536 FIELD AND FERN. 



dry knolls up the water of the Urr in Galloway^ where 

 forty years ago you would hardly see one Ayrshire cow 

 or a hundred sheep in a day. 



There is quite a history in connection with the 

 hovel in the corner of the Dumfries race-course. It 

 adjoins the little paddock into which Joe Graham 

 jumped when his hounds were carrying a good head 

 towards Torthorwald^ and lay " due east," not ex- 

 actly stretched many a rood (for there never was, and 

 never will be, much of him) in " the heaviest fall I 

 ever had in my life." Within those humble walls 

 Ballochmyle by Peter Lely was foaled, and so were 

 Modesty from Theresa and Abraham Newland from 

 Rachel by Amadis, both of them by Malek, and 

 in the self-same year. Idleboy by Satan was another 

 of Rachel's, which were nearly all cliesnut except 

 Wee Willie, the first of the Liverpools. She was 

 bought from Mr. Knapton of York, and had an end- 

 less spring of it, as when she was twenty-four she 

 threw a colt and a filly, and excited the admiration of 

 a visitor so much when she was in foal for the last 

 time, that he called her " the chesnut filly in the 

 park," and dwelt at intervals on her suitability for 

 his carriage. Venus, the dam of Vulcan, came from 

 " Jupiter Johnson's," with Vulcan at her foot, and 

 bred Eryx soon after. Lord John Scott gave £100 

 for the old mare and her foal Wanderin' Willie when 

 she was twenty-two ; and the latter brought back 

 the purchase-money and " something more" at Don- 

 caster Spring. Mr. Wilkin never bred a St. Leger 



