NIMROUS NORTHERN TOUR. 93 



would have been lost. One was by a cast short back, and the 

 other forward, to a drain, each of which will be noticed as they 

 occurred. His voice is not good, but, as somebody said, " it is 

 as God made it," and therefore it would be wrong to find fault 

 with it ; and although one or two of his holloas are not very in- 

 telligible to strangers, they are well understood by his hounds, 

 and that is their chief use. Strange to say, he is the only Scotch 

 servant hunting hounds in Scotland, or anywhere else that I 

 know of, a circumstance on which he prides himself, and he 

 may be allowed to do so. 



I have before spoken of the lengthened experience of this 

 celebrated huntsman, and there are few practical operations in 

 which that valuable accomplishment is more required than in 

 that of hunting hounds. But, as Byron says, 



" A man must serve his time to every trade 

 Save censure, critics are all ready made." 



Williamson was fourteen years whipper-in, and ten huntsman, 

 under old Mr. Baird, and commenced as whipper-in under the 

 renowned John King, who was huntsman to the two masters 

 the late Duke of Buccleuch and Mr. Baird for thirty years. 

 He married King's daughter, and cherishes his maxims as he 

 cherishes his wife and I believe no man makes a kinder hus- 

 band than he does. He, however, told me a good story of 

 himself and King. Having one day, when in his noviciate, 

 some difficulty in getting some tail hounds out of cover, after 

 the body were gone away with their fox, he had recourse to an 

 expedient which he found to answer. He put his finger in his 

 ear and cried " Tally-ho? at the same time giving some rattling 

 view-holloas. Unfortunately for him, the fox headed short back, 

 and King coming up to the cover at the moment, with rather an 

 indifferent scent, away flew his hounds to these cheering view- 

 holloas of the young whip, and left him to hunt his fox himself. 

 " ? Gad," said Williamson, " I got such a strapping from King 

 that I never cried ' Tally-ho ' to tail hounds again." I have also 

 another anecdote of Williamson and King. A daughter of the 

 former being unwell, the doctor said he feared her lungs were 

 affected. " What does the doctor mean," said Williamson, " by 

 talking such nonsense as that ? A child of mine, and out of a 

 daughter of John King, with bad lungs ! Nay, nay that cannot 

 be." Nor was it so, for his daughter soon recovered her health, 

 but not without the life of her mother being "jeopardized," as 

 Williamson called it, by the rash prediction of the doctor. 

 Williamson certainly has the lungs of a Stentor. 

 As a horseman, I have no hesitation in pronouncing William- 



