NIMROD'S NORTIIERX TOUR. 395 



the question — " Is Mr. Moray at home ?" ^^ Ahercairney is walking* 

 in the park, sir, but he will be home in half an hour." " Abercairney 1" 

 said I to myself; " what the devil does the fellow mean by calling his 

 laird by this familiar name!" However, I was soon enlightened on the 

 subject by mine host himself, and as I found every one called him 

 " Abercairney," of course I followed suit. I was disappointed at not 

 finding him in the kilt, when he came down, dressed for dinner, w'hich 

 I was told I should ; but he did not wear it at all during my visit to him, 

 in consequence of his having just recovered from the effects of a 

 severe cold. 



Abercairney having this day returned from a short visit to Edinburgh 

 on business, our party at dinner was small. It was no sooner ended, 

 however, and we had placed ourselves snugly around the horse-shoe — to 

 be nearer to the fire, for one reason, and closer to the claret jug for 

 another, and withal was just getting into discourse about hounds, horses, 

 hunting countries, and men — than open flew the door, and in marched 

 the same strapping Highlander, that had greeted me on my arrival ; and 

 with — not what Byron calls *' the natural music of the mountain reed," 

 but, to my ears, that " insult to the groans of a dying hog," as some one 

 calls them— the bag-pipes in full play. The laird, however, declared he 

 could not digest his dinner without at least a twenty minutes burst of pipe- 

 music, and of course I had nothing left for it but to listen, and to endeavour 

 to discover something like a tune in the burring drone, but that was 

 '< no go." 



Of Abercairney's hounds, at least of the sport I saw with them, I 

 have next to nothing to say that can either interest or amuse ; for the 

 weather was so bad that I only saw them once in the field during my 



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