and instituted ^''inquiries into
the authenticity and history of the poems of Ossian/^
Henry Mackenzie, " The Man of Feeling j" was quite
the knight of the Gael in council. Year after year
he kept the subject alive, and never bated one jot of
heart and hope during that weary delay, which arose
out of the difficulty of finding an editor really fit
to cope with Gaelic manuscripts. It was long before
he could fairly report progress, and his last sickness
was on him Y*^hen the completion of the Gaelic die-

EDINBURGH TO THE ROMAN CAMP. 75

tionary, in two volumes of 776 and 1,015 pages each,
was officially announced by the lips of another.

With the new century the Society extended its care
in a measure to the Lowlands, and laid great stress
on essays and reports. In 1824, its original hundred
members had swelled to 1,461, and when the jubilee
dinner was held in ^34, with the Duke of Buccleuch,
who was then President, in the chair, they numbered
1,900. The Duke of Wellington had been made an
honorary member, and wrote his thanks from Cam-
bray in the spring of ^16, and a letter in acknowledg-
ment of the same honour was received from Marshal
Blucher at Carlsbad the next July. Sir Walter
Scott took no very active part in its proceedings, and
the last mention that we find of his name was at a
half-yearly meeting in 1824, when he proposed that
the ballot should be dispensed with in the case of
Lady Gwydir and Baroness Keith. Eifty years had
reduced the original members to four on the day of
the jubilee — the Earl of Glasgow (who survived them
all). Sir William M'Leod of Bannatyne, Sir John
Sinclair of Uibster, and General Campbell of Lochnell.
They were all there to support the Duke, and were
welcomed with the old, favourite strain of " Owre the
muir amang the heather J^

New ones sprung up as they went down ; and be-
teen ^45 and ^65, which represents the secretaryship
of Mr. Hall Maxwell, the numbers have increased
from 2,569 to 4,055. Independently of the national
feeling, which makes every young farmer anxious t o

76

FIELD AND FERN

see his name on this great Scottish bede-roU of agri-
culture, the terms* upon which he can enter do not
encourage that mere membership for a year, when the
Society comes to his own locality, which is fostered by
the roving English pound. His Majesty Napoleon III.
heads the list, and the oldest member on the books
is ^' Mr. Robert Campbell of Sonachan, Inverary,
1802" ; and the Marquis of Tweeddale, K.T., v/ho
was a constant judge at the earlier shows, dates from
1809. The Presidency has been held by sixteen
dukes. John fifth Duke of Argyll was elected in 1 785,
and died when he had held office for two-and-twenty
years. All the others, with tlie exception of the late
Duke of Gordon, who also died during his term cf
office, have presided for four years, and none of
them but the late Duke of Hamilton (who went on
for another year by virtue of a bye-law) have been
elected twice.

The cardinal object of tlie Society is, by means
of district competitions under committees and con-
veners, to throw out its fibres all over the country,
and to keep all the local societies in communion with
head-quarters at Edinburgh. Hence there were at
least 211 districts during ^64 in the receipt of money
or medals under the Society's conditions, quite irre-

* New members are admittocl at tlio amiiial meetiiip: iu January, and the
summer general meeting in June or July. The ordinary subscription is
^1 33. 61. annually, which may be redeemed by one payment, varying from
£12 12s. to £7 li., and regulated by the number of previous annual payments.
Tenant-farmers, secretaries, and treasurers of local Agricultiu-al Associations,
resident agricultural factors, and jjroprietors farming the whole of their own
lands, whose assessment on the valuation-roll does not exceed £500, are ad-
mitted on a subscription of 10s. aimually or £5 5s. for hie.

EDINBURGH TO THE ROMAN CAMP» 77

spective of those whicli were comprehended iu the
August Show district of the year. Agricultural edu-
cation was provided for by a supplementary charter
of 1856, hj which diplomas were granted, and £100
is laid out annually in prizes according to the report
of the Board of Examiners, which comprises, along
with Professors John Wilson, Ba^lfour, Anderson,
Allman, Dick, &c., the well-known agricultural
names of George Hope of Fenton Barns, Robert
Russell ofPilmuir, John Wilson of Edgington Mains,
and Peter M'Lagan of Pumpherston. As far back as
1824, we fmd Professor Dick^s name as lecturer to the
Society on '^ the diseases of black cattle -/' and money
was then voted to set up a forge at his Veterinary Col-
lege, in order to teach the young farmers shoeing.
In 1849, Dr. Anderson was appointed Consulting
Chemist, and gives his advice from '^ complete ana-
lysis of a soil, including determination of Alkalies
and Phosphates, £3," down to "letters asking
advice on subjects within the department of the
chemist, 5s.," on a regular scale sanctioned by the
Societ}^

From the first, the Society's intellectual activities
have been boundless, and have extended even to bee
husbandry. Was it locomotion ? They were looking
after the improvement of the Highland ferry-boats ;
they were resisting the attempt to get rid of the
ancient drove-roads, and confine the cattle to turn-
pikes; and as far back as 1818 they proposed a
50-guinea prize essay on railroads. Was it cropping ?

78 FIELD AND FERN,

They were giving prizes for barley or bigg of the
greatest weight ; they were guarding against smut in
wheat, and encouraging turnips in Orkney and Shet-
land, as well as sowing arable land with red clover
and rye-grass; and Mr. Boswell of Balmuto was
their Holker ambassador to see the drill system as
practised by Mr. Coke, and to report whether it or
broadcast answered best with barley, after a bare,
and a turnip fallow. Was it the reclaiming of land?
Sheep-drains were fostered, and prizes given for the
effective execution of not less than 6,000 roods, and
attention was drawn to the extirpation of ferns from
hill pastures. The blowing sand was combatted in
all the Northern Isles, and one of the first gold
medals was given to Mr. Drummond of Blair Drum-
mond, for " floating an extreme track of moss in
Perthshire, and settling one hundred people on it,
who in '92 had been compelled to leave the High-
lands on account of sheep-farming.^'

Was it the improvement of implements or machi-
inery ? They were offering a premium for a steam
plough in 1837, which was competed for by Mr.
Heathcot, and they awarded it to Mr. John Fowler,
in 1857. Mr. Smith of Dcanston was always secure of
a trial from the Society, when something new in earth-
tormenting was evolved from that teeraing brain, and
so was BelFs reaping machine. Thanks to their
bounty, Andrew Meikle, the inventor of a thrashing
machine, was enabled to pass his later years in com-
fort ; but when watches and a revolving battery were

EDINKUllGH TO THE ROMAN CAMP. 79

pressed upon them, they were fain to admit that they
were not just in their line. Mr. Elackie, the
" Armourer to the Lanarkshire Militia/^ seems to
have read the meaning of the Society better, when he
entered their temple of industrious peace^ rot Avith
a new buckler or a helmet, but with a model of a
reaping machine ; and in 1825, two young Flemish
farmers were brought over, with an amateur inter-
preter, to instruct the districts in the use of the
Hainault scythe.

Still, the Society never lost sight of their earliest
mission, and the newspapers were specially requested
to take notes of the probable ripening time of the Low-
land harvest, so as to prevent miscalculations on the
part of the Highland shearers and the public begging
which followed. The social questions which it grap-
pled with were not always strictly agricultural, as
the state of the Friendly Societies was looked into,
and the average was struck of health and- sickness
specially dividing bedfast and walking sickness. In-
door labour was not passed over; and spinning
hemp, making herring-nets, knitting worsted stock-
ings not less than twenty-four pairs, and worsted, not
less than twenty -four spindles and spun in the Hio-h-
lands, all formed subjects of competition. Eaising
the pile of wool on cloths, and spinning the greatest
quantity of Merino v/ool into broad-clotli not less
than 600 lbs. weight, originated with Sir John Sin-
clair, who had a flock of them within five miles of John
o^ Groat's, and once held quite a shepherd and shep-

^0 FIELD AND FERN.

herdess /e/e in costume on a shearing-day. Not con-
tent with '^ an abstract of all that is knoAvn in wool-
stapling/^ the directors proceeded in after-years to
give practical effect to the essay they proposed, by
offering 100 gs. to any woolstapler who would settle
by a certain day in a situation approved of by the
Board. Besides then* general researches into the
larch and other Scottish trees, the}^ inquired into
the causes of the difficulty of raising trees at all
on the eastern coast, and drew attention to the uses
of brushwood and other underwood, which had been
'' unduly neglected by owners and the public/^ They
encouraged the growth of osiers for baskets, and
willows for barrel-hoops, under restrictions as to age
and acreage ; and, aided by Mr. BoswelFs report of
his Italian tour, they strove to introduce a straw-
plait imitation of Leghorn, from common rye sown
thick on sandy gravell}^ soil, and cut when it came
into ear.

The marine portion of the earliest charter was
never overlooked, and they took the breeding of
salmon fry under their charge. " The adventurers in
the herring fishery at Greenock^^ had every facility for
" communing with the Society,^^ when they repaired
to Edinburgh to beg them to persuade Parliament to
put the fishing bounties on a better footing, and to
prevent foreign herrings from coming in. They
laboured the point as to whether the "sea-grass"
might not become a good proxy for horse-hair in
stuffing mattresses, and more especially fostered the

EDIXBURGII TO THE ROMAN CAMP. 81

production of kelp as a substitute for barilla, as '^tlie
earlier stages of the process were calculated to en-
courage a seafaring life, and breed up seamen for the
navy/' Any attempt on the part of the Chancellor
of the Exchequer to increase the duties on soap was
therefore watched with an especially jealous eye ;
but beyond an attitude of defiance on herrings and
barilla we find hardly any trace of political action.

The contests for the prize pipe took place in the
Theatre E-oyal at Edinburgh each July, '^'^irame-
xliately after the race.'^ The judges wore their na-
tional garb ; and on one occ:ision_, when Mr. James
Moray's piper won the prize pipe and forty merks to
boot, there were forty-five competitors, and upwards
of £150 was taken at the doors. The notation of pipe
music was carefully attended to, and it was a cardi-
nal rule that each candidate should deposit six ancient
pipe tunes with the Society. Those, too, who could
" produce tunes set to music by themselves, and sing
or recite ancient Gaelic poetry or lines not generally
known or published," were informed that they would
^^racet with due encouragement." Sometimes Strath-
spey or ^^Twasomc" was danced as an interlude;
and both it and the playing were so keenly relished,
that more than once Sir John Sinclair had to warn
the company that if they encored the performers so
often the dinner-hour would lind^ them only half
through their work. Sir John quite gloried in being
chairman of the musical jury, and the Peninsular
war gave him great scope when lie distributed the

82 " FIELD AND FERN,

prizes. His eye glistened wlien he told them that
Wellington heard no sound with more delight, or
Napoleon with more dismay, than that of a High-
land pibroch ; or when he pointed out that, as the
waists of Brussells belles were tied with Scottish rib-
bons, ^^ such an example should not be wasted on the
belles of our own country/^ He could tell the
pipers, too, how one gold medallist had, since their
last merry meeting, forgotten all about the surgeon,
and continued to play on his pipe, when he was
severely wounded at Vimeira, and how one who had
gained a second pipe had been wounded four times.
The 42nd, the 71st, the 79th, and the 92nd regi-
ments had all a magic sound for his audience ; but
still, the Scots Greys v/ere first favourites, and the
roof rang longest and loudest at the mention of their
name.

The dairy claims were substantially recognized in
^24, Avhen the expediency of sending sweet milk to
market in spring-carts and locked vessels was insisted
on, and prizes were proposed for Dunlop or '' Mild
Ayrshire,^^ and imitations of Double Glo^ster. No
competitor was to send in less than 10 stone of
IGlbs. and 16oz. to the pound. Fifty-two cheeses
competed at the first show^ which was held in Edin-
burgh on December 22nd, and Mr. Sanderson of the
Black Castle, Lanarkshire, was first with Dunlop,
and Mr. BellofWoodhouse Lees, Dumfriesshire, with
the Double Glo'ster. Prizes for North Wiltshire
cheeses were given the next Christmas ; but the

EDINBUKGH TO THE SOMAN CAMP. 83

judges observed that their pine-apple shape was not
accurate^ owing to the faulty nets, and advised that
better patterns should be got. From the statement
of Mr. Sanderson,, who seems to have been with Mr.
Nichol of Easterhouse quite the cheese champion of
the day, the only difference between them and the
Double Glo^ster was in the shape and size. In ^27,
Mr. Sanderson won with Stilton, but the imitations
of Cheshire failed. Prizes v/ere also given for the
curing of butter, no competitor to send in less than
10 fir]?ins, and in due time Sir John Sinclair (who
was as enthusiastic upon this point as he was upon
salting beef or salving sheep, to say nothing of his
Vienna cabbage) was enabled to report that the
butter from Aberdeen no longer classed with the
fourth-class Irish, and that the difference of 30s. per
cwt. between it and the best Dutch had been gra-
dually reduced five-sixths.

Deacon Milne of that town seems to have had a
monopoly of the salting prizes. Sometimes we read of
him curing 262 tierces of 3001bs. each of beef, and
38 tierces of pork, with rock or bay salt ; and later on
he shipped his 90,C001bs. weight of beef at Aberdeen,
drawn solely from Aberdeenshire, Banffshire, and
Kincardineshire. Veal, too, was not overlooked, and
there was a prize for the breeder who brought the
greatest weight of calves to market, which had been
fed on milk for not less than six weeks, and had been
carried to the fleshers on spring-carts or by canal.

The ploughing matches formed no small local

2 G 2

M> FIELD AND FERN.

feature in the earlier history of the Society, and in
a report of one held in 1819^ in the Kincardineshire
district, where twenty-four ploughs were drawn by a
pair of horses, and three by oxen, ^' a small sum of
money was allotted to each unsuccessful candidate/'
Gradually the system was given up, or confined
bo a silver medal to the best ploughman " on the
report of one or more members of the Society;"
and competitive implement trials were annexed
to the programme at each of the meetings. These
were abandoned after ^61, and the implements
are not now arrayed in sections as they once were,
but exhibitors group exactly what they like at their
stands. A committee send in a report, and select
new inventions or important implements for trial,
and at Athelstaneford last year some reaping ma-
chines were tested. The withdrawal of the prizes
has rather increased the number of implements ex-
bibited. The Kelso entry was very much larger than
the Perth one, and stood at 1,101 as against 11 at
Edinburgh in 1827.

Their earliest premiums were given for *' black
cattle,''-' or rather Argyllshires, and the expression still
lingered out of courtesy at the head of the list long
after the other breeds were acknowledged, and had
distinct classes. The maiden show seems to have
been one for bulls at Connel Kilmore in Argyllshire,
on October 20th, 1784; and the directions to the
judges were "to attend to the shape of bulls, and
not to the size, as we encourage the true breed of

EDINBURGH TO THE ROMAN CAMP. 85

Highland cattle/^ For a time^ the favoured bull-
districts were Lorn, Mull, with the Island of ColL
Morven, ^nth Ardnamurchan, Kinj^erloch, and Ard-
gower. Then three-year-old queys received prizes as
well as bulls ; and when Argyllshire ceased to have
a monopoly of the Society's cattle attentions, a prize
of ^5 was given to the man, either in that county,
Inverness-shire, Perthshire, or Ross-shire, "who
spaves most queys with success/^ In 1816, there
w^ere prizes for the improvement of work-horseSy
and by degrees a distinction was drawn between
Clydesdales for heavy and Clevel an ds for lighter land.
An attempt to encourage the breeding of chariot
horses ended in one pair being shown, and one of
them being disqualified for over age. At Kelso the
£50 blood-horse competition was nearly as un-
satisfactory; Captain Anstruther Thomson and
Captain Percy Williams threaded the ranks in vain
for anything worthy of the name of a hunter, and
so the Clydesdale has slowly and surely swallowed
up every other breed.

Short- wools as well as long- wools were recognized
soon after ^16; and the Duke of Athole, Lord Lyne-
doch, and Mr. Smith of Methven judged them in
Perthshire, with instructions to " have regard both
to wool and carcase." Things had ripened by '21
into twelve district competitions for " black cattle,''
two for horses, and three for sheep; and Donald
Ilorne of Langwell and John Hall of Seiber^s Cross
were showing their hands as Cheviot winners.

86 FIELD AND FERN.

The first sliow was held at Queensberry Barracks
in. 1822, the verj^ year that England began her
Shorthorn Herd-Book. Fifty-nine oxen and eight
sheep were entered, and it was expressly stipulated
that the oxen were not to be fed on '^oilcake or dis-
tillery wash and grains,^' and that particulars as to
the distance they had travelled and the time they
had been put up to fatten should be specified in the
certificate. The '^ Teeswaters or Shorthorns were the
favourites with the Border agents/'' says a local
chronicler, who adds that " Baillie Gordon, his Ma-
jesty ^s carpenter, put up the sheds /^ The show was
kept open for 2h days, and sixty-five new members
were added to the Society. Rennie, the younger,
showed twenty-two shorthorns, and v^'as first of all
with one, which was sold for 60 guineas. This
success routed up the champions of the national
breeds. T'he Dumfries Courier as the time again drew
near, exhorted the Galloway men to send ^*^your hairy
representatives to the great annual congress of
beeves/^ but Rennie was first again, and again when the
show-yard had been, removed next year to the Portable
Gas premises at Tanfield, and " 9s. and iOs. per stone
was the ordinary rate of agreement for cattle.^' One
of them, '' Fat Charlie,^^ bred at Monreith, fetched
the highest of the twain ; and it is recorded that
" more would have been got, if the show-man who
exhibited him had not wanted to sell the caravan as
well.^^ All the oxen were shown in pairs, and Short-
horn, Fife, and then Aberdeen was the order, when

EDINBURGH TO THE ROMAN CAMP. 87

the winning pairs were drawn and placed for tlie
Plate. Both cattle and sheep mustered stronger
than ever in '24, when a West Highland ox made
lis. per stone,, and an 160-stone ox arrived in a van.
Well might an Edinburgh paper ^'^not wish to boast^^ ;
^' but yet we have no hesitation in expressing our wil-
lingness to compare notes with our friends at Smith-
field.^^

Store cattle had been admitted the previous year,
but even that advance and the opening of the classes
to England and Ireland did not help the show in ^25
(at which Mr. Stirling's Shorthorn- West-Highland
played first part), and in the following year it
was determined to talve it to Glasgow, and have
classes for horses as well. Change of scene brought
with it a complete revival. The Duke of Montrose
kept up the honour of the district with his oxen
Romulus and Riva, and nineteen Clydesdale brood
mares were in the ranks. Glasgow has always stood
highest in the entries. In its ^44 show there were 558
cattle, in its '57 show 240 horses and 112 swine, and
it has only been beaten by Berwick-on- Tweed in
^54, and Edinburgh in '48, for top place with the
sheep.

The first decided symptom of the impetus which
had been given might be seen in the announce-
ment that the Highland Society were directing
their attention to the habit of letting bulls and
rams, and that "all who had paid attention to
the selection of individual animals, native or im-

88 FIELD AND FERN.

ported, were requested to communicate witli the Se-
cretary/^ The straw had begun to stir at last ; and
when Edinburgh had held another poor meeting, and
Glasgow a good one, it was decided to give up the
biennial rotation of Edinburgh and Glasgow, to
erase the conventional term "black cattle^' from the
list, and to accept the invitation to Perth on the first
October Wednesday of ^29. Gradually the Society
has fallen on to regular circuit towns, Inverness in
the North, Aberdeen in the North-east, Perth in the
centre, Edinburgh as the capitol, Glasgow in the
West, Dumfries in the South-west, and Kelso in the
South-east. Dundee was once the venue in '43, and
Stirling in ^64, after an interval of one-and-thirty
years, while Ayr has been given up by common con-
sent for very nearly as long.

The second Glasgow was another success, only
marred by the rule that Clydesdales should be " bay,
black, or brown bay all over," which prevented any of
the forty-two from claiming a prize, and made the
Society tolerant of white-legs and blazes for the
future. Then the regular country meetings began at
Perth, with J357 worth of premiums, and among the
192 in the cattle ranks nothing was more looked at
than the West Highlander, which was said to be the
fattest that had ever been fed at Keir. Thirty short-
horn bulls came to Dumfries in '30, and " Old Mood-
law^' began his prize raid with the " five best Cheviot
gimmers.^' For many years the winning history of
these classes was interwoven with his name, as well as

EDINBURGH TO THE ROMAN CAMP. 8i

Young and Craig's^ Aitchison^s^ and Donald Home's,
and then his nephew young Moodlaw took up the
running with Elliot, Borthwick, and Patterson of
Tereggles. Among the blackfaced classes, on the
other hand, we meet with Blacklock of Minnygap,
Dryfe, Watson, Alexander Denholm, ^Murray of
Eastside, Wilson of Crosshouse, and Aitken of Liston-
sheils.

The Caithness and Sutherland men with Hous-
toun of Kintradwell, amongst them, brought their
forces well up at Inverness in ^31, when ]\Iac-
pherson of Belville swept four blackfaced prizes,
and Corryhoyiie descended from the mountains with
his buck goats. Mr. Blamire, who had just been
elected as the colleague of Sir James Graham in East
Cumberland, and whose white horse '' Cappy^' had
carried him to all the fairs and markets of Scotland
for many a year, when he slept in the saddle and
never dreamt of St. Stephen^s or the Tithe Office,
judged his beloved shorthorns with the Marquis
of Tweeddale, at Kelso. Stirling in ^33 witnessed
the intellectual activity of Mr. Smith of Deanston
in every detail down to the arrangement of the hall
for dinner, a ceremony which was so well observed at
Aberdeen in ^34, that deputations kept moving be-
tween the three rooms, to inform the respective chair-
men that their healths had been drunk, and the
chairman who sat the longest proposed " the health
of the departed.^' Captain Barclay was in force with
his cows, and so was Lord Kintore with his '^ ox ;'-^

90 FIELD AND FERN.

and Mr. Guerrier^, the London salesman, was received
most cheerily when he said he had been the first to
receive an ox consigned by water to London. Ellman
sent Southdowns to Perth in'So, and Hugh Watson
refused .€100 for a Leicester tup, one of those cele-
brated three from Keillor, of v/hich, as we have be-
fore mentioned, each judge got one. Sir John
Campbell confessed himself fairly beaten over cattle
and sheep points, and told his audience, when he
spoke at the dinner, that ''^ he should not have much
chance of being raised to the (show-yard) bench.^^
Next year the steam plough succeeded once in
moving three hundred yards in 3^ minutes, and then
it stuck fast in Lochar Moss, although Mr. Parkes
and his men had been in strict attendance on it for
three weeks before. Sir James Graham worked up
his audience with one of his finest speeches, which he
concluded by repeating, in reference to ^' The Buc-
cleuch^^ —

" Constant still in danger's hour" ;

and the battle between Aitchison and Brydon waxed
hot over- the Cheviots, the one winning with his tups
and the other with his ewes. Glasgow had one of its
great meetings in ^38, when Sergeant Talfonrd
spoke to a toast, and 16,920 people paid to go
on The Green. Inverness in ^39 was marked by a
crusade in the discussions against the shorthorn
crosses, which were fast creeping in and making the
Highlanders very jealous; but the voice of Mr.
Wether ell was heard on the other side, and he met

EDINBURGH TO THE E.OMAN CAMP. 91

the assertion that Earl Spencer's cattle were " fed,
groomed, and clothed like race-horses/' with a flat
negative, and another English breeder indorsed him.
The Buccleuch Shorthorns and the Richmond
Southdowns were very distinguished at Aberdeen the
next year, and M'Combie won his maiden prize
with an ox, and showed two fonr-year-olds of " great
merit.'' Booth with Bracelet, Bates with his Oxford
cow, and Crofton^s heifers were in the shorthorn ranks
in '41 at Berwick-on-Tweed ; and Elhot of Hind-
hope fairly vanquished Sutherlandshire on his own
ground. At Edinburgh, Crofton's Provost was first
for the fifty-sovereign prize in a field of twenty-four
bulls ; and the Duke of Buccleuch's were first, second,
and third in the cow class ; while the blood horses In-
heritor and Little Known were among the extra stock,
as Dardanelles and Patron had been at Berwick.
Jonas Webb's shearlings, which had been prevented
by stress of weather from coming to Berwick, were
winners at Dundee, where Watson of Keillor and
Aitchison of Linhope made a brilliant finish to a
great show career. Glasgoiv had one of its monster
meetings in August, but the time was not steadily
fixed yet, and the Society were at Dumfries in the
October of the following year, and fell in for the fes-
tivities of the southern race meeting. " The Belville
year" of '46 (of which we spoke "in another place")
preceded the Aberdeen year, when M'Combie began
in earnest with four firsts, the Brothers Cruickshank
and Hay of Shethin kept the head of the Shorthorn

92 riELD AND FERN.

classes pretty well against all comers^ and the
laird of Langwell swept every premium offered for
Cheviots.

At Glasgow, in ^50, Maynard^s Crusade was the
Voltigeur of the Shorthorns ; and Belville reappeared
with four more years on his head, and very little
patchiness in proportion, as the winner of a sweep-
stakes with twenty entries. Booth, Wilson, and Towne-
ley fought hard in the female classes, and even Fife
sent forty-three of its blacks. It seemed an expiring
county effort, as only fourteen came to Perth in ^53,
and they were seen in the lists no more. Booth's
Windsor was at Berwick-upon-Tweed, and Douglas-
was there with his Captain Balco and Rose of Sum-
mer to meet Booth and all comers. With Invernesfi,
in ^56, the biennial system, which had gone on ever
since M<8, gave way once more to the annual. At
Glasgow, the next year, it is well remembered how
the Duke of Athole mustered his clan, and marched
to meet the Queen of the Netherlands ; how closely
Elliot and Brydon contested the Cheviot classes ;
and how John o^Groat, the first of Mr. Stirling's
three Royal roans, came from Keir with his Salis-
bury honours on his head. In ^58 the Granite City
had its fourth visit. It was a grand sheep year at Edin-
burgh when the Richmond Southdowns were in front,
and Cockburn beat Wiley in the Leicester tups, and
then had to go down before those rare Brandsby gim-
mers. "The Duchess twins'' came to Dumfries in
^60, to be beaten by Douglas's Clarionet, and thus.

EDINBUUGH TO THE ROMAN CAMP. 93

tlirough Perthf Battersea, Kelso, and Stirling we
reach our own times.

The winter show of fat stock was renewed at Edin-
burgh in the off j'car of ^53^ with .£300 of prizes^ but
with entries not much greater in extent than they had
been thirty years before. A West Highlander kept
up the old Keir charter, and both Mr. Stirhng and
Mr. Knov/les had rare oxen at Glasgow the next year.
With these two efforts, v/hich entailed a heavy loss
on the Society, it fell through once more, but
was taken up again by the Messrs. Swan on their
own account at Edinburgh in 1855. Last Christmas
there were twelve well-filled classes for cattle, and
five for sheep, the winner in each receiving two-thirds
of the entrance-money, and the second one-third.
The Cattle Cup of 10 gs. was won by Messrs. Martin
of Aberdeen with their cross-bred ox, and the five-
guinea Sheep Cup by Mr. Thorburn of Juniper
Bank, Inverlethen, for his pen of Cheviot .wedders,
which sold at 95s. all round. There were also classes
for dairy cows fed in Edinburgh, some of which made
c€25 each ; while M'Combie's blacks, and not his
best, went for 75s. the hundred-weight.

The vrhole framework of the Society is condensed
into its annual book of premiums. Taking that for
1865, we find Class I. given up to reports. These are
subdivided again into sections ^' On Subjects con-
nected with the Science and Practice of Agricul-
ture,'^ " Woods and Plantations,^^ " Land Impj'ove-
ments,^^ and ''^ Agricultural jVIachinery," i.e., ^^In-

94 riELD AND FERN.

vention or Improvement of Implements of Hus-
bandry/' The reports in the last section are re-
warded by medals or sums of money not exceeding
fifty sovereigns ; and in the former, the prizes range
from thirty sovereigns to a ^^ gold medium medal
or five sovereigns/^ Class II. is devoted to District
Competitions. All grants in aid for any year must
be applied for by the 1st of November previous, and
on the '65 list fourteen districts were down for cattle,
two for draught horses, three for entire colts, three
for Leicester sheep, two for swine, and five each for
Cheviots and blackfaced. "The Society's premiums
are granted to each district for three alternate years,
on condition that the district shall, in the two inter-
mediate years, continue the competitions by offering
for the same description of stock a sum not less than
one-half of that given by the Society ; and at the
intermediate competitions a silver medal is placed at
the disposal of the committee, to be awarded to the
best lot exhibited.'' The money premiums are
restricted to tenants, factors, and small proprietors,
farming the whole of their own lands. Proprietors
generally can only compete for silver medals ; and a
bull or tup, for instance, belonging to a tenant, factor,
or small proprietor cannot enter into competition for
these medals, unless it has gained a first money pre-
mium at a previous show. The competitions take
place between April 1st and October 10th, and
are open to all parties within the district, whether
members of the local Association or not. In some

EDINBURGH TO THE I105IAN CAMP. 95

districts a silver medal is given to the best sheep
shearer_, provided the district gives £2 in premiums,
and there are three competitors.

Class III. takes in Dairy Produce, and allots, under
similar distinctions as to proprietors, silver medals and
money prizes for the best couple of sweet-milk cheeses,
and cured butter in samples not less than lllbs., but
for three consecutive years, from dairies v^hich have
produced not less than 1 cwt. of butter and 2 cwt. of
cheese during the season. The Ayrshire Association
is specially marked out for honour, and two gold
medium medals are annually given at its Kilmarnock
Show — one for the best lot of Cheddar, and the other
for the best sweet-milk cheese of any other variety —
but in either case the cheeses must have been made
in Scotland.

Exhibitors of seeds — not less than three-quarters
of each variety of grain, or two quarters of
beans or grass seeds — and the best ploughman at
ploughing competitions of not less than fifteen
ploughs, and the best servant manager where there
are four reaping machines at work, are the principal
medal claimants under Class IV., or ^^ Crops and
Culture.^^ It, however, includes a number of silver
medals in aid of local societies not on the list of the
district competitions; and stock, wool, the best-
managed farm, dsarVj green crop and hay crop, the
best sweet-milk cheese and cured butter, the best-
kept fences, and the best collections of roots and
seeds, all share its favours.

96 FIELD AND FERN.

The most expert Ledge -cutter can be a medallist^
if the club in his district apply for such a decoration^
rind so can the labourer most expert and efficient in
opening, lajdng, and filling drains, and otherwise
.executing the works necessary in thorough draining.
Tenants of well-kept cottages and gardens are
also rewarded by money as v/ell as medals ; and the
societies or individuals Avho establish such premiums
at their own expense receive a silver-medal acknow-
ledgment. The improvement of the greatest number
of existing cottages, the erection of the greatest
number of improved cottages of not more than j€5
rent, inclusive of the garden, by any proprietor,
within a certain number of years, and the erection
of the most approved farm buildings in reference to
the proper accommodation of farm servants, are all
acknowledged by gold medals.

In short, the energies of this venerable octogena-
rian Society lia.ve only ripened with its years, till
it m^y well be said to hold Scotland in one univer-
sal network. Shorthorns, West Highlanders, Polls
(Angus, Aberdeen, and Galloway), and Ayrshires are
the four pure cattle breeds at the August Show ;
and the Galloways have generally separate classes
and premiums. Fat stock, either pure or cross,
have seven classes to themselves, with :t63 and
seven bronze medals. All cows must have had
calves previous to the show ; if in-milk the birth.
of the calf must have been certified within nine
months of the show, and if in-calf, within four

EDINBURGH TO THE HOMAN CAMP. 97

months after. Tlie shorthorn bull no longer gets his
fifty sovereigns ; but the aged Clydesdale stallion is
in the post of honour with thirty sovereigns and a
silver medal for the breeder. Leicester, Southdo^YnJ
Cheviot, and Blackfaced are the four acknowledged
sheep breeds ; but ^-'other" long, and short wool classes
let in tlie Cotswold and Shrop. All the ewes must
have reared lambs that year ; and the pen of five ewes
not above four-shear in the Cheviot and Blackfaced
classes must be in-milk, and have lambs at their
foot — a plan which greatly adds to the difficulty of
sending up a level pen and of judging. Shep-
herds' dogs of both sexes, and not above six years old,
have their place at last ; and the artificial colouring
of fleeces, in which all exhibitors were beginning to
follow the lead, in self-defence, of a great Cheviot
winning flock, have been abolished at last by an
order in council. In the swine classes there is no
colour distinction, and the middle breed is not recog-
nized ; and capons are not forgotten in the poultry
list, which also gives the black Norfolk turkey &
class of its own.

The Agricultural Statistics Inquiry for Scotland
was commenced in 1853 by an experimental trial in
three counties at an estimated cost of j8900, whicli
exceeded the outlay by £228. Itwas undertaken for
the Government by the Highland Society, and con-
ducted by its Secretary, ^Ir. Hall Maxwell, and
enumerators in the diff*erent counties. The enume-
rators and members of committee were all practical

2h

98 FIELD AND FERN.

farmers of Ligli standing, the former receiving a small
fee for their superintendence, and the latter no pay-
ment whatever except for their travelling expenses, and
no further acknowledgment but a dinner when they
met to strike the " Estimates of Produce." In 1854
the Inquiry was extended to the whole of Scotland, and
annual returns were made for 1855, 1856, and 1857.
It was managed with such tact and economy, that
the total outlay fell short of the <:€1 4,900 estimate by
j82,778. Owing to difficulties with the Commis-
sioners of Audit, v/hose requirements were consi-
dered by the Directors as " inconsistent with the
voluntary character of the Inquiry, and of the ma-
chinery employed, as well as Mr. Hall MaxwelFs
position as Secretary of the Society," it was not con-
tinued after 1857 and the rank of C.B. was given
by the Government to Mr. Maxwell for the services
he had rendered.

The returns were so accurate, that when the head
of the Ordnance survey, wishing to try how far Ord-
nance maps might be made available for statistical
purposes, caused the area of the grain and green
crops in Linlithgowshire to be ascertained, the
estimates of acreage in the two returns were only
found to differ by 316 acres on 29,599. This varia-
tion was quite accounted for by the minute official
allowance for roads and fences.

The Society's return gave 43,432 as the number
of occupants, and 3,556,572 as the total acreage
under rotation of cropping in the thirty-two counties

EDINBURGH TO THE ROMAN CAMP. 99

of Scotland,, ranking Bute and Arran as one^ and
Orkney and Shetland as another.

In wheat (of which Shetland had 3 acres), Fife and
Perth were a long way a-head^ and Forfarshire third ;
and in barley the same counties came to the fore,
but Forfarshire had second place. Aberdeenshire
was an easy first in oats (165,275 acres), Perthshire
and Ayrshire close together, while Lanarkshire well
up. In rye, Fife was first, and Elgin second ; and
in bere the struggle was a close one between Aberdeen
and Orkney, while Caithness and Argyllshire were far
behind. Stirlingshire, Perthshire, Fifeshire, and
Ayrshire, in order, were the only ones which exceeded
3,000 acres in beans, and Berwickshire and Aberdeen-
shire had it respectively in peas and tares. The latter
county was some 50,000 acres a-head, in turnips, of
Forfarshire and Perthshire, which made a very close
race of it for second, while Berwickshire, Roxburgh-
shire, and Dumfriesshire finished well up. Perthshire
and Fifeshire had nothing near them for potatoes ;
Ayrshire beat Wigtownshire in mangolds ; and Wig-
townshire returned the compliment in carrots. Ayr-
shire (1), Lanarkshire (2) was the cabbage return ;
Dumfriesshire was first for rape, and Fifeshire for
summer fallow ; and for grass and hay under rotation,
"the Ayes had it," or rather Aberdeenshire and Ayr-
shire. These returns were, of course, subject to the
absolute acreage ; and when the proportional acreage
is taken into account, Haddingtonshire is first for
wheat and barley, Caithness for oatSj Orkney for rye

2 H 2

100 FIELD AND lERX.

and bere^ Clackmannanshire for beans and peas,
and Roxburgh sli ire for turnips.

Aberdeenshire leads in horses, calves, and other
cattle, but Aj^rshire beats it in cows ; and in the cattle
total it is a sharp thing between Ayrshire and Perth-
shire. Both in the sheep total, as well as in sheep for
breeding and feeding, the order of Argyleshire, In-
verness-shire, and Perthshire is maintained; but
Dumfriesshire, which is fourth as regards the two
first, resigns its place to Koss-shire, and comes very
low in the last. In lambs, Argyllshire is still ahead,
but Dumfriesshire gets the better both of Roxburgh-
shire, Perthshire, and Inverness-shire, and beats
every county, save Ayrshire, clean out of the field
for pigs. Sutherlandshire is tenth in the sheep total,
but in sheep for feeding it stands fifth.

Having thus investigated the earlier history
of the Society, we refreshed ourselves with a stroll
through the Museum and the Council Chamber.
The old museum was once a little room at the
bottom of the Secretary's garden in Albyn-place, but
this very different building arose in 1840 in the
old town, and combines in itself a museum, a
council-chamber, and committee-rooms. The first
picture that Ave read of, in our ransacking the So-
ciety's files, was presented by the present Mr. Ram-
say of Barnton's grandfather, but we could not iden-
tify it in the collection. In the committee-room,
where we worked for four days (with occasional visit-
ors in the shape of Mr. Gourlay Steell, Mr. Duncan,

EDIXBUllGII TO THE IIOMAX CAMP. 101

and the beadle), t^A^o Argyll blacks, Rliyneberg
and Cruib, bred by Colin Campbell of Jura, and of
^' Host, tron each, sinking offals,'^ represent the So-
ciety's earhest " black cattle'^ love ; and a group of
Alpacas served to recal the show at Glasgow in 1840,
and made us think, every time we looked up at them,
of the Poll Herd Book, and its Grey-Breasted
Jock .

William McDonald, the earliest secretary, in
buckles and powder, with the charter in his hand,
by Baeburn, faces you as you enter the Council
Chamber. John fifth Duke of Argyll in his robes as
a peer hangs behind the President's chair; and
opposite him is the bust of another secretary, Gilbert
Innes of Stow. Much of the remaining wall space
is taken up b}^ portraits of early stock winners, but,
one by one, the venerable antiques, both in breed
and drawing, disappear and a Gourlay Steell
succeeds. One of the Duke of Buccleuch's Leices-
ter tups is there, and quaintly described as " A full
Thomson/^ There, too, are Cheviots, black-faced,
and an old breed from Brae Moray, with roan face
and legs, hairy wool, and as wild as a roe-deer, and
with lambs which are always yeaned with a red spot
on the shoulder and the tip of the tail. Jonas Webb's
Southdown does not lack a place, neither do white
Berkshires, or a Western boar with a nose like an
ant-eater. The Hereford is leggy enough ; the Fife
bull, with his white black-tipped horns, looks ready
either for the knife or the plough-share ; Walker's

102 ?IELD ANI> PEUN.

Angus cow is white on the shoulder and sparky be-
low, and Belville and Bracelet represent the Short-
horn interest. Duntroon and Whitestocldngs have
gone up as king and queen of the West Highlanders,
and Sir Colin Campbell and Colly Hill of the kjr-
shires. A dark Suffolk chesnut still lingers on the
walls, and so does Splendour, the most beautiful of
Clevelands, although his breed is not in honour ; and
Sir William Wallace and the Perth mare stand boldly
out as the Clydesdales of the present.

In the Museum every Scottish root and vegetable
is modelled in wax, from the mangel-wurzel down to
the tiniest pods. Disease has its specimens as well
as health. One turnip has borne out the "loves of
the plants," and though it cannot exactly be said to

" Eye with mute tenderness its distant dam.
And seem to bleat a vegetable lamb,"

it bears a strange affinity to a ram's head. Finger-
and-toe has converted a potato into such a natural
hand, that you begin to think that man may throw
back to a vegetable as well as to an ape. A kohl-
rabi has taken the more airy form of a purple but-
terfly. There is also a section of the bole of every
Scottish tree, and a case of worsteds to illustrate
vegetable dyes. In the gallery there hangs a por-
trait of the Dunearn ox, a spotted shapeless moun-
tain, half Fife and half Shorthorn, with some West-
Highlanders flanking it; but the stuffer's aid has
not been invoked, save in the case of one huge
horned head of the "Ovis Ammon.^' A sheep-

EDINBURGH TO THE ROMAN CAMP. 103

washing apparatus lies on tKe floor, with some
model-cottage sections; and in one corner rests
the '^old originaP^ plough, which might have
been used in the days of Hilpah and Shalum^,
and is still said to be seen in Skye. Eight models
of modern ploughs are in array on the window-seat^
the East Lothian swing, Howard's, Ransome's, the
turnwrestj the subsoil, and the Cunningham, with its
long mould-board. Of wheat there are upwards of
200 specimens, one of them the "Eenton,^' just fresh
from Fenton Barns. Thirteen or fourteen specimens
of the blithe and lusty barley belong to the Chevalier
sort. Clover boasts of its nine varieties, and oats of
its forty at least. There is the Fly-oat, more sug-
gestive of the fish-kettle than the kail-pot ; the Sandy^
which ripens four or five days before the Potato ;
Tartarian (white and black), Early Angus, Tarn
Finlay, Blainslie, and Kildrummie, all of which the
beadle has " heard, most highly spoken of."

Mr. Hope, of Fenton Barns, has kindly furnished,
us with the following synopsis of these specimens : —

"There is a numerous collection of the various grains. The specimens of
wheat in straw, in the npper gallerj', miniber upwards of 200, and there are
ffO more in cases below, besides nimieroiis varieties, of which only two or three
heads are shown, with a small sample of tpie grain of each. The varieties
now generally cultivated in Scotland are Hunter's, Fenton, and Hopetouii.
The first of these has long been a great favourite with the Lothian farmers.
Of late years the Fenton has rivalled it, and perhaps now exceeds it in the
quantity sown. This arises from its wonderful productiveness, where the soil
is in high condition, though the quahty is barely equal to that of Hunter's.
The Fenton, being short and stiff in the sti*aw, is not easily lodged, and it has
been known to yield eight quarters per imperial acre, which is a great crop
for white wheat. The Hopetoun wheat is taU in the straw, and has a beauti-
fol appearance when growing, as it has a large square head, and the crop is
perfectly level when it approaches maturity. The quality is also excellent.

104 FIELD AND FERN.

and it generally fetches Is. per quarter more than Hunter or Fenton. There
are several specimens of woolly-eared wheats, some of which stand um-ivalled
for milling puri)oses, and are often successfully cultivated on soft soils, but
in iintoward seasons they suffer more than some other varieties. Gregorian,
Brodie's, Ai'cher's Prolific, and Chidham are kinds all more or less sown.
The last is often of great weight per bushel, and invariably sells well, but
fi'om the smaUness of its produce it is not generally a favourite. Both Grego-
rian and Brodie's are also noted for qiiality, and are found to be suitaljle for
spring sowing. Red-strawed white is always in demand for seed in autumn,
and is sent in considerable quantities both to England and Ireland; but
though frequently highly productive and a fine sample, it has not increased
in popular favour. Amongst the red wheats, Spalding's and Lammas Red are
those most extensively cultivated: the fii-st is one of the most productive
wheats known, while the last produces flour of the finest quality.

•' There ai-e upwai'ds of 40 difierent specimens of oats in straw, besides those
merely showing the heads with small samples of grain. In the best districts
the Potato oat is the most extensively cultivated, as under favourable cii-cum-
stances it stands uni-ivalled for produce and quality combined. It has Vjeen
known to yield 12 quarters per imperial acre, weighing upwards of 441bs. per
bushel. Its greatest drawback is its liability to shake as it approaches ma-
nirity, and there is always a loss in harvesting it, even before it is quite ripe.
Of late years the Sandy oat has greatly increased in favour in all high and
fate districts, from its earliuess, the superiority of its straw, the excellent
mealing properties of its grain in propoition to the weight per bushel, and
its being much less liable to suffer from wind than any other variety.
The Early Angus oat possesses some of the qualities of the Sandy, but the
straw is shorter and comparatively inferior. The Late Angus is suitable for stiff
and second-rate soils in tolerably' early districts, as it grows freely, and is not
liable to tulip-root and other diseases, which sometimes overtake the Potato and
finer varieties when sown under such circiimstances. It was a great favoiu'ite
in the Lothians, when the land was imdi-ained and the use of artificial manm-es
tmknoAvn. The Shu-reff oat is the earliest oat known ; the produce is fi-e-
quently large, but from the weight per bushel being very light it is not exten-
sively sown. The Hopetoun oat— another excellent variety, which agricul-
rurists owe to that indefatigable improver of the cereals, :Mr. Patrick Shirreff,
Haddington— is extensively cultivated; its (juality is about etjual to Potato
oats, while it is much taller in the straw. The Black Tartarian is growing in
favour, from its enormous jjroduce, and being suitable for horse feed ; but it
is light in weight, and very easily shaken ; and the colom- is also against it.

" There are some 36 or 38 samples of l^arley in straw, but of these the
Chevalier is the only variety extensively cultivated. It wasnotmitil some
lime after the introduction of this barley that the Edinburgh brewers would
purchase it, but now they will have nothing to do with any other kind."

ROMAN CAMP TO ATHELSTAXEFOIID. 10^

mum mm m mmMmmsm,

" Yonder the coast of Fife you saw.
There Preston Bay and Berwick Law ;
And l)road between them rolled,
The trallant Fi-ith the ej'e might note,
^\'~hose islets on its liosom float.
Like emeralds chafed in gold."

Scott.

Coursing at tlic Roinau Camp — "Woolmet — Dirleton Commoa — The
Lothiau Ram Sales — CamptoAvn — Wood Pigeous — Stock in East
Lothiau — The Grave of Phantassie— Whittingham — The Athelstane-
ibrd Herd — The East Lothiau Hounds.

^^ pT made no matter if the coursing was a little
^ dull at times, there was ahA'aj^s the view, ^'
said " Will Nightingale," when he spoke to us of the
days when he went judging at the Roman Camp.
You reach this fine hanging slope of plough, grass,
and seeds, which faces the Pentland range, on one
side, b}^ the road behind Dalkeith. It lies only
two miles from the town, and rather less from the
Duke^s kennels ; and yet not once within the me-
mory of man was Will Williamson seen on the
field. The village of New Battle lies at the foot
of the coursing ground. Many of the best courses
began near the present site of the coal-pits ; and
the hare would make through Mayfield Farm to the
iirs of the Roman Camp (that favourite Runnymede

106 FIELD AND FERN.

of colliers on the strike), and away by Camp Meg's
cottage.

The Mid-Lotliian Club, which was quite an upper-
house among Scottish coursing clubs, held its meet-
ings here. No betting was allowed, under divers
pains and penalties. Every member who purposed
attending sent his own dish to the ordinary at the
Cross Keys. The Duke of Buccleuch furnished
venison, Sir Graham Montgomery a haunch of black-
face. Major Hamilton Dundas black puddings
and haggis, Mr. Sharpe ducks of eight or nine
pounds weight, Lord Melville pork, Mr. Cal-
lender beef, Mr. George Wauchope perigord pie, and
so on ; so that it was no Barmecide business.
In fact, many of the members kept no dogs, never saw
a course, and only appeared at dinner-time. The
meeting came off, frost permitting, on the first Tues-
day and Wednesday in November, and again in
February; and Mr. Nightingale judged at twenty-
nine in succession. He was so fond of the place
that even w^hen the meeting clashed with the
Waterloo he gave it the preference. Of course,
the Waterloo card came down, and the Chief
Justice was requested to advise upon it. He ran
it over, and gave, we believe, the result of all the first
courses correctly, save that between the brother and
sister. War Eagle and Wicked Eye, on which he would
not hazard a guess. His summing-up was still more
remarkable. " The ground should suit Cerito and
Neville best'^ ; and they were the winner and the

ROMAN CAMP TO ATHELSTANEFORD. 107

runner-up. On another occasion frost came on^ and
Mr. Gibson initiated him into the natural mysteries
of curling. Johnny Rogers, the livery-stable keeper,
always horsed him ; and ^' the Chief Justice" remem-
bers well how a boy galloped up to him on his first
appearance, with some sort of confused message in
his head that '^ Mr. Wauchope has sent me to tell
you, sir, which way the hares go" ; and how that
green courier stared at the reply, '^ I shall soon find
that out for myself.'^

Mr. Sharpe, with Will Carfrae as his man-at-
arms, was always in great force with his jokes ; and
it was remembered for many a long day how he and
his pony were bogged at Crichton. The hares were
very good, and on the occasion when Mr. John
Wauchope^s Claret v/on the Tureen, there were
more than ninety dogs, with Monarch among them.
The meetings were given up on the death of Mr.
George Wauchope, who had long officiated as honor-
ary member ; and the Champion Cup, to which eYerj
fresh holder added a little shield with an in-
scription, was presented to his wddow. The Club
died rich, and the members devoted themselves to
dining the funds away, and have not finished yet.
Many of the fields have been divided with double
rails, and hardly a " So -ho I" is. heard there now.

After our tour of inspection which Mr. Sharpe,
ever loyal to old friends and old times, charged us to
make or never speak to him more, we harked back
to Woolmet, where Mr. Gibson is equally fond of

108 riELD AND rEllN.

his farm, his poultry, his greyhounds, his flowers, his
Shropshire Downs, and his Cotswolds, let alone the
old sorrel mare and her line. Dorkings and Rouens
have always been his feathered favourites ; and it was
with the Woolmet, the Mellerstain and the Comiston
lots that the Edinburgh January poultry sales began.
He has bred Cotswolds to cross with half-bred ewes
for these eight or nine years past, and raised
his flock in the first instance from Lane, Hewer, and
Handy. The fat lambs have made high prices in the
Edinburgh market, and Mr. Gibson hopes ultimately
to see both them and the Shrops (which jNIr. Randell
selected for him) holding their own with the Leices-
ters and the Southdowns. Lord Wemyss has also a
small Cotswold flock, and so has Mr. Scot Skirving ;
and a tup and twelve ewes of Mr. Beale Browne's have
come to Mr. Reed's of Drem ; but it is to his lord-
ship, Mr. Skirving, and Mr. Gibson that the High-
land Society competition has hitherto been confined.
At Woolmet there are one hundred and sixty
ewes in the Cotswold, and eighty in the Shrop-
shire flock, which is of much more recent date ; and
so far Mr. Gibson has been enabled to get £3 or ^4
for his tup lambs, and £6 to o€14 for his shearling
tups.

He has been a courser for more than thirty
years ; and the Caledonian coursing picture by Ans-
dell, which hangs over his side-board bears its
silent record to many a good comrade passed
away. His trainer Robert ^Murray's talk is more

ROMAN CAMP TO ATHELSTAN EFORD. 109

of dogs than of men. He is full of Violet, who
won that picture^ and her sire Victor to boot ;
of Stanley of Dirleton and Malleny St. Leger
memory ; of Shepherdess^ who ran a decider with
Blue Light ; of Grasper^ who was never beaten in
his first season^ and killed fifty-four out of his fifty-
six hares by "just nipping 'em in the rump'' ; of
Lassie by Jacobite out of Sister to King Lear^ and
the bitch which beat Clive in the run-up for the
great Caledonian St Leger the only time that
Waterloo crack ever was beaten ; of Barman^ who
was carted back by mistake (when his leader had
been seized with a fit), instead of being brought out
for the deciding course at Amesbury ; and of Ayr-
shire Laddie, Caledonian, and Nimrod, '^ all by old
Sam, and all much about it ! '^ Sam was after Mr.
Nightingale's own heart, " with a beautiful style of
running — so true that you might ride miles after him
without ever seeing his nob — and with quite a grey-
hound face like Sunbeam's" ; and the veteran
loves to tell how astonished Squire Osbaldeston
was when he ran clean away from his dog at
Amesbury. Bobert/s old bay, with some five-and-
thirty years on his head, still occupies the stall in the
kennel, where Snowflake,aud old Oscar — both spotted,
ones, and one of them suckled by a cat to begin with
— Golden Dream, the game old white, Coorooran, and
the black Agility, once first favourite for the Water-
loo Cup kept him in company. The two blacks — Gun-
ner and Gunboat, bv Jacobite from Cazzarina — were

110 FIELD AND PERN.

only saplings then. The latter, a very racing-like^
strongbacked dog;, was walked by Mr. Tom Welsh at
Ericstane, and he has proved himself a high-class one
by the style in which he has run forward in three or
four great stakes. Manganese was rejoicing in
the paddock, and a lot of Beacon puppies, one
of them old Frolic to the life ; while Mary Mor-
ton had ten rolling over her, all white, with brin-
dled spots on the head and ear, and a double cross
of Wigan.

Next morning we were eighteen miles " from
Edinburgh town," among the great Lothian arables
— " good land," according to Carlyle, " now that the
plougher understands his trade," and, in fact, ^^ fit,"
as Mr. Randell exclaimed, when he first saw it, ^' to
grow potatoes for all England." In that grand dis-
trict to the left of Drem, and stretching away towards
North Berwick Law and *' Bass among the Waters,"
the well-filled stack-garths and chimneys of Hope of
Fenton Barns, Deans and Handyside of East and
West Fenton, Todd of Castlemains, Begbie of Queens-
ton Bank, Gray of Kingston, Hay of Chapel, and
Sadler of Ferrygate dot the landscape, and tell of the
richness and fatness of the land , in spite of wheat at
forty shillings a quarter. Within that four-mile area
there are no less than five private steam ploughs,
none of them verifying their sarcastic welcome to the
district, that they " would require an engineer at one
end and a banker at the other."

But coursing, and not corn, was our mission ; and

ROMAN CAMP TO ATHELSTANEFORD. Ill

crossing over the village green hard by the ivied
ruins of Dirleton Castle, and so past the lodge
gates of the lord of the soil, the Hon. Nisbet Hamil-
ton (at whose steam-plough banquet in the Castle
garden Richard Cobden, in the autumn of '62,
made his last Scottish speech), we were on Dirleton
Common with the dogs at last. It is a pleasant spot,
almost within hail of Gullane, w^here Lanercost once
cleared his pipes in good air, and Philip broke in
Terity the heart of Ballochmyle ; but the green
woods of Dirleton fringe it on the left, and lure
many a hare to cover. There are sixty members of
the Dirleton Club, to which there is a two-guinea
entrance, and nothing more. Mr. Callender, the
honorary secretary, who is ever constant to Lytham
and the Waterloo and all the Scottish meetings, "has
the happy knack of holding a meeting twice in the
season, never asking for annual subscriptions, and yet
having money in hand.^^

There are very few bad hares on the Barony,
and the memory is still green of one of 11 libs, which
was found on a stubble, and killed, by Mr. Gib-
son^s Pruth, a daughter of Sam, and then carried in
triumph to Mr. Begbie's to be weighed. The stub-
bles (whose hares pleased Mr. Nightingale best) are
very good in October, but the common has fallen
off, and become a prey to the rabbits and the moles;
and the state of Coorooran-'s head after a trial, which
decided that he and not Golden Dream would go for
the Waterloo Cup, was a bleeding protest against the

112 FIELD AND FERN.

Avire fences round it. Kingwater onh^ arrived from
Longtown in time to try a puppy in one of the large
Woolmet stubbles ; and Clasper by Clansman, fresh
from running up to Dunoon at the Border meeting,
was the illustrious stranger. He had at least 61bs.
too much flesh on him, and was led by a most en-
thusiastic boy, who was overjoyed when neither
Ivy nor Golden Horn was able to cope with his
red.

Leicesters, which are used for crossing half-bred and
Chevi'ot cast ewes from the upper and middle districts
of the Border counties, as well as Selkirkshire, and
the farms at the foot of the Lammermoors, are the
tups most in demand in East Lothian, though
Southdowns hold their own pretty well, and Cots-
wolds and Shrops are creeping gradually in. Once
there were a few Bakewells at George Weirds of
Scoughall, but the breed wore out. He once met with
old Bob Barford of Foscote, and there was a joke
that, after dining together and exchanging minds
upon " the original Bakewells," they embraced, and
agreed to share the philosopher's stone. The East
Lothian men go for the true Border type, high on
the leg and big in the lug, and lay against the blue-
faces and the bare-bellies as heavily in the Edin-
burgh as the Borderers do in the Kelso ring. Open
coats are also a great point with them, so as to keep
clear of the Cheviots. Blue-faces, they maintain, do
not travel so well, and are not so hardy; and in this
the Skipton men bear them out. Against bare-

ROMAN CAMP TO ATHELSTAXEFORD. 113

bellies they may well wage war, as they have to fold
their sheep on heavy clay land, which becomes so
wet by the end of November that they are obliged
to shift them to the stubbles or old grass (if they have
any), and cart the turnips on. Unfortunately there
is far too little old grass in Haddingtonshire ; and
independently of there not being a permanent bite
on it for the stock, the seeds cannot resist the sum-
mer heat nearly so well.

Mr. Lees of Maringston, Mr. Smith of Steven-
son Mains, Mr. Hope of Fenton Barns (the chairman
of the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture), and Mr.
Balfour of Whittingham, who bought Sam Wiley's
first-prize pen of gimmers at Edinburgh, and won
the second shearling prize when the Highland Society
met at Kelso in '63, are the only Leicester tup
breeders, so to speak, in East Lothian, though Mr.
Ainslie of Costerton (the owner of Duke of Tyne,
and a shorthorn winner of late years) may be said
to ^^ march'' with it. The ram sales, which have
been such a hit at Kelso, have been gradually ex-
tended to Edinburgh, under the auspices of the
" Lothian Ram Society." Some even of the Kelso
breeders prefer sending there, and the two rings of
1863 became four last September.

On that day there were .twenty-four lots of
Leicester s, and the highest average was £9 14s. for
twenty-eight of the Duke of Buccleuch's. His Grace's
prize shearling of the day was at the head of them,
and was sold for £50. A score from IMr. Ain-

2 I

114 FIELD AND FERN.

sie^s, of Costerton, who had the second-prize shear-
ling and the first-prize aged ram, averaged £1 18s.
9d. ; but none of them made more than j£,22. Mr.
Watson of Esperston, who was second for aged tups,
stood third, with an average of £7 5s. lid. for thirty.
Mr. Gibson beat the Earl of Wemyss in the Cotswold
competition, and his sixteen averaged £1 10s. 6d.
The highest-priced sheep in the Gosford and Woolmet
lots made c£13 5s., and just one other lot of Cotswolds
was exposed. There were only two lots of South-
downs, a class of sheep for which no prize was given,
and the prices ranged from :€6 to ^3.

Mr. Moffat of Kinleith was first and second for the
shearling Cheviots, and an average of <:€8 for twenty-
seven, with <£14 10s. for the premier, was the signifi-
cant commentary upon his success. In the blackfaced
class, the first and second prizes were awarded to Mr.
Wilson of Crosshouse, whose average of .£7 for twenty-
seven, with .€.20 15s. as the top price, was far beyond
any of the seven lots "with the curly horn .^'

The Duke of Buccleuch keeps from seventy to
eighty Border Leicesters, and for nine years past
has used Lord Polwarth's tups. The shearling tups
are sold generally at Edinburgh, and the draft ewe
hoggs go to Ireland. His Grace also keeps a large
flock of half-bred ewes, which he crosses with the
Leicesters, and sells the lambs. The pure shorthorn
stock at Dalkeith numbers some iive-and-twenty
head, and Booth blood is followed with the bulls.
At present the cows are in-calf to Royal Errant by

ROMAN CAMP TO ATHELSTANEFORD. 115

Mr. John Booth^s Knight Errant, dam by Booth's
Cardigan. This bull has rather revived the days
when the Duke was wont to be so often in the van
of the Highland Society^s shorthorn classes, as he
beat the second- prize Royal Nev/castle bull at Stirling
last August. It is also well worthy of notice that
he and another first-prize winner, Mr. Mitchells
Blue Belle were both from Cardigan cows bred by
Mr. Wood of Stanwick Park, near Darlington. A
good many crosses of all sorts are also fed off in the
Park, and a dairy of from twenty-five to thirty Ayr-
shires is kept to supply Dalkeith House. In and
round it his Grace keeps about 500 acres of old grass
and arable in his own hand. Mr. Black, who brought
out so many Highland Society winners, is dead, and
has been succeeded by Mr. James Deans, brother to
Lord PolwartVs factor.

