202 A HUNDRED YEARS 



bedded room. There was an amount of silent secrecy 

 about the business that quite sobered our spirits, which 

 were usually raised to a very high pitch when drunkies 

 met us. I suppose our father considered both cases 

 very serious, and felt their only chance of surviving 

 was to take them home with Mathieson planted between 

 them inside the carriage to keep up their heads and 

 prevent their being suffocated. 



" When Mathieson had got the clothes off the poor 

 fools and bedded them, we were allowed to come into 

 the room and got a lesson on the evil of * moderate 

 drinking," and I shall never forget their fearful purple 

 faces and stertorous breathing. We then learnt that 

 they were two great friends of ours, the famous Dr. W. 

 of Dingwall and one nicknamed ' Sandy Port,* the 

 British Linen Company banker (then the only bank 

 in Inverness) — a very noted judge of port wine and a 

 great drinker thereof. In about twenty-four hours 

 they recovered sufficiently to have wheels to take them 

 home quietly without tuck of drum. 



" Afterwards I learnt from some who were presen 

 that after the funeral a grand dinner was eaten in a 

 granary. My father, I think, was in the chair, and the 

 drinking was something quite extra, and as one by one 

 of the diners stepped away quite tight, the others sat 

 up and closed ranks, and peepers in at the end door of 

 the granary, seeing empty seats and heaps of full bottles, 

 quietly became part of the mourning drinkers. In 

 time so many intruded that Mackenzie of Ord and 

 Mackenzie of Allangrange got their blood up, and, each 

 seizing a wooden chair, belaboured the thieves so 



