ABERDEEN TO STONEHAVEN. 195 



sold the pairs at a capital price. His last speculation 

 was an Orkney garron, whose price he nearly dou- 

 bled when he had kept it a year. It was, however, 

 this love of horses which hastened his end, as a young 

 one ran him against a house and injured his knee- 

 pan; and from that lime the fine, hale form which 

 had seei*more than seventy summers began gradu- 

 ally to decline. His Shorthorns and Leicester- 

 Merino sheep were sold some time before his death 

 at Bourtree Bush; and people still remember how 

 he rode into the ring, and how, after reminding them 

 of the meaning of a " Bourtree gun," he added that 

 neither it nor a " white bonnet" would be at work that 

 day. After this sale he merely continued the working 

 part of some of his latest improved farms to the ex- 

 tent of about 600 acres of arable, Mr. Fortescue 

 renting the turnips and grass at the average rate of 

 the county, and finishing off on them stock of all 

 kinds which he had bred or bought in the Ork- 

 neys.* 



ff The Bush, " where the Defiance changed, 

 was rife with old coaching recollections to Mr. 

 Boswell. He never horsed either the Defiance or 

 the mail, but he would often drive the former for a 

 stage or two. On one occasion, while he and Cap- 

 tain Barclay, who was a great Shorthorn ally of his, 

 were discussing some moot point on the box, the pace 

 insensibly fell off. In about half a minute, Davy 



* At p. 156, instead of "any disease," in reference to the Orkneys," read 

 'any epidemic disease." 



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