174 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



It was my ill-luck, this day, to be mounted on, I think, the worst 

 horse I ever bestrode in mv life under the denomination of a hunter. 

 He was one of what we jocosely called " the royal stud," — that is one 

 of Mr. King's, and had been handed over to me by M'Dowal Grant, 

 who had found him worthless, and yet the brute had something the ap- 

 pearance of a hunter. But this is a digression ; I must give an account 

 of the run. 



No fox ever found by hounds went more gallantly away than this did, 

 and almost every man in the field got a fair start. But a fair start and 

 a good one are two very different things, a fact clearly shown this day 

 by Lord Elcho, who benefiting by his Leicestershire education, was away 

 with the leading hounds, and by the time they had crossed a road, his 

 lordship was comfortably landed by their side. And how long did he 

 remain there ? Why for exactly forty minutes, at the end of which the 

 fox was killed, having travelled eleven miles point blank in that short 

 space without one single check — over as fine a country too — barring one 

 circumstance — as a man could desire to ride over ; and as Lord Elcho 

 himself declared, having shown as straight-forward and brilliant a run — 

 if not the most straight-forward and brilliant — he had ever seen in any 

 country, Leicestershire always excepted. But I will describe this 

 country. It was more than half under grass. The ploughed land and 

 the stubles rode light; the fields were of good size, and the fences not 

 large, and most of them such as could be taken nearly in stroke. And 

 who else saw it ? Why as far as I was able to judge of it, I can compare it 

 to nothing better than a race, in which Lord Elcho was first; Mr. Mc 

 Kenzie Grieve, second; Lord Eglinton, third; and Mr. Fletcher of 

 Saltoun, fourth. These were distinguishable by the colours of their 

 horses — the three first having been chestnuts, and Mr, Fletcher's white — 



