254 FIELD AND FERN. 



Mrs. Blair manages the whole of her son Mr. 

 Douglas Allen's estate, and keeps 160 acres in her own 

 hand round Inchmartine. Wet or dry, summer or 

 winter, she never omits her two o'clock round to her 

 poultry yards with two baskets of rissoles. These 

 are called oatmeal by courtesy ; but a number of 

 ingredients buckwheat, linseed, spice, and pimento 

 are all veiled under that title. Chamberlain and 

 Penn's food is used largely, and so is aromatic condi- 

 ment ; and old ale, bread, potato, chicken, and other 

 dainties have got into that wonderful bowl which is 

 devoted to the clearings of the dining-room. Wheat, 

 barley and Indian corn are the staple of the out and 

 in- door relief, which the girl and the man who act 

 as sub-overseers under " Annie" the head woman, 

 deal out twice a-day. They have full employment, 

 as there are sometimes fifteen hundred head of fowls 

 of all kinds and in all stages. The setting hens have 

 to be duly lifted off their eggs, and put out for half- 

 an-hour to exercise ; and " the sad vicissitude of 

 things,'' from a cock catching cold to the chances of 

 egg-roasting in the eccalobion, demands the most 

 careful surveillance. 



Broom, a first-prize silver grey, is as good as a 

 sentinel at the front door, and his taps at the window 

 a few minutes before two o'clock became loud and 

 frequent. He is entitled to the most unbounded 

 licence and consideration, as Sydenham, Liverpool, 

 Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth, and Paris have all show- 

 ered their highest honours in turn on that now hoary 



