374 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



Monday, 9. Met Mr. Dalyell at Douglas muir, and had the honour 

 of riding my namesake — a thorough-bred horse of great size, of the 

 real Leicestershire stamp, and, thanks to his not being able to touch the 

 ground with his mouth, owing to the depth of his body and his short 

 legs, he had not been out of his stall for the last four years. But oh, 

 what a day of trial was this ! Not to the hounds and horses, but to the 

 patience of a large field of sportsmen. It was something even more than 

 this; it was in its results, perhaps, unequalled in the annals of fox-hunting- 

 up to that day. We found a leash of foxes, one after another, and each 

 went to ground, absolutely, in less than Jive minutes after he had 

 broke cover! A more tantalizing scene, to a well mounted sportsman, 

 than that afforded by the last of these cowardly curs, cannot well be 

 imagined. We viewed him away out of a beautiful patch of gorse, over ■ 

 hans-ing a small bank, and not two acres in extent, and he faced as fine 

 a country as the most fastidious Meltonian would wish for, and, appa- 

 rently, the scent was good. In the second field, however, he, after the 

 manner of the other two, found his way into one of those large and long 

 covered drains, open at their mouths, with which Scotland so much 

 abounds, and from which the chances of bolting a fox are all but hopeless. 

 As may be supposed we all went home very much disgusted, and in a 

 storm of snow and hail, which, added to the disappointment of the morn- 

 ing, required the aid of some very amusing anecdotes of Major Wemyss 

 to make it even endurable. Things indeed, were rendered even worse, 

 by our finding another fox on our road home, in a very strong cover, 

 but being perhaps one of the same soft-hearted litter, he could not be 

 persuaded to break. 



But really these numerous open-mouthed drains are destruction to fox- 

 hunting in several parts of Scotland; and were I to hunt hounds, where 



