NORTHERN TOUR. 



feature in a sport which has now, in the opinion of some persons, 

 degenerated into the opposite extreme. It is beyond a doubt, 

 indeed, that in some countries that I could name, and those 

 considered crack ones, fox-hunting may be charged with the 

 chief objection to hare-hunting namely, the ringing nature of the 

 e/iase, which induced the facetious Mr. Leche, of Cheshire fox- 

 hunting fame, to say, that "harriers never run out of the parish 

 in which they find their game." Still, Arber told me, that, wild 

 as it appears to be, and in many parts really is, and choking as 

 may be the hills, it is not so severe for horses as that hunted by 

 Mr. Wyndham, over some part of which he declared no horse 

 yet foaled could live forty minutes with hounds after a good fox, 

 and with a breast-high scent. This is corroborative of an asser- 

 tion made by myself, several years back, and founded on some 

 experience of it, that no country that I had ever followed hounds 

 over puts the physical powers of the horse so much to the test, 

 at all periods of the year?* as what are called the Brighton 

 Downs, and those between Brighton and Lewes. Arber is quali- 

 fied to speak to this point, for it is well known that he rode 

 nothing which was not thorough-bred with Mr. Wyndham's pack. 

 He, however, expressed himself very well satisfied with the cattle 

 Abercairney mounted him upon, and told me he considered one 

 of his horses the best hunter he had ever crossed. 



After Saturday's hunting, our party at dinner was augmented 

 by the presence of some of the laird's friends and neighbours, 

 and amongst them Mr. Thompson, factor to the Earl of 

 Strathearn a jolly good fellow, who sang us two or three capi- 

 tal songs, and added much to the conviviality of the evening. 

 But I was told the next day, that I had thrown a gloom over his 

 countenance by a remark I chanced to make in his hearing. I 

 had expressed a fear of quitting Scotland without witnessing a 

 game peculiar to it, called " curling? adding in allusion to the 

 state of the weather, which had hitherto prevented me that the 

 preceding Sunday would have done well for it. Now having 

 Kved six years in France, it is not to be wondered at that I 

 should have thought at the moment that such games were 

 played on Sundays in all other countries ; but I was told that 

 even the gong was not allowed to be sounded for dinner, at one 

 gentleman's house, in the vale of Strathearn, on this particular 

 day. Now, Sir Andrew Agnew himself cannot beat this ; but I 

 could not help asking myself the following simple question, 



* I qualify this assertion, "at all periods of the year," by observing 

 that there are parts of Warwickshire and Worcestershire, that will stop 

 the best hunters in England in fifteen minutes, after a long frost. 



