116 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



vinced me that there were no hounds there ; and none there proved to be. 

 ** I am too late," said I to myself; '• they are fed, and gone out for their 

 walk — how unlucky is this !" It, however, proved otherwise ; they were 

 not fed, but were merely gone for a walk down the road, with their 

 huntsman and whippers-in on foot, by way of stretching legs, as the 

 term is, for part of the pack had had rather a hard day's work on the yes- 

 terday. Now some of my readers — the perfectly uninitiated ones of 

 course — may be at a loss for a reason why hounds should be seen by an 

 amateur previously to, and not after, their being fed, but if they will apply 

 to John Walker, huntsman to the Fife, he will supply that reason in a 

 very few words. A certain general officer went into his kennel, just after 

 his pack had been fed, and made the following sage remark upon them. 

 " Bless my heart," said he, " what a number of these hounds are with 

 pup !" Now, doubtless, had John Walker been talking to the general on 

 the difficult art of fortification, on the subject of royal bastions, or great 

 guns, he might have made an equally sage observation ; but the fact is, 

 the line of beauty in a hard-feeding hound, when just flogged away from 

 the trough, is sadly damaged to the eye. 



Having deposited the Minister's mare at the Cock and Gridiron, which 

 is within a hundred yards of the kennel, with orders that she should be 

 well taken care of and fed; and, furthermore, wishing to avoid the im- 

 putation of having ridden the Minister's mare with hounds on the sabbath, 

 I walked in the direction which the feeder informed me Williamson and 

 his pack had taken, and, in the course of a mile, I met them, in a turn 

 of the road. The sight to myself was a cheering one. Indeed, fifty 

 couples of hounds, in the highest possible condition, joined with the 

 reminiscence of what I had already seen with them, as well as the antici- 

 pation of at least a week's diversion in future, was an object very likely to 



