importance. Later, it was to Walker that Burns sent` a letter, enclosing the verses on Bruar Water. The jottings in Burns's diary are quite vivid :

Ride in

"Saturday. Visit the scenes round Blair. company with Sir William Murray and Mr Walker to Loch Tummel. Dine at Blair-Company: General Murray, Orien; Capt. Murray, an honest tar; Sir William Murray, an honest, worthy man ; Mrs Graham, belle et amiable; Miss Cathcart; Mrs Murray, a painter; Duchess and fine family. Dance-sup-Duke; Mr Graham of Fintry; Mr M Laggan; Mr and Mrs Stewart."

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Jean, Duchess of Atholl, eldest of the three beautiful daughters of Lord Cathcart, married in 1774, had at this time seven children-the youngest, six months old, the smiling little seraph"; the others "the lovely olive plants." The Duchess, noted for her happy home life, is described by one of her descendants as a gentle, kindly woman, well read, and with musical and artistic tastes. There are many traces of her books, music, and sketches at Blair. I might specially mention a small book of manuscript. music, in which she has drawn a delightful little coloured sketch of her children dancing to the strains of Neil Gow's fiddle." Like her sister, the beautiful Mrs Graham, she died of consumption, in 1790. Neil Gow was at that time violinist at Blair. He had played the day previous for Burns at Dr Stewart's, and Burns describes his interesting face-his honest, social brow."

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John, the fourth Duke, who had succeeded in 1774, is well remembered for his management of his estates and tree planting. The present Duke thus pithily describes him : 66 The 4th Duke was a particularly go-ahead man for his date, and he did more for agriculture than almost any man in Scotland. He introduced a proper system of farming in Atholl, laid out the farms on lines which are a model at the present day, built good houses (which are still good) and farm buildings, introduced a proper tenancy system which still obtains, did away with all hopeless crofts, and in their place put small profitable farms, and

He was a great

did so much in the way of forestry that he was known as John, the Planter. The woods that he planted have proved of great value during the war to the country. His treatise on larch, planting is still a standard work. sportsman, and a man of much energy." strikingly handsome man; his portrait appears in the engraving," The Death of a Stag in Glentilt."

He was also a

This two-day visit might well be described by Burns as one of the happiest events in his life. Willie Nicol was there-Walker calls him a robust but clumsy person, and Burns described him as a loaded blunderbuss at full cockbut he appears to have kept in the background and caused no trouble. Next day, Sunday, they journeyed by Dalwhinnie, Rothiemurchus, and the Cairngorms, and paid a visit to Bruar Water, which inspired "The Humble Petition to the Noble Duke of Athole," a petition promptly given effect to. Burns wrote little about children, save in his farmhouse sketches, so the last verse in praise of these highly-born he had so lately seen is worth quoting :

"So may, old Scotia's darling hope,

Your little angel band,

Spring like their fathers, up to prop
Their honoured native land.

So may, thro' Albion's farthest ken,
To social-flowing glasses,

The grace be- Athole's honest men,

And Athole's bonnie lasses.'

It was a week later that Burns and Nicol drove, by way of Forres and Elgin, from Brodie House to Fochabers. At the Gordon Arms the chaise was put up, and Burns proceeded alone to the Castle to pay his respects to the Duchess. His jotting is :

"Friday. Cross Spey to Fochabers-fine palace, worthy of the generous proprietor. Dine-company: Duke and Duchess, Ladies Charlotte and Madeline; Colonel Abercrombie and Lady; Mr Gordon and Mr, a clergyman, a venerable aged figure; and Mr Hoy, a clergyman I suppose, a pleasant open manner. The Duke makes me

happier than ever great man did-noble, princely; yet mild, condescending and affable, gay, and kind. The Duchess charming, witty, and sensible-God bless them."