Mr. Aitchison of Alderson, Mr. Scot Skirving of
Camptown, Mr. Sprot of Spot, Major Hunter of
Thurston, and Mr, Nisbett Hamilton, all breed South-
downs ; and Mr. Skirving has had a pretty fair share
for some years past of the Highland Society prizes.
Forty years ago, his late father began at Camp-
town with a small lot of Southdowns, selected
by Mr. Giblett, the well-known London salesman.
Then came a high-priced tup from Lord Jersey, for
which his lordship had given £90, at a time when he
had a flock of 1,100 ewes. In those days their wool
was worth 2s. 6d. per lb., and was very much sought
rafter by the makers of hats. Other tups succeeded

2 J 2

116 riELD AND FERX.

from Hugh Watson of Keillor, and for twenty years
past none have been used except from J onas A¥ ebb's
and the Duke of Richmond's flocks. For a long time
the Camptown flock did not catch the judges' eye at
the Highland Society. Two seconds at Paris, where
Mr. Skirvinghad also a prize for wheat, were the pre-
cursor of better things ; and at Aberdeen and Stir-
ling alone his winnings were very little short of
jBIOO. At the Royal Irish Belfast show, one year, he
had also all the first and second prizes. He bought
twenty-five ewes at the Babraham sale, and with
that exception the flock were bred at home. It
averages four score, and about three hundred half-
breds are kept to be crossed with Leicesters or South-
downs for earh^ lambs or hogging. Each year he
sells about twenty- five Southdown tups, the majority
of which are bought at home for crossing or sent to
the colonies. The recent price of wool has not
helped the sale, but it has revived again of late.

No one has spoken more eff'ectively with his pen,
than he has done in the Cornhill and elsewhere, against
the abuses of the bothy system, or stated the real
position of the Scottish labourer, from more close
and searching observation. He has thrown him-
self with equal energy into the wood -pigeon crusade,
where, unlike the Christian Advocate at Cambridge,
he has not annually to beat the air and confute an
imaginary sceptic. The case for the wood-pigeon has*
been stated as follows : '^ They cannot dig with their
beak and feet : thev remove beans and other seeds

RO:tIAN CAMP TO ATHELSTAXEFORD. 117

wasted by careless and slovenly farming : they eat
wild mustard, charlock, silver-weed^ goose-grass, and
other seeds which would become weeds, as well as the
roots of tanzy in limestone ; and they divert atten-
tion from the melancholy cry of the cuckoo."

Mr. Skirving considers that the ^'balance of power"
of which the wood-pigeon was said to be so conserva-
tive has been completely destroyed, and thus argues
the point : ^' In the first place, it is only since im-
proved cultivation introduced its clovers and early
spring crops that the wood-pigeon has been attracted
in such numbers from more northern districts ; and,
in the second place, the ^ balance of power^ was de-
stroyed when game preservators almost extirpated
our birds of prey, and in particular the magpie.
Those writers who think that because the wood-
pigeon feeds on wild seeds as well as grain it is there-
fore innoxious are entirely in error. The bird is an
epicure as well as a glutton, and its weeds bear the
same proportion to its corn that Falstaff^s half-penny
worth of bread did to his intolerable amount of sack.
As illustrating the wood-pigeon^s powers of destruc-
tion in winter, I may mention that some years ago I
had twenty acres of rape- seed, Avhich was attacked
by such multitudes that, though the man sent to
watch it killed twelve hundred in one week, yet the
pigeons won the battle, and ate up every particle of
the crop. Then in summer, though each bird has his
crop crammed with corn till it resembles a cricket-
.ball, the food consumed bears no proportion to the

118 FIELD AND FSRN.

food destroyed. They fix on a part of a wheat-field
where the grain inclines to one side ; they trample it
flat, and beat out the corn with their strong wings,
and leave nothing but broken and blackened straw."

The rook he considers to be " quite an agricultural
sainV^ by the side of the wood-pigeon, and thus
points out the extenuating circumstances in favour of
" the gentleman in black," whom the Ettrick Shep-
herd defended in mole shape ; " The rooks, while
following the plough, may, indeed, by some rare
chance pick up a stray grub, but they are there for
the purpose of feeding tipon the earthworm, one of
the best, if humblest, auxiliary cultivators we have ;
while the presence of crows among the turnip-fields
in early summer indicates the existence of grub;
they are then never disturbed, as their operations are
wholly for good."

The East-Lothian men, more especially those
who farmed near the sea, were once very fond of
using the Southdown tup, and selling early lamb.
Then the Irish lamb competition was so strong in
the Edinburgh market, that hogging seemed likely
to pay best. Gradually the inferior quality of the
Irish lamb has told against it, and some breeders are
again resorting to the Southdown and half-bred cross.
Mr. Peter M'Clagan^s recent success with Southdown-
Dorset iambs, which were dropped in December and
sold well in January, one of them as high as 54s. for
501b. live weight, is making the Dorset ewe fashion-
able, and Mr. Skirving, among others,has boughtsomCc

ROMAN CAMP TO ATHELSTANEFOllD. 119

Most East Lothian farmers liogg and shear their
lambs, and sell them fat in spring and early summer.
When the breeders do not hogg them, they sell them
for that purpose to feeders in the county about the time
of St. BoswelPs fair; and the cross-bred lambs from
the Lammermoor farms go up then to the little East
Lothian fair of Oldhamstocks. On the low farms
cast half-bred ewes bougjit in from 38s. to 40s.,
from Gala Water and all the district through which
the North British runs from Edinburgh to Hawick,
are in a majority of ten to one over the Cheviot,
The cast Cheviot ewes at about 28s. greatly prepon-
derate on the higher farms. They come for the
most part from Peebleshire and the Lammermoors.
where they graze on the braes and the best of the
hill land, while the blackfaces hold the muir ground
on the summits ; and some farmers go to Falkirk for
them. Mr. Douglas speaks of them as good nurses^
not perhaps so prolific as the half-bred ewe, but
rearing their lambs to a greater weight when kept
till they are wedders, and feeding nearly as well. It is
always desirable that the lambs should be dropped in
April. If they are sold fat off grass, they are gene--
rally gone by Midsummer, and then the ewes get
cake and corn, and are turned off fat before the end of
July. If ewes stay on the farm for eleven months they
pay about eight-pence to nine-pence a week, including
the lamb, but the lack of young grass prevents their
being kept to any great extent. Efforts have been:
made to supplement young grass by mangold, but;.

120 FIELD AND TERX.

to use the words of Mr. Sadler (who introduced the
iirst steam plough to East Lothian, and came second
with a capital sow at Stirling), ^' mangold is a perfect
hoax in our climate/^"'^

Haddington — where the East Lothian Farmers^
Club hold such animated discussions, and differ so
widely on some points of sheep practice — is becoming
a great fat market, and on June 1st of last year a
lot of Southdown-Cheviot lambs made 34s. at the
weekly public auction. If farmers are short of lambs
they often buy rough hoggs or hill-tails at the House
of Muir. Near " the grim, old honey-combed Castle
of Dunbar," where the "red soil potatoes*^ have no
London market compeers, and along the higher dis-
tricts of the country where the arables die away into
the Lammermoors, some of them keep blackfaced or
Cheviot wedders, which they buy or bring down from

* This gentleman gave the following, in a recent speech at the Haddington
Fanners' Club, as his exijeiience of the ditferent kuids of sheep introduced into
East Lothian : "In 1859 he was in the south of England, and he was very
much struck with the prices which they were getting for the Hampshire Down
sheep. He bought thhty ewes at 50s., and a ram, but they rather disappomted
him. Each ewe had not a lamb; and they had also less wool than his half-
Ijreds. He kept them as hoggs, and they had brought five shillings more than
his half-breds, Imthewas certain these beasts ate 10s. more than the others.
They were very easily fattened, bvit they wei-e tremendous consumers. He
saw the ewes getting lat upon his pastm-es in the summer months, and he sent,
tbemoff. He haiipenedto meet his landlord at the Lincoln show, who told
him the immense i)vices that were got for Lincoln hoggs, and also for Lincoln
wool. He bought furty Lincolns in 1861 at 54s., but he was disappointed with
them also. Thty were long-necked, and the wool in wet weather seemed to
lie hke silk on then- backs. He took a notion that they were also great con-
sumers, and not very ready fatteners, and he put them away ]>ecause they did
not bruig a higher piice than his half-bred hoggs. He had not had any expe-
rience as to the effects of crossing the Lincoln sheep with other breeds. He
also tried the Cots wolds, but he did not find them very prolific. The Cotswold
had a lamb each, but were veiy liad milkers ; but the Cotswolds might come
ap in spring. He thought these sheep requu-ed extra crops, and he could not
grow a crop of winter tares [in consequence of the hai-es. He thought that,
with theii' high rents, they could not afford to keep large breeding stocks of
sheep; and if they were to increase the number of sheep, they must do so
merely by pui-chase."

ROMAN CAMP TO ATHELSTAXEl OKI). ]2l

their own hill-farms^ and put on turnips. The latter
are also bought by the low-country farmers, and are
kept on turnips with cake and corn all winter. In
fact, all through the winter, feeding as in Fife goes
on to a great extent, and in 1853 Mr. George Hope
sold off a farm of 653 imperial acres, 1,200 sheep,
90 cattle, and 100 pigs. Major Hunter of Thurs-
tonfield farms on a large scale at Thurston, Thurs-
ton Plains, and Woodhall, at the edge of the Lam-
mermoors. and breeds both pure Cheviots, South-
downs, Leicesters, and half-breds. His crosses are
Southdown tup Avith half-bred ewe, and Leicester
tup Avith Southdown ewe, and last year the return of
ewe and wedder hogg prices, at his annual fat and
store sale of cattle and sheep in June, showed an ad-
vantage in favour of the former cross.

Shorthorns, Polls, and Shetlanders are all on the
Major^s sale-list, and some of the latter averaged at
the last sale £16 5s. a head. The cattle buyers in
East Lothian principally go to Jedburgh, Linton,
Dalkeith, Berwick, Hallow, and the Falkirks in
September and October, and to Hallow Fair in No-
vember for six-quarter and two-year-old stirks.
They give them turnips and oat-straw in the yards,
and finish them off with six weeks^ cake and bean-
meal, for Newcastle and the Southern markets in the
spring. The younger ones are kept, and soiled with
clover, grass, and tares, and sold oft' after six weeks of
turnips. The more moderate beasts, as a general
rule, go to Edinburgh, and the heaviest to London,

122 FIELD AND FERN.

Manchester, Wakefield, and Newcastle. Many men
will feed from fifty to a hundred, all shorthorn
crosses.

A few West Highlanders and Shetlanders may creep
in, but scarcely any polls. There is no induccDaent
to tie them up, as the climate is good, and they are
mostly kept in small open courts with good sheds,
and very seldom in boxes. As regards oat-straw,
horses get the preference, and the cattle have to fall
back on barley, wheat, and bean straw as it is
thrashed out. The straw is very seldom given
chopped and, if there is enough to spare from the
horses, the cows get next turn.

" Of the softer turnips, the white globe occupies
the largest space, but it has been to some extent dis-
placed by the Greystone, a species recently intro-
duced, which produces the heaviest crop of any
variety. Being very soft, and liable to injury from
the frost, its use is restricted to the early part of the
season, a circumstance which must always tend to
circumscribe the extent of its cultivation. Skirving's
purple-top succeeds the earlier turnips, whilst green
and yellow varieties follow as the food of the farm
till Christmas, when the Swede becomes the reliance
of the farmer for all animals, save breeding ewes, for
which white or yellow turnips are reserved. An an-
nual sweepstakes, which is held under the auspices
of the local agricultural society, shows the following
as the highest weights on the best five acres of
turnips of different sorts — Swedes 31 tons 18

ROMAN CAMP TO ATHELSTANEFORD, 123

cwt., yellow 36 tons 10 cwt., white 45 tons per
acre/^*

We were hardly likely to pass through East Lothian
without visiting the resting-place of Rennieof Phan-
tassie^ the friend of Lord Leicester and Christian
Curwen, and of all the first breeders of his time, and
perhaps the man who did more than any other to
encourage a pure shorthorn taste in Scotland. Two
other noted men lie in Preston Kirk. Hugh Ram-
ad ge, the faithful servant of " Phantassie^^ for eight-
and-fifty years, was the first to go. He died in ^28^
and only a few months after his old master had placed
a stone ^^ in testimony of respect to his memory/' he
himself had his summons on the verge of eighty.
His hard-working Boswell, Brown of Markle soon
followed him, and left behind him two very
sombre-looking volumes, with mottoes from Pliny
and Thomas a Kempis, and dedicated to Sir John
Sinclair. The volumes are hardly such a record of
the Northern Bates as we had hoped to find them ;
but they tell how, in 1811, he assured his incredu-
lous countrymen that the beasts which would ere
long become their beef staple " were wider and
thicker in their form or mould" than the ones they
cherished, " and cousequently feeding to the most
weight, and yielding the greatest quantity of tallow."

Young Phantassie was of a more dashing turn, and
bought cows at high prices from Wetherell and

* " Ten Years of East Lothian Fanning," by Mr. Soot Sldrving (" Eoyal
Agiicultnral Society's Jwzroal," :LIarch, 1865).

124 FIELD AND FERN.

Mason. His most noted feat was coming direct
North when wheat had risen 8s. in London, getting
oiF the mail at Belford, where the bags were shifted
and sent on in a mail gig, beating the post by two
hours into Edinburgh, and buying very largely for
the rise. His last speculation was to bring a ship
•load of cattle from Shetland ; but it sunk, with him-
self and all hands on board. Every trace of the
primitive steading at Phantassie has disappeared, but
the shorthorn spirit still thrives at Whittingham^
since Mr. Charles Smith came there in 1852 from
Hill Head, and Prince Loth and Great Seal have
been the leading evidences.

The King Loth of antiquity lived near North
Berwick, and had a daughter who " made sheep^s
€yes" at a swineherd. Any little parental obstacle to
OurtVs happiness, on the score of blood or settlements,
was promptly overcome by his shooting the King in a
morass. The Dryasdusts cannot tell whether he
married the daughter, but they dug like ghouls for a
fortnight at the edge of the Whittingham property,
in the hope of discovering the royal sepulchre, and
didn^t. A live bull proved better than a dead king to
Mr. Balfour, who did not care for the bones, but sold
his King Loth to New Zealand. Great Seal went to
a Sunderland butcher when his show days (during
which he beat Forth at Perth) were over, and his
216 stone of 141bs. nearly rivalled the weight of the
Durham ox. One of the family. Lady Seal, was left,
and The Belle tribe, as well as the Lady tribe, were

IIOMAN CAMP TO ATHELSTANEFOKD. 12^

all crossed hy liim ; wliile "Rose of May by Sir James^
the Rose, and Lady of the Manor were put to Royal
Standard.

Mr. Balfour, whose father died nine years since,,
in the very prime of life and usefulness, owns nearly
seven thousand acres round Whittingham, of which six
hundred belong to the home-farm. It is principally
on the red sandstone, and has taken many prizes for
grain and roots, more especially on its loam. At
the steading, where the turkeys and poultry betoken
a fancier's care, we found some Great Seal bullocks,,
many of them from the dozen dairy cows. The calves-
all get milk from the pail and a little oilcake the first
winter, they are grazed the next summer, and then
gradually carried on with turnips, cake, and corn till
they are shown at the United East Lothian or Had-
dington in the spring, where hitherto they have
had the first and second prizes for lots of five. Great
Seal left four crops of calves behind him, and the
last were j ust being dropped. Prince Loth, who was
second both at Newcastle and Stirling in his class
last year, is very much of the same lengthy, thick-
fleshed type as his father, and likely to be as good in
his generation as a steer- getter. His dam, Rose of
May by Sir James the Rose, a fine big cow, with
the regular family horn, stood side by side in the-
byre, with Lady of the Manor opposite Northern-
Belle and her calf, those relics of Hill Head ; and
Lady Blanche, a cow of no great pretensions her^
self, but the dam of the prize heifer Lady Windsor^

126 FIELD AND FERN.

was with the dairy lot. This good heifer was highly
commeuded at Newcastle, and third at Stirling, where
she, at all events, beat all the Scottish lot ; and a
double cross of her Lady Blanche blood had told
well on British Standard.

There are from 100 to 120 Leicester ewes, and 80
half-breds in the home flock. The former are princi-
pally bred from Cockburn of Sisterpath, Hardy of
Harrietfield, and Simson of CourthiJl : and some of
their own prize tups have been used as well. We
found them in a glen of old grass of thirty years'
standing, which has made many a shorthorn man's
mouth water with honest envy. The Wbittingham
burn flows along it, among the elm and beechen
shade for miles. Still, we hardly took in its real
beauty till we had scaled the ruined tower of
the old Wbittingham Castle, and looked away to
the vast arables, which no longer keep their
"fallow sabbaths^' round Traprain and Berwick
Law.

Below were the Wbittingham gardens, rich in the
rarest trees, the dark shade of BothwelFs yew, with a
still darker story annexed, and the grove in which
a solitary monument stands to record that it was
once the burial-ground of the Drumelzier family.
Tlie laurel and the bay wear the glossy sheen, which
the red sandstone fosters, and which no frost can
blight ; and beyond, towards the Lammermoors, and
towering above still lochs which we wot not of, are
the oaks and larches on the hill which make up the

ROMAN CAMP TO ATHELSTANEFORD. 127

sure find of Presraennan, The eye wanders coast •
wards along the glen_, over wooded masses^ to
Tyningham and Newbyth, dear to old Meltonians
for Sir David^s memory^ and so away to Dunbar,
and the Pass of Dunglass^ where Cromwell foiled
the foe on that fearful nighty when the " sea and
the tempests are all abroad, all asleep but we_, and
there is One who rides upon the wings of the
wind/^

A drive of eight miles across country brought us
to Mr. Douglases homestead at Athelstaneford. It
lies at the foot of the glen, down which the Cocktail
Burn — whose wa.ters are connected, in Scottish his-
tory, with a bloody day between Athelstane and the
Picts — flows from the Garlton Hills. On the highest
point of the latter stands the Hopetoun Monument,
to te]] of valour in a more glorious field. In modest
contrast to it is the obelisk, just rising from the
centre of the village green, which the zeal of the
present minister, Mr. Whitelaw, has reared to the
memory of Blair, who, like the author of '' Douglas,^^
was one of his predecessors at the manse, and sleeps
in the kirk-yard.

Traprain Law is on the right, and running gra-
dually out near Dunbar is the bold range of the
Lammermoors, which Mr. Pusey skirted on his
second agricultural visit to East Lothian; while
below you is the deeply-wooded valle}^, which seems
to reach for miles, from Gilmerton House to that
'' grim niched barrier of whinstone" which shelters

128 FIELD AND FERN.

this fertile land from '^ the chafings and tumblings
of the big, blue German Ocean/^

Mr. Douglas occupies a farm of three hundred
acres at Athelstaneford, belonging to Sir David Kin-
loch ; and he also holds Muirhouses, of two hundred
and fifty acres, under Earl of Wemyss, about a mile
and a-half from it. The pure-bred short-horns were
kept entirely at Athelstaneford, where Mr. Douglas
resides, and the store-cattle at Muirhouses. The
whole is principally dry-field land, with, in some
places, a large admixture of clay ; and, with the ex-
ception of six acres, there is no old grass. The sys-
tem is the six-break one : about seventy to eighty
acres are annually sown in turnips, and from eight
to ten in mangels, of which, in his prize -cattle days,
he preferred the orange globe variety.

There is much to remind one of the old love. The
heads of Sir James the Rose and Rose of Summer are
sculptured on the garden vases, among some scores of
other roses of every kind and hue, and they live again
from the head to the hocks in painted glass windows.
Still, botany has quite supplanted bull-calves, and
useful farm buildings with a clock replace those
ancient tenements and the rocky fastness from which
Sir James the Rose used to sally.

Lalla Rookh's, Ringlet's, and Rose of Summer's are
the only heads preserved. Lallans wore the rosette
at the Highland and the Yorkshire shows ; but she
was jammed against a wall by a cart, and died after
breeding one calf. " The Rose'^ is also in a picture

RO:SIAN CAMP TO ATHELSTAXEFORD. 129

with Captain Balco (12546), tlie sire of her calves
Rose of Athelstane and Sir James the Rose; and
Water Lily shares her canvas honours with Snip
the Clydesdale mare who gained the Royal Eng-
lish prize at Carlisle. The silver medals are not
to be sought for in a cloud of cases, but they have all
been melted up, and form a tree, with the old down-
horn family group at its base, and twenty-eight gold
medals hanging like the apples of the Hesperides
from its boughs.

The Provost (4846), from a daughter of Colonel
Cradock^s old Cherry, and Melrose by Gainford
(2044), one of her sons, first attracted Mr. Douglas
at the Highland Society^s Show at Edinburgh in
1842, and his improved shorthorn impressions date
from that day. Still, it was not until 1846, when
the Royal Society met at Newcastle, that he made
any extensive purchases. Bellevillp (6778) was then
all the rage, and it was with two yearling heifers by
him that he won the second and third prizes in their
class at Aberdeen, the following summer. In that
year he also bought Florence of the Booth's Fare-
well tribe, and Lalla Rookh at Mr. Carruthers of
Dormont's sale, the former of which he parted with
to Mr. Bolden, senior. His early prize winnings
were not confined to females, as;^ in 1848, when his
name was fairly established in Scotland, he not only
got the second cow prize at the Royal Irish, but won
with his Red Rover in the yearling-bull class, beating
the Hon. Mr. Nugent's celebrated Bamboo.

130 PIELD AND FERN.

When he determined on having a sale in 1852, he
hired Mr. Maynard^s prize roan bull Crusade
(7938), whom he still holds to have been far the best
in England of his day, in order to have his cows all
served by him. Among them was Rose of Autumn,
which he bought at the sale of Mr. La Touche, in
Ireland, into whose possession her dam Pelerine, and
Polka, those celebrated Killerby twins by Bucking-
ham (3239) from Mantalini had passed by private
contract. Her first calf at Athelstaneford was Rose
of Summer by Velvet Jacket (10998), which pleased
Mr. Douglas so much, that he determined to reserve
her along with her half-sister Lady Like by Stars and
Stripes (12148), Scottish Blue Bell by Captain Shafto
(6833), Marchioness by Belleville, Purity by Crusade,
and Second Queen of Trumps by Belleville, which
he purchased from Mr. Unthank of Netherscales for
120 guineas, as, the nucleus of a second herd.

Up to the time of his sale, he had won fifty-nine pre-
miums and eight commendations for cattle, and Rose
of Summer and Scottish Blue Bell, who were on more
than one occasion first and second to each other,
^^took up the running'^ right gaily in the new era,
till the latter went to Mr. Corwin of Ohio. Rose of
Autumn and Village Belle were parted with at the
sale, with leave to exhibit them at the Highland
Society the following week, where they won the
prizes in their respective classes ; and then the former,
who was nursing Rose of Summer, went with
Brenda (in-calf with Lord Raglan by Crusade) to

ROMAN CAMP TO ATHELSTANEFOHD. 131

their new owner, Mr. Stewart of Southwick. Lord
Raglan was purchased back by Mr. Douglas, and
the produce of Rose of Autumn who broke to Cru-
sade, and was served by Heir-at-Law (13005), came
back to Athelstaneford in Rose of Sharon .

With that admiration for the Booth blood, which
made him once bid Mr. Richard Booth 500 gs. in
vain for Charity, and 550 gs. in later years for Nec-
tarine Blossom, Mr. Douglas went to the Killerby
sale in the autumn of ^52, and bought Birthright, a
grand-daughter of Bracelet, in-calf to Hopewell
(10332), as well as Officious, a calf by the same bull,
and of the same tribe, which he dipped into still deeper
by the purchase of Spicey and Ringlet. Warlaby
also furnished him with Extasy from Isabella Exqui-
site, which was re-registered, with Mr. Booth's per-
mission, as Isabella Hopewell. Along with Rose of
Sharon, there came a 600-guinea lot, in the shape of
Hawthorn Blossom, Heather Bell, and Cherry Queen
from Cherry Blossom, a daughter of Old Cherry, and
Imperial Cherry (the dam of Lady Bigot's prize
winner Cherry Empress) from Cherry Blossom's
daughter Rose of Southwick. It was quite a case of

" Cherry ripe ! cherry ripe ; cheap I crj-.
Full and fair ones — come and l)uy ;"

and the yearnings which had sprung up in Mr.
Douglas's mind, as he conned his two favourites in
the yard at Edinburgh, fourteen years before, had at
last their fulfilment. Three out of the four were by

2 K 2

132 FIELD AND PERN.

Col. Towneley's Hudibras (10339), an own brother
to the famous Alice.

His greatest bull bit was made when he bought
Mr. Ambler's Captain Balco (12546) byBalco (9918)
from Cowslip, a shabby little cow, by Upstart. He
considered " The Captain^' to be the best Bates bull
he had ever seen, and he had not only Rose of Sum-
mer's two crdves by him, but the Third from the
Second Queen of Trumps, which vied with Hose of
Athelstane, in sweeping the three National prizes in
one year, as Rose of Summer had done before them.
Captain Balco, after winning several prizes as a year-
ling in 1854, was second at the Royal Dublin Show
to Master Butterfly, the nearest thing that the " un-
beaten one'' ever had, and Richard Coeur de Lion
(13590) and Cadet (12521) ranked next. The Society
of Shakers, who farm 1,000 acres of the finest land
in Ohio, gave 400 guineas for him, among the
twenty which they purchased from Mr. Douglas in
the course of two years, and his son Sir James the
Rose (13290), whose very first calf was Maid of Athel-
stane from Ringlet, took his place, and was long
the main prop of the herd.

In the same year (1855) that Captain Balco went
abroad, Mr. Douglas bought Hymen (13058) by the
Duke of Cambridge (12742) from Bridecake, as a
calf at the Springfield Hall sale; but he scarcely
used him, as his senior did not leave England till
nearly the end of the season, and after v/inning the
county prize with him against bulls of all ages, he

ROMAN CAMP TO ATHELSTANEFOllD. 133

sold him for 200 guineas to M. de Trehonnais at the
Paris International Show, the following year. This
sale, which seemed a good one at the time_, was a
sonrce of some regret, when two out of the three
calves he left behind him appeared in the show
yard. One of them, The Lamp of Lothian, a strong,
line-loined but rather short bull, from Isabella
Hopewell, beat 132 yearlings at the Royal Dublin
Show, besides getting the gold medal as the best
bull in the yard ; after which he was sold to Mr.
Crosby of Ardfelt Abbey, Tralee, for 250 gs., and
proved himself one of the best prize-heifer getters in
Ireland. The other. Lady of Athelstane, from Play-
ful, not only won well herself, but was the dam of
Pride of Athelstane, the second-prize calf at Batter-
sea, and the first-prize heifer in-calf at Newcastle
last year.

Playful by Fourth Duke of York (10167), a cow
of considerable sweetness, nicely-covered huggins and
neat bone, introduced the pure Bates blood into the
herd, and Cambridge Rose and Britannia by Prince
George (12938), a Son of Lord George, are combina-
tions of it with Booth^s. The Hawthorn Blossom tribe
also came from Warlaby, through Venus de Medicisby
Harbinger (10297), who goes back to that celebrated
dam of Nectarine Blossom, through Bloom ; but
this beautiful white never bred, and died at Southwick.
The Princess tribe from Mr. Trontbeck^s of Blen-
cowe included Polly Gwynne and her daughters. Prim
^nd Priscilla, and her bull-calf Omega ; and it was

134 FIELD AND TEEN.

witli Clarionet from Mr. Wood^s in Ireland that the
Gunter twins, which had to give away a great deal
of age, "were beaten at Dumfries.

In 1858 the herd was at its height. At the York-
shire Show at Northallerton, Queen of Trumps,
Kose of Athelstane, and Maid of Athelstane, all took
firsts ; and Lady of Athelstane and Venus de Medi-
cis were honourably mentioned. It seems but yes-
terday that they were walking down the streets
of the quaint little town ; and well might the short-
horn Yorkshiremen joke and call them " Scotfs
loty^ as they were all stabled and fed below the Grand
Stand while waiting to be trucked. Others were not
so well up in the matter, but quite as free to com-
municate. ^^ Those belong to my friend Mi\ Richard
Booth," said a fussy little man on the steps of the
inn, and he began checking them off on his fingers :
^^ That's Queen Mab, or Nectarine Blossom ! — I don't
exactly know which, but Pve often seen them — That's
Queen of the Isles I'' while he was really indicating
Queen of Trumps and '^ The Rose/' till at last a
Northumbrian struck in, and said he^d ^' better shut
lip/' as they all belonged to a Scotchman, and
" none of your grand Mr, Booths,''

It w^as indeed a wonder how a plain tenant-
farmer could have brought such a lot to the post,
and fight single-handed against all the experience,
talent, and outlay that could be arrayed against
him in England. It Avas a fearfully hazardous busi-
ness, under the present artificial show mode, as only

KOMAN CAMP TO ATHELSTANEFORD. 135

Ihigli feeding enabled him to put his animals along-
side such competitors, and pains and penalties duly
folloAved. In one year alone he lost two Cherries,
a calf from Playful, and the grandest calf he ever
had, a roan heifer by Sir James from Rose of Sharon.
Let another Scot go in and try to fight the English
breeders successfully at such fearful odds, and he
will find what ^' nights of weariness and weary days^^
mean, when he has had a month of travelling in
steamers and railway trucks, of lingering in show-
yards and of waiting at stations with his cattle, to
say nothing of the expense, and the risk of accidents
or of feeble judges. A few prizes, and an assurance
on the part of the agricultural papers, while his mind
is racked with anxiety and his eyes bloodshot with
fatigue, that he is " taking the grand tour,*' prove
but a very small compensation. All this Mr. Douglas
went through, without flinching, for two-thirds of the
fifteen years, from the era of his first-prize bull Red
Rover down to Crown Prince of Athelstane, the last
he ever bred from Queen of Athelstane.

A few words upon his cracks. Rose of Autumn
had not the perfection and form of Rose of Summer,
but was rather light in her fore quarter. Her
daughter Rose of Summer was a perfect type of the
Athelstaneford mould, and was, in fact, a true square,
with her legs so well under her. Well might the
Herd-J3ook editor express his delight, when he saw
Mr. Douglas lead her, as fit and as ripe as a Derby
favourite, out of her truck at Lincoln ! As a calf

136 FIELD AND FERN.

she was small, but thick as a cow, and with one of
the finest fore quarters ever seen. Still, Mr.
Eichard Booth^s Bridesmaid, who had nearly a
yearns pull, was too much for her at Carlisle in ^55,
where she was obliged to meet her in the cow class.
Paris proved fatal to her, and when she was un-
trucked at Drem Station she could only crawl to a
shed near Muirhouscs, and despite the highest care
and skill she died after a few days^ illness. The loss
can hardly be estimated, as upwards of 500 guineas
had been refused for her at Paris, simply because
Mr. Douglas considered that the continued success
of the herd depended on her and her tribe.

Her calf Rose of Athelstane was able to get IJ
miles further to Atheist an eford, and lay there for two
months, more dead than alive. Still, she took heart
of grace at last, and defeated Mr. Booth's Queen of
the May in the struggle at Salisbury. She travelled
about 5,000 miles by land and sea, and won some
twenty premiums ; but she v/as not a lucky cow, a&
all her calves were sadlv delicate, and none of them
were reared. She had great substance, with hair
and quality, and was at least two sizes larger than
Rose of Summer. Third Queen of Trumps Avas a
dark roan, with all the Captain Balco marks, a rare
quarter, and loins as level as a table. There was
more gaiety about Rose of Summer, but she was
not nearly so deep-fleshed. " Third Queen's" end was
a tragical one, as, when a storm blew great guns,
seventy miles from New Orleans, the sailors threw

ROMAN CAMP TO ATHELSTANEFORD. 137

lier overboard, with some Clydesdale horses, and the
400-gmnea Koyal winner rendered up her sirloin to
the sharks. Venus deMedicis had alovelv leg and snug
neck vein, and a wonderful tendenc}^ to lay on flesh.
In fact, save a slight contraction near the tail head,
there was hardly a blot to be found in her, and hence
once in their five public trials she was placed over
Third Queen of Trumps. Lady of Athelstane was a
compact, buxom, little body, with very fine flesh, and
always a favourite with the English and Scottish
bench, and if she had been only a size larger she would
have been exceedingly dangerous.

The Maid's masculine head and upright horn
spoilt her_, and as a calf she was a trifle Aveak in her
loins. Mr. Douglas knew this so well, that when she
met Duchess 77th and the immense calf field at
Northallerton, his orders to his man were not to keep
her always in the judges^ eye, as many clever showers
do, but to hold her head tight, and keep touching
her up perpetually with a little switch in the flank.
Mr. Robinson w^as not to be deceived even if the
judges were, and he slyly congratulated Mr. Douglas
on her being "shown so Avell.^^ The Queen of
Athelstane from Ringlet was a perfect beauty, and
she and Rose of Cashmere were a rare pair of year-
lings while they were doing the, first and second
business at the Highland and Northern Shows. In
his own mind Mr. Douglas could never whip her
apart from Rose of Summer, and bracketed her as-
head of his red, white, and roan tripos, with Third

138 FIELD AND FERN.

Queen of Trumps next^ and then Rose of Atbelstane.
Lady Pigot could not resist her even at five
hundredj and the Branches herd never had a heavier
blov/ than when she died unbeaten and in prepara-
tion to meet The Duchesses at Leeds. Second Queen
of Atbelstane was also a good one^ and in that won-
derful box with the top-lights, and the walls papered
with prize-cards, she looked, with the roan ^' Gem^'
as her lusty foil, pretty nearly invincible. Still, she
was never a public favourite. Nothing improved
more than Pride of Atbelstane from ''^The Lady'^
as a yearling, and she was well worthy, as a two-
year-old in-calf to win a first prize for Mr. Douglas
at the Newcastle Royal, in a class where Rose of
Summer, Third Queen of Trumps, and Rose of Atbel-
stane had all showed the way.

Captain Balco, for form and style, fine quarters and
loins, was quite the bead bull at Atheist aneford,
though he was hardly so deep-fleshed as Sir James
the Rose, a bull of great sweetness, but a little slack
behind the shoulders and a trifle soft in his handling.
Hiawatha, another son of Playful, was not so good
as Sir James, but he was a clever winner, and beat,
among others, the great Lord Garlics j and two
whites, Preemason, who was pretty nearly all Booth,
and Next-of-Kin, who was second and then first at
the Highland Society, closed wdth Lady of Atbel-
stane the history of a very remarkable Shorthorn
career.

The kennels of the East Lothian, of which Mr.

ROMAN CAMP TO ATHELSTANEFORD. 139

Kinlocii is a joint master with Sir David Baird, are
at East Saltoun^ a mile from Pencaithland. Will
Williamson was born a few miles from here, and they
clo say that in later years he carried the green collar
out of the country. They hunt the whole of Had-
dington and Berwickshire up to Ay ton Castle, and
go as far as Dalkeith, White Hill, and J\Ielville
Castle in Edinburghshire. The Stone country, which
is twenty miles away, has been recently given up to
the Duke. Mr. Hope is the secretary, and they
hunt three days a week, and about two-and-forty
scarlets have been mustered at times. There are
sometimes eight or ten officers, and the farmers are
beginning to come out more and more every season,
and well mounted to boot.

Arniston country holds the best scent, and is, in
fact, the only grass country. The res'c is nearly all
under plough, and its drains, sheep, and manure
militate sadly against scent ; while the v/ild goats of
many colours on the Lammer Law are often as
tempting to the young hounds as roe deer. In the
Gladsmuir country, which extends to Blackshiels,
they get on to the Lammermoors for those fine wild
runs which Williamson loved, and carry a great
head over the heather. There are a few good gorse
covers, Whitbury, li miles from .^altoun, the Hope-
town Monument, Shilling Hill, and KilldufF, which
consists of fifteen acres fenced in at one corner of this
grand nursery for foxes. The seventy or eighty acres
of Killduff Wood bear an immense amount of sifting

J 40 FIELD AND FERN.

during the season ; but Saltoun, Long Tester^ and
Eckyside Hill have all become very hollow.

The hunting begins early in September, with '^^the
wliole fleet'^ at The Hopes, that great juniper cover
of the Lammermoors, and goes on one day a week
at Newbyth, Tyningham, and Coalston Wood.
Newbyth and Tyningham often furnish four or
five litters, but the greater part of the foxes are laid
up in old coal mines near Elphinstone Tower and
Ormiston Hall. Atkinson, the huntsman, who is
now in his sixth season, has had an exploring journey
for miles under them, and heard the cubs scam-
pering in all directions.

The hill-jumping is entirely confined to walls ; but
in the low ground, it is hedge and ditch, and the
ditches and burns are most unpromising about Drem.
Both the masters are hard riders, and the Hopes,
Scot Skirvmg, Innes of Phantassie,"^'" Tweedie of The
Coates, Ford of Harding Green, and Primrose of
Lauchland are also among the first flight. Sir
David^s well-known chesnnt Crimea was shot last
autumn, and Strand, Hope, a chesnut who had
been extensively "repaired," and Purvis, whose
ugliness does not interfere with his goodness, are
Atkinson's best.

* An old friend has ndded the followhig to oiu* prev-ions remarks on the late
Mr. Rennic of Phantassie : " He was an extremely shrewd man, and farmed
Phantassie exceedinglj^ well ; hut he never was a breeder of shorthorns, so to
speak. He had an extensive whisky distillery at Linton, close by Phantassie,
imd with ' the dxough and dreg,' as the Scotchmen call it, he ' bred up and
fed off in sheds from three to four hnnch-ed head of cattle all the year round.
He was an excellent judge of shorthorns, but his son, -iWth whom I had many
transactions, knew very little about them."

ROMAN CAMP TO ATHELSTANEFORD. 141

In kennel tliey have about 33^ couple, Tvith eight
couple of young ones, principally got by their own
Harmattan of Rufford Helpmate, Wynnstay Romeo,
and Rufford Dreadnought blood. They have had
drafts these last five summers from Lord Middleton,
the Bramham, and Brocldesby, and latterly from
Lord Henry Bentinck. When the ten couple were
destroyed by poison in Killduff, Sir AYatkin, Lord
Fitzhardinge, the Vale of White Horse, and Lord
Doneraile all helped out. As usual, some of those died
which could have been least spared, and among them
22 brace of the best puppies, including Render, the cup
puppy Roister, which had also entered so beautifully,
and Yarboro' Handmaid, the best bitch in the pack.
They are now running the dogs and bitches separate,
and for choice they like to find at Bolton j\Iuir, and
go straight to the hills v.ith a traveller. Seaton
Gorse, near Gosford, some eighty yards from the
sea, is a sure find, and the foxes run along tlie v.est
to Archerfield, and are killed or more generally lost
on the Law. Sometimes they get on the ledges of the
rocks, and the hounds run great risks if they get a
view, and if they go over near St. Abb^s light-
house, they are seen and heard of no more.

The puppies are judged every year in Mr. Hislop^s
coach manufactory at Haddington, and Primate and
Priestess, brother and sister, one bred by Mr. Wood and
the other by Mr. Kinloch, and both by Harmattan,
won the cups in '64. The old d og, v/ho has one eye cut
clean out, and his brother were in kennel with their

142 PIELD AND FERN.

great thoughtful heads. Herald has most pace, but
is too often silent when he is wanted. Funny, Laven-
der, and Comical are quite a little trio, and the
badger-pie Comical has many peculiarities about her.
She has never been in season, and she '^ can beat the
big ones through a hedge when they are thinking of
it/^ and she struggled through the poison. Nearly
thirty couple were out on the day of that fatal find,
and many of them show the effects jQt, if they have
had a very severe day. Eanter and Raffle are both
of the Middleton brand, and although he has lost an
eye and is as deaf as a post, there is no guide-post
like Ranter when they come to a road, and no one
to carry it over a dry fallow like RafHe. Petulant is
another of the low-scented ones; and Banker, with his
rather bitchlike head, is generally seen some lengths
at the head of affairs. Helpmate and Hermit are
two trimmers of the big-headed Harmattan sort, but
they don^t come to hand well after a hard day.

Hermit is a very savage breaker-np ; and one of
the kennel curiosities (along with the head of the
Tester Fox, which the woodmen looked upon as a
sort of " Old Mortality^^) is the two- ounce shanks
bone of a fox, which he swallowed at Newbyth.
Ringwood has only one draw of it, and won^t try
again till the fox is found, and then he will hold the
line like Fleecer, whose cocky stern and peculiar cha-
racter soon tempted us to ask Atkinson, ^'^ Who's
yoiu' friend V Lucifer was called up, and we heard
how he dared to cheer him his maiden morning at

ROMAN CAMP TO ATHELSTANEFORD. 143

Weatlierham Steps, as he had done his dam Bracelet
before him. Travellerj too, hunted his first day, and
he is by Tonic, a name of Will GoodalPs, who had
to use all his skill to get him over the distemper.
Bounty had nearly been put away for this cause, but
Atkinson persevered, and kept her entirely on eggs.
She rewarded him one day by stopping short at a
wall, and hitting it down the dyke, in a fast thing
over the muirs from Ealingshaw, when the body of
the hounds flashed over it. Rally wood has also his
good mark for picking it up in a dry furrow when
the fox had lain down near Gladsmuir. The Burton old
draft of 13J couple were still dark, and what was
contained in the sweet heads of Fashion, Phillis, and
Proserpine was still a weighty and anxious problem,
both for masters and men.

144 FIELD AND FERN.

ifMiLSfIiEF0Bi f8 CSLBSfiEii.

" Mr. DoxkijST, fully sensilole of the especial favoui- that has been conferred
npon him, by having placed in his hands this commission of Sale, and no less
<;onscioiis of the responsibilities which such a tnist imposes upon an Auc-
t.ioneor, considers it his duty to avail himself of those Channels thi'oiigh which
tidings of deep interest are conveyed to the Agricultm-ists of the United
Kingdom, to call attention to an oi^portunity about to present itself for the
purchase of Farmmg Stock of Surpassing Excellence and to the infusion of
rJie best blood of the Shorthorns, the Leicester Sheep, the Cart-horse, and
the Bacon Swine into districts now laudably emulous of an eminent niche in
the Temple dedicated to the manes of Bakewell and Collings, of Cully and
Ba.iley ; Avhile to the Agiicultm-al Student fresh from the Arcadian Acade-
mies, and about to commence on his own Account the tranquilizing iDursuits
■of a Farmer, the means are here placed within his grasp to lay the solid fomi-
dation of a breeding flock that will relieve him from the Sacrifices attendant
'ipon a correction of those deformities in Animals, which pubhc opinion now
<Ieclares shall no longer be tolerated in om- markets. Upon a closer inspec-
tion of the stock upon Farm, however well the Draught horses maintain

the character of the blood that has for generations run in their veins, and
though tiiie to the texts of the Herd Book are the aristocratic portion of the
■cattle, yet commentators must allow that the Leicesters will form the most
prominent featm-e of sale."

Ride across the Lammcrmoors — The Highland Society's Show at Kelso
— A Sketch of it in 1833 — Kelso Race-course — Kelso Jlani Fair —
Scenes in the Sale Yard — Lord Polwarth's Sale — The Border Leices-
ters— The Yetholm Gipsies — The Earl of "Wemyss's 1 founds and
Hnnters at Coldstream.

:^wo sliirts and three pairs of stockings proved but a
^ slender segis against 16 degrees of frost, as we set
our mare's head before daylight straight from Athel-
staneford over the Lammermoors. We began the
ascent beyond Tester, the residence of the Marquis
of Tweedale, one of the very best farmers and '' all
round'^ judges in Scotland. The wind cut us

ATHELSTANEFOIID TO COLDSTREAM. 145

to the cheek-bone like a knife, and we thought ^' the
mules^^ or greyfaces happy in their thick-set fleece
when Ave were descending by flinty ruts and ice-
bound burns, on the welcome Kelso side. As their
breeders say, " they come as big as you like, and the
turnip comes out on the wool" ; seeing that with extra
feeding the best of the hoggs will often clip 81bs.
They are very fond of them in some parts of York-
shire, and the farmers of the Askrigg district buy the
shots of the blackfaced ewe hoggs solely to breed
them.

The hill farmers burn their heather on a regular
rotation, and Mr. Clapperton gave it as his opinion
recently, at one of the East Lothian Farmers^
Club meetings, that "when properly burned it
would feed blackfaced sheep better than any young
grass in East Lothian." Under a thousand feet, at
least, Mr. George Hope considered that "more
money had been made by converting heather into
arable land than by any other system of farming in
Scotland, potatoes and altogether," provided the land
was taken at a heather rent, and landlords gave some
assistance in fencing and draining.

Carfrae Mill had not the attraction for us which
it has for the Duke^s field two or three times in the
season, and at Lauder, nearly every stall was full
of horses whose riders had gone to the rink. It was
aright cheery ride by Mellerstain and Smailholm, and
Mr. Usher (as ardent a curler as he is a hunter) was
just returning from the ice on Benvoirlich when we

2 L

146 FIELD AND FERN.

reached Stodrig. He might well congratulate us on
the punctuality with which we had done our two-
and-forty miles^ and promise us as our reward a
night with ^' The Northern Angler/^ who was in his
finest form, and, stirred by our host^s good songs,
delivered " the Gaelic sermon/^

It was not just the season to realize the rich pas-
tures and warm turm^) soils of the Vale of Tweed, but
we had seen them some months before, on a sunny
August morning. Then, as we passed the ley where
Howard was at work with his steam plough, and
farmers were following the furrows like rooks, and
saw for the first time " the ruined central tower'^
of St. Mary's Abbey, with Floors Castle amid its
deep green setting in the distance, and the Tweed
and its latest tributary rolling along past vale and
cliff together, we could hardly wonder that the Duke
of Argyll should have confessed that, looking back
through the vista of a quarter of a century, he did
not remember one foot of the road between Edin-
burgh and " merry Carlisle," save that view from the
Bridge of Kelso. In his boyish rapture he visited
it five or six times that night ; and we, too, cherish
our glimpse of the bridge, as the stately Clydesdales
were filing over it from the showyardinto the town,
and little Hotspur was caracolling in the centre, as
if the memory still stirred him of the days when he
itretched the neck of the Eglinton crack through the
mud at Epsom, and sent the heart of Scotland into^
its shoes.

ATHELSTANEFORD TO COLDSTREAM. 147

The sliow-ground was by the river-side^ and the
Spring wood Policy woods sheltered it south and east.
TreeSj too^ occasionally broke the uniformity of the
shed avenues, and between the Ayrshires and the
busy horse-ring they clustered still closer within the
low palisades of the ancient burial-ground of three
parishes, where the grey headstones lay strewn in
wild disorder among the rank nettle crop — a cheru-
bim here and cross-bones there. Nine acres were
devoted to the stock ; and the great implement in-
terest, which has grown so surely and so well, occu-
pied seven. The horse-ring — not exactly our grand
English oval, but still 140 feet in diameter — was
there, for the morning and afternoon parade ; and not
unfrequently a goodly assembly of dukes and mas-
ters of hounds stood in the centre, watching the
Clydesdales at their long steady trot, and looking out
for hunting action among the blood sires and the
half-bred geldings ; while the poultry classes proved
to sceptical henwives that a noble AI.F.H. can take
a delight in breeding foxes and first-prize coloured
Dorkings as well.

There stood in one grand line a century of sturdy
Clydesdales, most of them with white stockings almost
to the hocks ; the red-ilecked Ayrshires, with their
clean expressive heads and wedge -like figures ; two
first-prize roans from the Royal, ^' The Pride^' vic-
torious, and "The Duke" defeated; the sires and dams
of " heavy blacks,^^ round which the London butchers
bold their earliest parleys with the salesmen, at the

2 l2

148 FIELD AND FEllN.

great Christmas fat market ; the West Highland-
ers_, black, dun, and red, and fierce- eyed, even in
their subjection ; the Border Leicesters, which can
keep both Cotswold and Lincoln at bay ; the blackface
from whose three-year-old veins " the gravy runs out
like brandy" ; and the ruddle-coated, game-headed
Cheviots, part of that great Clan Hornie wdiich Bry-
don, like a Lowland Chieftain, will lead in due
season to the links of Inverness, and invite Suther-
landshire to the wager of battle.

The contrast between it and its humble prede-
cessor of ^32 was brought most vividly before us in
a public-house ingle near Coldstream, where w^e
waited, deep in oatcake and ale, for the train. Our
informant had seen " baith Kelseys," and was all
for progress. " First one,^^ he observed, "was like
a bit of a country tent pitten up ; nothing round
aboot it — -same kind of thing, bless your heart, but
not gitten up in tlie same style. Things are varra
much improved since yon ; feeding^s gat up to a dif-
ferent pitch. I saw a lot of bad Ayrshire coos among
them, but varra nice pigs ; I canna mind on whose
they were. It^s drawn a deal of money noe doot.
He's a varra clever body, they tell me, that Mr. Hall
Maxwell."

Now that great congress had vanished, the park was
green once more, and the gateways built up. Hence
we strove to revive the memories of Lanercost and
Beeswing on Berry Moss to which " oval course of
exactly a mile and a quarter, with a straight run of

ATHELSTANEFORD TO COLDSTREAM. 149

half-a-mile up a slight ascent/^ which General Chasse
would have loved, the Kelso meeting was removed
from Caverton Edge. Thanks to the Duke of Rox-
burghe, and the untiring clerk of the course, Mr,
Usher, the meeting has never faltered. The obelisk
monument of the poet of " The Seasons^^ faces you.
above the turn for home, but it would puzzle the
gentle philosopher to define the length of the racing
season now. The middle of the course seems to be
quite a workshop for the moles ; and wild- ducks and
sea-gulls rise from its ditches. Along the back
stretch it is very deep going in autumn, and it is no
wonder that 9st. lllbs. should have told on Bees-
wing, or that Sim Templeman should have found
Songstress tire to nothing. As for Benvoirlich or
Beef and Greens, half-brother to Blink Bonny on
his dam's side, his and Mr. Usher's appearance was
always as keenly looked for, in the Hunting Plate, as
Bob Johnson's and Dr. Syntax's on a Preston Cup day.
He won it three years running ; and if he did not
show in '62, he renewed his strength the next autumn
with his owner up in the yellow with green hoop and
cap, making all the running and hugging the rails at
the turn, to the old tune from the farm lads, of " Had
awa\ Ben!" On the Turf he did not care to be
asked the question too often, but with the Baccleucli
hounds he was endless.

We do not advise a quietly-disposed person to be
in Kelso on the last night of December : for what with
the wake of the dying year, and the celebration of s:

150 FIELD AND FERN.

birthday, it is, for flags, music, and cheering, un-
equalled. The New- Year greetings in the Corn
Exchange next morning were a hushed whisper by-
comparison, as we sauntered round its chocolate
stands, looked at samples, mouse-traps, oilcake, and
turnip-cutters, and pondered the thrilling query,
" Have you tried Thorlieshope IhneV

But we must go back to September and the rams,
which make visitors throng the borough, and gladden
the innkeepers^ hearts. The small plant has slowly
and surely waxed into a great tree, and sheep-
breeders from Ireland, Yorkshire, and Wales now
come to sit under its shadow. Seventeen years ago
there was only a slight sprinkling of rams on The
Knowes, a small green near the Abbey, from one or
two breeders who let them for the season. Then
the show was commenced, whicli last j«ear rose to the
dignity of six auctioneers, fifty-seven sellers, and
2,300 tups. The prizes of the Union and Highland
Societies had been given the day before, and Stark
of Mellendean, Simson of Courthill, and Purvis of
Burnfoot had been winning with Leicesters, and Elliot
of Hindhope, whose sheep have not exactly the
Brydon glint, but excel in fleece, as all the hill sheep
of the East Border do, had left but one Cheviot
prize for ten gimmers to Shortreed of Attonburn.
Mr. Oliver had also been busy among the half-bred
tups, and Mr. Gibson, from that most bleak-sounding
place Windydoors, had finished with ^9 per head for
twenty-two, and £13 5s. for ^'^the top yen.^-*

ATHELSTAXEFORD TO COLDSTREAM. 151

It was^ in fact, " tlie great autumnal assize of the
Union Agricultural Society, held at Kelso, before
the most profound bucolic jurists of the age/^
and Messrs. Donkin had "solicited the attention of the
elite of Border Society to this golden opportunity of
embellishing and enriching their Dairies with the
Poetry of Cream and Butter/^ from a consignment of
Alderney and Guernsey cows. When we add that
*^ symptomatical of superexcellence/^ "a jewel for
the lawn/^ " the Darling of the Dairy/^ were mere
" remarks" in the sale-bill, on the grey, smoky, and
mulberry fawns, we have given but a faint specimen
of the powerful stimulant which this Robins of the
North apphes weekly to his clients in " the little king-
dom of Scotland and Northumberland,"

The ram sale has outgrown its doorway ; but that
sturdy borderer, Tom Gibbons of Burnfoot, is a good
man to follow in a crowd, and joining sixpences we
shoved in together. The lots vary from a hundred
to five, and are divided among four rings. The
Messrs. Donkin have at present the lion^s share of the
business ; and Messrs. Fairbairn and Penny, Mr.
OHver of Hawick, Mr. Shiel, and Mr. Embleton duly
take their turns with lots, whose precedence of sale is
decided by ballot. Up to two o'clock business is brisk
enough; but, except it be Lojd Polwarth's, an
average will suffer severely if the lot is not put up
before that hour. Buyers begin to tire, and want to
be away, and some breeders from round Kelso have
sent their sheep to Edinburgh in consequence. The

152 FIELD AND FERN.

sheep are duly ticketed, and tlie names of tlie flock
labelled on the pen. Some auctioneers can sell eighty
in an hour, but a ram a minute is the general cal-
culation. It is very hard work to begin at ten
with only four rings, and to sell off by five. Bid-
dings beyond .£5 are all by five shillings, and they
quite reverse the line, " I^d rather have a guinea
than a one-pound note."

The different styles of the auctioneers are most
delightful to a stranger, and after we had been once
or twice among the pens, the spirit was ever moving us
to make tours of inspection, simply for comparison.
The dramatic, the impulsive, the crisp, the melan-
choly, and the homely styles, all had their interpreters.
We heard no home-thrust like that once delivered by
the late Mr. Fairbairn, when he had sold a topper :
" Now, Sir ! your flock has been fallinxj off for some
years : you've got the sheep to suit you'' They did
not rise beyond, "Look at that sheep, and waken
up /" and some such antidotes to sloth, or assurances
that he was " clipped in June as bare as a vegetable
board; and look at him now I" Then the word went
round that the Polwarth lot, which is as keenly
looked for here as Mr. Cookson's at Doncaster, was
going to be put up, and the audience at rings 2, 3,
and 4 begin to thin rapidly. The few remnants of
the preceding lot only acted as a whet. " A £5 note
for a start of him," says the auctioneer, a sterling-
looking fellow, with a little switch for a hammer, and
a supply of good, sound Border Doric, which falls quite

ATHELSTANEFORD TO COLDSTREAM. 15S

pleasantly on our Cumbrian ear. " There^s a good un,
there^s noe doot of it ;" but even this eulogium is
not quite to his mind, and he adds apologetically,
'' I canna spak oot for this wind.'^ " Here's a good
skinned yen.'' " Sic a sheep again there, gentlemen^
— j85 for a start of Jam sure-ly.''

Then comes the Polwarth prelude, but the speaker
is equal to it, and no wiud interferes with the glowing
assurance that their ^' heads, rumps, and skiyis are the
wonder of the world'' The tall and limber-looking
shepherd, Andrew Paterson, in drab leggings, and
with a handkerchief in his hand for the final polish^
brings the first of the thirty-five into the ring, and
" Ten pounds ten times over" was the first auctioneer's
remark on him. ^^ Look at him. Oh dear! I'll
get £20 for him in a minit, I'm sure o't ;' and Mr.
Wilson of Hay mount drew first blood at twenty-four.
Bidders went much sharper for No. 5, and it was "36
ten times over ;" and when it was at 60, with a good
round of Border music, the seller had only this dry
eulogy for his audience, that they had " taken a ter-
rible deal of time.'" One pound more, and it was Mr.
Wilson^s again. " Here's a better yen," said the
shepherd, mantling with delight ; but the bidders soon
discounted his speech for him. As for No. 10, " It's
no use wasting any time. Come! Jwenty for a start,"
and he got it; and the £60 top finish of last year
bet^veen Mr. Purvis and Sir George Dunbar^s agent
was converted into a £71 between Torrence of Sis-
terpath and Douglas of Eoss-shire. As Mr. Usher

154! FIELD AND FERN.

professionally observed, " The home stable won again J^
And so the average went steadily on, till it was only
3Jd. short of £27, or £6 12s. 9d. beyond the average
for the same number in ^63, no small rise on the
£\0 8s. all round of ^60. The ring cleared out after
the closing lot, 35, just like the House of Commons to
the smoking-room, when a great speaker is down, and
who shall we say gets up? and "£3 2s. 6d., gie
us a bit stiffer than that, Mr. Swan,'' were the last
words that were audible in our reporter's gallery.

In the course of the day £57 (as well as £9 Os. 6d.
for 48) and £51 were made respectively by Mr.
Stark and Mr. Calder. "Sisterpath^^ kept up its old
prestige with £10 10s. Sjd. for 49, and Mr. Purvis
Avas there again with £9 7s. 9id. for a hundred.
The Simsons were pretty close, " Blainslie" with £7
10s. 9d. for 80, and " CourthilF' with £7 17s. 8d. for
70; but there is no fair comparison of averages unless
the time of putting up is stated as well.

Lord Polwarth has fine old grass and very beauti-
ful shelter and climate for his flock at Mertoun, four
miles from St. Boswells, and he sets the fashion as
completely as Mr. Sanday did in England, and never
buys tups at Kelso. In fact, the other Border
breeders declare that it is a perfect Caucasian mystery
where he does get his tups from . The uniformity of
his lordship's sheep is very marked, from their gay looks,
flat backs, round ribs, and slight deficiency about the
scrag. In size and wool some of the other flocks
are their equals, and in the two-shear competition

ATHELSTANEFORD TO COLDSTREAM. 155

his lordship was beaten by Mr. Stark of Mellen-
deaUj and has by no means always the best of it in
the show yards. Only some six score ewes are kept
at Mertoun, but some of the very best go on to a
great age, and the greatest caution is used in ascer-
taining what sort of stock a tup gets before he is
dipped into. The ewe and gimmer draft have been
sold for many years to the same farm in Fifeshire.
Nothing but the highest tact, combined with advan-
tages of situation, could give them such a long lead.
They have been put up to auction for fifty-eight years,
and whereas in 1820 thirty -five of them only ave-
raged £3 15s., in 1864 the same number reached
£27. The Cotswold element, which was once fancied
on the Border, has never been introduced amongst
them."^

The Border can show its Leicester title almost as
far back as the beginning of the century, . and Mr.
Bobertson of Ladykirk and Mr. Cully of Wark
began it. Mr. Purvis has been at it for full fifty
years, and has crossed with the flocks of Lord Pol-
warth, Compton of New Learmouth, Smith of

* "This celebrated flock, which has long commanded top prices at the
great Kelso sales, and whose strain is disiinctly traceable in the flocks of
almost all the best breeders of pm-e Scotch Leicesters in the country, origi-
nated in 1802, when 80 ewes were purchased, at £2 15s. each, from a well-
known Northumberland breeder, Mr. Jobson of-Hidgley, near Chillingham
and 140 ewes from Mr. Waddell (also, we beheve, a Northumbrian breeder)'
at £2 14s. Where the rams were obtaiaed fi-om, it is now somewhat difficult
to ascertain. At that time, however, the most reputed breeders chd not care
to dispose of their rams, and it is probable that these were hh-ed from the most
famous Border flockmasters, of whom Mr. Robertson of Ladvkh-k was one.
Two yeai-s after Lord Polwarth had purchased the flock from Mr. Jobson he
commenced a sale of rams at Mertoun, and from that time (ISOi) continued
them every year at that place until 1S52, when he sent his rams down to Kelso
where they have ever since been sold." — Scottish Farmer. '

156 FIELD AND TERN.

Marldown^ Cockburn of Sisterpatli (who was ouce
quite at the top of the tree), Calder of Kelloe Mains
(who gets Mr. Simpson^s of Court HilFs ewes); Chrisp
of Hawkhill, kc, and thus theperpetual interchange of
blood with all the crack flocks goes on. The Highland
Society, the Northumberland Society, and the Union
are the only local shows the breeders attend, and the
latter holds its spring show alternately at Kelso and
Coldstream in March, for those who have young
bulls and cart stallions, and two and three-year-old
cart colts and fillies, in the district. Independently
of their public sales, Yorkshire and Northumberland
are great customers, but the latter county is falling
into the radical English error of having their Leicesters
a little too fine. The Border breeders contend
that the big sheep are hardier than the small, and able
to live and thrive at a great height ; that near the foot
of the Cheviots the Leicester-Down and pure
Leicester (particularly the former) cannot live
in a storm, and require far more keeping up
before lambing. The very high feeders calculate
on five fleeces to the 2 stone or 481bs. for tup hoggs.
Some also dislike swedes for their tup hoggs, as they
are too nutritive, and apt to crook the pasterns, and
never give them to their ewes till after lambing, when
they are off to the grass. They generally begin w^ith
Skirving's Purple Tops, and have their hoggs on
them or Greystone and White Globe all the winter,
and the breeding ewes are put on the same by the
end of January. Australia is beginning to fancy the

ATHELSTANEFOKD TO COLDSTREAM. 157

sort^ and this year Mr. Purvis got .£10 for ewe
hoggs and £20 for tup hoggs out of the wool, to go
over. These were not the pick of his lot, as he
alwaj^s takes care to have 100 of his best tup hoggs
for Kelso, when they ought to weigh 501bs. per
quarter.

