WITH LORD DRUMLANRIG'S 277 



We have here another example of a similar kind, of 

 more recent date. 



A runaway Run in the Hills of Dumfriesshire. 



" Mr. Editor, 



" Mr. Smith has said that there are foxes 

 who will beat any hounds in any country; and it was 

 Mr. Delme Radcliffe, I believe, who, without flatly 

 contradicting Mr. Smith, expressed a wish that some of 

 his friends might be allowed to tackle these long- 

 striding customers, and try their chance with them 

 before subscribing to so startling a doctrine. I am too 

 young a hand, and I have yet too much to learn in the 

 * noble science ' to decide between such great author- 

 ities ; but I had yesterday (and I wish they had both 

 been with me) over the wildest and over the best- 

 scenting country I know of in the world, a run, con- 

 sidering all that occurred, the most extraordinary I 

 not only ever rode to, but ever heard of in the annals 

 of fox-hunting. I am induced to send you the 

 following particulars as a tribute not to what the riders 

 did, but as a tribute which is fairly due to what a fox 

 really can do when found in a strange country, and 

 when determined to go home. 



" Our meet was Carmichael, the extreme west 

 fixture in the country. The morning was very misty, 

 and it was nearly twelve o'clock before the hounds 

 were put into cover. We did not find at Carmichael, 

 and went back three miles to the Barr Cover, a small 

 larch wood of about seven acres on the side of a steep 

 hill, but which always holds a fox. We found instanter. 

 I viewed the fox away, and the hounds coming handy 

 to my holloa, were settled well on him before he had 

 three minutes' start of us. I looked at my watch ; it 

 pointed to twenty minutes past one o'clock. At four 

 o'clock the same evening, five and twenty miles off, as 

 direct as the crow flies, my hounds were last seen; and, 

 from all I can learn, they were carrying a good head 

 beyond Durrisdeer, near Sanquhar, going right in the 

 direction of the Lead Hills. 



" I can give little or no description of the run. I had 

 two horses out, and I rode both of them to a stand- 

 still before reaching Lock Katterick, twelve miles from 



