ABERDEEN TO STONEHAVEN. 203 



spotted horses and trick ponies were distributed 

 with fairies, acrobats, and the like, among all the 

 adjacent farms. Nine or ten mails were due in 

 Aberdeen at that date, and the Cooks all but per- 

 ished one night in riding on with the bags. Mr. 

 Watson gave up the Defiance in '36, but, with the 

 exception of a very short interval, Captain Bar- 

 clay's connection with it was unbroken till the end. 

 Then Mr. Seaton died, and his widow (who kept 

 on the Salutation, at Perth) and Mr. Elgin took 

 the ground between Perth and Cupar Angus. The 

 latter had a stage of the Glasgow Defiance along 

 with Mr. Ramsay, who came into the old concern ; 

 and as Mr. Croall had given up the Union and joined 

 hands as well, matters at the end of the first week of 

 1842 were remarkably flourishing. The two Defi- 

 ances now used the same livery and account-books ; 

 and Mr. Croall furnished coaches with patent drags 

 at so much per mile. In fact, there was only this 

 solitary distinction left, that the Edinburgh coach re- 

 tained its brass-mounted, brown leather harness, and 

 the Glasgow its silver-plated, black leather. The Defi- 

 ance never ran on a Sunday, and its take for the six 

 weeks ending August 26th, 1843, was 2,216 3s. 8d. 

 Of this, 1,422 10s. 7d. was divided among the horse 

 contractors, who paid their own strappers, and the 

 remainder went in tolls and mileage, &c. The tolls 

 alone for that period from Queen's Ferry to the 

 Bridge of Dee were 135. 



Mr. Ramsay was then only four-and-thirty, and in 



