“I’ll go quietly away and eat it,” she said to herself, “behind the water-butt.”
But the other fowls spied her.
“Why, she’s got a whole polonie!” cried one.
“The impudence of the brazen thing!” cried another.
“A whole polonie! a whole polonie!” was now the chorus, and the chase became general. Round and round the great stone wall flew the cochin, but she was finally caught and thrashed and deprived of that polonie. But which hen was to have it? Oh! every hen, and all the four cocks wanted it.
A more amusing scene I never witnessed at a farmyard. It was like an exciting game of football on the old Rugby system, and at one time, while the game was still going on, I counted three pairs of hens and one pair of Dorking cocks engaged in deadly combat, and all about that polonie. But sly old Bob watched his chance. He was not going to lose his dinner if he could help it. He went round and lay flat down behind the well, and waited. Presently the battle raged in that direction, when suddenly, with one glorious spring, Bob flung himself into the midst of the conflict. The fowls scattered and fluttered and fled, and flew in all directions, and next minute the great Newfoundland, wagging his saucy tail and laughing with his eyes, was enjoying his polonie as he lay at my feet.
Returning homewards, instead of passing the Pitcox lodge-gate, we boldly enter it; I cannot help feeling that I am guilty of trespass. However, we immediately find ourselves in a great rolling park, with delightful sylvan scenery on every side, with a river—the winding Papana—meandering through the midst of the glen far down beneath and to the right.
After a drive of about a mile we descend by a winding road into this glen, and cross the river by a fine bridge. Then going on and on, we enter the archway, and presently are in front of the mansion house of Biel itself. It is a grand old place, a house of solid masonry, a house of square and octangular towers, long and low and strong.
It is the seat of a branch of the Hamilton ilk. Miss Hamilton was not then at home.
“No, the lady is not at home at present, sir,” a baker who was driving a cart informed me, “but it would have been all one, sir. Every one is welcome to look at the place and grounds, and she would have been glad to see you.”