Hoy was not a clergyman, but the librarian. The clergyman may have been Rev. Dr Couper, parish minister, who later supplied the details of the unfortunate ending of the visit. Did Burns actually give his travelling companion the slip? Nicol knew they were come to Gordon

Castle, the Duchess, the first patron. It looks remarkably like it. Possibly Nicol, though unobtrusive at Blair, had not proved suited to such company. Possibly with Brodie of Brodie, the night before, something had gone wrong to make that kind host only truly polite, but not just the Highland cordiality." Anyway, alone he went, with or Looking at the calls on the road, it must have been past noon when Fochabers was reached, and the Poet arrived at the Castle just as the family was sitting down to the early afternoon dinner. Meal over, and a glass or two of wine drunk, he could no longer detain

without explanation.

his friend, and rose to leave. The Duke offered to send a servant, and finally dispatched one of his own guests to accompany Burns, with a special invite to Mr William Nicol to favour their Graces with his company for the night. But that obstinate son of Latin prose, having doubtless employed his weary waiting in his usual manner, was beside himself with anger and vexation. The horses were being yoked to the old chaise; landlord, postboy, everybody being cursed; the messenger and his message got the same treatment, and Burns either had to part company and be left behind, or go on with the journey instanter. According to local tradition, there was a real collieshangie on the sidewalk.

So on went the ill-matched pair to Cullen-to Old Cullen-now blotted out, and there they spent the night. Local tradition records a call on the way, near to Buckie, at a change-house kept by a notable auld wife, but it must have been a waefu' gait. No wonder that next morning, at Banff," Burns played off some sportive jests at his touchy companion, about some misunderstanding between them at Fochabers." But, seeing who he was, and what he knew he was, the Bard was a most forbearing man through life. It was a sad affair, maybe a serious one. At Blair he met Graham of Fintry-" Fintry, my stay in worldly strife "who stood his friend in the Excise, and the Gordon influence might have changed his prospects, as the Duchess was at that time so powerful in political circles. She was then in the height of her fame and power, and her husband was then proudly devoted to her. As to the mode of life at the Castle, and the Duchess's management, it is interesting to quote Mrs Rose, of Kilravock, another famous Scotswoman of the time, with whom Burns had stayed part of the day preceding. She was a constant visitor, and, in a letter to a friend, says:—“The manner of living at the Castle was perfectly gay, remote from anything indelicate or foolish.

The table was elegant; no disguised dishes or French cookery-no coquetry-no jealousy-no hard drinking. I could have lived a month in the same style,

and looked back on it as a period rationally employed, which is far from being generally the case. The Duchess is a helper of youthful Scots; has a great gift of homeliness, the Doric, and various dialects." So the gay Duchess was then as good a helpmeet and housewife as her quieter peer of Atholl. Her latter years were as troubled as those of the Poet himself.

Burns sought to make some return by sending the Duke the verses on Castle Gordon, commencing" Streams that glide in orient plains," as poor as anything he ever wrote, possibly reflecting his disappointment. The poem and letter are not at Gordon Castle, nor is the Bruar Water manuscript to be found at Blair.

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That Burns very deeply felt the incident is clear from a letter of his, dated Edinburgh, 20th October, 1787, to James Hoy, the old librarian, a quaint, learned Scots character. In it he says: "I shall certainly, among my legacies, leave my latest curse to that unlucky predicament which hurried-tore me away from Gordon Castle. May that obstinate son of Latin prose be curst." The object

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of the letter was to secure a copy of Cauld Kail in Aberdeen," written by the Duke, and to enlist his sympathy in Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, for which the Poet was working so devotedly. Hoy, in his reply, told him, If I were not sensible of your fault as well as your loss, in leaving this place so suddenly, I should condemn you to starve onc auld kail; and as for Dick Latine, your travelling companion, I should give him naught but Stra'bogie custocks." The song was sent, along with an order for the Museum, and Burns in a letter of 6th November, writes: The Duke's song charms me. There is I know not what of wild happiness of thought and expression peculiarly beautiful in the old Scottish song style, of which His Grace, old, venerable Skinner, and the late Ross at Lochlee, are the only modern instances that I recollect, since Ramsay, with his contemporaries, and poor Bob Fergusson, went to the world of deathless existence, and

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