From thy Cock, Brig Alergue, down the river bed's way,
How freely the trout sport and splash in the spray!
What food more delicious-what sauce can refine
The taste of the red fish ta'en fresh from the line,
On the banks of the Moneymusk's meadow-bound Tees,
Where the ruin still points to the ancient Culdees?†
Though no vestige remains of monasticon rust,
Save the stones of Kildrummy, now crumbling to dust,
Runs the forty-mile stream of the gravelly Don,§
Which old Walton ne'er saw, or he'd doated upon :
Gang thither, ye southerns, who love the gude sport,
And I'll promise ye trout that would honour the court.||

THE MUCKLE HART OF Benmore.

(A HIGHLAND lay of noble sport.)

Come, Donald, mon, fling round your plaid,
And sling your bag beside ye :

O'er mony a Highland steep and glade
The hind's foot-track shall guide thee.

Where Athol's pathless hills extend,
Enrich'd with blooming heather,
And rock and gorge and torrent blend,
We'll chase the stag togither.

Here's trusty, bold, untiring Bran-
Nae four-foot ever foil'd him-

A better dog, of high-bred clan,

The skin's nae hair'd that coil'd him.

"A feckless errand!" Say not so,
Old Donald: you'll be greeting
My rifle's crack, when down the broe
The noble deer is fleeting.

* Trout of about a pound weight, the flesh of which is red. The inhabitants call them char; but they are not so; they are unshapely in appearance, but delicious eating.

+ The ancient monastery of the Culdees was situated on this spot. The records of its institution and destruction are, I believe, very scanty.

Kildrummy's ruined towers, near the old military road.

§ The Don rises from the Cock Brig to Kildrummy, and runs a distance of forty miles, through rich banks and over a gravelly bed.

The trout is here very plentiful, and of unusual size for Highland fish. is also excellent sport to be had in shooting grouse and ptarmigan.

There

At break of day again we start
The magic hind to race,

And track at length the noble hart,
And now begins the chase.

Old Donald's wiry form was bent
Upon a spot of ground;

And Bran

good dog!-took up the scent From where the print was found.

THE STAG IN NORTHAMPTONSHIRE;

OR,

A DAY WITH THE PYTCHLEY.

BY SCRIBble.

"Well, Gibbs, what have you made of your Cornwall and Gretna Green shares-500 of them? You must have turned an honest penny by this time."

The inquiry was made by a heavy-looking, respectable man, in a brown coat and drab breeches and gaiters, and, by the tone of his voice, one who had not speculated in railway shares.

Oh, about £750," said Gibbs; "so I'm going down by the Birmingham train to look at the Pytchley to-morrow; I shall be back again on Monday. You know Smith, don't you?-George Smith, a son of old Smith the dyer, in Lothbury: well, he's got a little place down in Northamptonshire. I'm sure he'll be glad to see me, so I mean to take him by surprise. I'm going to try my new horse. How astonished he will be to see me! He's a regular clipper, I can tell you; I gave a lot of money for him last week."

"But do you mean to stop at Smith's? Why, if he's only got a little place, perhaps he won't have room for you.' "Oh, he's sure to have room for me. Besides, you know they always call those hunting-boxes little places: it's a good large house, I'll be bound to say; and I shall be off directly. I say, this is rather better than quill-driving at old Hookem's, isn't it? How the old governor will stare, when he knows what I've been doing !"

Tomkins was a matter-of-fact sort of person; so Gibbs wasted no more time in trying to persuade him that little places in sporting countries meant big ones, nor that a sportsman could be made in a day out of a lawyer's clerk, like a large fortune out of nothing; so off he went in a hack cab to the Birmingham railway terminus, where his new purchase was waiting patiently in a box to go down with his owner to the all-unconscious Smith.

James Gibbs had been a lawyer's articled clerk. £100 per annum was his income, screwed with difficulty out of his father, an apothecary, with a small country practice and a large family. But James was not to be daunted by difficulties; and, though his father's "rough and ready" was the only horse he had ever been on, still he was a sportsman in theory, and his highest ambition had always been to find himself the owner of a horse and a scarlet coat. His life in London at old Hookem's had not quite qualified him for that of a country gentleman; and he was a better judge of cigars and hot brandy-and-water, imitation pins, mosaic chains, and cheap tie warehouses in the city, than the powers of a horse across country, or the

I

safest place in a Northamptonshire bullfinch. However, railways are the El Dorado of lawyers' clerks; and, as they had certainly given our hero the opportunity of indulging his taste in horseflesh, it is rather hard to expect that they should not have given him the requisite knowledge for exercising it. A small portmanteau was all his luggage-quite enough, too, for Saturday and Sunday; it contained, amongst other things, a scarlet coat, a pair of leathers, and a pair of top-boots. Whether he went to Gobby and Macdonald, or to Moses and Son and a ready-made shoe-shop, is nothing to anybody: James had an economy in these matters: there they were; and, barring his wind and his mouth, a most respectable-looking animal, in plaid clothing, in a horse-box behind him.

The three hours which were to carry him to Smith's were not without their pleasures to Mr. Gibbs. He talked largely and learnedly to a gentlemanly-looking man in a white neckcloth and full suit of badly-made black, about the Pytchley, the Quorn, the Oakley, and many other matters which he did not understand: his natural history upon foxes, too, quite opened the eyes of a middle-aged gentlewoman in the corner of the carriage. I hope James will be forgiven for the lies he told on that journey, for they followed one another in quick succession; and nothing but the arrival of a red-nosed grazier, in a green cut-away and metal buttons, with drab breeches and mahogany tops, at Wolverton, prevented Mr. Gibbs from inventing an impossible run over an impracticable country, in a place he had never been near, on a horse that had never been foaled. The red-nosed man was too dangerous an object for James to run a sporting tilt with; so having satisfied himself that he was an object of admiration to the parson and the middle-aged gentlewoman, he betook himself to a nap, after a glass of sherry and a very hard biscuit at Wolverton.

Little knew the dyer's son what awaited him upon his return home! His house and establishment was a little one, and he had spoken the truth in so describing it: its only spare room-a very spare onewas occupied by a retired tradesman, a relation of Smith's. He liked quiet and retirement, and was taking a gentle airing with his nephew upon one of his horses. Smith was a bachelor, and loved hunting in a quiet way about five days a fortnight, which, with his two useful horses, he managed very successfully. He liked quiet and respectability, too, instead of cigars and gin-punch till two o'clock in the morning; and he had a right to have his own way, because he had made a small fortune by steady application to his father's business. Gibbs was therefore not the man for him, nor he for Gibbs.

About four o'clock, then, on Friday afternoon, in the early part of November (Gibbs opened the season in good time), self-invited, or relying upon a good-natured but distantly-expressed hope on the part of Smith, James Gibbs, Esq., stepped out of the train at Weedon, and mounted his horse. His appearance that day, he flattered himself, could only be outdone by what he should seem on the morrow: a black velveteen shooting-jacket with sporting buttons, a pair of white cord trousers without straps, a blue plush waistcoat, and a most elaborate satin neckcloth and pin, completed the man. His horse, unaccustomed to railway travelling, was not so neat as his master: