386 FIELD AND EERX. 



years about the place, and " took Miss Rebecca in 

 tow" wlien her father died, was in the road listening 

 to the rambling recital of a Cumberland cart-sire man 

 — how " we worn't beaten but we wor cheateu" in 

 the ring at Carlisle — and then dismissing him in our 

 favour, with the comforting but rather general as- 

 surance that his horse was "a weeli-comed ^un." 

 He quite waked up when, we reminded him of his 

 dear old mistresses times, and asked after the mares 

 which had such choice foals by Ravenhill and British 

 Yeoman. We remembered how she would be about 

 everywhere with her blue sun-bonnet, and with her 

 6g» basket on her arm, now snipping off the dead 

 roses in her dainty flower-garden, now sallying into 

 the pastures to have a look at the last fall of half- 

 bred lambs, or '' a word with James" at the head of 

 the turnip-hoers, and then joining her sister Isabella 

 at their own girls^ school, which many a village lass 

 has had good reason to bless. 



There never was a more spirited disciple of Ceres 

 and Christian Curwen, but her heart lay more in the 

 farmyard than the arable land. Her small pure 

 Y/hites and middles, with their strong dash of 

 Brandsby blood, used to go off ten in a cart, three 

 times in the season, to the Annan pig market. She 

 crossed her Ayrshires Avith shorthorns, and made 

 Dunlop cheese. The prize rosettes were to be 

 found on her pens of Dorkings, Spanish, Golden 

 Spangles, Bramah Pootras, and Hamburghs at Edin- 

 burgh, Glasgow, Manchester, and Liverpool; she 



