NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 243 



head of sport. But to be serious, the doings of this day in the field are 

 well worthy of being- recorded, and were highly interesting to me from 

 the fact of its having been the first time of my seeing another crack 

 huntsman in the field— the " Merry John Walker," as Lord Kintore 

 calls him— the said John Walker having been promoted to the situation 

 of huntsman to the Fife, from that of first whipper-in to his lordship. 



Now then to business, and this day (December 11th) might be actually 

 termed a day of business, for we ran a leash of foxes — one to ground, 

 and the other two to death. But the last fox was just the fox I wanted, 

 for he was the most shuffling, dodging, short-running, puzzling devil, in 

 that shape, that ever presented himself to my notice before, and it might 

 almost appear^ having for his object the putting the merits of both hounds 

 and huntsman to the test. I am quite sure he never ran half a mile in 

 any one direct line, nor did I ever see a fox turn so many times, short 

 back, as he did. Neither was he content with all this — he ran amongst 

 buildings, tried lime-kilns, appeared to look out for fallows, in short, he 

 tried every expedient a fox could try to baffle hounds and save his life. 

 But all would not do ; at the end of one hour and fifteen minutes close 

 hunting, with only one view holloa*, and 7io horn, "Merry John" and 

 his pack ran into him, in view, to the great satisfaction of a rather nu- 

 merous field, one of whom was a master of a neighbouring pack. And 

 it was high time he should do so, for it being half-past three o'clock 

 when Reveller first spoke to him in the cover, it was become nearly too 

 dark to ride over the fences before we killed him. It was altogether a 

 slow thing, but at times a fine test of hounds, and on my congratulating 

 the captain on the Jinale, we exchanged a shake of the hand. I rode a 



* Having- heard the pack turn short in a cover, I rode quickly back to the lower 

 end of it, and viewing him away, the second whip and myself gave the office, 



2 I 2 



