he was at freedom to sign or not, such as killing deer and roe, building in the forrest, feeding swine in it, &c.; and these are things which they say quite evacuates the reservation we made of hunting, &c., since they must quite destroy the game. What Lord D. will do, I know not; but I am satisfied he may, according to strict honour, refuse to sign; and, had I thought myself so situated, I would not have signed.

"Let me end this long story by another passage. When Lord D. proposed the Castletown to Invercauld, he made some objections to the terms, but it was plain he was for it. I told Dun we should end that with him before he got the forrest, without which he thought none would buy the Castletown, for want of grass; and, therefore, if both were not ended at once, he might think to put his own terms on us for the Castletown. But Lord D. seemed not touched with this, and hurryed out of town. When I spoke with Invercauld about the Castletown, after I saw he resolved to hold me fast about the forrest, he told me plainly that he would not come up to our terms. But he will be disappointed, for I think to get our own terms though his honour should have the forrest; and if another will but give as much as he, can any mortall say that his honour of Invercauld should be the man after what has passt?

"I have wearyd myself and you with this long narration, because the affair may produce some noise, if Lord D. refuse to sign; and I wisht you might at any rate know all particularly. Since they thus catch at advantages, what is it to us who gets the forrest, if we get the more mony? Certain folks coming there may hurt the Farquharsons, but cannot hurt us, for they will be our vassals too; and, be they never so strange, cannot in any occurrence endeavour to impose on us more enormously. And when these gentlemen do so now, what would they not do when they have more power in the country? Would the breaking or diminishing their power there hurt any but themselves, since thus they proceed with us? To pay but twelve thousand instead of twenty-one thousand merks, is a terrible odds.

"Earl Aberdeen and others are asking grazings of us.

"The letters from the sollicitor and others to Lord Dun were wrote, and in the hands of the express to go off with them, before I knew that any such were wrote, and to be sent to him. It was with some difficulty they told me, fearing I would stop them. But I saw not why I should; and you may see my reasons by what is above.

"I own my fault in not writing back to you about the mony. I knew not what to say till we should see what would become of some bargains; but I ought not to have neglected to tell you so, for which I hope you will pardon me.

"As to what I owe on my own account to Invercauld,* he wrote to me before he came up, and has here said to me, and indeed very civilly, that if uneasy for me to pay the wholle at Whitsunday next, he would only ask the half; and we agreed that it should be so. As to that gentleman's procedure ever since I had business with him, it makes me think him of a pretty mixt character. He seems still to be the best of them, and to have more of something like knowledge and a gentleman. But there is so confounded a predominancy of Highland vanity, want of right knowledge of the world, avarice, and a weak, jealous mind, that I cannot help thinking on four lines in Rochester

'Half learned, and half witty, and half brave,
Half honest, which is very much a knave;
Made up of all those halves, you cannot pass
For anything entirely but an ass.'

It is not hard to see through all these gentry, for their own vile Highland maxims are become so familiar to them, that you need but set their minds and tongues a-running, without contradicting them, and in the heat and run of their discourse they will tell you all themselves. But I have known others, who by their stations and education should be wiser, yet so much immersed in knavery by long prosperous practice, and their minds so debauched and corrupted, that, as if they had losst the very ideas and notions of honesty and honour, they have blabbed out what, at least, in prudence and decency, they should have concealed of themselves. I had very strong instances of this sort from both the Invers, when in the Highlands in the year 1725. Each of them separately were at pains to explain and vindicate to me their conduct in the year 1715. I did not wonder at their conduct; I had in former affairs seen enough to make me think it like them. But till then I scarcely imagined them so hardened as to repeat their scurvey, ungenerous, dishonourable maxims by way of vindication, and showing their parts and dexterity. They are certainly such as that neither king nor country, benefactor nor friend, can rely on them: but private Highland interrest, pursued in the way of the greatest deceit and basenes, will carry them over all these. And it seems those people have not of late only been such. I was still more surprised at the account which Invercauld gave me of his grandfather's conduct, when Charles II. was at Scoon, before Worcester fight, when my grandfather by the king's command wrote to him (he showed me the letter) to bring down the men for his majesty's service. This behaviour was all the vilest double Highland cunning, which yet the laird spoke of as

*Note." The sum of money due by Lord Grange, by what follows, appears to have been £400."

great wisdom. And it was droll enough that, some days thereafter, talking of Clova's odd freedoms, he told how once, being his bedfellow, he awaked him to tell him that his grandfather had then behaved like a rascall.

"But pray reflect on the conduct of the late Earl of Breadalbane, Glengairy, &c., and you will see that our gentry are not singular in the Highlands.

"You will certainly conclude from this I am so angry at what has now happened, that all these things come again in my mind. I cannot deny it. But still the things are true."

II.—Of LORD GRANGE to THOMAS ERSKINE of Pittodry.

"EDINBURGH, 14th June 1731.

"I believe your conversation with Inverc-d has made him ashamed of the affair about the forrest, for Lord Dun tells me he gave up his minute. I am glad on't, on account of his own character; for I think him the best of the set."

III. Of LORD GRANGE to THOMAS ERSKINE of Pittodry.

“EDINBURGH, 18th June 1733.

