236 OLD SCOTCH SPORTSMAN. [CH. xiv. 



when little else would lure you from the fire-side ? That shooting, 

 then, may not pall upon you as years creep on, surely you would 

 do well to make the healthy recreation as attractive as possible ; and 

 hunting dogs of your own breaking would undeniably lend it not 

 only a great but an enduring charm. 



410. A fondness for the beauties of nature, a sense of freedom 

 while one is inhaling the pure mountain breezes, and it may be a 

 consciousness of power, have made men bordering on four-score 

 continue to love their guns with a feeling somewhat akin to the 

 fervour of their first love, as is well exemplified in an aged tenant 



of Mr. W n of Edinburgh, to whom I have been occasionally 



indebted for a capital day's sport. 



411. Mr W n visiting one of his farms, found the old man, 



who had been a keen sportsman all his life, labouring under chronic 

 rheumatism (caught by injudicious exposure in the discharge of his 

 agricultural duties), so severe as to be obliged to go about on 

 crutches. After the usual salutations, at meeting, the farmer 

 began : 



" May be ye'll think the place negleckit-like, but I'm no able to 

 look after the wark noo." 



"Keep a good heart," said Mr. W n; "things are looking 



well enough. I suppose you are pining after the shooting you 

 can get no sport now." 



" Ye may weel think that," replied the farmer, adding in a sort 

 of chuckle and confidential undertone, " the auld gun and me is 

 no parted yet." 



" But," rejoined Mr. W n, " you surely don't mean that you 



can still kill birds ? You can hardly manage that." 



" I can manage it fine," observed the other, with some pique ; 

 " the cart takes me to the neeps.* The bit callant f helps me oot. 

 I hirple + on. When the dog maks a point, doon gang the crutches 

 the laddie takes haud o' me, and though my legs is neither straught 

 nor steady, my e'e is as true as yer ain." 



412. Breaking in dogs is not only an invigorating bodily exercise, 

 but a healthy moral training ; for to obtain great success, you m ust 

 have much patience and self-command ; and whatever may be your 

 rank or position in life, Beckford not he of Fonthill, but the man 

 whose memory is held in veneration by all Nimrods for his admir- 

 able " Thoughts on Hunting " will not allow you to plead, as an 

 excuse, for what just possibly may be want of energy or sad 

 laziness, that breaking in dogs for your own gun is an ungentle- 

 manly or unbecoming recreation. I grant he is speaking of instructors 

 of hounds, but his words in their spirit are fully as applicable to 

 the instructors of pupils accustomed to the smell of gunpowder. 



413. In his 22d letter he writes, " It is your opinion, I find, that 

 a gentleman might make the best huntsman. I have no doubt that 



Neeps, anglice turnips. f Callant, anglice boy. 



Hirple, anglick limp. 



