80 FIELD AND FERN. 



breeders of the present day would fall back on the 

 Apple Cross habit. 



A ride of three or four miles from Dingwall 

 brought us into the very heart of the crofters of the 

 Black Isle. " Hae ye ony Gaelic?" was the eternal 

 response when we asked them anything touching 

 their cattle and crops ; but in some instances it was- 

 only their way of " moving the previous question." 

 A girl went so far as to inform us that the stirks 

 she had in charge were "just Geordie and Cornoch ;" 

 and one old man seemed grateful enough in Scotch, 

 when we got off and helped to stir a very large boul- 

 der which was bothering him. He sealed his thanks 

 by the tender of his snuff-mull, which we declined, as- 

 we had done the Sunday before, when it was handed 

 as usual round the church gallery. To it and 

 toddy we have been alike callous. Ben Wyvis bodes 

 no good in the distance ; and the caw of the rooks, 

 which we seemed to have wholly lost since they came 

 sailing home from every corner of Caithness to Bar- 

 rock, is heard on our right above the ruined tower of 

 Kilcoy. Mr. Murray farms there, and the sight of 

 some capital young bullocks for their months con- 

 firmed what we had heard that he always stands 

 high in the local-cattle classes, along with Major 

 Wardlaw and Mr. Cameron, of Balinakyle. A few 

 miles further, and we pass a sort of old white 

 chateau, with its gate-posts shrunk from the wall ; 

 and then from the trim beechen avenues of Belma- 

 duthy, which seems the very garden of the isle, we 



