Il6 HISTORY OF THE SHORT-HORNS. 



who was frequently assisted in his minor duties by his equally faithful 

 and brave-hearted old wife, " Nanny ;" his trusty fac totum, John White, 

 living on the farm from his boyhood, " who was butler, waiting servant, 

 and valet to him, as well as registrar-general of the births, deaths, 

 and marriages, and all else that transpired in the Warlaby herd," 

 Richard Booth lived, dispensing a wide hospitality to his friends and 

 acquaintances, and, in his charities, ever mindful of the needy. 



" When illness had confined Mr. Booth to the house, and Cuddy 

 had become less active, John made it his business, in addition to his 

 household duties, to keep a watchful eye on the cattle especially 

 the young or ailing ones in the neighborhood of the house. So 

 admirably did he discharge this self-imposed duty, so methodical 

 were his habits, so retentive his memory, and so scrupulous his 

 observance of his master's orders, that the active management of the 

 herd mainly devolved upon his shoulders, and Mr. Booth found him 

 an invaluable auxiliary. 



"Last, not least, came doughty Willie Jacques, the farm-bailiff, 

 who had been upwards of forty years in the family. He first lived 

 with Mr. R. Booth at Studley, who sent him to Warlaby in the old 

 master's time, to take the management of the arable land and work 

 people. Willie Jacques' pride was rather in the nameless nonde- 

 scripts of the farm, the bullocks and half-bred heifers, which converted 

 his marvelous root and clover crops into goodly rounds and lordly 

 barons of marbled beef, than in the pampered aristocrats of the herd, 

 born to consume the fruits of the soil whether earned or not. Proud 

 as Willie was of their triumphs in the show-field, nothing exasperated 

 him like the failure on the part of any of them to contribute their 

 yearly quota towards the increase of the herd. Willie Jacques had a 

 capital head for tillage and general farming, and was always at his 

 post, from which nothing could move him but the Christmas Fat 

 Show at Smithfield. Tse seea thrang I canna gang,' was his answer 

 to all invitations. Curt of speech and unceremonious in bearing was 

 Willie Jacques in his sturdy northern independence ; but get him 

 upon the subject of his kind old master, and all the frost of his 

 nature melted away, and you found that under that dry, almost blunt 

 manner, a heart as kindly as a child's was hidden. In one of the 

 rooms at Warlaby hung an admirable portrait of this highly respecta- 

 ble and respected steward of the Warlaby estate. 



" But there was one other personage, to forget whom in a sketch of 

 Warlaby would be fatal to the character of any historian a person- 

 age who, though seldom visible, has contributed to the visitor, perhaps 



