ABERDEEN TO STONEHAVEN. 197 



Stoiiehaven, he spoke much of the old man, and 

 termed him a " heaven-born improver/ 5 The phrase 

 did not apply to his grandfather, who was quite dis- 

 pleased with his son for carrying a bundle of trees on 

 his back the fifteen miles from Aberdeen, and plant- 

 ing them in The Den of Ury. Protecting the plants, 

 he said, would annoy people's cattle and sheep, and 

 he wouldn't have them annoyed. This was just a 

 year before his death, and allowance was to be made 

 for the peevishness of age. When the Captain's 

 father succeeded, he went to Norfolk, where he had 

 first graduated in agriculture, to look out for some 

 good ploughmen. The bosom of the earth at Ury 

 knew peace no more; and turnips and artificial 

 grasses appeared in due season. 



There were at least 2,000 acres of baulks, bogs, 

 and rigs on the property, intersected with cairns of 

 stones and muirland, and " the lairds were more in- 

 clined to break each other's heads than the treasures 

 of the earth." A smile ran through the company 

 when the Captain gave this out in his deep, solemn 

 tones. They remembered how many men he had 

 backed and trained in his time, and thought him 

 a fine, philosophic compound of the 'two characters. 

 It was a great festival, and nearly two hundred sat 

 down on that July afternoon; but the report of 

 it, which the Captain kept framed and glazed, 

 tells only too sadly that many a " Flower of the 

 Forest" has been " wed awa" since then. Another 

 part of the Captain's speech related to the half-offer 



