1 44 Silk and Scarlet 



But, alas ! at this point the guard saw that some 

 fun was going on, and, no doubt out of respect for 

 royalty, invited him into the break ; and we saw our 

 friend no more.^ 



Luke Nott and In Russia, at one time, Stuckey and 

 Mr. Kirby. Lu]^e Nott might have made Alexander 

 and his equerries believe that spavins and Roman 

 heads were rather a beauty than otherwise, and that 

 ring-bones and double joints were infallible indications 

 of strength ; but they could not tell Nicholas tales. 

 The royal vendees, when they came out to the front 

 of the palace at Peterhoff to inspect the English 

 arrivals, took the measure of their vendors rather dif- 

 ferently in 1845 to what they had done thirty years 

 before. Luke Nott was the spokesman on one of the 

 latter occasions. He had an order for two cows from 

 England, one for a nobleman and the other for the 

 Empress, but the royal cow died on the passage, and 

 the worst had to be led to the palace for inspection. 

 ** Why',' asked the Empress, " are three teats so large 

 and one so small f " Ifs all correct, please your 

 Majesty',' said the ever-ready Luke, " three are for the 

 milk, a?td the little one for the cream!' " Indeed !" was 

 the reply, and nothing more was said ; " Biit^' as Mr. 

 Kirby used to remark, " / stood fairly trimbling to 

 hear the fellow tell sncJi a wilful lee!' Many had been 

 sent off to Siberia for less ; and it was all that Mr. 

 Kirby himself could once do, even while he basked in 



* How different the report of Sunbeam's Goodwood race, as we 

 wrote it down the next month, from the lips of a labourer in a smock, 

 who was sitting within ear-shot of us, with his wife, his six olive- 

 branches, and, of course, the family umbrella, on the sunny slope of the 

 Goodwood Hill. It ran thus : — " There's three gan — yonder they goes ! 

 Yellow's behind 'em — he ain't fur ; he'll push it when they get into the 

 straight coorse ! Green and blue is cutting along ! Dang ! yellow's 

 coming up right afore 'em, blowed if he ain't ! They'll have a job with 

 him, mind yer. He's gotten up foremost. Look at that, missis ! Green's 

 lossen all to nothing!" And with that "The Missus" closed his 

 patriarchal mouth by the offer of a very green little apple from her 

 basket 



