“As soon as he arrived with the rest from Midculter in the district called Lymond, he saw that the land was already half-prepared for its burden. In fields newly fenced and hedged were wedders, rams and milk-ewes, all in good order. There were oxen for the table and plough, geese in the ponds and birds in the dovecots and coneys in the warrens. They passed barns stacked with oats, wheat and barley; a sawmiller’s with cuts of oak stacked outside and new wheels leaning against their own shadows an...d silted full of October leaves.Then the cottages and outlying buildings of St Mary’s itself came in sight: the stacks of brown peat and charcoal; the forge with the air lively about it and the bell-chime of the hammer sweet above the thud of the horses. The stables, well-built rank upon rank, with covered horselines before, and a separate well. The bake-house, with its peel and tubs and tables and barrels of flour. The brewery, the warm malt-smell thick on the air, with the shining wortstands glimpsed through the windows, and the sweating five-gallon barrels of ale.He saw the riding-school, and beyond it where the tiltyard had been laid out, and the butts and the practice ground for small and heavy arms shooting.MoreLessRead More Read Less
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