48 NIMROUS NORTHERN TOUR. 



and with whom I became acquainted during one of my visits 

 to Raby-castle. He has been all his life a dear lover of the 

 sport, but is a young master of hounds, this being his second 

 season. 



" How do you like my hounds ?" said the Major to me, after 

 the usual salutation. " I'll tell you presently," was my reply ; 

 the fact was, their backs were up and their sterns were down 

 from the severity of the morning, and they did not look to 

 advantage ; " but this I can tell you at once your condition 

 appears admirable" The gallant master and huntsman for he 

 hunts them himself appeared much pleased by this remark, for 

 he told me it was a point upon which he prided himself ; and as 

 I shall presently have an opportunity of showing, I was myself 

 gratified at having made it, because it proved to be a good hit. 

 There was only a small field, but amongst them Lord Frederick 

 "Fitzclarence, who resides in the neighbourhood of the kennels 

 at a seat of his brother-in-law, Lord Kelburne, and is a very 

 regular attendant of the Galewood pack. 



The Greeks had their oracles, the Romans their augurs, all the 

 world their omens, and I now and then have mine. " We shall 

 have sport to-day," said I to myself, as I put a crooked sixpence 

 into my pocket. a thing I had not seen for many a long day 

 after I had mounted my horse, and especially as he gave a loud 

 neigh at the moment, which Tacitus, when speaking of the 

 ancient Germans, says, " was considered so portentous as to be 

 watched by kings and priests. " 



The omens, however, were this day unpropitious, and even our 

 start was a bad one. We were holloaed to the top of a hill where 

 we were told the " tod" as .a fox in Scotland is called by the 

 people was just seen ; but I was soon convinced there had been 

 no " tod" there, and told Major St. Paul as much. The excite- 

 ment, however, a lark of this sort produces in hounds, exhibits 

 them in a very different character to that of trotting along a road 

 on a frosty morning ; and I could then have answered the 

 question previously put to me by the owner, but which I reserved 

 to another opportunity. Some short time after this disappoint- 

 ment occurred we found a brace of foxes, and, what does not 

 often happen, the pack, consisting of only sixteen couples, 

 divided into two equal lots, eight couples settling to one fox and 

 eight to another. I of course started after the one that broke in 

 the line on which I was riding at the time, but as soon as I 

 perceived we had only part of the pack with us, and that our 

 huntsman was on a fox with the other part, I joined the whipper- 

 in in trying to stop them. But had the one been riding Eclipse, 

 and the other Flying Childers, we should not have succeeded in 



