348 Saddle and Sirloin. 



gallop, " cracking his nose," and how carefully his 

 tender heels were washed out with milk each morning. 

 The elegantly turned Breadalbane was full of spirits 

 and quality, and his attempts to dance a solo before 

 the Bishop of Nottingham were of the most graceful 

 kind. Kettledrum's white reach head has hardly a 

 peer, but with his stallion top upon him he looks a 

 trifle light in the arm. 



From here as an interlude between hippothine and 

 beef, we strolled along the Hodder side to the farm, 

 and saw the twenty-three West Highland bullocks, 

 over whom Ellison presides, and which had a first 

 prize winner amongst them for the next Smithfield 

 Club Show. An active bay Clydesdale mare, which 

 had just won in a pair at Burnley, shows us her paces, 

 and then we visit the upper box yard. The mares 

 and foals to which it is devoted are bedded on the 

 proceeds of the fern harvest, which, as the valley is 

 guiltless of white crops, is the great substitute. Some- 

 times they and the foals both eat a little for a relish, 

 and thus rob the potatoes, as fern litter manure is re- 

 markably well adapted for " that esculent." The 

 mares were all stabled in boxes, with sliding doors, 

 which no chill winds can penetrate, and out of the 

 twenty-three a score had foals at their foot, and 

 seventeen of them by Kettledrum. Two of the " half- 

 bred" mares, Passion Flower and Hesperithusa, which 

 first brought out the " white with black sleeves," had 

 pledges of Cape Flyaway, and Honeydew had the 

 only black foal of the lot, which were exactly equal in 

 sex. Evadne, the dam of Evelina, had been found 

 dead in the field, and Corrivall, the dam of The 

 Sawyer, was barren. Mr. Eastwood had a very 

 tender spot for this colt from the time he first looked 

 at him as a foal, and though the chestnut was not 

 always i' the vein, he was sold for five hundred 

 guineas. There was a good omen the week we were 

 there, as one dav Lord Hawthorne and Evelina both 



