AND STIRLINGSHIKE HUNT 



no easy matter to live with hounds at the pace 

 at which they were travelHng, and after twenty 

 minutes' hard riding they were completely lost 

 sight of. Information received from a ploughman, 

 however, enabled Atkinson to get to them, and put 

 them on the line, when, after a Ijttle slow hunting, 

 they again ran at a good pace over a beautiful 

 although stiff line of country, until, at the end of 

 an hour and ten minutes they pulled their fox 

 down, in the open, close to the historic plain of 

 Bannockburn.^ 



From Cliftonhall to Torebanehill cannot be said 

 ever to have been a usual line, and it is one which 

 would now be almost impossible; yet on the 13th 

 of November 1873, hounds accomplished the journey 

 at a fair pace over all, while at times they ran fast. 

 In Sir Alexander Maitland's coverts, three foxes 

 were on foot, and after one of these had been run 

 to ground, another, which had been seen to cross 

 the Almond, was pushed up from a gorse on the 

 western bank of the river. The line, — to which 

 hounds settled well, — lay by Illiston, Amondell, 

 Drumshoreland wood, Pumpherston coverts, Hous- 

 toun wood, Howden, Livingston coverts, Cousland, 

 Blackburn House, over the moss below Starlaw and 

 South Inch, across the Blackburn and Bathgate 

 road, down to and up the banks of the Almond 

 near Beddock, and thereafter, with many twists 

 and turns, to Torbanehill, where the fox got to 

 ground. " Point about thirteen miles ; as hounds 



^ 'Edinburgh Courant,' 14th January 1873, 



237 



