68 THE BORDER ANGLER. 



a large hunting-whip ; and, among a dozen frolicsome youths 

 and maidens, who seemed disposed to laugh at all discipline, 

 appeared— each on horseback, each as eager as the youngest 

 horseman in the troop— Sir Humphrey Davy, Dr. Wollaston, 

 and the patriarch of Scottish belles lettres, Henry Mackenzie. 

 The Man of Feeling, however, was persuaded with some diffi- 

 culty to resign his steed for the present to his faithful negro 

 follower, and join Lady Scott in the " Sociable," until we should 

 reach the ground of our battue. Laidlaw on a long-tailed wiry 

 highlander, yclept Hodden Orey, which carried him nimbly 

 and stoutly, although his heel almost touched the ground as he 

 sat, was the adjutant. But the most picturesque figure was 

 the illustrious inventor of the safety-lamp. He had come for 

 his favourite sport of angling, and had been practising it suc- 

 cessfully with Ross, his travelling companion, for two or three 

 days preceding this, but he had not prepared for coursing- 

 fields, or had left Charlie Purdie's troop for Sir Walter's on a 

 sudden thought; and his fisherman's costume, a brown hat with 

 flexible brims, surrounded with line upon line of catgut [cat- 

 gut I] and innumerable flyhooks, jackboots worthy of a Dutch 

 smuggler, and a fustian jacket dabbled with the blood of sal- 

 mon, made a fine contrast with the smart jackets, white cord 

 breeches, and well polished jockey boots of the less distin- 

 guished cavaliers about him. Dr. Wollaston was in black, and 

 with his noble severe dignity of countenance, might have 

 passed for a sporting archbishop. Mr. Mackenzie, at this time 

 in the 76th year of his age, with a white hat turned up with 

 green, green spectacles, green jacket, and long brown leathern 

 gaiters buttoned up on his nether anatomy, wore a dog- whistle 

 round his neck, and had all over the air of as resolute a de- 

 votee as the gay captain of Huntly Burn, Tom Purdie and his 

 subalterns had preceded us by a few hours with all the grey- 

 hounds that could be collected at Abbotsford, Darnick, and 

 Melrose ; but the giant Maida had remained as his master's 

 orderly, and now gambolled about Sybil Grey, barking for mere 

 joy like a spaniel puppy." 



I.ockhart's substitution of catgut for the fine entrail 

 of the Spanish silk-worm — as if Sir Humphrey had 



