NIM ROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 159 



believe, as Cicero would say), and therefore by no means to be 

 sneezed at in these money-getting times. However, to return to 

 the owner of it, Captain Wemyss, a captain of his Majesty's 

 navy, and from all I heard of him in private life, as straight- 

 forward, as hospitable, and as honest a man as ever entered a 

 cockpit (for which, by-the-by, he must have been rather an in- 

 convenient height, being certainly upwards of six feet without 

 his shoes) ; and, although from only one day's observation of 

 him in the field, I am unable to appreciate him as a sportsman 

 I may add, a hard rider to hounds, taking everything that comes 

 in his way, with the characteristic intrepidity of his profession. 

 That he believes himself to be a sportsman, however, did not 

 admit of a doubt from the various telegraphic signals that the 

 huntsman received from him on the day I saw him in the field, 

 during a most perplexing run of an hour, which, notwithstanding 

 all things, ended in the death of the fox. 



An expression of Horace's now crosses my path, and all but 

 brings me to a check. It implies the difficulty of discriminating 

 between what is fit, and what is not fit " Quid decet, quid 

 non" in what we do or say, and especially so when we comment 

 upon the doings or sayings of other people. But Captain Wemyss 

 is a character a good one I have acknowledged him to be that 

 must not be passed over by me in silence, and I am sure he will 

 pardon a short notice of him here, particularly as he has already 

 appeared in the pages of the New Sporting Magazine. And it 

 is thence that I derive the materials for the' first anecdote I have 

 to relate respecting him. 



Your readers, Mr. Editor, will recollect that, a year or two 

 back, somewhat of an angry correspondence was carried on be- 

 tween the captain and yourself, respecting the insertion of a 

 paragraph relating to the Fife huntsman (Walker) which did not 

 prove to have been founded on fact; and that for the commission 

 of the error, the atonement on your part was considered amply 

 sufficient for the sporting world, and also by some of the cap- 

 tain's most intimate friends, in my presence. But here arose a 

 question that admitted of some speculation. How would Nimmd 

 be received by the captain at the cover-side ? the said captain 

 knowing him to be one of the " Magaziners," to use a term of his 

 own ; and, therefore, for aught he might know to the contrary, to 

 have had a finger in the said pie ? Your readers shall hear. 



On the morning after my arrival at Mount Melville, Mr. 

 Whyte Melville, Mr. Earle, a gentleman of the name of Mel- 

 villeresiding in Edinburgh and myself, set forward to meet 

 the Fife hounds, distance about eight miles, and not a bad 

 morning for December in Scotland. On the further side of a 



