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- 



