32 NIMROUS NORTHERN TOUR. 



respected gentleman on both sides of the Tweed, that Willie 

 Hay, north of the river, is worth a dozen Mr. Hays south of it. 

 That in one, he was merely the agreeable companion ; on the 

 other he is the life and soul of every party he is in ; the best 

 teller of a story, with the best stock of anecdotes, and with as 

 much of the original character of his country about him as any 

 man I am acquainted with. That he is a horseman of the first 

 order I need not trouble myself to assert; and although not so 

 splendidly mounted as he was when he hunted Warwickshire, 

 he can now "do the trick" when he likes his horse. In a letter 

 I had from Mr. Maxwell (eldest son of Sir William Maxwell), 

 after I left Dunse, describing a capital run of an hour and twenty 

 minutes with Lord Elcho, from Press, he concludes by saying 

 that " Hay had the best of it upon Crafty." 



Like most of those nags who " have the best of it" at the end 

 of an hour and twenty minutes, Crafty is quite thorough-bred 

 and so is his rider ; being distinguished among the Hays 

 nearly as numerous in Scotland, by-the-by, as the Joneses are in 

 Wales as Hay of Drumelzier, shows that he has the Tweedle 

 blood on one side, and the Hays of Berwickshire, it is well 

 known, were among the most conspicuous of the border chiefs 

 who, amidst feudal broils and foreign wars, rendered themselves 

 remarkable in the annals of their country. Perhaps it was to be 

 attributed to his being thus bred a scion of this gallant but tur- 

 bulent aristocracy that the gentleman I am speaking of chose 

 to be an amateur spectator of the bloody scenes on the plains of 

 Waterloo, where I am sorry to add his younger brother was 

 killed. This must have been a woful set-off against the satis- 

 faction and the recollection of that glorious victory. But what 

 said the angel to the Peri, at the gates of Heaven ? 



" ' Sweet,' said the angel, as she gave 



The gift into his radiant hand, 

 ' Sweet is our welcome of the brave, 

 Who die thus for their native land.' " 



I have now to speak of another very celebrated character in 

 Lord Elcho's hunt, equally as well known at Melton, but where 

 he never happened to be whilst I was there, which accounts for 

 our having been strangers to each other previously to our meet- 

 ing at Dunse. I allude to Mr. Campbell, the Laird of Saddell, 

 and perhaps better known among his friends by his territorial 

 title of " Saddell," than by his real and proper name. But this 

 is not the first time I have had Mr. Campbell in " the book." I 

 got a dressing, I remember, some few years back, from a news- 



