MYSTIFICATIONS 
 
 BY CLEMENTINA STIRLING GRAHAM. 
 
 Fourth Edition. 
 
 Health to the auld wife, and weel mat she be, 
 That busks her fause rock wi' the lint o' the lie, 
 Whirling her spindle and twisting the twine, 
 Wynds aye the richt pirn into the richt line. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 
 EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS. 
 1869. 
 
 \.AU rights reserved.]
 
 "DA 
 
 wa 
 
 % 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Contmtjs. 
 
 PREFACE, 
 
 vii 
 
 
 DEDICATION, 
 
 xvii 
 
 
 ORIGINAL DEDICATION, . 
 
 xix 
 
 
 VISIT TO MR. JEFFREY, . 
 
 1 
 
 
 SOIREE AT MR. EUSSELL'S, 
 
 15 
 
 
 CRAIGIE, 
 
 23 
 
 
 TULLIALLAN, 
 
 41 
 
 
 EAITH, 
 
 49 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 DINNER PARTY AT LORD GILLIES'S, 
 
 58 
 
 
 EVENING AT MRS. BRUCE'S, . 
 
 67 
 
 
 THE FRENCH GOVERNESS, 
 
 72 
 
 
 THE FUTURE, .... 
 
 75 

 
 VI 
 
 CTontrata. LOVE LETTER TO THE HEIRESS OF 
 
 PlTLYAL, . . . . 76 
 
 LETTER TO MRS. GILLIES FROM THE 
 
 LADY PITLYAL, . . . 80 
 THE BIRKIE o' BONNIE DUNDEE, . 85 
 
 87 
 
 91 
 
 94 
 
 94 
 
 95 
 
 96 
 
 102 
 
 106 
 
 MEG MATTHEW, . . 
 JOHN FRASER, . . 
 DAVID MURRAY, . . 
 THE CADGER, .. 
 THE BEGGAR, .. 
 THE DOGS, 
 
 JOHN AND FANNY FRASER, 
 Miss MENIE TROTTER, . 
 
 WHITE is THE SNOWFLAKE, 
 
 116
 
 THESE delightful Mystifications^ which 
 were privately printed four years ago, 
 have been so much sought after in this 
 country and in America, that I have pre- 
 vailed not without difficulty on Miss 
 Graham to let the public, as well as her 
 friends, enjoy them. 
 
 " Those who knew the best of Edin- 
 burgh society eight-and-thirty years ago 
 and when was there ever a better than 
 that best ? must remember the persona- 
 tions of an old Scottish gentlewoman by 
 Miss Stirling Graham, one of which, 
 when Lord Jeffrey was victimized, was 
 famous enough to find its way into Black- 
 wood, but in an incorrect form." 
 
 " Miss Graham's friends have for years 
 urged her to print for them her notes of
 
 Vlll 
 
 these pleasant records of the harmless and 
 heart-easing mirth of bygone times ; to 
 this she has at last assented, and the 
 result is this entertaining, curious, and 
 beautiful little quarto, in which her friends 
 will recognise the strong understanding 
 and goodness, the wit and invention, the 
 fine humour of the much-loved and warm- 
 hearted representative of Viscount Dundee 
 the terrible Clavers. 1 They will recall 
 that blithe and winning face, sagacious 
 
 1 "DEAR DR. BROWN, In compliance with your re- 
 quest, I send you my genealogy in connexion with 
 Claverhouse the same who was killed at Killie- 
 crankie. John Graham of Claverhouse married the 
 Honourable Jean Cochrane, daughter of William Lord 
 Cochrane, eldest son of the first Earl of Dundonald. 
 Their only son, an infant, died December 1689. David 
 Graham, his brother, fought at Killiecrankie, and was 
 outlawed in 1690 died without issue when the re- 
 presentation of the family devolved on his cousin, 
 David Graham of Duntrune. Alexander Graham of 
 Duntrune died, 1782 ; and on the demise of his last 
 surviving son, Alexander, in 1804, the property was 
 inherited equally by his four surviving sisters, Anne, 
 Amelia, Clementina, and Alison. Amelia was my 
 mother. 
 
 "Yours ever, 
 
 " CLEM. STIRLING GRAHAM. 
 "DUNTRUNE, 14(A. November 1860."
 
 J relax*. 
 
 and sincere, that kindly, cheery voice, that 
 rich and quiet laugh, that mingled sense 
 and sensibility, which met, and still, to 
 our happiness, meet in her, who, with all 
 her gifts and keen perception of the odd, 
 and power of embodying it, never gratified 
 her consciousness of these powers, or ever 
 played 
 
 ' Her quips and cranks and wanton wiles ' 
 so as to give pain to any human being. 
 
 " And are we not all the better for this 
 pleasantry ? so womanly, so genial, so 
 rich, and so without a sting, such a true 
 diversion, with none of the sin of effort or 
 of mere cleverness; it takes us into the 
 midst of the strong-brained and strong- 
 hearted men and women of that time; 
 what an atmosphere of sense, good-breed- 
 ing, and couthiness ! And then the Scotch ! 
 blossoming out everywhere as blithe, ex- 
 pressive, and unexpected as a gowan or 
 sweet-briar rose. Besides the deeper and 
 general interest of these Mystifications, in 
 their giving, as far as I know, unique 
 specimens of true personation distinct 
 from acting I think it a national good
 
 preface. to let OUT youngsters read, and, as it were, 
 hear the language which our Scottish 
 gentry and judges and men of letters 
 spoke not long ago, that language in 
 which what is best of Kobert Burns may 
 if we cease to know and use it ere 
 long lie buried. Was there ever any- 
 thing so good said of a stiff clay, as 
 that it ' girns (grins) a' simmer, and greets 
 (weeps) a' winter' ?" 1 
 
 When we read over the names we find 
 here, we see the men, we hear them, and 
 feel their living power. There is Lord 
 Newton, huge in body and in mind, cap- 
 able of any mental and social effort, full 
 of hard reason. William Clerk, only less 
 witty and odd than his great Swiftian 
 brother, Lord Eldin. Lord Rutherfurd, 
 then young, but rejoicing, as only a strong 
 man does, to run his race, with those 
 great, burning, commanding eyes, and 
 that noble head. Lord Gillies, every 
 inch a man and a judge strong, clear, 
 prompt, inevitable, with a tenderness and 
 concentration of heart that only such men 
 
 1 Horos Subsecivce, Second Series, 1861, p. 328.
 
 can have and give. I remember well his 
 keen, shrewd, handsome, authoritative 
 face, his shapely, well-knit legs in his 
 Hessian boots. 
 
 There is Harry, afterwards Lord Cock- 
 burn, with those wonderful eyes, melan- 
 choly and lonely, brown, clear, and deep 
 as a muirland tarn, sparkling at times as 
 if an unseen sun shone on them, or oftener 
 as if a star of their own twinkled from 
 out their depths ; but their habitual ex- 
 pression pensive to melancholy: what 
 nature and fun and pathos ! what a voice, 
 what homely power ! and his long country 
 stride and his black gaiters, as of a country 
 minister his leisurely flow of soul, rippling 
 but strong, singing a quiet tune to himself, 
 and turning everything to his humour, 
 as native, as inimitable, as unmade and 
 exquisite as a roadside flower or spring. 1 
 
 1 It would be endless to give instances of his pecu- 
 liar humour. It was mild in tone, and didn't explode 
 so much as expand ; but for quiet and intense exaggera- 
 tion I don't know anything to equal it. We all re- 
 member his "Edinburgh is as quiet as the grave, or 
 even Peebles." One day, coming down the Mound 
 from Court, about five P.M., a friend met him, and said, 
 " You 're looking tired : have you been all this time in
 
 x 
 
 And there is Jeffrey, whom flattery, suc- 
 cess, and himself cannot spoil, or taint 
 that sweet, generous nature keen, instant, 
 unsparing and true as a rapier ; the most 
 painstaking and honest-working of all 
 clever men ; such eyes ! and that mouth, 
 made to speak to and bewitch women 
 mobile and firm, arch and kind, with a 
 beautiful procacity or petulance about it, 
 that you would not like absent in him, or 
 present in any one else. Michael Angelo 
 Taylor, the conjunction of whose names 
 is glory and peculiarity enough. John 
 Archibald Murray, handsome, courtly, 
 bountiful ; strong and full of courage 
 when put to it, and on occasion not to 
 be trifled with. Count Flahault, bright, 
 gallant, and galant, proud of his English, 
 prouder of his whist. It is said that when 
 in Edinburgh about this time, the Count 
 having beaten a famous whist-player, and 
 being asked by him with quasi nonchal- 
 ance and & propos of his having been one 
 
 Court?" "Yes," he said querulously; "it was that 
 man - ." " Did he take up your time at that rate ?" 
 " Time ! he exhausted Time, and encroached on 
 Eternity."
 
 x 
 
 of Napoleon's aides-de-camp, " How did 
 Bonaparte look after the battle of Water- 
 loo ?" replied, " Just as you do, sir." 
 
 And moving about, the greatest and 
 naturallest of them all, like a Newfound- 
 land dog or his own Maida among his 
 fellows, Sir Walter, the healthiest and 
 manliest of our men of letters frank, 
 open, and full of work as the day ; with 
 that homely, burly frame, that shrewd, 
 pawky face, with its grey eyes and heavy 
 eyebrows, its tall, tower-like skull (he 
 used to say his hat was small, but then 
 he filled it !) eyes, when at rest heavy, 
 filled with latent genius and story, " like 
 music slumbering on its instrument;" 
 when awake and lighted from within, how 
 alive, how full of fun, making his rich 
 voice and rich laugh all the richer ! He 
 was then at his zenith ; he was after that 
 to go down in that lamentable fight 
 fighting as few men ever did against such 
 odds ruined as such a man could only 
 be, by himself; by his own romantic, 
 fatal weaknesses and strengths ; we have 
 no nobler piece of virtue in the old
 
 Greek sense of manliness, than in his 
 leading on alone his forlorn hope, stick- 
 ing to his colours to the last, and giving 
 in only when the brain, his weapon, 
 gave way and failed. I remember him 
 about that time : he used to walk up 
 and down Princes Street, as we boys were 
 coming from the High School, generally 
 with some friend, and every now and then 
 he stopped, and resting his lame leg 
 against his stick, laughed right out at 
 some joke of his friend's or his own : he 
 said a good laugh was worth standing for, 
 and besides required it for its completion. 
 How we rejoiced when we took off our 
 bonnets, to get a smile and a nod from 
 him, thinking him as great as Julius Caesar 
 or Philopoemen, Hector or Agricola, any 
 day. I can fancy I see and hear him as 
 he bends down to "Mrs. Arbuthnott of 
 Balwylie," and says, with his rich burr 
 rolling in his mouth, and in her ear 
 "Awa! awa! the deil's ower grit wi' 
 you." 1 
 
 1 The following account of Scott's impressions of this 
 performance is taken from one of his Journals :
 
 XV 
 
 And the women of these times, how 
 worthy how, in scientific phrase, com- 
 plementary of the men ! meeting them 
 in all common interests half way, neither 
 more nor less, their companions, well 
 read, well bred, free yet refined, full of 
 spirit and sense with a strong organ of 
 adhesiveness, as our friends the phreno- 
 
 " March 1. Went to my Lord Gillies's to dinner, 
 and witnessed a singular exhibition of personification. 
 Miss Stirling Graham, a lady of the family from which 
 Clavers was descended, looks like thirty years old, and 
 has a face of the Scottish cast, with good expression, 
 in point of good sense and good humour. Her conver- 
 sation, so far as I have had the advantage of hearing 
 it, is shrewd and sensible, but no ways brilliant. She 
 dined with us, went off as to the play, and returned 
 in the character of an old Scottish lady. Her dress 
 and behaviour were admirable, and the conversation 
 unique. I was in the secret, of course, did my best to 
 keep up the ball, but she cut me out of all feather. The 
 prosing account she gave of her son the antiquary, who 
 found an auld wig in a slate quarry, was extremely 
 ludicrous, and she puzzled the Professor of Agriculture 
 with a merciless account of the succession of the crops 
 in the parks around her old mansion-house. No person 
 to whom the secret was not intrusted had the least 
 guess of an impostor, except one shrewd young lady 
 present, who observed the hand narrowly, and saw it 
 was plumper than the age of the lady seemed to warrant. 
 This lady, and Miss Bell of Coldstream, have this gift 
 of personification to a much greater degree than any 
 person I ever saw."
 
 XVI 
 
 Preface. legists would say. I wish we had more, 
 or many, of such women now-a-days : 
 women who, with all their gifts and 
 graces, were always womanly in their 
 ways and speech, and as distinct in char- 
 acter, each from the other, as were the 
 men or as is a beech from a birch, a lily 
 from a rose. 
 
 Four worthies one of them fourfooted 
 have been added ; the reader will wish 
 there had been more. Miss Menie Trotter, 
 like Meg Matthew, is an exquisite study, 
 as the painters say, for a story. As you 
 let your mind rest upon it, you feel it 
 
 unfolding itself into a life. 
 
 J. B. 
 
 23 KUTLAND STREET, 
 March 8, 1865.
 
 TO MISS CAKNEGY, 
 
 OF LAVEROCK BANK HOUSE. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 " THE MYSTIFICATIONS " are 
 now going to make their debut in the " wide 
 wide world" and there is no one so well qualified, 
 or with so good a right, to introduce them as the 
 HEIRESS OF PITLYAL, the dear KOSEBUD 
 herself. 
 
 There are few survivors of those pleasant 
 evenings ; your beloved sister, Mrs. Gillies, and 
 many more of the bright spirits have passed 
 away, but they live again in the breathings of 
 the past, and may yet give a spark of life to a 
 weary hour. 
 
 Ever your affectionate, 
 
 CLEM. STIRLING GRAHAM. 
 
 DUNTRUNE, 1865.
 
 OEIGINAL DEDICATION. 
 
 DUNTRUNE, April 1859. 
 
 MY DEAREST MBS. GILLIES, 
 
 To you and the friends who have 
 partaken in these "Mystifications" I dedicate 
 this little volume, trusting that, after a silence 
 of forty years, its echoes may awaken many 
 agreeable memorials of a society that has nearly 
 passed away. 
 
 I have been asked if I had no remorse in 
 ridiculing singularities of cJiaracter, or practising 
 deceptions ; certainly not. 
 
 There was no personal ridicule or mimicry of 
 any living creature, but merely the personation 
 or type of a bygone class, that had survived the 
 fashion of its day. 
 
 It was altogether a fanciful existence, de- 
 veloping itself according to circumstances, or for 
 the amusement of a select party, among whom 
 the announcement of a stranger lady, an original, 
 led to no suspicion of deception. No one ever 
 took offence : indeed it generally elicited the 
 finest individual traits of sympathy in the minds
 
 XX 
 
 (Driginal 
 
 rtginnl 
 Dedication. 
 
 of the dupes, especially in the case of Mr. Jeffrey, 
 whose sweet-tempered kindly nature manifested 
 itself throughout the whole of the tiresome inter- 
 view with the law-loving Lady Pitlyal. 
 
 No one enjoyed her eccentricities more than he 
 did, or more readily devised the arrangement of 
 a similar scene for the amusement of our common 
 friends. 
 
 The cleverest people were the easiest mystified, 
 and when once the deception took place, it 
 mattered not how arrant the nonsense or how 
 exaggerated the costume. Indeed, children and 
 dogs were the only detectives. 
 
 I often felt so identified with the character, so 
 charmed with the pleasure manifested by my 
 audience, that it became painful to lay aside the 
 veil, and descend again into the humdrum 
 realities of my own self. 
 
 These personations never lost me a friend ; on 
 the contrary, they originated friendships that 
 cease only with life. 
 
 The Lady Pitlyal' s course is run; she be- 
 queathes to you these reminiscences of beloved 
 friends and pleasant meetings. 
 
 And tliat the blessing of God may descend on 
 " each and all of you," is the fervent prayer of 
 her kinswoman and executrix, 
 
 CLEMENTINA STIRLING GRAHAM.
 
 AT the theatre one Saturday evening 
 in the year 1821, Mr. Jeffrey afterwards 
 Lord Jeffrey requested me to let him 
 see my old lady, and on condition that 
 we should have some one to take in, I 
 promised to introduce her to him very 
 soon. Accordingly, on the Monday hav- 
 ing ascertained that he was to dine at 
 home, I set out from Lord Gillies's in a 
 coach, accompanied by Miss Helen Car- 
 negy of Craigo as my daughter, and we 
 stopped at Mr. Jeffrey's door in George 
 Street between five and six o'clock. It 
 was a winter evening ; and on the ques- 
 tion, "Is Mr. Jeffrey at home?" being 
 answered in the affirmative, the two 
 ladies stepped out, and were ushered into 
 the little parlour where he received his 
 visitors. 
 
