232 FIELD AND FERN. 



and even in a shire so strongly wedded to its 

 own breed, he did not shrink from saying so. 

 Many of his dearest friends lived over the Border 

 John Booth, Anthony Maynard, Wetherell, Torr, 

 and Philip Skipworth and he loved to go shorthorn 

 and sheep judging with them to Ireland, and to call 

 to mind Booth's merry jokes and his practicals on 

 old Philip. He also had many " a quiet day at 

 Wiseton" with the first earl among the shorthorns; 

 and he was walking with his lordship on the race- 

 course at Doncaster, just before Elis's St. Leger, 

 when he first met Sir Charles Knightley. The old 

 baronet began to rally him directly after they had 

 been introduced, in allusion to the earl's politics, on 

 " not keeping better company." Before the end of 

 the week they met again at a sheep sale at Wooller, 

 and for many years kept up a strong correspondence. 

 Old Jock (1), Strathmore (5), Angus (45), and Pat 

 (29), were his four favourite bulls, and there is a strain 

 of them in every great black herd. Old Jock was 

 the most stylish of the lot, and showed, as his 

 owner never scrupled to say, "much of the short- 

 horn superiority in hair and touch. " His son Pat 

 thought nothing on one occasion of walking eighteen 

 miles to a show, and winning ; and his son, Hanton, 

 made the herd fortunes of M'Combie, who bought 

 him for 105gs. when he had won at Berwick. Old Jock 

 was sold for 100 guineas, after taking a Highland 

 Society first in 1844. In 1852 his son Grey Breasted 

 Jock, or Second Jock, beat all the polled bulls in a 



