AND STIRLINGSHIRE HUNT 



so from that time until the end of the season. 

 But the gloom of the preceding month lifted but 

 little, for the spring of the year 1866 was a cold 

 and stormy one, and hunting was much interfered 

 with by frost and snow. For this reason perhaps, 

 an early finish was decided upon, and the last 

 advertised fixture was Binny cottage on the 17th 

 of March. When the pack came to be sold a 

 little later, Colonel Gillon, who had by that time 

 agreed to undertake the mastership, purchased the 

 dog-hounds, while the late Lord Eglinton became 

 the owner of the bitches. The sale of the hounds 

 was accompanied by the departure of the Hunt 

 servants. Scott went as second whipper-in to the 

 Fife Hounds ; Trueman Tufi" was engaged by Lord 

 Eglinton, and accompanied the hounds which his 

 lordship had purchased, to Ayrshire ; while Stracey, 

 who had earned the good opinion of the followers 

 of the Linlithgow and Stirlingshire pack through 

 the excellent sport he had shown, became huntsman 

 first to the Cambridgeshire and then to the Vine 

 Hounds. When he retired from active service 

 in 1876, the members of the Vine Hunt presented 

 him with a cup and two hundred sovereigns " in 

 recognition of the able manner in which he dis- 

 charged his duty for nine seasons as huntsman." ^ 

 Some years afterwards, he returned to Scotland 

 and took up his abode with his friend John Atkin- 

 son, who in 1887 had resigned the post of huntsman 



1 Ne\v.s]t)aper cutting in scrap-book which belonged to Captain Sandi- 

 lands, in the possession of Lord Torphichen. 



185 



