62 HOUND AND HORN 



day was spent in following the somewhat mixed line 

 of scent of the fox, Tom Telfer, and one couple 

 of hounds, which caused the pack, and consequently 

 the field, to string out considerably. When, as the 

 dusk was drawing in, huntsman and whip next met 

 — it was at a cavernous-looking earth among the 

 peat hags on the top of Windburgh — there were 

 no listeners within earshot to hear what were the 

 complimentary words that passed between them. 



One of the keenest of the keen was Andrew Waugh, 

 a contracting mason, who did a fair amount of trade 

 for most of the country houses round, building and 

 renewing farm offices, and such work. One of his 

 specialties was kitchen ranges and ovens, and the 

 cure of smoky chimneys. One day, after taking 

 down a kitchen range, and being on the house-top 

 repairing a chimney-can, he spied hounds trotting off 

 to draw a very likely plantation. He promptly 

 slid down the ladder, and dragging his pony from its 

 feed of corn, joined in with his working apron on, and 

 with all the ardour of a school-boy released from 

 school. Needless to say, his contract knew him no 

 more that day, and the mansion had to cook its 

 dinner on the scullery stove till the pony, cut during 

 that day's hunt, had sufficiently recovered to carry its 

 master to his job. 



My introduction to him was on an Abbotvale day, 

 when hounds were in full cry with a very blown 

 cub brought in from the hills which they had been 

 running hard, with short respite, for half-an-hour, and 

 which they were driving from one clump of shrubbery 

 to another, till he lay down and momentarily baffled 

 them. I remember being particularly anxious that 



