202 Saddle and Sirloin. 



rose, and bowed to the chairman and vice in turn, and 

 let himself down again, with a simple word of thanks 

 to the company. One was more off-handed, and 

 hardly valued his herd enough ; the other was the 

 man of business, who appraised it to a nicety. The 

 one was more catholic in his cattle tastes, and had 

 boldly sought and found, with infinite judgment, 

 among the pastures round Richmond, a fresh cross 

 for Bliss in Lord Lieutenant, and for Bracelet in 

 Mussulman ; while the other, though no one knew 

 better the worth of Leonard and Buckingham, de- 

 termined, after Exquisite's warning, to leave well 

 alone, and solved the fearfully difficult problem of 

 crossing his closely-related families with all that tact 

 which Jonas Webb displayed in another department 

 of stock science. The public did not know what was 

 doing at Babraham, but still they felt sure it would 

 succeed. They knew the bulls of the season at 

 Warlaby, and predicted that the herd must go down 

 for lack of a cross. The old sage only smiled at their 

 fears ; and left Commander-in-Chief and Lady Fra- 

 grant behind him to confound the prophets. 



He attended the Cobham and the Aldborough 

 sales in 1859, an< ^ after the summer of that year, the 

 Royal and the Yorkshire knew him no more. 

 Absence did not weaken his ancient love, and when he 

 was confined to his bed or chair, he watched as keenly 

 as ever for " a wire" from his nephews on the afternoon 

 of a great show. He broke down with rheumatic 

 gout on his return from the Warwick Royal, and for 

 the last two years of his life he was almost bedridden. 

 The " quiet days at Warlaby," when he would walk or 

 go round the stock in his gig, were over at least in his 

 generation, but still old friends would come as usual, 

 and tell him how everything was looking, and go 

 through all the heifer chronicle of herds in general, 

 and those in particular which had (or were thought 

 to have) " a flyer" or two for the Royal. There was 



