124 NIMROUS NORTHERN TOUR. 



down, when on the right side of a very wide road. Drunkenness 

 might have been pleaded in excuse, it being market day, but of 

 what avail is education if it correct not such evils as this, and in 

 a country purely agricultural ? 



Having arrived in safety at Kelso, a change of scene presented 

 itself. The Cross Keys inn looked as if it was illuminated, at 

 least every room in the house appeared occupied, and, as we 

 entered the gateway, the words " hip, hip, hip, Hoo-RAY," re- 

 sounded in our ears from above, as the welcoming of a popular 

 toast. " There is a jovial set somewhere," said I to my friend, 

 " no doubt they are drinking ' Fox-hunting.' ;; The cheering 

 sound, however, proceeded from a party composed of about half 

 a dozen gentlemen of landed property in Roxburghshire, and 

 two hundred of the yeomen of the country, w r ith the Duke of 

 Buccleuch at the head of them, who had just finished their 

 dinners. But I was wrong about the toast it was " the King," 

 that called forth this ebullition of good feeling ; yet, strange to 

 say, the health of all " the kings of the earth," at popular meet- 

 ings of this sort, would be drunk in silence, when compared with 

 the toast i fox-hunting, and in about an hour afterwards, as we 

 sat at our dinner, we heard the whole house ring with another 

 of these boisterous overflowings of the soul, enough to shake it 

 to its foundation. " Now they are drinking fox-hunting," said I ; 

 and 7 Jon Peter being despatched to ascertain the fact, we found it 

 was even so. " The gentlemen have been drinking the duke 

 and his fox-hounds," was the result of Peter's mission. Then 

 soon after this the Welkin rang again for neither roof, nor wall, 

 could confine the uproarious shouting of this jovial party at the 

 moment. "What now, Peter?" " Why," replied Peter, "Mr. 

 Hay of Dunse Castle has been giving 'em a speech, and he said 

 something just at the fi-nish of it that seemed to tickle a' the 

 gentlemen vastly." Now here we have the orator, inasmuch as 

 what the death of the fox is to the chase the climax is to a 

 speech. 



"Still rising to a climax, till the last 

 Surpassing all is not to be surpass'd." 



And no wonder that an old master of hounds, like Mr. Hay, 

 should leave something good for the finish. But all climaxes 

 won't bear the types, and perhaps this will not. It was, I believe, 

 a happy allusion to some part of the dress of a Highland chief 

 a fair subject for a joke, and I must leave my readers to guess 

 the use that was made of it. 



Having learned from Peter that the duke and a few of his 



