NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR, 143 



fewar poor gentlemen. The subject that led to this conversation was the 

 building of the kennel and stables at St. Boswell's, which was entirely 

 under the direction of this most valuable servant, who confirmed what I had 

 heard— namely, that the expense of erecting and completing the entire 

 range of the premises, sufficient for the two establishments, did not 

 exceed the sum of fifteen hundred pounds ! A humorous anecdote or 

 two resulted from this portion of our conversation. " I was paying a bill 

 to a farmer, for hay," said WilHamson, "a short time ago, of nearly 

 fifty pounds, and he insisted upon the odd four-pence half-penny. I 

 gave it him, " said he, " with pleasure, because it showed I had bought 

 the hay worth the money.'' This rigid economy throughout the various 

 departments of so large an establishment as the duke's, must be very 

 profitable to the duke but by no means so to his huntsman, who, by his 

 own account, receives but few invitations to good dinners, or other little 

 compliments too often shoved into the bills; ''But," says the latter, " I 

 sleep all the better for that. In the first place, my stomach is not clog- 

 ged with too many of the good things of this world; and in the second, 

 my conscience is quite at ease." 



But in some things, the duke has been obliged to insist upon a partial 

 relaxation of this, now somewhat uncalled for, frugality — and especially 

 in the puchase of horses, the value of which in Williamson's opinion is 

 scarcely one half of what it is generally booked at in that of others. Since 

 his Grace has let loose the purse-strings which his trusty servant had 

 previously held so tightly, I was given to understand a considerable im- 

 provement had been effected in the kennel stud ; and certainly that 

 which I saw could not even with his — Williamson's — ^judicious catering, 

 have been procured at his price, which was but a leetle over forty 

 pounds. On this subject, as may be supposed, some good stories are 



