NIMROUS NORTHERN TOUR. 153 



appearance of having been formed for the purpose of inhaling 

 the fragrance of whiskey or gin. Neither were his clothes a whit 

 less in character. They consisted of a brown frock coat, and 

 black waistcoat, none the better for wear ; dark-coloured corduroy 

 breeches, made darker by town smoke and sundry other aids, 

 which, with small and very shallow cloth tops to a pair of very 

 seedy boots, and an old spotted cravat, made the toilette complete. 

 How admirably has Martial barring the one eye described a 

 person of this sort, and what may be expected of him : 



" Crine ruber, niger ore, brevis pede, lumine laesus : 

 Rem magnam prsestas, Zoile, si bonus es." 



I liked the appearance of things at the cover side this morning 

 a fine gorse cover in a roomy country ; and Mr. Ramsay 

 mounted me on a strapping grey horse, that had lately cost him 

 two hundred guineas, and which appeared to me to know his 

 business, and also to be pretty fit to go. There was, however, 

 I am sorry to acid, nothing for him to do. The morning was 

 wild ; the foxes bad ; and it would be a waste of words and time 

 to give the result. 



I must not here depart from my general practice of offering a 

 few remarks upon the hounds and their huntsman. The general 

 character of the Linlithgow pack may, I think, be summed up in 

 a few words. They are not hounds to strike the eye, or exactly 

 perhaps to please the eye of a nice observer of form and points. 

 It is evident, indeed, that in the breeding and the drafting of 

 them, appearances have not been allowed to preponderate much 

 in the scales. There are some coarse hounds among them ; 

 nevertheless they are a very business-like looking pack, taken as 

 a whole, and the character they bear is highly creditable to 

 them. It is indeed from character from report chiefly that I 

 am enabled to speak of their performances ; for with the excep- 

 tion of the finish to the first day's run, no circumstances could 

 be more untoward than those under which it was my ill fortune 

 to see them. But the man who wishes to see hounds in perfec- 

 tion, must first ask permission of the heavens. 



Of their huntsman, Scott, I am also unable to say much except 

 from general report, which speaks favourably of him. His con- 

 dition! thought good ; but it is in the kennel that he is considered 

 to shine. As a huntsman he labours under disadvantages not 

 those of age, for although he has the honourable appellation of 

 " Old Scott," there is nothing against him on that score. But 

 no man of his form can ride forward enough to see hounds in all 

 their work, over any country that I have yet seen, much less over 



