AND STIRLINGSHIRE HUNT 



he was the only one that would speak to it through 

 a dry fir planting, in a capital thing of fifteen miles 

 straight from Macbie, in fact ' such a nij)per that it 

 could never have been one fox / '" ^ 



No account of the run from Macbie is forth- 

 coming, and it is only through the kindness of 

 Colonel Babington, formerly master of the Fife 

 Hounds, that any description of another famous 

 run which took place about this time can be 

 given. The following is Colonel Babington's 

 account,^ written from memory about forty years 

 afterwards : — 



" We met at or near Currie station, and found 

 at Malleny. Fife was represented by myself, 

 Captain Moubray, and Mr Cunningham of Dalachy, 

 from whom I had purchased the horse I was riding 

 that day. After running for a mile or so in the 

 direction of Edinburgh with a capital scent, the 

 hounds turned direct for the Pentlands. Here 

 trouble began for the riders, for the higher we got 

 the worse became the ground — full of swamps and 

 bogs. Cunningham lost three shoes. Fortunately 

 there were no fences except a few ragged walls, 

 for it was all we could do to keep the hounds in 

 sight. After crossing the summit of the hill they 

 bent somewhat to the right, but turning again in 

 a kind of half circle, raced down to the low ground, 

 and caught their fox in the water of the Esk at 

 Dalkeith, in the Duke of Buccleuch's grounds. 



1 'Field and Fern ' (South), by The Druid, 1865, p. 58. 

 " In the possession of the author. 



177 M 



