AND STIRLINGSHIRE HUNT 



back to the coverts at Three -mile -town, where 

 further pursuit was abandoned.^ In the following 

 season, one of the largest fields ever seen in the 

 country assembled at Dundas Castle on the morning 

 of the 17th of December after the Hunt ball, and 

 again the golden fox provided the run which, if 

 shorter than usual, was none the less sweet while it 

 lasted. With its valour suppressed — the result of 

 an unsatisfactory morning's sport — the field was as 

 full of dash and drive as the pack it followed from 

 the coverts at Three-mile-town ; and of grief there 

 was plenty as hounds sped over the Braes o' Mar 

 and across the Oatridge steeplechase course to 

 Binny craig and thence, after a check, to Craig- 

 binning, where darkness put an end to the hunt.^ 

 But the days of this good fox were numbered, and 

 only once more did he cross the country with 

 hounds on his line. This befell on the 28th of the 

 following month (January 1893) when after a frost 

 of some three weeks, Bridge Castle happened to be 

 the fixture. About mid-day hounds were put into 

 Longmuir, from which two foxes were holloaed 

 away simultaneously, one to the east, and the other 

 — the golden fox — to the south. Hounds came 

 quickly out of covert, and there was life in the 

 chase as, crossing the Stank, they ran up to Bank- 

 head and from that by the Wilderness at Blackcraig 

 towards Craigbinning. Bearing right-handed they 

 went on by the Bangour strips, the Silvermines and 



1 ' Land and Water,' 20th February 1892. 



2 Ibid., 24th December 1892. 



289 T 