The farms, partly hill and arable, of Roxburgh-
shire, Berwickshire, Selkirkshire, and Peebleshire
are mostly farmed on the principle of bringing Che-
viot ewes from the hill, keeping them to five or six
years old, and taking half-bred lambs from them
each year. This system generally obtains in every
district not more than seven hundred feet above the
sea; and the small half-bred ewe shots are
made quite as good as top Cheviot wedder lambs.
Those who follow it regularly buy from the
hill farmers two-fifths of their Cheviot ewe lambs
each year, in order to keep up their stock. It ascends
Teviotdale, five miles above Hawick, up Kale and
Bowmont Water, to the foot of the Cheviots, all along
the banks of the '^^shallowbrawlingTweed,^^ Gala, and
Leader beyond Peebles, and nearly to Lanark.

" Drj'grange with the milk-white ewes,"
• 'Twixt Tweed, and Leader standing,"

is faithful to it ; and in the Vale of Yarrow every-
one breeds half-bred s, if his land is low enough, and
he has winter keep. In the Bowmont Water district
the farmers go a step further, and use Border Leices-
ter s to the four or five year old Cheviot ewes, which
arc then in the very height of their milk, in order to

158 FIELD AND FERN-

breed Kelso half-bred sale tups, and so keep up the
Cheviot hardihood. Still, although half-bred on
half-bred has been a good deal tried, yet Leicester
on half-bred has done best. They are very particu-
lar about the dams of these tups, and some farmers
go to Sutherland for picked ewes. Regular breeders
vrill buy half-bred lambs from another birsel, and pay
as high as 28s. 6d. for them. All who breed half-
breds give the ewes six to eight weeks of turnips in
winter, or they could never nurse their much -heavier
lambs. It is therefore no wonder that half-bred
lambs increase so much for Melrose. There have
been as many as 90,000 there, with ewes and
wedders always separated, whereas twenty years
since fully half of them were Cheviots.

We did not step aside to see the gipsy Scone at
Kirk Yetholm. King Charles Blyth slept with his
fathers on August 19th, 1861, and Queen Esther, or
Esther Faa Blyth (the widow of "Jeddart Jock''), who
reigns in his stead, holds levees daily in her neat
little cottage. We might have heard more from her
of Will Faa her kinsman, with his " eye as keen as
a hawk and as black as a sloe,'' and who handled his
leister on the Tweed with the eye of an Indian,'^" but

* We extract the follo-\vin?r from an annual flysheet entitled " Present State
of the Gipsies in Yetholm :" " It is noticed that their circmnstances, humble
as they are, are somewhat declinins: ; their potteiy wares are becoming less
abundant, and a greater number of indi\'iduals depend upon the making of
besoms, baskets, &c., than formerly. Only two families regularly keep horses
and carts, the others who aspu-e to such a dignity being occasionally obhged
to sell theirs to relieve themselves from pressing difficulties. Dm-ing the last
two smnmers many have made a. considerable amount (it would be impossible
to saj^ how much) from wool. They buy the ofial of the folds from the farmers,
and, after much labour in cleaning, sell it at a high price ; yet winter finds
them, as usual, badly prepared for it, and at present several are niiserablj' fed

ATHELSTANEFORD TO COLDSTREAM. 159

■we cared more for Coldstream and the Earl of
Wemyss^s kennels.

His lordship first hunted Berwickshire and East
Lothian from ''34 till ^43 " beginning from all ken-
nels/'' Transport^ an eight-season hunter of Sutton
and Beilby blood, Alfred of Musters and Tavistock,
Chantress of Osbaldeston, Rainbow of Sutton, Vola-
tile of Belvoir, and Sensitive of Shropshire were his
leaders and counsellors. Out of eighty couple of
waifs and strays forty- nine were drafted, so that his
lordship and Joe Hogg, late of The Four Burrows
and now of Calabria, had a hardish time of it. Tom
Bance's brother whipped in for a season there.

and clothed. Theii* hardships make them m.ore anxious to keep their children
from following theu" footsteps ; and hence all the young men and women, with-
out exception, strive to become farm-servants, and aU who are of age have
striven successfully, except thi-ee girls who are stiU at home. At present there
are 13 families numbering 61, of wliich 21 are childi-en, and of these 18 attend
school. The gipsy school, which is so great a boon to the village of Kirk-
Yethohn, continues to be weU attended, and the system of giving each child a
certain quantity (half-a-stone) of meal weeklj^ in smnmer to encourage at-
tendance has succeeded admirably. A subscription in behalf of the gipsies
would be thankfullj' received by the Rev. A. Davidson, Yetholm Manse, Kelso."
His late Majesty Charles I. was hardly every inch a king, and looked
very wretched, though a noble lady for many years eked out the royal tabls
with 3 or 4 lbs. of mutton and a loaf of bread weekly. He was one of the
electors as weU as chainnan of the assembly when he was chosen king, and
made a speech narrating his many personal virtues. The present Queen is his
daughter, and she pm-chased the Palace for £20 when it was sold by the parish.
a few months since. She has no salary or emolument of any kind, and did not
attend her own election. A more trutiifvd or honourable man never lived than
the first king " Wm Faa," and he kept a pubUchouse for years. The farmers
and proprietors all tacitly gave liim a ticket of leave to fish when and where he
liked. He was a grand football player, and gained several matches, and w.is
quite a tei-ror with his fists to the Northumberland tinkers. .The hardest fight
lie ever had was, duruig a journey for gin, with two excisemen, one on foot and
the other on horseback and armed with a sword; while WiU had only a wiUow
wand. The exciseman worked roimd him in a circle, clipping a bit off the
willow wand at every sword-stroke, and at last, as Will would not give in, he
reached his hand, and left it dangling by the flexor muscles. The woimd was
dressed at Alnwick, but the hand was useless ever after. His Majesty was up-
wards of 84 when he died, and suffered much from dropsy at last. For further
information as to.gipsy habits we must refer our readers to the third volume of
Mr. Alexander Jeffrey's very learned and elaborate work on " The History and
Antiquities of Roxburghshire."

160 FIELD AND FERN.

but unfortunately died of a broken leg and typlius
fever combined. Unweaned from the Chase by
Philip^s and Gondolier's Turf success, his lordship
took to the Berwickshire and Northumberland
country in 1843, when Mr. Robertson gave it up,
and Talisman's blood did best for him out of the
eighteen couple of that old Lambton pack, which he
decided on keeping. This gave him seventy couple,
and he hunted six days a week with three packs.
He now hunts five days up to February, and four
after that time. The country is not picked up for
the dog and bitch pack, but the latter go to the
outlying meets simply because they are lighter in
the van.

Channing came to his lordship in '39. His father
hunted Mr. Yeatman's, and he himself had ten sea-
sons with the Blackmore Vale, under Mr. Hall,
afterwards of the Heythrop, Lord Portman, and Mr.
Drax, before he moved North. He then served for
twelve seasons under Joe Hogg, and the last was
his fourteenth as kennel huntsman.

The Amisfield kennels, near Haddington, where the
horses and hounds go for the summer, were built ori-
ginally for the Duke of Buccleuch. The move is made
to Coldstream the fij-st week in October, and they leave
again on April 3rd or 7th. During that time they
so for a fortnisiht to Belford. They enter from 14
to 17 couple, and walk 40 at least every year in
Peebleshire, Perthshire, East Lothian, and the coun-
try. Sutton's Albert and Trueman, Burton Contest,

ATHELSTAXEFORD TO COLDSTREAM. 161

Eufford Playmate, and Drake^s Duster, all died at
Amisfield; for as Charming says, "If we get good
blood, we never let it away again;" and he
points out with pride that Trueman, Drake's Tarquin
and Duster, and Osbaldeston Furrier blood are all
combined in the Fencer and Heroine entry of last
season. Albert was a very closehunter, with a rare nose
and stout, and Trueman had grand ribs with capital se-
cond thighs. Contest was full of drive, and was used
for three seasons, and 5| couple are still left by him.
Folj ambers Hazard and Herald were both here, and
the latter won the scarlet cloth in the private sweep-
stakes. Beaufort Primate got some good hounds,
and the stern placed far into the back makes the
sort good to know. Pilot came from the Oakley,
and Hermit and Harbinger, two of the leading stud
hounds, are from one of his daughters.

Among the bitches we noted Rumina, a puppy
prize-taker with Rhoderick, and the hare-pied Rarit}^,
bred by Captain Percy Williams, and once con-
demned for her love of hare. Old Relish from Rally
by Highflyer stands beside her, with her grey head
and short and straight legs ; and old Ptuin, a capital
one-eyed, sixth-season bitch, still challenges time,
and runs at the top of them in difficulties. Blue
heads may not be popular in a Leicester shape, but
Blowzy and Buxom were two good ones, as they
took ofi:' from Mr. Grey of MillfiekVs, and ran their
fox ten miles in couples to Thrunton Crags, and so
came ready entered. Welcome throws back to the

2"M

162 FIELD AND FERN.

Contest light tan, which mixes with her Albert and
Trueman blood, and is still the top of the ^63 entry;
and she and her sister Dainty led alternately in the
two runs, on one of the last days they were out on
the Lammermoors. Heroine, the old black and white,
was grouped for us with her fine Fencer litter, of
which Heedless, Hebe, and Harmony were the fore-
most; and there was old Costly, a grand-daughter
of Drake's Chaplet, one of the EarFs especials in her
xime.

The 24J-inch Galiiard, ^'^ one of the finest big dogs
I ever saw,^' according to Lord Henry Bentinck,
came out first of the dcg hounds, and his sire, the old
smutty-faced Frederick, '^^who brings the fine skins,'^
stood beside him with his sister Gaudy ; but Gold-
finch was not there. Frederick came from Sir Wat-
kin's, and has not quite the style of his stock ; but,
asChanning says, '^'he never did anj^thing wrong to my
knowledge.'^ Against Galiiard he has only to urge
that his fine deep kennel note never rises beyond a
falsetto squeak in cover. H azard was a glorious dog,
and those who savr him on the flags for the Cleve-
land Cup could never forget him more. There, too,
were Ringwood, ^' Drake's Duster about the quar-
ters;'' Khoderick, '^'' one of the best sires we have ;^^
Banker and Rubicon, part of the Cup three couple,
but the former minus an eye since that pleasant
Guisboro' day. There, too, were grouped Hotspur,
a grandson of the Belvoir Bally wood ; Hector, who
is quite " the Furrier of the kennel ;" Trimbush,

ATHELSTANEFORD TO COLDSTREAM. 163

a clean little Irish dog ; and Eoyal^ " old Contest
all over, but a little darker in tlie coat/^ and better in
his thighs as well as 31 inches round the heart and
7| round the arm. Right well does he carry out
Mr. Campbell of SaddelPs aphorism, that '' hounds
are never illnamed, be they Mischief or Madcap, or
anything else.^^

The country extends from the Mill Knowe under
the Lammermoor Hills to Thrunton Crags. Mr.
Gray takes it up there with a scratch pack, and then
the Morpeth come in by Rothbury and the river
Coquet. They have but little cubbing, and the hounds
are generally blooded in Twizel and Kyloe woods
near Belford, or in Polwarth woods, and the great
chain of plantations from Greenlaw to Dunse. His
lordship does not go with them to Dunse, but only
meets them by train, and he mostly goes to the
hotel at Belford (half-way between Berwick and
A'lnwick) for the fortnight. There are some good
gorses both in Berwickshire and Northumberland,
those in the former chiefly ranging from ten to
twenty acres, and with a belt of trees round them.
In character the countries differ essentially, Nor-
thumberland having more grass and single fences,
and being more open, while Berwickshire is stiffer
and more confined. November^ and December are
much the best months for the latter, as after Feb-
ruary it is all under plough, and the dust files in
clouds. The great drawback to Northumberland is
the difficulty of stopping, and from Ford to Twizel,

2 31 2

164 FIELD AND FERN.

and so on to Alnwick, it may be said to be '' all
under ground." There are also some very craggy
streams, and many a gallant couple have died at the
Blue Braes on the banks of the White Adder. Arti-
ficial manures and sheep smears, whose patentee,
Avhoever he is, may take notice that they can be
" smelt a mile off," are answerable for many a check.

The stud is very grand, and owes much to Sun-
beam and Turnus, the former of which was only just
dead. Bob Carlyle, his lordship^s head groom, and
one of the best known men among horses in Scot-
land, bought him, in one of his voyages of discovery,
at the Lucan steeple-chases, and his lordship rode
him for eight or nine seasons, and never knew him
tire. He was a dark chesnut of fifteen-two, and got all
his stock great natural jumpers, bigger than himself,
and generally chesnuts. Bob liked the sort so much
that he picked up his own brother another year, but
he died early. The Turnus blood is very strongly
represented, thanks to Bob^s constant pilgrimages to
Knockhill ; and the premier, a six-year-old chesnut
of immense substance, very fast and great at his
fences, bears that name. There, too, are his bay
brother, and Hoddom, a very sweet one, Tom of
Linne (half-brother to Lord of Linne), and The
Eriar, quite " the boy for the hills."

Old Dumfries, on which his lordship is painted,
bears in his drooping back the mark of nine sea-
sons; Wellesbrookis a long and smart brown Irish-
man of about half as many ; and the Glasgow horse

ATHELSTANEFORD TO COLDSTREAM. 165

by The Raslier has fine style and stride. Of his half-
sister Governess, Channing avers that he never saw
her off her feet — a fact which he cannot exactly
allege of Glasgow, as in a fast thing from Cranshaw^s
" he fell ten yards, ani I fell ten further. '' Garibaldi
is a horse of great power, and The E-oan is of four
seasons' standing, with a wonderful arm and sub-
stance, and like the Marotto mare, a clipper in a
close country. For five seasons Channing rode The
Pig, but of late he has been more on The Bird, a
rare hill horse, as he proved in a day from Copeland
gorse over the Cheviots ; and Banker by Chanticleer,
who won the East-Lothian steeple-chase, possesses
the same faculty. Marden is a very knowing old-
fashioned horse by Little Known, and goes back to
Rocket and Little Thomas, " the last of the Mohi-
cans/^ at least so said Lord John Scott, who knew
and loved the sort.

Jemmy Twitch er, who won seven steeple- chases,
has gone, and so has the beautiful grey Pallinsburn,*
who was more at home in a stiff country than on the
hill, and one of his lordship's best for five seasons.

Bob Carlyle, who never broke arm or leg till last
season, has been with the Earl for thirty-eight years,
and is not only photographed beside his lordship and
the grey, but appears in Mr^ Gourlay SteelPs pre-
sentation hunt picture on Wellesbrook. He can go
back to Prince Le Boo, Cannonball, Bob Gibb, and

* The portrait of this horse arjTDears in the grour) entitled "A Glimpse of
Xnockhill, 1864."

166 FIELD AND FEIIN.

Little Phoenix of his lordship^ s hard-riding Leices-
tershire days^ as well as the grey half-brothers Re-
former and Canteen. Once he whipped in with
Joe Hogg, and portraits of Waverley and Ringwood,
the hounds of his fancy, form part of his collection
at Amisfield. He was also playing in the same cha-
racter from ^29 to ■'34, when the Earl kept harriers
at Kelso to fill np the two days that the Duke^s did
not hunt, and when, with Lord John aiding and
abetting, they would " go like the mischief^ with a
fox over Cessford Moor. Bob^s picture gallery of
man, horse, and hound is a pretty extensive one ; and
Mr. Hay of Leatham Grange and Mr. Hunt of
Thornington are not forgotten, as men from whom
the Earl has bought many a good horse. The stuffed
fox^s head has also a peculiar reminiscence. ^^ We
killed it/' says Bob, '^ thirty -five miles from this park ^
the very last day that I was a bachelor, ''

COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 167

fflSAfflE ¥L

" For til from his den the otter drew ;
Grayling and trout their tyrant knew,
As between reed and sedge he peers
With fierce round snout and shariiened ears ;
Or prowling by the mountain cool,
"Watches the stream or swims the pool."

Scott.

The Hawick "Lads" — Messrs. Oliver's Auction Sales — The Hawck Rara
Sale — Dr. Grant's Otter Hounds — His Dandie Dinmonts — Robin's
Education — Sandy and Billy — Mornings with the Doctor on the
Teviot, Ale, and Jed.

AWicK is not the prettiest ; but there is a sturdy ;,
industrial independence about it which gives it
a hi^h rank among Border towns. It reroonstrated
in good set terms with Manchester for rejecting
Milner Gibson and John Bright; it plumes itself
on being peopled by the descendants of heroes who
fell at riodden ; and one of its poets has packed its
greatness into this couplet —

" Spite of lawless fraud and pUlage,
Hawick rose by trade and tillage."

The last trace of their martial ardour is to be found
in the selection of a '' cornet" annually. Garlick
Jock^ Black Wat, and '^Adam Hart (carter)" are all on
the roll, and two of them flourished when the " town

168 FIELD AND FERN.

clerk headed the horsemen armed with swords, and
pedestrians witli clubs/^ to race on the Muir the first
day, and to ride the ancient marches, beginning at
the Commonhaugh, on the second.

It doesn't take much to wake up the " lads" now.
An otter, or even a foulmart, will do it most effect-
ually, let alone a meet of the Duke's at Grundiston
or Chapel Hill, so that summer or winter they are
pretty well '^ up to their cruppers'' in sport. We
found fully five hundred of them waiting at the sta-
tion to meet a local hero, "The Gover," who had
been trained near Bradford for a mile race. One
grim cynic growled out, w^hen w^e asked for informa-
tion, " They're only a set of daft bodies — it's just this
foot-racing'^ ; but, daft or not, if ^' The Gover"
and his trainer had been the Premier and Mr. Glad-
stone they could not have been received more reve-
rentially.

At present, however, we have to pluck up the
ancient landmarks, and look upon Hawick as the
great sheep and cattle centre of Upper Teviotdale,
extending from Denholm on the East to Mosspaull
on the west. There is a half-yearly market for cattle
and hiring of servants, but the cattle department has
of late years been entirely superseded by the weekly
auctions of the Messrs. Oliver. This firm, which was
the first to establish such auctions in Scotland, be-
gan some twenty-five years ago with a monthly one.
Gradually this mode of selling came into favour with
the farmers, and now a weekly one is held, at which

COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 169

the greater part of tlie fat and other stock reared in
the neighbourhood is sold.

The store sales in spring and autumn are in a measure
a transfer of yearlings from the hill to the arable far-
mers ; but the hill breeding is not on an extensive
scale, and the supplies are principally from England
and Ireland, and from Red Water and the West
Country between Jed and Liddesdale. Kelso and
the Eood Day Fair at Jedburgh both help to fill the
yards with two and three-year-olds, principally short-
horns, in September, which are gradually sold off
from December to May, either privately or at local
sales to dealers, who take them to Leeds, Manchester,
Newcastle, and the South. The turnip crop has in-
creased twenty-fold in as many years in Roxburgh-
shire, and the number of cattle fed in a very large
proportion, whereas it once sent its stores to the
south. Finger-and-toe bears heavy on the mangels,
and East Lothian is relied on for potatoes.

The late Mr. Andrew Oliver also began the public
wool sales before 1840. They were the earliest in
Scotland, but not exactly on the Girdwood system.
Catalogues of clips were published, and buyers went
round and examined them, and then met at Hawick
or Jedburgh and bid. Now the wool is warehoused,
and there are three or four sales, a year. The stock
sales, which began about this time, were at first a
mere name ; and now Mr. Oliver sells as many sheep
and cattle weekly as he did monthly, even when the
neighbourhood warmed to the scheme. Inde-

170 FIELD AND FERN.

pendently of the regular Monday ones^ three or four
special sales are held for half-bred lambs in August
and September^ and two principally for draft Che-
viot ewes in October, and occasionally extra ones
for cattle. Mr. Oliver's new sale-yard will hold ten
thousand sheep and lambs ; and after the last Melrose
fair it was full, and a contingent of a thousand were
billeted in the adjoining space. Liddesdale, Teviot-
dale, and Ewesdale all send Cheviot and half-bred
Iambs; Fifeshire, Perthshire, and Forfarshire come
for the latter to feed off, and the English dealers
principally for Cheviot and half-bred ewes. Mr.
Penny has similar sales at Kelso, they also thrive
under Mr. Oliver at Galashiels, and Mr. Davison
at Melrose, There are plenty of other outlets for
sellers, and flock-masters on the Jed and the borders
of the Cheviot hills take their lambs to Pennymuir.
on the old drove road to Newcastle, in July, and their
cast ewes in October. Those in Gala Water, the
lower parts of Roxburghshire, and the upper part of
Berwickshire, who have a half-bred stock, sell their
three-parts-bred lambs at St. BoswelFs and Melrose,
and buy half-bred ewes to keep up their flock of
breeding ewes on the improved land or parks. The
Cheviot lamb buyers from the Highlands generally
come after the wedder tops, and the ewe lambs (of
which flockmasters will only sell the seconds) are
dispersed round the district, while the cast Cheviot
ewes are invariably Cumberland and Yorkshire
bound.

COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 171

The Hawick ram sale is of old date^ and at one
time fat sheep,, tied by the legs^ were shown along
with them in the street. The Highland flockmasters
very seldom come now, but do nearly all their business
through commission agents, like Murray, the Swans,
and Kennedy, &c., of Edinburgh, who have quite
superseded the dealers. Once all the business was
done by private sale, till Mr. Eiddellof Hindalea
sold the " Calroust Rams '' by auction in Ha-
wick Market a wholesome innovation on the private
system, which must have dated back to the Union.
Hawick and Moffatt are now the Cheviot capitals, to
which Ettrick, Yarrow, all the Dumfriesshire districts,
and the dales journey once a year for interchange
of stock and good Border fellowship. At Hawick
alone, from 1,500 to 2,000 rams are sold, at all prices
from £21 to .€2 10s. In exceptional cases they will
range as high as £50, and Linhope, Hindhope,
Hopesrigg, Georgefield, and East Middle have gene-
rally carried the day. The sale of Leicester rams has
also much increased, and the principal Hawick dis-
trict supplies come from East Middle and Spittal.

To pass through Hawick without having an intro-
duction to Dr. Grant and his Dandie Dinmonts was
not to be thought of. We first met him in the outskirts
journeying professionally towards Teviotdale, with
three of them in his dog-cart. Greyhounds, terriers,
otters, and a good practice form his quadruple tie to
the district, and he has almost ceased to think of his
native Highlands. His house is a faithful reflex of

172 FIELD AND FERN.

himself. There is an infant badger stuffed on tlie
staircase, and an otter of 25lbs. on the landing. The
spotted skins of some sixteen puppies by the otter
hound Pibroch, from Dowager, of the Duke^s breed-
ing, constitute a colony of mats. You wipe your
feet at the bottom of the stairs on all that is now
mortal of the black-and-tan Merryman, Avho made
merry with w^ater-rats when there was sterner work
to do, and was put down as a trifler not w orthy of
his salt. Billy and Bobby are the only dogs which
enjoy bed and board in the house. They dress each
other^s wounds most devotedl}^, after a hard morn-
ing's work, and share the doctor's bed. Their pre-
sence is his only soporific. He takes his rest with these
martial retainers at his back and legs, and dreams
of the glories of the Jed and Teviot, and the covered
drains on the Ale. During the past winter he has
used up most of his spare minutes after nightfall in
designing and building a drag, which is drawn by
Bobiu and a thorough-bred. The iron part is a
blacksmith's handiwork, but the wood and the paint-
ing— claret picked out with red — are strictly his own.
It is on four wheels, and built for twelve couple.
The driving-box is placed on two tiers, one for
hounds, and another for terriers, and there is plenty
of scope for hounds beneath the seats of the car
behind.

The Doctor's best affections have always been, not
so much with the clan Grant, as with his Dandie
Dinmonts, and his back-yard is quite a Charlieshope.

COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 173^

Nettle and Pepper, from Paul Scott, of Jedburgh,
were the first arrivals ; and Sir George Douglas's
keeper gave him Shamrock, who had recently devoted
himself to worrying collies. " Shammy" is of the
Birsieslees branch of the Dandie Dinmont family re-
ferred to by " Stonehenge on the Dog.'' He was
bred by Mr. James Scott, of Newstead, from Vixen
by brown Pepper, or Pepper or ''Tepper the Second."
In short, the Doctor believes in no other blood than
that which is derived from JamesDavidson, ofHindley
and almost primaeval Pepper and Mustard renown.
He had bought many things in Dandie shape
before he cast in his lot with this breed, but his
trials were too high for them. They vrere entered
with rats, and mounted the scale to cats, as age and
performance might warrant. Too many of the pup-
pies stopped there, or did not get any further than a
muzzled fox ; and then if age gave them solid con-
fidence, they took their B.A. degree with the
badger. This species of culture tends upwards to the
otter, in which Tom and Teddy (the sons of Sham-
rock and Nettle) have become quite Eegius Profes-
sors. Teddy gains in pluck what he loses in style.
He goes quietly up to the *' fish-slicer," and gets
almost bitten to death on the head without a mur-
mur, while he surely does the deed ; but Tom dashes
in with all the elan of a Zouave, and has it by the
neck before it can get home with its " clinches.'-*
" A retreat for purely strategic purposes" is a thing
they wot not of.

174 FIELD AND FERN.

For the first two seasons that the Doctor was
Master of the Teviotdale, he and Shammy and Wil-
liam Broadwith (a very plucky little fellow, with,
alas ! an iron hook for a hand), who hunted Sir
George Douglases for many years, were ^^ almost the
only otter hounds." The Doctor might, in fact, have
never become an M.O.H. at all, if he had not yearned
for even a higher " trial horse" than his badger, and
set out in quest of one on the banks of the Ale. The
hard-bitten trio were not long in fin ding an "aged river
poach ei^^ (as the Haioick Advertiser puts it), and
bolted him into a sack. He was borne home ten-
derly by the Doctor; but he did not relish a mena-
gerie future, and in less than twenty-four hours he
had climbed up a wall eight feet high, worked a hole
through the slates, and given his new medical attend-
ant leg-bail for his pains. Nothing more was seen
of him that season ; but one of 25]bs., by four-feet-
two, and very like him, was found in the Denholm
Pool the next summer, and the chase was so long and
the dog punishment so heavy that the Doctor and
Teddy were the only ones up. The waters of the
Teviot never witnessed a more bloody fray than when
the former tailed him, and the latter held him by the
throat, and the three rolled over and over in the
death grip together. Walter was a rare adjutant
on these occasions. He was with the Doctor at
thirteen, and then became a herd laddie ; but he
"returned to nobler pursuits," and held this staff
appointment for some years. His master's great

COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 175

anxiety was to see him well bitten^ and lie quite
grudged him all his narrow escapes. Indeed, the
principal clause in the Grant articles of war ran
thus : '' If the otter breaks your arm, Walter, you
are not to let him go/^

It has not been our fate, as yet, to see the Doctor
engaged in one of these great water wrestles ; but
we have a keen recollection of him in a stirring:
tableau on a certain February night, holding up his
badger by the tail, and casting the gleams of the
lantern on its aldermanic paunch, to show the happy
results of a three years^ captivity. Its condition and
knowledge of " the noble art of self-defence^^ are
undoubted ; but still the doctor considers it, intellec-
tually speaking, quite a dull-witted brute. He has
tried hard to touch, one by one, the finer chords in
its nature; but it won^t have him at any price.
Perhaps it has learned to suspect him and his
honeyed words, and knows his mission far too svell,
as he goes bending almost double into its cell. Hence
it burrows day after day in the straw-tub, eats en-
ormous rations of bread, meat, and milk, and sternly
refuses to reciprocate on any terms whatever.

The voice of the charmer has never failed before.
He attributes this remarkable cynicism to his
badger^s advanced age when it was dug out, and he
secured one of tenderer years. They are the first
creatures he ever failed to educate. As for his fer-
rets, he taught them nothing but affection; but his
^' performing rats^^ got quite a step beyond that, and

176 FIELD AND TERN.

would sit on their hind legs and beg like a dog. He
has tried his hand on eleven foxes (one of which bred
three cubs) ; bat except a brace of vixens,, which
did a little in the acrobat way, and an old fox, which
had the freedoai of the borough, and would occa-
sionally return thirty miles an hour down the High-
street and its area bolt-hole, pursued by ^'^the
allied armies" of Roxburgh and Selkirkshire collies
on a sheep-market day, their mental culture was not
high. " Eoxie^' had been trained from cubhood till
he became a perfect Robert Macaire. He would sit
up for half-an-hour at a stretch, with the Doctor's
spectacles on his eyes, a pencil-case balanced on his
nose, and a gold watch hanging by his canine teeth.
For a change of performance, he vfould wink with
one eye, and then roll over, and, shutting them both,
pretend to be dead. Teddy and he had been fast
friends in youth; but a coolness sprang up between
them about some porridge, and those fearful jaws
sealed his death-warrant.

Dowager, from the Duke of Buccleucb^s kennel, a
couple from the Cumberland, with Tom Johnston's
assurance that " they would tackle aught,'' Malak-
hoff and Fairplay from the Dumfriesshire were, of
course, all " slape-haired ones" ; and Pibroch, from
Mr. Keir, of Whithaugh, in Liddesdale, with Royal
and Ringwood, composed the rough interest when
the Teviotdale otter pack was first formed. This
season it was at its full strength with three foxhounds,
eight otter hounds, nine terriers, and the redoubt-

COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 177

able ^^ Sanderson^s Biily^' to take the general super-
intendence. "^ Ringwood was the biggest blackguard
of the lot." He cost 30s., and arrived late one
night. Before breakfast next morning, he had bitten
a friend of the Doctor's, the Doctor, and the
Doctor's servant-girl, and it " wasn't homoeopathic
biting either.'' The Doctor was bitten again after
breakfast, and at intervals during the first week on
every conceivable part of his person ; and if he had
not kept the dog tied up in his bed-room, nothing
short of a charwoman in chain-armour could have
ventured Avithin his doors. At length, being wearied
out of this fierce ivory bondage, he dragged the rebel
down-stairs, and fought a most bloody Aliwal,
Moodkee, and Ferozeshah with him on three succes-
sive afternoons in a loose box, which ended in a
Ringwood treaty for peace, and the entire devotion
of his young life to otters. It must be in token of
this vow of submission that the Doctor has had him
photographed for us at his feet, with the handle of
the hunting-whip across his neck, and in the illus-
trious fellowship of Billy, " Shammy," and Royal.
He is the sire of Bugle, from one of Sir Harry Vane's
sort, vv^iich inherits his grand qualities, and took to
the drag at thirteen months. There is still some of
the old leaven in him, and he was the only one that
refused to come out of his prescriptive corner when
the kennel huntsman was sent into the Van Amburgh
sort of cage where they reside. The suggestive
tones of the Doctor (who never uses a whip to any of

2 N

178 FIELD AND FERN.

them) were enough, and he rendered a surly
obedience at last.

A lot of black-and-white puppies by him, from
Eally, were in the compartment below, where Ruler,
^^ about the last living drop of old John Peel's blood,"
lay curled up. He was just alive, and that was about
all ; but he recovered after some months of the most
tender nursing ; and he will leave behind him a rare
character as a dragger, fighter, and marker. He
still requires a good deal of care ; and he, Koyal,
Collier, and MalakhofF are all fed by the Doctor^ s own
hand. Collier has also seen a good deal of fun, as well
as trouble, in his time. He once returned from a
trip with what proved under the microscope to be
mange in three forms — disease at the root of the hair
bulb, the vegetable parasite, and the scab animal-
cule ; but the Doctor fell back promptly on his pro-
fessional resources, and the enemy was smitten hip
and thigh.

The descent of the pack from the cage, one by one,
down a narrow gangway, with Ringwood growling
like a ratepayer in the rear of all, was the scene of
the evening ; and the white Malakhoff made us rub
our eyes to be quite sure that it was not Mr. Mor-
relFs old Trumpeter come back from the gorse of
shadows. Like him he is nearly perfect at every-
thing, and with quite as deep a tongue. He and
Ringwood both went down in ^63 with special retain-
ers to Carlisle, and distinguished themselves highly
before Mr. Justice Carr by their eloquence on Bre-

COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 179

con Flatts, and their method of dealing with knotty-
points in the rocks near Kitty Straits. Fairplay, a
'^ quiet, sensible dog/^ but *'' unfortunately with a
smooth skin," and deep in seal or sprint mysteries,
scuffled down from " the cage," with Royal, who is
quite a water '' philosopher and friend,^^ to the
Doctor, and gifted with a remarkable Southern skull,
and a bell-like tongue, which has discoursed rich music
in many a drag. There is a strange psychological
sympathy between them, as neither of them can touch
a bite of anything on a hunting morning. Bellman,
who came with Billy, and began dragging the very first
morning with the old dogs at Ancrum Crags, is not
easily overlooked, from his gay style; and little Randy
was there, too, ^"^the last bitch of the Bowscale blood,"
yellow with a white ring round her neck, and quite
" a devil to worry." Thunder, her daughter by the
Carlisle Thunder (a great hound in his day), is like
her, but bigger ; and Pibroches " cage" substitute is
Fanny by Lochinvar, which is neither more nor less
than a greyhound bitch in sheets. She eventually
broke her back at Borthwick Brae, on the very spot
where, seven seasons before, she ran her first
trial. Pibroch, who occasionally looks lost in
thought, and does not care now to get too much in
the otter^s way, always sleeps by himself before the
horses ; and he and Sarah Sibbald by Canaradzo, and
a Gordon setter, seem to have tickets of leave in the
yard. The terriers cast in their lot with the pack,
and are a "most brave and affectionate family." There

2 N 2

180 FIELD AND FERX.

is only one son of Bobby (from Teddy's dam) in the
kennel, and a regular clinker for mischief, whose
chief amusement out at quarters was to hang on to
the pigs^ ears. Hence he came back in disgrace ;
but they soon " desired him vehc^mently^^ when the
rats increased and multiplied once more.

Of course we were introduced in due form to
^' Shammy by Sir George Douglases Pepper III., by
his Pepper II., by his Pepper I., by old Stoddart's
Dandie II., by his Dandie I., who was, perhaps, the
best dog of the breed that ever lived." He " has
always been hard wrought ;" but his sire did not die at
Springwood Park till he w^as upwards of 16, and Sham-
my looks wonderful for one only three years younger.
His sons Teddy of the wonderful jaw, and Tom, a
regular Yellow Dwarf, can scuffle along ten miles in
the hour, and have wind for a battle-royal at the end
of it. Any one w'ho dares to say that the Dandie is-
cross-bred, must gird up his loins then and there for
a vigorous course of polemics. Not only has the
Doctor looked into the whole thing in a most learned
note, but he can quote several lines from the Greek
poet Opianus, who flourished in the second century,
to prove that the '''crook-limbed and blackeyed''
breed were natives of Britain at the time of the
Koman invasion. As for his rapture when he
looked on Land seer's otter and cub in the Bowhill
gallery, and recalled " the bonny beast" in the flesh,
and how he had " heard it whistling" to its mamma,
it was truly touching. His spirit has communicated

COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 181

itself to the stable. The little thorough-bred black
and Prince Augustus by Teddington certainly know
nothing as yet of the sport, but the Birdcatcher ches-
nut E/obin has been duly initiated. He waits for the
Doctor on the bank ; but once upon a time, animated
by the same spirit which makes him pull so hard
with the foxhounds, he became deeply interested,
and walked up to his hocks in the middle of the
Teviot. When there, he essayed to encourage his
master with a playful dig in the back ribs, which
nearly floored him just as the fight was at the hottest,
and the injudicious bottle-holder Aras dismissed with
the whip about his hips. This cured him of all active
participation in worries for the future, except strictly
as a spectator. On land he is in a far higher
state of tuition than the rats : he kneels to
be mounted ; he kicks with both legs or one,
as he is directed ; he curtseys ; he Avill spar at
his master with the science of a Mace; carry his
whip along the streets ; or execute with liim, in more
festive moments, a species of Polonaise. And yet
the groundwork of this training was simply ^^ riding
him blindfold for two months till I got into his
favour .^^

Robin's antecedents are frightful to think of. Some
one got him in exchange for a itiare at Musselburgh
races, and couldn't ride him home. In fact, his antics
were so peculiar, that it is still an " historic doubt"
whether he entered the army in early life, or cast in
his lot with the foot-lamps and the sawdust. After

182 FIELD AND FERN.

Musselburgh, lie was through the hands of half the
cadgers of Edinburgh, and landed at last in a great
terrier-home at Birsieslees. The Doctor had a fearful
character with him, and as, after buying him, he
declined to pass a cart on any consideration,
a few half-crowns would have parted them. Once in
Hawick be declined to leave his stable for a fort-
night, and, when he did consent to go a mile out of
the town, he suddenly desired to return. The
Doctor was glad to let him come, though he did go
shopping all the way ; and then an eye-shade or
a pistol were the two last alternatives.

Ancrum Bridge, where the Doctor may be often
seen sitting and waiting for the dawn and a sprink-
ling of the Border chivalry as well, and the Abbey
Bridge, near Jedburgh, are the favourite meets. The
Jeddites are especially keen of the fun, and somehow
or other they always seem to have the office. Three
hundred will often turn out to see the otter " die a
natural death,^^ and the Doctor finds no crowd so
accommodating and manageable. The late Duke of
Athole and Lord John Scott hunted a great deal in
these streams, and the Leader as well; and therefore
with such tutors, past and present, it is no wonder
that many of "the lads^' have the winds of
Arabs both for running by day and recounting by
nio'ht " the great worries in the water" ; how Billy
brought him out from under a root, and how Teddy,
Tom, and Shammy are always getting drowned, and
coming up again like a cork. Each hound hunts

COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 183

with a strap round his neck, so as to be taken up
when the terriers have an "in-go" on their own
account.

The Doctor's hunting costume consists of boots,
Tweed breeches, and a thin pink Shetland shirt over
a woollen one, and he is armed simply with a pole.
He seldom speaks to his hounds except with his horn,
and never by any chance uses anything but his fist
to fight them off from the otter, or to correct them.
Twice over he knocked Malakhoff nearly silly with it,
in that terrible struggle near Sandiestones, which he
kept up for fully twenty minutes, single-handed,
against the whole of his pack. He wanted a live
otter as a school of puppy instruction for the natural
drag j but their blood was up, and he was fairly
beaten, and dragged out nearly exhausted, part of a
dead and living chain — Hawick Lads, oo The
Doctor f GO the otter, go Teddy. As for Teddy, he
had been "drowned three times, nearly worried
under the water by ]\ialakhoff (of course strictly
under a misapprehension), and yet he still held on.

Billy and Bobby may hunt in dreams ; but the
Doctor's eyelids knew no rest the night before a
meet, and it goes hard with him if he is not in his
dog-cart and away soon after three in summer. The
country people say that they h^ve known him '^tak
a notion three days running when he's lying in bed,-"^
and of course execute it. Such instances are, how-
ever, rare, and he is seldom out more than twice
a fortnight. He is generally back about ten ; and

184 FIELD AND FERN.

when every hound has been rubbed dr}^^, he changes
his clothes, jumps into his gig, and away on his
rounds, and '' sleeps at night without rocking/^ His
season extends from April to September, and per-
liaps on the average he may be out thirty times, kill
five brace, and let nearly as many off on the thirteen
rivers of which he has the liberty. The Jed, with its
" rugged rocks'^ and eternal tree-roots, and the Ale,
which Sir George Douglas fitted up with such a fine
eye to otters, may be said to be his woodland coun-
try ; and it was on tlie latter that he had his '' Billes-
don Coplow run^^ of fully ten miles. It joins the
Teviot, or rather reaches the open at Ancrum Bridge,
where they are generally pretty safe of a long burst
with a "traveller." The meet is at Kelso Bridge
when they hunt up the Teviot ; but the pack is not
large enough to attempt the Tweed, and if they did,
the velveteen order of the Trappists have been there
pretty often before them.

" Sandy,^"* or Willie Sanderson, a young butcher
from Carlisle, has been a tower of strength to the
Doctor since they met on the Annan in the May of
^63. He was entered under Willie Bobinson, who was
then the huntsman of the Carlisle pack, and learnt all
his dodges. " The merrie city" has loved the sport
since Dr. Hildebrand^s day. From Cliff Bridge up to
Wrack Bridge is their favourite hunting ground on the
Lyne. The Caldew is always drawn blank, but the
Eden hears the music of their twelve couple " from
Cargo right up till Armthwaite." Irthing Foot is a

2 ®

COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 185

sure find;, and " varra smittle for lying/^ and a wake-
ful passenger by the north mail may catch a glimpse
of them at work between Southwaite and Carlton^ in
the bosky glades of the Petterill. As it fell out, after
the Doctor^s first interview with Sand}^, the Teviot-
dale pack " rather lost heart, and wanted a dog for
creeping.^^ In short, the post of " a good grounding
tutor" to the Grant terriers was vacant, and San-
derson^s bull terrier Billy, and the very apple of his
eye, seemed (as his owner put it) " just the dog to Hice
them inJ' He was 221bs. weight when in condition,
and about two years and four months old when he
was booked by the North British and entered on the
duties of his office.

Sandy thus sums up his varmint history with all
the terseness of a Cresswell : " Billy played with his
first foulmart ; his second bit him at seven months,
so he killed it ; he won^t fight with a hound, or kill
a hare or rabbit, and he won^t notice a rat without
orders.'^ His early promotion was thus strictly the
result of high training and continual self-denial. He
was not long in being entered to the otter, and he
had accounted for one on the Lyne (near which
Mr. Scott, a joiner, bred him) when he was only
twelve months old. His second had decidedly four
or five pounds the pull of him in weight. It had
been driven out of the Lyne into the woods the day
before, and but for a bloodhound belonging to Mr.
Standish^s keeper it would have beaten them all
again. However, they worked up to it when it was

186 FIELD AND FERN.

crossing a turnpike-road near Bracken Hill, and Billy*
looked, after the '' clinching^^ finish, just as if lie had
been shot with peas through the head.

Sanderson was so impressed with the master of the
Teviotdale, after they had exchanged minds, that he
at once presented him with Billy — as a touching
tribute to his gameness. Still his separation from
Billy is only nominal, as he sometimes goes over, and
takes the horn when theDoctorhas a Wednesday meet,
or any urgent case on his hands. Cheered by his old
master's presence and the Cumberland dialect, Billy
soon got to work in his adopted country, and Eing-
wood recognised him at once as a most able and
business-like adjutant on the first day they were out.
The old dog, who has had about enough of the wor-
rying business, marked the otter under a root,
pricked his ears, and "stood back for battle.^' Billy
tunnelled up to the otter in a jifi'ey, and pulled it out
by the under-jaw ; but it was only 191bs., totally
without a tail, and not unlike a stoat about the face.
The Doctor flew to the cry, and fished frantically in
muddy waters for the tail. He is not to be trifled
with at such a crisis ; and yet " Sandy'' would keep
telling him that it was " only a diving pig,'^ and that
he saw (which was true enough) by the air bells
on the water that an otter had just slipped down
stream. At last he fished it up bodily, and held
it quite fondly in his arms ; but although he
invoked the crowd all round, there was no plaid
at hand, and so it was dropped among the terriers

COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 187

once more, and they finished it. On another occa-
sion, when he was not in full costume, an otter fairly-
pinned him by the heel, and he never even felt it had
hold of him till it tore his trousers right up to the
knee.

After meditating on it all the winter of ^63-64,
and being assured by his friends that he never could
do it, he succeeded in taking an otter alive ! It was
bolted from under a tree root, on the banks of the
Ale, with Teddy hanging to its throat. The Doctor
took his resolve in an instant, and plunged the pair
beneath water to hide the otter from the hounds,
and drown Teddy off. Just as he took hold of the
otter hy its neck with the left hand, it caught hold
of him, and pinned him like an English bull-dog for
some minutes. The pain seemed nothing in that
hour of victory. He shouted to Walter to strip off his
coat. Walter was in the water and his shirt- sleeves
in an instant, and after delivering his " one, two^^ in
the regular Grant style, on the heads of three old
hounds, he wrapped the eoat round and round the
otter in his master's arms, and the deed was done at
last. It was a very pretty dog otter of ISlbs. weight,
and offered battle for a time whenever they looked
into the box. On the seventh day it took fish from
the hand, but it died soon after, the victim of its ap-
petite. The Doctor's fingers were rather numbed
and powerless after the bone-mill process, and he
was tremendously bitten in other parts ; but what
was that to such a long-coveted trophy, fairly

188 FIELD AND FERN.

won in the teeth of a whole pack of infuriated
hounds ?

In his code of hunting rules he is inflexibly merci-
ful to the hunted. He will not have the dogs aided
by any cudgel play, and the man who loosed a fresh
dog in the middle of a general engagement on the
Jed was pretty speedily '^ pronounced in contempt.'^
On one occasion the field begged him in vain to let
them see a kill in a mill sluice. Nothing would
move him. He tied np the hounds, and chased out
the otter over the bank with the terriers into the
Teviot, and when it took to a stronghold there, he
would not dig it out. Let the " dry-shodded ones^^
also beware how he offers them a back for the future*
In short, as his Boswell observes of him : '^ He^s sic
a man. I can hardly tell you what he is : he^s here,
theer, and a' roads ; always moving — he^s likest a
dog through the water of aught ;" and then, throwing
all his cumulative force into the simile, ^' He^d think
nought, wad Doctor, of swimming across the Solway,
clicking an otter's tail.'^*

* Impurity lias been hinted at in the ease of the Dandie Dinmont terrier
bitch " Meadow," so I send you this genealoprical note. " Stonehenge" says
Sir George H. S. Douglas's Pepper was the sire of Meadow, and Schann her
dam. I fear there is rlifficulty and error here. Besides others of the same
name. Sir George had //; ree Peppers of fame in succession, at Birsieslees. Which
of them Stonehenge means I cannot say, but it matters httle, as neither was
the sire of Meadow. Her sire was a " young dog" which Sir George Douglas
got from Mr. Brisbane. He afterwards gave him to a clergyman in York-
shu-e. His name, I think, wa.s Mustard, certainly not Pepper. This dog was
bred by a " mud student" in the Coldstream or Cornliill district, and had for
his sire a dog Dandie, bred by Mr. Frain of Trows. The dam of Mustard (that
is the paternal gvand-Am. of Meadow) belonged to the said "mud student,"
hat where he ffot her or how xJie was bred has oiecer heen satisf actor II i/ determined,
and it is solely on this point that the imjnded impurity of Meadow rests. I am
satisfied that the bitch was pure. I have a great-grand-daughter of Meadow's
at this moment, and it is the greatest beauty of its age and species I have
•ever yet seen. My Shami-ock was by Sii- George's Pepper III. (from Vixen),

COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 189

After this '' evening with the Doctor/^ we longed
for the summer and the Avaterside, and July found us
at Hawick once more. Sandy, with his white flan»
nels, his red cap, and his brass-tipped pole, had come
from Carlisle by the train, and was seated snugly on
one side of the fire-place, discussing the science and
swagger of his darling Malakhoff, and the courage
of " old John Peel/^ The little fellow quite warmed
up as he told how the old white was always ^' a rock
hunter on stones and likeliest places,^^ and how of
all dogs he most fulfilled his wish to "see them
swagger and hunt with natur.^^ Of course we ad-
journed to the kennel, to see what was drawn for the
morning. Bobby, the ex-pugilist bull-terrier, never
goes out, as, if another dog comes among the pack,
lie cracks it up like a nut ; and then there^s a row,
which the Doctor, who knows the full advantages of
conciliation, hates of all things.

So, like the grim but " liberal-hearted dog^^ that
he is, Bobby stops to keep house ; and if any of the
young dogs are to be entered at the badger (which

he by Sii' George's Pepper II. (from his Schann, bred at Bowhill by the Duke
of Buccleuch's ''old grey Pepper"), he by Sii- George's Pepper I.' (from Mr,^
Lang's bitch), he by old Stoddart's Dandie II. (from Schami, Iwed by Scott of
Hindley, successor to James Davidson), he by Stoddart's Daudie I., Tvho was
the vw)<f 7-eiiowned sire of kin day, and pea"hapsV/(e hest dog of the breed that ever
lived. This dog was out of James Davidson of ^Hindley 's Gyp (G.^qosie), but.
his sire is unkno-v^-n. Vixen, the dam of my Shamrock, was by Mr. James
Scott's Sharm-ock (from Spice), he bj' Mr. Brisbane's Dandy, which came
from Amisfield, and was In-ed by Lord Elcho, who got |his terriers from the
late William Eeid of Jedburgh, one of the gi-eatest breeders of the race at an
early period. Eeid obtained his ten-iers from James Da\'itlson of HuitUey,
Mr.'Dun of Whitelee, the Bells of Hindalea Mill, and others. Spice was Ijy
Mr. Brisbane's Shem, which leads us back (patemalhi) to Mr. Svminer's Shem,
Mr. Todd's Charhe, and again to the renowned " old Dandie" of old Stoddart
of Selkirk.— J. G.

190 FIELD AND FERN.

once got under the kitchen- floor_, and gave the Doc-
tor two hours of hard digging), he is always ready,
as resident professor, to instruct them in the art. A
little white bull-terrier, which thinks nothing of a
badger three times its weight, is equally troubled
with the bump of combativeness, so it stops at home.
Eilly was of course ripe for duty ; and even old
Shammy was to have a treat. There must have been
four more Dandies, Teddy, Tom, and Piper — which
latter was Walter's peculiar charge — and a most re-
markable fossil called The Dwarf, which never tired
in its life. Add to these a black-and-tan English
terrier — Nettle — which was there on a visit after its
rabbit coursing labours, and followed the Doctor in
the most implicit faith over stone and scaur, won-
dering what it could all be about. Billy never goes
with the hounds, but conducts them with a patronizing
" confide in me" air about a mile out of the town_,
and then trots back to accompany his master. No
dog has a higher sense of his position in the Cabinet,
and it is a " moraF to see him come home with the
pack, swelling with self-importance if the otter is at
the doctor's saddle-bow, or if he is generally satisfied
with the sport. In the town he is most popular, and
considering the number of houses where he is on
visiting and luncheon terms, it is well he can hold
his condition as he does.

^^Only two houy^s and a-half, mind F' said the Doc-
tor, before we went to bed ; and at two o'clock pre-
cisely he appeared, '^ stern as Ajax' spectre," in his

COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 191

boots and Garibaldi shirt, and ordered us up forth-
with. It had been a busy night in Hawick. Mem-
bers and followers of the Buccleuch Hunt had arrived,
§ome from a radius of thirty miles round. The sup-
ply of hacks was exhausted, and about a score of men
had been scouring the country for horses, and made
nothing out. Some had got horses, and failed to get
saddles, though they had spoken with many a night-
capped agriculturist at the lattice. One of the latter,
as the story went next morning, was " pat up five
times," till he wished Malakhoff and all the concern far
enough. An unhappy man who did come out with
nothing but his handkerchief on a sharp back-bone,
and thereby laid the basis of erysipelas, rued the day
he was born. A certain lender was most magnani-
mous, as he sent his black pony specially for our-
selves, and a pair of spurs with it. There was a
good watch kept on the Doctor by the Hawick
lads all night, to see that he did not steal away
before them ; but the lights in the bed and break-
fast-room windows reassured their vedette.

Even the police lent a hand, and kindly took their
station at the head of ^^ Walter^s Wynd,^' while the
Doctor quietly slipped the most noisy of his pack, one
by one down it, to AYalter, at the river side, before
he brought out the body. And- now, by twos and
threes, the hunters, horse and foot, came dropping
down the street, in the misty morning, through which
the illuminated clock struggled faintly to tell of
twenty to three ; and still some would not believe

192 FIELD AND TERN.

Sandy^s assurances^ as lie issued forth with liis pole,
that the Doctor was "not forrard/^ He is such. an
early bird that they are never quite sure of him.
Catch him lingering among the blankets or near the
coffee-pot at dawn ! A mile-and-a-halPs walk, and
we v/ere on the Knoll at Haughhead, with nearly
half-a-hundred horsemen round us ; and up came the
Doctor, on Robin, at last. It was all Walter could
do to prevent his being greeted hj a regular " As-
sheton Smith^^ chorus, w^hich would have sent the
otter flying down-stream, if he had heard it. The
moon was still up, and the mist- wreaths were curling-
far too heavily along the river to permit of action ;
but it " lifted^^ about half-past three, and the Doctor
peeled, and, tying his coat, with the scarlet lining
outside, behind his saddle, as a token, set out to look
lor " my old friend, which has beat me these three
years.^^

At last we stood on the north bank of the Teviot,
and the deep bell of Malakhoff, who was whiter than
the mist, in winch he Avas working, rung out the
maiden note of the drag, when they were scarcely
over the first stretch of shingle, near the Trow Mill.
They were so busy and musical for a minute or two
by a willow-bed close to the dam, that some thought
he must be at home, or that the Doctor would again
have to prefer his celebrated request to be allowed to
crawl under a mill-wheel after an otter, because
'^ Pm smaller than a dog ; and I dursnH let them go
thereT That is even going beyond Admiral Ex-

COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 193

'moutVs principle, ^^ Never tell a man to do what you
dare not do yourself/^ He did it once this season
after Royal, and very nearly got drowned.

Then came a regular rattling burst over a very
rocky part of the river, the non-mounted straggling
along as they could over scaur and shingle, through
"deep copses or oat crops, which left the dew-point
from the waist downwards, over meadows and along
the turnpike, sometimes in the water and sometimes
out of it, tailing off farther and farther, and so up to
Midshiels. Sandy and his pole ran well into the
front rank of course ; and Walter on his bay pony
Meg Merrilies, with a great bunch of couples behind
him, had been sent forward to the dreaded drain.
Poor Mr. Morrell delighted to tell how Jim Stracey
took his celebrated four-miler to the head of earths
at Wood Hill, on the Milton Hall day, and ^^ just
beat the fox by thrice the length of his boots — not an
inch farther.^ ^ Walter was not so lucky, as the old
one had " lapped up^^ his fishing for the night, and
scuttled down stream the two miles post-haste,
leaving his kind regards for Ringwood, in the shape
of his damp seal on the stones at the drain entrance.
As for taking up the drain in any part, and putting
in the terriers, it was hopeless. When Sir Wilfred
Lawson and Mr. Hilton Wybergh used to come from
West Cumberland to touch up these rivers with Tom
Johnstone, they were very fond of this fastness, and
opened it in the middle, to make a lying-up place for
otters out of the water level. ''It's guiles long^' said

19i FIELD AND FERN.

the Doctor, " we had best draw on,^ and on Ave went
once more.

Mr. Edward Maxwell was with ns now, from Teviot
Bank, and in the full spirit of the thing, with two
hunters out, a grey, and Flibberty Gibbet, the winner
of a Berwickshire steeple-chase. The mounted field
had swelled to seventy- six, and very disgusted Will
Williamson was when we told him about it that after-
noon, and how, of course, we all looked out for him
to drop on us through the Minto Woods, on The
Kaffir. He would not have known what to make of
it, as the river was fearfully low, and the Doctor
on his chesnut was hunting his hounds, or rather
watching them hunt (for he had trained them to do
it all themselves) ; while Walter waited down-stream,
to see if the varmint slipped over the shallows. Some
of the weavers got so anxious here that they tally-
hoed a water-hen ; but there was good hedging for
the mistake, as a few minutes after, the Doctor was
cheering "Old John Peel.'' ''That's the right stuff r
said little Sandy, as the old dog spoke again; and
then Ringwood, the Palmerston of the pack, came
fairly to the front, took the water at Denholme
Cauld, and swam the drag right down the pool. This
was a very finished bit of hunting, and the foxhunters
sat down in their saddles quite enraptured, as the
old dog leant in his stroke from side to side, throwing
his deep bass tongue as the air-bells, with the rich
hot scent in them, floated down to him. Then a
loud tally-ho was heard at the weir, and the wild

COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK, 195

Indian dance of some foot people, who had gone ter-
ribly forward and got the hounds^ heads up, told that
the otter was away. " He^s over ! Lift 'em — lift
'em I" was the cry from the infantry. " Lift them,
indeed !'' said the Doctor, who had kept his patience
wonderfully, and only made one address, and that in
the quietest tones, from the centre of the stream —
'^ Leave my old dog ivhen he's swimming the drag all
by himself — not for fifty otters!'' "You ivon't kill
them tuhen you can," was the excited retort ; but the
Doctor is far too fair by dog and otter to do such
unsportsmanlike things, and the foxhunters were
quite with him on the point.

It was lucky for his credit that he was so firm, as
the sport would have been in another minute quite
a burlesque on a fox-chase, and he would have fairly
split up his otter in the open. The otter saw that
he was headed, and short of water ; and crawling out
at that point, he went through a bolt-hole in the
hedge, and away over the oats. In a few minutes^
Hassenden Bank Haughs were all alive with the
melody, Walter and the Doctor riding to points, and
Sandy lobbing away close by the tail hounds, cheek-
by-jole with old Shammy, who shambled along like
a young'un in his glee. The riug was fully a mile^
but the white crops and the glen- were no protection
to him, with three foxhounds running the drag. It
was no use facing the open any more ; so he worked
back to the Teviot at Spittal Ford, swam another half-
mile, and was out of it again, and cut off a corner

2 o 2

196 FIELD AND FERN.

across the fields once more^ to get to the Kule. They
marked him to a stronghold at Bedrule ; but the
gamekeeper told the Doctor that they might dig till
Christmas, and be no nearer to him. Then we drew
Wells, and there was music once more for a few
minutes ; but it was only the remnant of an over-
night drag, and we were glad to take refuge from the
heat under the canopy of the giant beeches. The
world was now up and doing once more, and the
turnip-women leant on their hoes, and looked in
wonderment at the posse comitatus as it swept by.
We were so hot and parched, that it seemed as if
w^e had been at work for hours, but it was only six
o^ clock.

Then we sauntered back down the Rule, over
trunks of trees and amongst boulders and through
farmyards, till we were in the Teviot once more ; but
the fan of the day was over. The horsemen stuck
on well, and there was a ceaseless splash, as at least
forty of them followed the Doctor up-stream. There,
too, was a lad on the bare-backed donkey, who had
been in front all day ; but we looked in vain for the
brave trio who hunted in the gig, and were so great
at Spittal Ford. The sun got up, and our spirits went
down. Ringwood, Teddy, and Billy would have no-
thing to do with it at Lanton Cauld or Manselaws
Hutches, a perfect Mamelon of otters, when they are
not away fishing at the lochs or getting into traps on
the Tweed. At Spittal Bank they spoke to it but
very feebly, and Billyhs depressed manner, when lu

COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 197

had completed his observations^ decided the Doctor
not to persevere^ even after his second whip had gone
for a spade. And so there was a conclave in a mea-
dow, and the word was given for home ; and be-
guiling the way with a most welcome breakfast at
Teviot Bank, we left the Doctor to thirty miles of
practice, and like Sandy, who was fairly wearied out
with three otter hunts in four days, we turned into
bed. Sleep would have been all the sweeter if we
had killed an otter. They will not come, like spirits
from the vasty deep when you call them, and like
many other things they are often there when they
are not wanted. AVe remember Mr. Gallon having
a blank week, and on the Sunday, when he was
walking in a friend^s grounds, one of them "like an
eagre rode in triumph o^er the tide,^-' and surveyed
him patronisingly as it passed. Those who know
him may "phanzy his feelinks.^^ Another of our
friends, who hadn^t found one for some time, stum-
bled across what he thought was his leviathan black
cat, at the edge of a corn field near his house, in the
moonlight, and for some moments kept objurgating
" Simon^^ for his lack of friendliness, till he glided
into the stream.

The hounds were well looked to, and had six hours^
rest before they were sent on, and next morning we
followed them to hunt the Ale. They were waiting
for us on the bridge at Ashkirk, an hour after sun-
rise, and a right pleasant morning we had, watching
them quest at their own sweet will among its co-

198 FIELD AND FERN.

vered drains and up its rocky sides, steady as a rock
amongst hundreds of rabbits^ without any crowd to
press thera. Half the village were out at Lilliesleaf
— the baker who seemed the spokesman^ and as
learned on otters as quartern loaves ; the shoemaker
with his thumbs in his apron armpits of course ; the
carpenter^ with his rule peeping out of his pocket —
all members of the great council which sat on the
whereabouts of the brace of otter cubs_, which had
been in the drain. Alas! it was all to no purpose;
we opened the drain in the middle, but Teddy and
Billy soon said "Not at home/^ and on we drew
again, sending the horses for a short space round by
road.

