50 FIELD AND FERN. 



wool commands a higher price than the Caithness in 

 the auction-room, and Sir George's gained a gold 

 medal at the Great Exhibition of '62. His pure 

 Leicester flock numbers about eight score, and have 

 the run of the fine pasture land round the Tower. 

 The waves beat up to the base of this massive keep, 

 which on one side breaks the outline of Sinclair's 

 Bay, and on the other looks out on choice vineries, 

 and green-houses, rich ribbon borders, and two an- 

 cient dovecotes with acacias twining round them, and 

 prize rams busy with "their little white ivories 5 ' below. 

 About fifty shearlings were sold last year at five 

 guineas each, and several of them went into Inver- 

 ness-shire and Aberdeenshire. In '63 a lot of twenty 

 departed for Edinburgh, and fetched the second 

 highest average at its first tup sale. With the ex- 

 ception of Mr. Brown, of Watten, there is no other 

 Leicester breeder in the county, and between them 

 and a few arrivals from the Edinburgh and Kelso 

 ram sales the ewes of Caithness find partners enow. 



The mail ride of the year before, from Wick to 

 Golspie, had been novel in its way. In this era of 

 " Stokers and Pokers/' and Post-office vans pierced 

 inside with a hundred labelled holes and armed out- 

 side with a cunning catch-net, it was a relief to re- 

 new one's youth, and sit behind with the- guard. 

 He pitched out his bags with admirable precision ; 

 he caught up others from the point of the official- 

 forked stick; he dispensed his nods and wreathed 

 smiles to " nearly seventy miles of females," until it 



