NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 3 



were to pass a winter in Scotland, where he could ensure me a welcome 

 reception. 



The pleasure this invitation afforded me, or the feelings it gave birth to, 

 I need not take the trouble to describe. My readers will appreciate them ; 

 neither would it have been necessary to observe, considering the auspices 

 under which I was about to appear among them, that I was likely to be 

 most kindly received by my brother sportsmen in the North. A second 

 letter from my noble friend was conclusive of every thing. In it he gave 

 me to understand that he should order two horses to be hired for my use, 

 from a "would-be Tilbury" in Edinburgh, and that they should await my 

 arrival at Dunse, Lord Elcho's head quarters, by the first week in Novem- 

 ber; and from Dunse my future route was marked out by him. But 

 before 1 quit the notice of these letters, I must be allowed to mention a 

 fact strongly indicative of the habits and character of the writer of them, 

 and affording, in my opinion, an almost unprecedented instance of punc- 

 tuality in the movements of a person not tied to time, nor in any wise 

 controlled by circumstances. His lordship informed me that he was about 

 to set out for the South on a certain day ;— that he should visit the ken- 

 nels of certain masters of fox-hounds in various ])arts of England, naming 

 them all, as also the exact time of doing so ; — that he should be for 

 two days in London, and at home again on the sixteenth day, which he 

 was, after keeping every one of his appointments I But punctuality and 

 fox-hunting go hand-in-hand; and it might perhaps create the sur- 

 prise of the trader were he to know with what scrupulous exactness 

 the management of a kennel of fox-hounds is conducted. On his lord- 

 ship's arrival at home his head whipper-in also went upon furlough, to 

 visit his friends in the New Forest, fourteen days being allotted to him 



B 2 



