HAWICK TO ST. BOSWELL^S. 217 



up at tbe finish when they ran to ground in Or- 

 miston Wood. The Colonel told the boy^s father 

 not to be angry with him when he got home, and 

 things went on as usual till a few months after, when 

 Mr. Baird became commander of the East and West 

 Lothian Fencible Cavalry, and in 1799 went " soldier- 

 ing through England.^^ Sudbury and then New- 

 market were the head-quarters of the regiment when 

 Hambletonian and Diamond were all the talk ; and 

 in one of WilPs rambles on The Heath he saw Sam 

 Chifney and Will Edwards ride their maiden race as^ 

 feather-weights* together. Old Chifney had passed 

 his zenith; but between his son Will and the 

 Scottish stranger there sprung up a fast friendship. 

 The former sealed it at parting with a pair of braces, 

 the buckles of which have done duty on generation 

 after generation of straps to this hour; and the 

 latter in later years, when the great days of Priam 

 and Zinganee were in the dim distauce, reciprocated 

 with a suit of Scotch tweed. 



Another two years brought these military wander- 

 ings to a close, and at twenty Will became second 

 whip to the Duke, with John King as huntsman and 

 Erank Collisson as first whip. His second and 

 first whip probation lasted for fourteen seasons, and 

 in 1816 he got the horn. The first fox he ever 

 killed was from a meet at Armadill4oll-bar, and they 



* Will EdvrardB won this race over the last three miles of the^.C, on a 

 two-jear-old colt of the Hon. C. Wyndham's, which was afterwards second 

 for the Derby. Will was fetched from school behind a Ijoy on a pony, and 

 was returned in the same fashion after the race. 



