downwards, had the thorough appreciation of Deeside humour. It was there
that the Dean learned his stories of "Boatie" and other worthies of the
river-side. Boatie himself was Abernethy, the ferryman of Dee below
Blackhall; he hauled his boat across the river by a rope made fast at
both ends. Once, in a heavy water, the rope gave way, and Boatie in his
little craft was whirled down the raging river and got ashore with much
difficulty. It was after this, when boasting of his valiant exertions,
that Mrs. Russell put him in mind of the gratitude he owed to Providence
for his escape, and was answered as the Dean himself tells us in his
_Reminiscences_. Another of the water-side worthies, "Saunders Paul,"
was nominally the keeper of the public-house at Invercannie, where the
water of Cannie falls into Dee. It was the alehouse of the country, but
frequented much more by the gentry than by the commons. It was there
that Mr. Maule in his young days, not yet Lord Panmure, led the riots
and drank his claret, while Saunders capped him glass for glass with
whisky and kept the company in a roar with Deeside stories. Old
Saunders--I remember him like yesterday--was not a mere drunken sot or a
Boniface of the hostelry. He had lived a long lifetime among men who did
not care to be toadied, and there was a freedom and ready wit in the old
man that pleased everybody who was worth pleasing. Above all, there was
the Deeside humour which made his stories popular, and brought them to
the ear of our Dean.

That was the left side--the Crathes bank of Dee. Across the river was
the somewhat dilapidated fortalice of Tilquhillie, the seat of an
ancient and decayed branch of the Douglases. The last laird who dwelt
there lived in the traditions of Deeside as own brother to the Laird of
Ellangowan in Scott's romance. Ramsay has put him well on canvas. Who
does not remember his dying instructions to his son and his grieve?--"Be
ye aye stickin' in a tree, Johnny; it will be growin' when ye are