106 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



Now what Mr. Dickinson found me I am unable to say, but I found 

 him one of the civilest creatures ever lapped in a human skin, and my 

 horses were excellently accommodated in his stables at one guinea each 

 per week, but of his hunters — had he possessed any — I stood not in 

 need, as tiie sequel of this story will show. 



I am quite sure I never sat beside a coachman in my life without 

 entering into conversation with him, neither did I see any reason why I 

 should travel in silence with the post-boy w-ho drove me this day to 

 Kelso — an oldish " boy,'^ by the way, — for T have found, on my journey 

 through life, that golden opinions are to be gathered from all classes of 

 human beings — old women in particular. This knight of the whip, 

 however, was more than usually communicative, — pointing out to me 

 unasked, many interesting points of the country through which we passed, 

 and amongst others, several that we had traversed in our celebrated fifty- 

 five minutes with the duke's hounds ; as also the house of Rowchester, 

 at the door of which that fine run was concluded. ''There is Thomson's 

 monument," said he, soon after we entered Roxburghshire, and were only 

 a few miles from Kelso ; " I suppose, sir, you ken whohe was?" I nod- 

 ded assent; and if my fellow traveller had known how highly I prize the 

 memory of this modern Theocritus, he might have spared himself the 

 trouble of asking me the question. 



I have often considered myself fortunate in meeting with characters 

 on my Tours — that is to say, with persons who step a little out of the 

 path which their fate has allotted to them to pursue; and I soon found 

 out that I had stumbled upon one in the person of Peter, the head waiter 

 at the Cross Keys in Kelso, a house of great repute on the north road. 

 But where is the situation, in the humbler walks of life, in which there is 



