NIxMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 197 



rough-bred hunter I had ever before seen. Perfect, however, as this 

 mare is, she proved the truth of the anathema pronounced against 

 mares by the late Lord Forester, who would never have one — (nor a 

 stallion neither) in his stable. *' You can never depend upon a mare," 

 he would say, " the season throughout. She will be very good one day, 

 and not worth a shilling, as a hunter, the next. Nay, more than this. 

 She will be very good at ten o'clock and very bad at twelve o'clock of 

 the same day." I certainly saw^ nearly all this exemplified in the fine 

 animal I am now speaking of. We crossed a gentleman's grounds in 

 chase, which was divided into several compartments by rails not more 

 than three feet in height. The mare refused them all — some once, 

 others twice ; and absolutely ran through one of them, although she 

 could have leaped twice as high as the highest of them. The cause of 

 this I need not trouble myself to state. In the same gentleman's stud 

 there was a chestnut horse which he has ridden many seasons — quite a 

 model to carry weight ; and, like his father, Mr. George Baillie can 

 give little change out of sixteen stone. He also resembles his father in 

 another respect, He is accounted one of the best sportsmen in Scotland. 



In Mr. Robert Baillie's stable there was also an immense thorough- 

 bred horse, nearer seventeen than sixteen hands high, and with a fine set 

 of limbs. It was his second, if not his first season ; but he was progress- 

 ing towards perfection. He was, however, in the right man's stable for 

 that, for a finer horseman, or better rider to hounds than Mr. Robert 

 Baillie is, need not go into a field, let the country or the pace be what 

 it may. His best hunter, a thorough-bred mare, by Stainborough, I 

 did not see out, she being unsound at the time. I have, however, reason 

 to believe this young gentleman is not very particular about the nag ho 

 rides— let him only be well bred, and with a heart as good as his own. 



