ROMAN CAMP TO ATHELSTANEFORD. Ill 



crossing over the village green hard by the ivied 

 ruins of Dirleton Castle, and so past the lodge 

 gates of the lord of the soil, the Hon. Nisbet Hamil- 

 ton (at whose steam-plough banquet in the Castle 

 garden Richard Cobden, in the autumn of '62, 

 made his last Scottish speech), we were on Dirleton 

 Common with the dogs at last. It is a pleasant spot, 

 almost within hail of Gullane, w^here Lanercost once 

 cleared his pipes in good air, and Philip broke in 

 Terity the heart of Ballochmyle ; but the green 

 woods of Dirleton fringe it on the left, and lure 

 many a hare to cover. There are sixty members of 

 the Dirleton Club, to which there is a two-guinea 

 entrance, and nothing more. Mr. Callender, the 

 honorary secretary, who is ever constant to Lytham 

 and the Waterloo and all the Scottish meetings, "has 

 the happy knack of holding a meeting twice in the 

 season, never asking for annual subscriptions, and yet 

 having money in hand.^^ 



There are very few bad hares on the Barony, 

 and the memory is still green of one of 11 libs, which 

 was found on a stubble, and killed, by Mr. Gib- 

 son^s Pruth, a daughter of Sam, and then carried in 

 triumph to Mr. Begbie's to be weighed. The stub- 

 bles (whose hares pleased Mr. Nightingale best) are 

 very good in October, but the common has fallen 

 off, and become a prey to the rabbits and the moles; 

 and the state of Coorooran-'s head after a trial, which 

 decided that he and not Golden Dream would go for 

 the Waterloo Cup, was a bleeding protest against the 



