158 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



but so shy, that the keepers could not take him. Musters took him the 

 third throw ! " 



Setting aside personal regard, I rejoice to hear anything of Mr. 

 Musters — that paragon of British sportsmen. The last time I saw him 

 he told me he should never hunt hounds again, but I said I was hard of 

 belief on that subject. He is at work once more T find in his own coun- 

 try, — Nottinghamshire, — and such is the care that he has taken of 

 himself — as another master of hounds said — chiefly for the sake of fox- 

 hunting, that I was informed, on very good authority, that, one day last 

 season he planted every man in the field at an awkward place under a 

 tree. I read something in the papers at the commencement of the pre- 

 sent season, of his son showing him the way at a rasper. It might 

 have been so ; the young ones ought to break the binders for the old 

 ones; but I will answer for it that, on this day, the old one was " there 

 or thereabouts" at the finish of the run spoken of. Mr. Musters, 

 during his visit to Colonel Fotheringham in Forfarshire, was once out 

 with Mr. Dalyell's hounds, which was the extent of his fox-hunting in 

 Scotland. Pardon this digression. 



There were three renowned personages whose absence from Kelso, 

 and its neighbourhood, I very much regretted. These were, Lord John 

 Scott, brother to the Duke of Buccleuch, Mr. Musters, and Mrs. Brown, 

 whose portrait adorns your number for May last. I had the honour of 

 being introduced to Lord John, by Captain Ross, in London, but I never 

 saw his lordship either before or since, to my knowledge. Indepen- 

 dently of his fine horsemanship, the high character he bears in Rox- 

 burghshire as an open-hearted, unaffected young man, which it appears 

 has fixed him fo firmly in the kindly affections of all descriptions of per- 



