AYR TO DUMFRIES. 305 



GSiPflE SIL 

 h^U f© iiiPPJES, 



*' They spied a soldier -vvith a Scotch kim on his head. Some of them had 

 "been purveying abroad, and had found a vessel filled with Scotch cream : 

 bringing tlie reversion of it to their tents, some got dishfuls and some hatfuls ; 

 and the cream being now low in the vessel one fellow would have a modest 

 drink, and so lifts the krm to his mouth, but another canting it up it falls over 

 his head, and the man is lost in it ; aU the cream trickles do-wn his apparel, 

 and his head fast in the tub. This was a meiTiment to the ofB.cers, as Ohver 

 loved an innocent jest." 



Caeltle. 



Ayr Race-course — Kilkerran — Tlie Dairies of Galloway — Captain Ken- 

 nedy — Stranraer — Galloway Points — A Day at Meiklecnllocli — Ride 

 to Southwick— Mr. Stewart's Shorthorns— The Dumfries Pork Trade. 



E saw Ayr in its sunniest guise one morning, 

 as we sat on the race-course stile, and combined 

 our "silk^^ recollections of Lanercost, Philip, and the 

 other heroes of the Gold Cup, with the ^^scarlet,^^ as 

 Lord Eglinton's men on a bay, grey, and chesnut, 

 trotted past to the meet. Some Ayrshires grouped on 

 the banks of the mill-stream, as if for a ^^sun picture,^' 

 pulled us back to curds and cream, and the thoughts 

 of how on earth we were to grapple with such a sub- 

 ject as cheese. We might wander off in the spirit 

 for a time to the days when wolves j)reyed on the red 

 deer of the Grampians; when "The Returning Hugh^' 

 established the first barley mill north of the Forth, 

 and died in his bed and his yellow wig at the age of 

 112 ; when the old carrier drove his white ponies with 



2 X 



