confluence, the stream is spanned by the bridge of Auchlee, opposite Longside; and a mile further up, on the southern slope of the valley of the Ugie, lies Middleton of Inverquhomery, the residence of Mr. James Bruce of Inverquhomery and Longside.*

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* For more detailed information about Inverugie and Ravenscraig, see "Castles of Aberdeenshire; " Macgibbon and Ross's "Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland;" Macleod's "Castles of Buchan;" Anderson's "Howes o' Buchan ; "Old Inverugie" by William Boyd (Peterhead, 1885); "Ha-Moss and the Castle Hill of Inverugie" by James Spence in "Transactions of the Buchan Field Club," 1891-2; and Peterhead Sentinel, 25 April, 1890. For fuller accounts of the Earls Marischal, see the references quoted for Field-Marshal Keith on p. 93, the " Dictionary of National Biography," Anderson's "Scottish Nation," "The Great Historic Families of Scotland" by Dr. James Taylor (London, 1889); "Earl-Marischal and Field-Marshal" in the Scottish Review, October, 1898—an article in which are embodied some letters of the last Earl Marischal; and "The Companions of Pickle," a sequel to "Pickle and Spy," by Andrew Lang (Blackwoods, 1898). "Being engaged on the subject" (says Mr. Lang in his preface) "I made a series of studies of persons connected with Prince Charles and with the Jacobite movement. Of these the Earl Marischal was the most important, and by reason of his long life and charming character-a compound of 'Aberdeen and Valencia '-the most interesting. As a foil to the good Earl, who finally abandoned the Jacobite party, I chose Murray of Broughton." Particulars as to the sale of the Earl Marischal's estates are given in "The York Buildings Company" by Dr. David Murray (Glasgow, 1883). The career of the tenth Earl Marischal was summarised in an article on "The Last Earl Marischal" in the Aberdeen Free Press, 11 November, 1897.

A portrait of George Keith, the last Earl Marischal, painted at Rome in 1752 by Placido Costanzi, is now in the National Portrait Gallery, London, having been transferred thither from the

British Museum, to which it had been presented by Lord Glenbervie. There is also a portrait of the Earl in the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh. The Marshal staff of Scotland, borne by the Earls Marischal, is now in the possession of the University of Aberdeen, having been presented to Marischal College by the last Earl Marischal in 1760. It is about two feet long, and is of brass, gilt; at one end it bears a representation of the Keith arms, and at the other the Royal arms of Scotland, both in iron or steel.

It is said that Burns's paternal grandfather, Robert Burnes, was gardener to the last Earl Marischal, "went out" with him in the '15, and was ruined in consequence. "My forefathers," says Burns, in his autobiographical letter to Dr. John Moore, "rented land of the famous, noble Keiths of Marshal, and had the honor to share their fate;" and, according to Ramsay of Ochtertyre, Burns attributed his being a Jacobite "to his grandfather having been plundered and driven out in the year 1715, when gardener to Earl Marischal at Inverury "-it is contended by some that Inverugie is really here meant. "It is not incredible that Robert Burnes left the farm he occupied in Kincardineshire to be gardener to Earl Marischal at the latter's Aberdeenshire Castle, and afterwards returned to Clochnahill. There is undoubted evidence as to the interchange of servants between the two residences of Earl Marischal at the beginning of the eighteenth century. It is beyond question that the Earl raised a regiment for the Chevalier in conjunction with Stuart of Inchbreck, proprietor of Bralinmuir, of which James Burnes, father of Robert of Clochnahill, was tenant, and the latter, whether as farmer or as servant, was bound, and could have been forced, to join it." (Chambers's "Life and Works of Robert Burns." Revised edition, 1896.) Whether Robert Burnes was really a gardener to Earl Marischal, either at Inverury or Inverugie, is, however, matter of considerable doubt. (See "The Grandfather of Burns in Buchan" in Aberdeen Journal, 22 and 26 November, 1897, and "The Home of Burns' Ancestors" by William Will; Aberdeen, 1896). +

CHAPTER VIII.

OLD DEER.

THREE miles further up the Ugie is the rich

and fertile valley of Deer, beautified by the woods and plantations of Aden and Pitfour. For a distance of three miles the scenery is strikingly pleasing-gentle undulations here and there swelling into hills, the ever-varying course of the stream, and the broad and massive features of the thick hanging woods delighting the eye. In the centre of this scene, softly embosomed among trees, lies the ancient village of Deer, skirted by the grounds of Pitfour and Aden; further on are the crumbling ruins of the old Cistercian Abbey; and on the left, looking back as it were, is the quiet, low-lying village of Stuartfield, with the mansion-house of Crichie among the woods on the rising ground beyond it.

The village of Deer (now commonly called Old Deer) is of great antiquity, but of recent years the majority of the old houses have been replaced by new and superior ones. At one time it was, like most -old villages, a mean, unsightly place, consisting of one street, separated into two branches at the kirk-stile, most of the houses being built with the gable to the road.

The features of the place are now completely