 There was a blazing fire, and wax- 
 
 Uiatt to
 
 f&i. 
 
 lights on the table ; he had laid down his 
 book, and seemed to be in the act of join- 
 ing the ladies in the drawing-room before 
 dinner. 
 
 The Lady Pitlyal was announced, and 
 he stepped forward a few paces to receive 
 her. 
 
 She was a sedate-looking little woman, 
 of an inquisitive law-loving countenance ; 
 a mouth in which not a vestige of a tooth 
 was to be seen, 1 and a pair of old-fash- 
 ioned spectacles on her nose, that rather 
 obscured a pair of eyes that had not alto- 
 gether lost their lustre, and that gave 
 to the voice as much of the nasal sound 
 as indicated the age of its possessor to be 
 some years between her grand climacteric 
 and fourscore. She was dressed in an 
 Irish poplin of silver grey, a white Cash- 
 mere shawl, a mob cap with a band of 
 thin muslin that fastened it below the 
 chin, and a small black silk bonnet that 
 shaded her eyes from any glare of light. 
 
 Her right hand was supported by an 
 
 1 This fraud she accomplished by drawing her lips 
 over her own natural set of good white teeth.
 
 antique gold-headed cane, and she leant 
 with the other on the arm of her daughter. 
 Miss Ogilvy might be somewhere on 
 the wrong side of twenty ; how many 
 months or years is of no particular im- 
 portance. Her figure, of the middle size, 
 was robed in a dress of pale blue, and 
 short enough in the skirt to display a very 
 handsome pair of feet and ankles. On 
 her head she wore a white capote, and 
 behind a transparent curtain of pure white 
 blonde glanced two eyes of darkest hazel, 
 while ringlets of bright auburn harmon- 
 ized with the bloom of the rose that 
 glowed upon her cheeks. Her appear- 
 ance was recherche, and would have been 
 perfectly lady-like, but for an attempt at 
 style, a mistake which young ladies from 
 the country are very apt to fall into on 
 their first arrival in the metropolis. Mr. 
 Jeffrey bowed, and handed the old lady 
 to a comfortable chaise longue on one side 
 of the fire, and sat himself down opposite 
 to her on the other. But in his desire to 
 accommodate the old lady, and in his 
 anxiety to be informed of the purport of 
 
 UtSit to 
 far. Srftreji.
 
 to the visit, he forgot what was due to the 
 young one, and the heiress of the ancient 
 House of Pitlyal was left standing in the 
 middle of the floor. 
 
 She helped herself to a chair, however, 
 and sat down beside her mother. She 
 had been educated in somewhat of the 
 severity of the old school, and during the 
 whole of the consultation she neither 
 spoke nor moved a single muscle of her 
 countenance. 
 
 " Well I " said Mr. Jeffrey as he looked 
 at the old lady, in expectation that she 
 would open the subject that had procured 
 him the honour of the visit. 
 
 " Weel," replied her Ladyship, " I am 
 come to tak' a word o' the law frae you. 
 
 " My husband, the late Ogilvy of Pit- 
 lyal, among other property which he left 
 to me, was a house and a yard at the 
 town-end of Kirriemuir, also a kiln and a 
 malt-barn. 
 
 " The kiln and the barn were rented 
 by a man they ca'd John Playfair, and 
 John Playfair subset them to anither 
 man they ca'd Willy Cruickshank, and
 
 Willy Cruickshank purchased a cargo of 
 damaged lint, and ye widna hinder Willy 
 to dry the lint upon the kiln, and the lint 
 took low and kindled the cupples, and the 
 slates flew aff, and a' the flooring was 
 brunt to the ground, and naething left 
 standin' but the bare wa's. 
 
 " Now it wasna insured, and I want to 
 ken wha's to pay the damage, for John 
 Playfair says he has naething ado wi' it, 
 and Willy Cruickshank says he has nae- 
 thing to do it wi', and I am determined 
 no' to take it aff their hand the way it is." 
 
 " Has it been in any of the Courts ?" 
 
 " Ou ay, it has been in the Shirra- 
 Court of Forfar, and Shirra Duff was a 
 gude man, and he kent me, and would 
 ha' gien 't in my favour, but that clatter- 
 ing creature Jamie L'Amy cam' in, and 
 he gae it against me." 
 
 " I have no doubt Mr. L'Amy would 
 give a very fair decision." 
 
 " It wasna a fair decision when he gae 
 it against me." 
 
 " That is what many people think in 
 your circumstances." 
 
 Visit to
 
 Wen to " The minister of Blairgowrie is but a 
 fule body, and advised me no to gae to 
 the law." 
 
 " I think he gave you a very sensible 
 advice." 
 
 " It was onything but that ; and mind, 
 if you dinna gie 't in my favour, I'll no be 
 sair pleased." 
 
 Mr. Jeffrey smiled, and said he would 
 not promise to do that, and then inquired 
 if she had any papers. 
 
 " Ou ay, I have a great bundle of 
 papers, and I'll come back at any hour 
 you please to appoint, and bring them wi' 
 me." 
 
 " It will not be necessary for you to 
 return yourself; you can send them to 
 me." 
 
 " And wha would you recommend to 
 me for an agent in the business ?" 
 
 " That I cannot tell ; it is not my pro- 
 vince to recommend an agent." 
 
 " Then how will Kobert Smith of Bal- 
 harry do ?" 
 
 " Very well ; very good man indeed ; and 
 you may bid him send me the papers."
 
 Meantime her Ladyship drew from 
 her pocket a large old-fashioned leather 
 pocket-book with silver clasps, out of 
 which she presented him a letter directed 
 to himself. He did not look into it, but 
 threw it carelessly on the table. She now 
 offered him a pinch of snuff from a mas- 
 sive gold box, and then selected another 
 folded paper from the pocket-book, which 
 she presented to him, saying, " Here is a 
 prophecy that I would like you to look at 
 and explain to me." 
 
 He begged to be excused, saying, " I 
 believe your Ladyship will find me more 
 skilled in the law than the prophets." 
 
 She entreated him to look at it; and 
 on glancing his eyes over it, he remarked, 
 " that from the words Tory and Whig, it 
 did not seem to be a very ancient pro- 
 phecy." 
 
 " May be," replied her Ladyship ; " but 
 it has been long in our family. I copied 
 these lines out of a muckle book, entitled 
 the ' Prophecie of Pitlyal,' just before 
 I came to you, in order to have your 
 opinion on some of the obscure passages
 
 of it. And you will do me a great favour 
 if you will read it out loud, and I will 
 tell you what I think of it as you go on." 
 Here, then, with a smile at the oddity 
 of the request, and a mixture of im- 
 patience in his manner, he read the fol- 
 lowing lines, while she interrupted him 
 occasionally to remark upon their mean- 
 ing: 
 
 Extract from the Prophecie of Fitly al. 
 
 ffiSSfjen tfje crofon ani tfje fjeai sfjall disgrace ane 
 
 anitfjer, 
 
 SntJ tfje 33tsfjops on tfje JSencfj sfjall gae a' inrang 
 tfjegitfjer ; 
 
 jen CTorg or ESafjtg, 
 tfjr judge's toig ; 
 en tlje Hint o' tlje fHtln 
 
 teeft on tfje fetln; 
 'er tfje Htgfjt of tfje Nortfj, 
 eafjtn tfje ffilamour fjreafts fortfj, 
 anto its iDtl5=fire go teS 
 J3ttfj tfje iagltgfjt is sprean ; 
 SJEfjen fejoman sfjrinfts not from tfje oroeal of trgal, 
 Cfjere is triumpfj ano fame to tfje fjoose 
 
 [The Light of the North was Mr. Jeffrey the Gla- 
 mour was herself; hut we must give the Lady Pitlyal's 
 own interpretation, as she appeared unconscious of the 
 true meaning.]
 
 " We ha'e seen the crown and the 
 head," she said, " disgrace ane anither 
 no very lang syne, and ye may judge 
 whether the Bishops gaed right or wrang 
 on that occasion ; and the Tory and 
 Whig may no be very ancient, and yet 
 never be the less true. Then there is the 
 Lint o' the Miln, we have witnessed that 
 come to pass ; but what the Light of the 
 North can mean, and the Glamour, I 
 canna mak' out. The twa hindmost lines 
 seem to me to point at Queen Caroline ; 
 and if it had pleased God to spare my 
 son, I might have guessed he would have 
 made a figure on her trial, and have 
 brought ' Triumph and fame to the house 
 of Pitlyal/ I begin, however, to think 
 that the prophecie may be fulfilled in the 
 person of my daughter, for which reason 
 I have brought her to Edinburgh to see 
 and get a gude match for her." 
 
 Here Mr. Jeffrey put on a smile, half 
 serious, half quizzical, and said 
 
 " I suppose it would not be necessary 
 for the gentleman to change his name." 
 
 " It would be weel worth his while, sir ; 
 
 Utait lo 
 fBr. Stffrtg.
 
 10 
 
 Visit to 
 ffii. 3tfire 
 
 she has a very gude estate, and she 's a 
 very bonny lassie, and she's equally re- 
 lated baith to Airlie and Strathmore ; 
 and a' body in our part of the warld ca's 
 her the ' Kosebud of Pitlyal.'" 
 
 Mr. Jeffrey smiled as his eyes met the 
 glance of the beautiful flower that was so 
 happily placed before him ; but the Kose- 
 bud herself returned no sign of intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 A pause in the conversation now en- 
 sued, which was interrupted by her Lady- 
 ship asking Mr. Jeffrey to tell her where 
 she could procure a set offause teeth. 
 
 " Of what?" said he, with an expres- 
 sion of astonishment, while the whole 
 frame of the young lady shook with some 
 internal emotion. 
 
 " A set of fause teeth," she repeated ; 
 and was again echoed by the interroga- 
 tion, " What?" 
 
 A third time she asked the question, 
 and in a more audible key ; when he re- 
 plied, with a kind of suppressed laugh, 
 " There is Mr. Nasmyth, north corner of 
 St. Andrew Square, a very good dentist ;
 
 11 
 
 and there is Mr. Hutchins, corner of jErfett to 
 Hanover and George Street." 
 
 She requested he would give her their 
 names on a slip of paper. He rose and 
 walked to the table, wrote down both 
 the directions, which he folded and pre- 
 sented to her. 
 
 She now rose to take leave. The bell 
 was rung, and when the servant entered, 
 his master desired him to see if the Lady 
 Pitlyal's carriage was at the door. 
 
 He returned to tell there was no car- 
 riage waiting, on which her Ladyship 
 remarked, " This comes of fore-hand 
 payments they make hint-hand wark. 
 I gae a hackney-coachman twa shillings 
 to bring me here, and he 's awa' without 
 me." 
 
 There was not a coach within sight, 
 and another had to be sent for from a 
 distant stand of coaches. It was by this 
 time past the hour of dinner, and there 
 seemed no hope of being rid of his visi- 
 tors. 
 
 Her Ladyship said she was in no hurry, 
 as they had had tea, and were going to
 
 12 
 
 to the play, and hoped he would accompany 
 them. He said he had not yet had his 
 dinner. 
 
 " What is the play to-night ?" said she. 
 
 "It is the Heart of Midlothian again, 
 I believe." 
 
 They then talked of the merits of 
 the actors, and she took occasion to tell 
 him that she patronized the Edinburgh 
 Review. 
 
 " We read your buke, sir !" 
 
 " I am certainly very much obliged to 
 you/' 
 
 Still no carriage was heard. Another 
 silence ensued, until it bethought her 
 Ladyship to amuse him with the politics 
 of the country. 
 
 " We brunt the King's effigy at Blair- 
 gowrie." 
 
 " That was bold," he replied. 
 
 " And a pair of dainty muckle horns 
 we gae him." 
 
 " Not very complimentary to the Queen, 
 I should think." 
 
 Here the coach was announced, and by 
 the help of her daughter's arm and her
 
 gold-headed cane, she began to move, 
 complaining loudly of a corny tae. She 
 was with difficulty got into the coach. 
 The Kosebud stepped lightly after her. 
 , The door was closed, and the order 
 given to drive to Gibb's Hotel, whence 
 they hastened with all speed to Lord 
 Gillies's, where the party waited dinner 
 for them, and hailed the fulfilment of the 
 " Prophecie of Pitlyal." 
 
 Mr. Jeffrey, in the meantime, impatient 
 for his dinner, joined the ladies in the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 " What in the world has detained you ?" 
 said Mrs. Jeffrey. 
 
 " One of the most tiresome and oddest 
 old women I ever met with. I thought 
 never to have got rid of her;" and be- 
 ginning to relate some of the conversation 
 that had taken place, it flashed upon him 
 at once that he had been taken in. 
 
 He ran down stairs for the letter, hop- 
 ing it would throw some light upon the 
 subject, but it was only a blank sheet of 
 paper, containing a fee of three guineas. 
 
 They amused themselves with the rela-
 
 14 
 
 ITigit to 
 
 Hr. SrfTim 
 
 tion ; but it was not until the day after 
 that he found out from his valued friend 
 Mrs. George Kussell who the ladies really 
 were. He laughed heartily, and promised 
 to aid them in any other scene they liked 
 to devise, and he returned the fee with 
 the following letter : 
 
 LETTER FROM MR, JEFFREY TO THE LADY PITLYAL 
 RETURNING THE FEE OF THREE GUINEAS. 
 
 " DEAR MADAM, As I understand that the 
 lawsuit about the Malt-Kiln is likely to be settled 
 out of Court, I must be permitted to return the 
 fee by which you were pleased to engage my 
 services for that interesting discussion ; and hope 
 I shall not be quoted along with the hackney- 
 coachman in proof of the danger of fore-hand 
 payments. I hope the dentists have not disgraced 
 my recommendation, and that Miss Ogilvy is 
 likely to fulfil the prophecy, and bring glory and 
 fame to the house of Pitlyal ; though I am not a 
 little mortified at having been allowed to see so 
 little of that amiable young lady. 
 
 " With best wishes for the speedy cure of your 
 corns, I have the honour to be, dear Madam, your 
 very faithful and obedient servant, 
 
 F. JEFFREY. 
 " 92 GEORGE STREET, 
 21 April 1821."
 
 15 
 
 IT was arranged that there should be 
 an evening party at Mrs. Bussell's in 
 honour of the Lady Pitlyal, before the 
 wildfire should have time to spread, in 
 order to give the benefit of an introduc- 
 tion to a few more of the Whig friends. 
 The soiree was accordingly fixed for the 
 Wednesday. We dined at John Clerk's 
 (Lord Eldin's), where were several mem- 
 bers of the supper party ; and Mr. Wil- 
 liam Clerk took occasion to inform Miss 
 Dalzell that the lady opposite had a talent 
 for personating character. Mrs. Gillies 
 and I took our departure soon after nine, 
 as we had to stop in York Place to arrange 
 the toilette of the Lady Pitlyal. Her 
 Ladyship's dress this evening was abund- 
 antly conspicuous, and in the fashion of 
 forty or fifty years back. It consisted of 
 a gown of rich ponceau satin, open in 
 
 Sotra at 4Kr. 
 
 Eusscll's.
 
 16 
 
 S>oim at Pit. 
 
 front, and drawn up like the festoon of a 
 window-curtain behind ; a long and taper 
 waist, black satin petticoat embroidered 
 with roses of chenille, a muslin apron 
 trimmed with lace, a black lace Teresa, 
 and a stomacher fastened in front with 
 diamond rosettes, a point cap and a green 
 shade, with a veil, and spectacles to pro- 
 tect her eyes ; on her feet a pair of em- 
 broidered shoes with high heels and large 
 silver buckles. 
 
 Miss Helen Carnegy declined personat- 
 ing the heiress any longer, so it was 
 agreed that the Eosebud should be en- 
 gaged to a ball at our friend Mr. Baron 
 Clerk's. 
 
 We were announced and welcomed by 
 Mrs. Eussell, and very soon the Lady 
 Pitlyal became the lion of the evening. 
 Ladies and gentlemen crowded round her. 
 Mr. Jeffrey made his bow, and entered 
 into conversation about the law plea, and 
 expressed disappointment at not having 
 the pleasure of meeting Miss Ogilvy. 
 
 Mrs. Simpson of Ogil alluded to their 
 estates being contiguous, spoke of her
 
 17 
 
 family, and promised to bring them all to 
 pay a visit at Pitlyal. Lord Gillies was 
 reminded of the time when he was an ill 
 prettie laddie, and of breaking the lozens 
 of one of her windows, and Mr. Pillans 
 inquired about the state of the roads. 
 Mr. Kussell asked if Prince Charles 
 skulked about Pitlyal ? " Ou ay," she 
 replied, "he span wi' the lasses." 1 He 
 wondered if George the Fourth span with 
 the lasses ? As to that she didna ken, 
 but she thought he had managed to spin 
 a ravelled hasp till himsel'. 
 
