loS NIMROUS NORTHERN TOUR. 



come visitor in November, a hard, black frost, rendered it of no 

 avail. At Kelso, and still more so at St. Boswell's, the surface 

 of the ground was as hard as it often is at the end of a third day's 

 frost, yet strange to say, at Dunse it had so much the appear- 

 ance of a hunting day "allowing a little for the morning/' as 

 fox-hunters say that Lords Elcho, Saltoun, and Archibald Sey- 

 mour, and Mr. M'Dougal Grant, made their appearance in the 

 hunt room, about an hour after I had breakfast, to the inexpres- 

 sible satisfaction of Peter, who had given them up in despair. 

 "Now, Seymour, where are your fifty pounds for Nimrod?" I 

 could hear one of them say, as they were coming upstairs ; and 

 hereon hangs a tale perhaps not unworthy of relating. His lord- 

 ship has a black mare, nearly, if not quite, thorough-bred, very 

 fast, very stout, and also a large fencer, naturally. But she has 

 a fault for which she is indebted to nature. She has what is 

 called a joint in her neck ; in fact, she is what is termed ewe or 

 stag-necked, as many well-bred ones are, and consequently she 

 is very difficult to handle at her fences, and uncertain at them. 

 " Why don't you put a martingal on that mare, my lord ?" said 

 I to him one day, seeing the failing she had. " Oh/' replied his 

 lordship, a " a martingal looks so low." (t Never mind the look/' 

 resumed I, "you will go faster with it, than without it ; and you 

 will ride your mare with safety, which you have not done hereto- 

 fore." Lord Archibald took my advice and was so pleased with 

 the effect of it, that he declared he would not take fifty pounds 

 for the advice Nimrod had given him. But it is all nonsense 

 talking about horses not being able to cross a country in martin- 

 gals. Who rode straighter than Will Barrow, the late Mr. Cor- 

 bet's huntsman ? Who rode over larger fences ? Who got fewer 

 falls ? and who ever saw him 'without a long martingal on his 

 snafHe rein ? Indeed, on the very day on which I had offered 

 this advice, Lord Elcho was riding a horse in a martingal, and 

 which horse I heard he afterwards sold to Lord Eglinton, at a 

 good price. 



About twelve o'clock, Williamson arrived from the kennel with 

 the fatal news that no hounds were to be at the bridge ; indeed 

 he had been obliged to wait for a rough-shod horse to bring him 

 to the town of Kelso. What then was to be done ? A lounge 

 through Mr. Dickinson's stables was the first step taken by way 

 of killing time, and then a walk to the bridge, to hear the news 

 of the river. But from whom were we to hear it ? not from one of 

 the fifteen salmon we saw basking in its bed, but from the keeper 

 of the toll-bar on the bridge, who had formerly kept a fishing hut 

 on its banks, to which some of the celebrated gentlemen fisher- 

 men resorted. " Who killed the most salmon in one day last 



