166 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



Now my real motive for discussing this subject with Williamson was, 

 a desire to hear from his own lips, and in his peculiar manner, what 

 excuse he would offer for an apparent deficiency of either wind or power, 

 and my readers will agree with me, that a better concocted one, at a 

 pinch, could not have been produced by a huntsman. But who can 

 blame a man for being jealous of the reputation of a system he has 

 laboured to bring to perfection ; and if I were to enumerate all the 

 apologies for hounds that my recollection would furnish me with— for 

 foxes " lost or mislaid," — they would form a long catalogue. Some of 

 them, too, would amuse: as for example. " Who-whoop," holloaed one 

 of our oldest, best, and cheeriest English gentlemen-huntsmen now 

 going — as his hounds threw up at the end of a brilliant burst, succeeded 

 by an unsuccessful cast. " He's gone to ground ; Jezabel, good bitch, has 

 marked him in. (Blowing his horn.) Get them away, Jack, we can't 

 bolt him, for the drain runs across the high road." Unfortunately, how- 

 ever, a yokel comes up to this best of all gentlemen-huntsmen with the 

 following pithy information — which he himself knew as well as the yokel 

 did. *' I say — maester ; there's no fox in yon drain, for I sees the cob- 

 webs right in the mouth on't ! " 



But believe me, Mr. Williamson, there is to animal, if not to mecha- 

 nical, power a limit which cannot be exceeded, how much-so-ever it may 

 be encreased by judicious assistance from man. The Duke of Buccleuch's 

 hounds, — or those of any other man — form not an exception to this 

 rule. That hour's work in the whin cover, added to another hour over a 



deep, and, in great part, ploughed country, some of which carried, as the 

 term is, told upon them, as it would tell on all others; and towards the 

 end of forty minutes more, it is not to be wondered at that young 

 hounds — which perhaps had not been so active in the whin — should be 