 When Hamilton of Holmhead was pre- 
 sented to her, she accused him of corrupt- 
 ing Lord Newton, who was a sober and a 
 peaceable man till he fell in wi' him ; and 
 she upbraided him for taking him to dine 
 with Mr. Miller of Ballumbie when he was 
 engaged to be at Pitlyal. He said he never 
 prevented him dining at Pitlyal. She 
 
 1 The lasses were the female servants, each of whom 
 had a spinning-wheel, and when her share of the house- 
 hold work was done, she was bound to spin a stent or 
 task for all the linens of the house ; from the finest 
 damask to the coarsest sheeting was spun at home. 
 There was great merriment in that room. 
 
 B 
 
 &oira at f Hr.
 
 18 
 
 Soiree at ffir. 
 
 asked if he remembered meeting her at Bal- 
 lumbie ; to which he answered, No ; yet 
 he remembered not only the party, but he 
 could tell every dish that was upon the 
 table, and one of them was the best 
 shoulder of mutton he ever saw, and turn- 
 ing to Lord Gillies, he whispered, " Surely 
 the auld wife's telling a lee." 
 
 Miss Cathcart, Miss Kennedy, Mr. 
 Kutherfurd afterwards Lord Advocate 
 and Lord Kutherfurd and others, were 
 all presented to her in due form. And 
 when supper was announced, Lord Gillies 
 gave her his arm down-stairs. 
 
 Mr. William Clerk offered his to Mrs. 
 Gillies, that he might inquire the weight 
 and qualifications of the heiress, and that 
 they might get a seat near the old lady. 
 He said he had fancied on his first enter- 
 ing the room that it was some one dressed 
 up, but he now saw she was a very original 
 person, and he wished to get acquainted 
 with her. Mrs. Gillies told him the 
 young lady had reddish hair, but he as- 
 sured her that was no objection to him, 
 for he had no dislike to red hair.
 
 19 
 
 She alluded again to some stories of 
 Lord Gillies's boyhood, and told him she 
 had ploughed up the Capernaum Park, 
 which he recollected to have been fine old 
 grass. 
 
 Mr. Jeffrey now inquired what the 
 people in her part of the country thought 
 of the trial of the Queen. She could not 
 tell him, but she would say what she her- 
 self had remarked on siclike proceedings : 
 " Tak' a wreath of snaw, let it be never so 
 white, and wash it through clean water, it 
 will no' come out so pure as it gaed in, 
 far less the dirty dubs the poor Queen has 
 been drawn through." 
 
 Mr. Eussell inquired if she possessed 
 any relics of Prince Charles from the time 
 he used to spin with the lasses. 
 
 " Yes," she said, " I have a fiech that 
 loupit aff him upon my aunty, the Lady 
 Brax, when she was helping him on wi' 
 his short gown ; my aunty rowed it up in 
 a sheet of white paper, and she keepit it 
 in the tea-canister, and she ca'd it aye the 
 King's Flech ; and the Laird, honest man, 
 when he wanted a cup of guid tea, sought 
 
 Soiree at ffit. 
 
 luissdl's.
 
 20 
 
 Soiree at fSr. 
 
 lUissrll's. 
 
 aye a cup of the Prince's mixture" This 
 produced peals of laughter, and her Lady- 
 ship laughed as heartily as any of them. 
 When somewhat composed again, she 
 looked across the table to Mr. Clerk, and 
 offered to let him see it. " It is now set 
 on the pivot of my watch, and a' the warks 
 gae round theflech in place of turning on 
 a diamond." 
 
 Lord Gillies thought this flight would 
 certainly betray her, and remarked to Mr. 
 Clerk that the flea must be painted on the 
 watch, but Mr. Clerk said he had known 
 of relics being kept of the Prince quite as 
 extraordinary as a flae ; that Mr. Murray 
 of Simprim had a pocket handkerchief in 
 which Prince Charles had blown his 
 nose. 
 
 The Lady Pitlyal said her daughter did 
 not value these things, and that she was 
 resolved to leave it as a legacy to the 
 Antiquarian Society. 
 
 Holmhead was rather amused with her 
 originality, though he had not forgotten 
 the attack. He said he would try if she 
 was a real Jacobite, and he called out,
 
 21 
 
 " Madam, I am going to propose a toast 
 for ye ! 
 
 "May the Scotch Thistle choke the 
 Hanoverian Horse ! " 
 
 " I wish I binna among the Whigs," 
 she said. 
 
 " And whar wad ye be sae weel ? " re- 
 torted he. 
 
 " They murdered Dundee's son at Glas- 
 gow." 
 
 " There was nae great skaith/' he re- 
 plied ; " but ye maun drink my toast in a 
 glass of this cauld punch, if ye be a true 
 Jacobite." 
 
 " Aweel, aweel," said the Lady Pitlyal ; 
 " as my auld friend Lady Christian Bruce 
 was wont to say, ' The best way to get the 
 better of temptation is just to yield to it ;'" 
 and as she nodded to the toast and 
 emptied the glass, Holmhead swore exult- 
 ingly " Faith, she's true ! " 
 
 Supper passed over, and the carriages 
 were announced. The Lady Fitlyal took 
 her leave with Mrs. Gillies. 
 
 Next day the town rang with the 
 heiress of Pitlyal. Mr. Clerk said he had 
 
 Sotra at fEr. 
 LUtsscll'0.
 
 22 
 
 Soiree at ffli. 
 
 never met with such an extraordinary old 
 lady, "for not only is she amusing herself, 
 but my brother John is like to expire 
 when I relate her stories at second-hand." 
 He talked of nothing else for a week 
 after, but the heiress, and the flea, and 
 the rent-roll, and the old turreted house 
 of Pitlyal, till at last his friends thought 
 it would be right to undeceive him ; but 
 that was not so easily done, for when the 
 Lord Chief Commissioner Adam hinted 
 that it might be Miss Stirling, he said 
 that was impossible, for Miss Stirling was 
 sitting by the old lady the whole of the 
 evening.
 
 23 
 
 I WAS staying at Craigie with a very 
 pleasant party, and one day after dinner, 
 the Misses G-uthrie proposed that I should 
 take in their father and mother. 
 
 Accordingly, a letter was written to the 
 Laird from his friend Mr. Dempster of 
 Dunnichen, to announce the visit of an 
 old acquaintance of his a Mrs. Macallister 
 from Elgin, who was on her way to Edin- 
 burgh as a witness in Lord Fife's cause. 
 She had been staying some days at Dun- 
 nichen, and he was induced to give her 
 a billet on the well-known hospitality of 
 Craigie, because she was very amusing, a 
 great traveller, and was somewhat of an 
 oddity. He thought his friend would be 
 diverted with her, and hoped, for his sake, 
 he would pay her all the attention in his 
 power. 
 
 A horse was harnessed to an old caravan,
 
 24 
 
 and it was driven up to the door with, a 
 great noise ; the door-bell rang, and the 
 letter was sent in. 
 
 The Laird glanced it over. 
 
 " Where is the lady ?" he said, and the 
 servant replied, " She was in her carriage 
 at the door." 
 
 He started up in great haste, and went 
 out to receive her. 
 
 " God bless me, Mrs. Macallister," he 
 said, " are you standing in the hall ?" and 
 he offered his arm to lead her into the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 From the name and the object of the 
 journey to Edinburgh, the representation 
 was to have been that of a Highland lady, 
 not of the very first grade of society ; but 
 the unexpected appearance of Mr. Guthrie 
 on the very threshold, the Laird, par excel- 
 lence, there were few like him then or 
 now ; as a young man, he had made the 
 tour of Europe when travelling was less 
 common than in these days of railway 
 speed, the sight of the fine old man, his 
 handsome countenance, his courtly bearing, 
 and refined manners, and with all the
 
 25 
 
 formality and politeness of the old school, 
 caused a total revolution in my persona- 
 tion. And Mrs. Macallister found herself 
 all at once transposed into a very stiff 
 old lady, speaking English, and her man- 
 ner and deportment nearly on a level with 
 that of the Laird himself. 
 
 Leaning on the arm of Mr. Guthrie, 
 she was ushered into the drawing-room, 
 and he presented her in due form to Mrs. 
 Guthrie and every one of the assembled 
 party. 
 
 A titter went round among those who 
 were in the secret ; and in order to regain 
 the composure I had nearly lost, Mrs. 
 Macallister was reduced to have recourse 
 to a spasmodic pain in the side, in order 
 to account for the shaking which the sup- 
 pressed fit of laughter occasioned to her 
 whole frame. 
 
 Mrs. Guthrie called for wine and other 
 cordials, but Mrs. Macallister preferred 
 the refreshment of a cup of coffee. 
 
 Still the laughing continued, and be- 
 came the more irresistible to some of the 
 party, by the very serious aspect of Sir
 
 26 
 
 Craig ie. 
 
 William Wiseman, who remonstrated on 
 the impropriety of ridiculing an old 
 person, even allowing her to be a little 
 outre in her dress. And it was indeed 
 sufficiently outre. A silk gown of flowered 
 brocade, rich and stiff enough to have 
 stood alone had there been nobody in it, 
 and a most incongruous amalgamation of 
 the ancient and the modern in the other 
 articles of her apparel. 
 
 The Laird's equanimity was unshaken ; 
 he spoke of his friend Mr. Dempster and 
 the probable issue of the Fife cause, and 
 the unrelaxing politeness and gravity of 
 his manner by degrees produced a state 
 of calm. 
 
 He gave orders that Mrs. Macallister's 
 horses should be well cared for, and re- 
 marked to Mrs. Guthrie that something 
 must be wrong in his establishment, for 
 when he went to the door to hand Mrs. 
 Macallister out of her carriage he found 
 her standing in the hall, and an old 
 caravan with one horse at the door. 
 
 Mrs. Macallister explained that her 
 carriage had broken down by the way
 
 27 
 
 from the state of the roads, and she was 
 obliged to remain some hours at a place 
 called Four-Mile House until even this 
 conveyance could be procured ; that she 
 and her waiting- woman had been nearly 
 knocked to pieces, and that this was the 
 cause of the spasms and pain in her side. 
 
 Music and dancing were now proposed. 
 The Laird and Mrs. Macallister went 
 through a few steps of the minuet de la 
 GOUT ; Mrs. Warren and Sir William sat 
 down to dcarte. Some took up their work, 
 and Lady Wiseman twisted a shawl round 
 her head and performed some of the atti- 
 tudes and songs of the Hindu singing- 
 girls for the amusement of the party ; 
 while the Laird enjoyed a tete-ti-tete at 
 the fireside with his new friend. 
 
 She told him she had met a gentleman 
 of his name in London, who was partner 
 in a mercantile house with Mr. Chalmers 
 of Auldbar. 
 
 "That is my son Charles," said the 
 Laird. 
 
 " Another Mr. Guthrie I was introduced 
 to at Gow's ball in Edinburgh, a very
 
 28 
 
 facetious young gentleman. He paid 
 me a great many compliments, and after 
 leading me round the room and intro- 
 ducing me to some of his acquaintance, 
 he called aloud to the music to play ' Such 
 a pair was never seen/" 
 
 Here the Laird laughed con amore, and 
 cried out, " That is my son Sandy 1" 
 
 Supper was now announced in the 
 dining-room ; the Laird offered his arm 
 to Mrs. Macallister, and placed her beside 
 himself at the table. 
 
 She now fell in fancy with his snuff- 
 box, and offered to exchange with him, 
 but he excused himself, saying, it was a 
 keepsake from a deceased and valued 
 friend, one whom Mrs. Macallister had 
 perhaps heard of the late Mr. Graham 
 of Duntrune. She said she had known 
 him, and esteemed him, and that very 
 circumstance made her the more desirous 
 to obtain it ; it would be a memorandum 
 of them both. The one she would give 
 him was a very valuable one. It was the 
 gift of an Indian chief to her late husband, 
 Dr. Macallister, for an extraordinary cure
 
 29 
 
 he had performed on one of his children. 
 Then, turning to Lady Wiseman, " You 
 must have met with Dr. Macallister at 
 Bombay. He was engaged in the com- 
 pilation of a dictionary of the Gaelic 
 language, which he did not live to finish." 
 Lady Wiseman did not recollect. 
 
 She returned to the charge of the snuff- 
 box, by placing her own very valuable 
 gold one on the table, and putting the 
 keepsake of the late Mr. Grahame of Dun- 
 trune in her pocket. 
 
 The Laird was annoyed beyond measure, 
 but, too polite to express what he felt, he 
 sat still in silent astonishment. 
 
 Mrs. Guthrie inquired if she had any 
 family. " Four sons," was the answer. The 
 eldest was high up in the India service. 
 Sir William set about recollecting him, 
 and inquired, " On what establishment ?" 
 
 " Your second son ?" said Mrs. Guthrie. 
 
 " Is a sailor, and very promising ; and 
 my third, a charming young man, is 
 making a tour on the Continent." 
 
 Here Mrs. Macallister displayed a wish 
 to change the subject ; but the curiosity
 
 30 
 
 of Sir William was not satisfied until he 
 said, "And where is your youngest son, 
 Mrs. Macallister ?" 
 
 It was no easy matter to account for so 
 many " grown gentlemen." 
 
 " My youngest son is - God knows 
 where," and here she was seized with an 
 involuntary laugh, and again had recourse 
 to the spasmodic pain, while the simple 
 and kind-hearted Sir William, upbraiding 
 himself for so heedlessly touching such a 
 tender chord, covered his face with his 
 handkerchief and wept. 
 
 At eleven o'clock Miss Guthrie offered 
 to light Mrs. Macallister to her room, but 
 she waved aside the proffered arm, and 
 told the Laird that Mr. Dempster had 
 always conducted her to the door of her 
 apartment himself, kissed her when he 
 bade good-night, and assured her that his 
 good friend Craigie would not be behind 
 him in point of gallantry. 
 
 The Laird accordingly held out his arm, 
 led her up -stairs, and at the door of her 
 chamber, when she took off her bonnet to 
 conclude the scene as the well-known
 
 si 
 
 features met his eyes, he stood for some 
 seconds transfixed to the spot. Then 
 suddenly relaxing from his formality, he 
 laughed till the tears came into his eyes, 
 and the first words he spoke were, " Now, 
 Clemy, give me back my snuff-box." 
 
 Another evening, when Lady Hunter 
 and her daughter (now Mrs. Basil Hall) 
 were there, the Laird expressed a fancy to 
 give them a benefit of the same kind that 
 had been productive of so much pleasure 
 to himself. A letter was therefore com- 
 posed and delivered to him, just as the 
 table-cloth was removed after dinner. 
 
 He looked at the direction, and exa- 
 mined the seal in a manner that proved 
 him to be a most excellent actor. " An 
 earl's coronet," he said in an audible 
 whisper, and then looking over its con- 
 tents, read aloud a letter from Lord North- 
 esk, purporting that the Lady Catherine 
 Howard had come down to Scotland for
 
 32 
 
 the express purpose of visiting the scenes 
 and illustrating some of Sir Walter Scott's 
 novels ; that slie had been paying a visit at 
 Ethie, whence he had carried her to the 
 Ked Head, and shown her the Auchmithie 
 fishers. He now begged leave to introduce 
 her at Craigie, and requested his friend 
 Mr. Guthrie would give her all the infor- 
 mation in his power respecting "the 
 Antiquary," who, she had been told by 
 Sir Walter himself, was a Mr. George 
 Constable, of a place called the Wallace, 
 somewhere near Dundee. 
 
 The letter was handed round and sever- 
 ally commented on, and Lady Catherine 
 Howard was expected to follow her avant- 
 coureur in the course of an hour. 
 
 Soon after the ladies returned to the 
 drawing-room, the noise of carriage- wheels 
 and a loud knock at the door announced 
 the arrival of the distinguished stranger. 
 
 Mr. Guthrie, delighted with the part he 
 had to play, hastened to hand her Lady- 
 ship from the carriage. He joined me in 
 the next room, but I was waiting for an 
 apron to complete the costume of Lady
 
 Catherine Howard. No apron was to be 
 found, nor anything in the shape of one, 
 and here was a dilemma which could not 
 easily be got over, as the dress was alto- 
 gether incomplete without one. 
 
 A net frock, however, lay on the table, 
 round the skirt of which Miss Hunter had 
 been working a lace pattern for her friend 
 Miss Kose G-uthrie. Lady Catherine fear- 
 lessly tied it round her waist, and, leaning 
 on the arm of Mr. Guthrie, walked into 
 the drawing-room. 
 
 There she was presented to the circle, 
 but most particularly to Lady Hunter, 
 with whom she fell into a very interesting 
 conversation about Spain, which they had 
 both visited; indeed Lady Hunter had 
 lived there for years. 
 
