NlMllOD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 99 



Promises have been compared to pie crusts, and vows, I fear, are 

 equally brittle. 1 had made a vow to myself not to be again found in 

 the same " yellow post-chaise*' with Mr. Campbell — at all events, after 

 dinner ; yet such was my situation this evening. However, instead of 

 having no coachman, as before, to handle the same spicy pair of nags, 

 we had two, as Sir David Baird jumped into the dickey box, and laid 

 hold of them. *' You'll na hit that bay horse, Sir David," cried Sawney, 

 as the word '' all right" was sung out, when, as might be expected. Sir 

 David instantly gave him a flanker. Notwithstanding this, and a very 

 dark night, we arrived safe and sound at Dunse ; and although " Song 

 on song had deceived the night," not at a very late hour. 



Friday, 21st. Lord Elcho's fixture was Dunse-castle, to which place 

 I walked in the morning to breakfast, Mr. Hay having offered me a 

 mount. Lord Elcho's Prince Le Boo, however, — said to have been the 

 best hunter in Scotland, but now rather worse for wear — was waiting for 

 me at the cover, which of course was Dunse- wood, a sort of nursery of 

 foxes. We ran one very hard indeed, with a burning scent, for at least 

 an hour and a half, but all the time in cover ; when, unfortunately, owing 

 to a main earth not having been properly stopped, he scratched his way 

 into it and saved himself. No hounds ever deserved a fox better than 

 these hounds deserved this ; and the only consolation attending his get- 

 ting to ground was, in the fact of his being a capital bit of vermin to have 

 stood such a dressing as he got in cover, on rather a close day in No" 

 vember. But pardon me — there was one other consolation. There were 

 several juvenile sportsmen and sportswomen in the cover — some on foot 

 and some on horseback — to whom this hour and half cover hunting 



afforded many opportunities not only of viewing the tod^ but of seeing 



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