CANNOBIE TO KENSINGTON. 387 



could command ten guineas for her prize pens of 

 Rouens^ from such judges as Mrs. Ferguson Blair 

 and Mr. Gibson of Woolmet, and as much for her 

 Aylesburys ; but as James says, " We never fashed 

 the turkeys/^ Both Leicester and Lincoln rams were 

 used to the Cheviot ewes, and the latter answered 

 well. Half-breds abound all the way from Langholm, 

 but they are not bred on *^ the flying stock^^ or cast 

 Cheviot ewe principle, and '- middle" Cheviot lambs 

 are bought to keep up the ewe stock. James often 

 tells, in connexion with these purchases, of the 

 astonished look of a Southron visitor, who heard 

 him say to his mistress, " If nine score lambs be o^er 

 mony, we can just shoot a few on ■'em.''^ Things go 

 on under the management of Mr. James Bell (who 

 spends his time between Liverpool and Cannobie) quite 

 in the good old way. It is a six-course rotation, 

 oats, turnips, oats sown down to pasture, and three 

 years' grass, and now fully 100 pigs are fed off each 

 year. 



From Cannobie we cast back once more past Gil- 

 nockie and one or two more Border towers, and by 

 rather a dreary cross route to Ecclefechan, that won- 

 derful little town which prides itself on its manners, 

 and requests all those who are short of that article to 

 come for '' half a Saturday'^ when soap-suds are rife. 

 It has always been impressed on our minds from 

 Sylvaniis Urban's story of the lady near there, who 

 used to ride round and rqund her barn on a sheltie as 

 she read novels, and declare that it was the only 



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