NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 71 



Major St. Paul as much. The excitement, however, a lark of this sort 

 produces in hounds, exhibits them in a very different character to that 

 <Jf trotting along a road on a frosty morning ; and I could then have 

 answered the question previously put to me by the owner, but which I 

 reserved to another opportunity. Some short time after this disappoint- 

 ment occurred we found a brace of foxes, and, what does not often 

 happen, the pack, consisting of only sixteen couples, divided into two 

 equal lots, eight couples settling to one fox and eight to another, I of 

 course started after the one that broke in the line on which I was riding 

 at the time, but as soon as T perceived we had only part of the pack with 

 us, and that our huntsman was on a fox with the other part, I joined 

 the whipper-in in trying to stop them. But had the one been riding 

 Eclipse, and the other Flying Childers, we should not have succeeded in 

 doing so, for they went straight up the Cheviot hills, and were never 

 seen again till the next morning, when they returned to their breakfast 

 at the kennel. The other fox ran short and was lost, and thus ended 

 my first day with the Gale wood pack. 



** It is good," said a learned Scotchman, " to admire great hills, but 



to live in plains ;" and although I believe the celebrated writer I am 

 quoting alluded to the perilous distinctions of political faction, his words 

 would have equally appUed to fox-hunting. As well might we expect 

 the stream to rise against its fountain as to expect a horse to carry a 

 man up the Cheviot hills with hounds on a scent, neither is it reasonable 

 to call upon him to do so ; and were I to steal a flourish to adorn my 

 pen, I should compare the attempt to that of Hannibal to pass the 

 Alps. Nevertheless, although my horse showed a decided dislike to 

 it, for he as much as said " I will have no more of it," I was pleased 