 Many names were mentioned well known 
 to each other, both abroad and at home ; 
 they became friends as if they had been 
 linked together for years, while the Laird 
 now and then chimed in the name of his 
 friend Lord Lansdowne, his son the late 
 Lord, and asked some information con- 
 cerning the lineage of Norfolk and Suffolk,
 
 34 
 
 Craigit. 
 
 and the blood of the Howards. They 
 played a rubber, and there was music, but 
 Lady Catherine reserved her praise till 
 Miss Hunter sat down to the instrument. 
 
 The young ladies' work was commented 
 on, and after various observations she held 
 up the corner of her apron, saying it was 
 the work of Lady Elizabeth Carnegie, 
 which had been finished and presented to 
 her during her visit to Ethie. 
 
 Miss Hunter looked at it, and remarked 
 that it was the same pattern of the one 
 she was working for Miss Kose Guthrie, 
 and. "See, Kose," she added, "there is a 
 joining across that leaf exactly like the 
 one I am doing for you ; is not that very 
 curious ?" 
 
 Lady Catherine spoke of the object 
 which had induced her to come to Scot- 
 land, and Lady Hunter said she would 
 give her an introduction to Sir James 
 Hall of Dunglass, on whose property lies 
 the scene of Wolf's Crag in the Bride of 
 Lammermoor. And she added, " There 
 are many very interesting scenes in and 
 about Edinburgh which are well worth
 
 visiting. I will give your Ladyship a 
 letter to iny brother, Sir William Arbuth- 
 not, present Lord Provost of Edinburgh, 
 who will be happy to show you everything 
 that is to be seen." 
 
 The supper tray was brought in with 
 some warm dishes ; and laying aside her 
 bonnet to eat the wing of a roast chicken, 
 the vision of Lady Catherine Howard 
 vanished as if by magic. 
 
 Lady Hunter gazed for a moment as if 
 a spirit had passed before her, started 
 from her chair, then rushed forward with 
 open arms, kissed and embraced the 
 humble individual who filled her chair. 
 
 ANOTHER evening Miss Guthrie re- 
 quested me to introduce my old lady to 
 Captain Alexander Lindsay, a son of the 
 late Laird of Kinblethmont, and brother 
 to the present Mr. Lindsay Carnegie, and 
 Mr. Sandford, the late Sir Daniel Sand- 
 ford.
 
 36 
 
 She came as a Mrs. Kamsay Speldin, 
 an old sweetheart of the Laird's, and was 
 welcomed by Mrs. Guthrie as a friend of 
 the family. The young people hailed her 
 as a perfectly delightful old lady, and an 
 original of the pure Scottish character, 
 and to the Laird she was endeared by a 
 thousand pleasing recollections. 
 
 He placed her beside himself on the 
 sofa, and they talked of the days gone by 
 before the green parks of Craigie were 
 redeemed from the muir of Gotterston, 
 and ere there was a tree planted between 
 the auld house of Craigie and the castle 
 of Claypotts. 
 
 She spoke of the " gude auld times, 
 when the laird of Fintry widna gi'e his 
 youngest dochter to Abercairney, but 
 tell'd him to tak' them as God had gi'en 
 them to him, or want." 
 
 " And do you mind," she continued, 
 " the grand ploys we had at the Middle- 
 ton ; and hoo Mrs. Scott of Gilhorn used 
 to grind lilts out o' an auld kist to wauken 
 her visitors i' the niornin' ? 
 
 " And some o' them didna like it sair,
 
 though nane o' them had courage to tell 
 her sae, but Army Graham o' Dun- 
 trune. 
 
 " ' Lord forgie ye/ said Mrs. Scott, 
 * yell no gae to Heaven, if ye dinna like 
 music;' but Anny was never at a loss 
 for an answer, and she said, ' Mrs. Scott, 
 Heaven 's no' the place I take it to be, if 
 there be auld wives in it playing on hand- 
 organs.' " 
 
 Many a story did Mrs. Kamsay tell. 
 The party drew their chairs close to the 
 sofa, and many a joke she related, till the 
 room rung again with the merriment, and 
 the Laird in ecstasy caught her round the 
 waist, exclaiming, " Oh I ye are a canty 
 wifie." 
 
 The strangers seemed to think so too ; 
 they absolutely hung upon her, and she 
 danced reels, first with the one, and then 
 with the other, till the entrance of a 
 servant with the newspapers produced a 
 seasonable calm. 
 
 They lay, however, untouched upon the 
 table till Mrs. Ramsay requested some 
 one to read over the claims that were
 
 38 
 
 putting in for the King's Coronation, and 
 see if there was any mention of hers. 
 
 " What is your claim ?" said Mr. Sand- 
 ford. 
 
 " To pyke the King's teeth," was the 
 reply. 
 
 " You will think it very singular," said 
 Mr. Guthrie, " that I never heard of it 
 before ; will you tell us how it origi- 
 nated ?" 
 
 " It was in the time of James the 
 First," she said. " That monarch cam' 
 to pay a visit to the monks of Arbroath, 
 and they brought him to Ferryden to eat 
 a fish dinner at the house of ane o' my 
 forefathers. The family name, ye ken, 
 was Speldin, and the dried fish was ca'd 
 after them. 
 
 " The king was well satisfied wi' a' 
 thing that was done to honour him. He 
 was a very polished prince, and when he 
 had eaten his dinner he turned round to 
 the lady and sought a preen to pyke his 
 teeth. 
 
 " And the lady took a fish-bane, wiped 
 it clean, and ga'e it to the king; and
 
 after he had cleaned his teeth wi' it, he 
 said, ' Cfjeg're foed pgfcit.' 
 
 " ' And henceforth/ continued he, ' the 
 Speldins of Ferry den shall pyke the king's 
 teeth at the Coronation. And it shall be 
 done wi' a fish-bone, and a pearl out o' 
 the Southesk on the end of it. And their 
 crest shall be a lion's head wi' the teeth 
 displayed, and the motto shall be weel 
 pykit.'" 
 
 Mr. Sandford read over the claims, but 
 there was no notice given of the Speldins. 
 
 " We maun just ha'e patience," said 
 Mrs. Speldin, " and nae doubt it will 
 appear in the next newspaper." 
 
 Some one inquired who was the present 
 representative. 
 
 "It's me," replied Mrs. Speldin ; " and 
 I mean to perform the office mysel'. The 
 estate wad ha'e been mine too, had it 
 existed ; but Neptune, ye ken, is an ill 
 neighbour, and the sea has washed it a' 
 awa but a sand bunker or twa, and the 
 house I bide in at Ferryden." 
 
 At supper every one was eager to have 
 a seat near Mrs. Speldin. She had a uni-
 
 40 
 
 Justifications. 
 
 versal acquaintance, and she even knew 
 Mr. Sandford's mother, when he told her 
 that her name was Catherine Douglas. 
 Mr. Sandford had in his own mind com- 
 posed a letter to Sir Walter Scott, which 
 was to have been written and despatched 
 on the morrow, giving an account of this 
 fine specimen of the true Scottish char- 
 acter whom he had met in the county of 
 Angus. 
 
 We meant to carry on the deception 
 next morning, but the Laird was too 
 happy for concealment. Before the door 
 closed on the good-night of the ladies, he 
 had disclosed the secret, and before we 
 reached the top of the stairs, the gentle- 
 men were scampering at our heels like a 
 pack of hounds in full cry.
 
 41 
 
 I WENT with Lord Gillies and Mrs. 
 Gillies to spend the Christmas holidays 
 at Tulliallan. We met Admiral and Mrs. 
 Fleming, Mr. and Mrs. Keay of Snaigow, 
 Mr. John Murray (afterwards Lord Mur- 
 ray), Mr. and Mrs. Eussell, Mr. Thomas 
 Thomson, etc. a very pleasant party. 
 
 Lady Keith wished me to take in Count 
 Flahault, but no feasible means could be 
 devised, till one day that a robbery had 
 been committed in the neighbourhood. 
 Two boys were accused, named John 
 Murray and Alexander Jamieson ; the 
 former had escaped, but the other was 
 taken up, and brought to be examined 
 before the Justices of the Peace assembled 
 at the Castle. 
 
 It was suggested that I should come in 
 form of the mother of one of these lads. 
 Accordingly, a costume was borrowed
 
 42 
 
 CEulliallan. 
 
 from the dairymaid, and I was speedily 
 transformed into the character of Mrs. 
 Jamieson, who desired to speak with some 
 of the gentlemen that were taking the 
 precognition. 
 
 I cannot say that I felt altogether 
 comfortable when I was ushered into an 
 apartment among a motley group of wit- 
 nesses, and was desired to wait until I 
 was called up-stairs ; but Lady Keith 
 arranged that I should not have long to 
 wait, and desired the servant to bring 
 Mrs. Jamieson into the corridor. The 
 drawing-rooms opened to it, and the 
 doors being left open, the party within 
 could hear all that passed. 
 
 Count Flahault and Admiral Fleming 
 came from the justice-room, and the latter 
 demanded in an angry tone, " What is 
 your business?" 
 
 " I am the mither of Alexander Jamie- 
 son, and am come to see if you will let off 
 my son." 
 
 " The devil you are," said the Admiral ; 
 " your son is a young thief, and deserves 
 to be hanged."
 
 43 
 
 " I winna say." 
 
 " Because you know very well that you 
 have brought him very ill up, and I sup- 
 pose you encourage him to steal for you." 
 
 " God forgi'e ye," said Mrs. Jamieson ; 
 "it's the like o' you that ha'e ruined him. 
 He was a gude weel-living lad afore ye 
 sent him to Bridewell." 
 
 "What!" said Count Flahault, "has 
 your son been in Bridewell ? " 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " I say," said the Count, " has your son 
 been in Bridewell ?" 
 
 Still no answer. 
 
 The Count then repeated slowly and 
 distinctly 
 
 "Has your son ever been in Bride- 
 well?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " For what was he sent to Bridewell ? ' 
 
 " For nae great affair." 
 
 " Tell instantly," said the Admiral, " for 
 what he was sent to Bridewell ?" 
 
 " For nae ither thing, but just because 
 he whuppit a shawl off a stand, and gied 
 it till 's sweetheart." 
 
 CuIIiallnn.
 
 44 
 
 " Ay," said the Admiral ; " and pray 
 how long has your son been in Bridewell ? 
 speak out." 
 
 " Sax weeks, and he cam' out a great 
 deal waur than he gaed in." 
 
 "I have not the smallest doubt of 
 that," said the Admiral ; " I believe you 
 speak the truth now;" and returning to 
 the justice-room, he taxed the boy with 
 having been in Bridewell, and received an 
 answer in the affirmative. 
 
 The Count then asked what brought 
 her. " I am come to mak' ye an offer," 
 replied the persevering Mrs. Jamieson. 
 
 "What kind of an offer?" said the 
 Count, with a smile between compassion 
 and contempt. 
 
 "I ken," said Mrs. Jamieson, "you 
 would like very weel to get a haud o' 
 John Murray, and if ye 11 let off my son, 
 I'se engage to get John Murray to you 
 this very night." 
 
 " So you know where John Murray is, 
 do you ?" and he went back to the justice- 
 room to relate the further particulars. 
 
 Lady Keith by this time became fearful
 
 45 
 
 of mixing up the false witness with the 
 true, and calling to the Count, she said, 
 " For God's sake, Charles, give that poor 
 woman half-a-crown, and send her away. 
 I cannot bear to see her standing there." 
 
 The Count desired the weeping Mrs. 
 Jamieson to go home an order which 
 she very slowly set about obeying hesi- 
 tating and turning round to plead her 
 cause every now and then. 
 
 The Count, however, was resolute, and 
 gently laying a hand on each shoulder, he 
 marched her before him, and opening the 
 outer door, he put half-a-crown into her 
 hand, and pushed her out, she in the 
 meantime upbraiding him with having 
 the heart of Pharaoh, that could turn a 
 poor woman to the door in sic a night. 
 
 The Count was delighted with the 
 denouement; but upbraided Lady Keith 
 with hurrying on the conclusion. 
 
 " Why did you not let me be more 
 taken in ?" he said ; " and why did Mrs. 
 Jamieson conclude the scene so soon ? 
 She shall be brought back again, and we 
 shall have a little fun with Keay." 
 
 ffiulltallan.
 
 46 
 
 CMIiallan. 
 
 After dinner, therefore, Mrs. Jamieson's 
 return was announced. She was ordered 
 to the dining-room door, and Mr. Keay 
 was appointed to hear her statement. 
 
 She detailed, in the most pathetic terms, 
 how Sandy Jamieson was the support of 
 her old age, and that she came to petition 
 for his being released. 
 
 Mr. Keay endeavoured to soothe her, 
 spoke kindly, bade her be comforted, as- 
 sured her that her son would be taken 
 care of as far as he was concerned, but 
 that he could not release him. 
 
 " I ken weel what kind o' care ye will 
 tak' o' him," she said. 
 
 "What do you mean, my good woman ?" 
 returned Mr. Keay. 
 
 " I ken," said Mrs. Jamieson, " you 're 
 gaen to mak' a ploy o' hangin' him the 
 nicht, and ye've got Edinburgh judges in 
 the house, and I saw them scrapin' a tree 
 as I cam' up the gait;" and she wept 
 bitterly, and her grief became clamorous, 
 and she would not move until she should 
 see her son. 
 
 Mr. Keay recollected having seen two
 
 Jftpaiificaiiom 
 
 47 
 
 of the foresters in the morning rubbing 
 the lichens off some old oaks on the lawn ; 
 but it was impossible to convince Mrs. 
 Jamieson that it could be for any other 
 purpose but that of preparing a gallows 
 for her son. He returned to the dining- 
 room to communicate to the party the 
 state she was in, and the delusion under 
 which she laboured. 
 
 " Give her half-a-crown, Keay," said 
 the Count ; " and do you, Admiral, give 
 her as much, and she '11 go home." 
 
 " I would see her hanged first," replied 
 the Admiral ; but Mr. Keay returned to 
 the comfort of the distressed, and taking 
 her kindly by the hand, slipped half-a- 
 crown into it. 
 
 "What is that?" said she, throwing 
 down the money; "it is the price of 
 blood, and it shall never be said that 
 Janet Jamieson sell'd her bairn's blood 
 for half-a-crown." 
 
 " You mistake, my good woman," said 
 Mr. Keay, " it is not the price of blood. 
 I assure you your son is quite safe ; he 
 is gone to Culross in a cart." 
 
 (Eulliallan.
 
 48 
 
 " To Culross in a cart !" shrieked Mrs. 
 Jamieson. " I winna stir from this house 
 till ye bring him back again." 
 
 Mr. Keay's patience was now exhausted, 
 and the more especially when he heard 
 shouts of merriment from the dining-room. 
 " If you don't speedily take yourself off, 
 you will be turned out. Better, there- 
 fore, take the half-crown, and trust me 
 there will no harm happen to your son 
 to-night ;" saying which, he returned into 
 the dining-room, and shut the door upon 
 the distressed mother. 
 
 By the time the gentlemen joined the 
 ladies in the drawing-room, a hole had 
 been drilled through each of the half- 
 crowns, and they were suspended round 
 the neck of their new proprietor. 
 
 Some months afterwards I happened to 
 go with some strangers to see the new jail in 
 Edinburgh. The prisoners were amusing 
 themselves in their airing-ground. 
 
 "That," said the jailer, pointing to a 
 young man, "is the most hardened and in- 
 corrigible offender we have." I inquired 
 his name, and he said it was John Murray.
 
 49 
 
 FBOM Tulliallan we removed to Kaith, &aitfj. 
 to bring in the New Year. A very 
 brilliant party was assembled. The gentle- 
 men enjoyed the pleasures of the battue 
 in the mornings, and we sat down to 
 dinner upwards of twenty every day. 
 
 The party consisted of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Ferguson, Sir Konald and Miss Ferguson, 
 Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ferguson (now Sir 
 Henry and Lady Davie), Mr. and Mrs. 
 Michael Angelo Taylor, Lord Gillies and 
 Mrs. Gillies, Mr. and Mrs. Kussell, the 
 Marquis of Tweeddale and his brothers 
 Lords John and Thomas Hay, Lord Mait- 
 land, the present Lord Lauderdale, and 
 the Honourable Captain Maitland, Count 
 Flahault, Lord Duncan (the present Lord 
 Camperdown), Mr. John Murray, and 
 though last, not least, the Honourable 
 John Elliot, the very life and soul of the
 
 so 
 
 party. He was the universal favourite, 
 and was altogether a delightful person, 
 full of anecdote, and a mimic of the first 
 water. 
 
 Sir Konald gave us personations of a 
 certain Provost, and Mr. Murray gave 
 specimens of all the Judges on the bench ; 
 and after we had been some days together, 
 Mr. Ferguson announced the expectation 
 of a visit of the Lady Fitly al, and ex- 
 pressed his regret that I was engaged to 
 a ball at Lord Eosslyn's. 
 
