SITTYTON TO ABERDEEN. 159 



keep two great directions, positive and negative, in 

 his head firstly, change your train at Kintore ; and 

 secondly, don't get out at Tillyfourie station, as scores 

 have done before you. That "i. e" is anything but de- 

 monstrative in this case. Cluny Castle, which is said to 

 be the finest granite building in Britain, the woods 

 of Monymusk and Fetternear, with Ben-a-Chie tow- 

 ering behind them, are all pleasant landmarks in the 

 twenty-three miles ; and the fertile vale of Alford 

 just opens upon you, and gives a bright foretaste of 

 the Braes of Mar, as you leave the train at White- 

 house. Tilly four is only three miles from this point, 

 but the outlying farms are more easily reached 

 through Alford. The wind was not in the East, and 

 therefore we were promised a dry day at last, and a 

 really fine sight of the vale, which, save Ellon and 

 Tarves, is said to carry bullocks to a greater size than 

 any in the North. Its barley is in especially high favour 

 with brewers and distillers. It suits turnips, both 

 Aberdeen yellows, purple tops, and swedes, remark- 

 ably well; but there are no mangels. 



Stewart's Inn, to which grouse-shooters and tourists 

 resort in the season, and find no (f puree of horse- 

 beans/' but good hare- soup awaiting the.m, was our 

 first halt. The entrance-hall is hung about, not with 

 " pikes and guns and bows," but with enormous fox- 

 skins ; and it is some consolation, when one thinks 

 of that terrible sacrifice of good fox-flesh, that the land- 

 lord sends South all he can get out alive from the hills, 

 and that ten brace, " with black four inches up the 



