214 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



-" Up the margin of the lake. 



P 



Between the i)recipice and brake," 



with the cry of the hounds, beautifully re-echoed from the deep and 

 winding valley which was below us, g-ave a uildness to the scene seldom 

 experienced in fox-hunting, and requiring an abler pen than mine to 

 describe. 



When once clear of tliis awkward and perplexing defile, a good country 

 presented itself; the pack settled down to their fox, and I thought we 

 were in for a second East Gordon clipper, as these out-of-the-way-looking 

 places generally produce those that can fly for their lives. At the end 

 of a mile and a half, however, the hounds came to a check in a road 

 which would have been a fatal one but for the followino: circumstance. 

 As Lord Hopeton and myself v/ere in the act of leaping a low wall into 

 the road, his lordship exclaimed to me " There is the scent'' — catching 

 with his eye, what escaped mine, namely, two couples of hounds carrying 

 it down a strip of plantations, on the opposite side of the road. Clapping 

 spurs to my horse, I gave Scott the office, and he instantly brought the 

 body of the pack on the line, but they soon threw up again. Having 

 an eye to his point however, he persisted in pursuing the line, even 

 beyond what appeared to me to be warrantable, as not a hound even 

 feathered on a scent ; but he was rewarded for his perseverance. He 

 had the pleasure of seeing his hounds take up the scent all at once 

 through a gate, into a grass field, and never quit it till they ran into 

 their fox at the end of forty minutes, (an hour in all,) over a fine scent- 

 ing country ! I did not see the finish, having been '* ten minutes behind 

 time," as we say on the road ; but the depth of the ground and the pace 

 were not suited to something little better than dealers' condition, and I 

 was fearful of trespassing too far upon a promising young horse, whioh 

 Mr. Ramsay told me was not in strong work. 



