243 NIMROUS NORTHERN TOUR. 



may deserve praise ? A man may court esteem by an imitation' 

 of exalted worth, but I have yet to see the man who has 

 obtained it. 



January 27. The morning was dark with a drizzling rain, 

 when I mounted the box of the Defiance coach, so sat by the 

 side of Lambert, the coachman, for the first two stages, and 

 then drove it to Forfar, on my return to Burnside. I liked his 

 workmanship much (he had been an old mailer, in the south it 

 appeared), and I found he had plenty of nerve, so necessary on 

 a fast coach. I had, also, an opportunity of seeing his power* 

 of coachmanship put to the test, for we " boarded a cart/' as the 

 sailors say, the driver of it being fast asleep, and the horses 

 having taken the wrong side of the road ; and, but for good 

 coachmanship, we should have had what is called "a case." I 

 was, however, pleased, not only with the manner in which he 

 got his coach out of danger, but with his promptness of action 

 at the moment, which showed he was not flurried. After hit- 

 ting his off-wheel horse very hard2cc\& it was his answering 

 the whip as he did that saved us he gave the carter a back- 

 hander with his double-thong across his face, that I think he 

 will remember even if he should live to be as old as my next- 

 door neighbour but one a woman who saw her hundred and 

 second birthday last Christmas-day, but who never, as she says, 

 witnessed so extraordinary a winter as this. When I pulled up 

 at Forfar, I found my hack awaiting my arrival ; and before I 

 mounted him, penned these words in my note-book. " Drove 

 the Defiance from Kinross to Forfar. The pace capital, but the 

 road bad. Think whin-stone, as it is called, a better material 

 for road-making than granite" 



The weather being open, I commenced hunting with Mr. 

 Dalyell, the next day ; and on our arrival at the cover, was de- 

 lighted at meeting a gentleman whom I had never before seen 

 in the field, but for whose character as a sportsman I had the 

 highest respect, from the unanimous testimony borne to it by 

 the best judges in Scotland, touching the essential properties of 

 a sportsman. It is true, I had previously known and made 

 mention of this gentleman as a horseman and a steeple-chase 

 rider, but the degrees of excellence in one and in the other of 

 these pursuits are not to be named on the same day, neither are 

 they indeed at all akin to each other. I allude to Mr. Archi- 

 bald Douglas, so much better known as " Archy Douglas"* 

 brother to the late Mr. Douglas, of Brigton, in Forfarshire, also 



* Perhaps I should call him " Captain Douglas," for I believe he still 

 holds that' rank in the army, in which he saw much service, distinguish- 

 ing himself on several occasions* 



