400 FIELD AND FERN. 



moors near the Moffat hills, for a day, and find 

 most capital foxes. Tinwald Downs, Cumlogan, 

 Brown Moor, and Waraphray are always good for 

 cubs, but they don't place much reliance on litters. 

 "As for the fences,'^ says Joe, " there are not two of 

 them alike, banks and timber, and walls and ditches. 

 The Marquis was a terrible loss ; he was always at 

 the head of his column and never looking for weak 

 places.^^ His cheery " Hark to Pallafox /" his fa- 

 ourite hound, as he rammed the spurs into Little 

 John or Bonnie Dundee (so called in honour of the 

 fiddlers' feat), and came crashing out of cover for 

 a start, seems to ring in their ears yet. He had a 

 wonderful voice ; they could hear his halloo any dis- 

 tance down wind, and Woodcockair used to ring 

 again when he tallyhoed him away for Kinmount. 

 He liked the wildest hunting, and a day on Criffell 

 T)leased him beyond measure. '^ Joe,'' he used to 

 say, " if I could only get some of the Melton men up 

 here, we'd give them a dusting /" and then away he 

 went, among bogs and sheep-drains, and perhaps six 

 or seven foxes " coOring" along the walls together. 

 For three seasons he opened the hunting with a week 

 at Langholm, and, what with hunting by day and 

 fiddles by night, the little town had quite a convivial 

 vreek of it. It maybe that some enthusiast kept it as 

 a memento ; but it is certain that Joe lost his cap on 

 one occasion, and returned gracefully at the head of 

 his hounds, in a straw hat borrowed for the occasion. 

 He was much worse off on another occasion, as he and 



