The Darley Arabian. 199 



Mr. Kirby was amazingly fond of him. He would 

 stand with his hands in his drab breeches-pockets, 

 looking at him day after day with visitors, and then 

 out would come his " There ! ifs my opinion— ajid Fve 

 seen a many horses in my time — but I never seed 07ie, 

 tak him altogether, that pleased me mair than Laner- 

 cost!' A pause regularly ensued, only to be thus 

 broken again in the same monotonous tone — ^^ And 

 thoitll recollect, I had old Orvile." 



His first year's stud essays with Van The Sons of 

 Tromp, War Eagle, and Ellerdale were Lanercost. 

 his best ; but it was gradually found that his stock did 

 not ripen early, and were not nearly smart enough for 

 two-year-old races, and such a discovery is now-a- 

 days fatal to a horse. Thirty years before, he would 

 have been invaluable. Mr. Kirby moreover did not 

 show his wonted tact as to limiting, and hence many 

 of them came small ; and instead of making an 

 annuity out of him for a series of years, he was glad, 

 after five or six, to let him to Lord Exeter and the 

 Hampton Paddocks, His son Loupgarou, who was at 

 the latter establishment one season, heaped coals of 

 fire on their head for tiring of him so soon by beating 

 their crack Orlando cleverly in the next sale average 

 with the 710-guinea Hecate. The backs of the Van 

 Tromps were rather narrow and doubtful, and the 

 Yorkshiremen " didn't like the sample" at all when 

 Ivan first walked into the York enclosure. For mag- 

 nificence, however, Vandermulin had scarcely a peer, 

 although he was more of a foreigner's horse ; and Zeta 

 was the best-looking and gamest Van Tromp mare 

 that was ever out. We shall not easily forget her in 

 two Doncaster finishes, two years running. 



Lottery was a very blood-like horse, ^ 

 not very strong behind, but still the best 

 of Tramp's sons, if his temper had not been such a 

 fearful bane. He was drilled by Jem Garbutt in a 

 fallow field in Holderness, and though the spirit was 



