NIMROUS- NORTHERN TOUR. 167 



having for his confederate, Lord Duncan, son of the Earl of 

 Camperdown. 



I must now describe the first day's sport with the Fife hounds, 

 having hitherto proceeded no further in it than my introduction 

 to Captain Wemyss, at the gate, which, however, may be classed 

 under the head of sport. But to be serious, the doings of this 

 day in the field are well worthy of being recorded, and were 

 highly interesting to me from the fact cf its having been the first 

 time of my seeing another crack huntsman in the field the 

 '' Merry John Walker," as Lord Kintore calls him the said 

 John Walker having been promoted to the situation of huntsman 

 to the Fife, from that of first whipper-in to his lordship. 



Now then to business, and this day (December nth) might be 

 actually termed a day of business, for we ran a leash of foxes 

 one to ground, and the other two to death. But the last fox was 

 just the fox I wanted, for he was the most shuffling, dodging, 

 short-running, puzzling devil, in that shape, that ever presented 

 himself to my notice before, and it might almost appear, having 

 for his object the putting the merits of both hounds and hunts- 

 man to the test. I am quite sure he never ran half a mile in any 

 one direct line, nor did I ever see a fox turn so many times, short 

 * back, as he did. Neither was he content with all this he ran 

 amongst buildings, tried lime-kilns, appeared to look out for fal- 

 lows, in short he tried every expedient a fox could try to baffle 

 hounds and save his life. But all would not do ; at the end of 

 one hour and fifteen minutes close hunting, with only one view 

 holloa,* and no horn, " Merry John" and his pack ran into him, 

 in view, to the great satisfaction of a rather numerous field, one 

 of whom was a master of a neighbouring pack. And it was high 

 time he should do so, for it being half-past three o'clock when 

 Reveller first spoke to him in the cover, it was become nearly too 

 dark to ride over the fences before we killed him. It was alto- 

 gether a slow thing, but at times a fine test of hounds, and on 

 my congratulating the captain on the finale, we exchanged a 

 shake of the hand. I rode a perfectly made hunter, called 

 Duncan, sent to cover for me by Captain Peter Hay of Mugdrum, 

 but who, unfortunately, went home after we had killed the 

 second fox. 



The mention of this second fox reminds me of a circumstance 

 that redounds to Walker's credit. Just before he died, he 

 was viewed by a farmer, who gave a slight holloa, but not of 



* Having heard the pack turn short in a cover, I rode quickly back 

 to the lower end of it, and viewing him away, the second whip and my- 

 self gave the office. 



