362 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



would prove to be fact, his owner told me that " no money would pur- 

 chase him." 



January 29. Still out of luck as to getting that sort of run with Mr. 

 Daly ell, which would afford matter for the pen, or, in the language of 

 the broad sheet, for, a " truly graphic description," which, for the mas- 

 ter's sake I would have attempted to give, although I might not have 

 succeeded. Still the hunting of this day enables me to mention two 

 circumstances interesting to sportsmen, and one of them strongly 

 corroborative of an assertion once made by me, in print, namely, that 

 luck has not more to do with the game of hazard than with fox-hunting. 

 Our first draw was a very pretty woodland cover of about ten acres, a 

 little to the right of the Aberdeen and Edinburgli road, and always, I 

 understood, a sure find. It proved so to-day, for in ten minutes after 

 the hounds were thrown into it, I, among others, viewed the fox 

 away. As soon as he had got two fields clear of the cover, we gave 

 Mr. Dalyell the office, and away he came with the pack at his heels, 

 (taking a gate on his road, by the bye, with his horn in his mouth, 

 and followed by Skinner,) but they were as silent as if asleep, when they 

 got on the headland which he had run along. " What can this be?" 

 inquired their huntsman, " who saw the fox V " We a// saw him," 

 said the laird of Brigton. Dalyell tried on, aye, on the very line to an 

 inch, and not a hound spoke. Tried the field beyond ; still no scent, 

 and no crowd near them. *' What can this be?'' said Dalyell, 

 jumping into a large fallow field, and trying across it; when, as though 

 all their heads were tied together, they turned short to the left, took up 

 the scent in a furrow, and ran as hard up to a cover on a hill, about 

 two miles distant, as they ever ran in their lives — in short, with a 

 breast-high scent ! 



