NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 85 



jumpable wall. Sir David pulled down the top stones and told Lord 

 Eglinton it would do. Lord Eglinton rode at it but it was no go. "I 

 don't think it will do," said his lordship. " / give you my word of 

 honour,'' exclaimed Sir David, (emphatically no doubt,) " it will do ;" and 

 it did do, for his lordship got over it at the second attempt and Sir David 

 follow^ed him. Soon after this — indeed at the very last fence before the 

 fox was killed, Sir David got to appearance the most awful fall that, I 

 think, my eyes ever beheld, and how he escaped so well as he did was 

 somewhat like a miracle. I was following exactly in his wake, and saw 

 him ride in his usual masterly way at a wall about four feet high, when 

 both himself and his horse disappeared on the landing side. "He is in a 

 coal-pit or a stone-quarry," said I to Lord Archibald Seymour, who was 

 along-side me ; for although we were coming down hill upon him at the 

 time, and had the advantage of higher ground, the last thing we saw be- 

 longing to him was the tip of his horse's tail. Were 1 to live a thousand 

 years I should never lose the impression this unwelcome sight made 

 upon me, nor forget the pleasure it gave me to behold this gallant horse- 

 man, as well as first rate sportsman, crawling alive up the bank, and 

 pulling at his horse's head. " Are you hurt, Sir David ?" said I; " I 

 don't know," replied he, " but I fear my horse is." No sooner was the 

 horse on the bank, however, than Sir David was at work again, and got 

 in at the death. It appeared that the first whipper-in, on seeing him 

 coming down upon this wall, holloaed to him to avoid it, which holloa I 

 heard but was equally unconscious of its meaning, the whipper-in being 

 on the other side of a fence at the time. There was, it appeared, a 

 ravine, or dry water-course, on the landing-side of this wall, a boundary- 

 fence in fact, which no horse, even when quite fresh, could have 

 cleared. 



The finish to this fine run was a glorious one. As the last chance for 



