62 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



but, as Jack said at the Opera, '* Remember I'm just come from France," 

 said I to him, as I put him at another place, which presented a broader 

 footing. 



Of course I saw no more of the liounds till I found them in the park 

 at Lady Kirk, where, by one of those untoward events from which the 

 chase of wild animals never can be free, " the finish" to this beautiful 

 burst of five miles in twenty-two minutes was wanting. The hunted 

 fox was seen, dead beat, before the pack, when a fresh one jumped up 

 in view ; and before the hounds could be stopped another fox was on 

 foot. Mr. M'Kenzie Grieve did not see this fine burst, as he went to 

 the place of meeting, in the morning. 



From Lady Kirk, we trotted away — some miles — to a fine gorse cover 

 called Broomdykes, reckoned the " Cream Lodge gorse" of Berwickshire. 

 It held a brace of foxes, one of which went away on the second attempt, 

 and, after a fine ring* round the country, through Blackadder, Kellow 

 Craigs, and Manderstone, saved his life by getting into a *' conduit" — 

 as a drain in Scotland is called — under the park wall of Wedderburn- 

 house, about three miles from Dunse, at the end of fifty-eight minutes. 



Although the country we passed through is the deepest and the most 

 strongly fenced of any in Berwickshire, I had an opportunity of seeing 

 the hounds do their work through nearly the entire of this fine run, and 

 I have great pleasure in repeating the opinion of all present, that nothing 

 could have exceeded their steadiness or their stoutness, — which, after 

 the tickler they had in the morning and the distance they had travelled, 

 was highly creditable to their condition. It is true they only occasion- 

 ally went the ultra pace, the scent, at times, being flashy ; and they were 



