268 The Post and the Paddock. 



to screw and creep through any kind of fence on a 

 cold scenting day, than one which meant going. 

 Prices perhaps reached their culminating point in 

 Lord Plymouth's time. His lordship (who could 

 never be called a hard rider) gave Sir Bellingham 

 Graham looo guineas for Beeswax and Freemason ; 

 while 700 guineas was the figure both for Little John 

 and a very soft mare, which he fancied from the style 

 in which she went along with Mr. Peter AUix in a 

 single run. He also gave 600 guineas for the sixteen- 

 hands Cervantes horse, off which Mr. Osbaldeston 

 broke his leg for the second time in the Atherstone 

 country, and out of which " The Squire " had already 

 had six years' work. This mania has had its day, 

 and although a racing man has three three-year- 

 olds in his stable which averaged 1200 guineas as 

 yearlings, it is very rarely that a hunter fetches more 

 than 400 guineas, though 500 guineas was said to be 

 the reserve-bid for Cock Robin at Tattersall's in 

 1855. Sir Bellingham Graham (who always had an 

 agent in Yorkshire on the look-out) seldom sold his 

 best horses under 400 guineas, and Parchment and 

 The Baron both fetched it. We do not find any trace 

 of the price of Norton Conyers, a chestnut horse, who 

 looked as if he could manage 20st., and was the most 

 splendid of gate-jumpers. The handsome grey, Hes- 

 perus, a wonderful animal over a deep country, also 

 came into Mr. Foljambe's hands from the baronet, at 

 400 guineas ; but Will Butler, to whom he was assigned. 

 had to do all his cub-hunting on him that season 

 before he could get him quiet. Confidence was sold 

 three or four times over, for all prices from 750 guineas 

 to 600 guineas ; and emulous of his first and last 

 owner, Mr. Lockley, who died from a fall he received 

 out hunting at fourscore, he lasted for nearly nine- 

 teen seasons. Some said that his price to Lord Ply- 

 mouth was 1000 guineas, but at the end of two years 

 he was returned by his lordship to Mr. Lockley, as 



