MANSE OF FYVIE 



owners. Nevertheless it remains almost without 

 a rival as an example of the peculiar Scottish 

 style. 



So sweetly the woods and fields smile under the 

 fleecy clouds, so blue are the hill-crests and so 

 sparkling the streams, that we cannot grudge the 

 hours as the leisurely "local" wends its way from 

 Aberdeen on this perfect summer day. In due time 

 we alight (in literature people do not "get out" of 

 trains and carriages, they " alight") on the platform of 

 Fyvie station. There is a choice of ways thence to our 

 destination the legitimate one by the high road, 

 but that has been robbed of much of its charm by 

 the interminable park wall which Lord Leith of 

 Fyvie recently caused to be built for the relief of 

 the unemployed ; so we take the other, illegitimate 

 perhaps, to mere wayfarers as we are, but 

 Scottish landowners are never illiberal in the matter 

 of trespass. Entering the "policies" of Fyvie at the 

 lodge gate, a delightful woodland walk leads across 

 the little river, under the walls of the castle and 

 out along the margin of a lake till we reach the open 

 country again. 



Below us on the right is the bridge of Sleugh 

 where Annie of Tifty Mill 1 parted for ever with her 

 lover a tragedy commemorated in a ballad which 

 became dearer, perhaps, than any other to Aberdeen- 

 shire people. It tells how pretty Agnes, daughter 



1 Her baptismal name \vas Agnes, but she always appears as Nannie or Annie 

 in the various versions of the ballad. 



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