NIM ROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 259 



Is not allowable in the mention of a Highland chief) is a good 

 man in his line and a capital horseman. Mr. Hay, indeed, 

 showed me one timber fence that he rode over with his hounds, 

 the drop to which could not have been less than eight feet. 



Sunday, 8. The Arniston party, the late laird of Brigton, and 

 Mr. Dalyell, were to have dined at the Grange this evening, 

 where an excellent dinner, and covers for nine, were prepared, 

 but such was the dreadful state of the weather, that Mr. Hay 

 and I had it all to ourselves my host very much amusing me 

 with some anecdotes of his neighbour and friend, Lord Panmure, 

 in his sporting days, which caused me to lament that those days 

 were over with his lordship. 



Monday, 9. Met Mr. Dalyell at Douglas muir, and had the 

 honour of riding my namesake a thorough-bred horse of great 

 size, of the real Leicestershire stamp, and, thanks to his not 

 being able to touch the ground with his mouth, owing to the 

 depth of his body and his short legs, he had not been out of his 

 stall for the last four years. But oh, what a day of trial was 

 this ! Not to the hounds and horses, but to the patience of a 

 large field of sportsmen. It was something even more than this ; 

 it was in its results, perhaps, unequalled in the annals of fox- 

 hunting up to that day. We found a leash of foxes, one after 

 another, and each went to ground, absolutely, in less than Jive 

 minutes after he had broke cover! A more tantalizing scene, to 

 a well-mounted sportsman, than that afforded by the last of these 

 cowardly curs, cannot well be imagined. We viewed him away 

 out of a beautiful patch of gorse, overhanging a small bank, and 

 not two acres in extent, and he faced as fine a country as the 

 most fastidious Meltonian would wish for, and, apparently, the 

 scent was good. In the second field, however, he, after the 

 manner of the other two, found his way into one of those large 

 and long covered drains, open at their mouths, with which Scot- 

 land so much abounds, and from which the chances of bolting a 

 fox are all but hopeless. As "may be supposed we all went home 

 very much disgusted, and in a storm of snow and hail, which, 

 added to the disappointment of the morning, required the aid of 

 some very amusing anecdotes of Major Wemyss to make it even 

 endurable. Things, indeed, were rendered even worse by our 

 finding another fox on our road home, in a very strong cover, 

 but being perhaps one of the same soft-hearted litter, he could 

 not be persuaded to break. 



But really these numerous open-mouthed drains are destruc- 

 tion to fox-hunting in several parts of Scotland ; and were I to 

 hunt hounds where they so abound, my heart would be in my 

 mouth in every field I entered. The gentlemen who hunt should 



