232 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



And it is thence that I derive the materials for the first anecdote I have 

 to relate respecting him. 



Your readers, Mr. Editor, will recollect, that a year or two back, 

 somewhat of an ang-ry correspondence was carried on between the 

 captain and yourself, respecting the insertion of a paragraph relating to 

 the Fife huntsman (Walker) which did not prove to have been founded 

 on fact; and that for the commission of the error, the atonement on 

 your part was considered amply sufficient by the sporting world, and 

 also by some of the captain's most intimate friends, in my presence. 

 But here arose a question that admitted of some speculation. How 

 would Nimrod be received by the captain at the cover-side ? the said 

 captain knowing him to be one of the " Magazine rs," to use a term of 

 his own; and, therefore, for aught he might know to the contrary, to 

 have had a finger in the said pie ? Your readers shall hear. 



On the morning after my arrival at Mount Melville, Mr. Whyte 

 Melville, Mr. Earle, a gentleman of the name of Melville — residing in 

 Edinburgh — and myself, set forward to meet the Fife hounds, distance 

 about eight miles, and not a bad morning for December in Scotland. 

 On the further side of a gate, about half a mile from the cover, stood the 

 captain on his feet, on a smooth patch of grass, being just about to 

 exchange his hack for his hunter. Our approach towards him was 

 announced by himself in these words, and in a voice that would have put 

 Homer's herald to the blush. *' 'Tis no use to think of hunting; a 

 damned stormy morning, sir; we may as well take the hounds home." 

 Then came the climax, but George Cruickshank should have been on 

 the spot to have illustrated it, for it sets the pen at defiance. *' Give me 



