188 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



seat" in the bank ; and on me devolved the task of making the agreeable 

 to the ladies. The case was, however, as usual, reversed. Mrs. Keith 

 amused me greatly by a minute detail of her farming speculations con- 

 ducted solely on her own account. They are not large, but have the 

 rare qualification in these times of being profitable, which must be attri- 

 buted in part to the vicinity to the metropolis — only twelve miles distant 



and otherwise to her keeping her stock so well. I never saw milch 



cows in better condition, or more full of milk at that season of the year. 

 How lucky would it be for our female aristocracy if, when doomed to 

 reside in the country, those pursuits were, oftener than we find them to 

 be, pursued by them. Milliners and dressmakers' bills, so frequently the 

 ruin of domestic peace, would be greatly lessened by such means. 



Tuesday, December 2nd.— ''A willing heart," says the proverb, " adds 

 a feather to the heel ;" and although the fixture of the duke's hounds 

 was computed to be twenty-eight miles from Chester-hall, I found it 

 thirty. I was not to be deprived on that account of the chance of another 

 fifty-five minutes from East Gordon-gorse, and such was the meet of the 

 day. This was rather a long morning's trot for the month of December, 

 but although I stopped twenty minutes at Carfrae-mill inn, for break- 

 fast; had a high mountain to traverse, added to three miles of newly- 

 stoned road which I could not break away from ; I performed the task in 

 exactly three hours. One of King's horses* however, with no pretensions 

 to be called a hunter, was a very capital hack, as he proved himself this 

 day, for I galloped him nearly at the top of his speed, upon grass by the 

 road side, for the last five miles, and he did not appear distressed. But 



* An Irish horse, with twisted fore legs, but with those finely formed, lengthy 

 shoulders which preclude the possibility of his falling down, with any thing of a 

 horseman on his back. 