The old white house with the trellises looked out
from the quiet, deep-wooded park, as we skirted
K/iddeli, and anon we v»^ere over the palings, and
among the roses and rhododendrons of Lint Hill,
which Sir Frederick Graham once had for his hunting-
box. We did not linger among these calm delights.
On we went, and the hounds went up with a rush to
try every place where there had been an otter before,
but the streams were far too low, and the game were
off to far happier fishing-grounds among the bul-
rushes. Then Sandy ^ — who has ridden for " four-
mile saddles^' at Kiugmoor, besides winning several
foot-matches — mounted behind the Doctor on Robin,
and gave up his pole to "Young Druid,^^ and Walter
brought up the rear with Shammy on his pommel, and
old Malakhoff came as he could, shambling be-

COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 199

hind everyone, and so we reached the Teviot once
more in procession by a four-mile cut, down by the
Minto covers. Walter longed to pluck a fox-glove
for Sandy^s cap in honour of that celebrated find ;
but Sandy was true to his Border love — '' Give me
the blooming heather /" Spittal Bank was blank
again ; but the drag of our first friend, who had evi-
dently revisited the glimpses of the moon, and dwelt
quite leisurely on some stones, to eat and digest his
trout, was most satisfactory at eleven, and ten
minutes of beautiful music closed the day, and
atoned for hopes once more deferred and drains
blanked on the Ale.

The Jed remained, and on a cold September eve-
ning we stole away fourteen miles with the Doctor
among the hills to Mr. Scott's of Merving^s Law, a
most hospitable farmer, on its banks. Three miles
to our right, and marching with Liddesdale, was
Hindley, the " Charlieshope'' of Sir Walter Scott,
near which the Bule and the Jed have their rise, but
there is not a terrier on the place now. At six next
morning we were all up and breakfasting. A lassie,
who had known Royal as a pup at walk, was one of
the principal features of the meet, with a bit of bread
in her pocket for him, and then she revealed a wealth
of information about Newcastle -and its otter hounds,
which at once charmed and puzzled the Doctor. We
did no good dragging up the river, and the loch to
which we wandered a full mile in the Sheriff^s
grounds was vocal with no challenge. So we turned

200 FIELD AND FERN.

down the Jed ; but the mill-dam, and the deep black
pools under rocks which are tenanted with countless
wood-pigeons, knew him not that morning, and the
horsemen who rode for points and met us, got fairly-
wearied out. Seven miles were over, and Ringwood
began to fancy there that he " smelt a Lollard in the
wind^' at last. Into the water he went to complete
his commentaries, and tried for a broken air-bell, but
in vain. The whole pack took the hint without a
word being said to them, and for half-a-mile they
were feeling for the drag by the river side. Malak-
hoif^s great white stern went waving like a banner,
and yet he dare not speak,

" There was silence deep as tleath,
And the Doctor held his breath
For a time."

It was quite agony not to cheer Bellman, as they
turned short, and the young dog went to the front;,
led them to a gate in a clover field, but not one yard
beyond, and then back to the river, where one loud
burst of melody round a tree-root proclaimed the
marking to groun d. Billy was of course field-marshal^
and a very grimy one with his exertions, while Malak-
hoff stood like a white statue on the root-top, with one
eye on Billy and the other down-stream. It was
pretty close quarters, as Old John ^' received on the
nose.^' In vain did the Doctor dash into the stream,
and call off his dogs by a feint ; in vain did " did
the darlings follow me just like a hrood of young
ducks'' ; in vain did Walter stamp on the earthy

COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 201

while otliers watched the bolt-holes. As the school-
boy said of .27 in his quadratic equation, we had "run
him to ground under a root, and never could get
him out again ;" and Walter wore no otter cravat
through Jedburgh streets that day.

202 FIELD AND FERN.

nmm n i-oss pml

" And we will pu' the bell sae blue,
And the gowan opening free,
Wi' the red, red tinge aroun its fringe
On the links o' Linhope lea."

Scott Riddell.

The Links of Linhope Lea — Moss Paul Inn — The Wisp Club and its
Objects — Scott of Priesthaugh — Old Lymecleuch — His Weighing
Match — His Opinion of an Orator's Attitude — Sheep and Shepherd
Losses — Mr. Aitchison on Mountain Hay — Sheep Management —
Davie Kyle — Yeddie Jackson — Dandie Dinmont.

^^1 et's awa' and see the tups/^ is the unvarying
^ watchword on *^the wild green links" of
'' The Dales/' and we cheerfully obeyed it when
Malakhoff was once more only marking in dreams.
Our route was up Teviotdale, with The Doctor and
^' The Dwarfs to beguile the way, past meadows blue
with wood-pigeons, and Borthaugh, dear to Will
Shore and '^ the Bold Buccleuch/^ ^neath the beeches
of Branksome Tower, where " The Gover" won
and his foeman fell a few yards from the post. At
Branxholm Bridge, there opened on us the wide, rich
meadows of the Teviot Valley, in which lies Johnny
Armstrong, the great Border Heiver, happily un-
conscious of the dairy herd and half-bred sheep all

HAWICK TO MOSS PAUL. 203

round him. Once at Frostley Brook, '^ that uncom-
monly cold name/^ and we are among the Cheviots at
last, and the somewhat variable pasture changes into
the uniformly hard and sound lea of far-famed Teviot-
dale. It ascends with a slight gradient as far as
Moss Paul Inn, whose post-boys were therefore said
to follow the Teviot to Hawick and the Ewes to
Langholm.

" The braw braes of Linliope
And lofty Moss Paul"

have long been linked in song. Mr. Aitchison^s
ewes crop the Linhope Lea, and nothing but a peace-
ful knoll of that name is left to remind the Bor-
derers how " Jeannie HalPs tongue^^ was wont to
wake the echoes, when she spied Jemmy Telfer on
another of his raids. Like that watchful wife or
spinster, the inn is a tale of the past. Peacocks
scream in those ancient silences, and there is no relic
of the old regime save Jemmy Ferguson, who has
been ostler, man and boy, " eight- and-forty years
come Martinmas." The very stables of his heart
have been unroofed before his eyes, ^^ forty-two
stalls," as he says so mournfully, "for bye loose-
boxes, and sic grand hay -lofts." Gowanlock, the
landlord, lived to see the last of the posting, ten
miles to Langholm and twelve, to Hawick, and to
hear the last horn tune of the mails and the Locomo-
tive, but he was gone before the Engineer took its
final journey in the June of ^62. Black-cocks still
club on the heights behind the house, where the

204 FIELD AND FERN.

cocks of the district were wont to meet and feast
each Martinmas tide.

The Wisp Club, as it was called, began in 1826,
but it was given up about the time of Gowanlock's
death, as Mr. Aitchison and one or two others had
outlived nearly every one of those jovial comrades,
who discussed punch after dinner, and settled, after
many an animated debate and division, the average
prices of cattle and sheep stock, white and '^tarry ^oo."
In its earlier days, when newspaper information on
these heads was so ill marshalled, the list of prices,
which was regularly registered in the Club books,
had an especial value, and they were often referred
to both by landlords and tenants, when a lease was
to be renewed. No paper reported its proceed-
ings till the late James Steel, whose statue stands in
the Carlisle market-place, came over with twa
friends, and took one of his terse and pithy reports
home for the Journal.

Gowanlock was the treasurer, and always returned
thanks at these Club festivals, as we read in a record
quite yellowed by time, 'Svith his usual simplicity and
readiness of manner." Scott of Priesthaugh was one
of its choicest characters. If he wanted anything
down to a horse to ride to Stagshaw Bank Fair, it
was " only for a minute." He was also a good man
with hounds, and the best jumper of the lot. When
he was regularly put up, he had jumped twenty-four
feet at one bound on the haugh by the side of the
Moss Paul Burn. One of the Club was so pleased

HAWICK TO MOSS PAUL. 205

■with the performance, that he vowed then and there
— '^ Jf I could do it like Priesthauyh, I would not envy
the author of ' Paradise Lost/ ^' Like the old school
of the Regency, Priesthaugh was not averse to the
Fancy. Oliver v. Carter, at Gretna Green, was
quite " a leading case" with him, and he could illus-
trate Tom S averts style most accurately, when he
had seen him put on the gloves at Carlisle.

Elliot of Lymecleuch was known far and wide as
a Cheviot breeder and dealer from Falkirk to Stag-
shaw Bank, and round by Settle and Rosley Hill.
A great spirit was old Lymecleuch, "very quaint, and
a famous plucked one/^ Free Trade never had a
sterner advocate, and it and " Sailors^ Rights'^ com-
prised his political creed. Why he took up the latter
topic no one could ever tell, as he lived inland, and
hardly knew a jibboomfrom a shoulder-of-muttonsail.
Gowanlock surveyed him, as each club day blenched
his locks, and did not decrease his waist-band, with
increasing admiration and silent awe. At last he
could hold out no longer. '^ If I had a stable full of
horses/^ he said, ^' ivith that man's constitution, in
these days of opposition coaching, Pd run Croall and
the whole lot of them clean off the road."

Peter Brodie of Clarielaw, who drew 23 stone, once
upbraided " Lymey" with being a '^ toom hemlock.'-'
At this Laidlaw of Falnash bristled up, and although
it did not just look like ^'^a good thing,'-' he backed him
then and there for an even sovereign against Peter
on the scales. It was not recorded in the club

206 FIELD AND FERN.

minutesj but Lymecleucli got the turn of the beam^
and won with a pound to spare. In his light-weight
days, when " the herds" fought the '^ weaver bodies"
of Hawick, and Dandie Dinmont was said to have
been quite competent to lifting two of the enemy,
smashing their heads together and then dropping
them, Lymecleuch was a most able lieutenant.
Sheep and cattle dealers at that time were all very
handy with their fists, and the muttered menace
was common enough between the dances in the ball-
room, " You and Pll square up that little bit of busi-
ness some day,'' and they invariably did. Lyme-
leuch, when occasion served, was as sharp with his
tongue as his fists. When Sir Robert Peel's portrait
after Lawrence had appeared, one of the leading de-
baters rose to address the Club, with his left hand
resting majestically like the great statesman's on his
hip, and heard Lymey's hoarse whisper inthe midst
of his finest passages : " Has that guff gat a sai?^
hench ?''

William Aitchison of Linhope, Menzion —

" Hiin with the nut-brown hair and hollow voice,
My kindest, warmest-hearted friend the Borderer,'*

as sang the Ettrick Shepherd — was one of the chief
speakers, and is still the Sellars of the Lowlands,
with about twelve thousand Cheviot and blackfaced
sheep in the three counties of Selkirkshire, Roxburgh-
shire, and Peebles, and hoggs on turnips in Cumber-
land as well. Sheep-farming, both in the Highlands
and the Lowlands, has been a weary business at times.

HAWICK TO MOSS PAUL. 207

In 1772 much more than half the sheep in Scotland
died; in January, ^94_, there was hardly a farm
without a dead shepherd, and twelve were laid one
Sunday in Moffat churchyard, after the week of
the ^'Goniel Blast/' Beattie of Muckledon lost
seventy score of sheep, and the mouth of the Solway
was literally dammed up with carcases. The Ettrick
Shepherd has told of those gloomy days, and so has
the late Lord Napier of Thirlstane Castle. Black
frost did the deed in 1816 and 1837, but '60 was a
still more fearful year, and in Ewesdale one farmer
alone had to spend ^1,500 extra to keep his stock
in life at all. The value of the sheep which did not
die was fearfully deteriorated, and the mortality
helped to prove that of late years a larger-boned
but softer sheep has been introduced to the Cheviot
sheep-walks. In spite of the corn, lentils, and hay,
from a fourth to a sixth perished in the South of
Scotland. A great deal of Dutch hay w'as used,
but it was sadly deficient both in weight and quality.
It was generally found that in such adversity no
flocks throve really well, except such as had stores of
mountain hay to fall back upon; and in a paper
which Mr. Aitchison read before the Farmers' Club
at Hawick, after the disaster, he dwelt most earnestly
on its value. " Sheep," he said, '' make up nearly
half the rental of Scotland, and yet landlords are
sadly remiss, and very little is done for them. Sheep
drains, sheep stells, and March feuces have done much;
but more is exhausted on forty acres of wet lowland as

208 FIELD AND FERN.

would put a sheep-walk into form/^ Hay-feeding
was not practised before ^99, but nothing can supply
its place in a fierce winter. " Partial feeding is worse
than no feeding, as the sheep listlessly wait on it,
and no longer, in the absence of fresh weather, search
after regular food. Giving it in handfuls may do
for calm weather, but sheep hecks will alone prevent
the wind pilfering, and save one-tliird of the hay.
Corn, beans, and bran, with hay, may enable the
flockmaster with a heavy purse and willing heart to
tide through the dreary time till verdure begins
again, and nature dethrones art on the hills ;" but
still, mountain hay must be his sheet-anchor. Mr.
Aitchison^s recommendation was that every hirsel
of thirty score should have four enclosures of a few
acres each (with sheep-houses and hecks), which
should be properly limed and cut, two and two,
in alternate years. " Go in for mountain hay,^^ he
concluded, " and the storms of winter may drift up
the valley, and tempests whistle over the hills in
vain.^^

Till after New-Year^s Day the Roxburghshire
flockmasters never dreaded storms, but between
Candlemas and the middle of April the heavy pinch
comes. Land that abounds in every variety of keep
of course makes the heaviest fleece. Towards Slet-
rig Head it is very good, and so it is towards Jed
Head and Rule Water Head. When you get to the
range of the Cheviots there are very few mosses to
be found, and the fine lea grass does not afl'ord

HAWICK TO MOSS PAUL. 209

aionrishing pasture to sheep during the early spring
months. The consequence is that the sheep are re-
duced lower, and shed their fleece more freely, when
the abundant herbage of spring returns. The mosses
of the other part of Roxburghshire prevent the sheep
from being so reduced in condition, as they do not
grow so high up the hill, and are therefore available
in a severe spring. Sheep in Teviotdale are espe-
cially subject to foot-rot; but the iouping ill or
trembling between the old and new grass is not
known on the Cheviot Hills, or near the source of
the Tweed and the Clyde.

Smearing the sheep with tar has been given up for
years_, and fish oil is objected to as gilding the wool,
and hence Gallipoli or olive oil is most used, except
■where poisonous dips have to be resorted to. The
gimmers are generally put to the tup_, but many of
them do not nurse their own lambs, and the cast
«wes after four crops are for the most part passed
over to Cumberland or Yorkshire through dealers.
Teviotdale is rather higher than Evresdale in its
sheep rent, and the Roxburghshire sheep-farms
generally vary from £200 to £1,500, at from 7s. to
10s. 6d. per sheep. In the North of Scotland it is
computed to take 2 to 2^ acres to keep a sheep,
whereas li to II will suffice in Roxburghshire and
Selkirkshire.

The Lowlands are not a wedder country, and save
Elliot of Hindhope and Pringle of Hindley, nearly
everyone parts with his wedder lambs. The High-

2 p

210 PIELD AND FERN.

landers once liked to buy tlieir tups as shearlings, but
now they have taken more to two-year-olds. They
used also to pay higher prices for them, but of late
years the supply has quite exceeded the demand.
There was a reaction in favour of the black-
faces when the winter of ^60 sent the Cheviots
to par ; but still, there are very few in Roxburgh-
shire, and the Cheviots have not yielded up their
Selkirkshire heights. In the upper walks of Lanark-
shire, Dumfriesshire, Selkirkshire, and Peeblesshire
the half-breds are found as high as 600 feet above sea-
level on partly cultivated and partly hill holdings.
Higher up, taste rather than elevation decides the
Cheviot or ^^ curly-horn character of the flock," un-
less land be very bleak indeed. Sometimes black-
faces are surrounded by Cheviots, and even grazed
at lower elevations on inferior lands.

Davie Kyle of Broad Lee, beloved of Lord John
Scott, could not be called, like Scott of Singlee, " a
singular grand divine among sheep," but he was
quite a shepherd^s friend in his line, and though he
might be led at first in the hunt, no shepherd could
live with him till the close of day. He would not
keep a shepherd who could not hunt, and his brother
Arthur was nearly as keen. Kyle once ran against
Routledge, laird of The Flatt at Christenburj^ Creggs,
near Newcastleton. He never met a better man, ac-
cording to his own confession, but Routledge thought
himself as good, "bar louping the hags." Davie had
no great hound language, but he loved to have all

HAWICK TO MOSS PAUL. 211

the dogs round him when he had a dram, and then
he was highly colloquial^ both with them and his
friends. He lived at the head of Hermitage Wateiv
and as a stock-farmer he had one peculiarity — his
tups must all be horned. Liddesdale and Teyiot
Head were the cream of his country _, and from New-
Year's Day till the middle of April he would be
there with a dozen or fifteen shepherds at sunrise^,
each provided with a pocket pistol and a lump of
bread and cheese.

Old Kyle was a good wrestler and fighter for his
inches. In early days he was entered to hare, but
he changed to fox after thirty, and killed nearly 80O
brace in his fifty years. Cauldcleuch and North Tyne
furnished some of his best foxes, which were all of
the greyhound breed, and took a world of catching.
He always knew them again, or said he did, and
spoke of them confidentially as old acquaintances.
The drag was generally hit off from certain syke
heads, and when the foxes did go to ground they were
always " spaded^^ and never smoked. Bolting them
for "an afternoon fox^' was not the custom of his hunt.
His terriers were of the Dan die Dinmont breed,
and latterly, as the neighbours said, he looked like a
terrier himself. They were high and leggy, with
wiry coats of a red-grey, and black points on their
ears, tail, and feet, and got well over the bogs. The
smaller ones with their out- turned toes did a deal of
business, lying flat and working like a share plough,
when they were tunnelling up to " Charley.^' Kyle's

2 p3

212 FIELD AND FERN.

hunting mantle fell on Ballantyne of The Shaws, and
his old dog Ringwood, the sire of nearly all the good
ones about, not only ^Yon a first prize at Bellingham
Show, but was running still in the spring of ^64 as a
ten-season hound. Kyle himself died in 1861, but
he did not lack the sacer vates, as his memory has
been sun^ in eloquent strains by the son of Chris-
topher North.

Adam or Yeddie Jackson of Fairloan, at the head
of Liddle, was also quite a king of the hunters, and
had been, as Tom Potts, a brother shepherd, said, at a
"vast 0^ banes breaking.^' His opinion about whisky
was that he should like to be " a whaup and live by
suction," and he did live into his ninety-eighth year.
He was quite deaf at last, and wore spectacles, and
when they drew Deadwater Fells he would hobble to
the house end with his grand-daughter to take a look
at them, and told her to nudge him whenever there
was music.

Davidson of Hindley or " Dandie Dinmont" did
not care for a pack of dogs, and with a shepherd or
two to help him, two hounds and the terrier bitches
Tug and Tar, he was about a match for any Liddes-
dale fox. Be it foulmart, cat, or even a collie dog,
he had a turn at it. He always went over to Ab-
botsford, and met Hogg, Laidlaw, Captain Clutter-
buck, &c., at the annual coursing meeting, when Sir
"Walter, with Maida at his feet, watched from a hill
the doings of what the latter evidently considered an
inferior race. It was a merry night at Selkirk, and

HAWICK TO MOSS PAUL. 213

the Club mull went round with Sir Walter^s own
inscription, " May the Foresters never want a friend
at a pincli/^ Tom Potts, than whom there was no
hunting shepherd of "stronger bone and firmer pith/'
always said that Dandie " never hunted with the same
glee after he brought the wife hame/^ Still, he kept
Nimrod, a cross between a greyhound and a fox-
hound, to the last ; and he rose from a sick chamber,
mounted " Dimple,^' and, with Nimrod at his heels,
obeyed the summons to see a bagman from Dead-
water Fell turned out for him at Burnmouth. This
was in the year '19, and on the first Sabbath of '20
lie died.

214 FIELD AND FERN.

ffiHAFSlE Till

"Charley, rest! thy warfare's o'er,

You died the death, and bore the breaking ;
Dream of chicken poults no more.

Hunting-day, nor bugle waktug !
In the gorse no more you'll lie,

No more you'll roam the fields of barley ;
John Musters' horn and Ringwood's ciy

No more shall wake thee, gentle Charley !

Aanesley, Oct., 1843. The late R. B. Davis.

Will Williamson's Early History — His Opinion of a few Old Sportsmen —
Tke Buccleucli Hounds — Opening-iip the St. Mary's Loch Country —
The Buccleuch Country — Will's Best Horses — A "Walk through the
BQC-cleuch Stables — Monltau, Wyndliam, Paymaster, Marotto, and
Star — The Great Marlfield day — The Moor and his Stable Comi-ades
— T?ie Brood Mares — "Will Shore and the Hounds.

IIell Williamson had never joined " those
"^ rare fellows^^ at the grey dawn_, but' he had
fraternized with them at other times, and the above
was his professional opinion. We found him at St.
BoswelFs in his old spot by the kennels, and still
liearty at 82, and often riding fourteen miles to see a
good draw in the Kelso country. He gave up the
horn in 1862, when he had completed his sixtieth
season with hounds, and during all his huntsman life
iie had only varied from nine-stone-seven to nine-

HAWICK TO ST. BOSWELL's. 215

stone-ten. Eildon^s Hills tower behind his home;
but he did not speculate with us on

" The words wliicli cleft Eildon's Mils in twain,
And bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone :"

and that ^^ triple height^' only brought out the story
of how wonderfully a first-whip's mare crossed them
one day, and how she surprised them all by throwing
tmns at night. Will's mind has always been of
an essentially practical rather than a poetic turn.
He has never visited Abbotsford or Melrose Abbey,
hut he has once or twice run his fox up and down the
Tweed banks, and into the ivied ruins of Dry-
burgh. With Sir Walter he communed very little,
except in the pages of " Old Mortality," and had
merely a passing word when the baronet came out on
the road to see the hounds passing to cover. Scraps
from the lonely tombstones of the Covenanters in
the covers about Dreghorn and Woodhouselees on the
Pentland Hills have been his favourite out-a-doors
reading; and at home, a Delme Radcliffe and Beck-
ford,'^ " with the Latin interlined," serve as his
hunting classics.

He was not born, but " bred up from a month old"
at Pencaithland, six miles from Haddington. His
father was groom to Colonel Hamilton, and his only
brother, a major-general in the Bengal army, died
five or six years since. The Colonel and Mr. Baird,
grandfather to the present Sir David Baird, had a
joint pack, and hunted East Lothian. They were
both good^men with hounds ; and when Mr. Baird

216 FIELD AND FERN.

was on Bounty or the '^Eclipse chesnnt/' and
Colonel Hamilton on Ben Yalder, Yery few, if anVy
could go before them. When little Will, who took
messages on a pony for the Colonel, and then rose
to be pad groom, first knew that country, the
"great corn and potato garden^^ was only yellow
with gorse from Dunbar to Soutra Hills, and held
many a '^^ traveller," who had stolen down from the
rock and heather of the Lammermoors to the low
country for meat. Dirletoh and Gosford were
barren links bound down with sea-bent, and tenanted
by rabbits and sandpipers. Haddington Hill Park
and Amisfield were in the centre of a wild moor, with
whins high enough to hide Phantassie^s horses when
his lad went to seek them. The country adjoined
Berwickshire on the Dunglass property in the east^,
and touched Midlothian at the Elphinstone Tower
grounds. When the joint mastership was given up,
Henry Duke of Buccleuch united the East and
Midlothians, and hunted them three days a week.

Will's father, who was one of the whips,
then laid aside his scarlet, and became head
pToom at Pencaithland. His son still rode after
the Colonel, but the chase lure was too much
for him when he was on duty one day near Had-
dington. The Colonel was speaking to a farmer
at the turn of a road, as th(3 Duke^s brought their
fox across it, carrying a great head to Saltoun Wood,
and when he looked round, after his colloquy,
lad, horse, and coat were gone, and were well

HAWICK TO ST. BOSWELL^S. 217

up at tbe finish when they ran to ground in Or-
miston Wood. The Colonel told the boy^s father
not to be angry with him when he got home, and
things went on as usual till a few months after, when
Mr. Baird became commander of the East and West
Lothian Fencible Cavalry, and in 1799 went " soldier-
ing through England.^^ Sudbury and then New-
market were the head-quarters of the regiment when
Hambletonian and Diamond were all the talk ; and
in one of WilPs rambles on The Heath he saw Sam
Chifney and Will Edwards ride their maiden race as^
feather-weights* together. Old Chifney had passed
his zenith; but between his son Will and the
Scottish stranger there sprung up a fast friendship.
The former sealed it at parting with a pair of braces,
the buckles of which have done duty on generation
after generation of straps to this hour; and the
latter in later years, when the great days of Priam
and Zinganee were in the dim distauce, reciprocated
with a suit of Scotch tweed.

Another two years brought these military wander-
ings to a close, and at twenty Will became second
whip to the Duke, with John King as huntsman and
Erank Collisson as first whip. His second and
first whip probation lasted for fourteen seasons, and
in 1816 he got the horn. The first fox he ever
killed was from a meet at Armadill4oll-bar, and they

* Will EdvrardB won this race over the last three miles of the^.C, on a
two-jear-old colt of the Hon. C. Wyndham's, which was afterwards second
for the Derby. Will was fetched from school behind a Ijoy on a pony, and
was returned in the same fashion after the race.

"218 FIELD AND FERN.

pulled him down after seven or eight miles before he
could reach Callender Woods. Mr. Baird managed
the hounds for his Grace. They were still a subscrip-
tion pack, with kennels at Dalkeith, East and Mid
Lothians, and part of East Berwickshire as their
country, and Pencaithland and Newbyth as out-
lying kennels. Mr. Bailey of Mellerstain, " as good a
racing as he was a hunting man,^' hunted Roxburgh-
shire and part of Berwickshire, as far as Eoggo Moor
in the Dunse country; and Will always speaks of
him most reverently as " an old Boman, polite to
all and bow to none.^^ Mr. Hay of Dunse Castle
joined Mr. Bailey for a season; and ten years after
he had the Dunse country for himself, and, joining
it with the West Lothian, moved backwards and for-
wards.

There was a Hamilton pack, with Holy Town
as its kennel, before Will became a Buccleuch " colt,"
and its Wild Irish huntsman, Merton Bourke, " rode
over everything in Lanarkshire. Stars and ribbons
were wont to cluster in those days of the E-egency
round the Newmarket cockpit, and there were mighty
Scottish "■ Gillivers" as well. Occasionally a car-
riage full of cocks would come from Lanarkshire to
the East Lothian, which paid return visits. A cele-
brated in- go took place at the " George" at Hadding-
ton, and it was long remembered how one of the
cuckoo sort had knocked a black-breasted red clean
out of the front window, and how the town fully ex-
pected to see a brace of bulldogs tumble out next.

HAWICK TO ST. BOftWELL^S. 219

The Duke of Hamilton was a tremendously hard
rider, and the groom^s horse died following him on
his trotting chesnut from Edinburgh to Hamilton.
It was bought at Longtown, and Mat Milton
offered his Grace one thousand guineas in vain on
behalf of the Prince of Wales. "I can ride a
thousand-guinea horse as well as his Royal High-
ness^^ were the proud terms of the refusal. The Earl
of Lauderdale, then Lord Maitland, kept harriers at
Dunbar, and " understood horses and hunting well.^^
The late Lord Minto was also '' a good rider, and
all the sons more or less met with my approba-
tion in the field." The Hon. John Elliot kept good
harriers near Hawick, and was the " best judge of
hunting of them a\" Will, in fact, often looks back
lo " my three best heavy weights^^ — Elliot, Tweed-
dale, and Saddell. The first Lord Melville, says
this^ inexorable and impartial historian, '' was always
knocking horses up." He was a heavy weight, and
Lord -Advocate and Treasurer of the Navy, and an
earlier generation would speak with awe of the
waggon-loads of guineas which went to pay the
sailors. He got WilFs brother the cadetship,
and Will retains his East Lothian silver hunt buttons
in memioriam to this day. Lord Elphinstone of Cum-
bernauld was also *^ a great authority'^ ; and Major
Maclean of Ardgower, on his '''very grand mare," and
Mr. Wallace of Kelly " had nothing to beat them.^'
The Major gave Will five shillings to buy his first
pair^of spurs ; and the other, an ''^ awful Radical, but

220 FIELD AND FERN.

first-rate sportsman/^ stood him his first tip of a
guinea.

Earl Moreton of Dalmahoy was also "a good
sportsman and rider /^ and Lord Kennedy would
'^follow all things, ride occasionally, and catch as
many grouse as another man shot, at least so they
said when they joked him. ^' Mr. Campbell of
Saddell, "so full of his fun," was often one of
the field ; and so was Mr. White Melville, " a first-
rate man from Fife." Sir David Baird, who once
hunted Ayrshire and Renfrewshire, had manj^ a day
with the Duke; and Mr. Hay mounted Will in the
only season that he ever accompanied Captain Baird
to Melton, and saw Tom Sebright and Dick Burton
at work.

About this time he caught a glimpse of " Gen-
tleman Shaw." His only comment on him is more
curt than scientific — that he "got well into his boots ;"
but there is a world of hidden meaning in it. Will
Crane of the Fife he considered "a devil to ride and
fall ; he'd seen more of the world than all the hunts-
men in it." Lord Campbell he never saw but once,
when the hounds met at his place near Jedburgh. His
lordship came out on to the lawn to see them,
and the veterans of the English wool-sack and the
Scottish pig-skin shook hands. Mr. Listen " nearly
as good a horseman as he was a surgeon," was also
seen as much on this side of Edinburgh as he was on
the other. Will always says that much of his good
health " was owing to having him to look after me,"

221

■and ''' there was always room for me at his house if
I went to Edinburgh or London/^

With the exception of Mr. Train of Kelso, Will
was never painted by any one except Mr. Frank
Grant. Of him and his early studies in Edinburgh
he retains one precious memento in Ruby and Blue
Maid, Y/hich went in from Dalkeith to be drawn,
and " had a narrow escape for their lives/^ ''^ There
were hounds," he observes, " in that studio, and all
over the place — hounds from Fife and all places, till
the mistress said she would have them hanged/^
These two, were only sketched in by the young artist,
and Mr. Watson Gordon finished them. Darling^s
head is by Mr. Grant, and a present from the late Sir
David Baird ; and the silver fox^s head testifies to Mr.
Campbell of Saddell's recollection of the hunts, in
which they had ridden side by side. With all these
relics and reminiscences of the grand old school, we
can hardly wonder at one great article of WilFs
belief: "The young^uns are a deal mair consequence
in their ain opinion, and we don^t ken if they^re
so much better. Faith ! it^s quite true."

As to hounds. Pleader began him from Mr.
Bailey^s kennel in 1816, and for this slice of Lons-
dale Jester andYarboro^ Tidings he gave the huntsman
^1. Saladin, the sire of Osbaldeston^s Furrier, was
very old Avhen he came, and did no good; whereas
Lonsdale^s Javelin, a bigger dog and a capital hunter,
did a great deal. Harewood Merlin came in a young
draft, and had a wall-eye like a hawk, to which he owed

222 FIELD AND FERN.

Ms name. Lonsdale Harper brought in blindness,
and as Will observed in italics, " Mark that doion
as a beacon ."' Drake's Bajazet, Sykes^s Trick-
ster, "a capital finder/' and Yarboro' Dasbwood,
the sire of Driver, all did well, and even Eoljambe's
Vanlter, ^^a great fiat- sided soft brute,'' got rare
stock. He was the only hound that Will ever left
on the road home, as he tired to nothing in the
Hirsel country, and had to stop at the schoolmaster's
near Blinkbonny. Still, his Viner and Yesta (whose
brother Yictory was drowned in a conduit) he consi-
ders " the very best I ever saw." Rutland's Bertram
he dismissed in his own quaint way : "He was not
knocked on the head, but sent to me ;" Rutland's
Fervent was "a wild flyaway beast — W^ill Goodall shot
flying about him a bit ;" Rutland's Rocket was " well
enough ;" Rutland's General " was sent here as a good
asylum, but his sou General was a capital finder^
and in look and disposition a thorough foxhound
— that was my best hit from the Rutland kennel.""
Assheton Smith's Senator was used a great deal, and
was "varra weel ;" York and Ainsty Tarquin, "a plain
dog but a good stallion,'^ was the sire of Trywell,
" who would do her best to knock over her fox, and
then would never join in breaking it up. " Lunar —
"that's a sort of astronomical theory — when Lord
John Scott saw this name in the entry, he
dropped heavily on to me about being among
the stars. The}^ chaffed me about everything.
Lord John and all the rest of them. No one rode

223

a fast run better than Lord John — quite a master
at it."

The Fitzwilliam Feudal crossed well with the Mar-
quis blood, and his daughter Helen was the dam of
Hector. Monitor of this sort was a great hound,
and Driver, his sire, a wonder. In the best run
that Will ever had, and the only one he ever wrote
an account of, they had very nearly lost their fox,
owing to a very large sheep fair. Driver picked
up the scent, and almost knocked Will's horse
down by the crash with which he came through his
forelegs, and at last pulled his fox from below a con-
duit near Carfrae Mill. The run was over a rough
and wild country; and the rougher and wilder the
country, and the more liberty for a wild fox, the
better Will liked it. Finding on the Lammermoors
or the Cheviots was his delight : " There were my best
foxes; that^s my taste — it's not a common one."
Penicuick of course suited him, and he was quite in
his element opening up the country by St. Mary^s
Loch, "an outlandish place," where none but
Willie Tweedie, a few old hounds, and "all and sun-
dries that could fire a gun" had ever been before.
" Mercy ! no one else would ^o near it. I got away
from the Edinburgh rattle, deil a one would ride in
it. One of them had such a tupable on the Pent-
lands ; he put his hand to his face and felt the blood —
^ Mercy on us, Williamson ! Vm spoilt for the imrties' —
deil do I care about the country, so tliat the hounds
and the fox have their liberty."

v224 FIELD AND FERN.

The hounds do not go higher now than Bowhill,
where the Duke lives during the hunting season.
His Grace's ardour for the sport speaks best through
the fact that on the last day of the 1863-64^ season
he rode forty miles to cover, and as many back after
hunting. Twelve miles is the average distance of the
meets from the kennel, but at times they go more
than twenty, and nearly up to Coldstream. The
Kelso country is the biggest, with the hedges, banks,
rails and doubles below, and stone walls higher
up : wire fences have increased and multiplied on the
hills; but there are plenty of hunting gates, with
posts eight or ten feet high as beacons, at the Hunt's
expense, so that the " iron age" here is no symptom
of foxhunting decay. " Faldonside — one of the
flyers of our hunt — you may put that down Mr.
Druid" — twice over made himself independent
of them, by hanging his coat over the wires, and
then jumping them — "a fact for Scottish his-
tory," as Williamson observed when he heard
of it. The Hawick, Chapel Hill, and Drink stone
-side, and from Wolf Lee to Yetholm, are quite the
" Turkey carpet country," " all grass and no fear of
bogging." Most of the foxes lie in the heather at
the bottom of young plantations, and the earth-
stopping account is a pretty heavy one. There are
some good ones at Mellerstain and Bow Hill, and
EUer Bank Wood, and many others along the Tweed.
Gala LaAV is a great gorse, and Chapel Hill, Wilton
Bourne, and Grundiston, all made covers, with a belt

HAVnCK TO ST. BOSWELL^S. 225

of trees round them to bring them within the arson
clauses. Cessford is, after all, the great cover of the
hunt. It is a grand wild moor in Roxburghshire, with
rare foxes, and nothing but grass hills on their inva-
riable line to Bludie Laws. The sport is generally
best in the spring, and February is a capital month.

On Monday they hunt the west side by Riddell
and Mount Teviot, on Tuesday the Jedburgh, on
Thursday the Kelso, and on Saturday the Leader
Water. Will always says that he never had a
greater treat than seeing his Grace ride Paymaster
over the walls in the Riddell country, and he adds,
" If the country was half up to his knees he would
go as well as ever, and still make good his fence.^^
In fact, he thinks the brown quite the best he ever
saw, and for ten seasons he never gave his Grace a
fall. The grey racer Richmond, Stuffie Major, and
Stuffie Minor were all WilPs particulars, and so were
Sam Slick and Snip, which figure respectively in the
Grant and Train pictures ; but the roan mare Sofa
was his delight, and ^' lost neither pace nor pluck for
twelve seasons. '^

Mr. Hodge, the stud groom, succeeded Mr. Marshall
six years ago, and has just completed thirty years of
service in the Buccleuch family ; and Charles Sharpe,
brother to Teddy Sharpe, the Newpiarket jockey, is
the " Dick Christian^^ of the stables. The horses
move with the hounds between St. BoswelFs and.
Dalkeith, and generally leave the former place about
April 25th. The stables are beautifully kept, and

2^Q

226 FIELD AND FERN.

everything except the horses is ont of sight. Every
new horse is measured for his Cuff saddle, unless
there is one in the collection to fit, and the names of
the wearers are all labelled above them, and in purple
morocco under the flap. "Moultan's" and '^'^ Wynd-
ham^s'^ labels still hang as escutcheons, and so does the
bridle which his Grace used when he was a fellow com-
moner at Trinity. Y\^yndham was bred in the Berwick
country, and served the Duke for eighteen seasons.
His Grace did not ride him so much latterly, and he
was such a perfect fifteen-three model, both in mouth
and temper, that he was more a sort of all-comers'
horse, carrying ladies or any visitors by winter, and
acting as Captain Bowman^s charger at Dalkeith in
summer. Lord John rode him at times, and revelled
in him over the stone walls on the moors, and skim-
ming over the fine turf of Drinkstone and Chapel
Hill. His Grace rode Moultan once a week as his
first horse, and he broke down with him over a stone
wall near Alton in his fourteenth season. He v/as
l)rought home to be painted by M'Cleod, and then,
he was shot, and buried with Paymaster, who was
also twenty-three. He was very handsome and
fast, and fencing no object, and as Mr. Hodges says
rather despairingly, "I may ride a dozen hacks to
death, and never find his equal again. '^ He was by
Wintonian, from his Grace^s celebrated Rosa Mar
by Springkell out of Helen Mar by Viscount. This
^rand combination of Caledonian Hunt winner blood
was bought at Mr. Bailey of Mellerstain^s sale, and

HAWICK TO ST. BOSWELL^S. 227

had seven foals at Dalkeith, sixof wliicL. were ridden
by his Grace. Marotto by Valparaiso was her half-
brother, and did the Duke good service for seven or
eight seasons. Still, he was never very canny with
hounds, and Williamson was always "jealous of
him^^ on this head. He was a short-legged, dark ches-
nut, of greater power than Moultan, and generally
got his stock bay with short legs, and very good the
Midlands thought them.

A big grey skin, which Mr. Hodge preserves
along with the feet of Moultan, was all that we saw
of Star. During eleven seasons he had shown no
symptoms of failure, but in the March of ^64 his
Grace found the field riding away from him in a sharp
forty minutes from Minto. The old horse seemed
as willing as ever, but nature could do no more, and
the second horse, Paddy from Cork, was called up.
The grey was bought, "pedigree unknown,■'^ from
Mr. Kench in the Dunchurch country, and stood
nearly sixteen- two. Just three years before, his
Grace had ridden him and hunted the hounds in one
of their hardest days, with a second fox from the
little whin at Marl field by March cleugh across the
old Roman road, without touching Bludie Laws, past
Kinneartonand straight over Bearhope Hill, pointing
to the Horse Shoe plantation. Here^he was headed,
and bent towards Gateshaws, where the hounds got
to slow hunting, and were stopped near Moor Battle
after 3i hours. Only four or five were up beside his
Grace, young Hope of LufFness on another grey,

2 Q 2

228 FIELD AND FERN.

'^ The Indian/^ Elliot of Clifton^ Swan on his ches-
nut, and David Henderson.

The hunters and hacks are all washed over with
tepid water when they come in. Fonr of them are
brought into the place together, and two grooms are
occupied about forty minutes over each. They are
clothed and left quiet for an hour and a half, and
then dressed over for the night. They also get lin-
seed tea when they come in, a pail at twice, and have
their feet stuffed with linseed, fore and aft, twice a
week. The linseed is always bruised at the mill just
before the stones want setting, and then mixed with
w^ater. It leaves a fine oily mixture in the hoof when
it is picked out next morniug. But for this care the
feet would often be very much bruised, although
the blacksmith, who always accompanies the horses,
bevels out the inside of the fore shoe, to try and
prevent them from picking up flints.

There are fifteen servants^ horses, and "Will
Shore, who has just fmished his third season,
has five. Rebecca by Isaac of York, a game light
mare, goes into the light-grass and moor country on
Tuesday, Ilston does the hilly w^ork on Saturday, and
either Chesters, Titus Gates, or Tipperary is certain
to be told off for the stitf fencing on the Kelso side
each Thursday. Ilston is one of the best in the
stud, and was bought by Lord Walter in Essex, and
Williamson's comment on Chesters hits him off to
the life : " There^s a multiim in parvo, quite a contra-
diction to the Paymasters — he's so short-legged. The

HAWICK TO ST. BOSWELL^S. 229

Duke's Chamberlain bought lihn.'^ " Old Terrona'^
has furnislied a couple of Eavenhills, and they and
^lilsington by Russborougli, who can stride away
nearly as fast on the moors as his sire did when he
stole up to Voltigeur at the St. Leger finish, are the
cream of the whips^ horses. The Duke^s twelve are
all thorough-bred; and Earl Dalkeith and Lord
Walter have each six or seven. Young Paymaster
is a little on leg like all his sort_, and great in a
light country ; Barnton by Barnton is a little plain
in the quarter, but not in the head, and strips deeper
than he looks.

There is a nice, airy, and yet wear-and-tear
style about the chesnut Baron by Bolingbroke,
who is up to much more weight than Kate, a pretty-
looking little Jericho mare. Birdcatcher claims
Birdsnest, a fast daughter from the dam of Bride-
groom, whom his Grace has ridden for six seasons
past, principally among the heavy fencing on the
Kelso side, for which Pale Ale, who was bred by the
late Sir Tatton Sykes, has always had a standing
retainer. Lord Stamford bought him from the old
baronet, and he was sold for 160 guineas at the
Quorn sale, and was, in fact, the only lot that Mr.
Hodge bid for. There is an old-fashioned look
about him, which would make him unsuitable
for a flying Midland countrj^ He seems well up to
15 St., and therefore his Grace rides with some
2i stone in hand. Paddy from Cork by Blight, and
the only stallion in the stud, was just out of Sharpens

230 FIELD AND FERN.

hands ; and Newton sliowed all the fine old fashion of
the Belzoni blood, with arms, shoulders, and hind legs
moulded for jumping, but he is a little gone in
his back, and is the only one of the lot that had a
bar sinister. The Fawn was a light sherry bay, and
a little shy about the ears ; and Dandy, a little quality
bay, and Undergraduate, an appropriately-named
Birdcatcher hack from Simmonds^s of Oxford, stood
in the same stable with The Moor. To our eye this
dark-brown^ with the game, lean-fleshed head, was
the nicest and handiest horse in the stable, not up to
the same Aveight as some of them, but looking, as
Templeman said of Cossack, " as if yoti could place
him anywhere for the asking." Lord Walter^s
" Mugger" was by Marotto, and so was Earl Dai-
keith^s Garotter, "a right stamp,'^ as Williamson

Canteen, Scarboro^, Marotto, Wintonian, Oakley,
and Valparaiso have all famished their contingents
at one time or another to the Buccleuch stable, and
the present young stock are principal^ by Leaming-
ton, Kingfisher, and Sir John Barleycorn. There
are four mares and their produce at Dalkeith ; and
" the old old blood" is handed down in Flirt, a nice
short-legged daughter of Rosa Mar. Pearlin Jean
is there as a remembrance of Cawston paddocks, and
Songstress by Birdcatcher, which would have been
an annuity to many a Yorkshire shower. In car-
riage horses his Grace is steady to bays, as the
Earl of Wemyss is to blacks.

HAWICK TO ST. BOSWELL^S. 231

We saw the hounds again in the mornings as
Shore on Laaykirk and the whole pack accompanied
us along the hard frozen road for the first five of our
one hundred miles straight across Scotland. Among
our party of '^ Guides^^ was the old slate-coloured
Marquis, rather down in his toes, but still a stand-
ard hound with his Grace, and handing down
his Assheton Smith Senator blood through some
very useful stock. Shore summed him up best as
^' good when he^s there, but he can't always get to
it/^ The nice topped Trimmer by Hector is of the
same season as Marquis, but a harder runner, and
there is no need to look beyond old Trywell to see
whence he and his neat sister Tempest derive their
spigot noses. Barring this little defect Tempest's head
and neck are very neat. There are no harder and
honester workers than Comus and Chanticleer by
the Grove Duster from Belvoir Comfort ; and ucder
rather a shabby black guise we have old GuUiver,
" the lowest-scented of the lot.^^ Harriet was one of
the good Yarborough Dashwood sort that "William-
son is so sweet on for their own and Driver's
sake, and he has always been puzzled to think why
she should be his " lady with the pig-mouth.-'^ Victor
cannot be said to be pig-mouthed or mouthy, as he
never has a word to say in cover or out, but in a road
difficulty there is no better counsellor. Selim, whose
stern seems never at rest, and Splendour are good
ones of the Harlequin sort ; Old Susan is another
rare bitch at a road, and she and Tempest one day

232 riELD AND FERN.

lield tlie line and helped each other for a mile and a
half, near The Bellion in the Jedburgh country,
when nothing else could speak to it. But we had
gradually got round the side of the Eildons past the
three small ridges of gorses which so often hold a
fox, and wishing Will as satisfactory a season as his
first, we bent away to the right for Faldonside.

FALDONSIDE TO DALGIG. 233

" Was it absolute trutli, or a di-eaming
Which the wakeful day flisowns.
That I heard something more in the stream as it ran

Than water breaking on stones —
Now the hoofs of a fljong moss-trooper,
Now a bloodhound's bay half-caught.
The distant l)last of a hunting-horn.
The bui-r of Walter Scott?"

Alexander Smith.

A Peep at Paldonside — The Landseer Gallery at Bowhill — Over !MincIi-
moor — The Ettrick Shepherd — Sheep in Ettrick Forest— Points of
Blackfaces — Crossing with Cheviots — Lanarkshire Breeders and Fairs
— The Clad Score — Curling Enthusiasm — A visit to Dalgig — Scotland
Yet and Canaradzo,

^^ fJT^s a regular NoaVs Ark/' said Will Williamson,
^ when we told him that we were bound for
'' Faldonside/-' Mr. Nicol Milne lives in this snug
eyrie on the banks of the Tweed, just above the Ab-
botsford ferry. Wood and valley backed up by "a
Cheviot hilF^ compose a pleasant landscape from the
front door, and the swans and wild-ducks besporting
themselves on the lake gave proof of the incisive cha-
racter of WilFs simile. There is a considerable
extent of grass land, on which pure shorthorns
have been settled for fully thirty years. Mr.
Milne has always sworn by the St. Albans blood,
and his two tribes, The Prendwick Princess by
Bachelor (1366) and The Rosebud by Emperor

234 FIELD AND FERN.

(1784), liave both got it in their veins. The former
came from Crisp of Doddington, and Mr. Milne went
to pluck the Rosebud from Holywell whenCrofton was
in his zenith_, and winning everything with his Gain-
ford heifers. He used Trctter^s Dusty Miller (9055)
and E-aines's Lord Stanley (18277) ; and in Ettrick
(14518) by Tarn Glen (10780) by Ethelred (5>)90)
he combined a treble Gainford dash. The Princesses
and Rosebuds are closely crossed in ; but their short
legs_, fine hair and general robust stamp show that
when you have made a really good foundation, you
need not heed the popular cry against in-breeding.
Mr. Milne has now adopted the Towneley plan of
prefixing the bulFs name, and thus "Wolviston
Rosebud^^ and "Napier Rosebud" were both among
his herd-book dames.

The Cheviot ewes on his hill hirsel are kept up
each year by lambs from the Menzion flock, and
he takes three crops of half-bred lambs from them.
His flock of half-bred ewes are kept below the hill_,
and the lambs of both by a Border-Leicester
go annually to St. BoswelFs fair. The three-parts-
bred lambs made 32s. 6d. last year for Fife, and the
cast half-bred ewes 42 s. for Mid- Lothian. This
system of breeding prevails between Galashiels and
Edinburgh, where there is a great deal of artificial
grass. Three-parts bred ewes are very rare, and only
one farmer in the district h asadopted half-bred
tups.

The pigs have been pretty nearly as long about

PALDONSIDE TO DALGIG. 235

the place as the shorthorns_, and came originally from
Mr. Nutt, a solicitor in York_, who fled in his mo-
ments of leisure from calfskin in the smooth to pigskin
in the rough. It was to Yorkshire that '' Faldon-
side" also looked for a cross_, and found it in one of a
prize pen of Lord Wenlock^s.

A bull "with a fine deep forehand, and of course
with a dash of St. Albans, thrust his head over the
rails for a word, as we passed to the stables. There
we found George Goodfellow_, who would remind us
of a celebrated ex-jockey grown a little older, as
cicerone to three hunters, and a grey pony " as good
as she's bonny.'' There Y\'as Empress by Mar otto,
the heroine of the wire-fence feat once on the Che-
viots and again in the A^ale ; but George was not
surprised at it, as she '' always goes as straight as an
arrow'' The Falstaff mare has not been tried as yet
in this high art jumping, but she seemed to have
quality and cleverness enough for anything, as you
stand behind her and look at those hocks and
quarters, and the pleasant white reach head with
which she was always saluting the terrier " Dunny"
below the manger.

Pepper and Jock are two more of the Dandie breed,
and in direct descent from the ^'^Charlieshope" terriers.
Greyhounds live only in stone on each side of the
door ; but John Jardine, an old class-mate at Gala-
shiels, and the sharer of many a lioliday with the
gun and bag, fell back on his Faldonside recollec-
tions for a name for one of his Judge-Ladylike litter,

236 FIELD AND FERN.

and took care that the bearer of it should be a good
one. Still, if there are now no long-tails, '^The Ark" is
rich in liver-and-white pointers, with beautiful heads,
and a ^^Gordon setter'^ shared the yard with a blue-
mottled '^Culley,'' or a "Belton Blue/' Tame
wild -ducks are tenants in common of the pond with
Aylesburys and Rouens; Lauderdale and speckled
Dorkings seemed to start from every laurel bush at
their master's tread, but the pheasant sort had nearly
died out from the lack of a suitable cross, which Mr.
Milne cannot find. As for the Russian dog with
a three years' clip on him, we shunned, and with
good reason, him and his hole in the wall, and then
set the mare's head westward by Peebles, Biggar,
and Douglas for Ayr.

There was no help for us by rail, even if we had
desired it, as the line only runs to Selkirk. In one
respect it is unique as far as it goes. A woman was
waving the safety-flag at Galashiels, and at Abbots -
ford a woman was station -mistress, and, as a pas-
senger observed, ^^ ringing her bell like anything."

We halted for an hour at " Sweet Bowhill," which
was now under the influence of a nipping frost, to
see Mr. Grant's picture of Williamson on Sam Slick,
with Hannibal, Falstaff*, Dainty and Destiny round him.
A beautiful likeness it is of a loyal, old family ser-
vant, who is painted, by his special desire, raising his
cap for a covert-side salute to his master. He also
figures on a grey in a fast thing, from the same hand,
in which Sir David Baird, Mr. Campbell of Saddell,

TALDONSIDE TO DALGIG. J>67

and other crack Scottish " green collars/' dead and
gone, are all stealing away, and on which the Duke
of Buccleuch and Earl Wemyss can look and renew
their youth. The Inlliard room is quite a Landseer
gallery. Its prints are '^ artist's proofs" in the very
highest sense of the phrase, as Sir Edwin had been
over them with his chalks. It was delightful to trace
his sense of Avhat points the engraver's art had been
unable to reach ; how vigorously he dashed his broad
touches into '^A Distinguished Member of the
Humane Society/' the reaper lass's kerchief, and 07ie
of the interiors with the baby and the keery ; how he
stayed his hand from the hound and terrier troop in
the " Otter Spearing /' and just played with the
ripples and the waterfall in the Otters' Fishing;
how reverently he touched the pall in the " Shep-
herd's Mourner/' and how he just glazed the eye of
the dead standard-bearer and his horse in " War/'
and faintly heightened the smouldering of the
shell.

We had no time to go round by Yarrow, and we
cared less to see it in its wintry garb. Williamson
had told us that he " knew nae mair" about the
country we were going through than he did of Nova
Zembla. W^e did Avell enough as long as we held
on past Newark's Tower, over whose ruined gables
a hawk was hovering; but when we gave up all
thoughts of Yarrow and " still St. Mary's Loch,"
and struck to the right up a bridle road, among
deeply-frozen ruts over Minchmoor to Peebles, it was

238 FIELD AND FERN.

worse than a weary way. Large floes of ice stretclied
across the path, and, mare in hand, we had to chmb
the hill to get round the syke head, and more than
once we were all on our sides together. After this
rough experience of sheep-walk solitudes, it was like
enchantment to look down into a rich vale once more
among woollen manufactories, half-breds, and holly
standards, macadamized roads like iron, and rusty
iron gates, inscribed with 1745, leading np an avenue
to the ancestral grange of the Earls of Traquair, that
breathed of old family portraits and English quarter
sessions. "The shallow brawling Tweed^^ was ice-
bound, and there were hundreds of torch-light
skaters upon it as we cantered past, and fairly groped
our way to Biggar among such shady ways by Stobo
Castle, that the very darkness, as at Belvoir, might
be felt. It lingered, in one sense, at Biggar, as the
landlady, after going into committee with her hus-
band and the waitress on the point, sent up the
latter as a deputation to inquire if the muffins we
had asked for were " a kind of pickle."

We own to a little twinge at having been so near
Ettrick without seeing it ; but the mare had done
her two-and-forty miles as it was, and not even a
winter's tale was to be got out of the spot now that
the " Shepherd" was gone. His old associates speak
of him as a good runner at weddings till he was well
on to middle life, and he certainly acted up to the
spirit of the lines,

•' Nae wooer like the ladclie
Who rows me in liis plaidie,"

FALDONSIDE TO DALGIG. 239

as lie would go thirty miles over the hills when he
was courting. One who knew him well says that
"^^some called him a sloven, and some called him
dressy ; but, at all events, he shaved every day/^ In
his manner he was very familiar with every rank,
and social, though not a drunkard. "^Twixt the
gloamin and the rairkin, when the kye come
hame,^^ was a great song of his, and he gave it with
^remarkable spirit about the Gordon Arms and at
Selkirk festive meetings. At thirty Sir Walter
Scott noticed him, and then Professor Wilson, and
^^he was lionized in London, and never did any
good as shepherd or sheep farmer after/^ A pre-
sent of £100 from Sir Robert Peel, and £50 a
year for giving up his farm of Mount Benger, kept
him from want, and then he lived near the Gordon
Arms, and "just whistled and sang his life away."
Sir John Malcolm presided at the public dinner to
him in London, and he only lived till the next sum-
mer. He was buried in Ettrick churchyard, and
Professor Wilson was at the funeral with two
of his sons, and let down one shoulder into the
grave.

Ettrick Eorest, and its old glories when it was a
hunting station of the kings of Scotland, are a theme
to which his enthusiasm has given an edge. To
Henry Duke of Buccleuch he accorded all the
honour of improving the Forest ; but still, he never
could forgive him for being a catcher of moles, "those
innocent and blessed little pioneers who enrich our

240 FIELD AND TERN.

pastures annually with tlie best top-dressing dug with
great pains and labour from the fattest soil beneath/^^'

* TheBanffghire Journal fm-nishes the following pleasant sketch of "Old
Moley of Nethermmr" : —

"Deceased was the first professional molecatcher that ever practised his
trade north of Aberdeen. Bom in "Westmoreland, he was apprenticed to a
i'e,^ilar molecatcher, who, in the course of his calling, traversed the southern
counties of Scotland, and then penetrated as far north as Forfar. Here
"William Irving (for that was Molej^'s name), impelled by his love of adven-
ture, and a prjring disposition, deserted his master, and determined to start
on his ovn\ account. Journeying north, when near Stonehaven, he got intc>
conversation with, as he supposed, a superior farmer. After a few miles' •*
walk, this person invited him to his house. He proved to be the celebrated
Captain Barclay, then rising into fame. He stopped at Ury a week, and
many a story did he afterwards tell of that memorable \dsit.

" William afterwards turned up at Old Deer, causing a considerable sensa-
tion. His fame reached the ears of the late Mr. Crombie of Phesdo, who sent
for him and appoiuted him molecatcher to the Earl of Aberdeen, which office
he held for forty years. The Earl never passed him when in the grounds of
Haddo House without saying a few words, but they seldom went beyouii
' Well, I see you are there.' Moley had the highest admiration for this good
and distinguished nolaleman.

" Having l^een employed by the Earl, William was soon sought for by the
lairds of the (listrict, far and wide. His abilities in his trade were great ; and
although molecatchers are now mimerous, it is questionable if an equally ex-
pert one could now be found. Few moles could ' trick' him ; but he had
other qualifications, which rendered him not only agreeable, l)ut almost
necessary to them. He was a great antiquarian, and came to acquire an in-
timate knowledge of the famiUes of the proprietors. He was a botanist,
and had an excellent knowledge of the cultm-e of trees. He was a first-rate
marker of game, and in slipping a greyhoimd had not a rival. At the Turrifi'
Com-siug Club Meetings he Avas in his glory. Several of the lairds in the d\:<-
trict neai-ly fought for the possession of Moley on the 12th of August. His
herculean strength enabled him to cany fabulous bags of game any dis-
tance. It was no uncommon thing in those days for the sportsman to walk
ten miles to the moor and the sanae back, with Moley carrjdng twenty brace
of o-rouse and half-a-dozen hares on his back. It is true he swallowed as
much whisky as he could get to assist him on the road.

" WilUam went to Nethermuir in the year 1802, and, as the place suited
him he remained, there ever since. This was his head-quarters, Ijut he was
often months absent, plying his trade far and wide ; but Haddo House, Bruck-
lay, Aberdour House, Pitfour, and Troup, with a rare excursion to Dufi" House
and Gordon Castle, were his principal hamits. Everywhere he was a wel-
come A-isitor to the lairds ; bitt not so to the servants, who sometimes rebelled
en masse against his admission, as he was accustomed to find many flaws in
the establfshment, which he was sm-e to communicate to the astonished
master. Moley was very fond of Gebbie of Troup, the last professional fool iu
the north, and retailed many of his wise sayings.

" Moley is supposed at his death to have been 85 years of age. He retained

FALDONSIDE TO DALGIG. 241

The Duke secured royal rights over the Forest,, and
stocked it with 20,000 blackfaces, which some will
have it came from Fife. It was not until 1785 that
Cheviots crept in. The old shepherds raved against
them in their death-throes, and called them ^^white-
faced shilpit things,^' which had been attended to like
"fine leddies,-'-' and, as the Shepherd adds, "the
blackfaces sought the heights in disdain.''^ They
had to stay there like moody Jupiters till ^60 ; but
that fearful time, added to the barren spring of ^64,
produced a reaction in the higher sheep-walks, and
Lead Hills, the birth-place of Allan Ramsay and the
highest inhabited village in Scotland, had "its ain
again."

In Lanark market, blackfaced ewe hoggs, which
could be had once at from £1 to 25s., have lately
ranged from 28s. to 35s. ; and in the upper parts of
Peebleshire and Lanarkshire the Cheviots have had
to retire. Still, with the exception of Mr. Aitchison^s,
there are hardly any Cheviot wedders in these two
counties. Mr. Denholm, who has a large flock, both
of blackfaces and Cheviots, in the upper ward of
Lanarkshire, has quite given up the idea which many

Ills vigorous faculties of mind to the last g-asp of life. For the last twenty
years he had been a pensioner of Mr, Gordon of Nethermuir, to whom he
bequeathed his album, composed of two large, thick volumes of extracts of
newspapers, containing accounts of the Aberdeen races, murders, executions,
TurriO" coursing meetings, comings of age, aud other remarkable events in
the northern counties since the commencement of this century. It is a most
unique, instructive, and amusing album, though not weU adapted for the
drawing-room table, as its leather covers and soiled pages are nearly black
from tobacco-smoke and peat reek, the combined odour of which not all the
perfumes of Arabia could overwhelm."

