Silk, 91 



couple of bags slung over his shoulder, and the pets 

 of his fancy remonstrating inside. During the week, 

 he would over and over again slip away from those 

 who wanted to talk to him about weights, and watch 

 his brown-red champions busy in their pens, scratch- 

 ing at a fresh-cut sod, or a spadeful of the purest 

 gravel, fresh from the bottom of the Dee. Any feeder 

 who did not furnish these stimulants, at least every 

 third day, would have held his place on a very frail 

 tenure. He would have a hundred cocks taken up 

 from their walks for Chester, in order that his feeder 

 might select the best, and put them in training from 

 the Thursday week to the Monday, when the smaller 

 cocks led off in the five days' main. Two years old 

 was the favourite period for selection, as they became 

 greasy at three, and far beyond the 41b. looz. stan- 

 dard ; and eggs, sugar-candy water, hot bread and 

 milk, barley, rue, butter, and rhubarb formed the chief 

 part of that dainty diet, which few were fated to taste 

 more than once in their lives. 



He inaugurated his career on the sod Different Breeds 

 with the original white piles, which carried °f ^^"^^ Cocks. 

 such a wonderful spur that " The Cheshire drop," 

 which would occasionally come out in a long battle, 

 when the odds were twenty to one, was considered as 

 fatal as the " Chifney rush." These were the cocks 

 with which the Cholmondeleys, the Egertons, the 

 Warburtons, the Cottons, and the Raylances fought 

 all the great county mains ; sometimes against each 

 other, but more frequently against the Mexborough 

 and Meynell families. The Doctor, however, con- 

 vinced himself that their constitutions would not stand 

 the discipline of modern feeders, and at last, by judi- 

 cious crossing, made his brown and black-reds carry 

 as good a spur, and bear the most punishing prepara- 

 tion to boot. They were chiefly bred from his old 

 " cut-combed hen," whose descendants were crossed 

 with his brown " crow alleys," two of Gilliver's black- 



