160 NIM ROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



gate, about half a mile from the cover, stood the captain on his 

 feet, on a smooth patch of grass, being just about to exchange 

 his hack for his hunter. Our approach towards him was an- 

 nounced by himself in these words, and in a voice that would 

 have put Homer's herald to the blush. " ; Tis no use to think of 

 hunting ; a damned stormy morning, sir; \ve may as well take 

 the hounds home." Then came the climax, but George Cruick- 

 shank should have been on the spot to have illustrated it, for it 

 sets the pen at defiance. " Give me leave to introduce Nimrod 

 to you," said Mr. Whyte Melville. The captain having drawn 

 himself up, as straight as a fugleman upon parade brought his 

 right hand to his head by a slow, but very graceful semicircular 

 motion of the right arm, took off his hat, and nearly prostrating 

 himself to the earth (his hat, indeed, did touch it), made me a 

 most respectful obeisance. As I was upon my hack, I could not 

 offer him the salaam in return ; but the effect of this extraor- 

 dinary reception was greatly increased by the accompaniment of 

 a look he cast upon Mr. Whyte Melville at the moment, which 

 was as much as to say was not that well done ? Now it really 

 was well done ; and clone, I have reason to believe, in perfect 

 good feeling to all parties concerned. But this justifies me in 

 saying the captain is a character, of which I shall presently have 

 to offer some still better proof. 



But I must not get a-head of my subject, and shall therefore 

 make a cast back, and present my readers with all I know of 

 the origin of the Fife hounds. They were originally established 

 on a small scale by the late Mr. Anstruther Thompson, of Charl- 

 ton, who kept them for several years, and then presented them 

 as a gift to the resident gentlemen of the county, by whom they 

 were "kept, as a subscription pack, until the year 1809 or 1810. 

 At this period, James Horn Rigg, Esq., of Tavit, purchased 

 them, together with the kennel stud, at a valuation, and hunted 

 them himself for three seasons, when they again became the 

 property of the gentlemen of the county, but still remaining 

 under his (Mr. Rigg's) management, with a huntsman whose 

 name was Luke, until the year 1828, when he went to reside on 

 the Continent, and they have remained a subscription pack to 

 this day. The amount of the subscription is, I was given to 

 understand, upwards of ,1300 per annum, which may be called 

 equal to .2000 in times not long since gone by. 



Although he has now been six years in his grave, " and to our 

 purposes he lives no more," I cannot pass over a celebrated 

 character connected with the Fife hounds the late Tom Crane, 

 their huntsman ; and particularly so, as we were born and bred 

 within nine miles of each other, and were both entered about 



