90 NIM ROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



atmosphere on this morning, it being nearly as hot as in the dog days. 

 At all events, I never witnessed any thing like it before as regarded its 

 effects on horses — particularly on those in the plough teams, which 

 smoked, when they came to turn upon the headlands, like coach horses 

 at the end of their stage, in a frost. The heat was also much felt by the 

 gentlemen who rode fast to cover ; and Lord Eglinton declared he had 

 more taken out of him in riding Paul Pry to Paxton, only about ten 

 miles, than by the fine run of the preceding day. Paul was nearly the 

 best cocktail racer in the North, and won several times, jockied by his 

 lordship. He is, however, one of the most violent horses 1 ever saw. 



Fortunately for ourselves, but more so for our horses, we had not 

 much to do on this extraordinary day. We did not find at Paxton, so 

 trotted away to Broom-dykes in hopes of meeting with the fox which 

 had given us the good hour's sport of which I have before spoken, but 

 he was not at home. We found a short running, dodging gentleman, 

 that required a better scent than the early part of the forenoon afforded 

 to do any thing with, in addition to the hounds being much pressed by 

 the horsemen, and I was pleased that it was so ; and for these reasons. — 

 The country we went over was excessively deep and strongly fenced ; and 

 the mare I rode, the property of Mr. Maxwell, appeared to me too high 

 in condition for a quick thing, over plough, on a hot day. But I after- 

 wards learned from her owner — who was absent at Edinburgh on this 

 day — that my fears were groundless, and that such was the hardiness of 

 her nature, that, upon the hard-meat system, it was impossible to draw 

 her finer. She was certainly the fattest hunter, in strong work, that I 

 ever remember to have seen, and one of the best fencers. 



As the day wore away the temperature of the air became lower, and 



