"218 FIELD AND FERN. 



pulled him down after seven or eight miles before he 

 could reach Callender Woods. Mr. Baird managed 

 the hounds for his Grace. They were still a subscrip- 

 tion pack, with kennels at Dalkeith, East and Mid 

 Lothians, and part of East Berwickshire as their 

 country, and Pencaithland and Newbyth as out- 

 lying kennels. Mr. Bailey of Mellerstain, " as good a 

 racing as he was a hunting man,^' hunted Roxburgh- 

 shire and part of Berwickshire, as far as Eoggo Moor 

 in the Dunse country; and Will always speaks of 

 him most reverently as " an old Boman, polite to 

 all and bow to none.^^ Mr. Hay of Dunse Castle 

 joined Mr. Bailey for a season; and ten years after 

 he had the Dunse country for himself, and, joining 

 it with the West Lothian, moved backwards and for- 

 wards. 



There was a Hamilton pack, with Holy Town 

 as its kennel, before Will became a Buccleuch " colt," 

 and its Wild Irish huntsman, Merton Bourke, " rode 

 over everything in Lanarkshire. Stars and ribbons 

 were wont to cluster in those days of the E-egency 

 round the Newmarket cockpit, and there were mighty 

 Scottish "■ Gillivers" as well. Occasionally a car- 

 riage full of cocks would come from Lanarkshire to 

 the East Lothian, which paid return visits. A cele- 

 brated in- go took place at the " George" at Hadding- 

 ton, and it was long remembered how one of the 

 cuckoo sort had knocked a black-breasted red clean 

 out of the front window, and how the town fully ex- 

 pected to see a brace of bulldogs tumble out next. 



