68 NIMROUS NORTHERN TOUR. 



Friday, 2ist. Lord Elcho's fixture was Dunse-castle,to which 

 place I walked in the morning to breakfast, Mr. Hay having 

 offered me a mount. Lord Elcho's Prince Le Boo, however 

 said to have been the best hunter in Scotland, but now rather 

 worse for wear was waiting for me at the cover, which of course 

 was Dunse-wood, a sort of nursery of foxes. We ran one very 

 hard indeed, with a burning scent, for at least an hour and a 

 half, but all the time in cover ; when, unfortunately, owing to a 

 main earth not having been properly stopped, he scratched his 

 way into it and saved himself. No hounds ever deserved a fox 

 better than these hounds deserved this ; and the only consolation 

 attending his getting to ground was, in the fact of his being a 

 capital bit of vermin to have stood such a dressing as he got in 

 cover, on rather a close day in November. But pardon me 

 there was one other consolation. There were several juvenile 

 sportsmen and sportswomen in the cover some on foot and 

 some on horseback to whom this hour and half cover hunting 

 afforded many opportunities not only of viewing the tod> but of 

 seeing how the thing was done ; and it was likewise a good day 

 for hearing the " gallant chiding" of the pack. 



We found a second fox in a cover called " the Doctor's-cover," 

 which soon met his death, owing to the impatience of one of the 

 field to get a start, by which he turned him into the hounds' 

 mouth. I was rather surprised at the gentleman in question 

 doing so, because he has followed hounds a great deal, and has 

 the reputation of being a sportsman ; but his conduct reminded 

 me of a description Mr. Meynell gave of a similar start with his 

 hounds from a favourite cover in Leicestershire. " First;' said 

 he, " came the fox ; next, Cecil Forester ; and then^ my hounds !" 

 Lord Elcho bore the disappointment like a Christian, a term 

 which, on all occasions, we may be allowed to synonymise with 

 gentleman. We found again, and, after a smart scurry over the 

 country, whipped off at dark in Dunse-wood. 



This was my last day with Lord Elcho's hounds, and for this 

 reason : I had not a horse to ride without trespassing on the 

 stables of my friends and found I had no chance of getting one 

 from King, as the brute he sent me in exchange for another 

 brute which I sent back to him was equal to about nine stone, 

 on the road, and a cripple in fact, with anchylosed joints. 

 What rendered this circumstance more mortifying was, that, on 

 the very day I left Dunse, which was on the morrow of the last 

 of which I have spoken, I missed a run which his lordship had 

 from Press, of an hour and twenty minutes, without what could 

 be called a check. Before I take my final leave of Dunse, how- 

 ever, I shall offer a few remarks upon Berwickshire as a hunting- 



