A MORNING'S EXERCISE 33 



Old Dykes the coursing farmer told that so far 

 as he knew only one of the young hounds at walk 

 had come to grief, and that by being run over by 

 a loaded cart, about which the guid-wife was heart- 

 broken, and had that very day written me a letter 

 imploring me to send her another whelp. Dykes also 

 told, through many hiccups, how his own puppy, in 

 fighting with a young greyhound bitch for the coveted 

 honour of sleeping across the foot of his cook's 

 bed, had bitten her (" the sapling, not the wummin," 

 Dykes interjected) through the eye to the loss of its 

 sight. When sympathised with, and asked by Billy 

 if he would not like to send the puppy in, the old 

 fellow replied, ^^ Oh, never heed, I wadna like to want 

 the whulp or lambing comes in, an' he'll mebbe no 

 dae't again." 



All these quaint characters he had met, and the 

 evidences of the sportsmanlike tendencies of the people 

 had made a great impression on Billy, who kept going 

 over his experiences again and again, and deploring 

 the fact that he had not made earlier acquaintance 

 with them. He had seen Tom Telfer, our official 

 first whip, itching for the appearance of the pack 

 in the field, and had met for the first time Sandy 

 Oliver, master of a south side of the Border Hunt, 

 a man for whom cleuchs and sykes and bogs, 

 and mosses, and well-eyes, and hidden sheep drains, 

 and swollen burns, and treacherous fords had no 

 terrors, and who was at home amongst the hills on 

 the blackest night and in the wildest snow-drift. 



He also came across a daft soul. Will Phaup o' the 

 Wisp. In a rough prolonged hill chase this indi- 

 vidual, a great breeder of rams and of a few horses 



C 



