278 RECORDS OF THE CHASE 



deficient in that respect, which is more the result of 

 whip, and Mr. Bordell, from Dumfries, got thus far, 

 but no farther. If ever the hounds checked, it was un- 

 known to me ; for after the first twenty minutes neither 

 I nor any one was within a mile of them. Indeed, had 

 it not been for the sheep we should never have guessed 

 their line even ; our first field was a plough field — a 

 good long one it was — but after that heather and grass 

 every yard of the way — right through the hills we 

 went : but the hills were not steep, and had this run 

 been in March or in October no better galloping ground 

 could have been wished for ; after the wet weather, how- 

 ever, it was very sticky. 



" I cannot tell you if the hounds killed. I cannot 

 tell you even where they ran to. I know not even if 

 ever I shall see them all again. My whip and I slept at 

 Thornhill last night : and we have been all day blowing 

 our horns on the hills— and have recovered six couples 

 of hounds — the rest of them may have returned to the 

 kennels thirty miles off. We start for there at nine 

 o'clock to-night. Not only is it, I think, a great feat 

 for a fox, with only three minutes' start, to have 

 reached a country five and twenty miles off in less than 

 three hours, but when on the hills to-day we were 

 shown by the shepherds (and they could have had no 

 object in telling an untruth) a positive precipice, what 

 we call in Scotland a scan, up which the fox and 

 hounds went. Camp Cleuch was the name of the place. 

 This scan is full of earths, and it was natural to sup- 

 pose that this was the fox's point from the commence- 

 ment of his journey, since he went to it at all. But it 

 appears that afterwards this same fox or a fresh fox 

 came down into the low country again ; at any rate the 

 hounds did, and they were last seen, or rather heard, 

 running past Durrisdeer, three miles beyond Camp 

 Cleuch. 



" I believe, without vanity, that so extraordinary a 

 feat for a fox to perform deserves to be chronicled, and 

 this is my sole object : from what I hear of my hounds 

 they carried a head and did their best — angels could do 

 no more. Recollect that our fox did not steal away, 

 but was pressed from the very beginning of the run; 

 and I may add that so small a fox was he that I re- 

 marked to a farmer who was near me, soon after he 

 broke cover, ' This is only a cub, and if he attempts 