2 R

242 FIELD AND FERN.

flockmasters cling to — that the Cheviots are as hardy
when they are well turniped as hoggs. With him the
winter of ^60 did comparatively little damage to the
blackfaces. They can fight their own battle, and do
even better than the hay-fed Cheviots. They work
up the hill and hunt the country fair for their food^
under difficulties ; whereas the Cheviots (which are
straighter behind and not so free in the hock for hill
climbing) will lie at the foot and lose courage in the
snow. The " curly horns" have another advantage,
that they will thrive on high mossy land, whereas the
Cheviots require much lower quarters. If the two are
kept on coarse wild land, four Cheviots eat as much
meat as five blackfaces ; but if the land is superior, as
in Roxburghshire, you cannot increase them to the
same extent. Others, on the contrary, think that,
instead of keeping a score more blackfaces for every
five score of Cheviots, you should read for every fif-
teen score. They will also eat coarse stuff which the
daintier Cheviots won't touch, but the price of wool
and their slower maturity will be always against
them.

A three-year-old Cheviot v/edder will make 36s. or
o7s. by his carcase, and 9s. by his wool; whereas 27s. to
30s., and 4s. 6d. for wool, is all that can be set down
for a blackface. The difference is strikingly seen in
this, that a Cheviot shepherd can get £48 for the
wool and lambs of his 46 ewes on a hirsel of 38 score,
whereas a blackface shepherd can only get £SS.
Again we have the comparison, 23s. for the 24lb. stone

FALDONSIDE TO DALGIG. 243

of blackfaced wool unwashed, and 40s. for Cheviot
washed. Comparing well-fed wedders at three, the
average of blackfaced will be from 15 to 171bs., and
of Cheviots from 17 to 211bs. The blackfaces " grow
like mischieF^ the first year on pasture, and after that
they slacken, but still they are the daintiest morsel
to set before a club, with currant jelly in aid.

The larger-boned ones are always better growers, and
hardier, and flockmasters like them with a long neck
and a short face, if they can get it. The head should
be broad between the eyes, and free from wool ; the
nose full and Eoman, the jaw broad and strong, and
the eyes not too near the root of the horns, which
should be flat and well apart, not too large, and
coming away free from the head. Rams whose horns
grow upwards from the same root invariably get their
lambs with those lumps on the crown, which are so
fatal at lambing time. The horn grows stronger
in deep boggy land, and as, unlike the hart, they
cannot

" Hang their old head on the pale,"

and leave it there each April, some of the heavy-
headed ones grow sadly weary, rest it Hstlessly on a
stone or dyke bank, and are careless about the ewes.
Many have their horns sawn oif at the first bend, or
cut close and fired at the end of the flint, to prevent
them bleeding to death. The roundness at the
root of a horn will often indicate in a tup
lamb that he will get them with soft bloody horus,
which will grow into the head. These bloody horns

2 R 2

244 FIELD AND FERN.

suffer very mueli in cold weather, as they get frosted
to the flint (or bone in the centre of the horn), and
the sheep sink in condition.

Upon the colour of the faces there has been much
diversity of opinion among the learned. Some of the
flockmasters, and the Watsons of Culterallers among
them, liked them very light, under the idea that it
indicated faster feeding and more wool. This point
was so steadily kept in view in choosing rams that
the sprittle-faced began to lose their clear white and
black markings, but now the dark sprittles have
taken the lead again, and seem generally allowed to
be hardier. Dark legs are an essential point, and
no one seems to dispute that; but how to get the
faces light and the legs dark is as hard as the solu-
tion of the riddle v/hich the late Archbishop Whate-
ley propounded and would never divulge :

" When from the ark's capacious round
The world came forth in pairs.
Who was the first to hear the sound
Of boots upon the stairs ?"

The great Cheviot farms are above Ewan foot
Station, and now there are nothing but Cheviots to
Muirkirk, where twenty-five years ago they were all
blackfaces. The Gillespies of Douglas Water began
the Cheviots, and they go on to Glenbuck. Seven
miles from Douglas, the blackfaces take it up again,
and spread over the hills round Carnock, Sanquhar,
and Kirkconnel. In Ayrshire they are chiefly black-
faces, but in the North the Cheviot is creeping in
fast. Erom Abington Station the black-face district

FALDONSIDE TO DALGIG. 245

bends away by Carnwath to the Pentlands_, and
towards the head of Tweed. They still hold the Dal-
melzies and Stanhope hills, but they are gradually
being put out of Nithsdale at the back of the Luther
Hills. About the head of Clyde, at the summit of
the hill from Beattock, the Che\dots have been crossed
in with the blackface for the sake of stamina, till at
the third cross the lambs look full Cheviot, and are
sold as such. The last farm that did it was Crooked
Stane, ten miles above Beattock, and nearly the
highest land in Scotland. It kept to the blackfaced
as long as it could, and then it silently followed in
the wake of the fashion. The first cross has as little
horn as the second, and a third or fourth brings the
colour right ; but still, the grey legs are obstinate,
and the kemp will sometimes linger obstinately
in the wool for years, and "fly away on the machinery
when they try to work it.^^ A great many mules
are bred in Lanarkshire. Dealers bring the rough
Leicester rams direct from Yorkshire, and take back
ewe hogg shots to put to the Leicester there.
The mules bred in the district are sold at four
months for 15s. to 18s., and generally go South.

Coultar parish, and ten miles round it, is the
great centre of the Lanarkshire blackfaces, and
Lanark is their market. The Watsons of Coultar,
Murray of Pentland Hills, Fryer of Knowhead, on
the Campsie Hills, Sandy Denholm of Baitlaws,
Dryfe from the Sanquhar Hills which range between
Ayrshire and Dumfriesshire, Blacklock of Minny Gap,

246 FIELD AND FERN.

and Craig from the heights of Black Craig in Ayrshire
are all there, vying with each other for sweetness and
strength of face, and weight of carcase and wool.
The Cheviots are all sold " bare" south of Falkirk ;
whereas the clad score is always adhered to in the
case of the blackface, which are supposed to be " the
inferior clergy." The breeders made a stand about
twenty years ago, but the buyers checkmated them,
by sending the drum round Lanark to say that none
would be bought except they were double clad, and
the breeders had to put up with the double injustice
that year. Tups are never sold by the clad score,
and on Lanark Muir they seldom get as high as
£20 nett.

The show of tups is in June, and the High-
landers are the best customers, but do not care for
shearlings. They range from £S upwards, but for
the leading sellers jg4 to £5 is about the average.
The Watsons of Culterallers and Watson^ of Nesbitt
are the heads of the profession, and sell some six or
seven score between them. Once they were great
exhibitors, but they have given it up, and Dryfe took
it on, but won principally with tups not bred by him-
self. There are three markets in Lanark annually.

The rough blackfaced ewe hoggs (of which breeders
sell fully half their store) are brought out on June
3rd in their wool, and are bought up by dealers for
crossing in England. At the next market in the

* This name was omitted by mistake from the list of the Highland Society
whmersinp. 89.

FALDONSIDE TO DALGIG. 247

beginning of August nothing conies out but the
wedder lambs, sometimes 10,000 strong. They are
dropped in April, and generally average about £10
the clad score, and go into Forfarshire, Perthshire,
and Argyleshire to be wintered, and sold to the hill
farmers in the spring. They are kept to three years
old, and then come out as " hill sheep'^ at Callow or
Falkirk, at all prices from •'4s. to 24s. At the end
of August, the ewe lambs and the mid (shot) wedder
lambs come out to the number of eight to ten thou-
sand each. The Northumberland and Cumberland
men buy them up, and many go down to Askrigg,
from which Yorkshire supplies itself. Part of the
shot lambs go north, but they are generally win-
tered in the neighbourhood. The ewe lambs are all
wanted for mule dams, and some of the lots will fetch
17s. 6d. There are a few double flocks in Lanark-
shire, and Mr. Denholmhas one of the largest — sixty
score of blackface and fifty score of Cheviots. The
most extensive blackface proprietor is Mr. Lindsay
of Stanhope, Peeblesshire, who has 3,000 ewes and
ewe hoggs, and Mr. Paterson of Eirthwood, in
Lanarkshire is not far behind him.

From Biggar we passed on our way through
Lamington, where the hand of the proprietor, Mr.
Baillie Cochrane, M.P., may be seen in its neat cot-
tages, and a small English cliurch and lich-gate,
which Pugin would not have disdained. The Ayr-
shires began to come thick when we had crossed the
Caledonian line, and *^ Ayr forty miles^^ met our eye.

248 FIELD AND FERN.

near those Douglas sheep-walks for whose cup days
Sunheam, Sea Gull, Patent, and Rebe were not
pupped in vain. It was an exhilarating ride through
the windings of the hills, with ice ponds in deep ravines,
made vocal by the curlers, and then through the iron
country among an infinity of dark sprites wearing
lamps upon their foreheads — in fact, " the roaring
rink'^ by day, and the roaring furnace by night.

People who talk about the Scotch as phlegmatic

would alter their note if they saw them at curling

time. We have no conception of the mysteries of

" chap and lie^^ and " outwick," and all that sort of

thing, but it was grand to see the enthusiasm of the

players of every degree. Corpulent farmers, whom

we couldn^t have believed capable of it, crooked their

lusty knees; and the lads swept the ice frantically

as the smooth grey stone came gliding on towards its

fellows. Inn stables near the favourite ponds were

so full that it was a mercy we could get a stall for our

mare at all. If we passed a cart about 10 a.m., we

generally found it full of the paraphernalia of the

game instead of ordinary farm produce, and stalwart

men and boys strode gaily along every turnpike and

bye-lane with whin brooms of a delicious green under

their arms. At night we heard desperate discussions

on the events of the day, and orations fully ten

minutes long on the glories of some particular rink.

It once seemed strange to see a Yorkshire and a

Lincolnshire breeder of blood stock draw their chairs

close one evening, put their hands on one another's

FALDONSIDE TO DALGIG. 249

knees^ and fight out inch by inch the stud merits of
Stockwell and Orlando ; but the Old Cumnockites
went beyond that. They disregarded their ale and
their toddy, they stood up and held each other by the
coats, and cross-pumped into each other^s sys-
tems their curling observations and criticisms. Al-
most from daybreak telegrams were flying about as
to the state of the ice, and the very farm lads looked
as if they contemplated suicide when the thaw came
softly stealing from the south.

A six-mile ride over the hills from Old Cumnock
brought us to Dalgig, which Ivie Campbell and his
Canaradzo have made so famous both in Scottish and
English leash annals, and our first notions of the
place were gathered from a distant view of Mr.
Campbell and his renowned white, surveying a rink
of curlers. The group on the bank was completed by
a slashing (May 3) son of Canaradzo and Snowdrop
(who died after pupping), a red bitch by him out of
Butterfly by Judge, and a very small white by Daring
from Canopy. They may not, perhaps, like Milton^s
hibbar fiend, have "earned their cream-bowl duly
set '^^ but still the life of saplings at an Ayrshire
dairy farm is a right royal one ; and we found them
invariably curled together, basking in all "their
hairy strength'^ on a rug by the kitchen fire, and
complacently surveying and levying a capital per-
centage on whatever kail and porridge were flying
about. We remember a lady once telling us that
she never could get her servants to treat the foxhound

250 FIELD AND FERN.

puppy with due consideration, till the huntsman
called one day, and asked, in severely important
tones, '^ Do you give that puppy his exercise regu-
larly ?" and that ever after it became the subject of
the deepest respect and solicitude. The bump of
reverence is equally developed among the domestics
at Dalgig.

None of the above three had received a name. There
were many deep searchings of heart, countless brown
studies, and endless dislocation and collocation of
syllables in connexion with the standard initial letter
C, in prospect, before Mr. Campbell would get that
point settled. We have a floating notion that we
found many learned exercises of this nature not
only on the fly-leaves of his books, but on stray enve-
lopes and the margin of old Ayrshire Advertisers.
In fact, his evenings are one series of strenuous phi-
lological wrestles. His coursing friends have often
a joke with him about his taste for nomenclature,
and one of them had the temerity to infringe the
patent, and call his dog " Dalgigaradzo.'^ Some
of them will have it that he keeps a lucky-bag of syl-
lables atDalgig, and draws them out at haphazard; but
luckily there is that telling title, *^Canaradzo,^^ to con-
fute such impious cavillers. One energetic and specu-
lative stranger at the Waterloo had rummaged every
dictionary and gazetteer that he could lay hands on,
and, failing in his search, reverently approached Mr.
Campbell on the ground, and, with a preface
to the effect that " it sounds well,'' begged to be

FALDONSIDE TO DALGIG. 251

informed where it came from^ and what it
meant.

"Excuse me addressing you, sir j but Johnson's Dictio7i-
ary does not hint at such word.'^ "Doesn't it ?'' replied
the proud author of its existence ; " if the dog wins
the Cup to-day, you'll find it in the next edition I^'
And with that the querist subsided into himself.
Still Mr. Campbell seems to think " Coodareena'^
and " Carabradzo" quite as happy inspirations ; and
he has been dreadfully bothered by the way in which
the outer world persisted in pronouncing another pet
name " Ci-ol-og-a/' in strict contravention of the
Dalgig canons. Twice over we were pulled up, and
told that it was Chi-o-Zo-ga; and yet such was the
force of habit that we "went and did it again .^'
Cups and photographs are a great point with Mr.
Campbell. On the piano there stands the goblet
which Coodareena won at Lytham, separated from
her Brownlow cup by one which Canaradzo gained
at Islington last year.

The chimney-piece can also boast of two similar
Canaradzo trophies; one of them the first at Bir-
mingham, and the other the second at Leeds — a de-
cision, by-the-bye, which "no fellah can understand/'
and at which Mr. Randell, who bred the first-prize
dog, and Mr. Nightingale^ as well, raised their hands

* The latter thus speaks of him : " He has the particular point which set-
tles all dispute, in my mind, as to a fast v. a slow greyhoimd, viz., the proper
description of loin. A broad, thick, vulgar loin denotes to a dead certaiaty
the slows, that worst of all complaints in a greyhound. What is wanted ii
a well-developed loin, not heavj', nor too long or weak, but growing finer and
narrower from the middle to the couplings, just as you see it in him."

252 FIELD AND FERN.

in dismay. There^ too, is Mr. Borron^s Ardrossan
Cup, whicli was brought to Dalgig by Highland
Home ; and the Kyle Club Collar, with its wreath of
name-medals, was not long in its sideboard lair. It
is dated 1852, and bears, among other winning names,
those of Brighton, Picton, and Baron Garnock ; and
Calabaroono and Cadazooro, brothers by Cardinal
York out of Canopy, were its joint holders on Mr.
CampbelPs behalf. Their dam, and their grandam
Scotland Yet, hang on the walls; and Canaradzo
and Ciologa join partnership in the slips, with young
Mr. Campbell holding them. We have read in
Becher Ward of "the short, hot glitter of a rat^s
eye," but it is nothing to a bench of sixteen terriers,
whose gaze and grouping the photographer has
managed with wonderful tact. The stuifer^s art has
also been called into requisition for a black-cock and
a squirrel ; and there, too, is the head of a small
Boman-nosed hare, the identical one which was the
humble instrument of deciding the Biggar St. Leger
of 82 dogs, when Hippograif ran up to Condolorado
by Bedlamite out of Swallow.

Dalgig derives its name from Dal-gig, or The vale
with the rise. It seems to be in the middle of a sort
of rough grass moor, which suits Ayrshires, as Mr.
Campbell has a perfect heap of medals to attest the
victories of his bulls Clarendon and Cardigan, and
has twice over beaten the whole county for the best
lot of milch cows. There are plenty of stone fences
and ditches about, and not many hares. The grouse

FALDONSIDE TO DALGIG. 253

and blackcock lead the wliite division many a hard
gallop ; and the smaller trials are sometimes brought
off on a big moss two miles away. Still, when — as
John Wilson alias '' Jock O'Dalgig" the trainer (and
a very quaint little character) expresses it — ''We
want to ken the Watterloo boys; ive tak them eight
miles doon the country, to the BuWs land at Kirk-
connel or Dahnellingto7i.'' The hounds have only
once come that way, and John almost speaks under
his breath to this day, when he tells how he had just
time to couple up his charges before they threw up,
scarcely three hundred yards from him, and his deep
thankfulness that his kennel was not eaten up bodily
that day. Not a man was within miles of them, and
when they had discovered and discussed two dead
calves which had been thrown into a pit, they con-
centrated their attention on a cade lamb, which had
been left in a shepherd^s plaid, and it soon departed
to the Happy Pastures. Cox, huntsman, had re-
turned to Eglinton Castle without his pack, and a
teleo-ram next mornin£r informed him of their where-
abouts, and requested his immediate presence, as no
one cared to go near such cannibals when they were
once coaxed into a stable.

So much for the local traditions of Dalgig, where
Mr. Campbell was born shortly before the present
century. Strange to say, he cared no more for a
greyhound than he did for an opposum until 1849,
and he never attended a public meeting until what
racing men still fondly call " Voltigeur^s year.^^ He

254 FIELD AND FERN.

then began at some private coursing days for half-
crown stakes with Dido, and inflamed his ardour
considerably by beating Wigan at Kirkconnel.

This future stud hero was bred at Bank House,
near New Cumnock. Mr. Pagan had him as a pre-
sent from Mr. Heslop, and not caring for the respon-
sibility, and being deeply impressed by the Dido de-
feat, he arranged with Mr. Campbell to become his
confederate. It was settled that they were to share
the expenses and winnings, and that Jock (a Wig-
townshire man who used to lead the prize-bulls to
the ground, and helps still with the cows), aided by
Mr. Ivie Campbell, junior, were to combine their
forces, and train the brindled-and-white, who was
then in his second season^ and generally ran at
63 lbs. He was a sweet-tempered dog, but his two
preceptors had rather a tough job getting him fit.
When they did, he won the Douglas Cup twice in
succession at Biggar. As time went on, Mr. Green-
shield^s Veto (by Marquis of Douglases Dux out of
Tileside lass) arrived to Wigan, and Mr. Campbell
stipulated for two pups as the price of the wooing.
They were suckled and sent in due course; the dog
puppy turned out a complete idiot, and was handed
over to a local Calcraft, and the bitch was neither
more nor less than Scotland Yet, that kernel of all
Mr. Campbell's fame. Wigan just won £80 a-piece
for the confederates, and was sold some time after
for " a pony,'^ to a gentleman over the Border. He
left another great Scottish pledge behind him in

FALDONSIDE TO DALGIG. 255

King Lear^ the winner of the first 64-dog Waterloo
Cup.

Jockos principal comments on Scotland Yet seem
to be confined to an entry on our notes, that " she
ivas varrafast and of a varr a jumping sort ; Ah ! she
ivas a grand bitch,'' In the slips she looked one net-
work of veins, and all her litters have inherited her
beautiful skin. She was beaten in her first course at
Biggar, but she afterwards ran up in a 64-dog stake at
the Caledonian meeting, to Mr. John Jardine's Baron,
and won the Caledonian Cup ; and she seemed to
excite quite a furore among the Scottish division,
when she did so well at the Waterloo of ^54. We
were not there the next j^ear, when she ran up to
Judge for the cup, but Mr. Campbell still declares
that it was "Noe course avar,^' as the hare only-
weighed 4 lbs. Mr. Nightingale says of this course :
" She killed her hare too soon. Judge went a tre-
mendous pace, and went round and turned his hare
to the bitch, who killed before she could get into
good solid work, which was her great forte.^^ Bar-
ring her colour, which was pure white, she was to
Mr. CampbelPs eye more like her daughter Cooda-
reena than anything he has had in his kennel. Her
light was nearly quenched before she became a
brood bitch : as she was seized with dropsy or some
such ailment, and became such a swollen object about
the head more especially, that she was within an ace
of being put away like her brother. However, Mr.
Campbell tucked up his sleeves, and summoning the

256 FIELD AND FERX.

whole strengtli of the establishment, placed her three
or four times a day in a warm bath, and swathed her
in flannel so effectually, that he gradually brought
her round. Ranter by Bedlamite was her first love ;
but the puppies, nearly all of which were black, came
at a bad season of the year, and were wrong in their
legs as well. In short, none of them ever gained any
note of admiration or even an entry in *^^Stone-
lienge's" Coursing Calendar. She had another trial
of the Bedlamite cross through Jacobite, but except
Mr. Begbie's Blitz (who ran up to Canaradzo in a
32-dog stake at the Caledonian Meeting), they all
died as puppies. The blue strain of Bugle Avas tried
next; Mr. Marfleefs Beacon, who had just been
purchased from Mr. Borron for 60 gs., was chosen as
her consort; and Canaradzo, Crested Locbiel, Caz-
zarina. Canopy, and Harvest Home formed that
memorable litter.

Canaradzo was always the best looking of the lot,
but Crested Lochiel had the most bone. Respecting-
the merits of these two brothers. Jack spake thus :
'^Crested Lochiel was about a neck the faster of the
twa, but Canaradzo always wrought the inside of
him.^^ The former was a very game dog, and a
rare fencer, but unfortunately in his third course for
the Caledonian St. Leger, he spiked himself striking
at his hare, between the breast and the shoulder, and
wrenching himself loose with a great effort, killed
the hare after all, and lay down ruined for life.
Canopy was very fast, but not so close in her work

FALDONSIDE TO DALGIG. 257

as some of the rest. She divided the Caledonian St.
Leger with Mr. Ewing^s Lucknow^ an eight-dog stake
at Biggar^ with Cazzarina, and a stake at Southport
with Mr. Jones's Jeopardy, but never won anything
outright. She was also second at the Birmingham
Show, and has had three litters of puppies. Cam-ye-
-by Athol was one of her first litter of young Jacobites,
of which Mr. Campbell presented one to Lord Eglin-
ton. Cadazooro and Calabaroono (which the papers
would persist in calling Calabaroono) are the cracks
of her second litter; the saplings are by her first
cousin Daring, " a nice little dog/^ who is making his
way at the stud, and she is about to visit Cardinal
York again. We may note that Cam-ye-by- Athol
was sold for £80 before he was ever slipped at a hare,
to Mr. Johnstone, who changed his name, without
applying to any privy council, into Jock of Dalgig.
This compliment Jock felt deeply, but alas ! his
namesake died soon after winning the North Lan-
cashire Stakes at the Pddgway Club — in a wire fence
near Blackburn. Cazzarina was sold for £dO to Mr.
Gibson, after winning a Caledonian and a Clifton
Cup, besides running up for the latter to Sea E,ock,
and is the dam of Gunboat by Jacobite.

But we must hark back to Scotland Yet. Nothing-
came of her Condolorado litter of whites and blacks,
which arrived on the New Yearns morning of ^59, and
Mr. Campbell was in a mood to realize when the
second Beacon litter were ready for action. Sea
Pink, late " Coorareena," and Sea Foam, late "Co-

258 FIELD AND FERN.

looxardo'^ (a very clierished combination of syllables
in Mr. CampbelFs eyes), produced c€100 and £120
respectively. Then there was Coorooran ^50, and
Ciologa £85, or £355 for one litter, and one of them
with a broken leg ! Coursers shrugged their shoulders
when Mr. Campbell stuck to it that he had a better
at Home than either Sea Pink or Sea Foam, which
he sold to Mr. Spinks after they had been defeated at
Biggar, and had divided two Puppy Stakes at Aber-
gele. It was, however, a true bill, and unbelievers
began to think so when they saw Ciologa win the
Vernon Cup and gold watch, and her brother, Coo-
rooran, the sole companion of her journey from Dal-
gig to Derbyshire, follow suit with the Sudbury
Stakes as well. Of course she was jealously kept for
the Waterloo Cup, and Mr. Spinks offered £200 in
vain. Three hundred would not have tempted '^old
Dalgig^' to forego what he considered an all but
Waterloo certainty, after seeing her beat Coorooran
in a trial. She was very smooth in her style, and
almost as great a favourite with Mr. Warwick as
Kiot was with Mr. M*^George.

The Beacon litter No. 3 included Dixie, who was
presented to Mr. Dun] op, and won the Biggar St.
Leger, and Great Gun (both of them brindles),
Caroola, Jessie the Flower of Dunblane, Coodareena,
and Carabradzo (another composition triumph). Ca-
roola, a white with blue spots, had quite a tragical
end, as she broke her neck in her Waterloo trial
course over Kirkconnel^ where she had shown herself

FALDONSIDE TO DALGIG. 259

a trifle faster than Coodareena. It was a sad sight
for Jock and his master, as she lay with the hare
beside her, her eyeballs starting out of her head,
and her mouth full of grass. There were still a fourth
and a fifth litter by Beacon from the old bitch, who
never trusted her progeny to wet nurses. The first
was a very early one, and out of it nothing, save
Mr. Gibson^s Ivy, and Jeannie's Bawbee (sold for
£45 at five months), were worth their keep ; and the
last pupping scene of all culminated in a heap of five
dead ones. The old matron was a perfect wreck,
and soon after that she was put away, and buried
honourably in the garden ; and a veterinary surgeon
in Kilmarnock, stimulated by the account of the
Eclipse and Elcho skeletons, begged Mr. Campbell
for her bones in vain.

Canaradzo had not seen a hare for two seasons
past ; but he was quite emancipated, to the immense
improvement of his temper, from kennel control, and
seemed " always watching to get ben,'^ and specially
improving his opportunities at meal times. He is a
beautiful dog, especially in his ribs and the outline
of his back, and with his tail set on so well, A din-
ner, but more especially tea and toddy, derive an
additional zest, when you have a Waterloo Cup win-
ner stretched on the hearth-rug,^ dreaming of Will
Warner and the hares. He vv^ent by the name of
"Rector^^ but not a soul in the house could tell "the
reason why.^^ April 12th, 1858, was his birthday, and
his maiden essay was dividing the Biggar St. Leger

2 s 2

260 FIELD AND FERN.

witli Lord Jolin Scott's Terrona ; but after that, the
hard ground at Abergele, where he was second to Tipsy
Cake, gave him a dressing which he did not forget in a
hurry. Then he won the Western (32-dog) Stakes
at the Caledonian Club Meeting, and made his
score up to £220 before he went for the Waterloo of
*61. Mr. Campbell would have sold him for £150,
after he won his two courses ; but Mr. Ran-
dell would not give more than £100 at first. Still,
but for some telegraphic bungle, they might not im-
probably have come to terms. He ran rather wild
in his first Waterloo course with Gilbert, and had
the first turn given against him ; but Mr. Nightin-
ga,le, who was on the ground, marked his style with
Faldonside, and assured his friends pretty decisively
that they must take no liberties with him. Faldon-
side, Bude Light (the most teasing opponent he had).
Seventy Pounder, and Ingomar, all met him in turn,
and he finally disposed of Sea Rock, and got through
his six trials without one ^^ No go." He was
a patient dog in the slips, always carrying his tail up,
and never straining till the game was fairly before
him.

At home he was never led to his hare except by Cio-
loga ; and although he had virtually retired, and some
litters were becoming due, he was obliged to come
out and do battle again, when she broke her leg a
fortnight before the Waterloo on the sands at South-
port. He beat Coorooran in an Altcar trial, and did
the same for Sea Pink and Jetsam, both favourites, in

FALDONSIDE TO DALGIG. 26i

his two first Waterloo courses. "Wliat with Sea Rock
one year and Sea Pink the next^ he was quite a thorn
in Mr. Spinks^s side ; and Jock lays it down as un-
doubted law, that his defeat of Sea Pink, after his
stud service, was the best thing he ever did. King-
water led him in his last "Waterloo course, and both
stumbled on the plough ; and Kingwater not recover-
ing himself so quickly, Canaradzo jumped over him,
and killed his hare. He had one more course at
home, and that was with Colossal, who jumped
against a peat hag and killed himself, and got con-
founded by the newspapers with Canaradzo in his
death. Pace and smoothness, as well as great clever-
ness with his teeth, were all combined in him. He
begot some puppies the season he won the Waterloo,
as Camden Town was sent to him in pursuance of
an ofi'-hand promise; but the produce — Canopy^s
Niece, &c. — proved no great wonders. In his first
regular season he began rather late, but he had fifteen
winners, and so far he may be credited with forty to
fifty winners and runners-up, with a winner and a
runner-up for the Waterloo among them. During
his running and stud career, he brought about
jB1,500 to his owner, and he became Mr. Knowles^s
this spring for another £100.

The Scottish National, the Co^quetdale, the Eidg-
way Club, the Waterloo, and the Sudbury were Mr.
CampbelPs coursing grounds, so that Jock was on cir-
cuit nine times a year. He has only been twice to
Ireland, but was in great force with Coodareena and

262 FIELD AND FERN.

Calabaroono when he did go. Abergele is quite out
of favour with both master and man, and the latter
observed that '^ its stubble and grass are as hard a&
the frost is now." Since he won the two best stakes at
the Scottish National with Canaradzo and Cazzarina_y
in their first season, Jock has had a leaning towards
Biggar, but regrets its relentless hills. He likes
Southport quite as well as " that level mossy kind of
spot," Lytham, which is ^^ too heavj^ ground for
Ciiardona." He thinks it has far better hares than
Altcar, but against the sloping sides of its ditches he
decidedly ^jrotests. As for Sudbury, " it is all grass
— sort of meadow — well enough ; but I don^t like
them big hedges, theyVe no fit to loup, and its hard
to get through ^em."

Such were the preliminary commentaries of little
'^ Jock o'Dalgig," as we sat with him and Mr. Camp-
bell in the bothy, which is turned into a kennel. A
splendid fire blazed there night and day ; and if we
looked in at the window when Jock was off with the
key, we might occasionally see the whole clan of
Scotland Yet sitting or lying gravely round it, and
holding a far more peaceful communion than any
common council, London or provincial. The bis-
cuits were in a rack above their heads, the muzzles
and brushes formed a bristling array, and the
"canopy" idea "wa'. carried out by the graceful tres-
ses of the sheets. The bitch of that ilk was at Mr-
Campbell junior's house, about a mile distant at
Craigman, with two other matrons. Miss Julia by

FALDONSIDE TO DALGIG. 263

Judge^ and Highland Home. Farther away across
the hills at Knock Dunder, were two saplings
one (of Jan. 25) by Canaradzo from Di Vernon
and another by Canaradzo from Annoyance, a bitch
which won a 32-dog stake at Bridekirk. This brought
the whole strength of the stud up to about seventeen*
Eight were on the benches in the bothy kennel ; and
while the wind whistled shrill outside,, Jock called
them up one by one in that cozy little shop, and
fought his battles over again, as he showed their
muscle.

*'They are all good-tempered," he observes, "ex-
cept to collies and terriers, and they can't abear the
sight of them; and what's better still, they're all
winners or runners-up." Two brothers who divided
the North Lancashire Stakes, at Lytham, lay on the
nearest bench, and had precedence in his call.
" //ere, Tom /" he began, and doAvn jumped Cada-
zooro, by Cardinal York, out of Canopy, a black and
white dog, with a grey face, and a slight family
resemblance to his uncle Picton. Then it was a case
of " Come on, Macclujf !" and down came the blacky
with white toes, Calabaroono, at that inspiring kennel
call. He is not such a worker, but has rather more
pace, and was drawn, after an injury in a severe bye,
for the great Scottish National St. Leger. Still, if
he only got third honours, Skedaddler, by Canaradzo,
was the right dog in the right place ; and j\Ir. Camp-
bell found much comfort accordingly. On the fourth
day of that meeting, 15 out of 91 were left in, and

264 FIELD AND FERN.

7 of them were in Jockos lot, which was only 8 strong
to begin with. The cry, "Mirth, come Mirth!" was
promptly responded to by Coodareena, and her owner
embraced her on the spot. This "little blue gir?'
has great length from the stifle to the hock, and with
plenty of pace and working power, and it was quite
evident that Mr. Campbell thought of standing upon
her again for the Waterloo, as he did this year, and
won three courses. "Bugle /" brought down, as in
duty bound, a blue in the shape of the flashy-looking,
handsome Carabradzo, who divided the Douglas Cup
with her and Gilderoy.

Like his sister, he has lots of drive " always waving
them forward,'^ as Jock puts it. He runs at 701bs.,
and is " far war to keep down than ony yen of the
lot/^ A little black spot on the near cheek was the
only mark on the white " Snov\'," or " Cararando,^^
who headed the Canaradzo quartet. He is out of
Young Camarine by Jardine^s Baron, and depended
more on working than pace for his victories at
Coquetdale and the Scottish National. His own sister,
called by Mr. Campbell, ^'Calmaroona/'' and ^'^getting
nought but ^ Fly^ from Jock,^' was a sweet-looking
and fast, but rather unfortunate bitch, and got un-
sighted in her first Waterloo course. " Venus,^'
alias " Ciorardeena/^ out of Resolute, a daughter of
Kestless, and fourth at the Scottish National, had
gone on improving. She was '' beaten early on by
Tom, and yen we put away,^^ and they thought her
slow till she ran up v/ith Silver Rays at Lytham, and

FALDONSIDE TO DALGIG. 265

then they quite clianged tlieir minds. She was a nice
bitchy but there should have been a transfer of names
between her and " Veto/' or '' Cliardona/^ in order
to render them strict poetical justice. This daughter
of Avalanche, a Welsh bitch, was quite the beauty of
the kennel. She had never run badly yet, and she
got first turn from Silver Rays at Southport (where
she was third for the Bitch Puppy Stakes) and di-
vided a stake at Sudbury, with Mr. Steel's Schweppe.

There have been great changes since then. Calaba-
roono won a Waterloo Purse and the Brownlow Cup,
and was sold to the late Lord Uffington for c€200, who
won the Sundorne Cup with him, and had the morti-
fication of seeing him put out in his first tie for the
Waterloo. He was always a very beefy difficult dog-
to train, and from this cause he had been beaten in
Mr. Campbell's hands for his first Cup course the
year before. Cadazooro has also gone, and in fact
only Coodareena and some puppies remain.

Mr. Campbell has other specialities besides grey-
hounds, and his herd are well known through
Ayrshire. Cardigan, his best bull, won about JlOO
in Highland Society and other prizes, and that sum
was refused from Sir James Ferguson, M.P., who
wished to take him to Paris. Many medals, one of
them a <£10 gold one for the reclamation of waste
land, and a silver one twice over for the best stock
on the Marquis of Bute's estate, under Sir James
Stuart's guardianship, when nearly a hundred stocks
were shown, have also come to Dalgig. Cardigan

266 FIELD AND FERN.

was bred by Mr. Parker of Broomlands who has
a very celebrated winning stock, and most of the
cows are by Clarendon, a half-brother of Cardi-
gan on the sire's side, who was first at Glasgow.
But it is difficult to regard a man from two distinct
points of view, and we like best to think of " Dalgig"
as we are wont to see him on that glorious da}^

" When north of Tweed and south of Tweed
Jom hands at Waterloo,"

with a quaint good-humoured repartee ever ready
for those friends who will crack a joke over him, and
leaning on his gnarled and polished black oak staff
the while, as he scans the style of his cherished
Canaradzoes.

DALGIG TO AYR.

" Through Camwath he bounded fast.
By Douglas ]Mill rode he ;
But weary, weary was the steed
AVheu he passed Ochiltree."

Scott.

Ayr — Cow Districts — Rearing, and Points of Ayrshire Cows — Colours —
Vessel — Beef — Milking — Show Dodges — Ayr Milking Prize — Bowers
Cheese-making — Dunlop and Cheddar — Mrs. Jane Dunlop — English
Piu'chasers of Ayrshires.

THAAV had followed frost-, to the dire confusion of
the curling interest, and then a frost had set in
again. There was nothing for it but to get np in the
dark at 5 a.m., to encounter the blast furnaces once
more, and skate pretty nearly all the way on horse-
back between Dalgig and Ayr. This cheese capitol
of Scotland looks quite a pleasant city of the plain,
with its steeples, cupolas, and towers. The Wallace
Memorial " contrives a double debt to pay," and
has a dram shop below, and in the hostel, where
Tam O'Shanter met Souter Johnnie, the green-
moulded thatch has not yielded to slate. Our fur-
ther Burns' homage consisted not only in walking
by the sea-side, and home by the monument, but
took the more practical turn at night, of looking hiia.

288 FIELD AND FERN.

through from end to end for mottoes, and feeling
most thankful for " Ca^ the yowes to the knowes.-'^

The " Puir Mallies'^ have been silently encroaching
on the county. South of Carrick, especially, the
Galloways have had to yield to the sprittle-faces,
and " Galloway for ^oo" becomes a truer saying than
ever. On the subject of the best cow districts there
is much diversity of thought ; and some will have
it that Cunningham, Cumnock, Dunlop, and Kil-
birnie rank highest. "It^s a Kilbirnie cow^^ is a
passport at once ; but still, many lean to the notion
that the best are to be found between Kilmarnock
and Paisley, Largs, and Kilmalcolm, and West down
Clyde on the Mearns.

A calf sucking would spoil the county theory as
to the shape of the " vessel,^' and hence all calves,
however promising, are pail-fed. The great majority
scarcely ever touch new milk after the first six
weeks, and then get a very scanty allowance of skim
milk or hay gruel for six weeks more. They are, in
fact, " dragged up^^ rather than reared to queyhood,
and are put on a rough damp bite at six months.
This treatment keeps the horn fine and the paunch
big, whereas sweet feeding would do precisely the
opposite. At six months their value will be about
j82, and at fourteen months they seldom fetch more
than £^ lOs. to o€5, as no estimate can be formed of
their future milking properties until they are two
years old, and therefore a buyer would work in the
dark. Some few are put to the bull at fifteen months.

DALGIG TO AYR. 269

to the infinite detriment of their size. From the
middle of June to the end of August, in their third
year, is the best time, and during the winter they
are gradually brought into the byre. Twins with
them are of rare occurrence, which their hard bringing
up may in some measure account for. Many of these
" tidy queys^' in-calf are sold off grass in October or
November to English commissioners, for £J7 to ^12, at
Kilmaurs, near Kilmarnock, at the beginning of No-
vember. The cows are in " the right tid ye ken''^ a
fortnight before calving, or two weeks after ; and the
bloom is fairly off them at the end of July, unless
they are fed very highly. They are on the grass^
from ]\iay to November, but after they calve they
get bean-meal, and boiled chaff' and light corn for a
time. Their most general winter diet is bran and
bean-meal, cabbages and early turnips, and steamed
swedes wdth chaff and cut hay.

They should be short in the head, wide arid free in
the jowl, broad in the forehead, with a large full, gentle
eye, totally free from a Eoman nose, and with a
tapering expressive muzzle. Many dislike the hair
to be shaded off with tan up to the nose, from a be-
lief that it betokens a wild, roving disposition, which
will operate against the milk-pail in both ways; and
a yellow muzzle is all the fashion. If possible, the
head should be set on with a slight arch, the neck
should be light, and the ear large and fringed. The
horn should neither be heavy nor sappy, nor have the
sweep of the West Highlander (who is said to have

270 FIELD AND FERN.

ferouglit in the action and broad forehead^ centuries
back), but should come away from the head at firsthand
then go upwards with a gentle rise. If it is an enam-
elled white, it is liked much better than the waxy.
Well-laid shoulders are always a very great point,
and a cow should be thin through the heart, with
a nice straight top line to keep her plates up.
Light bone below the knee and hock is another great
essential, and so is a good flank curtain to the vessel.
A curl along the edge of the belly is a capital sign
for milk, and the tail should be as "thin as a
rat^s,^^ with a nice brush at the end of it. As a gene-
ral thing, they have not enough hair, and those that
carry it are quite the hardiest. Too fine feeding is
always found to spoil the pile. Whites (of which Mr.
Ivie Campbell had once some very good ones) are
not generally popular, and the shorthorn love of roans
has no place here. The breeders like best to see
them dropped dark red, flecked with white, and dark
brown, provided they have no tan muzzle, as they
are then sure of a good sale.

Ayrshire is always *^a colour market.^^ The Here-
ford or brocky-faced ones are the remains of an old
Ayrshire breed (in Dunlop, Dairy, and Kilbirnie),
and they are always mellow handlers and very
good milkers, but generally with crummy horns.
Blacks are rare, and at a premium when they can be
got ; and the blues and whites, which are rather liked
in some parts, carry a peculiarly short tail as their
€rest. Mr. Craig of Polquaise was celebrated for

DALGIG TO AYR. 271

them, and his herd dates from Jock the Laird. Mr.
Greenshields of West Inn, near Douglas, goes a good
deal for white with blue spots, and finds them very
excellent milkers. The light fawns, with a pure-white
nose and light about the eyes, are not such milkers ;
but, after all said and done about colours, it is the
orange skin and the orange tint at the root of the
tail which betoken butter and cream. An eminent
dealer assures us that he has knoAvn ^^crummies'^ give
12 lbs. and 14 lbs. of butter per week of 16oz. to the
pound, and that thirty-six cows near Maybole once
produced .€14 a head, not to the bower but to the
owner, who sold the milk to go to Glasgow. There
must have been no weed or blind pap there.

The teats, to satisfy the mathematical eye of fanciers,
should be at distances of one third of the vessel on
the side, and of half the vessel across. The vessel
should be oblong, with plenty of loose skin hanging
straight down, flat at the bottom, and extending well
below, so as to draw sustenance from the very belly,
and to keep its shape with age. The orthodox shape
of the vessel and teats is propagated in the tribes, and
in one respect the Ayrshire men may be said to
'^milk the buU,"^ as they look most jealously to his false
teats that they be small and round and well
apart before they use him. Both bull and cow, to
ensure a milking tribe, should have large veins along
the belly ; but there is no milking creed of thirty-
three articles like the Guernsey, extending to the
direction which the feather should take on the twist

272 FIELD AND FERN.

and vessel. To constitute a first-class vessel, the teats
should also be no bigger than a good large thimble.
Still, very often, perfectly-formed vessels are by no
means the best for milk, and many a cow who would
have won on every point would have failed if the actual
pail test had been applied. Still, the fashion is as
rigorous as ever in public, though nearly every one
jeers at it in private.

The English buyers never care for an orthodox
vessel, but like a bad one with large teats, to prevent
the dairymaids or milkers from grumbling, and to
ensure more careful stripping. An Ayrshire lassie
would think it treason to murmur, and gradually she
gets into the habit of squeezing it with her fingers,
and merely working from the elbow. In England,
it is drawing with hand and shoulder, up and down,
like a peal of marriage bells. There is a good deal
of music in the more quiet Scottish elbow mode, and
we were amazingly amused once, when a narrator —
who seemed quite to agree with the lines that

"Lads on lasses love to call.
And lasses whiles are kiming" —

broke out over his toddy : ^'When I was a young man,
I've seen me dance to it like playmg the 'piaiio, if I fancied
the dairymaid." Later in the evening he warmed to
his subject, and said : " / could have married her for
nothing else than her milkhigj' Of course, we felt
bound to put more milk into our whisky (we never
could take it with water, hot or cold), and to assure
him that it was a most laudable sentiment. The cows

DALGIG TO AYR. 273

also repay a gentle dairymaid "vvitli their love, as tliey
sometimes answer to their names, and we have seen
them follow and fawn upon her, just like dogs, in a
field.

In warm weather there is more cheese from the
milk, but the cream does not come up so well. One
cow will generally make about 10 stone of 241bs. •
but if forced with 2 or 3 lbs. of bean-meal, even on
grass she will go as high as 13 stone. About Kil-
marnock they give this stimulant all the season, after
milking in a little whey. In very rare instances,
when she has been " milkit to the bone^^ on bran
and bean-meal, a cow has gone as high as thirty
quarts a day, three weeks after calving. A heifer
can be got as high as eight to twelve quarts with her
first calf j still she is not in the sv-ing of her milk till
she has had a third or, fourth calf, and all good
managers contrive to have her at least six weeks or
two months dry.

If the vessel slips avray, the system is evidently
failing, and the milk becomes poorer. They will last
up till eight or nine, and we have known them to go
on to fifteen and upwards, if they do not take a weed in
one of their quarters (of which cold shivering is one
of the first indications), as very few people will work
a cow with three teats. Mr. Harvey of Glasgow
generally buys cows at six years old and upwards, as
they stand the byre confinement better.* The im-

* The following details of this leviathan daii-y have recently appeared in
the Agricultural Gazette : — " There are several Glasgow distilleries, Mr.
Harvey's among the number, and the spent malt (draff) and spent liquor

2t

274 FIELD AND TERN.

pression at a distance is that they will not feed;
but the prettiest sight that ever loomed on us on a
Scottish road, was a barren heifer of the breed, fed as
level as a pea-pod, and beef to the very cheek. We
were almost sorry afterwards that we had seen her,
as it made it so very difficult to shake off a notion of
beef points in Ayrshire, and stick to the purely milk
ones. But it is nearly the same with all English-
men, until you get a Colly Hill and an Airblaes well
into your eye, and then you will not often find their
marrow in Ayrshires. In fact, you do not see many
crack things among the Ayrshire breeders, as the
fancy buyers always know what is going on in the

of the stills (pot-ale) are good cow food. There has thus gradually grown
up in this locaUty under Mr. Harvey's energetic management, one of the
largest dairies in the kmgdom— probably in the world. Cow byres some
56 yards long, and from 12 to 24 feet wide, according as one or two rows of
cows are to be accommodated, stand closely packed, the whole surface of
the ground being thus covered by a roof; and from 900 to 1,000 cows are
pretty constantly in milk. They are fed during Avinter partly on steamed
turnips, seven tons being steamed in order to give one meal daily to 900
cows ; also on coarse hay, of which, as of straw, they get between 20 and
301bs. a day apiece ; also on draff, of which they receive half a bushel daily
each ; also on Indian Corn-meal, of which they have 31bs. daily each ; also
on pot-ale, of which they receive three times a day nearly as much as they
will take, from about 6 to 10 gallons daily. During the summer they are
let out, a byreful at a time, for half a day to grass, and come in to receive
their spent malt and still liquor, and hay in addition. They are managed,
cleaned, and fed by two men to a byre holding about a hundred cows ; the
milking is done three times a day, by women who take charge of 13 cows in
full milk, or double that number in half-milk, apiece. Between four and
five o'clock (taking the whiter management) the bj-res are cleaned out, and
the cows receive a "big shovelfid" of draff a-piece, and half their steamed
turnips and meal, and a " half-stoupful," probably 2 gallons, of pot-ale.
They are also milked thus early. At 7 they receive their fodder straw or
hay. At 10 they get a '• full stoupful" (probably 3 or 4 gallons) of pot-ale.
They are milked at noon. At 2 iJ.m., or thereabouts, they are foddered
again, and at 4 p.m. receive the same food as at the morning meal. They
are again milked at 5 to 6, cleaned out and left till morning. The average
produce is stated to be 2 gallons a day over the whole herd."

DALGIG TO AYR. - 275

herdS; and swoop down like vultures, with cheques
from 50 to 120 gs., or more, if a crack is heard of.
It is a very great thing to have this fancy demand,
as there is always a sufficiency of good blood left,
and it serves to stimulate private energy, and keeps
the breed well up before the world.

If a ballock has been forced well on with bean-
meal and bran or cake, it will fetch as much as £15
at two years old, and about two-thirds of that sum if
only oil grass. Aberdeen feeds Ayr, as the county
roasting pieces are not large enough, and the Ayr-
shire bullocks and heifers go to Edinburgh, where
their beef is popular at the first-class tables.
Bullocks rising five have been sold there as high as
j£30. A heifer is easiest to feed off after her first
calf, and 28 stone of 241bs. is very good for a dairy
cow. Some dealers make a trade of buying up these
'' furrow cows,^^ keeping them for four or five months,
and selling them by roup at the end of the time. The
bull-calves from common cows are killed soon after
their birth, and when the rennet has been taken out
for cheese, the carcase is scuffed with straw and packed
off to Glasgow and Edinburgh for 7s. or 8s., to some
of the beef-pie men. A well-fed bull-calf should get
his four quarts of new milk morning and evening
for three months. They are scarcely ever used as
yearlings.

The show dodges of the Ayrshire men are inex-
haustible, and not unattended with danger, as one
man in his last twenty-four hours of a "strong prepara-

2 T 2

276 * FIELD AND FERN.

tion^^ fairly burst his bull. A great deal depends upon
the jockeying during that time. A cow is generally
kept sharp set till four or five hours before the show.
If she had been on too fine food, her paunch would
be drawn up, and the vessel would lean forward, and
the teats not in position ; whereas if the paunch it^
gradually filled in these few last hours, first by giving
her common food, and then by coaxing her into
quantity by bettering it at every supply, she is filled
to repletion, and the vessel hangs taut and square.
She often gets her pound of salt at night, and be-
tween the two agencies she should be turned out
qiiite the thing in the morniug. Cows are also kept
well up to " tid" during the show season with gruel
made of linseed-meal, oat-meal, and flour, diluted
with their own milk, and sometimes as much as 31bs.
of treacle in it. The shape of the vessel is also as
carefully looked to and adjusted as the Spanish cock's
comb, which was, w^liile the fashion set that way,
kept up in pasteboard splints, till just before going
into Bingley Hall. A board is put beloAV the vessel
with holes for the teats, and tied with strings round
the cow's back, so as to keep it in position, and the
vessel is laved with cold water all night, to make it fiat
and contracted and give it consistency.

They are also washed over v.'ith butter-milk, and
the finer lights put in with soap and gum. Sometimes
the cow barbers use butter-milk for the legs, and take
to hair-oil, and the horns are rubbed with charcoal or
hawthorn ashes, in accordance with an old supersti-

DALGIG TO AYR. 277

tion. In short, the day and night before the show
are in many instances quite as important as an artistes
glazing-day at the Royal Academy. The judges are
all well up to " the little game/^ which extends to
scraping rams^ horns almost to the quick, and then
japanning them, and is on all -fours with that artistic
clipping to hide weak points, against which old Val^
Barford, K.C.B. (Kuight of the Clipping Board)
struggled so long, till the Royal English Society
issued its ukase.

Ayr begins the show season on the last Friday of
April,, and brings many bull buyers from Dumfries
and some Lancashire and London men to look up
queys. Then follow L^vine on the first Tuesday in
May, and Kihnarnock, Mauchline, and Maryhill, all
in May. There is another Maryhill in November,
imd with June come Tarbolton, at which there is a
good display of bulls and late-calving cows, and also
East Kilbride, near Glasgow, vvdth its great trio of
prizes for the best Ayrshire cow in-milk, aged bull,
and farm mare. In 1860-61 the late Duke of Athole
gave a cow-in-milk prize at Ayr, and photography
has preserved the scene. The average result of the
milkings was as follows :

Mr. Wallace's Glengall, 261b. 5|oz Agnes Wyllie 1

Mr. Reed's Cherry, 24J13. 7oz Janec M'Mainter li

Mr. J. Hendrie's Bell, 221b. lOoz ^ Kate M'Kail 3

Mr. A. Hendrie's Ochiltree, 221b. loz ? Charlotte Himter 4

Mr. A. Hendrie's Lily, 221b Eliza M'Craith 5

The dresses were a sudden thought of the Duke^s

* Called " Bob" by mistake at p. 112.

278 FIELD AND FERX.

the night before, and were all made under Mrs.
Andrew Hendrie^s superintendence, and each of the
five lassies, when they were called in to don them,
received half-a-sovereign from his Grace. Brown
stockings, white crazy {Aiir/lice, sun-bonnet), light-
grey drugget petticoat, grey-striped apron, dark and
light alternately, and hlue-and-white-striped short
gown, were the pretty combination. Messrs. Dren-
nan, Telfer, and Smith were the milking judges. To
look at, Glengall was the coarsest cow of the lot, and
although the above was her average at lOlbs. to the
gallon for ten milkings, she was not nearly up to
what she achieved in the Duke^s hands at Athole."^
His Grace gave £26 for her that day, and he also
bought Ochiltree and Lily, at £1 for each pound of
milk.

Not more than a fourth of the Ayrshire farmers
have bowers, whereas in Dumfriesshire and Galloway
the management is fully half and half. The bowers
pay from .£6 or 10 st. of cheese and upwards, accord-
ing to pasture, climate, and soil, which is considered
best on a freestone bottom. Many ploughmen look
upon it as their highest promotion to marry dairy-
maids and be off to a bowing. They generally find the
milkers and herdsmen, and the owner the food. If a
farmer finds bean-meal and green-cut corn for his
bower, he expects more cheese, and, in fact, the quan-
tity of cheese always depends upon the style of
feeding. There is sharp watching for fodder on the

* See part " North," page 290.

DALGIG TO AYR. 279

one side and for cheese and accurate information as
to the whole crop on the other, and it often hap-
pens that a referee has to be called in. The ori-
ginal engagement is for twelve months, but some
bowers have gone on for 17 years, and there is a re-
newal of the lease every year, varying according as a
better or worse field comes into the rotation. Many
farmers get as high as 15 stone of 241bs. for a cow,
and it has been known to reach 20 stone ; and gene-
rally 2 stone discount is allowed for bringing up a
quey calf. The bower's profits are eked out by feed-
ing a few pigs on sweet milk, whey, and bran, and
making skim cheese ; and if a cow calves a few weeks
before the cheese season begins, he gets the advan-
tage of the butter. Of course an owner has to look
out pretty sharp that the cheese is not starved during
the year, so as to embroil him with the cheese factor,
and therefore bowers, who do not keep their places
and are perpetually working up to a leaving, soon
get a bad name.

The Ayrshire Agricultural Association was the
permanent result of the Highland Society's visit to
Ayr in 1835 (a period of scum cheese and salt butter),
which it has never carecl to repeat. The new
local Society moved about till 1851, and since then
its meetings have been regularly held in Ayr. The
introduction of the Cheddar mode of cheese-making,
and its extension throughout the south west of Scot-
land, havebeen its chief triumph. The Dunlop or "full
milk cheese'^ system (so called because made from

280 FIELD AND FERN.

the milk of one day) began near Dunlop, eight miles
from Kilmarnock ; and Kilbirnie, Beith, Lochwin-
noch, and Stewarton were also its strongholds. Still,
there was no general mode followed, and most of it
would not have been saleable in England. From
time to time the Highland Society offered prizes for
the best imitations of Cheshire and Gloucester ;
but it was not, we believe, until Mr. Eobert Mac-
adam, and his brothers James and Alexander, turned
tlicir attention to the improvement of Dunlop cheese
in Wigtownshire that there was any marked advance.
Mr. Caird, who was then at Baldoon, took up the
thing with his wonted spirit, and sent his dairy-
man to England to learn ; and afterwards Mr.
Robert McAdam came to Baldoon as bower, and
introduced the Cheshire mode. Mr. Caird had at
this time a hundred cows, and his account of his
success induced the directors of the Ayrshire Asso-
ciation to send two special commissioners to the
English cheese districts. They reported in favour of
the Cheddar syst^em, on account of the lightness of
labour, ease and simplicity of management, and high
price of produce, and the result was that beginnings
were at once made in 1854 on several Ayrshire farms,
and at last Stewarton has adopted it.

The Association did not leave the farmers to grope
among mere printed rules, but engaged Mr. and Mrs.
Joseph Harding from Somersetshire as public in-
structors. They set up their apparatus in barns at
five or six places in turn, and bowers and dairymaids

DALGIG TO AYR. 281

flocked to them from Galloway and elsewhere. Mr.
Robert McxA.dam (who is now, we believe, near
Newcastle-tmder-Lyme) was one of their most strenu-
ous pupils, and turning from Cheshire he intro-
daced the Cheddar practice so successfully into Gallo-
way that they were making their 73s. per cwt. when
Ayrshire was only equal to 60s., and they have never
been quite caught yet. Their strong, old land and
cleverer keeping give them an advantage over the
Ayrshire cold clays. The farms are generally larger
and the milk and cream richer ; in fact, the wilder
the country the richer the milk, like an egg laid in
the muirlands. Still even these natural advantages and
strength of feeding, when not aided by science in the
making, produced a very strong and bad flavoured
cheese.

The first Ayrshire Association Cheese Show was
held at Kilmarnock in 1856, and Kirkcudbright-
shire, Wigtownshire, and Argyllshire have all figured
in the lists. Draining, green-cropping, careful stock
selection, and better house feeding have largely
swelled the cheese produce of Ayrshire ; and al-
though thirty may be called the average both in it
and Galloway, there are dairies with eighty to a
hundred cows, and one farmer will occasionally
have ty,o or three sets.

The cheese season begins in May, and lasts
till the end of September. Cheese made late, be-
tween harvest-home and Martinmas (Nov. 22), is
seldom good, and the great bulk of bowers give up

282 FIELD AND FERN.

with September^ and make fresh butter and skim-
milk cheese all the winter. Very little of the latter
is sold, except in the crannies of the Highlands,
Oban and Tobermory, and perhaps in the dram-
shops of Glasgow. Temperature is the very key-
stone both of making and keeping. In summer the
heat is kept up from 66 to 70 degrees, and at the end
of September hot water and stoves come in. In
Ayrshire many of the Marquis of Bute^s tenants
have capital making places, and cheese -houses heated
with pipes ; and in Galloway a few farmers make all
winter. It is pretty good, but stiff and of a peculiar
flavour, and does not pay for keeping. Cheese of
six weeks old will sell in Glasgow, which has, in con-
tradistinction to Edinburgh, "stomach for anything.^^
It is in proper condition for using three months after
making, and of course it ripens sooner if it has been
kept warm by artificial heat. Eleven years ago the
Dunlop system was universal, but the progress of
Cheddar has been so rapid that in '63 it had quite
got the lead, and now half Ayrshire and Dumfries-
shire adopt it. A Cheddar cheese is sometimes made
as big as 961bs., and it averages 6s. to 10s. per cwt.
more than Dunlop. The curds of a Cheddar are plot-
ted with warm whey, and it is made up a little dryer,
and is a little sooner ripe. It also takes rather
longer making, and is steeped colder, and the milk is
not so warm when the rennet is put in. Cheddar is
more carefully worked out, whereas Dunlop is more
hit-or-miss or rule-of-thumb. By the Cheddar mode

DALGIG TO AYR. 283

more curd is got to work with, and the whole
strength of it goes into the cheese. Plence the whey
is far poorer than the Dunlop, which, not only fattens
pigs well, but even yields cream and butter at a
pinch. Fine Cheddar quite holds the London and
South Wales markets, and the demand makes the
farmer pretty stiff with the factor, through whom the
shippers generally purchase. Still, Glasgow regu-
lates the cheese prices of Scotland, and its bazaar
on Wednesday during the season is a great sight.
Some people have a prejudice in favour of Dunlop,
and therefore Cheddar is generally made on the
Dunlop chessels, and keeps the old shape, instead
of starting one of its ovv^n. Dunlops range from
six to nine inches in depth and 20 to 5Glbs. in
weight. Even small Cheddars measure from a
foot to sixteen inches, and beginning where the
Dunlops leave oil, reach as high as 901bs., but
they are still GOlbs. short of some of the ''^ factory
made" Americans. To obviate the retail difficulties
in slicing them, the grocers cut Cheddar horizon-
tally through the middle. It is naturally whiter, on
account of the warm whey, and therefore annatto is
very freely used. The Glasgow people do not
care for colour, but the Edinburgh factors always
stipulate for it.

Cheese factors always go round with their piercer
in September, and begin getting in at the end of
September and throughout October. English, factors
have different prices for the first lift, and the second,^

284 FIELD AND FERN.

(\yliicli is generally softer)^ and the Scottisli ones are
gradually beginning to insist on it. Some of the
largest dealers will have at times as much as 15^000
stone (of241bs.) in stock, and he under engagements
for more, which the farmers send in by turn, al-
though they all like if possible to clear their
cheese-houses in October. All the lots are paid for
in ready money, as the farmers could very ill afford
to give credit. Once there was lib. given in every
241bs. of cheese, and a fleece to every 12 stone of
wool — " a pun to the stane and a fleece to the pack'^
— but the factors are *^kind of beat out of it now,'^
and of tliese hoary customs only the clad score is
left, and that in a very mutilated shape.

A newiy-madc cheese should be turned once a day
for six weeks, and then once a week for the rest of
the twelve months, in order to prevent the rot of the
skin. Messrs. R,ichardson of Edinburgh and a few
others adopt the English system of putting elm
boards between the rows so as to keep the skins apart.
A factor who chooses to keep for a twelvemonth, and
observes all these precautions, can sell occasionally
as high as 16s. per stone, but that is the highest
point Cheddar has ever reached. Cheddar, which is
iiner and sweeter in flavour, keeps better than Dun-
lop, and the latter generally becomes too strong in
flavour after nine months. For very first-rate keep-
ing, a fire is preferable to a stove^ as the heat is too
severe at times. A stone of cheese kept with the
greatest tact will waste ten per cent, in a year.

DALGIG TO AYR. 28S

Mr. Campbell, of New Cumnock, attempted to mak&
an Old Parr of one, but at the end of nine years it
bad turned quite dark, and was so completely ex-
hausted that it wf,s hardly eatable.