"I hear Monaltrie has owned his being in the wrong to Captain Grant, and has given bond for the bygones, &c. He might once have had a better bargain. He must certainly be what he called himself, a very weak man. But I am glad that affair is at an end, and I wish they may now be good friends.”

The end of all this ado seems to have been that the Lairds in question, Invercauld, Inverey, and Dallmore, obtained the property they wanted, and Duff of Braco, we are told, purchased the rights of the Earl as lord superior of Mar. And Peter died and was gathered to his fathers, and he sleeps in the churchyard of Inverey.

One of his sons seems to have died before him.

The other, Finlay, had some difficulty in getting himself served heir to his father, for, to speak in the mildest terms, he was a little weak or silly. The nearest heirs endeavoured to keep him out on this plea, but the "bitter little villain Charles" brought him up to Edinbro', and got him trained a little.

Quoth Finlay, when he came home laird, telling what exam

ination he passed to prove his fitness to administer his own affairs, "I counted twenty on my hand, and got the estate."

This required a vast amount of talent and learning, no doubt, but, for all that, the accounts that reach us do not tend to make us think highly of Finlay's administration. He had wit enough to get a wife, notwithstanding all this. His own account of her, when asked what she was, seems a little vague.

"Oh!" said Finlay, "they called my wife Te bhan na brataich-i. e. the yellow-haired saddlecloth-maker."

She was dead when this lucid biography of her used to be given by her husband. She left Finlay an only son, Benjamin, the last hope of Inverey.

When the child grew up, Finlay was persuaded to bring him to Edinburgh for his education. Accordingly, bundling him on his shoulders, he went up Gleney. On the way, Benjy did something, I fear me, the sons of the Caesars were guilty of, and altogether nonplussed his father. But Finlay was not to be outdone; the Ey was at hand, and in a nice pool he swilled Benjy up and down in all his toggery, and then spread him out to dry on the burn banks. That night the pair lodged with the Farquharsons of Stralloch, and then next day got to Edinburgh. The "bitter little villain Charles" got the young heir put to school, and his father conveyed him to it every morning, and went to fetch him home every night. As they were coming home one day, then, Finlay went, as usual, gazing into the shop windows, and, at length, some great "ferlie" arrested his steps. When he turned round again to resume his walk, Benjy was gone-kidnapped. Finlay went over all Edinburgh, crying out, a Bhenjie, a Bhenjie!" but no Benjy was forthcoming, nor ever after forthcame.

66

Inverey came home at least, he came to Braemar. He had no home; but what of that? On all those of his tenants, who fell behind in their rents, the laird quartered himself. He was not hard to deal with, poor man, but just ate with the family, and got a bed in barn, byre, or stable, if they were hard up for beds in the house. Then he made himself generally useful about the farm, especially in looking after the "beasts." But, easy-going as he was, he would not put up with every sort of folks.

He hung out, for the most part, with M'Dougal of Braegarrie -a relation of Col. John's henchman. In those times the Catholics were obliged to practise the rites of their religion in private. Finlay, whether Catholic or not, went along with them. On one occasion, while at mass in the barn at Braegarrie, Finlay looked out for something to give at the collection, but found he had no small change, a condition of pockets I am often afflicted with.

"Oh! laird, laird," said the goodwife, "you should have given something for charity, in pity of your soul."

"I searched in my pockets," quoth he, "for a bodle, but could find nothing under a halfpenny. Still I feel a great deal more pity for M Donald of the Allanmore, whose land is all flooded, than for my poor soul."

"I wonder," the wife would say by-and-by-a hint for the laird,—“who will let the poor herds home this bad night."

"Oh! they're not so very ill off," would the laird reply; "I pity more the poor lassies who must always be out bare-legged in the cold and wet;" referring to the children of the same M'Donald, who was Finlay's very particular friend. The laird generally ended, however, after a hint of this kind, by going to the relief of the herds. Little more, save some few anecdotes in this vein, is known about him, and he died, and with him ended the Invereys.

Katie of Marlodge Bridge remembered to have seen his coffin passing to the churchyard of Inverey, for he died with M'Dougal at Braegarrie.

The estate then passed to the Auchindrynes.

LEGEND OF THE DALMORES.

I REGRET that I have no genealogical account of the M'Kenzies of Dalmore, now Marlodge, to guide me in this sketch of the memorables of that family. I shall, however, be able to inform you of their origin. The data I have to go on, in giving the names of the most noted lairds of the Dalmore, is principally Broughdearg's Genealogy of the Farquharsons.

When James IV. rebelled against his father, among those who aided him was Kenneth M'Kenzie, ninth Earl of Kintail. He was called earl, though never such, because his father, though alive, was so old and infirm that Kenneth had the management of everything. After his victory, and when himself king, James IV. was forced by public opinion to make a show of punishing those who had abetted him in his unnatural rebellion. Kenneth M'Kenzie then, with some others, was imprisoned in Edinburgh, whence, however, he and another nobleman, loathing durance vile, soon effected their escape. They fled north, but were intercepted by the Buchanans of Athole, and called upon to yield themselves prisoners.