 Her Ladyship arrived just as dinner 
 was announced, having remained in Kirk- 
 caldy by the advice of her coachman till 
 after dark, " as he said there was a great 
 gathering of thoughtless young men at 
 Kaith, and there was to be a battle wi' the 
 Ephesians, and he thought we had better 
 keep out o' harm's way." 
 
 Lord Gillies offered his arm to the 
 dining-room, and placed her at table be- 
 tween himself and Mr. Elliot. 
 
 She expressed great disappointment in 
 not finding Lord Lauderdale of the party. 
 " I understood he was to be at Kaith," she
 
 said, " and I wanted to consult him on a 
 piece of business of great importance both 
 to myself and the nation." 
 
 Mr. Elliot pressed her to take Maras- 
 chino, till Lord Gillies was obliged to tell 
 him he knew the Lady Fitly al was a very 
 abstemious person, and that she never 
 took anything but a glass of wine at 
 dinner. She spoke to him of the estate of 
 Melgund, and of its having been the resi- 
 dence of Cardinal Bethune. 
 
 He believed it was rather a good place, 
 and inquired if she knew it well. 
 
 She said she kenned a' the land there- 
 about, frae the south side of Seidlaw to 
 the north o' the Grampians ; and she told 
 him how a living lobster had fallen out of 
 a cadger's creel up about the parish of 
 Lintrathen, and how a Highlandman had 
 picked it up and carried it to the minister, 
 and how the minister put on his spectacles 
 to see what kind of a beast it was, and 
 after lang examination, and mony a refer- 
 ence to the Bible, he pronounced it to be 
 either an elephant or a turtle-dove. 
 
 Mr. Elliot in his turn related how a sea-
 
 52 
 
 Baitf). 
 
 faring friend of his, in giving an order for 
 provisioning the ship, said, " I am re- 
 solved to have a cow, for I am very fond 
 of new-laid eggs." 
 
 He then told her that a young lady had 
 taken his purse the night before, and he 
 would refer to the Lady Pitlyal what 
 punishment should be awarded. 
 
 She said she would give the same judg- 
 ment that the Bellman of Arbroath did 
 on a like occasion, when he happened to 
 be the finder of it himsel': 
 
 " John Elliot's lost his purse, 
 And his money, which is worse ; 
 Them that's found it let them keep it, 
 Them that's tint it, let them seek it." 
 
 When dinner was removed, and the 
 domestics were withdrawn, she recurred 
 again to her regret at missing Lord 
 Lauderdale, as it was of great conse- 
 quence to her to have her bill brought 
 in this session. 
 
 Mr. Ferguson begged to know the 
 nature of the bill, as some of the party 
 present might perhaps be of use to her. 
 
 She said it concerned a charter which
 
 53 
 
 had lately been discovered in the garret 
 of Pitlyal ; it was a grant from James the 
 Fifth, that the leeches of the loch of Pit- 
 lyal should become a monopoly ; and she 
 wished Lord Lauderdale to bring in a bill 
 obliging the king and all the heads of the 
 nation to use the Pitlyal leeches. 
 
 Lord Tweeddale said he would be happy 
 to lay it before the peers, and Sir Konald 
 was sure his friend Mr. Taylor would 
 bring it into the House of Commons. 
 
 Lord Gillies begged she would explain 
 the origin of the charter. 
 
 She said " the king was on a hunting 
 party in Strathmore, and he was thrown 
 from his horse and ta'en up for dead ; 
 that leeches were got from the loch of 
 Pitlyal and applied to his head, and he 
 recovered ; and when he cam' till himsel' 
 he speered at some o' the bystanders what 
 like his head was, and the gudeman of 
 that place said there was a muckle clour 
 upon't. ' Muckle clour,' says the king; 
 'henceforth this place shall be called 
 Muckle Clour, and the land, gudeman,' 
 shall be your ain.' "
 
 54 
 
 &aitfj. " The place was since sell'd to an an- 
 
 cestor of Lady Keith's; it is now ca'd 
 Meikleour, ye ken, Count ; and the king 
 said, ' Ye shall bear the leeches on your 
 shield, and I bind myself and my subjects 
 to make use of them in need.' 
 
 " The richt o' the leeches wasna disposed 
 o' when Mickleclour was sell'd ; but for 
 mair than a century the charter has been 
 amissing, and leeches have been ta'en out 
 o' ither lochs, and great quantities have 
 been brought over from Holland ; and 
 now it will na be an easy thing to bring 
 back the monopoly." 
 
 Mr. Taylor was doubtful how such a 
 thing could be done; nor could he dis- 
 tinctly see by what right she could expect 
 it. 
 
 Mr. Kussell thought it might be a right 
 of the same kind that secures thirlage to a 
 mill. 
 
 Lord Duncan interrupted the subject of 
 right by stating that he had many times 
 been at Pitlyal, and had heard her Lady- 
 ship speak a great deal about the loch 
 leeches, but he would like just to be in-
 
 55 
 
 formed how she had been in the practice &aitfj. 
 of catching them. 
 
 "Oh Kobert, Robert !" replied her Lady- 
 ship reproachfully, " mony ane speers the 
 road they ken. I Ve seen you aft'ner than 
 ance wade into the water and come out wi' 
 them sticking on your legs." 
 
 The cause was triumphant ; his Lord- 
 ship was fairly cheered into his recollec- 
 tion, but Mr. Taylor could not be made to 
 understand it, and no one could assume 
 sufficient gravity to explain. 
 
 As soon as a hearing could be obtained, 
 Count Flahault inquired after the health 
 of the Rosebud. 
 
 " She 's very weel, and shortly to be 
 married," replied her Ladyship. 
 
 " To whom, may I beg leave to ask ?" 
 
 " To the Prince of Monaco." 
 
 " A friend of mine," said the Count ; 
 but the name was not familiar to any of 
 the rest of the party. 
 
 " I'll gi'e ye a Scotch mark," she said 
 to Mr. Ferguson ; <{ it was his father that 
 thought a' the lamps in London had been 
 lighted up in honour of his arrival, and
 
 56 
 
 Justification*. 
 
 Bait!). 
 
 as he drove through the city he exclaimed 
 with delight, ' I 've often heard the Eng- 
 lish was a polite nation, but this is too 
 much.' I believe," she added, " my Jean 
 will be a great match for him, for his 
 principality is the very smallest in Italy ; 
 it lies, I believe, on the shore of the Medi- 
 terranean." 
 
 The Count bit his lip. " It does," 
 said he, " and the gentleman is my par- 
 ticular friend ; he is now the " I forget 
 the name. 
 
 In the drawing-room Mr. Elliot has- 
 tened to the side of his new friend, and 
 many was the story they successively 
 told. 
 
 " You carry the leeches on your 
 shield ?" said Mr. Elliot. 
 
 "And the lion for the crest. I am 
 the lion," she replied. 
 
 " I was once a hare myself," returned 
 he ; and he began a story he had told the 
 night before how he had acted the part 
 of a hare, to the astonishment of an old 
 gentleman in the neighbourhood of Minto. 
 Before the end of it, however, he caught
 
 57 
 
 the expression of the lady's eye, and lifting 
 up the veil which shaded her features, 
 exclaimed " Now I have found the Lion 
 ofPitlyal."
 
 58 
 
 Justifications. 
 
 Binncr Parts 
 at 3Lort 
 
 Cillics's. 
 
 SIB WALTER SCOTT expressed a wish to 
 see a personation, and Lord Gillies made 
 a party for the purpose, among whom 
 were Sir Walter and Miss Scott, Sir 
 Henry and Lady Jardine, the Lord Chief 
 Commissioner and Miss Adam, Doctor 
 Coventry, the Chief Baron Sir Samuel 
 Shepherd, and others. 
 
 Among other things that afforded sub- 
 ject of conversation was the fancy ball of 
 the night before ; the various dresses 
 and characters were commented on, and 
 among them the inconsistent conduct of 
 a black knight, who had thrown down 
 the gauntlet without waiting to see who 
 would pick it up. The knight was said 
 to be young Mr. T . 
 
 The dinner passed very pleasantly, as
 
 59 
 
 all Lord Gillies's dinners do ; and when 
 we returned to the drawing-room I bade 
 good-night to the ladies. 
 
 The Misses Carnegy and their old 
 friend Mrs. Arbuthnott of Balwylie came 
 to tea. 
 
 With all the ladies, except Lady Jar- 
 dine and Miss Scott, Mrs. Arbuthnott 
 was intimately acquainted. To them, 
 therefore, she was now by Mrs. Gillies 
 particularly introduced. 
 
 Lady Jardine whispered to Mrs. Gillies, 
 " What a beautifully dressed old lady ; 
 her clothes are so handsome, and so suit- 
 able to her time of life, and at the same 
 time fashionable and ladylike. I wish 
 some old ladies in this town would only 
 take example by it." 
 
 The gown was a dark silk, made up to 
 the throat, and with sleeves to the wrist. 
 A pure white gauze handkerchief pinned 
 tight over it, an apron of clear white 
 muslin trimmed with point lace, and a 
 cap of point with bows of white satin 
 ribbon ; a green shade and French grey 
 kid gloves seamed with black silk. 
 
 Dinner ipartg 
 at ILort 
 
 CUlics's.
 
 60 
 
 Sinner $arfo 
 at Hart) 
 
 Cillics's. 
 
 Mrs. Gillies hoped she was to have the 
 pleasure of seeing the rest of Mrs. Arbuth- 
 nott's family. To which she replied that 
 they would all be here, but that they were 
 dining out. 
 
 Miss Adam inquired how many of her 
 family had come up with her. 
 
 " There is the Laird," she said, " my 
 eldest son, and the three orphans left to 
 my care by my second son, and there's 
 our right-hand man and governor, James 
 Dalgetty." 
 
 " The young men," she continued, 
 "wanted a little amusement, and they 
 cam' up to the Fancy Ball. The Laird 
 had to attend a meeting of the Anti- 
 quarian Society, and I thought I might 
 as weel tak' the opportunity to come and 
 see my friends." 
 
 " Your grandsons will be grown out of 
 my acquaintance," said Miss Adam. 
 
 " They 're fine handsome young men," 
 was the reply ; " and Charles, the young- 
 est of them, is the life and spirit of the 
 whole house. He 's a jewel of a creature, 
 and the very image of his father."
 
 61 
 
 How did they like the baU ?" in- 
 quired Miss Scott. 
 
 " Extraordinary weel ; and Charles 
 went in the dress of a black knight." 
 
 " Was it your grandson then, Mrs. 
 Arbuthnott," continued Miss Scott, " that 
 was the black knight ? I am delighted 
 to hear you say so. It destroyed the 
 romance of the thing altogether when we 
 were told it was the son of Mr. T ." 
 
 The gentlemen now entered the draw- 
 ing-room. All who were previously ac- 
 quainted with Mrs. Arbuthnott expressed 
 their delight at meeting her, and she be- 
 came in a high degree animated by the 
 sight of so many old friends. 
 
 The Lord Chief Commissioner, claim- 
 ing the privilege of an old sweetheart, 
 sat down beside her on the sofa, and Sir 
 Walter Scott, though a new acquaint- 
 ance, placed himself by her on the other 
 side. 
 
 " Do you know, papa," said Miss Scott, 
 u that Mrs. Arbuthnott's grandson was 
 the black knight?" 
 
 " And poor Charles got a sad fright," 
 
 Sinner ^arts 
 at ILorB 
 
 Callus's.
 
 62 
 
 Sinner $artg 
 at ILortj 
 (Eillka'a. 
 
 continued Mrs. Arbuthnott ; " he did very 
 weel till he threw down the glove, but 
 syne he lost his presence o' mind a'the- 
 gither." 
 
 " I am afraid," said Sir Walter, " it is 
 no uncommon thing for knights in his 
 situation to lose their presence of mind." 
 
 " Where are the rest of your party, Mrs. 
 Arbuthnott ?" now inquired Lord Gillies. 
 
 " They'll be here presently, my Lord ; 
 but the Laird is gone to a meeting of the 
 Antiquarians, and the young men will 
 come as soon as their dinner party breaks 
 up." Then turning to Sir Walter, " I 
 am sure you had our Laird in your e'e 
 when you drew the character of Monk- 
 barns." 
 
 " No," replied Sir Walter ; " but I had 
 in my eye a very old and respected friend 
 of my own, and one with whom I daresay 
 you, Mrs. Arbuthnott, were acquainted, 
 the late Mr. George Constable of Wallace, 
 near Dundee." 
 
 " I kenned him weel," said Mrs. Arbuth- 
 nott, " and his twa sisters that lived wi' 
 him, Jean and Christian, and I Ve been in
 
 63 
 
 the blue-chamber of his Hospitium; but 
 I think," she continued, " our Laird is the 
 likest to Monkbarns o' the twa. He 's at 
 the Antiquarian Society the night, pre- 
 senting a great curiosity that was found 
 in a quarry of mica-slate in the hill at the 
 back of Balwylie. He's sair ta'en up 
 about it, and puzzled to think what sub- 
 stance it may be; but James Dalgetty, 
 wha 's never at a loss either for the name 
 or the nature of onything under the sun, 
 says it 's just Noah's auld wig that blew 
 aff yon time he put his head out of the 
 window of the ark to look after his corbie 
 messenger." 
 
 James Dalgetty and his opinion gave 
 subject of much merriment to the com- 
 pany ; but Doctor Coventry thought there 
 was nothing so very ludicrous in the re- 
 mark, for in that kind of slate there are 
 frequently found substances resembling 
 hairs. 
 
 Lord Gillies presented Doctor Coventry 
 to Mrs. Arbuthnott as the well-known 
 Professor of Agriculture, and they entered 
 on a conversation respecting soils. She 
 
 Dinner $artjj 
 
 at liorfl 
 Gillits's.
 
 64 
 
 Burner $atts 
 
 at 1L ort> 
 Callus's. 
 
 described those of Balwylie, and the par- 
 ticular properties of the Surroch Park, 
 which James Dalgetty curses every time 
 it's spoken about, and says, "It greets a' 
 winter, and girns a' simmer." 
 
 The Doctor rubbed his hands with de- 
 light, and said that was the most perfect 
 description of cold wet land he had ever 
 heard of; and Sir Walter expressed a 
 wish to cultivate the acquaintance of 
 James Dalgetty, and extorted a promise 
 from Mrs. Arbuthnott that she would 
 visit Abbotsford, and bring James with 
 her. " I have a James Dalgetty of my 
 own," continued Sir Walter, " that governs 
 me just as yours does you." 
 
 Lady Ann and Mr. Wharton Duff and 
 their daughter were announced, and intro- 
 duced to Mrs. Arbuthnott. 
 
 Lady Ann was remarkably spirituelle, 
 possessed a great talent for fun and 
 humour, spoke the Scotch fluently, and 
 entered the lists at once with Mrs. Arbuth- 
 nott. Many a good story she told ; not 
 only witty herself, but, as Falstaff says, 
 she was also the cause of wit in others
 
 65 
 
 and was altogether a very delightful 
 person. 
 
 Mrs. Arbuthnott inquired if she had 
 heard what had happened to a laird on 
 Deeside, when he was salmon-fishing short 
 syne. 
 
 " What laird ?" said Lady Ann. 
 
 "One that shall be nameless for the 
 present," continued Mrs. Arbuthnott; "but 
 the first bite nearly whummeled him into 
 the water. ' Gi'e him line/ cried Willy 
 Bruce the fisher ; ' that chield maun ha'e 
 play.' 
 
 "And sure enough the laird ga'e him 
 line ; three days and twa nights he war- 
 stled wi' the beast, and there wasna a 
 bush, nor the stump o' an auld tree, a' the 
 way between the Falls of the Feuch and 
 the Linn o' Dee, that he didna mak' 
 steppin'-stanes o'. At length the line 
 broke, and down cam' the laird. 'The 
 devil's got the hook,' he cried, and up 
 again he couldna rise. 
 
 " A' body wonders if he saw onything, 
 and some say it was the auld Abbot of 
 Arbroath, that used to dress himsel' in a 
 
 Dinner iBartg 
 
 at Uovtj 
 ffiullirs'B.
 
 66 
 
 Qiniur jpartj 
 
 at Ucva 
 Cilltrs's. 
 
 white coat and a curled wig, to gar folk 
 believe he was the Laird o' Seton, when 
 there was ony ploy gaen on that wasna 
 just suitable for a monk's cowl to be seen 
 in. 
 
 " He was doomed to haunt the rivers for 
 a thousand years afore he should get into 
 purgatory. 
 
 " But Willy Bruce swears it was nae- 
 thing but a muckle salmon that he's 
 kenned in the water these twenty years, 
 and the fishers ca'd him William the Con- 
 queror, because he managed aye to brak 
 their lines; but be that as it may, the 
 laird got sic a fleg that he was carried 
 hame in a raging fever, and he 's keepit 
 his bed aye sin syne." 
 
