38 NIMRO&S NORTHERN TOUR. 



his horse to be sure of getting to the end of a run over such a 

 country as Berwickshire, let his horse be what he may, short of 

 celestial breed. As to himself stopping before his horse stops, I 

 should as soon expect to see the sun stop ; and as for falls, he 

 appeared to me sometimes to seek them ; but he will be obliged 

 to concede one point : No horse, after going a certain time, can 

 leap a large fence, or, at all events, many large fences, if ridden 

 over deep ground at the unmerciful pace Mr. Grieve goes over 

 it, and occasionally with too slack a rein. I draw upon my own 

 experience for the truth of this assertion ; but if proof of it were 

 wanting, it would be found in the fact of about five falls per day 

 being about the average number this gallant horseman gets with 

 hounds when they have a run ; and were it not that Fortune 

 favours the brave, he must have broken his neck or his limbs 

 before this time. 



I must now get into the field again. Tuesday, November 

 nth, being a dies non with Lord Elcho's hounds, his Lordship 

 went in pursuit of wild geese, and Lord Saltoun, Mr. M'Dowall 

 Grant and myself breakfasted at the cottage (Lord Eglinton's) 

 on our road to meet Mr. Hume's harriers, which were at that 

 time under the control of Mr. Hay, by reason of that gentle- 

 man's temporary absence from home.- As we mustered rather a 

 strong field, being joined by the young noblemen of the cottage, 

 Mr. Hay, and Mr. M'Kenzie Grieve, who met us on the ground, 

 we were anxious for a good day's sport, but in this we were dis- 

 appointed, for the hares were bad, the scent bad, and the country 

 worse than all. The horse I rode (one of Mr. Grant's) was 

 twice on his head in a bog ; in fact it appeared to me to be 

 better adapted to grouse-shooting than to hare-hunting, being 

 chiefly moors, and we saw several packs of grouse. Mr. Grieve 

 did not lose his character this day ; for although mounted on a 

 thorough-bred weed of a thing that could have run away from 

 every horse out, over the hills, but had no pretensions to be 

 called a hunter indeed he did not call him one he charged a 

 gate with him on a road, and fell neck and crop over it, getting 

 rather a hard squeeze, which he felt for some days. 



I have but little to say of these harriers, of Mr. Hume's, which 

 appeared to be nearly as wild as the country in which they 

 hunted, and so far characteristic ; nor was the whipper-in by 

 any means an exotic, for he looked as if just fresh from the toils, 

 or what coachmen call a " fresh catched one." But there was 

 something of the lusus about the mare he rode, as well as about 

 himself ; for although from her appearance she ought to have 

 been leading lime to the farm in a one-horse cart, she galloped 

 well and fast. Now that is the sort of animal to breed a hunter 



