162 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



with whom he fell out at Thirsk races, and knocked out of time, 

 when they subsequently met, in a couple of rounds, he considers 

 his greatest coup, and dwells on that mill with the fondest 

 recollections, l^o quainter bit of character can be dropped on 

 than, when Jack's favourite ' mountain dew ' has mellowed 

 him a little, to hear him fight his battles o'er again. Mr. 

 Digby Cayley has often taken him salmon-fishing, as he 

 is an expert in all piscatorial matters ; and on one occasion, 

 when wandering by the river-side at Kelso, he was collared 

 by two keepers as a poacher. Jack submitted like a lamb 

 to her shearers, until, after a two-mile walk, his master 

 was reached, when, exclaiming * There's my master, and I 

 go no further,' he hurled them off, and put himself into 

 such a scientific attitude that they concluded, in spite of the 

 odds, to let well alone, and abandon the idea of taking him 

 to Kelso; so that his scientific attainments astonished the 

 Tweedside natives as much as his peculiar form of head-gear, 

 of which they say they have seen none like it either before or 

 since. He is a capital shot, and, with an old flint gun, holds his 

 own at all local pigeon matches ; and likes seeing a couple of 

 game-cocks settle their differences as much as he enjoyed a 

 mill himself years ago. And I shall never forget the enthusiasm 

 with which he expressed his wish to myself that his ' wife 

 Nelly' was present when we talked the subject over, with a 

 couple of red hackles, 'just to show you how she can set 

 them.' Nelly is as game as her lord and master, and, a few 

 years ago, would ride Jack's horse round en cavalier, when he 

 was not inclined for the job, and gather the hounds from their 

 different quarters. She always does up the nags after hunting — 

 latterly, I believe, assisted by her daughter, who at one time 

 delighted in nothing more than giving Tip (by Due au Dhurras) 

 a gallop, and warmly remonstrated with her father, on one 

 occasion, because he would not allow her to wear spurs. But, 

 as Jack told us a couple of years ago, * She's gettin' ower old 

 for those kind of things, you know, now, sir.' The said Tip 



