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and using this often in Robin Hood fashion, generously, for his friends. So little was this shady side of his life known in the countryside, that his skill in detecting theft and restoring lost property, was looked upon as not canny,' and due to the second sight.'

On one occasion Mr. Grant, younger of Ballindalloch, was dining at Stoneywood. He was an officer in the Dutch Brigade, and had come home to raise men for a company, which only wanted twelve of its complement. He was lamenting this to Mr. Moir, who jocularly remarked, that if John Gunn,' who was standing behind his chair, canna help ye, deil kens wha can.' Upon which John asked Mr. Grant when he could have his men ready to ship to Holland. 'Immediately,' was the reply. 'Weel a weel, Ballindalloch, tak' yer road at aince for Aberdeen, tak' out a passage for them and twelve mair, and send me word when ye sail, and, if ye keep it to yoursell, ye 'll find your ither men a' ready.' Mr. Grant knew his man, and made his arrangements. The twelve men made their appearance with John at their head. When they found what was their destination they grumbled, but John, between fleeching and flyting, praised them as a set of strapping fellows; told them they would soon come back again with their pockets full of gold. They went and never returned, finding better quarters abroad, and thus John got rid of some of his secret confederates that were getting troublesome.

Another of John's exploits was in a different line. Mr. Moir had occasion to go to London, taking John with him of course. He visited his friend the Earl of Wintoun, then under sentence of death in the Tower for his concern in the rebellion of 1715. The Earl was arranging his affairs, and the family books and papers had been allowed to be carried into his cell in a large hamper, which went and came as occasion needed. John, who was a man of immense size and strength, undertook, if the Earl put himself, instead of his charters, into the hamper, to take it under his arm as usual, and so he did, walking lightly out. Lord Wintoun retired to Rome, where he died in 1749.

On the rising' in the '45 John joined young Stoneywood, his master's son, but before telling his adventures in that unhappy time, we must go back a bit.

The grandson of old Stoneywood, James, born in 1710, was now a handsome young man, six feet two in height, and of a great spirit. As his grandfather and father were still alive, he entered into foreign trade; his mother, our keen friend of the green purse, meantime looking out for a rich marriage for her son, fixed on Lady Christian, daughter of the Earl of Buchan, and widow of Fraser of Fraser; but our young Tertius liked

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not the widow, nor his cousin of Pittoderie, though her father offered to settle his estate on him; Lord Forbes's daughter with a tocher of 40,000 merks was also scorned. And all for the same and the best reason. He was in love with his cousin, Margaret Mackenzie of Ardross. It was the old story,-liebend und geliebt. But their bright thing,' though it did not in the end come to confusion,' did not for a time run smooth.' Thomas, his brother, a sailor, was likewise bewitched by the lovely cousin. He was refused, found out the reason, and in his rage and jealousy intercepted the letters between the lovers for three long miserable years, James living all the time at Stoneywood, and she far away in Ross-shire. The unworthy sailor made his way to Ardross, asked Margaret and her sister why they didn't ask for James, and then told them he was just going to be married to Miss Erskine of Pittoderie, and to have the estate. Margaret, thus cruelly struck, said, 'Thomas, ye know my bindin', I have been aye true; I have angered my father, and refused a rich and a good man, and I'll be true till James himsel' is fause,' and like a frozen lily, erect on its stem, she left them-to pass her night in tears.

James was as true as his Margaret; and his grandfather and father agreed to his marriage, under a singular condition: the bulk of the rents were settled in annuity on the two seniors, and the estate made over to the young laird in fee-simple. The seniors did not long cumber him or the land; they both died within the year. Straightway James was off to Ardross to claim his Margaret. He came late at night, and 'rispit at the ring.' Murdo, the young laird, rose and let him in, sending a message to his sister to get a bedroom ready for his cousin Stoneywood. Miss Erskine of Pittodderie was in the house as it so happened, and old Lady Ardross, in her ignorance, thinking young Moir was after her, wrathfully sent word to him that he must not disturb the family, but might share Murdo's bed. Poor Margaret said little and slept less, and coming down before the rest in the early morning to make ready the breakfast, she found her cousin there alone: they made good use of their time, we may be sure, and the cruel mystery about the letters was all cleared up.

James and Thomas never met till they were both on the verge of the grave; the old men embraced, forgiving and forgiven.

The lovers were married at Ardross in September 1740, and they came to Stoneywood, where our stern old lady gloomed upon them in her displeasure, and soon left them, to live in Aberdeen, speaking to her son at church, but never once noticing his lovely bride. For all this he made far more than up by the tenderest love and service. We quote the touching words of

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their descendant: With the only recollection I have of my grandfather and grandmother in extreme old age, their sedate and primitive appearance, and my veneration for them, makes the perusal of the very playful and affectionate letters which passed betwixt them at this early period of their lives to me most amusing and comic.' But between these times there intervened long years of war, and separation, perils of all kinds, exile, and the deaths of seven lusty sons in their youth.

We have seen a portrait of Mrs. Moir in her prime, in the possession of her great-grandson; it shows her comely, plump, well-conditioned, restful, debonnair-just the woman for the strenuous, big Stoneywood's heart to safely trust in.

Soon after his marriage, young Stoneywood had a violent fever; the mother and the cold sister came to his bedside, never once letting on that they saw his wife; and Annie Caw, an old servant, many years after, used to say that her heart was like to break to see the sweet young leddy stannin' the hale day in silence, pretendin' to look out at the garden, when the big saut draps were rinnin' doon her bonnie cheeks.' The old dame returned to Aberdeen at night without one word or look of sympathy. They had a daughter, still the old lady was unmitigated, but a son made all sweet.