Jane Dunlop of Stewarton is the largest dealer in
Ayrshire cows, and may be seen in the Glasgow mar-
ket every Wednesday. She will bring as many as
170 to a leading fair, and they are to be found in a
great field at Strathbungo, near Glasgow, or behind
the Black Bull. The May and June fairs of Buther-
glen are also great places with her. As a judge there
are few to equal her, and she does her own bus'iness,
driving up and down the country in her gig. The
business is now conducted principally by her son
Gabriel, and is still as extensive as ever. The
trade in Ayi^hires is immense, and a dealer once
passed 2,073 through his hands in one year, and not
a few of them for France, Australia, Austria, and
Belgium. The dealers begin the first week of Feb-
ruary, and go round to all the markets, Ayr, Glasgow,
Biggar, Kilmarnock, Renfrew, Kutherglen, Stirling,
Dumfries, Carluke (the largest of all on May 21),
and buy them as threes and fours. Before the days
of railways, they paid five visits in the season, but
now they are seldom avray.

The English, who are not fond of black-noses but
of large flecks, give all prices from £8 to £18.
Some leading English dealers ^ill advertise the
colours before hand, and then make a point of getting
cows to correspond. Many farmers breed on pur^

286 FIELD AND FERN.

pose for the market, and in November the dealers
will buy up late-calving heifers, and disperse them
over different farms, and 2s. 6d. in the pound is taken
off if they do not prove in-calf.

The styles of the six men who hold the Eng.
lish trade are so well known that the experienced
breeder can tell, if he goes into the market, pretty
nearly what each will take. Cotterill of Worcester
goes in for little short-legged beauties, fawns and
flecked reds or "leopards,^^ with spots like half-
crowns all over them. Broad backs and coats " that
can^t be too smooth" and up -horns are also great
requirements in the " Here's one for CotterilW In
fact, he must have neatness and no self-colour like red
or black, but the shape of the vessel is no considera-
tion.

If they^re only big enough, they^ll do for Ben-
nett from Cheshire, who likes large papped ones, with
a view to his dairy customers. Much of the import-
ance of the Dumfries market has depended upon him
for many years. Jackson of Lancaster buys the best
young heifers chiefly rongh in the coat and good
growers. Hodgson and Parkinson from Stafford-
shire also like them strong and useful, and the
latter especially buys the oldest and roughest for the
Potteries. Bough rumps, bad backs, and thick horns
are all the same to him, as there is no respect of age,
quality, or colour with the miners, as long as they
have a four-legged milk machine. These dealers
will sometimes take two to three hundred from

DALGIG TO AYR. 287

Dumfries market eacli week soutliward. Bur-
rell of Essex has often taken eight score in a
lot, and would always rather give £20 for a
^ood than £7 for a bad one. And so ends our
^' milky way.^''

(^^)

288 FIELD AND FERN.

SlAffll S]

*' Will Shakespeare, I wist, could never resist

The glance of a pet ' long-tail' ;
He'd down -witli his book, and up with his crook.

To find him a hare on Cotsale.
Queen Bess and her court, ^n their love of the sport.

To A. Graham himself didn't yield ;
And she bade no churl, but proud Norfolk's Earl,

Draw up coursuig laws for the field."

SposTiN-a Magazine.

Eglinton Castle — The Races at Bogside — Scene of the Tournament —
The Foxhounds — Bowls, Rackets, and Curling in the late Lord's time
— The Ardrossan Coursing Club — Waterloo — A Peep at Picton and
Cardinal York — A Visit to Mr. Borron's Kennel.

fflHE vane at Eglinton Castle faced south at last, and
® the curlers had been duly notified that they need
not come to the garden ponds, unless they wished to
play up to their ankles in water. Eighteen hunters
were still walking round and round the straw
ride, in those dark-green plaid sheets which Eng-
land knew so well; and the colour of the dark-
brown E/Ocket, who was last in the string, seemed to
bring back all those grand old days of Fobert and
Charles Marlow — The Dutchman and Van Tromp.
The Chase is the present EarPs delight, and for three
seasons his untiring enthusiasm has kept together
that Ayrshire country which has made other good
masters droop and turn aside to more hopeful hunting

AYR TO ARDKOSSAN. 289

grounds. Both his lordship and Cox are hght-
weights_, and the stud is in keeping, and principally-
made up of horses which Mr. Napier^ the stud
groom, purchased in Ireland. Warlock was there ,
and he and Cox had been out thirty times already
that season. Conqueror was the first that the Earl
ever rode to hounds when he came back from sea
and the nice-topped Bloxham, The "Witch, the sweet -
headed Mutiny, and Shamrock, who is second horse
twice a week, were among his lordship^s especials ;
while Deceiver, Lyons by Yellow Jack, Eed Hart,
and the grey Chicken by Bantam, all take their turn
with Cox and the whips.

No race-horses have been trained here since Mat
Dawson had Dr. Caius and The Potentate in charge.
It was here, too, that he bred and broke Aristides,
whom he sent to his brother Tom, when he had Blue
Bonnet and the other horses at Middleham, with an
assurance that he could ^' do what he liked if he
liked /^ Dr. Caius was a very perfect little fellow,
and there was never a finer finish up Snaker^s Hill,
the " Choak Jade^^ of Irvine, than when he beat St.
Lawrence a head for the EgUnton Park Cup. Mr.
William Hope Johnstone also won a great stake
here with his rare weight- carrier William Le Grros,
as he took all the money he could get about the
Irvine Cup and the Stewards' Cap, and landed the
double event. There was some rare gentleman-riding
at this Bibury of the North, and the neat and yet
vigorous finishes of Sir Frederick Johnstone, and the

2 u

290 FIELD AND FERN.

fine patience of Captain Pettat — both long since gone
to their rest — won them many a race out of the fire.
The steeple-chase course went out from the bottom
towards Kilwinning, as far as the river Garnock, and
included several banks, a brook, and a wide ditch, as
vrell as a stone wall in front of the stand. Sir David
Eaird, on his clever little Pioneer or his cocky little
Dr. Syntax, was alike dangerous over it, and the
Marquis of Waterford fairly " skinned the lamb" by
winning thrice in succession in one afternoon on his
great, raking Blueskin. Lord Eglinton did not care
much for the flag-line ; but when the Marquis
thought that Multum in Parvo (13st. 71bs.) was not
so good as his Saladin (13st. 121bs.), his lordship took
him for 500 gs. ostensibly, but it was said for 1,000 gs.
a side, and, thanks to his own steady riding and John
Napier's training, beat the great Irish pair in a
canter.

There have been no races since ^52; but a stick
cover has been made for the foxes in the park, and
thus one sporting interest rose when the other waned.
Major, Waterloo, and the beautiful Blackbird, "whose
eyes seemed starting from her head with life," are
all gone, and their monuments with them ; but there
are a few greyhounds still at the Castle, and the
Earl won the Waterloo Plate with Eainbow in '64,
when both the Purse and the Plate winners were
Ayrshire-bred, and King Death by an Ayrshire dog.
There is no special trace of the tournament ground
among the oaks, elms, and beeches at the back of the

AYR TO ARDROSSAN. 291

Castle, where six-and-twenty years ago tlie present
Emperor of the French looked on through the three
wet days, and the Duchess of Somerset was the Queen
of Beauty.

Thither came among the rest Sir Francis Hopkins,
the Knight of the Burning Tower, on a bay; the lord
of the tournament, with his golden armour, on a ches-
nut; Lord Waterford, in steel armour, with six
esquires ; Lord Ailsa, Knight of the Dolphin ; Cap-
tain Fairlie, Knight of the Golden Lion; Mr. Camp-
bell of Saddle, of whom Tom Ingoldsby would aver
that he was

" Somehow knocked out of his family seat ;"

and Lord Glenlyon, as Knight of the Gael, with
fieventy-two Highlanders, who guarded the tilting-
ground, and, with boundless beef and ale under
their belts, still sighed for their wonted porridge.

The foxhounds are made up of purchases from the
Southampton, Mr. Drake's, and the North Warwick-
shire packs, and drafts from the South Warwickshire,
the Doneraile, and the Yarborougb. There are 58
couple for three or four days a week, and they always run
them mixed. We noticed the smutty-faced Frantic;
the short-legged Heroine; Tempest, with a head
telling of Drake's Duster; Cheerful, with all the
Belvoir quality; a nice Dainty; Duchess, sister to
Dashaway ; and Dauntless, with some of the Baker
blood about her, and a great taste for roe deer.
Doneraile's Transit was another of the Drake's

2 u 2

292 FIELD AND FERN.

Duster sort, whicli huntsmen set such store by ;
and there, too, were the deep-bodied Wary, Care-
ful, a very nice mover, and a neat little couple
Chantress and Carnage. North Warwickshire Prat-
tle wears well, and Drake's old Milliner sits apart
with Skilful.

The dog pack are principally of the Doneraile,
Southampton, and Drake blood. Four couple of them,
with Tapster, Trouncer, old grey Seaman, and the
stout-boned Oppidan, compose the Drake lot, while
seven couple have the Southampton and twelve,
with Challenger amongst them, the Doneraile brand.
North Warwickshire Damper earned his benison
from Cox as "full of head;^' and Squires^s pet
Launcelot is full of action. Old Chieftain is also from
the North Warwickshire, and Young Seaman, the
only one they have had from old Milliner, sits near
him, as if gathering thoughts of wisdom.

It is a great open country for the foxes, with deep
gills and a bad cold scent, which lies best by Dunlop,
Caldwell, and Ardrossan. It is thirty miles from
north to south, and the plough country on the Ayr
side is the heaviest and coldest part. Tarbert Gorse
is a great find, with a rare scent over the grass ; and
Caldwell is also a crack meet, with a fine country,
up to Kilbirnie. There were a few roe deer at Dal-
rymple AYood, but it has been cleared out with two
couple of draft hounds, who made some fine melody
over the job. The bottoms of the cover are all sedge,
which is down after November. There are eighteen

AYR TO ARDROSSAN. 293

or nineteen litters in the country every year, and his
lordship has put down several brace as well ; but
still, despite all his exertions, there has been a " fox
famine,^'' and they have once or twice left off before
their time. Many of the gorses have only been
planted within the last three seasons, and there is
very little good lying ; and if the foxes are driven
out of the country, there is no outlying pack on the
hills to bring them back. Sourlie Wood, near the
kennels, is generally a sure find, and so is the stick
cover of three acres, which they draw with the ter-
riers. The trains suit them well enough, and the
hounds are also vanned for the long distances, and,
in fact, never did master struggle harder to deserve
success.

The late Earl seldom hunted here even in Sir
David Baird^s day, and for the grouse shooting he
went to Cleuchearn, beyond Eaglesham. Curling,
bowls, golf, and rackets were his delight; and his
racket player, Patrick Divitt, and the Hon.
Mr. Montgomerie were making the tennis-court
rattle again when we looked in. The late earl did
not begin rackets till he was 35 or 36, and
then Sir H. H. Campbell and all the county
gentry came and had great matches at Christmas.
In summer, his example set all the Ayrshire farmers
off bowling. He would come down in the beginning
of July, and play matches every week till nearly the
middle of October. Hugh Conn, John Napier, and
Walter Smith, V.S., played in his bowling, and

294 FIELD AND FERN.

Koberfc Brown, one of his farmers, took Smithes place
in tlie curling rink. He gave a 120-guinea Cup to
be bowled for annually between tbe Ayr and the
Glasgow men, and a ten-guinea medal for every club
on his estate. On the bowling days when the great
^^jug" was played for, an immense table was laid out,
and all the ladies bowled with their kirtles up to their
knees.

When he challenged the clubs for twenty miles
round at bowling or curling, the stakes were always
a boll of meal for the poor. One year no less than
J40 worth was distributed this way through the
Minister of Kilwinning. He also made three artificial
curling ponds with wooden bottoms or asphalte and
polished ashlar. Two of them were fifty yards by
thirty-six, and the other sixty by sixty, and he would
have twenty rinks going at one time. Napier played
the 501b. stone. Brown the 461b., Conn the 441b.,
and his lordship himself directed the rink, and played
last with the 401b. one. No one was cooler in action
and understood better all the subtle generalship of
chap and lie, and outers, and yet he was always
learning. He would be at the ice to a minute on
a dark winter's morning, and keep himself warm by
sweeping till it was light enough to begin, and then
he would curl all day. If one curling rink was
better than another, he would never rest till he
played it, and Sir James BoswelFs was one of the
defeated.

He and his leading players had each three or four

AYR TO ARDROSSAN. 295

pairs of curling stones, and none of tliem better than
Sir Thomas Moncrieff's, which were very quick and
pohshed. They were made ol' granite called "bur-
noch/^ which was got near Sir James BoswelPs
estates,, and spotted white and black like a starling's
breast. His lordship did not neglect golf, which
he first learnt on the links near Stevenson. Some
of the best men from St. Andrew's and Musselburgh
came to Prestwick, near Ayr, to play with him;
and he died on a return visit to St. Andrew's,
when he was very little past his prime. No man was
better known or more loved throughout the three
kingdoms.

The "view house" still stands at Bogside, and
one's sense of the desolation is not dissipated by that
dreary spot, Kilwinning. In a vault beneath its
kirk, which is a curious appendix to the ruined
tower of the old abbey, his lordship lies with his two
wives. He was erst the very life of the spot, when
the archers of Kilwinning met once a year to shoot at
the green papingo with the golden heart, on the
summit of that tower. He who winged it got a
broad ribbon for his prize, and the ribbon-men drew
after dinner for the honour of the first shot for the
Captaincy, which is conferred on liim who first
knocks it off its perch, and was twice won by the
Earl.

Mr. Ewing's greyhounds, or rather a pack of fif-
teen or sixteen couple, passed us in the town. He
has had far more, and when his Leven Water ran

296 FIELD AND FERN.

second to Neville for the Malleny St. Leger, lie had
fourteen among the 100 in the stake, and eleven of
them were left in on the first day. " Leven Water/'
says Mr. Nightingale, '''was not nnlike British Lion
in his work, a plucky good laster, of great strength
and symmetry ; he always ran well, but he never
came to England." Many of the Ewing kennel were
of Dr. Brown's blood, a well-known Ayrshire cha-
racter. His dogs were kept by farmers, who got
half their winnings, and some of them were very
fast. The Doctor was a big man, with a perpetual
scarf round his w hite hat, and an umbrella under his
arm, and so nervous that he never looked at a course
while his own dog was running. There were few faster
than his Chance in Scotland ; and Spot was one of
six left in out of 178, when Read's Sultan won the
great stake at Southport. He had also Whistler,
and a good bitch Cantrip, and place them out
where he might, they came in well and fit to run on
their trial days near Stewarton.

Ardrossan lies some seven miles coastwards from
Kilwinning. Its beautiful slopes which skirt the
coast, where Arran holds its silent watch among the
breakers, are dear to all Scottish coursers. The old
Club livery was silver-grey with silver buttons, black-
velvet waistcoat, dark-blue silk handkerchief, white
cords, and Napoleon boots ; and Mr. Borron and a
few more are still faithful to these dress traditions of
more than forty j'^ears' standing. The meetings are
far more for sport than pelf. Every farm on the

AYR TO ARDROSSAN. 297

Eglinton estate sent dogs, and members lent
dogs to the farmers who bred them. As many as
a hundred dogs would be entered, and sixty courses
would be run ofif in a day. As Mr. Nightingale
(who judged thirty-three times) says, "It was just
like going from Lytham when you left the town end
— rare quarters, and a happy, pleasant time of it.^^
Lord Eglinton was always there, a leader in reality,
never aspiring to be one, but always with delicate
courtesy supporting those in authority, and ready to
help in taking up a dog or in any other way. His seat
on horse back was peculiarly stiff and upright, and he
was never pale and anxious except when Waterloo
ran. His Blackbird was small and strong, and won
the Caledonian Cup, and a more beautiful puppy was
never brought up at Eaglesham. Frolic by Waterloo
was a great delight of the first Lady Eglinton's, and
well she might be, as she was a very resolute, low
runner, and won the Great Wiltshire Puppy Stakes
at fourteen months.

It was at Ardrossan that her sire first ran. Old
Baird Kirk, the keeper, would maintain that his
brother Eingall was better, and they had one spin, and
Waterloo beat him. The latter was by Dusty Miller
from Exotic, for whom Lord Eglinton gave £50 to a
South Lancashire breeder. "His head was always held
high like Black Cloud's; he never pulled a yard
from the slips, and was never in a hurry. In the first
100 yards he was not fast, and then he went harc'er
and harder. His shoulders were beautiful, his fore-

298 PIELD AND FERN.

legs nice and short, his tail long and curiously curled,
his thighs very long, his ribs remarkably good,
his hocks turned in a little, and he was made like
Cerito about the loins. He was not only very great
on plough, but a wonder to climb a hill, which
helped him not a little when he beat Gracchus at
Ashdown. Killing was his weak point; he would
get possession of his hare, and put in some beautiful
wrenches, but beyond that he was not clever with
his teeth. Cacciattore once just beat him in a
trapping course, and he was thrown out at Waterloo
by a very bad little hare, which came short back
when he reached it half a dozen lengths first, instead
of jumping the ditch, and met the other dog in the
face. He was in form then, as he won the .€100."
Such is Mr. Nightingale's " winter tale'^ of him.

Before calling at Mr. Borron's we walked four
miles by the shore almost to Tarbert Gorse, in search
of Picton and Cardinal York. Mr. Richmond was
pursuing his daily labour, and six or seven of his
charges were playing in the meadow near the mill.
Duchess, by Ptarmigan from Di Vernon, was good
to know from the burn on her blue skin, and had
made np for her Waterloo defeat by winning the
Douglas Cup. Marshal Forward and Silver Rays were
there ; and '' York ! York I" brought the yellow-
and-white sire of Calabaroono out of a mysterious
straw hut behind a door, and soon three v»^hite-and-
yellow daughters were grouped round liim. He and
Picton, Di Vernon, and Trip the Daisy made up the

AYR TO ARDROSSAN. 299

Jacobite and Forest Queen litter, so well known in
Walshes Calendar. The Cardinal was " a fine steady-
working dog, a sticker, and. with a great share of
pace/^ There was very little affinity in look between
him and Picton, who has less length, and ran a few
pounds lighter. They had a very strong trial once,
when The Cardinal stayed the longest, but did not
show such speed. Jacobite their sire was '' a little
shabby sort of a dog, who commanded and met his
hares at the turn. He had great pace for his size,
and, like his sire Bedlamite, he was rather impetuous.
He was the best puppy in England ; and then he
began to rush and run as wild as a deer.^^ On his
dam^s side he inherited the rough-tailed Violence
blood, which goes back to Mr. Fox^s Fairy. The
sort were very fast, and therefore just suited the Duke
of Gordon.

Two white greyhounds in stone guard Mr. Borron^s
avenue. He is of an old Lancashire family, and the
blue greyhound on his shield, quartered with the
lamb and banner, is inherited from General Brad-
dock, who fell on the British side in the War of In-
dependence. Coursing has been with him a life-
long passion ; at nineteen his name was in the Altcar
and Ridgway lists, and more than thirty years ago
he brought down greyhounds to Scotland, starting at
4 o'clock a.^m. on the mail. His first good stake was
won at the Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire Club, then
held at Pollok. At Lytham and Altcar he has often
carried off a leading stake ; but in the Waterloo Cup,

300 FIELD AND FERN.

even if he has had a first favourite, he has never got
through more than two courses. He won the Purse
with Black Cloud, but his nomination has been more
generally among the sixteen Plate unfortunates,
who "take nothing by their motion.^^ However,
this has been the fate of many; and David, for
instance, went head over heels into the first
ditch.

Scotland and England have cross obligations in
the shape of sheets and slips. The Hon. Hamilton
Dundas first brought the former from Newmarket to
Scotland ; and Mr. Borron, who had been struck
with the swivel slips of Marsh, a Paisley gunsmith,
took back the idea to Lancashire, which had pre-
viously only followed the Newmarket fashion of two
ends of a strap coupled or parted with a wedge, or
like the Oldfield Lane Doctor on Chat Moss,
" started the whole fleet" for a St. Leger. Still,
greyhounds do not monopolize Mr. Borron^s hours of
idleness in his new sea-home, as a grey mare and a
chesnut were in his stable, waiting for their turn
with the Eglinton at Tarbert Hill or Southennan.
He has always adopted the plan of gilt electro-plating
his bits, and considers that when horses have carious
teeth it does not make them so fretful, or engender
so much saliva. His horses are not bedded on straw,
but on pine shavings, which he finds very efficacious
in keeping off the plague of fleas. He has also taken a
good deal of trouble to ascertain the right tempera-
ture of greyhound kennels, and first tried corrugated

AYR TO ARDROSSAN. 301

iron ones, lined with felt and wood, but thej were
too cold in winter and too hot in summer.

Three black pensioners. Black Flag, his sister Black
Belle, and Bold Enterprise, were in the first one. Old
grey-faced Black Flag won the Puppy Stakes at Ly-
tham, and was great on every ground. He was a cotem-
porary of Black Cloud, Skyrocket, and Beacon, and
is by Blue Light out of Wicked Eye, and one of the
only litter of hers that ever did any good. Four of
them died of distemper, and only Black Flag and
Black Belle were left. Bold Enterprise by Beacon
out of Judy (sister to Judge) is a lofty sort of dog,
and carries his head well up. He was very good for
the flats of Lancashire, but, like The Judge blood,
failed at a hill. Mr. Borron bought Judy on purpose
to put to Beacon, as there was a great deal of the
Streamer blood in Judge, and he wanted to unite it
again with the Bugle. Bold Enterprise shows his
teeth, and is as savage as a tiger. In his running
days they dare not keep him with the other dogs, as
he was a complete lunatic; and the grave of Ivy,
near the flower border, proclaims his latest victim.
His victories have been varied ; he once beat Cana-
radzo at Southport, and he killed a terrier, although
he was muzzled. His sister Bit of Lace was away at
Glasgow, and so was Billet Loux, both of them fast,
and known at Altcar in their day. Mr. Borron is
crossing the blood carefully, and has some saplings
by Bloody Heart (brother to Bold Enterprise) out of
Black Belle. Thus Black Belle is put to Bloody

302 FIELD AND FERN.

Heart, and Black Flag to Bit of Lace. Brighton
went seven times to Altcar, and won six prizes and ran
up for the seventh. Archibald Cook, Mr. Spinks^s
present man, trained him, and Mr. Nightingale said
of him : " He was a wonderful dog ; he ran the
truest of any dog I ever saw — true as a puppy to the
last.^^ Curler, his sire, was a grand dog, a great
worker, and of rare bottom, and, being by Jason out
of Rosebud, he combined Lord Stradbroke's blood
with the old Ayrshire. Brighton was bought from
a doctor at Kilbirnie, near Dalgig. The doctor was
leading him, and Mr. Borron had Brightness in hand,
when they went down to the slips to meet in the run
up for the Dairy St. Leger, and it was arranged that
the doctor should have first and second money {£70),
and that Mr. Borron should take Brighton. He was
sold at London for 50 gs., and went to Mr. Kendall
of Brigmerston, near Amesbury; but he was no
good at the stud, as he got his puppies far too fine,
and he became a parlour dog at last.

The most wonderful hit that Mr. Borron ever
made was buying Blue Light for thirty-five pounds,
and old Lancashire reminiscences. He came in the
middle of the season, when he had run twice and won.
twice at Altcar, and was then sold by Beale,
the late Lord Sefton^s trainer, who received him as a
present, on account of his being worsted in his trial
by Senate. In his looks he was rather insignificant,
and weighed, like Brighton, 561bs. He was got by
Monsoon out of Stave, full sister to Bugle ; and like

AYR TO ARDROSSAN. 303

Bugle, lie was blue with black hairs, and espe-
cially bare on the quarters. The blood has always
been more calculated for the flat than the hill. He
won 25 out of 26 courses, and was only beaten by
Craigieburn, whom he paid off; and then he cut
his back sinews on a bit of glass, and broke down.
Eeacon and Black Cloud were the results of his
cross with Frolic ; his Black Flag was from Wicked
Eye, Bright Steel from Scotia, Blackness from
Nettle (a sister to SteeFs Japhet), and Skyrocket
from Syncope of the Streamer blood, which was
generally red with a little white. Skyrocket was
given to Lord Sefton by Mr. Borron, and thus the
Bugle blood came back to the Sefton Kennel with
another cross of Streamer in it.

Frolic, the dam of Beacon and Black Cloud (who
ran at 681bs. and 701bs. respectively), was by Water-
loo out of Dr. Brown's bitch of Ayrshire and Biggar
blood ; and Bright Idea and Bonfire were of the same
litter. The old bitch died, and they were brought
up by bull-bitches, or " lady bulls,^^ as Frank Buckle
would have called them. In Black Cloud and Beacon
the Streamer and Bugle strains are united with the
old Douglas or Greenshields blood, and through Ex-
otic with the Newmarket. Black Cloud beat Beacon
in his trial the first season, and two years after Beacon
had the best of it. Beacon was a good average
dog, a regular runner and not brilliant, but so
hardy that he v/on the Caledonian, Altcar, and Irish
Challenge Cups within a month. He was sold for

304 FIELD AND FERN.

60 gs._, and came back at 6J gs. five years after, very
fresh for a dog of ten seasons.

Black Cloud drove his hare, and kept her to him-
self like his daughter Belle of the Village, but he,
too, went into a ditch in his second Waterloo course.
His greatest performance was beating Mr. RandelPs
Ranter in an Altcar Produce Stake. He was a rare
turner, and Judge^s pace was never shown to greater
advantage than when he just outpaced him down
the hill near Carstairs ; but his sister Bright
Idea avenged him on the Cumberland red, after
two undecided courses. This was in 1855, and
Judge had won the Waterloo Cup a month before.
Mr. Borron always thought Bright Idea better than
either brother, and she was never beaten in public.
She only ran twice as a puppy, and was drawn for the
fifth course of the Biggar St. Leger of sixty-four in the
spring. In her first course the next season she broke
her leg over the rocks, and it gangrened, and her
sister. Bonfire, died in a wire fence near Biggar.

AYR TO DUMFRIES. 305

GSiPflE SIL
h^U f© iiiPPJES,

*' They spied a soldier -vvith a Scotch kim on his head. Some of them had
"been purveying abroad, and had found a vessel filled with Scotch cream :
bringing tlie reversion of it to their tents, some got dishfuls and some hatfuls ;
and the cream being now low in the vessel one fellow would have a modest
drink, and so lifts the krm to his mouth, but another canting it up it falls over
his head, and the man is lost in it ; aU the cream trickles do-wn his apparel,
and his head fast in the tub. This was a meiTiment to the ofB.cers, as Ohver
loved an innocent jest."

Caeltle.

Ayr Race-course — Kilkerran — Tlie Dairies of Galloway — Captain Ken-
nedy— Stranraer — Galloway Points — A Day at Meiklecnllocli — Ride
to Southwick— Mr. Stewart's Shorthorns— The Dumfries Pork Trade.

E saw Ayr in its sunniest guise one morning,
as we sat on the race-course stile, and combined
our "silk^^ recollections of Lanercost, Philip, and the
other heroes of the Gold Cup, with the ^^scarlet,^^ as
Lord Eglinton's men on a bay, grey, and chesnut,
trotted past to the meet. Some Ayrshires grouped on
the banks of the mill-stream, as if for a ^^sun picture,^'
pulled us back to curds and cream, and the thoughts
of how on earth we were to grapple with such a sub-
ject as cheese. We might wander off in the spirit
for a time to the days when wolves j)reyed on the red
deer of the Grampians; when "The Returning Hugh^'
established the first barley mill north of the Forth,
and died in his bed and his yellow wig at the age of
112 ; when the old carrier drove his white ponies with

2 X

306 FIELD AND FERN.

packs on their backs and bells on their beads over
the rough muirland road ; when Madge Wildfire with
her crook and her plaid wandered through Ayrshire ;
and when old '^Keely Bags" supplied all Galloway
with sheep ruddle ; but still, cheese, wool, and bacon
were ghosts that would not be laid, and fairly em-
bittered our life.

Of the route to Maybole we knew little enough,
as we rode it by night, striking, as it would seem,
inland, as there was no sea roar for company. Next
morning the scene opened on the Girvan Valley, with
Kilkerran House to the left. The hills are covered
with fern and heather^ and go by the name of
"The Burning.-" They are so called from a seam
of coal, which once took fire on the Kilkerran pro-
perty. It has been extinguished for many years,
but one at Dalquharran is still burning. On
the opposite side of the valley, the open freestone
subsoil of Kilkerran is admirable for silver firs,
spruces, and beeches. Mr. Fleming rents it at pre-
sent, and as for animals it was quite a NoaVs Ark
No. 2. His residence in India gave him a taste for
Arabs. A bay and a black mare were at exercise in
the park, and a grey horse, a much better specimen
than either of them, and an H.C. at the Islington
Horse Show, was leading gallops for Brewtey^s string
at Newmarket. One of the Clydesdale mares was
the prize mare Rosie, a purchase from Merry ton, and
had a fine partner at rather a lower figure from Dum-
friesshire. Of sporting dogs there was also quite an

AYR TO DUMFRIES. 307

array, black and tan Gordon setters,, three or four of
them prize winners, and liver-and-white pointers for
the Kilkerran muirs, which stretch miles away be-
hind from Barr to Straiten. The late Duke of
Athole's herd of West Highlanders, which were
displaced at Blair Athole by the Breadalbanes, wan-
dered in dun, red, and cream array among the mea-
dows on one side of the river Girvan, and as many
Ayrshires on the other. Among the latter is Arabell,
one of the nrst-prize takers at Battersea, and bought
for 57 gs. at the first Merryton sale, along with the
red- and -white Beauty. The dairymaid was uncom-
monly sweet on her, and drove up the more Here-
ford-coloured Blossom, to show what a neat pair they
made. The first-prize bull at Maybole, and the first
prize one at Kelso, also stood side by side in the byre,
while a group of Bretonnes outside lent their tiny
aid to the dairy.

Between Kilkerran and Girvan we rode through
rich bean and wheat land, in the midst of which is
" the ga,rden farm,^' as it is called, of Girvan Mains,
which owes not a little to sea-wrack manure. As we
pass the ruined church of Old Dailly, and the way-
side stone which tells where John Aikin died, we
may well revert to Old Mortality or Edie Ochil«
tree laying aside his stafi" and wallet, and calmly
yielding up his spirit. After this it was quite a
rocky sea-coast route past the gates of Ardmillan with
the hooded eagles, where Lord Ardmillan passes his
learned leisure. Half-bred lambs and Ayrshires

2x2*^

308 FIELD AND FERN.

were in the Yale, and sprittle-faces on the heights ;
and as the Highlands of the south-west began to
flank the coast, we saw Galloways or rough crosses
from them browsing on their sides. Forty years ago
there was not an Ayrshire in Ballantrae, and nothing
but these stunted blacks as far as Whithorn in
Wigtownshire ; but Ayrshire dairies have gradually
overspread the Stewartry of Kirkcudbrightshire, and
away to the Mull of Galloway and Burrow Head.
The wild hard pasture gives it its pre-eminence as a
dairy country; but it was long before this faculty'
was properly brought out, and twenty years
ago an Ayrshire would have been almost a raree-
show.

The farmers hated their neighbours' spotted kine,
» and would not allow their hinds or "bondagers" to
keep them for fear of the colour effect on the blacks.
Mr. M^Clue of Din Vin is one of the earliest Ched-
dar men, and keeps as many as 140 cows ; and Col.
M^Dowall has a beautiful dairy at Logan House.
Ayrshire men found the price of land cheaper, and
crowded into Galloway, and so the idea has spread
on. In one respect the dairy management differs from
Ayrshire, as there are fewer bowers, and every year
lessens the number.

There are not many sheep till you reach the east
of the county. Half-bred lambs are on the holme
land near the river, and all the mountain district is
stocked with sprittle or brocky faced sheep, more
especially in the south-west, on the Minnigaff hills.

AYR TO DUMFRIES. 309

Once sheep were preferred much blacker in the
face j but thirty years since the farmers thought that
the lighter-faced wedders had most "tops^^ among
them, and were quieter to boot, and held to rams of
that shade. New Galloway is a great stronghold of
the breed, and about Kells, where it is flanked by the
MinnigafF and the Carsphairn hills, it is as wild as
Westmoreland, all rocks and cairns, and with blacker
heath.

Many blackfaced wedders and half-bred lambs
are turniped in Galloway. There is nice and
kindly dry land by the rivers Dee, Urr, and Ken
(which divides Balmaclellan from Kells), and half-
bred hoggs are not sent to Penrith now in such
numbers, but kept on during a part of the summer.
In fact, some of them are put on turnips a second
winter. The breeding of half-bred lambs and grazing
them as hoggs on arable ground is a practice of only
recent growth. Many Clydesdales are bred and sold
at three, after a year in the harrows. It does not
pay to breed any other kind of horse, and for a road-
ster farmers fall back on Rosley Hill.

We struck rather more inland from Ballantrae to
reach Finnart, through what seemed in the gloom
to be a mountain glen, with natural oak, birch, and
hazel on its sides. We can well give this Glenapp
credit for all its summer beauty ; but it was a time
of rain and snow and mist, which half-shrouded the
grand deep-sea anchorage of Loch Ryan, at the foot
of the glen. Captain Kennedy, a distinguished

310 FIELD AND FERN.

grazier of sprittle-faces and Galloways^ and a fre-
quent judge at the Highland Society^s shows^ grazes
a considerable portion of the hill and valley
ground at Finnart. He does not breed Galloways ;
but his flock of sprittle-faced ewes number thirty
score. Ayrshire Laddie of his breeding won a
first prize in Mr. Dryfe's hands at Battersea ; and
the Captain has shown and won at Ayr^ Glasgow, and
Aberdeen sometimes with his rams, but more fre-
quently with ewe hoggs. He generally buys his
Galloway stores in September, and keeps them for
one-and-a-half years. They are bought when they
are nearly that age as " caddaghs,^^ in September, at
Dumfries, and up and down the Stewartry. The
sky and the hills of the glen are their only winter
shelter; and however deep the snow may be they are
kept out in the field, with oat straw, turnips, and
hay. In Dumfriesshire yard-keeping is generally
adopted ; but the Captain's experience is to the eff'ect
that unsheltered bullocks come to hand quicker in
the spring than if they have the shed option.
Messrs. M'Combie and Heath, the great Aberdeen
and Norfolk feeders, have been his leading cus-
tomers. For many years Mr. M^Combie took forty
at a time, and in his lot of 1859 he got the Smithfield
and Birmingham prize-bullock, which was bred by
Mr. Martin of Braco. Mr. Heath has dealt very
largely with him of late.

Stranraer was of all towns the most dreary on a
wet morning ; and watching the oyster-boats iu the

AYR TO DUMFRIES. 311

bay, reading most ancient newspapers, and looking^
at Flying Childers, Eclipse, and King Herod — tlie
last testimony to its races, whicli have now been dead
and buried for more than forty years — on the walls
of a coffee-room, beguiled the weary hours, till we
could start once more to Dumfries by Newton
Stewart, and New Galloway, on that most sodden
and " most immemorial day/'

" The merchant rain, which carries on
Kich commerce 'twtxtthe earth and sim,"

was never at rest from sunrise. We went past endless
muirs and moss hags full of dark-grey boulders and
small lochs, on which wild-ducks were sailing, as if
proud of the general suction. Still, after all, there was
certain grandeur an>o^it that damp desolation, and
when you thought of it in connexion with many a
dark episode, Avith the tales which linger still in the
western Lowlands, ^^ of the black charger of Claver-
house, of the strange encounters with the Evil One,
of the cry of the plover and the peewit round the en-
campment on the hill-side,^' you might well allow
that it was " more instructive than many books.''

Cumberland has done much for Galloway stock.
It is true that, before George Graham of Riggfoot
began to breed them forty years ago, there were good
bulls bred in Johnstone, Dumfriesshire, and equally
true that he began with a cow from Sproat of Renton,
and a bull from James Welch of Deaths ; but still, he
was the "Black Booth'"' of Cumberland and the

312 FIELD AND FERN.

Border counties, and none attended so systematically
to the beef points. The late Sir James Graham had
at one time a herd of thirty cows at Croft Head,
which were purchased by Mr. Yule, his steward, and
Mr. Wilkin, one of his tenants. They went to Gal-
loway to choose them, and instead of medals or
money, bull-calves were given as prizes to the
Netherby tenants who showed the best lots of five
yearlings and as many two-year-olds. Gibbons of
Moss Band had once the best herd on the estate, and
John Johnson of Pedder Hill was very close up with
him. The showers of Galloway cattle at the High-
land Society are comparatively small, and it is quite
of late years that they have come up in sufficient
force to bring the rule into play — that if there are
more than three of the breed in a class, they are to
be judged separately from the Angus.

In Wigtownshire they have no Highland Society
men among them. The Earl of Galloway used to
exhibit, and so did Mr. Stewart of Glasserton ; and
now James Gifford of Bladenoch, M^Whinnie of
Milton, and Agnew of Balscalloch are generally fore-
most at the local shows. Kirkcudbrightshire gets
most prizes at the Dumfries Union. The Earl of
Selkirk had once a herd at Grange of Kirkcudbright,
but it is now kept at Canee, and is not in its old
form. The Sproat stock was once most celebrated,
but he has not been steady to his early love, and
crossed them with Anguses, and then with short-
horns. He was the breeder of Borness or Cumber-

AYR TO DUMFRIES. 313

land Willie, who was the first to make the fame of
George Graham so fast and sure.

Graham of Meildeculloch has quite gone to the
front with his females, and Semiramis, Harriet,
and Hannah, all first-prize Highland. Society cows,
stood in his byre at one time. Wellwood Maxwell of
Glenlee had the first yearling heifer at Kelso, and
Clark of Culmain the best Galloway bull at the ^62
Union Show. Shennan of Ballig keeps more cows
than any man in Galloway, and owns the Nestor of
black bulls, Bob Burns (235) by Geordie (234), whose
failing back only just beat him out of the first place
when he was shown at the Newcastle Royal in his
tenth year. Biggar of King's Grange, Thompson of
Blaiket (who bred the second prize yearling heifer
Queen Mary at Battersea), and Cunningham of White
Cairn, with his well-known Kate, all show either at
the Boyal or at the local show at Dalbeattie. Cun-
ningham of Dunrod Mill only owns three or four,
but Mr. Jardine won with his stock at Lockerbie,
and he bred Sir William (222), who was the first
two-year-old in Thompson of Blaiket's hands, when
Bob Burns headed the aged-bull class at Edinburgh,

*^ Black and all black^^ extends into the Dumfries-
shire dales, but not higher up Nithsdale than a few
miles above Thornhill. Rae of Gaterslack, Stobbo
of Halliday Hill, William Irving of Brandennoch,
and David Martin of Braco, are all loyal to it.
Graham of The Shaw shows good heifers at Loc-
kerby, and the Kirkhill stock was in its prime when

314 , FIELD AND FERN,

the late Walter Carruthers had ' Jock (66), own
brother to The Squire (18), and whea his Eanger
was second to Wellington (22) at Carlisle.

Lockerby first introduced the G alloway bull sales on
April 17th, 1851, and Castle Douglas followed its lead.
Fifteen bulls and eleven queys were sold at the first
Lockerby sale, and.£16 was the highestfigure. Twenty
years ago as many guineas was thought very high for
a black yearling bull, but prices have soared upwards
since then, and now twice as much can be got from
the Kirkcudbrightshire and Wigtownshire men when
they '' tak a notion," and an odd one goes at a good
price to Cumberland. The bidders are not much
guided by the prize positions, and this year the third
fetched £11 5s. more than the first. The price of
females has also gone up, and good queys will fetch
jg20 to £30 for Canada and Ireland, where they are
crossed Aberdeen-fashion v/ith a shorthorn bull.

The United Society of Dumfriesshire, Kirkcud.
brightshire, and Wigtownshire, which must not be
confounded with the Dumfries Union, meets once iu
five years at Dumfries. Shennan of Balig won well
in ^57, and '62, and so did Cunningham in the last-
named year. There is a great annual sale at Castle
Douglas in March, at which Kirkcudbrightshire
generally fits itself with bulls for the j^ear, and has
gone as high as £60 rather than be foiled. Still, the
best local show for Galloways is at Dalbeattie.
Graham^s Hannibal was twice first here, and that
eminent breeder drew out his whole strength^ with

AYR TO DUMFRIES. , 315

Semiramis, Dinah, Matilda, Harriet, and Maud
when he was first in the five-cow sweepstakes.

Galloways look best in October, as their brown-
calf hair generally returns each spring. The head
should be short and Eoman, like a Cheviot sheep,
with a full expressive eye (a point very difficult to
get), a round bold forehead, and a good robust muzzle.
The poll should be broad, and the ears large, with
broad fringes inside, active in their movement and
standing out at angles from the head, instead of lying
back like the Angus. The sweetness of the head and
bone, the finer skin, and the lighter hind quarters
and thighs distinguish the Angus aristocrats from
their Galloway brethren, and, in fact, the Angus
may be called " Galloways with shorthorn treat-
ment/^ Graham of Riggfoot laid great stress on
short legs, and a good rough coat with wool amongst
it, which sticks on till the new hair comes. It is
said that Galloway men look too much to great
length of hair v/ithout reference to softness, and that
they are satisfied if the coats are as wavy as bears.
They say, on the contrary, that they like long coats
to throw off the water, but that there should be
plenty of v/ool below, and that to be wavy from light-
ness is an Angus vice. Once the Galloway tail was
much too high, but that point has been amended,
and the tops have become straighter and the loins
less slack. A thin rat tail is looked upon with sus-
picion, lest there should be a thin skin with it, which
will not suit the climate. Ead thighs are nearly as

316 FIELD AND FERN.

rare as a horn or scur. Once tliey had white backs,
and were brindled and horned as well, and some few
were " belted," or white in the middle. For some
years an advocate of this peculiar branch of " sparki-
ness" gave special prizes at South Tyne, and candi-
dates came from up the Tyneby Gilsland, Stapleton,
and Kingwater. Scarcely a belted or a brindled
one is to be found now, but sometimes one with a
white forehead. General Sharpe was fond of a sort
which were " black with white facings/^ and were
sometimes spotted under the eye or mottled on the
face, exactly like a Hereford. The General was
never without a bull of this sort, and a small herd of
them was kept on his Tower of Repentance farm when
he died. Many Ayrshires have been put to Galloway
bulls, and the calves come with black smooth skins
and narrow heads, which seem to grow narrower
with age.

The best old grass in Galloway is supposed to be
in the parishes of Kirkcudbright and Borgue -, and
Milton Parks in the former, cannot be excelled.
The great majority of cattle in Kirkcudbiightshire
get hay and straw, with a few turnips under sheds.
In Wigtownshire the farmers feed higher, and use
turnips and cake more freely, to push them on for
the Liverpool market. The softer climate of Dum-
friesshire suits the winterers best, but there has been
very little loss from disease in Kirkcudbrightshire
since the farming became higher. Poor land not
broken up makes them very liable to red-water, and

AYR TO DUMFRIES. 317

young cattle also suffer if they are brouglit in spring
on to the granite. The queys are generally put to
in their third spring. Galloway calves, which are
dropped early with a view to the Highland Society,
which dates from New-Year^s Day, suck five or six
months, as crack showers say it is " the cheapest
thing, after all, to let them have their OAvn rights.^"
A great proportion of them are sadly sacrificed to
the sale of milk and butter, if they are dropped near
a town. After nursing a calf at the teat, £2 to £3
is often made in a black cow dairy. They are not re-
markable milkers ; but still, the faculty runs in
some strains, and it seems pretty well settled by
those who have kept bol h, and speak from no party
spirit, that they give more butter for less milk
than the Ayrshires. There is no better and finer
mottled beef in the world than the Galloway and
Angus, and so the Smithfield prices show, and per-
haps the daintiest morsel is a three-year-old heifer
that has never had a calf.

The Dumfries Wednesday is a great market for
Galloways from May to November, and then it falls
off before Martinmas. During this period yearlings
and two-year-olds are dispersed all over the Stewartry,
and then they are bought up again two years after
for St. Faith's and Brough Hill. Woolpit in Suffolk
is a great fair for them, and so are Penrith and Car-
lisle- The last Wednesday of September, which falls
on the week before Brough Hill, is one of the largest
Dumfries markets, and so is the October Wednes-^

318 FIELD AND FERN.

day wliicli precedes St. Faith's, the chief Galloway
gathering in Norfolk. Once the " St. Faith's cattle'^
were bought up under that name all over the
Stewartry, but much fewer go there now^ and they
are kept and fed olF in the district, where every store-
keeper expects to get at least £7 a. year for the two
years he keeps them. Stewart's Auction Mart in
Dumfries does a great business at 3d. in the pound
for every sheep, and 4d. for cattle, and its proprietor
also gives prizes at Christmas for fat stock.

We stopped at Dalbeattie with a view to going
round by Southwick, and also specially to have
another view of our old Kelso friend Semiramis, in
her home at Meikleculloch. Mr. Graham's farm is
about 2-2- miles from Dalbeattie.. He came here in
1843 from Cubby Hill, and began to build up a herd
from eight cows. A sort of Roman encampment be-
hind his house, and fully 460 feet above the sea
level, was a tempting object for a climb, and, only paus-
ing to look at a young bay Wattie ©'Harden, of that
old genuine Stitcher blood which has won in many
a Border ring, we soon planted our M'^Combie hazel
staff on the summit. Meadow, moss, and arable, all
struggle for the lead in the valley, which tapers away
towards the little V-shaped opening in the distant
hills, which tells of the road to Dumfries. Ayrshires
and Galloways seem to have a divided empire. Half-
bred hoggs and blackfaced v/edders were folded on
the turnips, and a powerful Dollond might have re-
vealed in those woolly groups some Cheviot and

AYR TO DUMFRIES. 319

blackfaced ewe hoggs sent down from the neigh-
bouring hills. The Cheviots are principally on the
hill range towards CrifFell^ and beyond the Solway
Pirth we catch the faint outline of Skiddaw, Saddle-
back, and the Cumberland hills — the first home
beacon in our journey. The engine sounds the knell
of Mosstrooper raids and feudal days, as it rushes up
the valley and calls at that dreadfully matter-of-fact
Dalbeattie, with its corn, its saw, its paper, its bone
and its bobbin mills. Its Craignair granite also
helped to build the Liverpool docks, and is now laid
under contribution for the Thames embankment.

The evening sun was just slanting over the distant
hills of Kirkennan, and tinging the quiet waters of
Edingham Loch. There, too, in the panorama were
Torr Katrine, Culmain, Blaiket, and Whitecairn,
which have always rallied under the black banner ;
but not so Meikle and Little Firth Heads, where
they keep the Ayrshires, at which Mr. Graham's
Modesty by Guardsman gazed too fondly over the
hedge, and brought a red calf thrice in succession.
Bess, the dam of Freebooter and Modesty, was then
the queen-mother of the Meikleculloch herd. Her
lineage is undeniable, as she is by Fergy (19), who
was only shown once, and was then first at the High-
land Society. He was by The Squire (16) by Cum-
berland Willie (160); and it was to The Squire,
bred by Graham of Eiggfoot, that " Meikleculloch''^
owes his show rank. Fergy's dam Eiggfoot was
bought along with The Squire, who v/as not only

320 FIELD AND FERN.

first at Edinburgli in ^48^ but was never beaten in his
home circuit of Dumfries^ Lockerby^ and Moffat.
Good hind quarters came in with him, and so did
that nice docile eye (through Belle, the dam of Bess),
which Galloway men so much prize if they "really
ken a countenance/^ Three seasons were the limit
of The Squire^s stay at Meikleculloch, and then
Walter Carruthers of Kirkhill and Graham of The
Shaw used him. Two strains of Cumberland Willie
united in Freebooter (203) through Bess, who was
sent to Beattie's Mosstrooper, the bull which
won so much both for him and Gibbons of Moss-
band, who purchased him as a yearling. He was of
E/iggfoot breeding, with rare thighs and ribs, and
rather slack behind the shoulders, but, as the Bat-
tersea judges said, "a bull first-rate of his kind.^'
Mr. Beattie bought Maggy from " Meikleculloch,^^
and beat him with her at Carlisle, and then Hannah
paid " Newbie^^ ofiP at Glasgow. Harry and Welling-
ton both came to Meikleculloch from Adam Corrie
of Cairnie Hill. One went to the Emperor of
Russia, leaving a capital daughter, Jess, behind, to
die of pleura; and the other was not only a first
Royal bull at Carlisle, and a first Highland Society
one at Glasgow, but made £60 in prizes from first to
last, and was sold for £80. His was not mere ring
prowess, as he left Dinah, Harriet, and Agnes ; and
Harriet's prizes were within £12 10s. of his own.

Mr. Graham^s love of showing has not been an
unthrift one. The Squire won him the first prize he

AYR TO DUMFRIES. 321

ever tried for at Dumfries ; and since then the money
total has been very considerable, plus two clocks, two
salvers, a sugar-bason, goblet, and inkstand, and a
medium gold medal for Hannah, This cow came
" fra the fell side" in Cumberland, and was bred by
James Thompson of Saughtree Gate. She gave
twenty quarts a day when she was being ^' caked"
for show, and went on nearly at that rate for seven
or eight months, after calving. Her first calf, Dinah^
■was by Wellington (22), and her Semiramis and
Hannibal (201) by George Bell of Minsca's Guards-
man.

Semiramis and Lord Southesk's Quadroona were
quite the black queens at Kelso, and Poet Close,
the laureat to the sable King of Bonny might have
been better employed singing their praises than
making such delicate disclosures about Bonny^s
queen, as that she w^eighs 17st. with her parasol and
crinoline, and that she liked the eating so well on
board The Athenian as to make it necessar}^ for
the ship^s crew to coax her out of the cabin, and then
lower her by gentle violence over the ship^s side into
the long boat. As his rapture was lacking, we may
say in sober prose that she is a long, low cow, with
beautiful thighs and twist, and very snug in front,
and nicely turned about the bosom ; but still Mr.
Graham has always a saving-clause for ^' Hannah at
two years old." Cunningham^s Kate beat both her
and Harriet at Dumfries, but it was a case of table-
turning when she met them separately — Semiramis

2y

322 FIELD AND PEllN.

at Kelso (with M'Combie as Chief Justice) , and Har-
riet at Kirkcudbright and Dalbeattie. Semiramis
also beat her at Newcastle and Kirkcudbright in ^64.

Galloway cows are generally very safe breeders,
and there was a singular proof of it at Meikleculloch,
as twelve out of thirteen had live calves^ and another
was shortly due. Galloway twins are of rare occur-
rence, and, curiously enough, five-sixths of the
Meikleculloch calves were heifers. They were all by
Thompson's Sir Walter, a son of Bob Burns, a bull
to whom Mr, Graham has always been faithful. We
found his blood (through his son Sir James) in
Second Hermione from Dinah, and Hose of Gallo-
way from Semiramis ; and there, too, just ready to
depart to the Duke of Buccleuch's herd at Drum-
lanrig, after her Newcastle victory, was Harriet 2nd
by Clansman, son of Harriet. The byre was full of
other prize winners — Emma the first Battersea two-
year-old, Matilda a second at the Highland Society,
Semiramis, and old Bess, fourteen years old, and quite
gone in her vessel.

It was a seven miles' ride from Dalbeattie to South-
wick, first among peat bogs and then among the
heather, and the granite boulders which Dr. Chalmers
spoke of on his visit as " the riddlings of the earth."
At last we got over the brow, and turned by Bore-
land side into the wooded vale of South wick, with its
warm farm steadings, and its silver firs and beeches,
and so on to the home where Rose of Autumn spent
the autumn of her life, and Pride of Southwick was

AYR TO DUMFRIES. 32S

born. It is a fine early climate for cattle, sheltered
as it is from the cold North, and with two hundred
acres of good old pasture, enough to set some short-
horn breeders^ teeth on edge. Mr. Stewart delights
in his garden ; but we cared for none of those things-
save the Cryptomeria Japonica, or Chinese cedar, and
the Taxodium Semper Virens from New Zealand.
They may be forest trees elect, but the price is at pre-
sent prohibitive.

" Southwick^s sunny vale^^ lies about a mile and a-
half from the Solway, just opposite Allonby. Grouse
bags can be made on the hills behind ; the partridges
scurry away under the feet of the shorthorns ; and
foxes wage their wonted war against the roe-deer
calves, among the weeping birches and the richly
tangled undergrowth of oaks. There are harriers
but no foxhounds in the Stewartry, and in vain do
the Commissioners of Supplj^ propose a premium of
ten shillings on a fox^s ears, and seven shillings for
a cub's, as " they are quite outbidden by the Eng-
lish countries." Trees grow down to the sea shore^.
where the sheldrake with its chocolate breast and
broad ring hatches many a brood. The herons have
their fishing stations on the Solway, and build in
the silver fir near the ivy and holly-covered mill^
wheel, and patiently draw the burn for hirlingg^
which come up from the sea in the second week of
July, and cause such doughty controversies among
the savans as to whether they are trout or salmon.

Two or three Alderneys were grouped under the

2y 2

3^4 FIELD AND FERN.

beechen shade. The Five Sisters and the white
heifer from Hoddom did not disdain the company of
the " cream stainers/^ and formed our introduction
to the herd, which is, with the exception of a small
one at Kirkchrist, the only one in the Stewartry. It
was commenced twenty-one years ago with Cherry
Blossom by Ronald, a daughter of Old Cherry by
Pirate. This tribe crossed Avith Heir-at-law (13005)
has made more money than any, and it went steadily
on to Cherry Flower and South wick Cherry. Cherry
Blossom was bought from Colonel Cradock at New-
castle in ^46, and it is a rare testimony to that ster-
ling old breeder and his honest scorn of all bidding-
up tricks, that when he refused Mr. Stewart^s pri-
vate offer of 150 gs., and said that she would be
shown at Newcastle, and sold, win or lose, she went
for 80 guineas. There were also several cows from
Watson of Walby, which, as well as Brilliant and
Victoria by Gainford, and bred by Crofton, nicked
well with the Baron of Ravensworth (7811). Cru-
cifix came from General Sharpe, and Pride of South-
wick goes back to her in straight descent through
Yanity, Hoddom, and Abbess of St. Mary.
Emily by Kossuth (11646), and a descendant of
Crofton's Emilj^, was bought by Mr. Unthank, and
went into Colonel Towneley^s hands, where she bred
Emma. Fennel, for which Mr. Atherton has always
stood up, and Polly Hopkins by Premier (2449),
also founded tribes ; Rose of Autumn was bought at
the Athelstaneford sale ; and her Rose of Promise by

AYR TO DUMFRIES. 325

Heir at Law made 283 gs. at the Soutliwick. As re-
gards buUs^ Jobson^s Adam (2920), Whitaker's Fitz-
maurice (3807) of the Fairfax sort, Lax^s Baron of Ra-
vensworth (7811), who gave good shoulders and
bosoms, Colonel Towneley's light red-and-white
Hudibras Heir at Law (13005 by Hopewell, who
brought more money than any of them, and Ambler's
M'Turk, a great useful bull with a dark horn, were
all used in turn.

Mr. Stewart had many dealings with Mr. Douglas,
and Brenda, Volga, Rose of Autumn, Rose of Cash-
mere, and the two whites. Clarionet and Venus de Me-
dicis, both speculative bargains, were among his prin-
cipal purchases. At the sale in 1860, seventy-eight
cows and heifers and nineteen bulls were disposed of,
and Rose of Autumn returned in her old age to Mr.
Douglas, who had bought her daughter. Rose of
Sharon, and at one time or another, Baroness Brenda,
Heath BelLby Hudibras, Lord Raglan (13244), &c.,
all bred at Southwick. M^Turk (85 gs.j fell to Mr.
Ambler, Heir of Killerby (157 gs.) to Mr. Stirling of
Keir, and Pride of Southwick (70 gs.), then a year-
ling, to Lady Pigot. Hence, looking at the short
and simple annals of those sixteen years, it would
seem that there were plenty of plums. Lady Pigot
had espied the merits of " The Pride'^ at a glance, as
she grazed in the fifty-acre holme in front of the
house. Her ladyship was then on her way to Mr.
Douglases, to conclude a purchase for the hapless
First Queen of Atheist ane, and decided to take hen

326 FIELD AND FERN.

TDecause, much as she liked the Eose of Promise,
she could not then pass over the darkness of her
horn. First Fruits and British Flag from Warlaby
and Red Bates were used in the next herd, which
came to the hammer last autumn. Mr. Ather-
ton was there for the Cherries, and Southwick
Cherry Flower (100 gs.) and Southwick Cherry (61
gs.) went back with him to Speke. A heifer, Eliza
(60 gs.) changed hands for Broadholm, and Clarionet
and Bose of Cashmere went with good reason for
merely butcher^s price.

Joe Graham shall tell hereafter of the fun he had
with the late Marquis of Queensberry among the
Criffel foxes; and therefore we must merely wind
round the foot of it past New Abbey and " The
Durham Ox Inn^' — a pretty plain proof that we are
drawing near English soil — to the heart of that great
pork centre, Dumfries.

There is not a farmer in Dumfriesshire, Galloway,
and a great part of Ayrshire who does not feed pigs,
not for ])ig-racing, but solely for the curers. Car-
cases also come to Dumfries from Annan, Fife-
shire, Stirlingshire, and Perthshire. Cumberland
feeds many more pigs than it used to do, especially
in the east ; and its Brown and Watson boars have
done much towards keeping up its bacon charter.
Dumfriesshire and the Stewartry have a never-failing
supply ; but in Ayrshire the pigs get so much milk
that they groAV beyond " Cumberland Bacon^^ size,
and are consumed round Glasgow. The skins are

AYR TO DUMFKIES. 327

taken off, and the bones taken out, and, after being a
few days in brine, they are sold as salt pork or ham,
and eaten in the coal mines or the jerry-shops. The
Ayrshire people have an eye to the hide market in
feeding them so large, as every inch above four feet
considerably advances the price. Small pigs from
the lower parts of Ayrshire meet with a good sale, if
they can weigh-in at from 9st to 14st of 141bs. Once
500 or 600 pigs were bought out of the town of Dum-
fries, but none are allowed in it now. Some farmers
in the Stewartry feed sixty, and nearly every cottar
keeps one or two. The curers' agents go about and buy
them up everywhere, and send them to the depot either
alive or with their head and feet off, and unskinned,
which is contrary to the Belfast fashion. Very little
is done in " Bath chaps,^^ as farmers keep them for
home consumption, especially when meat is so dear.
The pigs are from six to twelve months old; and
although Irish bacon is sometimes in the market two
or three weeks after the cure, genuine ham and
bacon cannot be made under three to eight months.
The bacon term opens on Nov. 22nd, curiously
enough when the cheese one closes, and then the curers
are in full work, both in the workshops and the mar-
kets, till the second week in April. On Wednesday
they will be at Dumfries, on Monday at Lochmaben,
and at Lockerby once a fortnight on Thursdays. Cope-
laud of New Abbey, Provost Bell of Dumfries, and
Maclaren of Dalbeattie, are large curers, especially the
latter^ who throws out his hooks all over Galloway.

828 FIELD AND FERN.

Provost steel and Son, W. and R. Graham, W. A.
Roxburgh of Annan, and Sib son and Irvine of Mary-
port, are also leading men in this line at the Dum-
fries markets. Annan has a good market every
Thursday, and so has Carlisle on Saturday, but the
Scottish dealers are seldom found on its " Sands.^^
George Graham is a very extensive curer, and Max-
well and William Bell are the largest ham and bacon
dealers in the north of England, and have large
London transactions."^

At Dumfries the market begins at six, and in a win-
ter's morning the dealers will sometimes go to meet
the carts. They have been known to be three miles
out on the Glasgow and Galloway roads, and ^-a great
runner has a great chance.'^ A large amount of the
carcases are in the hands of the jobbers, but they are
not in such request as those which come direct from the
farmers ; and the " Hae ye sold ?" is most generally
directed to him. The difficulty in the dark is to
guess the weight of the pigs, as it is no joke paying
6s. lOd. per stone for " fine light pigs,'^ and finding
them over 7st. Hence, as people don^t like " to go
back with their finger in their mouth,^^ and as those
who have heavy pigs never know the weight, it is rather
a " pig in a poke^^ afi'air. Thirty to forty carts also
arrive filled with porkers from six weeks to two
months old, for which all prices are paid from 16s. to
35 s. There is so much competition that porkers in

* At page 332, line 4, for "William Bell's" read "Maxwell's."
At page 238, line 9 (North), for " Bii-dcatcher" read " Emilius,"

AYR TO DUMFRIES. 329*

embrj'o are sold off, and porkers in esse sold and
AYeiglied_, and paid for as well, long before 12 o'clock.

