NIMKOD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 151 



na been moonted before to-day, and he's sair afraid your dogs will 

 devour him." " Then Williamson can blow up a little now and 

 then?" I think I hear some of my readers exclaiai. Let Mr. Cosser 

 of Dunse, one of his oldest friends and greatest admirers, answer this 

 question, because it will make such readers smile. " Hold hard, Mr. 

 Cosser," said he one day to him on a road, " hold hard, 1 tell you; 

 what the devil are you aboot, driving the hounds before you over the 

 scent? the older you get the bigger fool you get.'' "■ Now," said Mr. 

 Cosser to me, as he related the anecdote, *' I shouldn't have minded all 

 this, had it not been that there were two gentlemen fifty yards before 

 me, down the road, at the time." Doubtless this somewhat alters the 

 case ; but so good a sportsman, and so excellent a rider as Mr. Cosser 

 is, should not have been seduced into so heinous a fault in a huntsman's 

 eyes, as pressing upon hounds down a road, where the scent is always 

 in danger of being lost. 



Riding across wheat fields is thought more of in Scotland than it is 

 in England, and this reminds me of a good anecdote of WiUiamson. 

 Having killed his fox in a turnpike-road, he saw a farmer, who had been 

 defeated by the pace, coming sailing away down a large field of growing 

 wheat. " Ware wheat," roared Williamson, " what the devil do you 

 mean, man, by riding over the wheat?" 



Farmer. " Why I was thinking- 



Williamson. " Thinking! what's the use of thinking? you should 

 reflact." 



Farmer. " But the wheat is my own." 



