214 REMINISCENCES OF 



6th May, 1887. — John Gilmour wrote : " It is 

 quite impossible to communicate with all the sub- 

 scribers in time to enable you to make the necessary 

 arrangements. If you will accept of my personal 

 guarantee I will undertake ^1,850 be forthcoming 

 for next season. Guarantees for the possible deficit 

 of ^150 to be named afterwards." 



I then commenced to make arrangements to hunt 

 the West country. I rented a cottage and a small 

 farmyard at Cowdenbeath for ^20. David Wilkie, 

 the tenant, was a capital, respectable old man, and I 

 kept him on as orra man. His wife was very tidy 

 and cooked, and their daughter was very nice and 

 useful in the house. Jack Capel, my second whip 

 (brother to Ben Capel the Belvoir hunstman), 

 married her. George Palmer was kennel huntsman. 



We all lived in the same house. I had one 

 room. There had been a " creep " of the colliery 

 under the house and all the doors were off the 

 square. At 6 a.m. the siren used to sound to rouse 

 the workmen. David used to bring me a tumbler of 

 milk and a slice of bread, and after feeding the horses 

 we all went to work as masons and carpenters. We 

 made a partition across the barn ; one side a lodging 

 house, and the other side a feeding room with a 

 portable boiler in it ; and we made a courtyard with 

 upright larch poles. 



I usually stayed there two days, and when the 

 men left off work at five o'clock got on a horse and 

 rode home — twenty-five miles. We got the place 

 into something like order during the summer. 



