158 



FIELD AND FERN. 



and the remedy to be found in rest, and not in stimu- 

 lating manures. The view from the house, a tasteful 

 building in the Elizabethan style, is one of the finest 

 in Aberdeenshire. In the foreground you catch a 

 glimpse of the loch of Skene, and rising just behind 

 or as distant outposts are the Hill of Fair Corrie, 

 of the Birds, Stone of the Mountain, The Fairies' 

 Hill, where, in obedience to the Hogg codicil, a bonfire 

 blazes on the eve of May Day, the Cairn of the Eagle, 

 and the Mountain of the Boat. Thehuge figure of Mor- 

 ven looms against the Western sky ; and Ben Avon, 

 which guards the southern approaches to Banffshire, 

 can be seen best from the farm of Drurnstone, where 

 the renowned laird of Drum sat down and made his 

 will ere he strode, claymore in hand, to his doom at 

 the Battle of Harlaw. 



The Easter Skene herd is not so numerous as the 

 Tillyfour, but it has held its own right well in the 

 show-yards. It was first in the cow class at Aber- 

 deen, in 1853, with Queen of Scots, beating Lord 

 Southesk's Dora and ten others ; and also headed 

 the yearling bull class the same year with E/hoderick 

 Dhu (89). Another of its bulls, Alaster the Second, 

 beat Fox Maule (305) on the same ground, and the 

 only occasion that he was ever beaten. Royal Scot 

 also took a silver medal there; and the ox with 

 which William M'Combie gained the first prize, the 

 last time that the Highland Society met at Glasgow, 

 was born and bred in these pastures. 



The pilgrim from Aberdeen to Tillyfour must 