 " I know where you are now," exclaimed 
 Lady Ann Duff, and she began to relate a 
 pendant to this history about the Laird of 
 Abergeldie. But the laughter caused by 
 the downfal of the salmon-fishing laird, 
 only received a fresh impulse from this 
 interruption. 
 
 Mr. Henry Jardine and his sister were 
 announced ; the former recognised a friend
 
 67 
 
 beneath the green shade, and his smile 
 was returned by Mrs. Arbuthnott. 
 
 He was a friend of Charles's, and had 
 been at Balwylie. 
 
 At ten, Sir Walter and Miss Scott took 
 leave, with a promise that they should 
 visit each other; and bending down to 
 the ear of Mrs. Arbuthnott, Sir Walter 
 addressed her in these words : " Awa ! 
 awa ! the deil 's ower grit wi' you." 
 
 I ONCE got half-a-crown from Sir Wil- 
 liam Fettes when he was dining with a 
 few friends at his sister, Mrs. Bruce's. 
 She and Lady Fettes put it into my head 
 to ask charity from him, in the character 
 of the daughter of an old companion of 
 his, whose name was Sandy Keid. And 
 whether Sandy Keid ever had a daughter 
 was nothing to the purpose. Sir William 
 had lost sight of the man, and I had no 
 previous knowledge that ever such a person 
 was in existence. 
 
 Dressed in a smart bonnet and shawl 
 
 Dinner $}nt 
 at ILcutj 
 (GillifS'B. 
 
 fBrg. Brucc's.
 
 68 
 
 (E&ming at 
 fHrg. iSrucc'2 
 
 belonging to Lord Gillies's housekeeper, I 
 boldly rung the door-bell, and demanded 
 of the servant if I could get a word of Sir 
 William. 
 
 On the message being carried up-stairs, 
 the ladies desired that the person who 
 wished to speak with Sir William might 
 be shown into Mrs. Bruce's dressing-room, 
 where behind the window-curtains were 
 stationed a merry party of some half-a- 
 dozen listeners. 
 
 Enter Sir William. 
 
 "Well, my good woman, what is your 
 business with me ?" 
 
 " To ask your help, sir, in behalf of the 
 widow and the fatherless." 
 
 "And pray who are you ?" 
 
 " I am the daughter of ane Sandy Keid, 
 who was weel kenned to your honour ; his 
 father lived next door to your father in the 
 Canongate." 
 
 "Ay, are you the daughter of Sandy 
 Keid ?" 
 
 " I am proud to say sae." 
 
 "And what has reduced you to this 
 plight, my good woman ?"
 
 "Just, an ill marriage, Sir William.' 
 
 " I am sorry for that ; but you say you 
 are a widow." 
 
 " I am no' just a widow ; but my hus- 
 band has run aff wi' anither woman." 
 
 " That is very unfortunate ; but what 
 is your husband ? " 
 
 " A soldier, sir." 
 
 " An officer of the soldiers you mean, I 
 suppose ?" 
 
 "Na, na, Sir William; he is but a 
 single soldier." 
 
 " And did Sandy Keid's daughter marry 
 a single soldier ?" 
 
 Weeping " It is o'er true, Sir Wil- 
 liam ; but he was a bonny man, and I 
 ne'er thought he would forsake me." 
 
 " And did your father consent to your 
 marrying a single soldier ?" 
 
 " Oh, no, Sir William ; but it was 
 ordained." 
 
 " Have you any family, or any means 
 of living?" 
 
 " I have five boys ; and I wash and 
 iron, and do all I can to get bread to them." 
 
 " Where do you live ?" 
 
 (ffbming at 
 fSrg. 33ru'8.
 
 GFfoentng at 
 f&rs. Bruce'0. 
 
 In Elder Street." 
 
 " In Elder Street ! that seems to me 
 rather an expensive part of the town for 
 a person in your circumstances." 
 
 "It is but a garret, sir, up four pair of 
 stairs." 
 
 " Are any of your children at school ?" 
 
 " No, sir ; but the eldest is in Provost 
 Manderson's shop, who has been very kind 
 to him, and ta'en him aff my hand. And 
 the second is a prentice to a tobacconist ; 
 and (here weeping bitterly) the rest are 
 in the house, for I have neither decent 
 claes to put upon them, nor siller to send 
 them to the schule ; and this is Saturday 
 night, and no sae muckle meat within the 
 door as put by the Sabbath-day." 
 
 " I am sorry for you, and grieved to 
 see Sandy Keid's daughter come to this ; 
 but you must be sensible, that for a 
 person in your situation, your present 
 dress is rather too showy and extrava- 
 gant." 
 
 " That's true, Sir William ; but gentle 
 servants are no' civil to poor folk when 
 they come ill-dressed."
 
 71 
 
 " I believe, indeed, that is too true, but 
 your dress is quite unsuitable." 
 
 " Indeed, Sir William, I borrowed this 
 bonnet and shawl from a gentleman's 
 housekeeper, just for the purpose of wait- 
 ing upon you, for I am in great want." 
 
 " Well, there is half-a-crown to help 
 you in the meantime ; and I will inquire 
 at Provost Manderson about you on Mon- 
 day, and if you be speaking the truth, I 
 will see and get your children into some 
 of the Hospitals." 
 
 Here the party broke out from behind 
 the curtains.
 
 72 
 
 Cljt Jftntrfj 
 
 ANTERIOR to auy of the forementioned 
 scenes, we had many similar ones at Kelly 
 and Duntrune, where a friendly inter- 
 course subsisted between the families. 
 
 Kelly, near Arbroath, was the delight- 
 ful residence of the Honourable Colonel 
 and Mrs. Kamsay, with its fine old castle, 
 its gardens and romantic Den, where were 
 reared a family of thirteen promising chil- 
 dren, and where good taste and genuine 
 hospitality prevailed. The actress of 
 these Mystifications was sometimes in- 
 duced to play a merry scene, to amuse the 
 children as well as their parents. Once 
 she personated the character of a French 
 governess, whose family had suffered in 
 the Kevolution, and the young people 
 were cautioned to be on their good be- 
 haviour ; the lady could not speak English, 
 and she made them understand that they
 
 73 
 
 were to begin the lessons by pronouncing 
 every word as she did. Five or six of the 
 elder children stood up before this awful 
 lady ; they were very timid, very respect- 
 ful, and repeated with great gravity, and 
 much distortion of their little mouths, every 
 word as she spoke it. Then followed a 
 dancing lesson; then a drill, at the end 
 of which they were commanded to kneel 
 on the left knee, when Madame de Bru- 
 jack gave the nearest one a push that laid 
 them all flat on the floor. It was a joyous 
 scene; such peals of laughter from old 
 and young when they discovered the for- 
 midable French lady was only their own 
 familiar friend. Colonel and Mrs. Earn- 
 say, with the brother of the Colonel, Gene- 
 ral James Kamsay, spent some Christmas 
 holidays at Duntrune, where they were 
 joined by the Miss Grahams of Balmure. 
 One evening we all drove to the theatre 
 in Dundee, and on our return, just before 
 supper, Lady Wilson was announced, 
 the mother of Sir Kobert Wilson, who 
 helped the French Emperor's escape from 
 the Prison of Vincennes. She came to 
 
 8Tfje JFrntrt) 
 
 iGolKUUSS.
 
 74 
 
 8Tf)e JFttndj 
 
 solicit from the brothers a special intro- 
 duction to Lord Panmure, stating that 
 her son-in-law would have given her a 
 letter, but he had gone abroad here 
 some of the party heard the Colonel 
 whisper to his brother, " That's Perceval; 
 he married her daughter." Her Ladyship 
 wished for some particular piece of infor- 
 mation which Lord Panmure could give, 
 and for which she had travelled all the 
 way from Charleton at this inclement 
 season. The deception lasted till supper 
 was announced, when Lady Wilson re- 
 tired to rest. 
 
 [FEW are now alive who shared or assisted 
 in these joyous scenes, and the Mystifier, at 
 an advanced age, waits in humble reliance 
 the certainty of her summons. 
 
 C. S. G. 
 
 DONTBUNE, December 1868.]
 
 Jutut-e. 
 
 75 
 
 THE FUTUKE. 
 
 BLESSED shades of the past, 
 In the future I see ye, so fair ! 
 
 Ties that were nearest, 
 
 Forms that were dearest, 
 The truest and fondest are there. 
 
 They were flowerets of earth, 
 That are blooming in heaven, so fair I 
 
 And the stately tree, 
 
 Spreading wide and free, 
 The sheaves that were ripened are there. 
 
 The tear-drop that trembled 
 In pity's meek eye ; and the prayer, 
 
 Faith of the purest, 
 
 Hope that was surest, 
 The love all-enduring, are there. 
 
 And the loved, the beloved 
 Whose life made existence so fair ! 
 
 The soft seraph voice 
 
 Bade the lowly rejoice, 
 Is heard in sweet harmony there. 
 
 SCfje .(Future.
 
 76 
 
 f obi Jtztttt to 
 
 Eo&e Hetto 
 
 to tf)e f^etreg 
 
 of ftittgal 
 
 TO THE HEIKESS OF PITLYAL. 
 
 DEAR EOSEBUD, 
 
 I 'm tired of a bachelor life, 
 
 And have taken the field in pursuit of a wife ; 
 
 Of all the young ladies I 've viewed in succes- 
 sion, 
 
 You Ve made on my soul the most lasting im- 
 pression ; 
 
 And it is not that form, nor those features I 
 prize, 
 
 But the light of good-humour that beams in 
 those eyes, 
 
 And the sweet smile of kindness that meets 
 my attentions, 
 
 Spur me on at this moment to state my pre- 
 tensions. 
 
 My family, you know, is both ancient and 
 
 good, 
 
 We can trace our descent in a line from the 
 Flood,
 
 tht 3nrje** ot ptlpal 
 
 77 
 
 And the flock of grey geese on the pond in 
 
 my park, 
 Genealogists prove have been hatched in the 
 
 ark. 
 
 Indeed, among other rare things I can show a 
 Bobwig that belonged to old commodore 
 
 Noah! 
 
 My fortune is ample, a rent-roll quite 
 
 clear, 
 
 Of arable acres ten thousand a year ; 
 What with peats, and hill pasture, and kelp 
 
 on the shore, 
 I may state it with safety at three hundred 
 
 more. 
 
 I have ten serving damsels, and as many 
 
 men, 
 Who have lived in the castle threescore years 
 
 and ten ; 
 My hounds and my hawks are in numbers 
 
 past counting, 
 Old racers past running, old hunters past 
 
 mounting ; 
 But still I have twenty good steeds in my 
 
 stable, 
 Nine bays and four chestnuts, six greys and 
 
 one sable ; 
 
 ILofae ILette
 
 78 
 
 ILobe ILette 
 
 to tlif ILJcirrss 
 
 I've two coaches, three chariots, and one 
 
 sedan chair, 
 With some trifling exceptions no worse for the 
 
 wear; 
 A few hundreds of spiders their threads have 
 
 been twining, 
 And the moths and the mice have their nests 
 
 in the lining. 
 
 Now to turn out these settlers so late in 
 
 the season, 
 Seems to me against nature, if not against 
 
 reason ; 
 
 So to obviate this, the best thing I can do 
 Is to make Whippy 1 send down a pillion for 
 
 you. 
 
 There 's a gay riding dress which my aunt 
 
 Lady Maries 
 Had sent her from London to wait on Prince 
 
 Charles ; 
 'Tis of blue peau de soie, lined with couleur 
 
 de rose, 
 With a helmet and feathers, and tassels, and 
 
 bows; 
 
 1 A celebrated London saddler.
 
 i\u tyzivzzs ot IH 
 
 79 
 
 If to my proposal you start no objection, 
 The habit may suit both your taste and com- 
 plexion. 
 
 Then, my bride, I will mount you behind 
 
 me on Beaumonde, 
 
 And off \ve shall trot on a jaunt to Loch 
 Lomond. 
 
 Your devoted and faithful admirer. 
 
 DULL NESS CASTLE, 1821. 
 
 ILobe ILcttcr 
 to tlje ftjcirrss 
 of ptloal.
 
 80 
 
 letter to 
 
 Hetter to fHrs. 
 (EtUita from 
 
 1821. 
 
 LETTER TO MRS. GILLIES. 
 
 A THOUGHT has this minnte come into my head, 
 That all my good friends must be thinking 
 
 I 'm dead, 
 For since Jean went abroad, which is six 
 
 mouths and more, 
 
 The shade of a Whig has not darkened my door ; 
 And it's no sae lang syne nor diffiquilt to mind, 
 At bridals- and bur'als and a' ploys of the kind, 
 So great was the kindness we had for each 
 
 ither, 
 
 Pitlyal and the Gillies aye herded thegither. 
 So you and Lord Gillies might baith ha'e kent 
 
 better 
 
 Than heed such a tale unconfirmed by a letter. 
 But I 've found out the nest where the rumour 
 
 was hatched, 
 
 And how it took wing with a swiftness un- 
 matched ; 
 
 How it flew all abroad like some magical spell, 
 And how puir Jean was telt it at Aix-la- 
 
 Chapelle.
 
 torn the 
 
 81 
 
 Tour cousin, Miss Clem, is an arrant de- 
 ceiver, 
 
 A marvel to me any one should believe her ; 
 
 And Mistress George Eussell had better be- 
 ware 
 
 Lest her wit, running wild, lead her into a 
 snare ; 
 
 For the joke either argues a great want of sense, 
 
 Or impeaches the schemers of malice pre- 
 pense 
 
 A plot I'm determined they both shall rue 
 dearly, ' 
 
 And, cost what it will, shall be punished 
 severely. 
 
 While one spark of justice remains in our laws, 
 
 My well-beloved Jeffrey shall plead in my 
 cause, 
 
 And William Clerk, also, will make them 
 hear reason, 
 
 Though he gaed by my door in Angus this 
 season ; 
 
 But the Eosebud was absent, and nae doubt 
 that he 
 
 Thought a call might gi'e fash to an auld wife 
 like me. 
 
 Our prophecie treats more than once of a tryal, 
 
 And the fame of a law-loving Lady Pitlyal ; 
 
 ILcttr r to f&rs- 
 
 in dhrs from 
 
 liir ILrrtm 
 
 tfttlsal." 
 
 1821.
 
 82 
 
 f jetter to Mrs. 
 
 ILrttnr to fHra. 
 
 Ctllics from 
 
 ihtliul. 
 1821. 
 
 Then in sentences dark appears whiles to 
 
 foretell 
 Of an action she raised in revenge on hersel'. 
 
 Jean calls this " the prophet's prophetical 
 
 fiction," 
 
 To me it appears a mysterious prediction, 
 Expounding, as /do, " The triumph and fame" 
 To Pitlyal, will yet be fulfilled in her name. 
 
 She's a fine creature Jean, and has as 
 mickle sense 
 
 As mony young misses wi' twice her pretence ; 
 
 And yet at your parties she said she felt shy, 
 
 When a person addressed her, to give a reply ; 
 
 For she wanted the courage to speak conver- 
 sation, 
 
 And hold up like other young folk of her 
 station. 
 
 Though I spared not my siller to have her 
 braw dressed, 
 
 And she lookit, I thought, as genteel as the 
 rest, 
 
 She would laugh and declare 't was the dress- 
 maker's garnish, 
 
 The manner was wanting, the polish, the 
 varnish ;
 
 horn tht |Eabg p 
 
 83 
 
 And casting a look on her gossamer frock, 
 Said she 'minded hersel' of a milliner's block. 
 
 What think you I 've done ? after ponder- 
 ing fairly, 
 
 I've sent her abroad to her cousins of Airlie ; 
 
 She has seen Waterloo, she has sailed on the 
 Rhine, 
 
 And she 's been to the place where they mak' 
 the Hock wine ; 
 
 She rested some time baith at Basle and 
 Lucerne, 
 
 And she spent fifteen weeks in the Canton of 
 Berne ; 
 
 She's now got to Paris, and winter once 
 over, 
 
 I plan setting forward to meet her at Dover. 
 
 Now believe me, with every good wish and 
 
 kind word 
 To my Whig friends, including yourself and 
 
 your lord, 
 He '11 mind how I told him the last time I 
 
 saw him, 
 
 We'd planted East Ireland* and ploughed 
 Capernaum.* 
 
 * The names of two grass fields on Pitlyal. 
 
 Hrfta to iWrjs. 
 
 ffitllws from 
 
 tije Unfiu 
 
 IHtlpl 
 
 1821.
 
 io Jta. 
 
 Ertte to f&is 
 
 (Cillifs from 
 
 the ILatm 
 
 ilttlgal. 
 
 1821. 
 
 'T was in this very plantin', close by the 
 mill-lade, 
 
 That I foolishly dreamt I had angered Holm- 
 head. 
 
 And now fare ye weel, and remember me by 
 all 
 
 The auld-warld havers of Lady Pitlyal.
 
