then a wild moor, with some natural beauty, a picturesque den leading
from the house to the noble river, wooded with native birch and scrubby
oak, with some tall larches and magnificent horse-chestnuts, and even a
few immemorial Spanish chestnuts planted by the old Peterboroughs, now
all gone. Along that river bank were some of the broadest haughs with
which I am acquainted, and some of the best salmon streams, then woods
and sheep pastures and a dozen miles of heather hills--up to
Cairn-monearn and Kerloach--giving the best grouse-shooting in the
country. It is in truth a charming water-side even in the eyes of a
critical old man, or of a tourist in search of the picturesque; but for
a boy who lived there, shot, and fished there, while all the houses
round were the dwellings of cousins and friends, while game was not yet
let for hire, it was a place to win that boy's heart, and I loved it
very heartily. We were the nearest neighbours on one side of that
cluster of residences of the Burnetts and Douglases and Russells which I
have tried to describe. We were all very good friends, and thus the Dean
and I were early acquainted.

I have said little of the Dean's ancestors, merely named the Burnetts
and Bannermans. Indeed I would guard against loading my memoir of the
Dean with anything like mere pedigree. I take no interest in his
ancestry, except in so far as they may have given a character--so far as
he may have inherited his personal qualities from them. I will not dwell
then upon Alexander de Burnard, who had his charter from Robert the
Bruce of the Deeside lands which his descendants still hold, nor even on
the first Lairds of Leys. When the Reformation blazed over Scotland, the
Baron of Leys and his kindred favoured and led the party that supported
the new faith; but, even in that iconoclastic age, two of them are found
protesting against the destruction of religious places at Aberdeen. One,
Gilbert Burnett (he was grand-uncle of the Bishop of Sarum), enjoyed