NIM ROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 43 



did not see this fine burst, as he went to the place of meeting, in 

 the morning. 



From Lady Kirk, we trotted away some miles to a fine 

 gorse cover called Broomdykes, reckoned the " Cream Lodge 

 gorse " of Berwickshire. It held a brace of foxes, one of which 

 went away on the second attempt, and, after a fine ring round 

 the country, through Blackadder, Kellow Craigs, and Mander- 

 stone, saved his life by getting into a " conduit " as a drain in 

 Scotland is called under the park wall of Wedderburnhouse, 

 about three miles from Dunse, at the end of fifty-eight minutes. 



Although the country we passed through is the deepest and 

 the most strongly fenced of any in Berwickshire, I had an 

 opportunity of seeing the hounds do their work through nearly 

 the entire of this fine run, and I have great pleasure in re- 

 peating the opinion of all present, that nothing could have ex- 

 ceeded their steadiness or their stoutness, which, after the tick- 

 ler they had in the morning and the distance they had travelled, 

 was highly creditable to their condition. It is true they only 

 occasionally went the ultra pace, the scent, at times, being 

 flashy ; and they were twice in difficulties ; but they got uncom- 

 monly well out of them, and this is the test of merit, for all hounds 

 will hold on with a breast-high scent. 



For the information of such of my brother sportsmen who may 

 never have ridden over, as well as of such as may contemplate 

 riding over, Berwickshire, I will describe the sort of fences we 

 had this day to encounter. I do not recollect anything in the 

 shape of timber. We had neither gate, stile, rail, nor brook, but 

 we had every description of hedge and ditch and bank and wall 

 that the ingenuity of man could contrive. Moreover we had, 

 now and then, hedge and ditch and bank ; then hedge wall and 

 ditch, all in the same fence. Almost every fence indeed was a 

 double one, the ditches regular yawners ; and from the circum- 

 stance of more than half of them being to be taken out of deep, 

 or ploughed ground, they took the shine out of the horses. Many 

 of them also were very difficult to get at, with comfort or safety 

 to the horse. For example, on the headlands of such fields as 

 are ploughed, a small ridge, or baulk, as it is called, is left be- 

 tween the last 'bout of the plough and the ditch, to prevent the 

 soil washing into it. In some cases these were of sufficient 

 width to tempt a horse to take his footing from off them, but it 

 is an uncertain and slippery one. If, however, he do not foot 

 on it, he has so much the greater exertion to make to enable him 

 to land himself on the bank, having cleared a ditch that would 

 swallow a mail coach. And how fares he when thus landed ? 

 Why he has to leap another ditch that would swallow another 



