70 FIELD AND FERN. 



only proximus intervallo to those of 29st. andSOst. 

 clean, which are credited at Dunrobin to Mr. Holford 

 and the late Lord Ellesmere. The venison house, 

 which resembles a small chapel at first sight, is a most 

 happy combination of thorough draughts, Welsh 

 slate, and polished pine, and has space for five deer 

 and sixty-two quarters on its pulleys and side-hooks. 

 The Duchesses dairy is across the road, in the glade 

 beneath the castle. The bunch of heather in the 

 grate, and Landseer's Milkmaid over the chimney- 

 piece of the sitting-room, are in quiet keeping with 

 the white delf-bowls, the butter-pats floating leisurely 

 round the water-lily fountain, and the rotatory oak- 

 churn with its burnished brass hoops. A flight of 

 rustic steps, thick with honeysuckle, leads to a bal- 

 cony in the steading. There are stalls below for 

 twelve half-Ayrshires, with what look like wine-bins 

 at one side for their calves, and a still more sugges- 

 tive milk-hoist for the visitors. Ribbon-borders 

 with the pale pink saponarium, the white nemophylia, 

 the blue salvia, gardener's garter, and the never- 

 failing variegated mint, run coyly from the castle 

 gardens to the sea. Fuchsias, hollyhocks, and dwarf 

 dahlias blend with " the red, red rose" and the hardy 

 spray-sprinkled green of the buckthorn ; and we hail 

 the presence among them of M'Alister the duke's 

 piper, not for his family skill, which falls dead on 

 English ears, but because he is the only Highlander, 

 save two, that we have met in full costume north of 

 Inverness. 



