1 2 Saddle and Sirloin. 



of their Glasgow evenings were spent together. Their 

 friendship knew no change, and the very year that 

 Pollok died, he had promised to spend part of the 

 summer at Dalgig. 



Curling and draughts were his chief amusements 

 until he commenced coursing, and he kept up the 

 former for fully forty years. He would drive seven- 

 teen miles to Sanquhar to play, and although he 

 never won the Picture, he held the New Cumnock 

 Challenge Medal for several seasons. As a director 

 of the game he was first-rate, but his temper not un- 

 frequently went if any of his own players were care- 

 less. However, the anger was soon off him, and he 

 always said he was sorry for " blowing them up." 

 Into draughts he entered with the same devotion, and 

 on very special occasions he and a neighbour would 

 be at it till three in the morning. For two or three 

 years he had been very poorly, and six months before 

 his death he was stricken with palsy. After that he 

 grew weaker and weaker, but he was able to ride out 

 in his gig until the October of '67, when a great 

 change for the worse took place, and a peaceful end 

 soon followed. 



Mr. McCombie's late herdsman, John Benzies, was 

 another character whom we always liked to meet by 

 the side of his heavy blacks, either at Islington or in 

 the Vale of Alford. Owing to a constitutional in- 

 firmity in his legs, he was not always able to compass 

 his thousand miles each December, but in 1867, when 

 he came South with the Black Prince Cup ox and 

 swept everything he could try for, both at Birming- 

 ham and London, we never saw him more active. 

 His appearance " by special command" with his ox 

 before Her Majesty at the Windsor Home Farm 

 was a grand event, and of course he was pretty often 

 waylaid as he went smiling down the Islington 

 avenues, and was requested to stand and deliver a 

 Court Journal account of himself. Despite all this 



