158 NIMROHS NORTHERN TOUR. 



in a black collar, to distinguish him, no doubt, from the dlite. 

 The library is a small room for a house of this size, yet contains 

 a lot of very valuable books, particularly in that department of 

 literature called the Belles Lettres ; but I should have passed 

 this over had it not been for one individual circumstance. There 

 lay upon the table, the last number of the New and of the Old 

 Sporting Magazines, and the difference in the appearance of 

 them consisted in something beyond the colours of the covers. 

 The former had evidently been read throughout ; the leaves of 

 the latter were still uncut. " This was not the state in which the 

 Sporting Magazine was wont formerly to be found, in a master 

 of fox-hounds 7 house, towards the middle of the month," thought 

 I, within myself, with feelings, I admit, nearer allied to pride 

 than teeming with that indispensable virtue called chanty ! 



Although I have called Mr. Melville a master of the Fife fox- 

 hounds, he has a partner in the duties attending that honourable 

 post, in Captain Wemyss, of Wemyss Castle, M.P. for the 

 county, who manages the pecuniary part of the concern, leaving 

 the affairs of the country, the fixtures, and the kennel, to Mr. 

 Melville. And it is well he does so, for what with attractions of 

 politics and other more serious, but I should imagine by no 

 means more alluring, avocations, the captain only once took the 

 field during either of my visits to Fife, nor do I believe that, fond 

 as he appears to be of hunting, he enjoyed it half a dozen times 

 during the season. The conflicting political interests, however, 

 of this individual county appeared, as it were, to be tearing up 

 society piecemeal, although, I must say, it is the only one in 

 which I ever heard of politics preventing a man hunting in one 

 part of it, but not in another; yet such was the case with Cap- 

 tain Wemyss, previously to his having been elected its repre- 

 sentative. 



On our voyage from Edinburgh to Largo, we passed within 

 view of Wemyss Castle, and also of the residence of a quondam 

 celebrated Meltonian namely, Mr. Cristie of Dtiry, who I was 

 sorry to hear had retired from the field in which he was so con- 

 spicuous, not only as a rider, but as a sportsman, and this upon 

 a conscientious scruple. If he thinks fox-hunting is wrong, he 

 is not wrong to discontinue it ; but, for my own part, I see 

 nothing in it that can hurt the soul, however the body may be 

 affected by it, and I am ready to exclaim with Falstaff " If sack 

 and sugar be a sin, God help us all." The Castle of Wemyss 

 stands nobly, showing a majestic front ; yet the tout ensemble, 

 to the eye, is spoiled by a most infernal-looking village that is 

 below it ; but like many other infernal places, apparently full of 

 money or money's worth namely, coals and salt (not Attic, I 



