46 . NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



Who comes next ? A master of fox-hounds should take the prece- 

 dence of all others when Nimrod writes, and therefore I introduce to my 

 readers who may not be acquainted with him, a gentleman known in 

 Warwickshire (w^hich county he hunted three seasons in first-rate style) 

 as Mr. Hay, but in Scotland as " Willie Hay," of Dunse-castle ; and if 1 

 could but persuade myself to believe — with a little addition to it — in 

 the doctrine of metempsychosis, or exchange of souls, I should boldly 

 assert, that " Mr. Hay" in England, and '* Willie Hay" in Scotland 

 could not be the same man. But in what consists the fancied transfigu- 

 ration ? Why the character of Mr. Hay in Warwickshire — and I appeal 

 to my brother sportsmen there, if such it was not — was that of a good 

 sportsman, a well-bred g^entleman, an agreeable companion; and that 

 was all. Perhaps he acted the part of the cautious hound on a ticklish 

 scenting day, and on fresh ground, and left it to others to throw their 

 tongues on the hazard ; but this I can say, on my own experience of 

 this highly respected gentleman on both sides of the Tweed, that Willie 

 Hay, north of the river, is worth a dozen Mr. Hays south of it. 

 That in one, he was merely the agreeable companion ; on the other he 

 is the life and soul of every party he is in ; — the best teller of a story, 

 with the best stock of anecdotes, and with as much of the original cha- 

 racter of his country about him, as any man I am acquainted with. 

 That he is a horseman of the first order, I need not trouble myself to 

 assert ; and although not so splendidly mounted as he was when he 

 hunted Warwickshire, he can now " do the trick" when he likes his 

 horse. In a letter 1 had from Mr. Maxwell, (eldest son of Sir Wil- 

 liam Maxwell,) after 1 left Dunse, describing a capital run of an hour 

 and twenty minutes with Lord Elcho, from Press, he concludes by 

 saying that " Hay had the best of it upon Crafty." 