 $irkh 0' ftonniz 
 
 85 
 
 THE BIEKIE 0' BONNIE DUNDEE. 
 
 YE fair lands of Angus and bonnie Dundee, 
 How dear are your echoes, your memories 
 
 to me! 
 At gatherings and meetings in a' the braw 
 
 toons, 
 I danced wi' the lasses and distanced the 
 
 loons ; 
 Syne bantered them gaily, and bade the young 
 
 men 
 
 Be mair on their mettle when I cam' again. 
 They jeered me, they cheered me, and cried 
 
 ane and a', 
 He 's no an ill fellow that, now he 's awa. 
 
 When puir beggar bodies cam' making their 
 
 mane, 
 
 I spak them aye cheery, for siller I 'd nane, 
 They shook up their duddies, and muttered, 
 
 " Wae 's me, 
 " Sae lightsome a laddie no worth a bawbee 1 " 
 
 Qlty IStrfeu 
 0' iSonnte 
 
 Dun tier.
 
 86 
 
 $ir!m 0' ftonnit 
 
 JTIjc 15trkir 
 o' iSonnu 
 
 Duutm". 
 
 I played wi' the bairnies at bowls and at ba', 
 And left them a' greeting when I cam' aw a ; 
 Aye ! mithers, and bairnies, and lassies and a', 
 Were a' Bobbin' loudly when I cam' awa. 
 
 I feigned a gay laugh, just to keep in the greet, 
 For ae bonnie lassie, sae douce and sae sweet, 
 How matchless the blink of her deep loving 
 
 e'e, 
 
 How soft fell its shade as it glanced upon me. 
 I flung her a wild rose sae fresh and sae fair, 
 And bade it bloom on in the bright summer 
 
 there ; 
 While breathing its fragrance, she aiblins may 
 
 gi'e 
 A thought to the Birkie o' bonnie Dundee.
 
 87 
 
 WOKTHIES. 
 
 THERE were some worthies connected 
 with Duntrune, whose names must not be 
 forgot in these reminiscences. They were 
 not " children of the mist," but pure, ster- 
 ling characters, the first and most perfect 
 of whom was Meg Matthew, whose habita- 
 tion was opposite to my grandfather Mr. 
 Graham's house, in Arbroath, and who 
 lived on familiar terms with the family. 
 
 MEG MATTHEW. 
 
 Looking through the long vista of the 
 
 , c , . . ,, fltattfofa. 
 
 present century, and far down into the 
 
 past, I see myself, a little girl of five or 
 six years old, sitting on a creepy l at the 
 feet of a remarkable old woman called 
 Meg Matthew. 
 
 Meg sat at her wheel spinning flax 
 
 1 A stool.
 
 88 
 
 with both hands from the waist, while I 
 gazed on her dear, homely, wrinkled face, 
 drinking in the old-world tales of her past 
 life ; her dress, a short-gown, woollen 
 petticoat, a striped wincey apron, a close 
 white mutch with a black hood over it. 
 
 She had been a servant in the family of 
 the minister of St. Vigeans. The minister 
 and his wife both died during her service, 
 leaving three children, two boys and a 
 girl, totally unprovided for. Upon which 
 Meg engaged an attic room in the Market- 
 gate of Arbroath, and carried the orphans 
 there with her, where she span to main- 
 tain them, and she begged or extorted 
 from those she thought could afford it, 
 their schooling and clothing. 
 
 She did not ask like a mendicant, but 
 said she must have such and such things 
 for her bairns ; and when the boys were 
 to be fitted out, she would call at various 
 places, tell the lady that she must have 
 linen, and that the young ladies must set 
 to wark and make so many shirts for 
 Jamie or Wiily. 
 
 Situations were procured for the boys ;
 
 89 
 
 one settled in the West Indies, the other 
 in Montreal, and after the lapse of years, 
 Willy returned in good circumstances, 
 and died in Arbroath. James married in 
 Montreal, became affluent, and sent his 
 daughter home to visit her aunt, and the 
 friends who had known Meg. She was 
 an accomplished lady-like young person. 
 
 Meg went herself to London with the 
 boys, to see them fitted out, and witness 
 their departure ; and she saw King George 
 the Third, whom she described as being 
 " like ony ither husbandman wi' a stand o } 
 blue claes." 
 
 Betsy obtained a lady's-maid's place in 
 Hopetoun House, where she remained till 
 her marriage with Mr. Haldane, a stock- 
 ing manufacturer in Haddington. He 
 left her a widow in comfort; she was 
 much respected, and died in a good old 
 age. 
 
 Meg was the theme of many conversa- 
 tions among the young ladies of Hopetoun 
 and their attendant ; her name and fame 
 were even well known among the servants. 
 
 One day a housemaid ran into the
 
 90 
 
 flHorthie*. 
 
 fHattfjcto. 
 
 room calling out, "Miss Cruickshank, if 
 your Meg be in the body, she is now 
 coming up the road, dressed in her Sab- 
 bath-day claes, and her plaid ower her 
 head." 1 
 
 It was Meg herself, arrived on foot from 
 Arbroath, and rapturously she was wel- 
 comed by the whole family. She would 
 remain only a few days, declining all 
 favours for herself ; and when they offered 
 to show her through the house, replied, 
 " Na, na ; I'm no gaen to big the marrow 
 of it." 
 
 She returned home to her spinning- 
 wheel in her solitary little room ; and 
 from her rather unsocial manners, she 
 was looked upon by coarse-minded people 
 in the light of a witch, or one who was in 
 compact with the devil. 
 
 I remember her last illness, and seeing 
 her laid in her coffin. 
 
 Her dust rests within the cemetery of 
 the old Abbey of Arbroath, 
 Embalmed in memory with things that are holy. 
 
 1 Mr. Cruickshank was minister of St. Vigeans, near 
 Arbroath.
 
 Kotthit*. 
 
 91 
 
 JOHN FBASER, 
 
 A waggish old man who served the family 
 at Duntrune a term of sixty years, and 
 during three generations of its owners. 
 He was cook there when I was about ten 
 years of age. 
 
 He was not the type of a chef-de-cuisine 
 of the present day, but a very excellent 
 cook in his way. He dressed in a dark 
 waistcoat, knee-breeches, and a red night- 
 cap. 
 
 He liked no helper in the kitchen, 
 and always sent out any of the other 
 servants who invaded his domain, shriek- 
 ing with laughter. 
 
 He preferred his beer to his meat, and 
 never partook of meals with his fellows, 
 but sat behind and joked with them at 
 dinner. 
 
 He was very kind to my sister and me, 
 and when he had no other dainty to 
 bestow, he would boil a fresh egg, or parch 
 peas for us ; and sometimes he contrived 
 to make us a whistle of what he called a 
 
 3ofjn JFrastr.
 
 92 
 
 guse-thrapple (Anglice, the windpipe of 
 a goose). 
 
 In the years 1745 and 1746, when his 
 master, my grandfather, was skulking after 
 the battle of Culloden, John found it im- 
 perative to take other service, and hired 
 himself to Mr. "Wedderburn of Pearsie ; 
 but he wearied to get back to Duntrune. 
 
 One day Mr. Wedderburn observed him 
 putting a spit through a peat, probably 
 with the intention of cleaning it. When 
 his master inquired his reason for so doing, 
 he replied, " Indeed, sir, I 'm just gaen to 
 roast a peat, for fear I forget my trade." 
 
 At the end of two years he returned to 
 Duntrune, where he continued to exercise 
 his calling during the remainder of his 
 life. His death took place in Dundee, 
 where his master, my uncle, paid the last 
 tribute of respect to his memory, and laid 
 his head in the grave beside the family he 
 had served so faithfully. John's widow 
 was so gratified with the respect paid to 
 her husband, that she called her neigh- 
 bours to " come oot and see the beautiful 
 burial"
 
 Kotthit*. 
 
 93 
 
 There is an anecdote of John worthy 
 of remembrance. One day he sent up a 
 roast goose for dinner, off which he, or 
 some one, had cut a leg before it appeared 
 on the table. John was summoned from 
 the kitchen to tell how the goose came to 
 be deprived of a leg ; to which he replied, 
 that all the geese of Duntrune had only 
 one leg, and in corroboration of this asser- 
 tion, he pointed to a whole flock in front 
 of the house, which were happily sitting 
 asleep on one leg, with a sentinel on the 
 watch. 
 
 The Laird opened the window, clapped 
 his hands, and cried "whew," on which 
 they all got up on two legs and took wing. 
 But John, no way discomfited, quietly 
 told his master, " If ye had clappit your 
 hands and cried whew to the ane on the 
 table, it would maist likely ha'e dune the 
 same." 
 
 It is not to be believed that John ever 
 read Boccaccio, or had ever heard of the 
 Venetian cook " Chichibio," who played 
 the same trick with the crane's leg ; but 
 it is possible that two artists in the same 
 
 3ol)n JFrasor.
 
 94 
 
 3o|)n jfrawt. 
 
 Da&to 
 
 vocation, even with four centuries rolling 
 between them, may have originated similar 
 ideas. 
 
 DAVID MURRAY, 
 
 Whom I never saw, served at the same 
 time in the capacity of butler. 
 
 When asked what became of the wine 
 that was left, he replied, " I boot ha'e the 
 bottles to wash." 
 
 THE CADGER. 
 
 An old cadger who brought fish to 
 Duntrune, used to sit sound asleep on the 
 cart, leaving the fish to the discretion of 
 his horse. 
 
 One day he arrived at the door nearly 
 frozen to death, and was carried into the 
 kitchen to be thawed. In due time they 
 gave him some food, and a glass of warm 
 toddy to drink, which so cheered his heart, 
 that he exclaimed, " Oh ! sirs, I am happy 
 wi' ye; I am just ae eild wi' the auld 
 King George in., and I daur say I am as 
 happy a man as he is. The leddy will be 
 takin' a glass o' this till hersel' when she
 
 SE0rthitjs. 95 
 
 comes in frae her walk ; for I am sure 
 naebody could ha'e it in the hoose and no 
 
 tak' it." 
 
 THE BEGGAR. 
 
 An old woman was a frequent visitor at 
 Duntrune. She was called Bobbins, a nick- 
 name she did not particularly like, in con- 
 sequence of some delinquency on her part. 
 
 My aunt, Miss Alison Grahame, very 
 many years her junior, gave her a full 
 suit of winter clothing, in reply to which 
 she exclaimed, " Gudeness ! woman, what 
 will I do when ye dee ?" 
 
 In spite of the warm clothing, however, 
 she was seized with a severe cold, and 
 confined to bed, and the neighbours sent 
 donations of various delicacies, one of 
 which was a jar of black currant jam, 
 which she desired might be "toomed" into 
 a large wooden dish, and she sat up in bed 
 to eat it with a horn spoon, making wry 
 faces all the time, and took credit to her- 
 self for the same, by remarking, that 
 " mony ane wouldna sup it, for the lady 
 makes her jeil wi' the caff 1 amang't." 
 
 Chaff.
 
 96 
 
 After this repast she drank six bottles 
 of beer, half a bottle of whisky, and fell 
 sound asleep for eight-and-forty hours ; at 
 the end of which time she awoke quite 
 recovered. 
 
 THE DOGS. 
 
 We had a Skye terrier named Oscar, 
 which had a particular affection for Nanny 
 the dairymaid, and always accompanied 
 her to the milking of the cows, for which 
 attention she rewarded him with a basin 
 of warm milk. He always went with her 
 to her father's house at Linlathen on the 
 Sunday evenings, a distance of two miles, 
 after having been to the Established 
 Church at Murroes; but on occasion of 
 the opening of the Free Church in the 
 parish of Monifieth, which is not far from 
 the dwelling of Nanny's parents, he went 
 there alone, remained in the tent during 
 the forenoon service, was observed among 
 the congregation in the new building in 
 the afternoon, and we supposed he must 
 have remained to the evening service, 
 as he did not appear at home till past
 
 97 
 
 eleven o'clock at night, when he gave 
 tongue at the window of Nanny's room. 
 
 Once or twice after this Nanny had in- 
 advertently gone from home without him, 
 and he had observed her caressing some 
 strange dogs on the road, which threw 
 him into such a paroxysm of jealousy that 
 he nearly demolished her wardrobe. He 
 went to the room where she and the other 
 maid-servants kept their clothes, drew two 
 of her best caps from a basket, carried 
 them down-stairs and hid them among 
 some shavings in the stick-house; being 
 unable to extract the straw-bonnet from 
 the basket, he chewed the strings of it, 
 and tore up a handkerchief, and finished 
 off by selecting a printed gown of hers 
 from among those of her fellow-servants, 
 and tore it to shreds. 
 
 Great was poor Nanny's consternation 
 when she discovered that the creature 
 who she always said " had mair wit than 
 mony bodies," should be guilty of such 
 misconduct, BO she gave him a good 
 thrashing, and he vanished from the 
 house. No one saw him again for a
 
 98 
 
 couple of days, Nanny looking very mys- 
 terious all the time, and feeling assured 
 that he had "ower muckle wut." 
 
 The first intimation I received of his 
 delinquency was from himself, when he 
 came crouching to my feet, and looking 
 up into my face, as if entreating forgive- 
 ness. 
 
 He did not go to the byre with Nanny 
 for more than a week after this ; but, on 
 mature deliberation, he made an advance 
 to lick her hands, and she restored him to 
 favour. 
 
 Oscar lived to a good old age, and died 
 a natural death. 
 
 There was a general wish that another 
 native of Skye should be got to supply 
 his place. We had not far to look for 
 a successor, as there was a handsome 
 fellow at Pitkerrow judged worthy ; one, 
 too, which had a peculiarly knowing look, 
 from an accidental drooping of one ear, 
 while the other remained erect ; he had 
 also a custom of running on three legs, 
 while he carried the fourth like a bird on 
 the wing.
 
 99 
 
 A contract was agreed on, and Birkie 
 seemed satisfied with the transfer, the 
 distance being within a mile from his 
 early home with the miller, to which he 
 could easily run down to see how his 
 friends there got on without him, for he 
 was a creature of kindly affections, and 
 kept up an interest in the bairns, with 
 whom he had many merry gambols, and 
 over whom he kept a faithful watch when 
 father and mother were absent from the 
 house. 
 
 At Duntrune he found many domestic 
 affairs to look after, especially that of 
 attending on Meggy Scott while she made 
 the porridge in the morning for dogs and 
 cats, and being of a liberal disposition, 
 she gave them abundance of milk and 
 other good things. 
 
 After breakfast he followed Meggy to 
 the garden to see her gather fruit and 
 flowers, then he would lie down under 
 the elm tree at the kitchen gate, where 
 he could hear every footstep, and see 
 every person who approached the house, 
 giving warning either by a growl, a
 
 100 
 
 3Tf)* IBogs. 
 
 snappish bark, or a note of welcome to let 
 the servants understand the quality of the 
 visitors. He had a high opinion of his 
 own prowess ; when a carriage moved 
 from the door he would run between the 
 wheels, at the risk of his life, giving 
 tongue with all the strength of his lungs, 
 in the belief that it was his force that 
 gave the impetus. 
 
 When any of the household made him 
 jealous by fondling the big dog Neptune, 
 he would run off to the miller's, and re- 
 main for days, sometimes for weeks, till 
 a friend went to bring him home, and 
 then he returned in the full confidence of 
 a welcome greeting. 
 
 In the course of time he became rheu- 
 matic, and though able for the walk down 
 to Pitkerrow, he felt rather stiff and in- 
 capable of mounting the hill again, and 
 would lie at the miller's door till the car- 
 riage should pass that way, rejoicing to 
 be picked up, and drive home on the 
 box. 
 
 The last time he attempted to climb 
 the brae, a mischievous boy, who was
 
 101 
 
 sent out to scare the crows, fired a gun at 
 him, and he never ventured beyond the 
 gate again. 
 
 I have said he was a creature of kindly 
 affections, but he was also a wylie, and 
 a pridefu' doggie; indeed, he carried 
 his crest so high when walking in the 
 company of ladies, that he did not even 
 acknowledge the miller on the road. 
 
 Once, too, when the worthy man came 
 to Duntrune with a sack of meal, he 
 turned tail and would not see him, for 
 which misconduct, when reproached for 
 his ingratitude, he flashed a supercilious 
 glance on his monitors, and walked off. 
 
 Poor dear Birkie has now passed away, 
 and been lamented. 
 
 Another descendant of a Skye family, 
 and rejoicing in the name of Jack, rules 
 in his stead. He is of a gentler nature, 
 with black muzzle and a coat of fine long 
 yellow hair that touches the ground, and 
 waves round him like a gleam of light as 
 he bounds along the terrace. 
 
 Some one may perhaps write his life 
 when his days come to an end. 
 
 STfje Doga.
 
 102 
 
 3oljn anU 
 JFannp. JFraaer. 
 
 JOHN AND FANNY FRASER. 
 
