NIMROVS NORTHERN TOUR. 135 



mansion from the following rather remarkable coincidence : It 

 is said to contain just as many windows as there are days in the 

 year, which speaks not so much for its antiquity it has not the 

 appearance of being an old house as for its having been built 

 previously to the tax upon window lights. It is, however, an 

 immense pile, and contains some good rooms ; is situated in a 

 finely timbered domain, and in front of a noble piece of water, 

 with a fine trout stream running through it. 



But it is of the occupiers of these halls and the owner of this 

 domain that I am now called upon to speak. The name of 

 Baillie is conspicuous not only amongst the sportsmen, but it 

 stands forth in the front rank of Scottish patriots, the present 

 laird being lineally descended from, and the actual representative 

 of, his illustrious namesake of Jerviswood,* in the county of 

 Lanark. His history is well known. He was the Sydney of 

 Scotland, and suffered death in the same cause with that great 

 patriot, during the infamous reign of the Second Charles. But, 

 although his death was an ignominious one he was hanged like 

 a dog he died nobly, and with a Roman spirit not often dis- 

 played in the last hour, inasmuch as his life would have been 

 saved had he peached. " Tell them, 7 ' said he, " who make such 

 a proposal, that they neither know me nor my country !" Brutus 

 did not much beat this. 



The present laird of Mellerstain first kept hounds which 

 hunted both hare and fox for several years after he came of age, 

 but sold them in 1791, and kept fox-hounds, without any inter- 

 mission, from 1792 to 1826, being thirty-four years ! There is 

 not a kennel in Scotland that has not some of his blood. He 

 hunted Berwickshire, Roxburghshire, Selkirkshire, and occa- 

 sionally part of Northumberland, and his hounds were in high 

 repute when Nim North contributed his admirable letters to the 

 old Sporting Magazine. They have been given up about ten 

 years, in consequence, partly, of their owner's health being 

 scarcely equal to the fatigue of following fox-hounds, in a strongly 

 enclosed country, and particularly so as Mr. Baillie is at the head 

 of the high weights. I have always understood himself and his 

 men were capitally mounted in the field, on horses bred by him- 

 self for the turf, of which he was a great supporter. The stud, 

 indeed, that I saw at Mellerstain confirmed the character I heard 

 of them. They were full of high breeding, and a bay mare of 

 Mr. George Baillie's (the eldest son) struck me as being the 

 strongest thorough-bred hunter I had ever before seen. Perfect, 



* The attainder of Jerviswood, together with that of Argyll, was 

 reversed by the Conventional Parliament at the Revolution. 



