ROMAN CAMP TO ATHELSTAN EFORD. 109 



of dogs than of men. He is full of Violet, who 

 won that picture^ and her sire Victor to boot ; 

 of Stanley of Dirleton and Malleny St. Leger 

 memory ; of Shepherdess^ who ran a decider with 

 Blue Light ; of Grasper^ who was never beaten in 

 his first season^ and killed fifty-four out of his fifty- 

 six hares by "just nipping 'em in the rump'' ; of 

 Lassie by Jacobite out of Sister to King Lear^ and 

 the bitch which beat Clive in the run-up for the 

 great Caledonian St Leger the only time that 

 Waterloo crack ever was beaten ; of Barman^ who 

 was carted back by mistake (when his leader had 

 been seized with a fit), instead of being brought out 

 for the deciding course at Amesbury ; and of Ayr- 

 shire Laddie, Caledonian, and Nimrod, '^ all by old 

 Sam, and all much about it ! '^ Sam was after Mr. 

 Nightingale's own heart, " with a beautiful style of 

 running — so true that you might ride miles after him 

 without ever seeing his nob — and with quite a grey- 

 hound face like Sunbeam's" ; and the veteran 

 loves to tell how astonished Squire Osbaldeston 

 was when he ran clean away from his dog at 

 Amesbury. Bobert/s old bay, with some five-and- 

 thirty years on his head, still occupies the stall in the 

 kennel, where Snowflake,aud old Oscar — both spotted, 

 ones, and one of them suckled by a cat to begin with 

 — Golden Dream, the game old white, Coorooran, and 

 the black Agility, once first favourite for the Water- 

 loo Cup kept him in company. The two blacks — Gun- 

 ner and Gunboat, bv Jacobite from Cazzarina — were 



