NIMIIOD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 201 



Promethean touch of youth." '* You appear to have escaped well, 

 Andrew," resumed I, " after hunting hounds so long in so many rough 

 countries." " Wall," replied he, " there's na much the matter there, 

 but I was light, and generally wall-mounted." " I have read of your 

 favourite hunters, Vixen, Snip, and Rattler." " Ah !" said he — his eyes 

 brightening at the time — " Vixen and Rattler were but wee morsels to 

 look at, but not many could gang by them, wi' a hull (a hill) in their 

 teeth." " Thorough-bred ones of course," I observed. Andrew nodded 

 assent, and putting the fiddle under his chin, obeyed the signal for ano- 

 ther reel. He afterwards told me of a wonderful escape for his life, 

 that he had when riding Vixen, the particulars of which I cannot at this 

 moment recollect. 



Having never seen either Andrew or his hounds in the field, I must of 

 course be silent as to their merits; but the following anecdote of the 

 former amused me, and it is in character with the dash of the fox-hound, 

 the principal feature in his nature after all. " Why stop those hounds ?" 

 said Sir David Baird to him one day, as a whipper-in was endeavouring 

 to do so, it being suspected they were on a wrong scent. *' Never 

 heed him. Sir David," observed Andrew ; *' he'll na stop them if they 

 are on a fox." 



Although unable to speak, from personal observation, to the merits 

 of Mr. Baillie's fox-hounds, I may safely record them, on the autho- 

 rity of those well able to appreciate them, and they are generally well 

 spoken of in Scotland. Their character, indeed, is thus neatly sketched 

 by the able pen of Nim North. " His (Mr. BaiHie's) hounds are very 

 large, of a capital sort, having been crossed with the best packs in the 



kingdom, and can go as fast as any I know of; and you may depend 



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