370 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



where I found the gallant captain domiciled among all the comforts ne- 

 cessary to a sportsman and a bachelor, consisting of a good house, a good 

 cellar of wine, a capital stud of hunters for the size of it, and one of the 

 most comfortable smoking rooms I ever entered in my life. Our party 

 was not large, consisting only of our host, the honourable Captain 

 Arbuthnot, the two Douglasses, Mr. Hay, of Latham Grange — his neigh- 

 bour — and myself. It would be a waste of words to say we enjoyed 

 ourselves in the dining room, but it did not end there. We adjourned 

 to the said smoking room, in which I perceived the insignia of the soldier 

 were mingled with those of the sportsman, and the whole thing was in 

 keeping. And I also witnessed something par^icif/ar/z/ in keeping with 

 the habits and feelings of the bold dragoon. Mr. Hay returned home at 

 night, but, loth to depart, kept his gig at the door nearly long enough 

 to have been indicted under the " animal cruelty act," for it was freezing 

 very hard at the time, '* Come, come, Hay," said Rait, '' either have 

 your horse taken back to the stables or else light your pipe again 

 and he off,'' Here was the promptness of the soldier, and the good 

 feeling of the sportsman, who always loves a horse ; and Mr. Hay, whose 

 good humour is proverbial, obeyed the word of command in an instant, 

 although we were very comfortable and merry at the time. 



Friday, 6. We were to have hunted with Mr. Dalyell this day, w^ho met 

 at a good place almost half way between Burnside and Arniston, but as the 

 frost was so hard, and the ground sprinkled with snow, all chance of 

 hounds meeting appeared hopeless. But here is an instance in proof of 

 an assertion often made by me that, after only one night's frosty and 

 particularly from the first of February to the end of the season, sports- 

 men should always go to a cover ten miles off, if they have nothing* 

 particular to induce them to devote the day to any other purpose, inas- 



