COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 183 



with a strap round his neck, so as to be taken up 

 when the terriers have an "in-go" on their own 

 account. 



The Doctor's hunting costume consists of boots, 

 Tweed breeches, and a thin pink Shetland shirt over 

 a woollen one, and he is armed simply with a pole. 

 He seldom speaks to his hounds except with his horn, 

 and never by any chance uses anything but his fist 

 to fight them off from the otter, or to correct them. 

 Twice over he knocked Malakhoff nearly silly with it, 

 in that terrible struggle near Sandiestones, which he 

 kept up for fully twenty minutes, single-handed, 

 against the whole of his pack. He wanted a live 

 otter as a school of puppy instruction for the natural 

 drag j but their blood was up, and he was fairly 

 beaten, and dragged out nearly exhausted, part of a 

 dead and living chain — Hawick Lads, oo The 

 Doctor f GO the otter, go Teddy. As for Teddy, he 

 had been "drowned three times, nearly worried 

 under the water by ]\ialakhoff (of course strictly 

 under a misapprehension), and yet he still held on. 



Billy and Bobby may hunt in dreams ; but the 

 Doctor's eyelids knew no rest the night before a 

 meet, and it goes hard with him if he is not in his 

 dog-cart and away soon after three in summer. The 

 country people say that they h^ve known him '^tak 

 a notion three days running when he's lying in bed,-"^ 

 and of course execute it. Such instances are, how- 

 ever, rare, and he is seldom out more than twice 

 a fortnight. He is generally back about ten ; and 