 AMONG the worthies and kinsfolk who 
 paid an annual visit at Duntrune, were 
 an elderly brother and sister Mr. John 
 and Miss Fanny Fraser. 
 
 Descended from, and allied to, many of 
 the gentry in the county of Angus, they 
 always met a cordial welcome among 
 friends and relatives, thus keeping up 
 their respectable status in society. 
 
 In the first edition of this volume, in 
 consequence of a misapprehension, it is 
 stated that Mr. Fraser had retired from 
 the Navy with a pension of forty pounds 
 a year ; such was not the case ; but his 
 old age was made independent by the 
 bounty of his cousin, Major Fraser of 
 Hospitalfield, near Arbroath, one of the 
 most genial and generous of men, to whose 
 memory this statement is due. 
 
 The brother and sister resided in their 
 paternal property an old house in St. 
 Andrews. 
 
 They were of a rare simplicity of char- 
 acter, and so devoted to each other, there
 
 103 
 
 seemed to be but one mind between them ; 
 whatever suggestion or remark was uttered 
 by the one was echoed by the other. 
 
 Steadfast in their faith, loving God 
 with all their soul, their neighbour as 
 themselves, they held out a helping hand 
 to the lowly wherever they felt there was 
 power in it to be of use ; in proof of which 
 they adopted the child of a black woman 
 who came from the East in attendance on 
 a family, and in whose service she desired 
 to remain, while her child could not be 
 admitted as an appendage. Our friends 
 received the little Hindu girl, delighting 
 in her simple language, repeating and re- 
 echoing her quaint sayings, her marvellous 
 wisdom ! ! ! 
 
 In the course of a few years their little 
 fondling sickened and died, a dispensation 
 that nearly broke the hearts of her bene- 
 factors ; indeed, they were inconsolable 
 and deaf to all moral comfort, when a 
 happy thought struck the grateful mother 
 of the departed one, that another black 
 child might bring them consolation, and 
 she spared neither time nor trouble in the 
 
 3of)tt anU 
 JTanng JTrastr.
 
 104 
 
 3ofjn anto 
 JFanng JFraacr. 
 
 search till she found one, though of a 
 darker race, and presented it to the sor- 
 rowing pair. Poor Mr. and Miss Fraser 
 were overwhelmed with perplexity; but 
 when the dear little woolly-head looked 
 up to them so confidingly, nestling it- 
 self in their bosoms and their affections, 
 they accepted the gift as a blessing from 
 Heaven, gave it their name and their 
 home, and were comforted. 
 
 Some months after the adoption of the 
 second Betsy, John succeeded to a small 
 villa on the south side of Edinburgh by 
 the death of his aunt, Lady Wood of 
 Bonnington, and they removed to this 
 new home after disposing of all their 
 interests in St. Andrews. 
 
 Betsy Fraser grew up to repay them 
 with the tenderest affection, loving and 
 dutiful as a daughter, nursing them in 
 sickness, watching over them at the hour 
 of death. 
 
 They bequeathed to her the villa, which 
 was all their worldly wealth. 
 
 She married a most respectable man, 
 and they live in one of the pretty fishing
 
 105 
 
 towns on the east coast of Fife, where he 
 carries on a lucrative business connected 
 with the sea. They are surrounded by an 
 interesting family, and they still retain 
 possession of Fraser Lodge. 
 
 3ofjn ant 
 JFanng Jftaswr.
 
 106 
 
 Miss MENIE TBOTTER. 
 
 f fliss ffltnit 
 STrotter. 
 
 IN Lord Cockburn's Memorials of his 
 Time, he speaks of " a singular race of ex- 
 cellent old Scotch ladies. They were a de- 
 lightful set ; strong-headed, warm-hearted, 
 and high-spirited ; the fire of their tempers 
 not always latent; merry, even in soli- 
 tude ; very resolute ; indifferent about the 
 modes and habits of the modern world ; 
 and adhering to their own ways, so as to 
 stand out, like primitive rocks, above 
 ordinary society. Their prominent quali- 
 ties of sense, humour, affection, and spirit, 
 were embodied in curious outsides; for 
 they all dressed, and spoke, and did ex- 
 actly as they chose ; their language, like 
 their habits, entirely Scotch, but without 
 any other vulgarity than what perfect 
 naturalness is sometimes mistaken for."
 
 Wtorthit*. 
 
 107 
 
 At page 65 there is notice of Miss Menie 
 Trotter of the Mortonhall family ; but he 
 gives only the outer shell of the character, 
 such as he remembered her in his boy- 
 hood, little aware of the well of deep feel- 
 ing that lay hid within that rough piece 
 of granite ; how it would spring up at 
 odd times, and flow freely in some eccen- 
 tric channel, sending fresh soil to the 
 youthful plant, carrying substance to the 
 needy, and comfort to the weary heart. 1 
 
 1 "Miss Menie Trotter, of the Mortonhall family, 
 was of a later date. She was of the agrestic order. 
 Her pleasures lay in the fields and long country walks. 
 Ten miles at a stretch, within a few years of her 
 death, was nothing to her. Her attire accorded. But 
 her understanding was fully as masculine. Though 
 slenderly endowed, she did, unnoticed, acts of liberality 
 for which most of the rich would expect to be adver- 
 tised. Prevailing loneliness gave her some entertain- 
 ing habits, but never impaired her enjoyment of her 
 friends, for whom she had always diverting talk, and 
 occasionally ' a bit denner.' Indeed, she generally sacri- 
 ficed an ox to hospitality every autumn, which, accord- 
 ing to a system of her own, she ate regularly from nose 
 to tail ; and as she indulged in him only on Sundays, 
 and with a chosen few, he feasted her half through the 
 winter. This was at Blackford Cottage, a melancholy 
 villa on the north side of Blackford Hill, where the 
 last half, at the least, of her life was passed. I re- 
 member her urging her neighbour, Sir Thomas Lander, 
 
 ifltss fHtntc
 
 108 
 
 SEorthu*. 
 
 She was penurious in small things, but 
 her generosity could rise to circumstances. 
 Her dower was an annuity from the estate 
 of Mortonhall. She had a contempt for 
 securities, and would trust no bank with 
 her money, but kept all her bills and 
 bank-notes in a green silk bag that hung 
 on her toilette glass. On each side of the 
 table stood a large white bowl, one of 
 
 not long before her death, to dine with her next 
 Sunday Tor eh! SirThammas! we're terrible near 
 the tail noo.' She told me that her oldest friends were 
 the Inneses of Stow and the Scotts of Malleny 
 families she had known for above eighty-five years. 
 They and the Mortonhall family had each a mansion- 
 house in town; two of them being the two corner 
 houses at the lower end of a close leading from the 
 High Street down to the Cowgate, and the third one 
 of the corner houses opposite, at the lower end of the 
 close leading from the Cowgate southwards ; each 
 of the three houses looking into both the Cowgate 
 and the close. The Cowgate has now lost half its 
 character by getting a large sewer under ground ; but 
 before this innovation 'the Coogate Strand,' as it was 
 called, when in flood, was a great torrent, not filling 
 the cellars merely, but almost the whole canal of the 
 street. I remember a station on its banks, near Holy- 
 rood, where there was a regular net fishery, to catch 
 what the stream brought down, particularly corks. 
 Miss Trotter described the delight of the children of 
 these families in wading in that gutter when it was 
 safe."
 
 109 
 
 which contained her silver, the other her 
 copper money, the latter always full to 
 the brim, accessible to Peggy, her hand- 
 maid, or any other servant in the house, 
 for the idea of any one stealing money 
 never entered her brain. Indeed, she 
 once sent a present to her niece, Mrs. Cun- 
 inghame, of a fifty-pound note wrapped 
 up in a cabbage-leaf, and intrusted it to 
 the care of a woman who was going with 
 a basket of butter to the Edinburgh 
 market. My friend Mrs. Cuninghame 
 related to me this and the following his- 
 tories of her aunt : 
 
 One day, in the course of conversation, 
 she said to her niece, "Do ye ken, Mar- 
 garet, that Mrs. Thomas K is dead. 
 
 I was gaun by the door this morning, and 
 thought I would just look in and speer 
 for her. She was very near her end, but 
 quite sensible, and expressed her gratitude 
 to God for what He had done for her and 
 her fatherless bairns. She said ' She was 
 leaving a large young family with very 
 small means, but she had that trust in 
 Him that they would not be forsaken, 
 
 f Hiss fflcnic 
 STtottar.
 
 110 
 
 iWtsa ffimie 
 JErotUr. 
 
 and that He would provide for them.' 
 Now, Margaret, ye '11 tell Peggy to bring 
 down the green silk bag that hangs on 
 the corner of my looking-glass, and ye '11 
 tak' twa thousand pounds out o' it, and 
 gi'e it to Walter Ferrier for behoof of 
 thae orphan bairns; it will fit out the 
 laddies, and be something to the lassies. 
 I want to make good the words, ' that 
 God wad provide for them,' for what else 
 was I sent that way this morning, but as 
 a humble instrument in His hands?" 
 Miss Trotter had a friendship for a cer- 
 tain Mrs. B , who had an only son, 
 
 and he was looked on as a simpleton, but 
 his relatives had interest to get him a 
 situation as clerk in a bank, where he 
 contrived to steal money to the extent of 
 five hundred pounds. His peculations 
 were discovered, and in those days he 
 would have been hanged, but Miss Trotter 
 hearing the report started instantly for 
 Edinburgh, went to the bank, and ascer- 
 tained the truth. She at once laid down 
 five hundred pounds, telling them, "Ye 
 maun not only stop proceedings, but ye
 
 SHortlms. 
 
 in 
 
 maun keep him in the bank in some capa- 
 city, however mean, till I find some other 
 employment for him." Then she fitted 
 the lad out, and sent him to London 3 
 where she had a friend to whom she wrote, 
 offering another five hundred pounds to 
 any one who would procure him a situa- 
 tion abroad, in which he might gain an 
 honest living, and never be trusted with 
 money. 
 
 After all this was settled, she went 
 herself and communicated the facts to his 
 mother. 
 
 When she was confined to bed, and felt 
 that her end was approaching, she bid 
 Mrs. Cuninghame look at a little coarse 
 engraving of a young man that hung on 
 the wall of her room in a black frame. 
 
 "Do ye ken, Margaret, whase picture 
 that is ? I would like to tell you about 
 it. That's Jamie Pitcairn; he was but 
 a young medical student in thae days, but 
 he rose to distinction in his profession 
 after that. 
 
 " He was of a noble nature, and had a 
 kindly heart, and he was the only one in 
 
 f Hts3 fHcntc 
 Cruller.
 
 112 
 
 ffiiee f&cnie 
 STrottor. 
 
 the whole world that ever showed me any 
 tenderness or affection; and weel did I 
 love him ; indeed, we were deeply attached 
 to ane anither. 
 
 "My mother and my sister Johanna 
 were proud and overbearing, and looked 
 down upon Jamie, but my auldest sister, 
 Mrs. Douglas, had a mair feeling heart, 
 and often took me with her to visit at Dr. 
 Cullen's, 1 where I met Jamie, and mony 
 
 1 A pleasant glimpse of Dr. Cullen's firesifle may 
 be obtained by referring to the travels of M. Faujas 
 Saint-Fond, who visited Edinburgh in the year 1784. 
 He says, " Dr. Cullen lived in the midst of a numerous 
 family, who formed around him an amiable circle of 
 friends. Good-nature and amenity reigned in his 
 house. This learned physician merited all these ad- 
 vantages, for he himself possessed manners and a dis- 
 position of the most agreeable kind. I found that he 
 very much resembled Buffon in his behaviour and 
 mode of living, which rendered him doubly interesting 
 to me. His table was plentifully served, but without 
 any luxury. I was, however, astonished to find a pro- 
 fusion of punch brought in between the dessert and tea. 
 This regimen in the house of a physician of such great 
 reputation appeared to me very extraordinary. He 
 observed my surprise, and said to me with a smile, 
 that this beverage was not only suited to his age, but 
 that a long experience had convinced him that when 
 taken with moderation it was very salutary for the 
 inhabitants of Scotland, particularly during the latter 
 part of the autumnal season, and in winter, because
 
 SHorthus. 
 
 113 
 
 happy hours we spent there. Whiles he 
 wad come and drink tea with Mrs. 
 Douglas ; her house was at the head of 
 the Links, and the windows looked out 
 upon the country and up to Arthur's Seat 
 and the Salisbury Craigs. One evening 
 we three sat there building our airy 
 castles ; a happy party ; the beautiful 
 warld before us, and the birds singing 
 joyously, when the door opened, and four 
 black eyes like a thunder-cloud darkened 
 the room. They fell upon me like a spell 
 that froze my very heart's blood. I can 
 never forget the look of disdain they coost 
 upon Jamie. He never spoke, but took 
 up his hat, gave one kind look to me, 
 
 the cold humidity which then prevails in this climate 
 often checks perspiring. Punch, he remarked, is a 
 warm stimulant which operates wonderfully in main- 
 taining that necessary secretion, or in restoring it to 
 its equilibrium." 
 
 M. Faujas Saint-Fond adds naively, "This humid 
 and penetrating atmosphere had for some time affected 
 me in a very disagreeable manner, notwithstanding the 
 active life which I led. . . . This disagreeable feeling 
 was not to be endured, and I resolved to adopt the 
 regimen of Dr. Cullen. Each day after dinner I took 
 a glass of punch, which soon restored me to my usual 
 condition." 
 
 fHisa fflcntc 
 Grotto.
 
 114 
 
 SHortlms. 
 
 f fliss fflcnic 
 GTrottn. 
 
 opened the door and left the room, and I 
 never saw him again. 
 
 " They were cruel to me. I was ta'en 
 hame to suffer, and he never married. 
 
 " I had no friend left, for Mrs. Douglas 
 went to France for the education of her 
 only daughter, who in course of time 
 became Lady Dick of Prestonfield. So 
 I wandered among the hills, and held 
 communion with Him who is the father 
 of the afflicted, and when I looked over 
 the varied land and the restless sea, and 
 down upon the broom and the flowers that 
 were offering up their mute praise and 
 incense to their Creator, I found 'the 
 comfort that passes understanding/ 
 
 " Mony ane thought when I gaed thae 
 long walks among the mountains, that I 
 was my lane ; but I never was my lane, 
 for the Maker of this beautiful world was 
 my constant companion." 
 
 She was a great reader, and had a 
 highly-cultivated mind; but, continuing 
 her remarks, said .- " I never cared muckle 
 for religious books ; indeed, the only twa 
 books that I thought worth reading were
 
 Wtorth&e*. 
 
 115 
 
 Massillon's Sermons and the New Testa- 
 ment. I didna gae often to the kirk, for 
 I never profited by their lang prayers and 
 their weary sermons; and I had nae 
 pleasure in looking at the braw folk that 
 cam' there on the Sundays." 
 
 Pointing again to the engraving, she 
 added, " Now, that 's the picture of Jamie 
 Pitcairn." A day or two after this con- 
 versation, Mrs. Cuninghame paid her 
 another visit, and found her still in life, 
 but very feeble ; on asking how she felt, 
 she replied, "Very weel, but the candle 
 is just done." 
 
 She fell asleep the same evening, and 
 her soul returned to Him who gave it. 
 
 -Hi08 fJU nt/ 
 ZCrottnr.
 
 116 
 
 WHITE IS THE SNOWFLAKE. 
 
 OH ! white is the snowflake that falls on the 
 
 mountain, 
 Ere the breath of this world hath sullied 
 
 its pride, 
 And clear is the wave where it breaks from 
 
 the fountain, 
 Ere the touch of the earth hath polluted its 
 
 tide, 
 And fair was existence ere sin threw a 
 
 blight, 
 
 For the Spirit came pure from the Author 
 of Light. 
 
 Lo ! the fairest of flowers shall be nipped in 
 
 their bloom, 
 All their beauty and loveliness strewed 
 
 on the ground, 
 And the dearest of ties shall be hid by the 
 
 tomb, 
 
 While the mildew of death sheds its poison 
 around.
 
 fHhit.e is tht ^nototlxkz. 
 
 117 
 
 But the " Day-spring on High " beams 
 bright o'er the grave, 
 
 33If]tte fa tf)f 
 SnofoSafce. 
 
 For the Word of Jehovah is mighty to 
 
 
 save. 
 
 
 He hath trampled on death, He hath con- 
 
 
 quered the foe, 
 
 
 All the strongholds of darkness asunder are 
 
 
 riven ; 
 
 
 He hath laid all the hosts of the enemy low, 
 
 
 And restored to mankind the lost image of 
 
 
 Heaven. 
 
 
 He is gone to prepare for the faithful a 
 
 
 place, 
 
 
 And the Comforter's sent to the whole 
 
 
 human race. 
 
 .Jf i tt i s. 
 
 
 EDINBURGH : T. CONSTABLE, 
 
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