150 Saddle and Sirloin. 



who expected once more to grasp him by the hand, 

 and to enjoy the half-sportive, half-sarcastic lecture 

 on each prize beast of " the old man eloquent" of 

 Kirklevington, learnt for the first time that Mr. Bates 

 had gone to his rest, and that their shorthorn festival 

 was on his funeral day. His heart was with horn and 

 hoof to the last, and there was no " cruel Phyllis" to 

 cross him in that love. Those who have strolled with 

 him in his pastures, can recall how the cows and even 

 the young heifers would lick his hand, and seem to 

 listen to every gentle word and keen comment, as if 

 they penetrated its import ; and even when the last 

 struggle was nigh, and he could wander amongst them 

 no more, he reclined on some straw in the cow-house, 

 that his eye might not lack its solace. 



We had never been in the neighbourhood before a 

 meeting of the Cleveland Society tempted us to 

 Yarm, on one of whose inn signs the bull " Duke" 

 still flourishes. When the hound prizes were decided, 

 we strolled out to Kirklevington. Hard by the 

 churchyard is the calf-house, in which Fourth Duke of 

 Northumberland and the Duchesses and Oxfords were 

 reared, but the great philosopher* of shorthorns lay 



* Mr. James Fawcett, who often stayed with him at Halton Castle, 

 in Northumberland, some two-and-fifty years ago, thus writes us : "I 

 have endeavoured to recall from the depths of memory some of the 

 byegone days spent with my old friend and tutor, Mr. Bates. Having 

 studied at the Edinburgh University, he was well up to the chemical 

 and scientific part of his business, and far beyond his neighbours in 

 that respect. The chief enjoyment, however, of his life was in his cow 

 pastures, which were generally visited once or twice a day, and the 

 history and points of each animal made known to any visitor as it came 

 up to have its head rubbed. On these occasions he was in the habit of 

 manipulating the animals all over, pressing them gently with his fingers, 

 thereby to detect any unevenness or want of quality in any particular 

 part, and guard against the patchy appearance that so many shorthorns 

 exhibit, being overloaded in one place and bare in another. I well re- 

 member the interest and pains he took to initiate me into the mysteries 

 of 'handling.' 



'* What he termed quality, he considered the most essential point 

 in cattle, and under this designation he included aptitude to fatten, 



