176 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



upon it in a treacherous place, which, with a horse dead blown, was very far 

 from a joke. I had not proceeded many yards, about belly-deep, and 

 with a very strong current, before my horse dropped over head and eara 

 into a hole, but quickly struggled out of it. He then fell on his head 

 over a huge stone, but we did not part company. In another ten yards, 

 over head and ears he went again, but still we stuck to each other, " like 

 a lover to his bride," as Saddell says in his song, and at last reached the 

 bank. Captain Grant of the Ninth Lancers, who was likewise on one of 

 " the royal stud," a throughbred one too, but so blown, that, like my 

 own, he could scarcely scramble over a gap, was close behind me at the 

 time, but, supposing that 1 was gone salmon fishing, looked for a safer 

 place and made his way across the stream. 



But what situation was I in when I found myself on terra Jirma ? 

 By the time I had ascended the steep bank, and steep indeed it was, my 

 horse could scarcely stand, although I led him up it in my hand. I 

 espied a hard road in the direction the hounds had taken ; I thought I 

 might bring him round a bit upon that ; but alas ! I liad left a fore-shoe 

 in the Till, and the road was newly stoned. I then turned into the en- 

 closures, and following as well as I could in their wake, in company with 

 another unfortunate, got up to the hounds about ten minutes after they 

 had worried their fox — say twenty from the time they had killed him. 



The first person who addressed me was Lord Frederick Fitzclarence, 

 who, like myself, had been in trouble, for his face was bleeding from a 

 wound. *' Go to him," (St. Paul,) said his lordship, '* and make him 

 happy, his hounds have behaved to admiration." The next was Lord 

 Elcho. " I do not hesitate," said that fine sportsman, — and observe 

 reader, they are words spoken by the master of a neighbouring" pack, as 



