120 NIM ROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



they look, clustering together, as it were to assist each other ! 

 But the find ! to see him jump up in view as we also did this 

 day and break that view in the second field, by his speed and 

 his cunning by heavens it is the very perfection of the thing at 

 starting. Fox, hounds, and horsemen all get away at once, and 

 as the saying is, " it is the devil take the hindmost." 



It was my ill-luck, this day, to be mounted on, I think, the 

 worst horse I ever bestrode in my life under the denomination of 

 a hunter. He was one of what we jocosely called "the royal 

 stud" that is one of Mr. King's, and had been handed over to 

 me by M'Dowall Grant, who had found him worthless, and yet 

 the brute had something the appearance of a hunter. But 

 this is a digression ; I must give an account of the run. 



No fox ever found by hounds went more gallantly away than* 

 this did, and almost every man in the field got a fair start. But 

 a fair start and a good one are two very different things, a fact 

 clearly shown this day by Lord Elcho, who, benefiting by his 

 Leicestershire education, was away with the leading hounds, and 

 by the time they had crossed a road, his lordship was comfortably 

 landed by their side. And how long did he remain there ? 

 Why for exactly forty minutes, at the end of which the fox was 

 killed, having travelled eleven miles point blank in that short 

 space without one single check over as fine a country too 

 barring one circumstance as a man could desire to ride over ;. 

 and as Lord Elcho himself declared, having shown as straight- 

 forward and brilliant a run if not the most straightforward and 

 brilliant he had ever seen in any country, Leicestershire 

 always excepted. But I will describe this country. It was more 

 than half under grass. The ploughed land and the stubbles rode 

 light ; the fields were of good size, and the fences not large, and 

 most of them such as could be taken nearly in stroke. And who- 

 else saw it ? Why as far as I was able to judge of it, I can 

 compare it to nothing better than a race, in which Lord Elcho 

 was first ; Mr. M'Kenzie Grieve, second ; Lord Eglinton,. 

 third ; and Mr. Fletcher of Saltoun, fourth. These were dis- 

 tinguishable by the colours of their horses the three first having 

 been chestnuts, and Mr. Fletcher's white all the rest, as O'Kelly 

 said, " nowhere," and Mr. Fletcher got a little wide of the line, 

 as I was told, towards the finish. Lord Frederick Fitzclarence 

 was at the very farther extremity of the bog when the fox broke, 

 and although he made desperate efforts to get up, and passed me 

 at an awful pace, I despaired of his getting in front, unless a 

 check occurred, for two sufficient reasons. First his weight 

 good sixteen stone I should say ; secondly, there was no chance 

 for a nick, as the line was nearly straight. 



