NIMROUS NORTHERN TOUR. 109 



season ?" (it was now fence time) was the question I put to him. 

 " One Squire Musters from England," replied the toll-keeper ; 

 " he killed nine clean fish." But I have reason to believe there 

 are few better fishermen than Mr. Musters ; and I can produce 

 one fact in corroboration of this assertion which I had from the 

 lips of a friend of his and mine, with whom I spent a day last 

 summer in Calais. " Last year," said he, " I got permission for 

 Musters to fish in some preserved water, near Uxbridge, and 

 where there was one trout of six pounds, in a certain hole, but 

 so shy that the keepers could not take him. Musters took him 

 the third throw !" 



Setting aside personal regard, I rejoice to hear anything of 

 Mr. Musters that paragon of British sportsmen. The last time 

 I saw him he told me he should never hunt hounds again, but I 

 said I was hard of belief on that subject. He is at work once 

 more I find in his own country, Nottinghamshire, and such is 

 the care that he has taken of himself as another master of 

 hounds said chiefly for the sake of fox-hunting, that I was in- 

 formed, on very good authority, that, one day last season he 

 planted every man in the field at an awkward place under a tree. 

 I read something in the papers at the commencement of the 

 present season, of his son showing him the way at a rasper. It 

 might have been so ; the young ones ought to break the binders 

 for the old ones ; but I will answer for it that, on this day, the 

 old one was " there or thereabouts " at the finish of the run 

 spoken of. Mr. Musters, during his visit to Colonel Fothering- 

 ham in Forfarshire, was once out with Mr. DalyelPs hounds, 

 which was the extent of his fox-hunting in Scotland. Pardon 

 this digression. 



There were three renowned personages whose absence from 

 Kelso, and its neighbourhood, I very much regretted. These 

 were, Lord John Scott, brother to the Duke of Buccleuch, Mr. 

 Musters, and Mrs. Brown, whose portrait adorns your number 

 for May last. I had the honour of being introduced to Lord 

 John, by Captain Ross, in London, but I never saw his lordship 

 either before or since, to my knowledge. Independently of his 

 fine horsemanship, the high character he bears in Roxburghshire 

 as an open-hearted, unaffected young man, which it appears has 

 fixed him so firmly in the kindly affections of all descriptions of 

 persons, rendered me very desirous of making his acquaintance 

 previously to my quitting Scotland ; and I was flattered into a 

 belief that such would be the case, as his return from the Medi- 

 terranean was every day expected. Mr. Musters had visited 

 Kelso, not for the purpose of hunting but of fishing, so had no 

 inducement to remain long after hunting commenced. Being by 



