d the animating influence of the
sunshine, and all was in readiness for a grand coursing
match on Newark Hill. The only guest who had chalked out
other sport for himself was the staunchest of anglers, Mr.
Rose; but he too was there on his _shelty_, armed with his
salmon-rod and landing-net, and attended by his humorous
squire, Hinves, and Charlie Purdie, a brother of Tom, in
those days the most celebrated fisherman of the district.
This little group of Waltonians, bound for Lord Somerville's
preserve, remained lounging about to witness the start of
the main cavalcade. Sir Walter, mounted on Sybil, was
marshalling the order of procession with a huge
hunting-whip; and among a dozen frolicsome youths and
maidens, who seemed disposed to laugh at all discipline,
appeared, each on horseback, each as eager as the youngest
sportsman in the troop, Sir Humphry Davy, Dr. Wollaston, and
the patriarch of Scottish _belles lettres_, Henry Mackenzie.
The Man of Feeling, however, was persuaded with some
difficulty to resign his steed for the present to his
faithful negro follower, and to join Lady Scott in the
sociable, until we should reach the ground of our _battue_.
Laidlaw, on a long-tailed, wiry Highlander, yclept Hoddin
Grey, which carried him nimbly and stoutly, although his
feet almost touched the ground as he sat, was the adjutant.
But the most picturesque figure was the illustrious inventor
of the safety-lamp. He had come for his favourite sport of
angling, and had been practising it successfully with Rose,
his travelling-companion, for two or three days preceding
this, but he had not prepared for coursing fields, and had
left Charlie Purdie's troop for Sir Walter's on a sudden
thought; and his fisherman's costume--a brown hat with
flexible brim, surrounded with line upon line, and
innumerable fly-hooks, jack-boots worthy of a Dutch
smuggler, and a fustian surtout dabbled with the blood of
salmon,--made a fine contrast with the smart jackets, white
cord breeches, and well-polished jockey-boots of the less
distinguished cavaliers about him. Dr. Wollaston was in
black, and, with his noble, serene dignity of countenance,
might have passed for a sporting archbishop. Mr. Mackenzie,
at this time in the seventy-sixth year of his age, with a