At least twenty pork markets are held at Dumfries
during tlie season. We find from The Dumfries
Courier that the quantity and value of pork sold
during the Dumfriesshire and Galloway season of
1864-65 was, as nearly as could he ascertained,
22,050 carcases, or 313,002 imperial stones of the
value of £108,321 Is. Compared with the previous
year, this shows a decrease of 1,715 carcases, or
37,505 stones of pork, and (although prices ranged
from lid. to 2d. per stone higher) of £7,113. There
is probably no season on record during which pota-
toes and oatmeal have been so cheap, and yet pork
so dear.

A 17-stone pig furnishes hams of from 25 lbs. to
261bs., which wonH fetch the top price. From about
lOst. to 13st. is the favourite size, and 161bs. to 201bs.
is quite big enough for hams. Eor the London
market they vary from 121bs. to 181bs. ; but they
have gone as high as 801bs., and those of Mr. Wain-
man's sow Fresh Hope weighed 951bs., and were quite
" sandwich ham." During the past season, if hams
were between 121bs. and 20lbs. they made from 80s.
up to 100s. a cwt., and if they were between 201bs.
and 301bs. at least 8s. to 10s. less..

Cumberland hams between 161bs. and 181bs. weight
have been sold at 112s. and 114s. in October. The
bacon rise began in 1834, and the stone of 161bs. in-
creased suddenly in value from 3s. to 6s. In '35^

330 FIELD AND FERN.

the 141b. stone came in, and, beginning at 5s. 9d.
has varied ever since from 3s. 9d. to 7s. 6d. In
Dumfries, during the Peninsular war, at least lis.
was made for the 161b. stone; and in the season
before last such was the competition that the same
quality of pork ruled a shilling dearer there than it
did at Belfast.

Cutting up is a great science, and the flitches must
be made to fit and lie level, and then the hams are
built on them by layers of three, two, one. Lump
salt from Liverpool is chiefly used, and a great weight
of it is made on the Cheshire side of the water. The
first day they are done in salt only to extract the
water, and then in salt and salt-petre. After eight
days, they are turned again and dressed with salt
simply, and then after lying for another thirteen days
they are ready for hanging, or else they never will
be. Cumberland curers pursue the same mode, but
never allow it to lie in salt more than sixteen days.
In America they are apt to oversalt, and they cannot
help it, as they must do it immediately. The pork
corrupts in a w^arm season, and it stiff'ens in a cold.
Here the lard comes out in lumps as soon as it is
split, and is melted and put into bladders, and there
it is frozen like a board, so that they cannot get a saw
into it. Keeping off the brine insures the bacon
being mild, and ham is better after eighteen months.
To suit the London market and show its ripeness
there must be mould on it, but on a four-year-old
ham there is no profit. The hams are closed up in

AYR TO DUMFRIES. 331

the houses to keep off the fly and make mould, and
are kept dry by a current of air at the top. For
the first fortnight the heat is kept at 100 degrees to
make the salt come out of the meat. Twenty-one
days after it has been hung a good ham will dry, and
be firm in fibre, whereas a bad ham swells and feels
flabby. Some of the Scottish and Cumberland curers
smoke their hams, which the Yorkshire men rarely do.
On all hams and bacon there is a regular
allowance to the buyer of 21bs. in every 20 stone. . In
curing there is not so much loss on bacon as on ham, as,
if the shoulder misses, the rib part generally stands.
Sometimes a considerable per-centage is lost in
warm weather ; but the loss is never so great in the
country as in the town, on account of the air being
less murky. The pig most to the curer's mind is one
not fat or short or big, or over-driven, but a lengthy
one of 14i stone of 14lbs., and generally from eight
to twelve months old, which has been fed on oatmeal
and potatoes. Ten months is the best age, and some
curers maintain that- no "Perfect Cure^^ can be
eff'ected sooner. There will be a difference of 5s. to 6s'
per stone in pigs according to food and age. In fact,
two hams which the salt has run through in twenty-
one days will be put to hang in the same house and
on the same tier, and both look equally well, and yet
the one has not condition to stand the fire, and will
turn " as yellow as mustard,^^ and the other will be
" as white as snow, and all right.^^ Movable cinder
fires in iron barrow-shaped stoves are kept in many

332 FIELD AND FERN.

of the houses, which are all duly ventilated, to pre-
vent the heat at the top acting unduly. The great
ham and bacon dealers^ houses are fullest in March ;
and in William Bell's, who sends an immense weight
of bacon to Yorkshire and Newcastle, and of hams
to London and Edinburgh, we have seen from 4,600
to 4,800 hanging up at one time in March, tier above
tier, of which there are seven. His calculation is
that a stone of lard should come out of a 14-stone
pig j and sometimes he has in "a very throng time"
melted 600 stone of lard a day. He cures on the
average 2,500 to 3,000 pigs in the season, princi-
pally from Nichol Forest and the Longtown parts
of Cumberland. Provost Steel of Annan has done
more ; but Beattie of Shillie Hill is generally supposed
to have the largest business in Scotland.

TINWALD DOWNS TO HALLHEATHS. S33

fwuLD wwm n ummmm.

"Mr. Kirby had an order for two cows, 'one for a nobleman, and the
other for the Empress of Russia; but the imperial cow died on the pas-
sage, and the Avorst had to be led to the Palace for inspection. ' Why,'
asked the Empress, 'are three teats so large, and one so small f 'It's all
correct, i^lease your Majesty,' said the ever ready Luke Xott,' three are for
the milk, and the little one for the cream.' ' Indeed !' said the Empress."

Silk ai^d Scaelet (p. 149).

Tinwald Do\\tis — The New and Old Race Courses — Mr. Wilkin's Blood
Stock — Stable Scenes — Jamie Heughan's Discipline — Bob Jolinson's
Tumble off Saucebox — Drumlanrig Castle — Tbe Duke of Buccleuch's
Stock at Holstane and Tibbers — Vendace at Loclimaben — The late
Mr. Andrew Johnstone — Blood Stock at Hallheaths.

^NE road from Dumfries to Tinwald Downs lies
^ past the station gardens^ whose lavender-coloured
borders, yellow calceolarias, and scarlet geraniums
still attest the Scottish love of flowers in the very
teeth of that arch leveller, Steam. There were
plenty of " stinking violets" in the Carnsalloch woods,
which furnish many a grand ring to the Dumfries-
shire hounds, among their deep heather lying, and
round by the Burnt Firs, a noted cub harbour, at
the north end of Lochar Moss. The Moss is an
eight-thousand-acre tract with twelve feet of outfall ;
the peats ai'e being fast cut away, but it has held
for eight-and-twenty years the debris of the unhappy
steam plough, and not even a team of eight or ten

334 FIELD AND FERN,

horses doing their best could prevail to part them."^
Once through the woods, and the old and new race-
courses were right and left of us. In summer time the
road is fragrant with sweet-brier and wild roses, to
the memory of ^^ Gilbert Glossin,^^ who was agent
from Netherby to Port Patrick, and who did not for-
get the wayfarers, while he was laying out his own
Garden at Tinwald Downs.

The old race-course was nearly a mile round, and
it was here that Charles Marquis of Queensberry
trained with John Smith. It was a dead flat, and
when the word was given to cross the road, 102
ploughs pronounced its doom. The somewhat im-
posing gates are still left to the new course, but no
racer has passed through them since ^47, and the
Southern Meeting is ended. The tents were not
pitched of yore in the plain, but confined to an emi-
nence at the west end, and the course, which is
level, with the exception of a slight dip at the far
side — as useful in its day as the Cantley hill at Don-
caster — measures one-and-a-half miles round. Mr.
Wilkin^s Leicester flock feed there now, and of course
the blood mare and foal are as faithful to it as the
Dryad to the oak grove, or the '^ Water Baby'^ to the
stream. Once Mr. Wilkin determined to breed no
more blood stock, and actually gave away Barbara
Young out of Eryx^s dam, the last of the old sort.

* I see from the Dumfries Courier that the dam which obstructed the flow
of the Lochar to the sea has just l:)een removed, and that " if the upper pro-
prietors only clear and straighten the course of the stream, the present
generation may yet see the wilderness converted into smiling corn and
grass land."

TINWALD DOWNS TO HALLHEATHS. 335

However, Fate and the first Mrs. Fobert were against
him, and the moment the former heard what her
old friend had done, she wrote to say most decisively
that it was not to be, and that she and her husband
were so determined on that point that they were just
sending off another brood mare to him. And so Mr.
Wilkin yielded to their decree, and Merrywing by
Irish Birdcatcher came down, and in after-years a
cheque of 150 gs. was offered by Mr. Blenkiron in
vain, for this little remembrance of one of the kindest-
hearted women that ever passed to her rest. The ches-
nut had bolted as a two-year-old at the Carlisle turn
for home, and had been seen no more in public, and
there she was last year the dam of Merrythought
by Mandricardo, and with an Underhand filly at her
foot.

Mr. Wilkin sells some fifty shearling tups a year,
and he is satisfied if he can make £5 all round.
He brought down tups thirty years ago from the
York, Masham, and Thirsk districts, and still runs
upon the Yorkshire sheep as most " calculated to fill
a glutton^s eye."'^ He does not go for the blue heads,
and makes a great point of good hard hair on their
crowns. The open coat is most essential, as they are
used almost entirely to cast Cheviot ewes, as, in fact,
there are hardly any half-bred .ones in the county.
The half-bred lambs come out at Lockerby and Car-
lisle in August and September, and at Penrith (or
" Peerith'^) as hoggs the next spring. A^ery few com-
paratively are turniped in Cumberland, but on the

536 FIELD AND FERN.

dry knolls up the water of the Urr in Galloway^ where
forty years ago you would hardly see one Ayrshire cow
or a hundred sheep in a day.

There is quite a history in connection with the
hovel in the corner of the Dumfries race-course. It
adjoins the little paddock into which Joe Graham
jumped when his hounds were carrying a good head
towards Torthorwald^ and lay " due east," not ex-
actly stretched many a rood (for there never was, and
never will be, much of him) in " the heaviest fall I
ever had in my life." Within those humble walls
Ballochmyle by Peter Lely was foaled, and so were
Modesty from Theresa and Abraham Newland from
Rachel by Amadis, both of them by Malek, and
in the self-same year. Idleboy by Satan was another
of Rachel's, which were nearly all cliesnut except
Wee Willie, the first of the Liverpools. She was
bought from Mr. Knapton of York, and had an end-
less spring of it, as when she was twenty-four she
threw a colt and a filly, and excited the admiration of
a visitor so much when she was in foal for the last
time, that he called her " the chesnut filly in the
park," and dwelt at intervals on her suitability for
his carriage. Venus, the dam of Vulcan, came from
" Jupiter Johnson's," with Vulcan at her foot, and
bred Eryx soon after. Lord John Scott gave £100
for the old mare and her foal Wanderin' Willie when
she was twenty-two ; and the latter brought back
the purchase-money and " something more" at Don-
caster Spring. Mr. Wilkin never bred a St. Leger

TINWALU DOWNS TO HALLHEATHS. 337

winner, but Eryx and Abraham Newland, each, of
which was sold for £150 and a .£500 contingency,
were third and second for that race. It was only
through Young Sam Day^s desperate rush on Mango,
in which, at the expense of his own boot-tops, he
" split^^ the Doctor and Abraham when they were
running locked together twenty yards from home,
that the chesnut failed to land it. Next year there
was, in one sense, a more memorable finish of
three, as '' Abraham,^^ Wee WiUie, and Clem o' the
Cleugh, all sons of Kachel, met at Dumfries, and
racing past their little birth-place, where their dam
was shut up with her foal for the day, finished first
second, and third ; and at Manchester in ^37 Wee
Willie, Modesty, a very steady enduring mare for
heats, and '^ Abraham" won five races between them.
For many years Tinwald Downs was the head-
quarters of the best blood sires in Dumfriesshire.
Monreith by Haphazard, own brother to Filho du
Puta, and a strong and flashy dark chesnut, who got
some of his stock a little soft, was the first arrival,
at a fifty-pound hire, from Sir William Maxwell. His
successor was Viscount by Stamford, who got good car-
riage horses, hunters, and hacks, and especially good
mares. The grey was the St. Leger trial-horse for
Filho, and therefore his coming to run at Dumfries,
with Croft in charge and young Bill Scott to ride
him, marked in Mr. Wilkin^s mind the year
1817, when he entered on the Tinwald Downs
farm.

2 z

338 FIELD AND FERN.

Peter Lely was hired from Mr. Knapton of York ;
he got good dark bays and browns, and, like Satan, he
just stayed for one season. Satan^s son Idle Boy from
Kachel, with his Arab quarters and rather peacocky
carriage, was kept mneh longer, and distinguished
himself as the sire of Paphos and Urania. Corinthian
by Comus was hired from the late Mr. James, M.P.,
who once owned Saucebox, and was a capital
gentleman-rider when Sir Tatton Sykes wore the
Sledmere blue and orange ; but this champion ches-
nut of Cumberland did very little for Mr. Wilkin
beyond Clem o' the Cleugh, an honest £50 Plate
horse, and much beloved of Tommy Lye, when the
lads had to be dodged in heats. The beautiful dark-
brown Vulcan by Voltaire from Eryx^s dam did long
and good service, and the county was full of his
daughters. Both his horses and mares were very capi-
tal and compact dark-browns or blacks, generally
with a crown-piece of white on one of their heels.
General Sharpens Malek, with his big mealy ches-
nuts, and Mr. Johnstone^s St. Martin, the sire of
many a hardy, brown hunter, gave the county a great
chance ; but, although The Era is popular, there is
not much enthusiasm for horse-breeding now, and
Vulcan would have to forge on a different anvil.

It is upwards of forty years since the new race-course
was opened. On the occasion of the meeting in Oc-
tober, the yard of Tinwald Downs as like a training
stable for nearly a fortnight. Every cart- shed was
boarded up and extempore stalls invented, and thanks

TINWALD DOWNS TO HALLHEATHS. 339

to spare stables and hovels^ seven-and-twenty horses
stood there at one Caledonian Hunt. " The Mar-
quis's Stable/' with a racing plate nailed to the
door, and '^ The Shadow — loon 57 races'' still legible
within its circle, is now a byre with Ayrshire cows
and a tortoise-shell bull, not to mention the occa-
sional presence of a tortoise-shell tom-cat, which was
offered by an old woman to Sir Charles Phipps for
^50, and, on the utter failure of that royal negotia-
tion, to Mr. Wilkin, junior, for one. The three-stall
stable was the stage upon which General Chasse
appeared in. one of his finest sensation dramas, car-
rying his boy George Gilchrist about by the hand,
and shaking him, as a tiger would a Bengalee, till help
arrived and they were forced asunder at the point of
the pitchfork. The lads slept in the granary, and
Jamie Heughan, who has been forty-eight years with
Mr. Wilkin, and three with his father before him,
slept there also with a stout cudgel. He was just
the man, as they say, in Scotland to " gar kings ken
they had a lith i' their necks /^ and being " a mad
sort of body,'^ if any lad talked at unhallowed hours
or tried to put upon him, he came down so hot and
heavy on the beds that, as Mr. Wilkin has it, ^'plenty
of your eminent trainers, Derby and Leger men, ivill
mind Jamie as long as ever they live.''

The principal course was '' once round from the
garden gate,'^ and year after year Mr. Wilkin might
be seen on his garden terrace with quite a troop of
friends. He was never at the St. Leger in his life^,

2 z 2

340 FIELD AND FERN.

and only once on the TinAYald Downs course during
the running. This was when Bob Johnson had that
terrible tumble off Saucebox, after which he was
never quite the same man. Mr. Wilkin ran to the
house for a brandy bottle, and then galloped up the
road and through the gates to him. He was lying
helpless and fainting in the middle of such a dense
ring, that the bottle had to be passed over their heads.
It fell into the hands of a thirsty cobbler, who could
not resist " a wee drappie,^"* and took a most pro-
tracted sack at it before he could be made to pass it
on to poor Bob.

lianercost was fond of this course, but, for very
good reasons, he and St. ^lartin did not meddle with
each other either in the Buccleuch Plate or the Cup."^'"
Next autumn he accommodated St. Bennett and
Malvolio separately, and in 1840 he took a terrible
revenge on Charles XII. for his Doncaster Cup
defeat. " Charles'' then talked over for and
won the Cup, and with this double Goodwood Cup
winner that race died out. The Caledonian Hunt
Meeting was last held here in ^44, Avhen Alice Haw-
thorn and Brevity won nearly everything. Next
year Mr. Merry swept all save the portion of The
Shadow, and in ^46 there were only a dozen horses.
Then it sank down to six horses and one day ; and
old Annandale was second for the handicap to Marian
Ramsay^ who also won the last race, a Give-and-

* See " Scott and Sebright," p. 188.

TINWALD DOWNS TO HALLHEATHS. 341

Take Plate, by half-a-neck. Oddly enoug;h_, a lad
called Wilkin rode tlie loser, and then Mr. Wilkin's
mares Kackel and A'enus were left with the Leices-
ters in undisturbed possession.

Such were the experiences of our saunter out of
Dumfries, and once more we were in the saddle, and
away towards quite a different point of the compass
up the Valley of the Nitli. There is very little wheat
in the valley, which opens up after Auld Garth. Dun
ponies seemed to be most plentiful, and a boy
informed us that " they were a^ strippit doon the back
— King o' the Country always gat them that way :
ye^ve heerd tell on Mm surely V' which indeed had
not. They seemed a good sort, though perhaps not
a model for the flying horse which surmounted the
town cross in the centre of the long lime avenue of
Thornhill. The loam and the gravel vary all the
way along the valley of the Nith ; but on referring
to a map at Holstane, we found that after pur-
suing the east side we were ^' in an oasis of the new
red sandstone, in the midst of a huge bed of lime-
stone extending from Port Patrick to Dunbar,^^ and
slept none the less soundly for the discovery. The pos-
session of the hills which began to flank us on the
right, fivemiles outof Dumfriesis pretty evenly divided
between the black and "the pale faces'^ or the Che-
viots. The latter hold Closeburn Town Head, which
dies away in that arable valley below Low Garth,
where half-bred lambs are got ready for Lock-
erby. Blackfaces wander over Bellybucht, which

342 FIELD AND FERN.

has an old Roman road on tlie face of it, and they
hold " more than Roman sway^^ on the loftier Gar-
roch as well. From Bellyhucht the range stretches
away by Scatlaw Mains, where

" Last May a braw wooer
Cam doon the lang glen,"

and past the little bnrial-place of the Queensberry
family, when they dwelt at Durisdeer, till it is at
last lost in the great neutral sheep heights of the
Louthers.

Drumlanrig Castle is in the valley three miles from
Thornhil], close by the burn side, and backed up
on the south by a chain of woodlands. There is no
foxhunting here, and the cubs are strictly gathered
up for England. The rams' horns staircases to the
entrance were in course of alteration at Drum-
lanrig Castle, and the gardens, over which Mr.
Macintosh (brother to the James Macintosh who
did with his pen for Scottish trees what Parson Gil-
pin did with his pencil for English) presides with a
staff of a hundred men, were of course not in their
bloom. In fact^ there were only the gravel com-
binations left, to make us realize autumn, when (as
we afterwards proved) the scene from the terrace
almost forbids a sigh after " sweet Bowhill.^^

The Duke of Buccleuch has 2,500 acres at Tibbers
and Holstane, under the management of his farm
steward, Mr. Johnstone. Twenty years ago, the
Galloways were the only stock on the farms; but
since then Ayrshires have been introduced, and

TINWALD DOWNS TO HALLIIEATHS. 343.

are kept at Holstane, where Mr. Jolinstone re-
sides. His Grace rather haugs to Galloways; but
still, he has bought a few Anguses, for the sake of
trying the cross. The young cows and heifers are
principally by Freebooter (203), and among them
were the first, second, and third in the yearling class
at Kelso. Mr. Graham of MeiklecuUoch bred
Freebooter, as we have already stated, and sold him
to Mr. Birrel of Guards, who sold him back after he
was second at the Carlisle Royal, and so he found
his way to libbers, like his nephew Knight of Lid-
desdale, the present chief of the black harem, and
others of the MeiklecuUoch cracks. The calves are
generally dropped in January and February, to be
ready for the Highland Society, and are suckled
twice or three times a-day for six months, Agnes
Waugh has led a vestal life among them for nearly
thirty years. She " was no' at Battersea^" a^ she
observes, ^' wl' the kye ; but I ivur at Kelso, and we
made grandly out wV the heifers there.'' We had
met nothing so genuine since old Hannah at Lord
Feversham^s. Second Agnes, or Agnes Locker-
bie, her assistant, was quite a second edition of Ea-
venscroft's Polled Herd-Book, in a kirtle and bare
feet ; and two such able field-marshals soon put the
Freebooters and all the rest- of them in array
for us.

There was a curious union of Herd--Book numbers
in M^Gill by BalsaUoch (92) from Halliday (92),
the second cow at Battersea, where her daughter

344 FIELD AND FERX.

Miss M'Gill was the first yearling heifer. ^' Come out,
Small Bones !" and out she came^ true to her name,
and Gordon as well,, with Scroggie Hill and Beauty.
'' Thafs Young Mary the Second, or London Mary
we ca' her,'' says one of the Aggies, and so stimu-
lated she went away at score, with the narrative of
how " Original Mary hung herself P Still, there was
an old Mary left in the land, with a good deal of
shorthorn character when you stood behind her.
There too were Sproat, Keir Lass from Barndan-
noch, and Graham, a business-like little cow, and
with not more sweetness, but more Galloway charac-
ter than Brown Lugs. Queen was a trifle more on
leg than some of them, and Beauty of Drumlanrig.
Halliday 2ncl, and Agnes, all owed much of their
nice forequarter and good thighs to Freebooter,
Knight of Liddesdale was roaming in his paddock,
and came quietly at Mr. Johnstone^s call to his loose-
box, with as blithe a step as the bay of thirty-two
summers, who was just backing a cart on to the
green manure-heap.

About fifty "bacon swine'^ are reared each year at
Tibbers, and then finished off near the dairy at Hol-
stane. His Grace has kept to whites, and began by
crossing a white Sussex with one from Lord Sefton.
"With good feeding the sort would reach about 32 st.
at twelve months ; but of course they go off to the
curers when they are much lighter weights. One boar
struck us as having a peculiar head, and we found
that it was only a copy of his sire's, which was

TINWALD DOWNS TO HALLHEATHS. 345-

embalmed in consequence at Dr. Grayson^ s Thornhill
Museum.

About 160 Highlanders with a slight admixture
of Shetlanders were grazing in the Park, and as they
stood on its banks or plunged into the Nith to drink,
they composed a cattle group which made us yearn,
for the third and last time in Scotland, for the
camera. The West Highlanders are bought up at
2h years at the Falkirk September and October
trysts, and are kept two years, and then sold at about
a £10 profit at 40 to 44 stone of 141bs. to the London
and Liverpool butchers. The flock numbers 1,200
Cheviot ewes, whose annual cast is replaced by
seconds at Lockerby, and crossed with a Leicester-
tup from Mr. Wilkin^s or Mr. Beattie^s, and the
lambs are sold off at 22s. to 28s. Two hundred black-
faced ewes are also put to the Leicester for mules,
which sell well about home to the feeders at from
16s. to £1. Many of them go to be turniped in
Galloway, and find customers from the South in
spring.

The ewes were sharing with the Ayrshires the
great 125-acre meadow by the Carron side, in front
of the Holstane Mains, which lie snugly under Castle
Hill, one of the green outspurs of the Louthers. It
was milking-time, and the "little- white ivories^^ were
left in possession while Prince by Tower led in his
fair and flecked followers. He won the gold medal
at Sanquhar, and we found in him a good correc-
tive to those shorthorn points which it had been often

346 FIELD AND FERN.

SO difficult to shake off in Ayrshire. Among the
COWS; which had some trouble to follow him in his
gay trot to the stalls, were Miss Harper, the blood-
like Nightingale, first at Hamilton in '63 ; Miss
Eingland, with a very engaging countenance, and
second, as she well might be, at Sanquhar, in a ring
where sometimes forty yearling heifers have to stand
together, and fight it out upon shape alone before
the vessel can prophesy of itself. Stately had a de-
lightful vessel; Charlotte^s horn and middle-piece
were equally true-shaped; and Kate we remarked
on more for her neat bone. Beauty's vessel has gone
now, and Mr. Heslop's '^brilliant ruin,'Vho has walked
out of the ring with many a card in her time, kept
quite away, as if she knew that she had no part or
lot with the ducal thirty-four, of which the best are
occasionally shown at Sanquhar, Thornhill, and
Dumfries. The Holstane dairy deserted with the
times from Dunlops six years ago, and it is now
making Cheddars of 56 to 601bs., and getting 14s.
the 241bs.

It was now " Bock agin, Sandy ;" but the Valley
of the Nith will well bear riding twice. There was no
shorter cut, and with another call at Tinwald Downs
for a stirrup-cup, and a long look with young Mr.
Wilkin at his capital black Spanish fowls, we set the
mare's head over the hill for Annandale. We had
to skirt Lochar Moss, and pass Torthorwald Tower of
murderous '' Pllmaksiccar (sure)" fame. Then King
Robert de Brus's elastic, and '' the Castle Lochs and

TINWALD DOWNS TO HALLHEATHS. 347

a' the lochs — nine of 'em" glistened before us, and
transformed Lochmaben, which we had only thought
of as a pig market, into quite a fair " City of the
"Waters/^ Herons from Hallheaths and wild-ducks
pause there in their flight to the Solway, and pikes
and vendace seem to be the fish tenants in common.
These vendace are said to have been originally brought
from Italy by the monks. They are less than three
ounces, and have a black heart-shaped transparency
at the back of their heads, through which the brain
may be seen. Thus they keep their hearts not ^' for
daws to peck at,^' but for the Vendace Club, when
they meet at Lochmaben early in August, to fish and
dine together, with Sir William Jardine in the chair.
Fried in bread-crumbs they are quite the white-bait
of the North, and a ten-dozen basket is a good
day's sport.

A half-bred Arab by Minuet from a Telemachus
mare, in the breaking bits, showed that we were ap-
proaching a spot where other " good things have
been landed.^' In a few minutes the clock cupola
rose above the thick laurel approaches to Hallheaths,
once the home of the owner of Charles the Twelfth.
St. ^lartin, Annandale, Verulam, Mentor, and Tele-
machus have all been stabled under that cupola
since the late Mr. Andrew Johnstone came back
from China, great in the faith of a blood horse,* and,
curiously enough, the two last died from broken legs,
caused by the kick of a mare. St. Martin has also

* See " Scott and Sebright," pp. 171-72.

348 FIELD AND FERN.

"been dead for some years,, but his name endures with
the Dumfriesshire Hunt. The grass here is three
weeks later than it is at Sheffield Lane; but the few
yearlings that go up to join the "Lane lot" at Don-
caster can hold their own in the average. Old
Nugget by Melbourne is in residence, and she sent
up Emigrant (410 gs.) last year; and Vagary byVol-
tigeur and Jungfrau roam in the holme by the Annan
side with their foals. The Derby was denied to An-
nandale, horse and district;, as the St. Leger was to
Nithsdale with Abraham Newland, and in both in-
stances by South Country riders and outsiders. Old
Annandale looked well, but his back was beginning
to sink beneath the burden of three-and-twenty sum-
mers. Still, that tough old boy " Terrona" looked at
his grand ends when he met Defiance at Lockerby
that spring for the J40 Hunt Prize. In vain did his
colleagues on the bench ask him to let it be a unani-
mous decision in favour of the younger bay; but
'^ Unanimous ! no, never /" was all they could extract
from such an emphatic Andrew Marvel. This was
the third year of the struggle, and Houlakin and The
Era had won it before, and in his turn Defiance has
had to yield to a younger horse, Warmanby by
Mountain Deer. Mr. Andrew Johnstone loved An-
nandale next to Touchstone, and felt sure at one
time, that whenever the old horse died, his blood
combined with that of Alice Hawthorne^s dam must
bring his son to the front. With Clydesdale it once
seemed as if it was to be, but his legs gave way

TIXWALD DOWNS TO HALLHEATHS. 349

before the Derby. Still, Balrownie, Johnny Arm-
strong, and One Act are something for one horse,
and the dams of Stampedo and Haddington are also
by hira. It is now four or five years since he left
Sheffield Lane, and he has scarcely seen two blood
mares a season since.

The three white legs of his hardy little chum
Minuet have done good service in India. He be-
longed to Mr. Smollett, M.P. (then of the Madras
Civil Service), and so did The Child of the Islaads,
who was faster, but rather delicate. When ^' The
Child" went wrong. Minuet took his place as second
horse, and (as there was no Merry Monarch to drop
from the clouds) he won the Calcutta Derby of 7,000
rupees for three, four, and five year old maidens,
"pegging away in his old cricket-ball style from end
to end.'^ Ridden by the lanky John Hall, he carried
off the Civilians^ Cup at Madras, and as it was a
2\ miles handicap against all comers, it may be
said of him, as Lord Westbury did from his
marble chair of the proposed rifle match between
Lords and Commons, that he "would meet" the
Arabs " at any place and with any weapon." He
was brought over in ^50 along with the famous Elepoo,
who was 15h. Oj inches, or just an inch beyond his own
standard. Minuet has carried his owner, who rides
over 13 stone, to the finish in a capital run with Sir
"Watkin, and as he can screw and creep or have a
fence any way, he has been used to hunting mares in
the district. The stock have been generally bold

850 FIELD AND FERN.

wide jumpers^ but a little hot, and one of them, a
four-year°old from a St. Martin mare, won the Hunt
prize of jglO for the best four -year-old colt or filly
at Lockerby. Hence the late Mr. Tattersall, whose
grandfather's most successful blood-stock venture
was his trip to buy an Earl of Eglinton's brood mares,
proved a little out when he joked Mr. Johnstone and
said he '^ might do to get mules with.''

Mr. John Johnstone followed the horses from
India. As the portrait and memoir in the Cal-
cutta Spo7^ting Magazine prove, he was a mighty hog
hunter in his day, and, as " Josto King of Spears," he
was known '' in the field of Kushnaghur," as well as
in the Calcutta Tent Club. For two seasons he
hunted the Calcutta Hounds, which ran the jackal,
in default of foxes. They had a supply of draft fox-
hounds out each year from England, and generally
thirty- five couple in kennel. Throwing off in the
grey dawn, and finding in a dry nullah or a grass
jungle was very difi*erent to a climb up Rammer-
scales hill, or a fast thing from the Duke's cover
to Castle Milk ; but Joe Graham is " Josto" now^
and, as Joe says, " Mr. Johnstone's a clipping secre-
tary, and one of our first flight." The J's, to wit
the Jardines, the Johnstones, and Joe, keep the game
well alive in Annandale.

Hallheaths is not occupied at present, but there
are vestiges of the quiet, earnest sportsman who died
there in '57. Herring, senior, came here with his
son Charles to paint hunters, and we also found

TINWALD DOWNS TO HALLHEATHS. 351

his masterly hand in Charles XII., Beeswing, the
Arabs, Elei^poo, Minuet, and Telemachus, a very
neatly-mouided horse, and all shot with grey hairs.
The mare with her sweet form and light hlood-like
neck carries her ears well forward, while the mighty
Charleses are screwed back as if he would like right
well to have a nip at somebody. Amid all his re-
verses when his back had become quite hollow and
his tail was cut, he retained some faded notions of
royalty, and he would not pass through Balby toll-
gates, the southern portal to the scene of his St.
Leger, and Cup victory against Lanercost, Beeswing,
and Compensation, till both the gates were opened.
When he got there, Tom Dawson, who had trained
him when he left John Scott^s, did not know him in
the sale ring, and, although he was the sire of some
capital hunters, no one would venture on him at
^^ a pony.^^ He went to Ireland after that, and was
eventually put down at Sheffield, when quite a shadow
of his old self, and a carving-knife and fork were
made from his cannon bones.

Mr. Andrew Johnstone began breeding at Hall-
heaths with Theresa Panza by Wagtail, Proserpine by
Ehadamanthus, Marchioness by Velocipede, Morsel
by Mulatto (the dam of The Cure), and Grimston by
Verulam, and eventually a Goodwood Cup winner,
was the first foal he bred. For a time he stuck to
Verulam, a fine crested horse, who spread many rich,
bold-fencing bays over the Yorkshire hunting fields.
He commenced training with Kalph Scott from Tom

3j2 field and fern.

Dawson^ s, in the big field in front of fhe house at
Hallheaths^ and by dipping into the holme, and so
back again into the park, they made a very good
IJ miles out of it. There was also a gallop for hard
weather on Thorniethwaite Moor, where he used to
freshen up the decayed thoroughbreds, which Tom
Dawson picked up for hira, when he horsed the mail
between Hanginshaw and Gretna. One of the best
-and fastest wheelers he ever used was by an Arab he
bought at TattersalFs. He was always at the great
race meetings, and no one delighted more in seeing
the early gallops at Chester, or, if it was wet, watch-
ing them from his window in Paradise Kow. Good-
wood was his delight, and we used to see him pacing
slowly up and down the esplanade, with his hands
behind his back, considering whether "Charles'-'
and the "crimson, and green cap'^ would win the Cup
next day. Young Job Marson had already con-
founded Newcastle by just beating Beeswing with
the long striding brown over their own Town Moor ;
but it was not until he beat Frank Butler a head on
Hyllus over Goodwood, after a tremendous finish in
which "the maiden bay''' tried to savage Charles,
that he fairly won his spurs with the public. He
was up again the next year, in the thousand-guinea-
aside match, and Kobinson, who had a hundred-
guinea retainer, rode Hyllus. Nothing could
alter the '41 form, and Job was mortified enough
when the first call of Lord Westminster for Sleight
of Hand forced him to give up his cup mount to

TINWALD DOWNS TO HALLHEATHS. 353

'^ Our Jim" on tlie Thursday. Mr. Johnstone never
had a great horse again, but he stuck faithfully by
Touchstone when his own sires failed him, and not
only bred Lord of the Isles, but a 1,800-guinea year-
ling. Lord of the Hills, by him. Three colts were the
produce of the four mares which he sent to him
in his very last season. About two years before his
own deatli, ]Mr. Johnstone talked of clearing out all
his sires, and bidding for Stockwell at Lord Exeter's
sale, as the legitimate successor of the "Eaton
Brown ;'^ but he changed his mind, and did not live
long enough to regret it.

It was no slight difficulty crossing the ford to
Broadholm; but Mr. John Johnstone on Queensberry,
the winner of a Dumfriesshire steeple-chase, was
quite a Trinity House pilot, and we got well across
near a weir, which Robinson Carr and "Sandy" had
done their very best to pull down, to get at an otter.
Arabs have quite a colony here. We had left a Minuet
over the water at the foot of a hunting mare, as well
as a yearling in a shed ; and here the cross was taken
the opposite way, and a grey Arab mare had an Era
foal, which was to be entered in the Oaks. Two
half- Arab ponies were also trotting away to Lockerby
•station, on their road to Mortlake, and Mr. John-
stone changed Queensberry in the evening for a
grey of the same cross. Shorthorns are a new
love; but he was not off with the old greyhound one,
and among a leash of seniors there were saplings by
Canaradzo and puppies by Master Blue Hat, But

2 A A

354 FIELD AND FERN.

t

we could Jnot linger long to run over the ^^coltisli
chronicle/^ in that little office where Racing Calen-
dars are the ledgers, and Oppressor, Gretna, Caterer,
and all the other Sheffield Lane winners, were named
before the fatal second Tuesday in July ; and " For-
ward to The Shaw !" was the watchword of the
night.

LOCKERBY TO MOODLAW. 355

LOCEEEBf f© SiOeiiLaW.

" Ca' the yowes to the knowes,
Ca' them \yhere the heather gTOws,
Ca' them where the burnie rows —
My bonnie dearie !

" Hark the mavis' evening sang
Sounding Cluden's woods amang !
Then a faulding let us gang,
■ My 'bonnie deai-ie."

BUKXS.

The Cliuix-hyard of Old Drumgre — Lockerby Lamb Fair — Breedina; in.
Dumfriesshire — Sale of the Moodlaw Tups at Beattock — Ericstane —
The Shaw — Eskdale Muir — A Day at Moodlaw — Annals of the
Moodlaw Hock.

UR remembrances of Annandale are very mixed
ones, and drawn from visits at two or three
different periods of the year. We had the finest
view of it from the hill above " Hebbie Renwick's^'
where there is a shepherd's burial-ground in con-
nection with the churchyard of old Dumgre. " The
graves are the graves of our ain folk'^ in that lofty
solitude, and the sheep browse over them at will ;
and when you have scraped away the moss from one
deep sunken stone, you read the proud epitaph,
^^ Here lys the corps of ane honest man.'' "Oh ! what
a beautiful clearing it would make,^^ said an Austra -

2 A A 2

356 FIELD AND FERN.

lian, as he looked down on that vale, so thickly
wooded that we tried in vain to trace out our route
— where we had seen Bonnie Dundee snorting round
his paddock at The Heuk, and stretching his
battered old legs for another hunting season^ and
where the fallow deer hadflitted across the road, as
we came back at dark from Raehills.

We caught the same dale from a different point
when we looked over it from Lockerby hill at the
time of the great August lamb fair. Dreary little
places often have the magnetic power of becoming a
great fair focus, and so it is with Lockerby. "The
Ewe and Lamb^' sign tells its simple story. August
brings the lamb fair; September creeps up with
Galloway cattle and cast ewes, and "fetches the
greatest weight of money with it ;" and tail lambs,
cast ewes, and store cattle conclude the year in Oc-
tober and November. There is also the show of
Galloway bulls, fat cattle, and hoggs, in April, when
the Dumfries Hunt give blood-sire and hunter prizes ;
and'ir September the local show extends its favours
even to Savoy cabbages and canaries.

The town was full of holiday lads and lasses ; and
" Ai'e ye gan up the hill ?'^ was the challenge of the
hour. The lads sometimes fail to climb that hill
quite peaceably, with their ladye loves on their arm.
One had a fit of heroics half-way up, and was going
to " smasV somebody, but the crowd gathered round,
with the cooling query, " What ails 'urn P" and his
Phillis hung on to him, and implored him, for her

LOCKERBY TO MOODLAW. 357

sake^ not to do a deed — which he had no intention of
doing. Of course we stopped at the foot, to hear the
prospects of the leather plating, next day, from
the clerk of the course, a most communicative black-
smith. " There will be three fra Peerithy^' said he,
"one or two fra the Langholm, and Joe Graham's
tied to have yen in.'' The sheep Nestors ascended
the hill soon after day-break. In the very first
group we hailed there were Graham of The Shaw,
"Moodlaw,^' Tom Welsh, and our active-minded
friend John Irving, who had laid aside his Municipal,
Silloth, and True Blue cares for the day, and, being
no sheep among men, had arrived from Carlisle to be
a man among sheep. Upper and Mid Annandale
were all in that hill landscape. AYe looked across,
with Mr. Graham as our geographical guide, to
Torthorwald and Rammerscales hills, and traced
the Annan as it wound along from Moffat, bear-
ing four or five ''^ waters^' in its bosom.

The sheep are in diff'erent divisions on the hill.
Blackfaced and cross-bred lambs are on the west side ;
Cheviot lambs in separate ewe and wedder lots on
the north ; and half-bred s on the south. Pens are
still the exception, and the lots are of all sizes from
three to twenty score. No picking is allowed, and a
lot must be run off by the crook with a steady hand
and a straight eye. It is a great art to swirl them
round, so as to mix up tops and seconds, and then to
make a steady cut ; and it is given to few men to
count off a lot on the spur of the moment, as

358 FIELD AND FERN.

they scour past six or seven thick. Generally three
or four buyers club together^ and take a lot subject
to the ruling price of the day, and, in case of a dis-
pute, a referee settles it by a trial lot. Some
wretched half-bred queys were the beef accessories,
along with a few Irish and Ayrshire; and there were
gipsies in abundance at the edge of the hill, and
cheap jacks, who would fit you up with a coat and
vest of Tweed, '' all wool,^^ in the twinkling of an eye.
The number of lambs was by no means up to our
hopes. More than a third are picked up every year,
and never reach the hill at all ; as dealers come about
ten days or a fortnight before Langholm fair, which
was once the main market of the country. It is said
that 52,000 lambs, "be the same more or less,'^have
been pitched at Lockerby, and that the propor-
tion of Cheviots to half-breds is fulh^ three to
one.

Still the half-breds are spreading fast over all the
arable lands of Dumfriesshire. There is little wheat
or barley in the county, and oats out of lea, turnips or
potatoes, oats or barley, grass seeds and rye-grass, is
the rotation, and the latter pastured or cut for hay is
most valuable for half-bred lambs. The Moffat and
Langholm road is the half-bred boundary ; and the
Roxburghshire plan of putting half-bred ewes to a Lei-
cester tup* is never followed. The breeders will have

* The following, wliicli arrived too late for insei'tion in its proper place, is
the pedigree of one of the rams (which girthed upwards of 5 feet, and measured
45 inches from the hack of the head to the setting on of the.tail, when he
was shown at Kelso) that Lord Polwarth has used a good deal of late :

LOCKERBY TO MOODLAW. 359

very open wool, and large masculine heads very clear
of wool on their Leicester tups, so as to keep up the
half-bred character as much as possible in the lambs.
The mules, too, with their grey faces and grey legs,
are gradually coming into favour. In early maturity
they hardly touch the half-breds, and their wool is
coarser, but they clip quite as heavily. Crossing black-
faces with the Cheviot tup to produce them has been
tried, but has never yet brought a profit. The preju-
dice against Cotswolds has always been strong, as the
iambs were thought to be too coarse. Some tups
were brought to Moffat in 1850, and were led out in
halters like ponies, and sold for £6 or £7 each, but
they have not been tried since. The Leicester holds
his own for crossing, and a great many Dumfries-
shire farmers buy five and six year old Cheviot and
blackface ewes at Falkirk October, and send them
as '^ grit ewes" to stock turnip land in Galloway, and

His sii*e was bred by Mr. CockbiuTi of Sisteiioatla,t
g. s. — iilr. Cockbum of Sisterpath, J
g. g. s. — Mr. Taylor of Presson,
g. g. g. s. — Lord Polwarth,
g. g. g. g. s. — Lord Pohvarth,

g. g. g. g. g. s. (1th Prince Albert) — Lord Pohvarth,
g. g. g. g. g. g. s. (3rd Prince Albert) — Mr. Thomson of Haymouut,
g. g. g. g. g. g. g. s. (2nd Prince Albert) — Lord Pohrarth,
g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. s. (1st Pi-ince Albert'l) — Lord Polwarth,
S- S- g- g- g- g. g. g. g- s, (Taylor's big sheep) — Mr. Taylor of Presson,
g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. s. — ilr. Taylor of Presson,
g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g, g. g. s. (out of a ewe got by a Compton sheep) —

Lord Polwarth,
g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. s. — Lord Polwarth,
g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. g. s. — Mr. Jobsbn of Hezehif.

t Fii-st-prize ram at Edinburgh, 1858, and bought by Lord Polwarth for
35 guineas.

t First-prize shearling and tsvo shear at Kelso in 1S55-56, and taken Ijy Lord
Polwarth, for the season of 1855, for 25 guineas.

li Got by Mr. Taylor's champion sheep, which beat eleven of the same age
at the first Northumberland Show.

360 FIELD AND FERN.

then sell them at the House of Muir and elsewhere
in February.

Moffat fair, at which about one thousand rams,
three-fourths of them Cheviot and the rest Leicester
and blackfaces, are annually sold, clashed with the
Kelso ram sale ; but " Moodlaw's" sale came off on
the day before it. For a long time this sale and
^'^KirkhilFs" have been on alternate years. The old
inn hard by the bridge which spans the Evan Water
looked quite bright that day, Avith tables spread
in the coach-houses, and union-jacks floating
from the hay-loft. "Ericstane" was in the chair;
and as visitors dropped in, table after table was
added, till at last the coach-house " threw out skir-
mishers" with knife and fork, half-way across the
yard. There was no music save the drone of a bag-
pipe in the distance, and no blackface on the field
save a negro who sold sweetmeats, and treated
each Cheviot breeding sahib to a most reverent
salaam. Fully a hundred shepherd- dogs lay about
or under the platforms, and amid the plaided crowd
there walked an Edinburgh horse-dealer with his
hands in his pockets, and trying hard to appreciate
that cock of the lug and glint of the eye for which
the Moodlaw flock is so famed. All the tups had
been collected two or three days before at Mr. Bry-
don's farm, Kinnel Head, and therefore most of the
breeders knew them by heart. " Skelf Hill" and the
sheep men from the Hawick side mustered strong ;
and while the young Brydons, in the absence of their

LOCKERBY TO MOODLAW. 361

father, marshalled the tups outside the ring, the
lusty manhood of Tom Welsh was master of the cere-
monies within. There, too, sat Linhope, with his
catalogue clasped to his breast, as he eyed the first
lot, and the still more portly form of " Baitlaws" in
his brown gaiters, with his two hands resthig on his
stick — as moderators of that Cheviot assembly.

Then ^^ Linhope" broke silence. *' Old Duke, what
age is he T^ " Five shear," says Mr. Oliver ; ^' he
won at Perth, Battersea, Langholm, and Thornhill."
However, his age was against him, and 22 gs. was the
figure. '' Thorley by The Earl by The Duke by
Old Pal ley — who^ll give twenty guineas ?" " Twelve,"
says the cautious Baitlaws. " Fifteen — twenty,"
says Tom Welsh; and away they went, Mofi'at of
Craig going to the cry, and fall of drive. At fifty
there was a pause, and Tom Welsh " was in."
Then " Linhope," Mofi'at, and Archibald ran to
head once more. " Linhope" was in at sixty, and
again at sixty-two ; but he would have no more of it,.
and Archibald received the Oliverian benediction,
"You^llget into a good stock." Ben Lomond then
gave us a turn. He trotted round the ring, made
for a bolt-hole, and in an instant our form was tilted
up, and ourselves and a companion bit the sod. Loud
and long was the laugh against us, and there was
nothing for it but to move mentally that his "name
be taken down," and into our note-book it went.
We did not wait long for revenge. With a rigid
impartiality beyond all praise. The Idiot fiew at

362 FIELD AND FERN.

higlier game; and just missing Tom Welsli, and all
but scattering Mr. Oliver, he made straight to the
judgment-seat, and in an instant '^ Linhope^^ and
" Eaitlairs'^ were flying heels upwards ; and ere they
"rose to order," he had found a bolt-hole near "Skelf
HilF' (who was enjoying the scene most cruelly), and
was off with Mr. Graham's ^30 on his head. Going
to The Shaw, he jumped the dykes like a wild goat,
and took a world of driving, but proved well the
next lambing " for a^ that and a' that.'-' The spirit
was not knocked out of the seniors by their down-
fall, as one bought Jonathan for 32 gs., and the other
a horned one for 34 gs,, after a jocular complaint
that '' a guinea had been missed,^' which only made
the hearers bid harder. It was a great day for the
Old Hornie blood, as 52 three-shears averaged £9
13s.

" The DeviFs Beef Tub,'-' that strange mountain
hollow, at the head of which the old mail-road used
to run, took us slightly north again from Moffat.
The name of " Beef Tub'' is a delusion and a
snare, and we fell back on Mr. Tom Welsh's snug
steading of Ericstane, two miles away. Here the
Cheviot and Ayrshire elements blend most harmo-
niously. In the entrance there hangs the fine Roman
head of Brydon's Wellington ; and a bower in his
blue blouse was hard at cheese work, with his wife and
family, behind. The Aj-rshire idea has been spread-
ing eastward apace during the last ten years, and
Dutch barns with metal pillars have spread with it.

LOCKERBY TO MOODLAW. 363

Mr. Jameson of Kirkbank an Ayrshire man, first
started it in Dumfriesshire^ and in 1835 he was fol-
lowed up by Mr. Miller at Balgray. The Dumfries-
shire supplies of kye come from the Biggar and
Ayrshire districts. They buy them principally in
April, to calve at three on the grass. Dalziel of
Whitcastle and Stoddart of B or eland are among the
largest dairymen, and do it on their own account
with about seventy cows each ; and Miss Hope
Johnstone (who took the second prize for yearling
heifers in a class of tvv^enty at Kelso) has also a model
dairy.

From Martinmas to Whitsuntide the milk and
cream are generally sent separately to Edinburgh, all
along the Caledonian line. Each day^s produce goes
on the following, but at no period is more than 8d.
a gallon got, the consignee paying the carriage.
The majority of the Dumfriesshire dairies are
managed by bowers, and the average rent is £S
to £9 10s. a cow, except in Nithsdale, where they
generally adopt the Ayrshire mode of working by the
stone. They have many intricate bargains — so many
acres of turnips for so many cows, and so many queys
to bring up, &c. In another dairy it will be reckoned
by so many cartloads of turnips to each cow, and the
bowers to pull them with the shaws ; or so many
acres of turnips and tares and a ton of bean-meal
may be items in the account.

The Liddesdale hounds never get as far, and at
times they are sorely needed. Black Hope up

364 FIELD AND FERN.

Moffat Water was once a great foxhold^ and on
regular field days the shepherds turn out with car-
bines. Once thirty-two couple of Mr. Murray of
Broughton^s hounds were over the scaur_, and only one
was killed ; and a farmer spoke of it to us as his
special crown of rejoicing that he was held over
that scaur by his heels to keep him steady^ and pelted
the fox off his half-way house ledge at last.

Moffat Water and Whamphray Water are both
crossed ; and the steep brow near the little church
of Whamphray, with the pillar which speaks to the
memory of Carruthers of Kirkhill, is scaled at last,
and we are once more back at The Shaw. It had its
small pack of harriers in the late Mr. Graham^s time,
but his son has no divided love except between Gallo-
ways and half-bred lambs. The house lies on a little
eminence on the high road from Lockerby to Lang-
holm, and the waters of the Caudle burn and the
Dryfe flow down the pleasant glade.

Mr. Graham^s Galloway herd is never large, as he
sells both bulls and females; and his principal strains
are from the Blind Bull (brother to Black Jock and
Moss Trooper), who was bred by the late George
Graham of Riggfoot, and was first at Edinburgh in
^48. The present bull is from Mr. Halliday^s of
Molock. His Cheviot ewes, whose cast is replaced
annually Avith second ewe lambs from the adjacent
fiockmasters, are put to Leicester tups, either of his
own breeding, Mr. Bell Irving^s of Whitehill, or
Yorkshire ones at a pinch, and the top lambs go off

LOCKERBY TO MOODLAW. 365

about the time of Lockerby fair, while the seconds
with a month^s more keep bring nearly as much.

Our onward route was past Boreland, where Mr.
Stoddart has his dairy, through large sheep parks, and
so over Eskdale Muir, where the Cheviot and curlew
are monopolists. The homestead of ^^ Twiglees'^ own
brother to " Terrona,'^ and a great Highland Society
winner at one time, is a little to the left, and at last
a turn and a dip in the road reveal Eskdale church.
Young Thomas Brydon was laid there soon after.
He was in a very failing state at the last Beattock
sale, and a winter spent, with a very devoted friend,
between France and Torquay quite failed to restore
him. Few young men gave higher promise as a
flockmaster, and his death was a very deep sorrow
to those who knew him best. There, too, stands a
pillar to the memory of the Rev. Dr. Brown, who
laboured summer and winter for forty years in that
quiet spot, where " the pedlar was murdered down
yonder," and where the shepherds still assemble in
a " Cameronian meeting-house.'^

A ford has to be crossed, and then in the distance
beneath the fir-capped scaur we catch our first
glimpse of Moodlaw. Tliree counties meet just above
the steading at Cracksmuir Hill ; but really, what
with eternal heather and sheep parks, we had long
since lost all county distinctions. Mr. Brydon has
four farms in all, two of them in Selkirkshire ; and
Moodlaw, with its moor, moss, bog, and lea, is about
the best pasture in the south of Scotland. Eskdale

366 FIELD AND FERX.

Muir belongs principally to the Duke of Buccleucli^
and is rented at 7s. to 9s. 6d. per sheep. The best
land is clay, with mossy bogs, and black at the bottom.
The drains are eighteen inches deep, and placed eight
to ten yards apart, and renewed every four or five
years at the tenant^s expense. Where the pick
does not " come in to pick your pocket," the making
generally costs about nine shillings per hundred rods
of eighteen feet. As for the old '^penny pie con-
cern,''^ of twelve to thirty yards apart, it has gone
quite out.

The Mawkey ewe was in the paddock near the
house with her twelfth set of lambs ; and two fawn
greyhounds, coupled to keep them out of mischief,
were the first to give us greeting. The flock has
been in the family for nearly eighty years, and
the Cheviot pedigree goes back for fully half that
time ; but save an occasional grey-leg, no trace of
the primitive blackface comes out. Mr. Brydon^s
uncle showed sheep at Stirling about 1830, and won
a tea service for the best Cheviot ; and in 1840 Mr.
Brydon came to Moodlaw.

His great object has been to get them shorter and
thicker, especially above the knee, or " the butcher's
grip,'' wide between the forelegs, with hard white hair
on the crown, deep in the girth, well-woolled below
and on the arms and thighs, with a fine park-ranging
neck, light and clefty in the bone, white on the legs,
and black on the nose. A flat crown and too pointed
ears are points he has always struggled against ; and

LOCKERBY TO MOODLAW. 367

\

a fine Roman head_, with a full and daring eye^ is quite
his coat of arms. He also prefers the coat rather open,
as the closely-planted ones are disposed to shed
their wool in the spring when the new and the
old coats separate. The wool calculation is five
fleeces of ewes and hoggs, and three of hill-ranging
tups to the 241b. stone. If a ewe nurses two lambs,
she has one-third less wool, and if she is in the cast
she is generally among the shots. From Martinmas
until the beginningof April, about 3,000 brats are used
for the ewe hoggs, as the woollen cloth prevents the
wet from settling on the fleece. This is, however, a
plan which few, except Mr. Brydon, observe, and he
does not recognise the objection that it prevents the
wool from rising properly. There are eight thousand
ewes in the flock, which have generally five crops of
lambs, and the cast has gone for years to farmers
in the district. The wedder lambs are all sold in
August, and 120 tups are kept each year. Eight
sales have been held so far, with about nine score in
each of them, and, as a general rule, the two-
shears sell best.

Since Mr. Brydon succeeded to the flock, he has
been a steady shower, both at the Highland Society,
Mofi'at, Thirlstane, Langholm, Dumfries, and Thorn-
hill. Old Stirling won eleven prizes. He was a
sheep of grand style, and sported! a 131b. coat as
a four-shear. Old Palley was alsoT/^ all gaiety and
life," with a very special coat and a head which was
thought worthy of stuffing. Roughie was of the

368 FIELD AND FERN.

Sampson l\ind, and a very useful sheep^ but Sampson
himself was " not of an ofif-hand show appearance."
He was the largest Mr, Brydon ever bred, and weighed
nearly IDJst. of 141bs. even when his season had
sunk him 5 or 6 stone. As a ewe-getter, there was
none to compare with "The Rigglin," for which
Mr. Borthwick of Hopesrigg gave £100. Robson,
from whom many of the best ewes are descended, was
a horned one, and for staple and quality of wool he
was unequalled among the tups, aud brought £75 at
Beattock. Horned Cheviots are generally more
hardy and coarser in the coat, but Eobson^s was a
complete contradiction of the rule. Hornie was sold
for 55 gs. to Mr. Patterson of Twiglees, and Mr.
Elliot of Hindhope got his sire, who, like Old Tom,
was more of a ewe getter. The Captain (95 gs.) by Old
Palley went as a three-shear to Mr. Borthwick ; and
Mr. Graham of The Shaw had the remains of " Heb"
in a present, when he had been used for five seasons.
The old Mawkey ewe thrice shared first-prize
honours in a pen of five ewes, and gimmers, and she
had twins every year but two. Out of her twenty-two
lambs, one of them was Lord Clyde (the wdnner of
8 prizes) by The Duke, and another Sir Colin by Heb,
who won five prizes. But as we were pondering over
this Eskdale matron, the rain came down in such tor-
rents, and swelled the brook to such an extent, that
further progress was impossible. There was no Lang-
holm that night, and we resigned ourselves to a
most pleasant captivity.

MOODLAW TO ARKLETON. 369

" 0 yes ! a,nd that's e'e time ; O yes ! and that's twa times; O yes ! an:I
that's theu'd and last time : All manner of pearson and pearsons whatso-e'ei*
let 'um di-aw near, and I shall let 'em kenn that their is a fair to be held
ftt the niuckle tomie of Langholm for the space of anght days ; wherein :i
any Hnstrin, Gastrin, Land-conper, Dnb-skimper, or Gang-the-gate-swinger
shall head anj'Urdain, Durdain, Rebblement, Brebblement, or Sqnebblement,
he shall have his lugs tecked to the muckle Trone with a nail of twal-a-
penny until he be doun of his hobshanks and up with his muckle doups, and
pray to Hea'n neen times, God bless the King, and thrice the muckle Laird
of Relton, paying a gi'oat to me, Jamie Ferguson, Baily of the aforesaidManor.
So you've heerd my proclamation, and now I'll awa' haam to mj' damier."

Gentleman's Magazine.

Fi'om Moodlaw to Langholm — The late Sir Frederick Johnstone —
Langholm and its Ej^e-laws — Langholm Lodge and its Bard — Hunting
— The late Lord John Scott ; his Racing Stud — A Crack with Terrona
on Cumberland Border Sires — Terrona's Poet — Mr. John Jardine and.
liis Greyhounds.

HE Esk was down again by noon^ and, crossing it
once more, we followed it on the south side as
far as Langholm. There is more bent, and therefore
less feeding quality, on the hills beneath which it
flows than at Moodlaw ; and the valley, which occa-
sionally opens out into a series of holmes, is fringed
with plantations of beech, oak, and. fir, which steal at
intervals almost to the hill tops. With the exception
of a few West Highlanders and Galloways, we saw no-
thing but the shorthorn once more. Many of them
were Irish-bred stirks, which are gradually driving

2 B B

370 FIELD AND FERN.

out the blacks. Bilham, the farm of one of " Chris-
topher North^s" sons, lies in a hollow to our right,
and we pass close by the steading of Borthwick of
Hopesrigg, who has fought and won at the High-
land Society, and sells forty to fifty of his tups at
Hawick each September. The spur and wings on a
sign tell that Westerhall is nigh ; and tying our mare
to the gate, we saunter up the plantation walk lead-
ing to the pillar which was erected to the memory
of Sir Frederick Johnstone.

"Waterford/' ^^ Greene," "Moore," Musgrave,'^
" Macdonald," and many an associate of his merry
Melton days have gone, like him, to the land of
shadows. The villagers told us, in their simple way,
what a man he was, and, with an emphasis that three-
and-twenty years had not deadened one whit, that he
was '^sair likit in the country-side" — "like a gallop-
ing horse with his harriers ;" how he ran on foot,
and hunted all Eskdale, Ewesdale, and Annandale
as well, and how he used to van the pack from
Westerhall to the meet, before he got the Falford
kennels. The evening sun was just lighting up the
shadows on Whita, the hill of the monument, as we
emerged from quite a shady alcove on to the "muckle
toune" of Langholm, or rather of Malcolm Brothers.
The statue of Sir John, one of the foremost minds
in the Indian Council, looks down its greeting from
the bleak hill above to Sir Pulteney in the market
place. They were honoured with high confidence
from strictly opposite quarters. The one was the

MOODLAW TO ARKLETON. 371

trusted friend of Wellington^ and the other had, on
the authority of Napoleon, ^' the true face of an Eng-
lishman/^ Hard by him there hangs the mostDraconic
code of bye-laws on the clock-house that ever town-
clerk penned or provost pondered. Swine-scalding,
bull and "furious animal driving,^^ carpet-beating,
water across foot-paths, ashes, cart driving, are all
regulated by it. If your chimney is on fire you're
fined, and if you're a parent you're answerable for
your child, and for each oifence you may be fined
20s., or have twenty-four hours in quod. The spirit
of Jamie Ferguson's "proclamation" does, indeed,
linger in that terrible edict. Before we had been
there two minutes, we had all but broken a bye-law,
as you " mayn't attach your animal to a house," and
we had hung ours for a minute on the statue-rails, so
we thought it high time to decamp down Ewesdale,
and consult " Terrona" as to the consequences.

Had it been race-time, the Langholm Lodge
meadow would have been a sure find for him, either
at the cords or the wrestling-ring. Tom Sayers
came there to watch the science of the " Cumber-
land chip," with a view to its use in his own more
bloody fray with Heenan, and received divers atten-
tions from his newly-found " Uncle." Scott, Ivison,
Ben Cooper, and Dick Wright have all been cham-
pions on this velvet sward. It is said that in the
New Forest the married women play the lasses at
cricket, and deliver " shooters" and " run like mad"
between the wickets to the shout of '^ Well hit, mo-

2 B B 2

372 FIELD AND FERN.

ther V from the lads ; but Langholm saw another
sight, when a Cumbrian mother arrived to see her
lad wrestle, and not only laid odds on him, but ex-
horted him to " iak a good hold," with other scien-
tific and strictly local directions. All descriptions of
Langholm Lodge pale before " Old Davy the Mins-
treFs." It isnowfiftyyearsormoresincehewent about
with a cuddy, and not only ground knives, but com-
posed verses, which he recited on the smallest provo-
cation, and with extra emphasis for ale or a bit of
baccy. A call for " your verses on Langholm Lodge,
Dslyv/' was answered on this wise, and if the bard
was on the cuddy at the moment they were thought
to be all the more impressive :

" Oh ! Langholm, thou art beautiful,

Where three fine waters meet,*
In view of a large country hall,

A great lord's country-seat;
Which he hath called after thee.

For to augmeut thy fame,
And in record will stand and be

The Langholm Lodge by name."

Decidedly the finest Langholm minstrels of the
present age are the scratch pack which are hunted
by the Duke's gamekeeper. Sometimes they join
the Liddesdale, with whom Ballantyne of Shaws,
Graham of Broadlee, Elliot of Twisselhope, Kei
of Whitehaugh, and Jamie Smith of Harwood
Mill are the Hard-riding Dicks. Jamie is "tar-
rible keen,'' and when he is not foxhunting with
Ballantyne, he may be seen following his two fox-
hound bitches (either solus or with quite a large field),

* Ewes, Esk, and Wauchope.

MOODLAW TO ARKLETOX. 373

and a straight-backed Liddesdale hare in front of
them. On one occasion Lord John Scott brought
Williamson and the hounds^ and they drew towards
Cannobie. Will didn^t care for such house-side hills,
and Lord John was always for getting him into the
flows. However, he knew what they were up to,
and escaped their wiles pretty well, and delivered
himself pretty smartly when he was safe back at St.
EoswelFs : '• Good my lud^ did ye ever ken the like
6' that ? — men and muirs a' alike. Pve been in the
flows, and they've never been in bed — they^refou yet ;
there^s something else than a fox in their 'ee" Lord
John loved this wild Langholm hunting, and spared
himself no fatigue. He once rode some thirty miles to
Langholm the day before a hunt, from Spottiswoode
and found at Cannobie, through the Wauchope country
and over Eskdale and back to Langholm, and then
to Thirlstane Castle, forty miles away in the heart
of Berwickshire. The quiet dalesman might well
run out to look, as he swept past like the storm,
catching up his hacks of yesterday at points on the
road.

It was well said of him that he was a " Scotch-
man of the Scotch,^^ and that '' in the days of Border
chivalry he would have been the hero of many a
ballad." He leistered about the Ettrick and the
Tweed, and he and the Duke of Athole vied with
each other, in their otter-hunting bouts, who should
tunnel farthest into the fortress when it had gone
right under the bank, and who should come out from

374 FIELD AND PERN.

helping the terriers with most sand in his hair.
He had a racehorse or two in Scotland, but never
regularly settled to the sport till he had purchased
Phryne and hired Pantaloon; and engaged Mat
Dawson in ^48 to train for him, first at Newmarket,
and then at Compton. He sold Elthiron, the first
of "the PP stocV to Lord Eglinton, to his own
sorrow, for 250 gs. ; and he stuck to the remainder,
except when the £6,500 for Hohbie Noble tempted
him. His sister Miserrima was then tried high
enough to have won five out of six Oaks ; but Frank
Butler, on the roaring Iris, waited and outstrode her.
George Whitehouse, a very quick man at a T.Y.C.
post, and then Marlow, rode for the stable. Hobbie
Noble was a slug in his work, and The Reiver very
awkward to do with in the stable ; and Cannobie was,
perhaps, the best horse his lordship ever had. He
gave up racing a few years before his death, as his
health was not strong enough to bear the excitement.
Mr. Merry took the stud in a lump at last, and
had two foals from Phryne. The old mare died at
Hasketon, very near her time of foaling a colt by
Alice Hawthorne^s son Oulston, to whom she had
been sent for the sake of getting collaterally at
another Thormanby.*

Lord John, who named a race-horse after him, and
British Yeoman, are ever on old '^ Terrona's^' lips.
He was quite in his glory when be repaired to the

* For a further accotmt of Lord John's Cawston stud, see "Scott and
Sebkight," pp. 222—226.

MOODLAW TO ARKLETON. S75

field near tlie house, with the hound " Yeoman" at
his heels, to show us the Giraffe mare with the last
drop of the old horse at her foot. It had been duly-
named '*^Terrona/' and bids fair to be a Border
gallant in days to come. With a view to showing
its paces he rattled on his hat like a tambou-
rine, and then called up the rest of the Yeomans
from the long meadows with quite the chest-notes of
a Mario. The Cheviot gimmers which came second
to the Moodlaw pen at Kelso were in the field, but
his son John looks to them. " Terrona^s^^ heart is
in the horse-ring and the saddle ; and, as he observes
with much seeming satisfaction, he has ''' been left
twenty-two times for dead with strange horses."
Being once safely beyond the clad score, it seems
quite reasonable that he should now '' put in for two
dozen."

Somehow, he always recovers in a most marvellous
manner ; and his reel with the late Marquis of Queens-
berry at ^^ The Crown" — when Joe Graham was quite
theBeauNash of the evening, and in that capacity kept
the two fiddlers so ably up to the mark that they
played '^ Bonny Dundee" one-and-thirty times — ^is
talked of yet in Langholm. His spirits never fla^,
and a peep at his face when a blood-horse is the
theme is like a sunbeam on a frosty day. What
a crack we had that night of every Cumberland
or Border horse we had ever heard of or seen
going down Stanwix brow each Saturday in our
schoolboy days. He gave us them all, from Bang-

376 riELD AND FERN.

tail down to Laughing Stocky intermingling his dis-
course with Yeoman elegiacs.

First it was blood-horses ; and " first and foremost
came Bangtail^ with his dark whole-coloured stock.
He ran some four-mile heats with Pleader, and each
Avon a heat, and then they had a dead heat. Outcry
by Camillus got great and good horses, roarer as he
was. Mr. Blamire, the member, brought Gregson
and Grand Turk the coacher into the country from
Tommy Swan of Bedale's. Gregson got great, fine
greys, when to own a grey was to have i^iO extra in
your pocket. Ben Ledi had good action, but curby
hocks. The Corinthians had all bad tempers, and
light back ribs ; and Boyalist was a cock-thropple-
necked horse, short and sound, but with no action or
power. The Earl was a little curb}^, and had an ugly
head ; but he got sound, good stock, and not very
handsome. Grey carriage-horses were Grey Wigan-
thorpe's forte. Mr. Ferguson w^anted a grey, but Sir
Tatton couldn't sell him one under four hundred, so
he dealt with Mr. Garforth. They were good car-
riage horses, but, like him, they were short of speed.
Phoenix was quite unsound when he raced, just like
all the Cobwebs. He was an elegant horse, of a su-
perb colour, but he wanted bone and fore-feet, and
the stock put out curbs perpetually. The Yeoman
(and here he was most emphatic) has done a deal in
sixteen years ; three-fourths of his foals were colts.
There are some rare mares by him; and Charley
Boy, that was a high lifter and slapping character

MOODLAW TO ARKLETOX. 377

of a horse. The Yeoman nearly always got bays
and browns, and generally whole-coloured ; if he did
get a chesnut even off a brown mare with not a speck
of white on her, it w^ould have stockings up to the
knees and hocks, and it was generally a good \\u. If
The Yeoman had a fault, I grant you, it was rather
light fore-legs. The Galaors w^ere a bit long in the
back, and short in the quarters. Mr. Ferguson
never had a better ; great, fine, slapping weight car-
riers^ there are some grand mares by him, generally
browns, and speedy too. The E-avenhills had much
better forelegs than he had himself, and he got them
good dark browns, but a trifle high-tempered.

"Candidate was not thorough -bred; his mares threw
good hunters, and he crossed remarkably well with
the Clydesdales. He was the first that came to
Harker Lodge. Lord Selkirk imported him when he
was four years old from Yorkshire for his Kirkcud-
bright tenants ; and then Mr. Ferguson and Mr.
Fawcett of Scaleby and one or two others bought
him. He had navicular disease and contracted feet,
but still his stock were pretty sound, and had grand
action. Grand Turk had rare ribs and quarters; he was
a rich bay with no white hairs, and got as good, in
fact better, mares than Candidate. He was a flashy-
looking horse, and got them all bays, but " somehow
he didn^t put his rib on them.^^ " The Turk mares"
were terribly run upon, as their action was so showy ;
he laid a great foundation for carriage-horse bays.
Bay Chilton was no use to him in the show-yard.

378 FIELD AND FERN.

Nimrod was by Muley out of a ^^ Turk mare/' and
had all tlie family action. Monarch was a great bay
horse, far too big, and put them all unsound in the
Penrith district.

'^ There have been a great many good cart-sires.
Young Clyde had fine action, and a light middle.
Blythe did wonders. He had won at the Highland
Society and at a great many other places, and they
picked him up to go South. He was kept there three
or four years, and then they said he was too big, and
exchanged him with Mr. Fawcett of Scaleby for a
coacher. Then Wilson of Eurgh got him, and he
made him pretty well. He had him more than eight
years, and he took the Carlisle prize five years run-
ning. The Stitchers were the old sort, bays with
short legs, and wide and sound. Mr. Ellis of Ne-
therby brought Stitcher to the Bush Inn, and began
the new sort forty years ago. Scotch Miracle was
one of his sons, and Young Clyde was off that tribe.
The Scotch Miracles were square, well-set horses,
great at a dead weight or on a farm. Mr. Borth-
wick's horse was a thick one by Stitcher; and
Glancer was smaller than some of them, but very
good in action and everything else.^'

The Terrona, or rather the Flask Wood pheasant
covers, stretch down the Ewesdale valley, which we
had now entered again on the south side, after riding
nearly three hundred miles across and down Scotland
from Hawick. We found disease busy among the
larches, first attacking those between ten and thirty.

MOODLAW TO ARKLETON. 379

and then their seniors. Rising above Flask Wood is
tlie rich green of Arkleton Crag, the hill which
separates the Ewes, and the little stream of

" Tarrass for the good bull trout,
If it be ta'en in time."

Carlisle may be seen from the Crag on a clear
summer day, but the rival hills above Muckledale are
a more lofty theme for " Terrona/-' We cannot say
that he loves the Muses, but we do know that he gave
Lady Florence Cust a lead after the Eskdale fox
hounds down a brae which no woman^s steed had
ever trodden before. He vowed on the spot that he
would "commemorate the deed for ages yet un-
born,^^ and looked up a poet from the dales, who did
his spiriting well. The stone was inscribed and con-
veyed on a sledge, and duly toasted in whisky ; and
there it stands, with this inscription, in fulfilment of
the VOW' —

" Reared by a veteran sportsman's hand.
In sunshine and in mist I stand.
To tell the time and mark the place
Where hisrh-ljred beauty led the chase,
And gentle lady's graceful steed
Gained fi-om the field its hard-earned meed: —
I mark the spot on this wild fell,
That fathers to their sons may tell
How once a youthful Enghsh briae
Taught the rough Borderers to ride."

A ford to the right, a little farther on, leads to
Arkleton past the gardens, which are Mr. John Jar-
diners delight. The bowling-green and everything
about the house, which overlooks a little wooded
burn flowing down from the hills above, are alike
trim and tasteful, and the painted glass windows and

380 FIELD AND FERN.

the statues are true to the love of the leash. Mr.
Jardine has a flock of about 1,400 ewes and ewe
hoggs, and uses Aitchison, Brydon_, and Borthwick
tups. After the fourth crop of lambs, they are
brought from the heights on to the improved pasture
for a crop of half-bred lambs, which feed far quicker
than the Cheviot, although all have not the rich
o-razins: of Minsca and Torbeck Hill. The half-bred
system begins at Burnfoot, and branches when it
reaches Langholm, not only six miles down Ewes-
dale, where it stops and is resumed again nearer Ha-
wick, but away by Cannobie, one of the five kirks of
Eskdale, into Cumberland. The Cheviot wedder
lambs are sold at Carlisle, and the seconds and the
shots of the ewe lambs go to Lockerby and Melrose
fairs, to be used as dams of half-breds in flocks where
not a Cheviot is bred.

We bad to sit a short time, waiting for the grey-
hounds ; but with the help of a telescope we sighted
Willie Keddie coming down from the Crag, with
the short-tempered Owersby following meekly at
heels. Willie was once a shepherd with Mr. Elliot
of Hindhope. He was quite a noted sheep -clipper,
and in the greyhound training profession of later
years he has clipped the wings of a few when they
least looked for it. There was quite a troop behind
him that morning, and among them "Fly''' or Old
Border Union by Jeff'rey from Ladylike, " a good
steady one, who placed herself well to the game like
her dam, but was short of pace for the flat."

MOODLAW TO AllKLETOX, 381

Sam and Toll wife's picture hangs in tlie drawing-
room, and, as Mr. Jardine says, "they began me."
She was by King Cob, and had three successive litters
to Sam. Miss Hannah, who was never beaten in her
puppy season, was one of five with Marmora. Toll-
wife's dam was ^Matilda Gillespie, who was slow, and,
like Tollwife, could live a long time. Mr. Nightin-
gale begged Mr. Jardine to send Matilda Gillespie
to King Cob, as his stock ran so stout and kept
their heads so well down. Motley, the sire of
David, Avas an own brother to Marmora and Miss
Hannah, and a first-class dog at Amesbury, Ash-
down, and Market AVeighton. He was a fast-driving
dog, and, per Mr. Nightingale, " he could use a hare
fastest, and put in more work than any greyhound
of his day." This Willie Keddie cordially endorses
with ^' he could strip 'em up without bending in Lid-

The Tollwife stamina has never been lost in this
kennel ; and be it at Ridgway, Biggar, Kelso, Teviot-
side, Coquetdale, Broughton, Brampton, Brougham,
or the Waterloo, " if the Jardine dogs live through
the middle of the course they live to the finish."
They are always kept well all summer — a great
secret of success in coursing — for there is no more
determined man than their owner^ or one who suc-
ceeds better in everything he takes in hand. The
Baron by Kentish Fire from Linnet, '^a strong,
steady dog," is peculiarly associated with his name,
and showed what he was made of by beating Scot-

382 FIELD AND FERN.

land Yet at Carstairs, after an undecided course.
The hare durst not take her fence, and swerved
down the brae, and the dog rushed in and used
the point. It was in a sixty-four dog stake, and
Scotland Yet^s merits in the middle of the course
wiped off the first and last work, and brought
out the red and white flags. His daughter, Lady-
like, was one of a litter from Bella. She was a
good winner at Brampton and Lowther, and very
clever about not going too far downhill, which gave
her a great pull on the steep ground at Biggar.
At the stud she made a hit Avith Barrator, and one of
the litter was Selby, whose Waterloo honours were
shared by Clive, another of Mr. Jardine^s breeding,
by Judge out of Moeris, and of the same litter as
Jeffrey.

There were six of them; and Mr. Majori-
banks's trainer, who had his choice, left Jeffrey
and Clive, the latter on account, as he said, of her
white feet, but really because she Avas the worst
looking puppy. There were two dogs and two
bitches among the four he selected, one of which
was for Lord Stradbroke, but none of them were
good. Mr. Jardine had always a great love for
Jeffrey ; he sent Ladylike to him when he was sold,
and Faldonside, Crerer, Ingomar, and Border Union
confirmed this choice. " Selby,^^ says Mr. Nightin-
gale, '^ was not handsome, but with great power and
bone, always stealing away up to his game. He was
rather leggy for his length, clever, and turned well

MOODLAW TO ARKLETOX. 383

for a big dog, and always ran with 'fire. He fairly
galloped over and ran down Portsea in the last
course but one for the Waterloo Cup, for which
Mr. Hedley, a relation of Mr. Jardine^s, trained
him. Clive had not his brilliant dash. She was a
low-running bitch, and went clean away from
Antipas in the fourth ties for the Waterloo.^^

In a private trial before the Cup, Selby beat her, and
carried the money of the party. Clive only lost one
course out of twenty-two, and that was with Mr.
Gibson^s Lassie in the Caledonian St. Leger. She
was very easily prepared, and ran at 591bs. ; and at
Biggar she divided the St. Leger wdth Mr. Borron^s
Black Knight, who got the bye when she met Cardi-
nal York. This was once a great stake with Mr.
Jardine, as his dog Terrona^ divided it the next
year with Canaradzo ; then his Faldonside and Crerer
divided; and on the following year his Otterburn
was beaten in his fourth course by Sea Foam. Mr.
Jardine has been a courser for twenty years, and
yet he was never near a Waterloo Cup except when
he divided it with one of his own breeding. Since
then he has been second for the Plate with Faldon-
side and Owersby, and his Miss Hannah won it for
Mr. Marjoribanks.

And so we hied on our way back through Ewes-
dale, viewed " Terrona^^ once more at the distance
as happy as a cricket among his mares and foals, and

* This clog was lent to Mr. Jardine by Lord Jolin Scott wlien he ran at
Biggar, and his lordship left especial directions before his death that ilr.
Jardiae should keep him.

384 FIELD AND FERN.

got safely through Langholm without violating a
single bye-law. The road from there to Cannobie —
with thick nut-copses on one side_, the Esk
murmuring over rock and chasm on the other,
and the deep, silent shade over head — is one of the
sweetest sumaier rides in Scotland, and not a cheer-
less one in winter. The " Cross Keys" Hotel seemed
almost on English ground ; achesnut, with a species
of " Happy Tom" on a donkey at his side; called up
'^ Terrona^s" lecture of the overnight ; and the long
green Lomax holme across the river " marched with
Cumberland" at last.

CANNOBIE TO KENSINGTON. 38,

/rr>F-v% p.. r-K- VT "^^ »1^ S^i^K-Sv"

CiiiOBiE f8 EEiliiGfOi.

"If you will pass your life with birds and Sowers, try to raise the finest
turnips and breed the largest fowls."

Dk. Jonxsox.

Woodliouselees — The late Miss Rachel Bell — Ecclefechan — A Day at
Knockhill; its Horses and Greyhounds — Iloddom Castle — Iluntin^^
llecollections of Joe Graham — The Dumfriesshire Kennels— Blood
Royal in his Barn — Mr. Beattie and his Stake Nets — The Solway
riow — The Red Kirk Herd — Prom Holme Eden to Kensington.

?^||e stopped short of tliose double turnpikes on each
*^^ side of the Border boundary, which try the
traveller's patience so sorely, and renewed our ac-
quaintance with Woodhouselees. The farm, which
belongs to the Dukeof Buccleuch, iiasbeen occupied
by successive generations of the Bell family since
1707. ^Tith the century the present Mr. James
Bell's father entered on it. He was a leading agri-
culturist in his day, and an active director of the
Highland Society for several 3'ears. After his death
in 1832, his son George held the farm for four
years, and then transferred it to his sister Bebecca,
who inherited all the eountrj^ tastes of the family,
and who occupied it until her death in July, '61.
James Little, the grieve, v.'hohnsbeen nearly forty

2 c c "^

386 FIELD AND EERX.

years about the place, and " took Miss Rebecca in
tow" wlien her father died, was in the road listening
to the rambling recital of a Cumberland cart-sire man
— how " we worn't beaten but we wor cheateu" in
the ring at Carlisle — and then dismissing him in our
favour, with the comforting but rather general as-
surance that his horse was "a weeli-comed ^un."
He quite waked up when, we reminded him of his
dear old mistresses times, and asked after the mares
which had such choice foals by Ravenhill and British
Yeoman. We remembered how she would be about
everywhere with her blue sun-bonnet, and with her
6g» basket on her arm, now snipping off the dead
roses in her dainty flower-garden, now sallying into
the pastures to have a look at the last fall of half-
bred lambs, or '' a word with James" at the head of
the turnip-hoers, and then joining her sister Isabella
at their own girls^ school, which many a village lass
has had good reason to bless.

There never was a more spirited disciple of Ceres
and Christian Curwen, but her heart lay more in the
farmyard than the arable land. Her small pure
Y/hites and middles, with their strong dash of
Brandsby blood, used to go off ten in a cart, three
times in the season, to the Annan pig market. She
crossed her Ayrshires Avith shorthorns, and made
Dunlop cheese. The prize rosettes were to be
found on her pens of Dorkings, Spanish, Golden
Spangles, Bramah Pootras, and Hamburghs at Edin-
burgh, Glasgow, Manchester, and Liverpool; she

CANNOBIE TO KENSINGTON. 387

could command ten guineas for her prize pens of
Rouens^ from such judges as Mrs. Ferguson Blair
and Mr. Gibson of Woolmet, and as much for her
Aylesburys ; but as James says, " We never fashed
the turkeys/^ Both Leicester and Lincoln rams were
used to the Cheviot ewes, and the latter answered
well. Half-breds abound all the way from Langholm,
but they are not bred on *^ the flying stock^^ or cast
Cheviot ewe principle, and '- middle" Cheviot lambs
are bought to keep up the ewe stock. James often
tells, in connexion with these purchases, of the
astonished look of a Southron visitor, who heard
him say to his mistress, " If nine score lambs be o^er
mony, we can just shoot a few on ■'em.''^ Things go
on under the management of Mr. James Bell (who
spends his time between Liverpool and Cannobie) quite
in the good old way. It is a six-course rotation,
oats, turnips, oats sown down to pasture, and three
years' grass, and now fully 100 pigs are fed off each
year.

From Cannobie we cast back once more past Gil-
nockie and one or two more Border towers, and by
rather a dreary cross route to Ecclefechan, that won-
derful little town which prides itself on its manners,
and requests all those who are short of that article to
come for '' half a Saturday'^ when soap-suds are rife.
It has always been impressed on our minds from
Sylvaniis Urban's story of the lady near there, who
used to ride round and rqund her barn on a sheltie as
she read novels, and declare that it was the only

2 c c 2

388 FIELD AND FERN.

mode of enjoying a circulating library. Burnswark or
those two hills united by a rampart, and Woodcockair
were our beacons, and on we went past the little
church where one of the monuments seemed to have
made itself legs and walked clean out of the wall, and
where a husband, who had not been burdened with
''^my spouse Nancy,^^ writes: "And to be short to
her praisp, she was the wife Solomon speaks of."
Despite this hint, celibacy still exists about here to
very^great extent.

Old Pallinsburn looked well as we met him in
sheets for a morning's walk, and everything was
thriving at Knockhill. The swallow had come back
and built in the porch once more; the brood mares
were ; all in-foal, the spotted sheep were all in-
lamb, and the burning of Aurora in her stable, which
happened the only year the swallow was away, seemed
in a fair way of being forgotten at last. Birkie^s
bark was heard of course, as we rode up, and so was
WilFs reproving voice to her and half-a-dozen more
behind. The Ayrshires, with one or two beauties
among them, were having their morning's run in the
sloping meadoY.^ The black ducks were on the pond,
and the white crow on the tree; the Dorkings were
strolling in and out of the laurels, or standing on
one leg under the Irish yews ; and an aviary was full
of the choicest fancy pigeons, principally blues and
purples. There had been American turkeys, but they
were no sooner let out of their hamper than they
winged their flight straight to Woodcockair, and Will

CANNOBIE TO KENSINGTON. 389

and Bob^ like Lcrd Ullin^ -^'ere " left lamentiiig^^ for
nearly a fortniglit.

Inside the house there is the same ever fresh va-
riety. The late General Sharpens grey mare hangs
near '^ TJphorn/^ the Ayrshire; and Hughie Graham
shares his canvas with Maid of Islay, both of them
'- family fawns.^' jMyrrha by Malek is there with " a
frame like a cart-horse ;" and there too, from Robert
Harrington^s hand, is Leda with her pistol tail, and
'^ Simmy" on Philip — a pair, ais the Ayrshire lasses
used to say, " worth all the men and horses to look
at.''

Lord Yv^emyss hated waiting, and if " Simmy"
said to him, ^' We\'e won one heat, my lord — let them
have the next to themselves," he shook his head, and
wouldn't have it. Lamps were tied to the posts when
Leda ran her five two-mile heats, with all the endur-
ance which the Voltigeurs (when they can undergo a
strong preparation) inherit from her and Mulatto ;
and "Simmv" and she misrht have brouo-ht it off if she
had not hugged the bank and lost two lengths by
slipping. The darkness also told on Mr. Sharpe, as
he had his pocket picked during the fourth heat, for
the only time in his life. Leda was byFilho da Puta
(who walked from Newmarket to Monreith when he
was five weeks old) out of Treasure by Camillus. For
fifteen years Mr. Sharpe never visited Doncaster
without buying a horse fromt he Houldsworths or
Sammy King, and he got her for £50, because her
hip was down. She first ran at Dumfries, and

390 FIELD AND FERN.

cut up SO badly that she v/as put into a straw yard,
and the farmer's sons rode her to school. After that,
she won two fifties in Lord Elcho^s name, and Sir
James Bos well offered .€250 for her, but Mr. Sharpe
did not care to part v/ith her, and said "A thousand
or nothing.^^ To use his own expression, '^Iwas
crazy on Mulatto /^ but it proved very methodical
madness, as her produce Martlia Lynn became the
dam of A^oltigeur. All the old mare's stock found a
purchaser in Mr. Ramsay, the colts at £100 and the
fillies at £80, and soon after Martha had been
swapped away to Mr. Stephenson, Leda herself died
while foaling a colt to The Doctor. Hazard by Black-
lock was another of Mr. Sharpens Doncaster pur-
chases, and so was Dan by Catton. To win the
Maiden Plates at Edinburgh was his great aim, and
when he was confederate with Lord Wemyss (then
Lord Elcho) in Philip, Brunswick, and Gondolier,
his sphere was considerably extended. Beagle by
Whalebone was his first stallion ; and Brunswick,
whom he bought more out of charity than fancy at
Perth, because the party had lost every half-pennj^,
and did not know how to get home, was his second.
Sister to Jerry was also in his hands when her black
brother won the St. Leger, and she died visiting
Brunswick.^

Of later years, hunters have been a great point
with him. Knockhill, the present crack of Lord
"Wemyss's stable, was by Turnus out of a roan mare,

* See " Scott and Sebright," pp. 152 and 234.

o N

p 0=3

CANNOBIE TO KENSINGTON. 391

wliose dam did credit to lier Tarn O^Shanter trotting
blood, in Mr. Sharpens brother-in-law's Sir Thomas
Kirkpatrick of Closeburn^s drag, and then ran in the
"Defiance/^ and finally in nn Edinburgh cab. His
half-brothers Tom Linne and The Friar both fol-
lowed Knockhill after a Derby and St. Leger forfeit
had been paid for Tom, and two more own brothers
joined them at four years old. Gubaroo, bought
from his breeder, Captain Archdale, was another of
Mr. Sharpe's selling, and, great as he was at stone
walls, he nearly killed himself over one in Amisfield
Park. Mr. Tinning of Tinwald owned Dumfries,
and when Mr. Sharpe sent for the horse, wdio v/as on
sale, and bid Bob Carlyle get on him near Repentance
Tower, Bob never repented more.

Our stroll round the house was soon over, but the
outlyers had to be seen. The old Ayrshire cow Meg
is fully sixteen years old, and still milking superbly.
She was a model in early life, when she won four
prizes, and there are scarcely any marks of age on
her now, except the prodigious length (15 inches) of
her horns. The brood mares and sheep were sharing
the cattle-field pasture. There roamed Johanna
Wagner, who had won two or three things in her
day, with a foal, Ravenshoe, by Mr. Sharpens own
horse Maudricardo of Mr. Greville^s breeding, Cora
Linne, a full sister to Montrose, who belongs to
Will and Bob, and was due, like Trip the Daisy
(Butterfly's own sister), to Chevalier d^Industrie.
Both Trip and Cora were winners ; Trip scored the

S92 FIELD AND TERN.

Cumberland Plate and sundries, but Cora beat her
easily in a trial at Airdrie. The latter was tried to
be better than the Heir of Linne, but before tlie
money could be got on for the Goodwood Nursery
the secret got wind, and the maiket was forestalled.
The ewe flock, which all wear bells, began from some
spotted Cheviot ewes, with a touch of Shetland in
them, and they have been crossed with a Leicester
and a Southdown. Still, the primitive magpie
colours come out, and only grow a little lighter with
exposure to the weather. It wants no dyeing, and
some of the lads have had coats made from it. Carle
Time and Talc Tent were at the kennels, and so w^ere
Cut and Dry (^' one of the old style who never leaves
his hare^^), Fly with her sv/eet head. Black Agnes and
her Carl Time puppies, and What Care I, the dam of
Cut and Dry. Mr. Sharpe runs very little in public,
except there is a meeting in the neighbourhood, and,
unlike their forefathers, who were stripped at Mal-
leny and the Eoman Camp in the brave days of old,
his greyhounds are not named after the heroes of
the Border minstrelsy.

Monarch, by Mr. (now Lord) Gibson Craig^s Count
from Lord Torphichen^s Fly, was Mr. Sharpens first
great dog, and he it was who began "the family fawn.*''
'^ He was square and thick, and with less fire to his
game than either Hughie Graham or Mercury.^'
His blood is in all the Scottish kennels, as it goe^
through Driver to Drift, the second for the Caledonian
Picture, and, curiously enough, Violet, the winner^s

CANNOBIE TO KENSINGTON. 393

dam^ was from a daughter of Monarch, which Mr.
Sharpe gave array. His grandson Jason also took
the hlood South. The most beautiful he ever got
was Mr. Sharpens ovrn What from Captain Wynd-
ham^s Whisk. Monarch won three times at the
Koman Camp, and Mercury four times. The
brothers were widely different in their styles, as
Mercury was " a desperate rusher, very clever with
his teeth, but not very fond of a young fence which
required a double effort." It was in one of these
fences at the Koman Camp that Hughie Graham got
stuck. "Hughie" was by Liddesdale, a son of Bowhill
(who was bred at the Duke of BuccleucVs) from
Queen of the May. There were four dogs and
two bitches in the litter, with Bell the Cat and
Bonnie Scotland amongst them, and Mr. Sharpe
challenged the Wiltshire men in vain to run five
puppies of one litter for j€50 the course and £500
the main. Queen of the May had black hairs
in her fawn, and so Mr. Daintree hated her. He
had got some puppies from Lord Stradbroke for
the use of King Col), and as he wanted the i\Iinerva
black, he sold "The Queen" for 25 gs. at Aldridge^s.
Like all the King Cobs, she "ran heads down and
backs up, as they ought to run," and when Mr. Night-
ingale saw her style at the Mid-Lo^thian Meeting, he
said at night that until she was fairly in her stride
he did not believe that there was a King Cob in all
Scotland.

Bell the Cat was •''a flying rusher," and Bonnie

394 FIELD AND FEllN,

Scotland "had not the pluck of Hughie when
lie got to his game ; he had too many hares in
his youth_, and let them live too long/^ Still_, he
was third in the North v. South match at Amesbury
Avlien Welcome ran up to Mocking Bird. As ill
luck would have it; he had a " No go^^ both with
Mocking Bird and Wicked Eye, and beat the latter
with only one eye. Despite this drawback, Mr. Night-
ingale considers his course with Wicked Eye " one of
the finest I ever saw; he beat her in working, and went
so straight and just from his turns; it was so true
worked ; each dog had her in turn." Dalton was
the dog who gave Hughie Graham most trouble, and
they divided the Broughton Cup after two no-goes.
He won the Plate the year Hughie Graham won the
Waterloo Cup as a puppy. War Eagle (who broke
running down with Wee \¥ee) , Mocking Bird, Japhet,
Staymaker, and Cerito were among the Cup
thirty -two ; and '^Hughie" killed all his hares except
the first. He never ran after his second Water-
loo Cup, in which he won one course with Cricketer
the Plate winner. " Hughie had great pace, and was
very close in his work ; he could drive and command
himself, fairly smother his hare, and frighten her to
death.'"

He never " hit " well with anything of Mr.
Sharpens, but Wicked Eye, and their son Norman
Hunter divided the Cup at Lytham, but Mr.
Blanchard's Baffle was by him out of Wild Duck.
However, he did his duty, as he won £700 in all.

CANNOBIE TO KENSINGTON. 395

About the end of his fourth season, he was brought
out of his kennel up to the house to pay his respects
to ]Mr. Nightingale, and in the course of his gambols
he dashed up against a tree and broke his thigh, and
was put down not long after. Will and Bob buried
him in old Mercury's grave, close by the spot where
he met with his accident. He began the Waterloo
Cup luck of Dumfriesshire, which has now won two
and divided another with Selby. King Lear, the
other winner, was a "flying, merry dog, and vron
— the first year it was a sixty four dog stake — solely
on his merits.^^ Mr. Knovrles had seen him win at
Abington, and got a good stake on when others
looked elsewhere.

Some Fazzoletto two-year-olds were in the pad-
dock, and Pam^s Mixture and Pallinsburn in their
sheets were the last stable features in the landscape,
as vre looked back to Knockhill. We crossed the
bridge where Sandy and the Carlisle pack swam
an otter for three hours last summer before they
killed it, and so up the long avenue of Hoddom
Castle. It is now twenty years since the General
died, and it has had no inhabitant save the stalwart
keeper, who looks after the pheasants. On a sum-
mer's evening, when beech and laurel are in all their
glory below, there is no pleasanter watch-tower. The
Annan winds round the holme below the terrace,
and Mr. Sharpens horses have a gallop of fully a mile
and a quarter along the river side, and across the
turfed bridge, and a good sobbing finish up Re-

398 PIELD AND FEllN.

pentance Hill. The course is nearly the same as the
General had when he trained P&rlet, and Messalina
from old Myrrha. He also kept beagles and har-
riers, and sold the latter to Mr. Ramsay, along with
Myrrha, who was heavy in-foal with Midlothian,
for J300. The cream of the Dumfriesshire country
can be seen from here, and our companion indicated
the geography of a great run, how they found at
Castle Milk, came over Bar Hill through the Duke's
cover and Brown Moor, and hov/ he died honourably
in the meadow below the castle. Eepentance Tower
to the right, and built by an ancient lord of Hoddom,
to atone for the souls he had sunk in the Solway^
almost flings its shadow over the birth-place of
Thomas Carlyle ; and farther on is

" That wooded hill
Far kenned as Woodcockair."

It has always been a great harbour for foxes, and it
is recorded that after the Revolution the Hoddom
men ran their curate, Timothy Thomlinson, to ground
or to tree in it, across the Annan, and never lieard
of him more.

Mr. Sharpens hares were trotting about near the
March fence betwixt the lairds of " Hoddom" and
'^Dormont," on Ronald's Hill, above the Dum-
friesshire kennels. Joe Graham put on his Cumber-
land clogs, and came with us as guide ; but scenery
was as nothing to him, mdcss ^^ the noble science"
was blended with it. , He had no eyes from that
coicjn of vantage for the silver line of the Sol way and

CAXXOBIE TO KENSIXGTOX. 397

the breakers at the mouth of the Nith, but he could
tell of the Kinmount Woods. If your eye came to
slow hunting over the Vale of the Annan_, he lifted
you at once to Castle Milk, and told how " the Duke^^
and the Jardines v»^ere '^ the soul of the hunting/'
'''Castle Milk's our meet/' he says ; ''^ most like an
English meet of any — regular Badininton-lawa busi-
ness, and everything for all. Lockerby side," he
added, "is muirland and the best scent, and here
we can always run with an east wind, ''which they
cannot in some countries."

Mr. Hay of Dunse Castle hunted the country before
Mr. Murray of Broughton, and then ]Major Colomb
came from the Inglewood, and kept it for a season or
two, with Joe Hogg as his huntsman. There was then
a long drearyblank, until Joe appeared upon the scene
in 1848. He is the son of a farmer at Newtown, near
Carlisle, and '' still fond of a bit of hunting from a
lad." The taste in his case seems to have become
chronic, as he indulged it first with the Carlisle foul-
mart hounds, and then with the harriers, and he was
finally gazetted to be first whip under Bob Cowen of
the Inglev/ood. The kennels were at Tarn Wadlin,
and Sampson was the head of the pack. They took
out the old dog merely to find for them, as he knew
every inch of the biggest covers, and was never known
to leave a fox behind. He was a very mute hound
himself, after he had once flung his deep-finding note,
and yet his best son Cumberland lost his life in a very
curious Avay, for ^'making an orailon.'' Mr. Boag

398 FIELD AND FERN.

succeeded Bob Cowen, and then the Inglewood were
broken up^ and Joe was engaged to go under the late
Charles Treadwell to the Berwickshire. However,
he was taken ill, and never went, and settled near
Holm Hill, to hunt stag for Mr. Salkeld, with fif-
teen to twenty couple of the Inglewood. For the
first year Coweu hunted them, and Joe only rode
to save the stag, and then he took the horn, and has
never been without it for five- and- twenty sea-
sons.

Lord Galloway did the leading stag business, and like
her Majesty^s The Doctor, who always runs to Wind-
sor, he might be turned out at Kosley Hill, or Penrith,
or Warwick, but go he would to visit the county
member at Barrock J^odge. In fact, Joe was kept sa
hard at work among the Barrock shrubberies, hour
after hour, that his knowledge of plants grew perfectly
Paxtonian. His lordship lived a curious life. Once
he crossed an arm of the sea, and was never found
till they slotted him a week after among some tur--
nips at Burnfoot, and took him finally at Annan.
Then Cumlogan wa« mislaid at Lowther for a time^
and when he was brought back he kicked out the
side of his car, to Joe's amazement, on Broadfield,
and there was another bye day for him. One way or
another, they had a deal of sport, and Lord Galloway
was still so full of j)luck when Mr. Salkeld gave
up and sent him to Baron Eothschild's, that he lay
out all night in the South after an excellent run,
and, according to Joe's Southern correspondent.

CANxVOBIE TO KENSINGTON. 399

"^the Master of the Queen's Buckhounds asked if
they could get him any of the sort.-''

About the close of Mr. Salkehrs season (1847-48),
the Dumfries men got so Aveary of their winter idle-
ness, and missed the good old days of Mr. Murray so
sorely, that they begged the loan of the hounds for a
week. Accordingly Joe came over, and had three
capital days, and finished up with a clinker to Castle
Milk. The fox, the hounds, and three of the hardest
riders were all in the river together below Rockhall ;
but they unfortunately changed in the whins, and
the rear men met the run fox stealing back. There
was of course a great dinner that night at Lockerby
to wind up the week, and in his speech after dinner
Joe proposed to devote himself and his sixteen couple
to the country two days a week at £240 for the first
year. His visit had lessened the foxes by a brace.
A third of the few which were in the country were
at Kinmount, and Mr. Johnstone"^ and some of the
Jardines were still in India and China. Matters
progressed very well, although the Blue Bell Yard at
Lockerby was the most primitive of kennels ; but the
Marquis of Queensberry took the command next
season, the subscriptions w^ere doubled, kennels
were built at Seafield, and the hunting was increased
to five days a fortnight.

Besides the covers we have mentioned, they some-
times go to Waterhead, an outside cover on the

* The late Mr. Andrew Johnstone's first blood, mares are not stated cor-
rectly at page 351. For " Theresa by Wag-tail" read "Theresa Panza by
Cervantes, Wagtail by Whisker," and add " Royalty by Enulius,"

400 FIELD AND FERN.

moors near the Moffat hills, for a day, and find
most capital foxes. Tinwald Downs, Cumlogan,
Brown Moor, and Waraphray are always good for
cubs, but they don't place much reliance on litters.
"As for the fences,'^ says Joe, " there are not two of
them alike, banks and timber, and walls and ditches.
The Marquis was a terrible loss ; he was always at
the head of his column and never looking for weak
places.^^ His cheery " Hark to Pallafox /" his fa-
ourite hound, as he rammed the spurs into Little
John or Bonnie Dundee (so called in honour of the
fiddlers' feat), and came crashing out of cover for
a start, seems to ring in their ears yet. He had a
wonderful voice ; they could hear his halloo any dis-
tance down wind, and Woodcockair used to ring
again when he tallyhoed him away for Kinmount.
He liked the wildest hunting, and a day on Criffell
T)leased him beyond measure. '^ Joe,'' he used to
say, " if I could only get some of the Melton men up
here, we'd give them a dusting /" and then away he
went, among bogs and sheep-drains, and perhaps six
or seven foxes " coOring" along the walls together.
For three seasons he opened the hunting with a week
at Langholm, and, what with hunting by day and
fiddles by night, the little town had quite a convivial
vreek of it. It maybe that some enthusiast kept it as
a memento ; but it is certain that Joe lost his cap on
one occasion, and returned gracefully at the head of
his hounds, in a straw hat borrowed for the occasion.
He was much worse off on another occasion, as he and

CANNOBIE TO KENSINGTON. 401

the Marquis lost tlie liounds entirely. The find
was at the Bar Hill, and they saw the last of them
near Thornhill. The kennel door was left open, and
some stragglers arrived on the second night, and the
remainder in a third-class carriage of which the
Marquis and Joe guarded the doors.

On the death of Lord Queensberry, Mr. Carruthers
of Dormont came to the front at the request of the
members of the Hunt, who increased the subscrip-
tion. He at once built new kennels, and has gone
on steadily improving the hounds which belong
to the Hunt. Perhaps the best run yet was on the
last day of his first season. After drawing all the
Lest covers blank, the hounds were going home at
half-past three over Rockhall Moor, when a travel-
ling fox was viewed, and the scent proving some-
thing wonderful, they regularly raced the fox over
HartAvood, Thorniethwaite, Ryemuir, Skipmire,
Shaw Hill, through the holding cover of Dalfibble,
where he disdained to hang, and over the wild Kirk-
land Hill, Glenkiln, and on to Burance, where Joe
Oraham, Mr. John Johnstone, and Jack Roberts,
the whip, the only ones up, saw the fox and hounds
all on the side of a hill. The ground was so soft, and
intersected with moss bogs, and the horses so well
pumped that the riders had to get off, and giving
theirs into Roberts' charge, Joe Graham and Mr.
J ohnstone footed the fox and hounds over the snow on
thfe top of Queensberry, where they separated after
a serious consultation, Joe to follow the traces of the

2 D D

402 FIELD AND FERN.

hounds, and Mr. Johnstone to find a shepherd to
give Jack a line to follow Joe. The distance gone
over was not less than twenty-six miles. All the
people in the fields shouted as they passed, " Go on ;
the fox is no a hundred yards aheedP Well might
Joe vow, when he parted with Mr. Johnstone, ^^ I
never want to see another fox like thisP But for a
little whisky which he begged at a shepherd^s hut,
Joe would never have got to Thornhill at all, but he
reached it in his boots with a few tail hounds, while
the rest went on with their fox to a strong breeding
place, near Dame's Deer, and cast up again in
twenty-four hours. There was another grand run
last season from Brovv^n Moor to Wester Hall, where
they killed,

'When old Jolly Boy and all the Cumberland
hounds were worked out, the Atherstone, Ruiford,
Durham County, and Rhug drafts came in. Monitor,
with his serious features, and Matchless, his sister,
are the pick of the pack, and of the Ehug sort, a
great many of which come white like Marshal, and
old MalakhofF, whose low. scented qualities convinced
Joe that he would be '^ quite a waterman^^ for Dr.
Grant, when he grew too slow for the Castle Milk
business. Talisman and Touchstone are the only
ones left by him. There are also one or two
black and tans throwing back, like Mr. Baker's, to
the bloodhound. Myrtle and Triumph have always
a good word from Joe ; " little Rally is as good a one
as ever ran before a stern — the best I ever bred in

CANNOBIE TO KENSINGTON. 405

Cumberland or Dumfriesshire ;^^ and Damsel and
Daphne are his delight. The former gravely gave
him a paw, in testimony of their eight seasons toge-
ther. " She never ran a hare in her life, and when
the young'uns are taking a tour, she sits down and
lets them rattle away." Merrylass, sister to Malak-
hoff and dam of Matchless, had been down south to
Mr. Parry^s Sultan, but had only whelped a contribu-
tion of a couple towards the twenty couple which are
sent out annually among the Marquis of Queens-
berry^s, Mr. Hope Johnstone^s, and other walks.

Joe^s horse Captain came with him from Cumber-
land, and lasted for six or seven seasons. Horses do
last with him, and they say in the county that he
picked up one for 7s. 6d., and that it was se^n
ridging up turnips on his farm six years afterwards.
His mind must be quite torn between the advan-
tages of artificial manures and sheep dips, and their
effect upon scent, as he has five hundred acres in
hand, and twenty score of sheep, as well as four
ploughs going. He also kills some twenty pigs a
year, and was therefore fully qualified to ride in
the farmers^ race at Ayr. Ever since he was at
Tarn Wadlin he has had a fancy for leather flap-
ping, and his white jacket and black cap, and his
small 9st. 51b. figure inside them-, have been seen
blazing av*ay at Hawick, Langholm, Lockerby,
Whitehaven, Paisley, Blaydon, and sometimes at
Carlisle, where he won the Citizens^ Cup on Lizzy of
Brampton.

2 D D 2

404 FIELD AND FERN.

The Fawn was in the hunting stable, and so was
The Veteran by Rataplan ; but we had to toil over
the fallow to see Blood Royal, his winner of the last
Caledonian Cup. He was in a barn, and guarded, as
far as we could see, by a game-cock. The brown was
bred at Hallheaths, but Mr. Johnstone thought he
showed the white feather, and got rid of hira. At
first it seemed no catch, as he hit his leg, and was fired
and stopped in his work for nearly a year and a
half.

With care and patience he was got fit enough
in Hoddom Holme to come out at Carlisle, and Joe
scored his first legitimate race. He ran again next
day, and showed the most sovereign disregard of posts,
and was, in fact, all over the course the moment he was
"pinched" at the river turn. At Ayr he turned sulky,
and could hardly be got on to the ground until Joe
mounted him; andSkipjack^s party, seeingthe humour
he was in, sent their horse along the three miles to
break his heart. However, the lad obeyed Joe^s
orders not to hustle Blood Royal, and to catch them
up the straight, which he did cleverly enough. And
so the Caledonian Cup winner returned into barn re-
sidence for the winter and spring, and then perhaps,
after another yearns retirement, he may go flapping
again. As Joe says, " It's something to look at a Cale-
donian Cup winner ; but he^s got no heart in him for all
that:'

The shore of the Solway became a reality at last,
and when we reached what was once the sea- side

CANNOBIE TO KENSINGTON. 405

home of Mosstrooper 3rd, we found that Mr. Beattie
vras almost off with his old love, and in a most spirited
attitude of defiance on the subject of salmon. From
a mound near his house you see seven counties and
and seven miles of salmon nets. He considers this
shore '^the mother of trap or stake nets/^ and he is
lessee of the coast from Lochar Foot to about three-
quarters of a mile east of Annan. He defies Par-
liament, the Carlisle Journal, and every other
"proud invader" ; and leans his back, like a man
and a Briton, against his " chartered rights of fish-
ing beyond time immemorial"

Get him on that subject, and he is as diffuse
as a Blue Book. At all events, he still holds
his trap nets against the world, as he told us he
should, and so far he is the winner. The best fish
come up mth the tide and the south-west breeze.
They feed along the beach in warm and cloudy days,
and then return into the deep beyond Eobin Bigg.
In fact, "the speckled monarch of the tide" now
reigns supreme at Newbie. Still, the greyhound.
Baron Solway, once a great favourite on the Bor-
der, and the winner of £144?, runs about the
yard ; the shorthorn cow, Roan Cherry by Booth^s
Cardigan, was in the stalls with Captain Marshall
from t he Howes ; Belted Will, one of the last
of the "black Brunswickers," w^s on the ruined
keep near the old castle garden, and Brides-
maid and Bridal Bed had not yet quitted the
spot.

406 FIELD AND FERN.

As a Galloway winner at the Higliland Society-
Mr. Beattie has had few marrows, and many photo-
graphed prize-winners hang on his parlonr walls. It
was with Palmers old cow that he first began; but
his great hit was with Mosstrooper (296), whom he
purchased at six years old, from Gibbons of Moss-
band. He won fifteen first prizes, and was never
beaten, but he had an accident on board ship, that
fearful night (when Mr. Douglas was within an ace
of being washed overboard) as he returned from the
Paris Show, and was sold to the butcher when they
reached the London Docks. He left a very good one
behind him in Mosstrooper 3rd, who was first at the
Highland Society in ^60, and first at Battersea as
well. At Dumfries he beat all the polls for the gold
medal, and Messrs. Hugh Watson and Graham re-
ported him to the Royal English Society's Journal as
" a bull first-rate of his kind, who gained the first
prize against three good animals.'' He was out of
Lady, bred by Mr. Beattie from Lady Keir of Mr.
Keir's breed at Potholm. His daughter Bridesmaid
was also first in the cow class, beating the Duke of
Buccleuch's M'^Gill, and she can be traced back
through two generations to the Palmer cow. Mr.
Beattie is still well known as a tup breeder, and keeps
from five to six score of ewes, and sells his tups pri-
vately into Ireland, Cheshire, Lancashire, and Cuui-
berland, as well as in Dumfriesshire. He has used
Polwarth ranas, and a half-brother to Mr. Sanday's
first prize at Carlisle did a great deal for him.

CANNOBIE TO KENSINGTON. 407

It was not the market day, and Annan had no in-
terest for us save what centred in its old church.
"When we had last ridden through its streets one-and-
thirty years before, men were still talking of Edward
Irving^s protest before the ministers and elders of
the Presbytery, and telling how in the twilight of that
March night he '' went forth from the church, where
he had been baptised and ordained — from the Church
of Scotland, the Sanctuary of his fathers — never
more to enter within walls dedicated to her worship,
till he entered in silent pomp to await the resurrec-
tion and advent of his Lord/^

Redkirk'!^ was not very far from Gretna, and a
few miles from it on the left of our route was the
scene seventy years ago of the great Solway Flow.
The moss rose and floated a mile or more over road
and field on the north side of the Esk, and accord-
ing to the Shepherd's Calendar it smothered in its
course " 2 men, 1 woman, 1,840 sheep, 9 cattle, 3
horses, 4 dogs, and 180 hares," and it took three
or four summers to put matters at all right again.

* Mr. Syme has a tliree-liimdred-acre faiin at RedMi-k, about tvro miles
from Gretna Green. About a fourth, of it is bad moss, and the re.^t veiy ad-
hesive clay, and good free land. He has farmed for nine-and-i^^ enty years
on his owTi accoimt, and kept pure shorthorns nearly all that time. Forcing-
for shovrs has not been his object, and in fact he has hardly e>iiibired above
a dozen times, and always been first or second. When the Highland Society
came to Dumfries in 1845, he was second both with a cow and a heifer. His
herd has generally numbered from forty to fifty, and he has had a regular
trade for them with Messrs. Miller, Armstrong, and others, near Toronto,
Canada West, where they have been remarkably "Successful in taking prizes.
Some of his bulls have also gone to Austraha, and one to Singapore, to cross
with the native heifers. Mr. Stirling, M.P., has had a few of his blood, and
Rosy did good ser\dce at the last Keir roup. The Canadian market was vir-
tualiy closed to him three years ago, and this led to the sale of his herd by-
Messrs. Wetherall in May last. He, however, retains two old cows and two
heifer-calves as the germ of a new one.

408 FIELD AND FERN.

We should have hked to linger on the Border, hut
the Waterloo was at hand, and we had a sovereign-
even with " Stonehenge" that we would have the
patience to ride from Carlisle to Kensington. Taking-
Knells, Holme Eden, and Corby Castle on our way, we
rattled along in a hard frost up the Vale of the Eden,
and over Shap Fells at night, with nothing but the
dreary w^histling of the wind through the telegraph
wires to bear us company. The lights at Kendal
were a pleasant beacon at last ; and Settle, Skipton,
and Skibeden was our line of country next morning.
Had we read Admiral Fitzroy more closely, we might
have avoided that heavy storm which swept down
the valley for nearly an hour between Skip ton and
Burnley. There was no friendly Horse or Lion,,
Red, White, or Blue, which abound in those parts, to
receive us ; and there was nothing for it but to fight
it out, get on with the mare^s head at an angle of
90 degrees when she would go, and get to leeward
of a hedge when she wouldn't.

The Towneley roan and chesnut. Royal Butterfly
and Kettledrum were duly visited, and the last we saw
of our Scottish friends was at the Waterloo, where
" Dalgig" and Mr. A. Graham were very sweet after
two courses upon King Death. It was all mud next
day beyond Stockport, and hard frost at Buxton,
mist and rain at Ashbourne, and snow at Derby.
Then we passed through Quorn, and into the heart
of Mr. Tailby's country, and bent away through the
big Pytchley pastures to Fawsley. Another hard

CANNOBIE TO KENSINGTON. 409

day, aud the towers of St. Albans were in view at
last, looking down on "The Jolly Maltsters/' "The
Post Boys/^ and " The Trumpet'* signs, which still
linger in its streets. On we went the last eighteen
miles, with sleet and snow for onr portion as the
lights of the great city began to glimmer through
the mist, and the thoughts of how to deal with
bacon, wool, and cheese, those triple Furies of our
note-book life, pursuing us grimly to

-^^ '^t £±

^^

Printed by Rogerson and Tuzford, 243, Strand, Loi

k 'in M m
I S (Jl i'^ ^

SCOTTISH

FLOCKS AT^D HERDS.
(N 0 R T H.)

WITH STEEL PORTRAITS OF MR. HUGH ^YATSON AND
PROFESSOR DICK;

AND A WOOD-GUT HEAD OF "DUNDROON," AFTER
AIR. GOURLAY STEELE, R.S.A.

CaiTEifS

mmsm fo the SMETLaiBS.

Depai-ture from Aberdeen — Voyage — The ShetLtods— A Lively Passenger
— Catin Councils — Arrival at Lermck — ^A Peep at the Town — Walk
^Q Yoe — The Lonely Muirs — The Cows — The Ponies — Pony Life in
the Coal IMines — The Sheep — Wool Manufactures — Improved Stock
in the Shetlands— Back to Kirkwall.

11 CONTENTS.

Orkney Nicknames — Shapinsey — Defence of Hellersay — Orkney Pano-
rama— Mr= Balfour's Shorthorns and Shetland Ponies — The Legend
of " Spunky" — Orkney Sheep Crosses — Sheep Marks — Devon and
West Highland Bulls — " Fishing Pork" — Orkney Garrons — The Por-
tescue Harriers — Swanbinster —Postal Difficulties — A. Sea Sick
Horse — The Message from the Tee — The Hoy Parmer Consoled.

SMPfSH III.
TMUfiSO TB BELiSiUlE.

The late Sir John Sinclair— Caithness Sheep Farming — St. Mary's
Mass — Georgemas Tryst — Shorthorn Crosses — Barrogill Castle —
Barrock Plantations — Shorthorn and Galloway Crosses — Bringing-up
of Calves and Yearlings — Sir George Dunbar's Leicester Flock — Mail
Journey along the Coast — A Night Kide on Horseback.

A "Walk down Kildonan — The Cheviot Flocks of Old— Foxes on the
Gibbet — Mv. Hadwin's Stags' Heads — Gideon Rutherfurd — Kildonan
Churchyard — Sutherlandshire Flockmasters — Shows in the County —
Sheep Farming — Heather Burning — Sporting in Sutherland — Strath
Brora — The Dunrobin Herd — The Museum and Kennels — The Dun-
robin Dairy — Climbing Ben Vraggie — The Meikle Ferry.

CONTENTS. Ill

TOii TO SiMEHIESS.

The Black Dog of Tain — A Jockey Club Wanderer on Moricli Mhor—
Ross-shire Tod-hunters — The Crofters — Flocks in Easter Eoss — From
Tain to Dingwall— Coiil Cottage — The Black Isle — Belmaduthy —
The Muir of Ord — The Caledonian Boots — Highland Society's ShoAVs
— Inverness Character Fair — Hugh Snowie's — Stags' Heads — Laggan
Cottage — Nairnshire — Lord Cawdor's Old Scotch Ilock — Kildruinmie
and Lochdhu— The late Ilillhead Herd— The Witches' Heath.

The haunts of St. John — Morayshire Sellers — "Homed Beasts" —
Lack of Breeders — Feeding Stock — Mutton for London — Sheep
I'arming — Morayshire Feeders — The Forres Fat Show — Altyre Stock
— The Balnaferry Herd — From Forres to Elgin — Pluskardene Abbey
Bargains — ^^Vester Alves and Ardgay — The Story of the Buchan
Hero — Elgin — The Spey Fisheries — The late Duke of Richmond —
Gordon Castle — Its Breed of Setters — Its Flocks and Shorthorn
Herds.

A ride from Fochabers to Aberdeen — Back to Orbliston — A Shooting
box— The Mulben Herd— The Pig Trade pf Banffshire— The Port-
soy Cartsire Stud — Clydesdales — Banffshire Shorthorn Beginnings —
The Rettie Herd— Mr. Rannie's Leicester Flock — The Montbletton
Herd— The late Mr. Grant Duff— His Catalogue Notes— The Forglen
Breed of Cows — Mr. Lumsden's Herefords — Hereford Crosses — The
Kinnellar Herd — The Sittyton Herd — Udny and Jamie Fleeman.

IV CONTENTS.

ffilAFSIE ¥0L
S3f?ff©i TO ABEEiEEi,

The Aberdeen Fat Cup— Mr. Stewart's Cracks— Tke Tarty Herd-
Mr. Martiu's Show Beasts — Aberdeenshire Feeders — Early Days of
Feeding — The Original Horned Doddies — Aberdeen INIeat Supplies —
The Cattle and Dead Meat Trade with the South— The M'Combie
Family — Easter Skene — A Day at Tillyfour.

eiAFfis I

The Royal departure from Balmoral — Up the Deeside — Kincar-
dineshire Sheep-feeders — The Portlethen Herd — The last of Fox
Maule — Colour Conception — The late Mr. Boswell of Kingcausie —
His Highland Society Essay — From Bourtree Bush to Stonehaven —
The late Captain Barclay — The Old Days of the Deliance.

Sf8illlil£i T© CSETOCm

The Weathercocks of Stonehaven — The Sea Coast Road and The Mearns
— Stock of the District — ]3ulls at Fernyflatt — Yorkshire Calf Trade
— Angus Commentaries — The Kinnaird Valley — Old Montrose —
Black Herds — The Kinnaird Castle Steading — Druid and Cupbearer
— The Great Forfarshire Covers — Cullow Fair — Cortachy Castle —
Highland Crosses — Laying down Permanent Pasture without a Crop
— The Cortachy Herd and Dairy.

CONTENTS. V

SlAFflE I!-

mmmm w ?mm

Mr. AVatson of Keillor — His Show-yard Career — Old Grannie —
The Polled Herd Book — Experience of Southdowns — ^A Judge cf
Distance — Mr. Bowie's Herd — Dr. Murray of Carnoustie — The Story
of The Cure — Major Douglas — Salmon Fishing on the Fife Coast —
Speedie v. Seals — The Shark and her Whelps— Cock and Hen Salmon
— The Carse of Gowrie — Rossie Priory — " The Scottish HenAvife."

fwm m wmmm.

The late Lord Lynedoch — Net Pishing at the Lynn of Campsic — ]Mr.
Speedie's Ice House — Salmon Prices — The Scone Steading — Mr.
Paton's Gun Shop— The Caledonian Hunt Club at Perth— The Cluh
Rules — Its different Places of Meeting — Porty-five Years of Racing.

imiELB f9 Emm mmiE.

The Athole Larches— The late D^^ke of Athole— His Love of Otter
Hmiting— The Athole Forest— The Dunkeld Ayrshires— Milk Sta-
tistics— The Duchess Dowager's Farm at St. Colme's — Pitlochry—
The Castle and Burial-place at Blair Athole— The West Highland
Herd.

VI CONTENTS.

.. -PERfll fO lEie.

The Strathallan Castle Herd — AValk to Rob Roy's Grave — Fern Tliatcliing
— The Braes of Balquhidder — Points of West Highland Cattle — Black-
laced Sheej) — " M'Claren's Cow" — Recollections of Deanstown —
Keir — The Steading — Clydesdales, Shorthorns, and Garden.

mm n we miiiels.

Alloa— i\rr. Mitchell's Herd— To Kea^dl— The Keavil Herd— A word
with Mr. Easton — The Old Fife Breed of Cows — Fifeshire Feeders —
Old Days of the Fife Hunt— A Visit to the Kennels.

eSAFf SI S?L

The Wood of Caledon Bulls— The Duke of Montrose's Herd— Sail to
Skye — Products of Portree — Ride to Duntulm — Cattle and Sheep in
Skye— Skye Terriers— A Pig Hunt— Symptoms of Falkirk— The Pol-
taUoch Herd.

Webster Family Library of Veterinary Medicine
Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at
Tufts Univsrsity
200 VVsstboro Road
Nortli Grafton, JiylA 01536