COL. ANSTRUTHER THOMSON 227 



" The candle went out with the black damp. They 

 had got the tod in a hole in the side, and I could fin' 

 their breeth, and they pu'ed a' the '00 aff him." By 

 this time the bystanders, principally miners, had be- 

 come very brave, and four of them volunteered to go 

 in with a spade. On their return they said the candle 

 began to grow dim with the black damp. Two of 

 them remained with the candle, the other two going 

 on in the dark. They brought out the hounds, but 

 not the fox. They said a dead fox, dead a long 

 time, was lying in the mine. A hunted fox might 

 perhaps die of suffocation on getting into black 

 damp. 



On the 20th I tumbled into the Pow Burn with 

 " Mutineer," and was very bad with rheumatism. 



Met at Dron, 5th May, last day. The hounds 

 were like drums with eating dead sheep, the 

 hills being coviered with them, so we had to go 

 home. 



Seventy-five hunting days, two blank days, frost 

 thirty-one days, killed twenty-three brace, to ground 

 seventeen brace. 



Stephen Dobson left and went as first whip to 

 the Rufford Hounds. 



In May, Lord Loughborough stood for the county 

 of Fife, and was opposed by Mr. Wemyss. I under- 

 took to arrange for carriages for the conveyance of 

 voters, and was assisted by Alec Kinloch. Account 

 annexed. I mention this to show that the proceed- 

 ings in those days were very different from the rules 



for elections of the present day (1902). 



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