While in quarters at St. Denis, Lord Saltoun, Lord William Lennox, Sim Fairfield, and one or two more, when they got to their billets in an hotel one night, found all their beds occupied. A French cavalry regiment had ridden up, and the officers had taken possession of every bedroom and locked themselves in. What was to be done? The Britishers were by no means disposed to submit tamely to this unceremonious invasion. They held a council of war. A bright idea suggested itself to Lord Saltoun, he propounded it to his comrades; it met with their enthusiastic approval, and they forthwith proceeded to carry it into execution. First, the waiter and ostler were bribed to secrecy. Then the conspirators went softly to work and changed all the boots which stood outside each door. When this was done, Sim Fairfield, who could play any instrument from a Jew’s harp to a trombone, got hold of a trumpet and sounded the French “Boot and Saddle.” In an instant every Frenchman was out of bed—doors were opened, boots eagerly snatched, and then—the band began to play! Never was there heard such scrambling and swearing: the air reeked with blasphemy. Men with large feet had got hold of small boots, men with small feet found themselves lost in “jacks” a world too wide for their shrunk shanks. Some tugged and cursed, others stumbled and swore, till they all got outside and finally galloped off. Then Lord Saltoun and his brother-plotters quickly took possession of the vacant beds, barricaded their doors, and slept the sleep of the just.
Another great Scottish foxhunter was brought to my mind not long since when I was skirting the coast along the Sound of Kilbrannan. About four miles from Campbeltown, in the Mull of Kintire, I passed the beautiful bay of Saddell, the graceful sweep of which attracted my attention, and as I let my eye wander upwards over the strip of creamy white beach I was struck by the singular charm of the landscape. Right up into the heart of the wooded hillside runs a lovely glen—in the foreground among its trim lawns, stands Saddell House; close by are the ruins of a grim old castle-keep, and one can trace the venerable avenue of stately beeches which leads to the ancient Abbey, where the old monks of Saddell enjoyed themselves six hundred years ago. It is a place which has a peculiar interest for sportsmen, for it was the home of John Campbell of Saddell, one of the greatest foxhunters of his day, whose hunting songs have won for him in Scotland a reputation as great as that of Whyte Melville or Egerton Warburton in England. A man, too, who could not only write good songs, but sing them as no one else could.
“Johnny” Campbell was a welter-weight, scaling something like sixteen stone, yet he was always in the first flight. He chose his horses more for strength than appearance, and was seldom seen on one over fifteen hands, but they were all short-legged, well-bred, steady and strong. He thought a good deal more of the safety of his horses than of his own. When he was at Melton Mowbray in 1832 English foxhunters looked upon him as the maddest of Scotchmen, because, in trying to save his horses, he would jump into the hedges instead of over them, quite regardless of the consequences to himself; for, like Assheton Smith, the Laird of Saddell did not mind how many falls he got. He was a tall, fine, handsome man, and when dressed at night in his scarlet coat with green facings and buff breeches (the uniform of the Buccleuch Hunt), his equal would have been hard to find in the three kingdoms.
It is not often that the qualities of poet, singer, bon vivant and sportsman are found combined in one personality as they were in “Johnny” Campbell, and, consequently, it is not surprising that the Laird of Saddell was immensely popular. Both in England and Scotland he was voted the best of good fellows, and was the life and soul of the convivial parties to which every host was eager to invite him. He would sometimes astonish and delight the company by improvising a song, setting it to an air and singing it the same evening. One memorable feat of this kind he achieved when he was a guest at Rossie Priory, the seat of Lord Kinnaird, in Perthshire, in 1831. They had had a famous run that morning with Mr. Dalzell’s hounds, and, taking that for his theme, he rattled off a parody of “We have been friends together.” Beginning with “We have seen a run together,” he described the run throughout, and concluded with:
“By Auchter House we hied him
Still haunted by their cry;
Till in Belmont Park we spied him,
When we knew that he must die.
Through the hedge he made one double,
As his sinking soul did droop;