Then came the stirring, fatal '45. Stoneywood, when laid up with a severe burn of the leg, received an express from the Countess of Errol, desiring his immediate attendance at Slains Castle. Lame as he was, he mounted his horse and rode to Slains, where the Prince gave him a commission as lieutenantcolonel; he found Gordon of Glenbucket there, having come from France, where he had lived in exile since the '15, his son with him, and though he was blind he joined the cause, so that there were then three generations of John Gordons under the Prince's banner, as sings the Jacobite doggrel :

'Nor, good Glenbucket, loyal throughout thy life,
Wert thou ungracious in the manly fight,

Thy chief degenerate, thou his terror stood,
To vindicate the loyal Gordon's blood.
The loyal Gordons, they obey the call,

Resolved with their Prince to fight or fall.'

Stoneywood, from his great strength and courage, and his entire devotedness to the cause, was a man of mark. Walking down the Broad Street of Aberdeen, he was fired at from a window by one Rigg, a barber. Mr. Moir called up to him to come down, and he'd have fair play afore the townsmen,' an invitation il Barbiere declined. Before joining the Prince, Stoneywood, with characteristic good sense and forethought, took a step

which, if others had done, the forfeiture and ruin of many families would have been spared: he executed a formal Commission of Factory over his whole lands in favour of his wife. On the utter collapse of the enterprise at Culloden, he made his way from Ruthven, near Kingussie, through the wilds of Braemar, and reached his own house-then filled with English troops at midnight. Leaping over the garden-wall, he tapped at his wife's window, the only room left to her, in which slept the children, and her faithful maid, Anne Caw. She was lying awake,-' a' the lave were sleeping,'-heard the tap, and, though in strange disguise, she at once knew the voice and the build to be her husband's. He had been without sleep for four nights; she got him quietly to bed without waking any one in the room. Think of the faithful young pair, not daring even to speak, for Janet Grant, the wet-nurse, was not to be trusted-a price was on his head!

Stoneywood left late the next evening, intending to cross the Don in his own salmon-boat, but found it drawn up on the other side, by order of Paton of Grandholm, a keen Hanoverian. Stoneywood called to the miller's man to cross with the boat. And wha are ye?' 'I'm James Jamieson o' Little Mill,' one of his own farmers. Jamieson' was a ready joke on his father's name.

Stoneywood made for Buchan, where he lay for months, being hunted day and night. Here he was joined by our redoubtable friend John Gunn, who, having left his father's service some time before, had gone into his old line, and had been tried before the Circuit Court at Aberdeen, and would have fared ill had Stoneywood not got an acquittal. This made John more attached than ever. He said he would stick to his Colonel, and so he and his gipsy wife did. She continued to carry letters and money between Stoneywood and his wife, by concealing them under the braiding of her abundant black hair. So hot was the pursuit, that Stoneywood had to be conveyed over night to the house of a solitary cobbler, in the remote muirland. His name was Clarke. Even here he had to make a hole behind the old man's bed, where he hid himself when any one came to the door. It shows the energy of Stoneywood's character, and his lightheartedness, that he set to work under the old cobbler to learn his craft, and to such good purpose, that his master said,'Jeems, my man, what for did ye no tell me ye had been bred a sutor?' And so I was, freend, but to tell ye God's truth, I was an idle loon, gey weel-faured, and ower fond o' the lassies, so I joined the Prince's boys, and ye see what's come o't!' This greatly pleased old Clarke, and they cobbled and cracked away cheerily for many an hour. So much for brains and will.

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On one occasion, when hard pressed by their pursuers, Mr. Moir turned his cobbling to good account, by reversing his brother Charles's brogues, turning the heel to the toe, a joke requiring dexterity in the walker as well as in the artist. After many months of this risky life, to which that of a partridge with a poaching weaver from West Linton on the prowl, was a species of tranquillity, our gallant, strong-hearted friend, hearing that the Prince had escaped, left for Norway in a small sloop from the coast of Buchan, along with Glenbucket and Sir Alexander Bannerman.

It was when living in these wilds that a practical joke of John Gunn's was played off, as follows:

'After the battle of Culloden, James Moir lurked about in the wildest parts of Aberdeenshire to escape imprisonment. One day the Laird of Stoneywood, with a small party of friends and servants, was on the hill of Benochie engaged boiling a haggis for their dinner, when they were suddenly aware of a party of soldiers coming up the hill directly towards them. Flight was their only resource, but before leaving the fire John Gunn upset the pot, that their dinner might not be available to their enemies. Instead of bursting on the ground, the haggis rolled unbroken down the hill, towards the English soldiers, one of whom, not knowing what it was, caught it on his bayonet, thereby showering its contents over himself and his comrades, on seeing which termination to the adventure, John Gunn exclaimed, "See there! even the haggis, God bless her, can charge down hill."

Sir Walter Scott must have heard the story from the same source as ours, and has used it in Waverley, as follows, missing of necessity the point of the bayonet and of the joke:

"The Highlanders displayed great earnestness to proceed instantly to the attack, Evan Dhu urging to Fergus, by way of argument, that "the sidier roy was tottering like an egg upon a staff, and that they had a' the vantage of the onset, for even a haggis (God bless her!) could charge down hill."

The Duke of Cumberland, on his way north, quartered his men on the Jacobite chiefs. A troop of dragoons was billeted on Stoneywood, where their young English captain fell ill, and was attended during a dangerous illness by the desolate and lovely wife. As soon as he was able, he left with his men for Inverness-shire, expressing his grateful assurance to Mrs. Moir, that to her he owed his life, and that he would never forget her. Some time after, when she was alone, one evening in April, not knowing what to fear or hope about her husband and her prince, a stone, wrapt in white paper, was flung into the darkening room. It was from the young Englishman, and told briefly the final disaster at Culloden, adding, Stoneywood is safe.'

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