J40 NIM 'ROUS NORTHERN TOUR. 



handsomely as a sportsman, a horseman, and a companion, 

 and regretted his absence in India. When at the Cape of Good 

 Hope, said Mr. Baillie, he went out with the hounds, mounted 

 by a rich butcher. "It doe's me good," said the butcher, " to see 

 that thick man ride. 7 ' By all I have heard of him it would do 

 me good to see this thick gentleman in any situation, but I fear 

 I never shall. 



" What fates impose, that men must needs abide. 

 It boots not to resist. both wind and tide." 



But there were no steam-boats when Shakespeare penned these 

 lines. 



In the course of this agreeable hour's chat Mr. Baillie informed 

 me of the singular fact that he was the first master of hounds to 

 send his fixtures to a newspaper. Nor was this all, the proprie- 

 tor of one attempted to fix him with the charge of twenty-two 

 pounds, for advertisements, but failed. The proprietor must 

 have been a slow hand ; for all newspapers have found their ac- 

 count in being the medium of making public the fixtures of 

 various packs of hounds ; and before the practice became so 

 general as it now is, I knew many sportsmen who took certain 

 newspapers solely on that account. Still it would be well if 

 London editors, or their subs, would condescend to throw their 

 eye over these announcements, as it often happens that the fix- 

 ture is gone by ere the journal reaches the country. Again, we 

 often see the word " to-morrow " to a fixture two hundred miles 

 distant. The space thus occupied might be turned to better ac- 

 count, in the same line of information. Mr. Baillie was likewise 

 the first to introduce into Scotland the celebrated breed of 

 South-down sheep, a flock of which I saw in his grounds, but 

 not near enough to form a judgment of them. And I saw, on 

 another part of his domain, what should be seen on that of every 

 sportsman who can afford the expense of it, I saw some worn-out 

 hunters enjoying the repose of an inactive life, and well fed 

 without which, and warm sheds, it is more merciful to destroy 

 them. The Laird of Mellerstain has read Virgil : 



" Rune quoque, ubi aut morbo gravis, aut jam segnior annis 

 Deficit, abde domo, nee turpi ignosce senectas." 



Our conversation in the stable ended with the following injunc- 

 tion from Mr. Baillie. " When you visit Lord Kintore," said he, 

 " at Gask f don't forget to see John Crack who resides at Turriff. 

 He is the oldest huntsman now alive in Scotland, and I think he 



