106 FIELD AND FERN. 



from Mr. Ferguson Simpson's hands before that gen- 

 tleman took up his residence at Covesea, near Elgin. 

 Hence he never joined the bull ranks on the Green; 

 but he won in a still greater fight atBerwick-on-Tweed, 

 against "the English bwlls, the Scotch bwlls, and a' 

 the bwlls." One of his greatest admirers, who had 

 his eye to a " crank" in the palings on that memor- 

 able day, thus describes the contest : " / lookit, and 

 they drew them, and they sent a vast of them back ; 

 again I lookit, and still the Buchan Hero stood at the 

 heed. They had nae doot of him then. A Yorkshire- 

 man was varra fond of him. And he wan ; and Mr. 

 Simpson selt him to Sir Charles Tempest for two 

 hundred. It was a prood day that for Aberdeenshire 

 and Mr. Simpson. 3 ' 



We rode through Elgin without drawing rein. 

 Time was pressing, and we were only just able to ad- 

 mire the thistle on the fountain, to wonder why there 

 should be both a " Batcher Street" and a " Batcher 

 Lane/' and to glance from the gaunt- eyed, thin- 

 legged wayfarer who illustrates the psalm over the 

 Alms House door, to the ruined cathedral, where 

 the ivy was shrouding the savage handiwork of " the 

 Wolf of Badenoch." About a mile out of the town 

 are the well-enclosed and highly-cultivated fields of 

 Linkwood, with the snug homestead of Mr. Peter 

 Brown, a younger brother of General Sir George 

 Brown. He holds, along with his son, 1,200 to 

 1,300 acres of arable land, besides pasture ; and at 

 another farm near Rothes they have a herd of from 



