up ' 

 of. 



NIMROHS NORTHERN TOUR. icj 



.No sportsman shall bound to the soul-stirring sound, 

 Without heaving a sigh for old Crane!" 



It appears from these lines, that there were peculiarities about 

 fais person as well as his seat on his horse. As regarded the 

 former, he was cleanly to an extreme for a person in his situa- 

 tion, and especially observant of the colour of his breeches and 

 boot-tops, which was dark, but with a strong polish on the latter. 

 His address was remarkably good, and there was something in 

 his general demeanour that would have led a stranger to suppose, 

 that there was a cross of good blood in his veins in short, that 

 he was the son of a gentleman, instead of a gentleman's steward. 

 As a horseman, he was super-excellent ; and yet, he was what is 

 called a left-handed horseman (although in fact not a left- 

 handed horseman, which every man is taught to be, and what 

 raine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand are), for he held 

 his horse with his right hand, and, his whip in his left.* But he 

 rode with a peculiarly light hand, and had a curious, I might 

 say unique, method of shaking the reins of his bridle, when going 



I to a large fence, which no doubt his horse knew the meaning 

 He was, I have reason to believe, a very quick man over a 

 country. 



But desirable as quickness, both of thought and deed, may be 

 in huntsmen, there is one evil attends it when carried to an ex- 

 treme ; they expect their ivhippers-in to be equally quick . as 

 themselves, and such I understood was Crane's case. Some 

 other amusing stories, indeed, are afloat in Fife, as regards him 

 and his men in the field. For example Tom Batters, now first 

 whip to the Fife and a capital one he is also whipped-in to 

 Crane, but it was young days with him then. After one or two 

 good ratings from him, on one occasion, administered rather 

 quickly in succession, the following soliloquy was overheard from 

 poor Tom, as he was trotting to a point, round the cover. " It's 

 d n my eyes if I go here ; and it's d n my eyes if I go there ; 

 and d n my eyes if I knows where to go." This will remind 

 my readers of Williamson's speech about his terriers, and Sir 

 David Baird's comment upon it. 



I should never have written my Letters on the Condition of 

 Hunters, had there been a hope, that in these days of education, 

 some intelligent groom might have taken up his pen on the sub- 

 ject ; but there was none who considered himself equal to the 

 humble task. Now the observations and experiences of such men 



* A coachman who holds the reins in his right, and the whip i:i the 

 left hand, is called a left-handed coachman. 



