BREEDING OF HUNTERS. 323 



used always to swear by Phantom as a hunter sire, 

 and he was very anxious that Will Butler in his 

 younger days should take the horse off his hands, 

 and keep a farm. The parson at a meet was "a 

 caution to see," His hunters were always in the 

 straw yard, and the sire, Vandyke, did all manner 

 of work. In fact, it was " a season" of some sort or 

 other with him the whole year round. He would 

 send him on to the meet in a curb bridle and an old 

 cloth for a sheet, and then follow with his saddle in 

 his Scotch cart, tilt it up in some field, leaving the 

 cart-horse and the groom to graze and ruminate to* 

 gether till he returned. At the meet, too, he was 

 never quiet for an instant, as he always kept his 

 horse stepping round and round in a ring, and pour- 

 ing forth meanwhile a perfect torrent of conversation 

 over his shoulder. But that dark thin ex-divine 

 must not make us linger or forget Cheshire and its 

 horses, amongst whom, Speculator with his stock, 

 small but stout as steel, Sir Oliver with his slashing 

 and rather leggy browns, and Cheshire Cheese with 

 his thick and stout descendants, take brevet rank. 

 Astbury, who ran that unparalleled trio of four-mile 

 dead heats over the Newcastle-under-Lyme race- 

 course, was, to use the phrase of his district, fe a lost 

 horse," as so few good mares came to his paddocks, 

 but still he left several stout rather leggy and won- 

 .fully game horses behind him. It would have been 

 enough for his fame to have been the sire of Joe 

 Maiden's celebrated Pevorett, a fine sixteen-hand 

 bay with a short back and fore- ends, always 

 "blowing his nose," as high-couraged horses inva- 

 riably do, and obliged to be muzzled even after a 

 hard Cheshire day, for fear he should eat his litter. 

 He was bred by Mr. James Pevor, steward to Mr. 

 "Wubraham, of Delamere Forest, and was purchased 

 by Joe Maiden for the hunt at 35. His price had 

 been 80, but as he was always a clumsy roadster, 



